They would travel together for safety until they found reason to part ways. Hunter doubted it would take long: Criton wanted to go looking for dragons, Narky didn’t, Bandu was most comfortable in the woods, and Phaedra had only ever slept in a bed. Soon Hunter would have to make a decision. Where would he go? With whom would he stay? There was no obvious answer, but that was not really the problem. The problem was that he didn’t care.
He had had plans before, for a whole life. Now those plans were useless, and he could not think of a new one. It seemed that he was not as resourceful as Phaedra.
When they left the abbey, the crows were waiting for them. There must have been at least fifty of the birds watching them from outside the grounds, and they greeted the survivors of Tarphae with a chorus of raucous voices.
“I wish those damned birds would quiet down and go away,” Narky said.
“Quiet,” said Phaedra. “The crow is sacred to Ravennis.”
“They must be here for me,” Hunter said.
Narky stared at him. “Why would they be here for you?”
Hunter let his breath out through his teeth, and tried to explain. “Father went to see the Oracle of Ravennis, the Day Before. That’s why he made me go.”
He thought they should understand, but they clearly didn’t. Oh, well. Hunter had never been very good at explaining himself. Father and Kataras were outgoing, talkative people, but Hunter and his mother were quiet by nature. When he was having a bad day, Hunter used to go and sit with Mother in her room. They never spoke, but he would sit beside her and polish his shield while she did needlework. An hour of their focused silence always made him feel better.
“The day before what?” said Narky, and Phaedra asked, “What did the Oracle say?” Bandu said nothing, but she was looking at him in that unsettling way of hers.
“Father asked how to give me a long life,” Hunter said, feeling their eyes on him. “The Oracle told him to send me away from Tarphae on the first ship he could find.”
“Makes sense,” said Narky. “But I don’t see why that would make Ravennis send a bunch of crows after you now.”
Neither did Hunter, but it was the only connection he could think of. “Maybe we should ask,” he said.
“Oh, sure,” Narky said, and stepped toward the crowd of birds. “O holy birds, what are you here for?”
A crow flew at his head, cawing furiously, and Narky had to duck and beat it off with a cry of surprise. Criton laughed, but the others were solemn.
“Don’t insult the Gods,” Phaedra scolded. “Have you learned nothing? Our people were killed by a God, possibly because someone was foolish enough to insult one. The Gods take these slights seriously.”
“Why should they?” Narky asked, looking rueful.
“Now is not the time,” she said sternly. “I suggest you apologize to Ravennis as soon as you get the chance. Through sacrifice,” she added, when it looked as though Narky might make a sarcastic apology to the murder of crows.
Hunter sighed. “What I meant was, we should go see the Oracle and ask what we’ve done to anger Ravennis.”
“The Oracle is at Laarna,” Phaedra said. “North of Atuna.”
“Where do you learn these things?” Narky asked.
As they turned northward, the crows took flight. It gave Hunter an ominous feeling. He did not think the birds would leave them alone for long.
After some time, Bandu asked, “What is oracle?”
Phaedra explained it to her, as best she could. It seemed that Phaedra had studied continental religions extensively. When she had finished explaining about oracles, she expounded upon the nature of Gods, Their servants, and Their need for humans to do Their work.
“The Gods are infinitely greater and more powerful than people,” she said at one point, “but that doesn’t mean They don’t need us, because Their power is remote. I like the way Katinaras puts it best. He likens the heavens to a wire mesh, with the Gods on one side and our world on the other. The Gods are huge and powerful, but that makes Them too big to fit through the gaps in the mesh. Only Their fingers are small enough to fit through, so as powerful as They are, Their power does have limits in this world. Especially when They’re opposed by another God.
“They’re not really fingers, of course, Bandu, that’s only a metaphor. A metaphor is – well, no, let’s not get into that. But that’s why the Gods pay so much attention to what we people do. When we worship Them and give Them sacrifices, we strengthen the fingers, and when we oppose Them or slay Their followers, it weakens Them and makes Them angry. Because even though we see only a tiny part of Them in this world, we play a big part in Their relations with each other.”
“How?” asked Criton.
“Well,” Phaedra said, “the Gods are frequently in conflict. Since our actions can strengthen or weaken a God’s fingers, we can have a real effect on these conflicts. If your fingers are completely cut off, you can’t really stand up to your enemies on your own side of the mesh. Obviously it’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s why I love Katinaras’ analogy. It makes so much sense, even if it is a little simplistic.”
