Because he was not a fighter.
'She says, 'cast,'' Potro announced in a puzzled voice. 'What's cast got to do with it, Gramps?'
Karaman chuckled, and he signaled to the eagle. 'I've asked her to show us on that,' he said, pointing to the children's swing set in the center of the circle.
'That could be dangerous!' Shadow said uneasily, glancing around the group.
'What the hell is 'cast'?' the spice merchant demanded.
For a few moments no one spoke. Then Potro explained in a patient, superior tone, 'Cast is what they throw up, the bits they can't digest in their crops. It's hard bails of nails and teeth and pebbles and stuff.'
NailBiter had stopped his preening. He and the six or so other eagles on the roof ridge were watching the sky, and so was Shadow, waiting for one of those tiny specks to start a dive, but nothing was happening. Perhaps the birds were having one of the songfests he had heard about and would make their choice in a kiloday or two.
Then a clap of thunder showered the spectators with splinters and hoof fragments and a few sheep teeth--one of the swings had gone, leaving two wildly dancing ropes, each attached to half a plank. There were loud screams and belated raisings of hands in front of faces. Potro's shrill soprano shouted, 'Gawrn!'
'Holy Ark!' Karaman muttered.
'Holy Ark yourself!' Shadow yelled. 'From that height?'
'I told you--they are spirits of the air!' Karaman insisted. 'They know the air as we know the land.'
'She asks if that would kill a man,' Potro said.
'Yes!' Shadow said. 'If he was sitting up, they could smash his head in with that. Even lying down, it would break his back. In fact, it would hurt the bird--it was harder than we would need.'
Karaman caught the next message. 'She wants to know what the other chick talk was. They understand now that they don't need to carry archers.'
Shadow suppressed uneasiness--he had given the eagles a new weapon, something they had never had in their ancient war against mankind. They had never seen that they could use missiles as men did, any more than it would occur to men to kick at the birds. Whose side was he on? Fortunately his other idea needed human hands, so men could still retain some control...
'I'm not sure,' he confessed cautiously. 'But I think it would work.'
'Hooks?' a voice said. The speaker was a small, dark, crinkled man who looked like a farmer.
'Yes!' Shadow said. 'We kill the rider and the reins go slack, blinkering the bird. If one of us flies in close with a long hook, then we could catch the reins and drop the hook, see? The bird holds its head back, like we saw, and the weight of the hook will hold the reins back--'
'It doesn't work,' the farmer snapped. 'We tried something like that. You forgotten, Ryl?'
'Why not?' Shadow demanded, suddenly deflated.
The older man counted on his fingers. 'First, there are a dozen other troopers shooting at you, lad. Second, it's almost impossible to get two birds that close in the air because they get in each other's wind. Third, there isn't time. A blind bird without human guidance panics and just drops,' he finished triumphantly.
'He's right, Shadow.' Karaman sighed. 'We did try something like that. It worked in rehearsal a couple of times, but not in practice. You use your ears to balance, did you know that? The birds have none. They need their eyes. Sorry, sonny. Nice try.'
Shadow sank back into his seat angrily.
There had to be a way!
'I do not wish to impose on your charity,' Vindax said to the president. 'I believe that I could write to...to the duke of Foan and he would send money. Then I could buy a suitable place and hire servants.'
Shadow stopped listening. He was a skyman--was he anything else? Was there any other way of looking at the problem which the farmers and merchants could not see, which Karaman had not seen when he led the rebellion? Karaman was a priest, a student of the ancient ways--wise but not trained to think of new things. He was emphatically not a fighter. He was a bird fanatic, of course, and had taught Shadow something of how the birds thought, although their way of looking at the world was so different from men's that it was almost incomprehensible.
Up on the roof, NailBiter had inspected and approved every feather and was now standing on one leg, licking the talons of the other with that same tongue he had used to wash Shadow's hair. NailBiter thought that Shadow was his friend--the man who had unhooded him in the hellish dark of Dead Man's Pass and so freed him. So he thought. But it had been Karaman who had freed NailBiter. Shadow would not have known. He would have acquired another hood at the first chance he got and gone back to business as usual with a captive mount, a beast of burden.
Not a friend. How could a man be friends with an eagle? The affair in the pass had been an accident, caused by exhaustion, by carelessness, and by the wind.
'You can't trust Jarkadon,' Vindax was insisting.
The president wanted that letter of abdication, and the sword was sliding slowly from the scabbard.
The wind?
'Wait!' Shadow shouted, leaping to his feet in excitement. 'Maybe there is a way!'
'Now what?' a man growled, standing between Shadow and the president.
'We
'Playtime is over, sonny,' the president said quietly. 'This is grown-ups business.'
Shadow felt blood rush to his throat, and his fists clenched. A tradesman speaking to the son of a baronet? An elected king speaking to a homeless exile?
'Go ahead, lad,' the spice merchant said, eyes glinting. He spoke not as a king or a tradesman, but as a big man speaking to a smaller one.
Shadow spun on his heel and stalked out of the circle, face and soul burning. In Rantorra he was a commoner among nobles, and in Allaban he was a runt. There never was justice, he thought bitterly. He was nothing. All he had was his skymanship, and he should have gone Piatorra while he had the chance. Free the eagles? He was the last one who should want that.
In his blind anger he almost tripped over a heap of old fence posts, broken farm tools, and rusted bicycles. Flailing arms to regain balance, he put up a flock of chickens, which rushed flapping and squawking in all directions. The flapping became a continuous roll of thunder and was joined by screams and huge shadows leaping over the grass as an eagle came slithering down the roof to sprawl onto the grass, wings wide, narrowly missing Vindax. Then two more filled the air, wings beating madly and loudly. The human screams were redoubled, and the meeting exploded into flight. Eagle Speaker reared tall and spread her wings, a living curtain shutting off the lagoon, her comb blurring in a silent shout. Feathers and dust filled the air. More giant birds went lurching noisily away, fighting for height...chickens shrilled madly among legs...
What the hell?
Up on the roof NailBiter had squared off with a young brown wild, both rearing as high as they could, wings thrashing, combs inflamed, beaks locked and breast straining against breast in a battle quite silent except for the drumming of wings and talons scraping on wood. Other birds were dropping from the sky, coming to restore order. Then IceFire dislodged the last of the other wilds, turned toward the duel, and took the brown from behind, leaping bodily on his back, and all three overbalanced and started to slide. The fight was forgotten in more thunder and clouds of dust...
It was a subdued but angry meeting which eventually reassembled. NailBiter and IceFire had the roof to themselves and were unrepentantly preening each other. The wild eagle, Shadow now learned, had remarked that The-one-who-came-through-the-dark had obviously been eating batmeat. NailBiter had taken action which might seem reasonable to a man but was not correct eagle behavior. Karaman looked more shaken than anyone.
'I must have taught him bad habits,' Shadow said, regarding NailBiter affectionately. He found the episode amusing.
Karaman shook his head. 'Or driven him crazy. First he spared you in Dead Man's Pass, now he's going around picking fights like a human being. It isn't allowed, Shadow!'
'What do you mean, 'isn't allowed'?'
'The High Ones have banished them,' Karaman said. 'NailBiter and IceFire. As soon as they've taken us
