RIPAERIA
If the occupants of Second Empire’s new encampment in the pass saw a movement from the corner of their eye, they shrugged it off as a glimmer of moonlight or a flicker of a torch. If they thought they heard footsteps or some other sound, but no one was there, they put it down to their imagination or the flutter of a tent wall. After all, the Eagle’s Pass funneled the wind in odd ways.
Karigan moved through the encampment as a ghost, keeping away from the bright light, but sometimes when she did step too close, she appeared as a moment of blurred translucence. She collected useful items as she went—a knife that she belted to her waist, a waterskin she slung over her shoulder. If anyone missed the items, they blamed their neighbor or forgetfulness.
As she looked about, she observed that some number of Second Empire’s folk had moved into the keep and that the main gates were left open for people to pass freely. Guards kept watch on the battlements and above the murder holes that were a primary defense of the keep. The encampment itself, unable to spread out as it had down in the valley, was densely packed. The road through the pass was barricaded, and to its side she located Renn and his family, and other prisoners, penned up. Nearby stood Torq’s tent, but her companions were nowhere to be found. Were they still being held down in the hut? Made sense if Torq was still intent upon keeping their presence a secret from Birch. It would be impossible to do so here at the pass.
As she scouted, she was also greeted by the curious vision of the Brotherhood of the Lions as they prostrated themselves eastward in an attitude of prayer, their long, curved swords beside them.
She made her way to the kitchen tent. The cooks were a short distance away scrubbing pots and pans in a trough. No one tended the entrance, so she slipped in. She found an empty flour sack and filled it with a hard sausage hanging from a central tent pole, half a wheel of cheese, a jar of preserves, a couple loaves of pan bread, and a tin of hardtack. Hunger gnawed at her belly the whole time. She dared not take more for fear of being overburdened as she worked her way back to her hiding place.
As she left the encampment and retraced her footsteps along the steep slope of Snowborne, she wondered if there was a way to use her ability to better effect. She couldn’t take on the whole army of Second Empire, or even just the Raiders, by herself, but she could do some damage. Stealing Torq’s travel device would be quite a coup, and a great prize to present to Zachary. However, by the time she deemed herself a safe distance from the encampment and dropped her fading, her head hurt so fiercely she never wanted to use her ability again. It even made her stomach so upset she was given to dry heaves and subsequently lost any interest in the food she had pilfered. When she came upon her hiding place, a grouping of boulders that had tumbled together in such a way as to make a sort of cave, she curled up inside, leaning her head against the cold rock in an attempt to find relief.
She dozed fitfully, dreaming over and over of terrible slaughter, of her friends and Renn’s family being cut apart by the curved blades of the Lions, or by the Raiders, or by some faceless enemy. Even worse, Nyssa appeared covered in sprayed droplets of blood.
Yes, Nyssa said, this is how it will go.
Stupid human, another voice chimed in. Stop screaming. They will hear.
Karigan shuddered to wakefulness only to find herself being intently regarded by a large pair of raptor eyes, the tip of a razor-sharp beak just inches from her face. Startled, she backed farther into the cave. The eagle cocked its head quizzically.
Perhaps, it mused through mind speech, they will think it coyotes.
“Coyotes? What coyotes?”
Your screams. Or maybe it will have sounded to them like raccoons in heat.
The eagle’s body blocked the exit. Karigan took in the talons that gripped the surfaces of rocks and swallowed hard. They could rend a human in no time.
The eagle pushed its—her?—head in farther, bringing the sharp tip of that beak even closer. Karigan had pressed as far back as she could. There was nowhere to go.
You should not scream, the eagle said.
Karigan nodded emphatically, wanting to do nothing more at the moment than just that even though the eagle showed no inclination to tear her apart, and had, in fact, been helpful during her escape from Second Empire’s camp the previous night and warned her yesterday of the searchers. Softfeather, the only other gray eagle she had ever met, had been friendly, if taciturn, but out of caution she didn’t assume all eagles were of the same disposition, and she had yet to learn the nature of this eagle’s agenda. Above all, it was one thing to see a giant gray eagle soaring high and distant among the clouds, and quite another to awaken abruptly from nightmares to find oneself nose to beak with one of them.
You are afraid? Of me? the eagle asked. She sounded genuinely surprised.
“You are large and well armed. Taloned, I mean. You don’t plan to eat me, do you?”
The eagle made a chortling noise that Karigan took to be a laugh, then gave her an assessing look. You look too scrawny, too stringy and bony. Not particularly palatable, though if there were nothing else? She paused to ruffle her feathers, her eyes bright. You need not be afraid.
Somehow that wasn’t as reassuring as it could have been.
I am called Ripaeria, the eagle said.
