I watched Shindoh’s hooves dancing around the wounded and dead when suddenly Tiras caught my braid, wrapping it around his hand as he pulled me upright. I slumped against him, and his mouth brushed my ear, gentle even as he demanded more.
“Make them fly, Lark. End it.”
The sharp tug of his hand in my hair, and the quick burn of my scalp cleared my head enough to wield a final plea.
Go now, birdmen.
Fly away,
Live to see another day.
“Mightier than the sword,” Tiras mused, and I wrapped myself in the relief that echoed in his voice. Tattered wings lifted from the ground, and I watched with the warriors of Jeru, my lids heavy and my breaths shallow, as the remaining Volgar retreated to the sky. I fought the pull of unconsciousness, my arms leaden and my thoughts thick. Then I was sliding again, slipping free from Shindoh and sound and the weight of my gift.
I thought I heard Kjell crow in victory, and all around there was grateful triumph, like feathers against my cheeks.
“Is she wounded?” someone asked, and I felt the tightening of steel bands around my body. I was moving through soldiers, floating.
“We did it, Majesty!” Someone pounded the king on his back and my face bobbed against his breast plate. Tiras was carrying me, and the bands were his arms.
I will walk.
“You will rest.”
I will walk.
“Stubborn woman,” he murmured. “Sleep.”
And I slept.
I awoke in a bed of grass to moaning and cursing and the raw stench of blood and flesh. Shindoh whinnied next to me, and I reached a hand to comfort him and soothe myself. A bladder of water sat near my head, and I drank gratefully and doused my hands and face. I could see men moving in the darkness, tending to the wounded and piling the dead.
The men took shifts, some sleeping among the trees, others watching the skies and tending to the wounded. I picked my way among them, needing privacy to relieve myself and maybe a place where I could wash. My hair stuck to my face, and the shirt of mail, though it had kept me warm, was rubbing me raw beneath my arms.
Clearly, the battle wasn’t over, but paused, and I trembled at what the morrow would bring. No words hung in the wind. The forest creatures had gone deep or fled. Night sounds were muted, the trees silent. Even the leaves spoke in whispers or not at all. Death made the living things hide. I crept into the brush and took care of my most urgent need, praying no one was near. I thought I smelled water and sniffed the air the way Boojohni did, pausing to listen, even as I caught a hint of damp earth and peat moss. It was the creek that ran deeper and wider upstream near the camp.
I moved toward the scent and the quiet tumble of water over rocks. Water drew the living, just as it drew me, so I approached carefully, peering through the rushes that lined the banks. The creek gleamed in the darkness, the stars reflected in water that pooled at the shallow edges, and all was still. I knelt on the bank, stones digging into my knees, water seeping through my breeches, and as I leaned close to the surface to wash my face, a shadow slipped over the moon.
I jerked upright and lifted my eyes to the sky, watching as one birdman after another flew silently overhead, as low as the trees. I dropped to my belly in the rushes, not daring to move or even breathe. I had not lured them in. They’d been sent, and we weren’t ready.
Tiras! Tiras! The Volgar are here. The Volgar are here! I sent the message out in a wave of terror, not caring who might have the ability to hear.
As if the birdmen had heard my warning, the silence shattered in shrieks and screams, and I burst from the rushes and began to run, fearing I would be cut off from the warriors of Jeru with the Volgar between us.
I raced blindly, unable to conjure spells and weave words, Volgar the only thought in my head.
Birdmen descended around me, filling the air with the heavy flapping of powerful wings. I tripped and fell, narrowly missing the sharp talons of a diving beast. Thwarted, he screeched and ascended, even as a new attacker dipped low to make another attempt. I scrambled, half-crawling, half-running, and talons glanced off my shirt of mail only to tangle in my hair.
I pulled at my braid, trying to free myself, my mind blank in the horror of the moment. The birdman beat his powerful wings and rose back into the air, taking me with him, dangling by my hair. I slapped and grasped at the Volgar’s clawed feet, more terrified of being taken away than falling. The birdman screeched once more, and his ascension sputtered, stalled by the Jeruvian lance buried in his chest.
Suddenly freed and temporarily weightless, the ground rose up and snatched my breath. I lay stunned, the wind forced from my lungs.
“Lark!” Tiras roared, his voice breaking through my stupor. “Run for the trees!”
The clash of swords, the shouts of men, and the pounding of hooves bore down upon me, and I covered my head and rolled to avoid being trampled. I had no sense of the forest or the stream, of left or right, of friend or foe. Everywhere I looked the battle raged, and I pulled my legs to my chest and closed my eyes, searching for my words.
Volgar wings, both big and small,
The higher you fly, the faster you fall.
Every beak that seeks to kill,
It’s Volgar blood you want to spill.
I hurled the words into the air, catapulting them above the trees, making them swoop and tumble and dive into the Volgar overhead.
For a moment the battle continued, and I pushed harder, wrapping the Volgar in my web.
Then the sky began to whistle as bodies fell like cannon balls, colliding with the earth. Blood sprayed across my cheeks, and I was swept to the ground, pinned beneath a birdman’s wing.
I pushed and heaved, freeing myself, only to scramble back for cover as another birdman fell.