out with bow raised, a standing target.
Too late Horas saw the danger: he was close, and the other reeve, a woman whose face was contorted with rage, drew calmly and fixed him in her sight. But the sun was behind him, and she squinted against it, and the arrow went wide. He pushed over the ridgeline and flew into the grasslands stretching south to the horizon. They skimmed low. Tumna was obviously in difficulty. Each shallow slope of hill was a mountain barely surmounted, talons brushing tips of grass. Shadows pulled long in hollows. At last, he eased Tumna down and they hit hard and he unhooked in a rush and came down, twisting his ankle. Pain made his eyes sting. The eagle flopped forward, lay there for an instant, then drew herself up, too proud to collapse.
'Oh shit.' Horas searched in his travel pouch for ointment, but the damned fawkners had neglected to replenish his supply. Blood oozed from the wound. When he stepped forward to inspect it, Tumna slashed at him, and he leaped back, cursing.
Shadows raced over the ground. The eagles had followed him, and he was out of arrows. Only, as the first landed on the far rise, did he recognize his own Argent Hall compatriot. Another five landed, and ten more. A second flight passed overhead, seeking shelter. They had followed him.
The exhausted birds sank to earth as the sun set. There came Weda, the bitch, running to him with a cut on her face and her skin gray with fatigue.
'What now?' she demanded. 'Did you see how they were toying with us?'
Tumna flared, feathers rising. She backed away.
'Here, now. Here, now. What's wrong with your eagle, Horas?'
'Injured.' Strange how his voice had been scraped raw, although he'd uttered barely ten words since he started. 'How do you mean, toying with us?'
'They avoided us.'
'Nah. That was just clumsiness, just like us. Reeves don't fight reeves.'
'They do now. What do we do now?'
But it was pointless. Darkness was nearly upon them. She wanted him to make the decision, because if he did, then she could blame him later. It was always like that, his whole life. How he hated them all.
The third flight, almost intact, skated overhead and came to rest in staggered lines as night spilled over the rolling plains and ate the pale wonder of grass and the fading splendor of the sky. The first stars bloomed. As the blindness of night overtook them, the restless, angry, agitated eagles settled, but Horas could not. The fear and fury would gnaw at him all night.
To Weda, he said, 'Nothing we can do now. We'll stick it out here until dawn. Pass the message. We leave at first light.'
'And then what? Keep fighting?'
'No point to it. Neither of us can win. Best we go back and report that Clan Hall is sticking its nose in Olossi's business. Let him figure it out. He's marshal, isn't he!'
'That's what you're going to tell Marshal Yordenas?'
'You that scared of him?'
'You should be. You are.'
'He doesn't even have an eagle. He just says he does, but I think he's been lying all along, pretending his eagle is at nesting all this while. I think his eagle is dead. I don't think he's a proper reeve at all.'
'No reeve can survive the death of their eagle,' she said in an anxious whisper. As though Yordenas could hear them from this distance! 'What do you mean to do? Challenge him? You saw what happened with Garrard. You saw it all, Horas.' Her stance, seen as a deeper shadow within the gathering night, was tense, defiant, and fearful. 'He can't be killed.'
It was true. They'd all seen it.
No person could survive such a wound. But Yordenas had.
'Will you challenge him?' she repeated, but the sneering anger did not hide her terror.
He wanted to cut her yapping mouth off with his knife, but he dared not. She was a bitch, but he had to remember she was one of his few allies. One of the few people who had shown him a measure of casual kindness. She and the rest of the gang of four had approached him, allowed him into their councils, given him a part to play when Marshal Alyon's whimpering, weakling sycophants had made their final attempt to grab power.
'I didn't mean it,' he said. 'I didn't mean it, Weda. I'm mad, and Tumna's hurt.'
'No. No. Of course you didn't mean it. We're the marshal's loyal reeves.'
'As always. We'll go back to Argent Hall in the morning. That's the best thing we can do, like I said. Let him worry at it. Have you any ointment? I lost mine in the battle. Tumna took some scratches.'
She handed over a small leather bottle of salve. Then she walked away to pass the word that they would overnight here in the grass and return to Argent Hall at daybreak. Night swallowed them all. The sky was staggering in its brilliance because there was no evening moon. All around he heard reeves speaking softly to their eagles, calming them after the battle. Reeves had fought reeves.
There were three things you learned your first day in hall, the first day after an eagle had chosen you.
First. If your eagle dies, you die, so tend your eagle well and care for the eagle before you care for yourself, because your life depends on it. If you die, your eagle can claim another reeve, so tend your eagle well and care for the eagle before you care for yourself, because the strength of the halls depends on it.
Second. Serve justice. That is the whole of your duty.
Third. A reeve always comes to the aid of another reeve. To do otherwise is to cut away the heart of the halls.
Tumna refused to let him come near with hood and salve.
He wept.
49
It was the second worst day of Joss's life. Worse than the day he'd learned his mother had died. Worse than the day his baby brother had succumbed to a fever. Or perhaps the emotion of those days, suffered as a child, had worn thin until he didn't truly remember the intensity of his tears.
Today he'd done what needed doing, as awful as it was. Reeves relied on authority and mobility, and on the intimidating presence of the huge eagles who could kill any human and were not themselves easily killed. Reeves did not train as soldiers. Their charter forbade their use as enforcers for any council or captain who might wish to hire their services.
Yet today's skirmish was done, and could not be undone. Clan Hall's flights pursued Argent Hall's fleeing eagles into the grasslands, at a distance, then circled back to set down in the grass for the night. As afternoon faded to dusk, Joss left Volias in command with strict orders to keep watch but not engage, and the Snake, troubled and pallid, accepted the order without even a sarcastic reply.
Kesta was grounded, her eagle badly hurt. The young reeve from Argent Hall, Pari, was dead together with his wonderful eagle. There were at least two more dead eagles as well as other wounded ones, and a pair of dead men from Argent Hall whom Joss could not name, sprawled on the ground while their eagles walked around them.
All this Joss surveyed as Scar ascended on the currents and they turned toward Olossi. The river's lazy curves were visible to the north. There lay the line that was the road. Far to the west gleamed the salt sea, while in the forested lands to the east the river plain rose slowly into the high country of Sohayil, a gradual change in elevation difficult to discern from the ground with the night coming on. They left the southern plateau behind and worked the currents over the escarpment, rising first, and then hitting a high glide perfectly judged by the exhausted Scar to bring them with minimal effort across the mey to Olossi.
The voice of a bass bell rolled out from the walls, crying its alarm across the shimmering waters and the darkening land. All day villagers within sound of the bell had streamed into the city with what belongings they could carry. Stragglers still struggled along the main road, converging on the gates in panicked crowds. Dust floated in clouds; this time of year, there was no moisture or vegetation to hold it down.
He flew low over the outer walls. From below rose the clamor of many folk talking all at once, a roaring