“I’m Karigan. A Green Rider for His Majesty King Zachary. I met one of your folk some years back. His name was Softfeather.”
Ripaeria chortled again. Softfeather is my mother’s nest brother. He and his mate are busy with a new clutch of eggs. That is why I am here.
“To find me?” Karigan asked incredulously.
No, foolish wingless one. To watch the pass. We became aware of an army building in our territory, so I was sent to scout it out.
“Oh, well, thank you for your help yesterday. It was you who gave me that warning, wasn’t it?”
Yes. And I scared the humans to distract them, too. It was fun. She bobbled her head as though reliving the excitement. We favor Green Riders over the aggressors who break ancient law.
“Ancient law?”
As stipulated by your first king and our people in a treaty. The law of your land is not to kill gray eagles, yes?
Karigan nodded, though she did not know how many were actually aware of it.
It is a law of good will, and represents the alliance of our peoples during the Long War. The realm of the Sacor Clans has been permitted, by treaty, to maintain the keep at the pass since that ancient time so long as we remain undisturbed and unhunted. In turn we do not concern ourselves with human activities. Your kings and queens used to parley with our folk on the Eagle’s Landing high above where we now perch, but this has not happened in centuries. These aggressors shoot their arrows at us. This does not please us.
The history was interesting, but Karigan was more interested in the present. “Have you seen, in your scouting, the whereabouts of some companions of mine? We were held captive in a hut down below. From what I can tell, they weren’t moved to the pass with everyone else.” She wondered if they were being held inside the keep and that was why she hadn’t seen them.
I believe they are where I first observed you, Ripaeria replied, in that hut. Some of the aggressors remain there on guard. I have seen them force a whining hen to carry water and the bucket of foulness.
Karigan smiled. The “whining hen” could only be Megan.
May-gun, Ripaeria pronounced.
“You could hear my thought?”
A little.
“I tried to reach out to you with my mind yesterday after you helped distract the searchers.”
I heard you. It seemed best to keep my silence at the time.
“But now you are willing to talk to me?”
I was curious about the screaming, and I knew you should stop lest the aggressors hear you.
“Bad dreams,” Karigan replied.
I dream of fish. Big, delicious fish.
They would have to be big, Karigan thought, to satisfy a great gray eagle. Ripaeria chortled and Karigan guessed her thought had been heard.
I like talking to you, Ripaeria said. You are the first human female I have met. You are much more interesting than our male.
“You have a human male?”
His name is Duncan. He stays with us at the eyrie.
“Um, oh. Perhaps we can meet sometime.” Karigan wanted to hear more about this human male who lived among the eagles, but she had more pressing needs at the moment. “Ripaeria, there are some things I need to do. There are people I need to free from the, uh, aggressors. They are innocents taken against their will. Would you help me?”
The eagle cocked her head again, and listened while Karigan outlined her plan. When she finished, the eagle said she would think it over. She wasn’t, she said, supposed to interfere in the affairs of humans, just observe and report, but interfering sounded much more fun. Karigan began to think the eagle was quite young, though her plumage was that of an adult.
Ripaeria soon announced it was time to leave, and launched from the cave, her wingbeats gusting into Karigan. When all settled, Karigan sighed, too tired to eat any of her food, but she forced herself to nibble a few bites of pan bread anyway, and wash it down with water.
I will give you credit for the audacity of your plan, Nyssa told her, but—
“But it will fail,” Karigan provided. “That’s what you were going to say, right? Frankly, you are beginning to bore me.”
Her words were met with stunned silence, and she wrapped her stolen cloak tightly about her and tried to get as comfortable as she could in her rocky space, and drifted to sleep uninterrupted.
She dozed throughout the day, eating small amounts of food to keep up her strength. She had gotten so thin from the ardors and deprivations of the last several months that she really needed to punch another hole in her belt so she could tighten it up, but that would have to wait.
Around noon, she shielded her eyes to watch a gray eagle circling very high above, but it was too far away to know if it was Ripaeria. She spied some movement in the valley below, some figures who must be Second Empire scouts patrolling the area, and perhaps still searching for her. She also saw a thin line of smoke that must be from near the hut. Though Nyssa did not speak, Karigan still sensed her in her mind, waiting and watching. It made her sleep uneasy, but she recalled no full-blown nightmares.
Finally, as the sun westered, she took a long, deep drink from the waterskin, retied her ponytail with the precious ribbon Megan had given her, and stepped out of her rock cave. With any luck, she’d at least be able to move Renn and his family out of harm’s way, and more of the prisoners if she could manage it. Cade’s life, his future existence and all he had meant to her, depended on it, she believed. Without him she would not survive the future time.