Hunter scratched at his scalp, where the hair was just beginning to grow back. “My father once said that when the men of Ardis conquered the plainsfolk to their north, they killed their Gods. Are you saying those Gods were actually killed on Their own side of the mesh by the Ardismen’s God?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Hunter considered this. He thought he was beginning to understand the analogy, but he suspected that his understanding would dissipate as soon as Phaedra stopped explaining it all. He also couldn’t help but notice that now everyone but Bandu seemed interested in the conversation. The girl’s eyes had glazed over and she was tromping along silently, her gaze fixed on the road ahead.
“But if someone insults the Gods,” asked Criton, “that can’t possibly weaken the fingers all on its own, can it? What harm can it do?”
“I guess it humiliates Them in front of everyone They know,” Narky said suddenly.
“Yes,” said Phaedra, surprised. “Yes, I guess it must.”
They were traveling due north, not quite the same way they had come, but their journey still took them through the same thick forest of guardian trees and tall milk-rimmed shrubs. The road here became a narrow path through the undergrowth, at times barely discernable. Their progress was slow and loud, until Bandu tapped Hunter on the shoulder and whispered, “Stop.”
Hunter looked about, trying to find whatever was distressing her, but he could see and hear nothing out of the ordinary. Then Bandu pointed and he saw, in the branches high above the path, two creatures silently watching them. They were tall as men, with bald heads and teeth filed down to points, and their hands and feet were great birdlike talons. Their bodies were pale, and at first he thought that they were wearing black cloaks, but then he realized that those were actually huge black wings, folded at rest.
Hunter unslung his shield from his back as quickly as he could, and tightened the straps around his arm. “What are those things?” he whispered.
Bandu shook her head, and Narky said, “What things?” followed by, “Oh hell!”
At this, the pale monsters spread their wings and leapt from their boughs, screeching like birds of prey. Hunter drew his sword, and in an instant the things were upon them. His sword caught one in the chest as it flew at him, and the force of it knocked him off his feet and wrenched the sword from his hand.
Criton had not ducked as quickly as the others, and the second monster caught him by the shoulders with its lower talons. Its wings beat the air, and its upper claws made to tear at his face. Yet before they could, the pale thing had suddenly let go and flipped backward onto the ground, ducking under a burst of flame from the young man’s mouth.
Hunter had never seen Criton’s fire before, though Narky had told him about the bandit leader. For a moment he just stared. But the monster had dodged the flames unharmed, and it now leapt at Criton again, knocking him onto his back and tearing at his flesh. Hunter rose to his feet and charged the creature, throwing his weight against his shield. At the impact, the thing let go of Criton and fell against the ground next to Hunter, who rolled to his feet and was ready once more. The monster shrieked and its claws reached out, but Hunter knocked them aside with his shield and caught the monster’s face with it on his backswing. While it reeled, his hand found the knife that he kept in a sheath at the small of his back. After another bash of his shield against its head, he ran the blade across the monster’s throat.
Blood spattered and the thing collapsed on the ground, shrinking away from him. Then the strangest thing happened. The monster went right on shrinking, shrinking under its feathers until it became a simple raven with its throat cut open. Hunter looked with surprise back at where the other had fallen, and found another raven impaled upon his sword. The sword looked so strange, yards from where he had lost it, now several times the size of the creature that had borne it away.
Criton staggered to his feet, his face and shirt covered in blood. “What were those things?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Hunter, at the same time as Phaedra said, “Angels.”
Criton wiped his face on his sleeve, revealing a fairly deep scratch above his eye and a bloody nose, but no more. His chest and shoulders were bloodied too, though he still seemed to have full use of his arms. That was a good sign.
“Angels?” Narky said disbelievingly. “Those things?”
“An angel is a messenger from a God,” Phaedra told him, in an irritated voice. “There is no other meaning to the word.”
“Then we’re in real trouble,” said Hunter, retrieving his sword and trying to shake the dead raven off it. “Ravennis might have been warning us earlier, but now it looks like He’s just trying to kill us.”
“But why?” Phaedra asked. “What was He warning us about? He can’t possibly be the one who sent the plague to Tarphae – why would He have told your father to save you before, if He meant to kill us now? We must have recently offended Him, but I can’t think how. The Gods sometimes forgive those who repent their sins, but you can’t repent for a sin you don’t know you’ve committed!”
“Well, we don’t have time to ask the Oracle,” Narky said. “If we’re going to pray for forgiveness, we’d better do it now.”
“Yes,” Criton said, “now would be the time.” The forest had grown suddenly dark, and he was pointing up at the skyline.
Hunter looked up, and his heart sank. It was only just before noon, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. The sky was black with birds.