And they were hungry.
Their pangs were sharp, as if their diet had been limited or reduced. I spoke to that hunger, telling them to come, to eat.
Lift your heads into the wind,
Food aplenty ‘round the bend.
I felt them stir and shudder, wanting to obey, but beneath the collective heartbeat of innocent instinct, however bloodthirsty, there was an undercurrent of intent that was more man than beast, and it was separate from them.
Someone or something was controlling them, and the intelligence that led them was not like they were. His voice was moist and guttural, clinging to the mind of each beast, manipulating and instructing.
And he was aware.
I drew back with a gasp, and my head thunked against Tiras’s plated chest.
“Lark?”
The leader of the Volgar, Liege, is he man or Volgar?
Shindoh whinnied like he understood, though I knew better. He felt my fear.
“He is both.”
Is he Gifted?
“Some say he is a Changer . . . like me. Man and bird.”
What if Lord Bin Dar was right? What if the Gifted are behind the Volgar attacks?
“What difference does it make? I would rather destroy an evil man than an innocent beast. The Volgar destroy, so they must be destroyed, but Liege wants to conquer, he wants to take. If he is Gifted, it means little to me. He wants Jeru. He can’t have her.”
“Tiras! The men are anxious. If we don’t move now we won’t reach the Volgar until dark,” Kjell interrupted, trotting up alongside us with barely suppressed frustration. His countenance reflected the sky, dark and heavy and ready to burst.
“Wait, Kjell. Hold. Let them come to us, just as I said.”
Kjell nodded, but his blue gaze settled on my face briefly, and I knew he wanted to argue. He lowered the grill of his helmet and moved away once more, but he didn’t go far. His horse paced like a panther, and Tiras lowered his lips to my ear.
“Make them come, Lark,” Tiras repeated, his voice a rumbling murmur that lifted the tendrils on my cheeks. “It’s time.”
I released my words into the breeze like a siren’s call, urging the Volgar to do the very thing they desired. Fly, kill, eat. I pulled at them with temptation-infused words, terrified that they would actually come, more afraid that they wouldn’t. They wanted Jeru. They wanted Tiras. And I discovered I wasn’t willing to part with either.
There was a thunderous cawing in my skull, a beast denied, and I winced in pain as the undercurrent of control I’d felt in the Volgar was suddenly weakened. I heard the sound of thousands of wings beating the air, beating back the words that urged restraint. His words.
They’re coming, I warned.
Tiras roared, an echo of the beast in my head, and Shindoh shot forward as Tiras prepared the eager line of Jeruvian archers who hovered in the trees, arrows drawn, waiting to unleash hell on the winged enemy. The sky above us began to wriggle and shift and the light of day was completely obscured by a blanket of black.
“Make them land, Lark,” Tiras ordered. I barely hesitated, flinging my gift with all the urgency of the damned and desperate.
You cannot fly,
So you will fall.
Leave the sky
One and all.
I saw the simple spell pierce the air above us, the words like fireballs in a pit of writhing snakes, and the Volgar began to drop, screaming toward the earth. Some hit the ground with such velocity that they died instantly, but others seemed more resistant to my suggestion and landed with a tumble, still flapping, stunned but unharmed.
“Attack!” Kjell cried, and the soldiers crouched in the long grass to the right of the archers left the cover of the trees and charged across the clearing, swords swinging, spears flying, falling on the dazed birdmen before they had a chance to bare their talons and wield their razor-sharp beaks.
Tiras spurred Shindoh forward, running a birdman through with his lance, even as he warned a soldier of an attack overhead.
“Keep them down, Lark!” Tiras shouted, “We cannot fight them in the air.”
You cannot fly,
Your wings are bent.
You will never
Fly again.
Another layer of birdmen dropped from the sky even as the Volgar in the clearing shrieked and fought back. Very few took flight. They believed their wings were bent.
There were so many. Ten to one—twenty to one—and they just kept coming and coming as Tiras rounded the raging hoard, barking commands and using every weapon at his disposal. Again and again Tiras called on me, directing me, wielding me like a sword, and I clung to Shindoh, doing my king’s bidding, watching as death multiplied around me—men of Jeru with gaping wounds and sightless eyes lay among the birdmen. I could not save them all, though I tried. I spun words and spells until my eyes felt raw and my mind began to fail.
There was gore in my hair and grit in my teeth, and Tiras was tireless at my back, shouting and pivoting and moving his men. I could feel my pulse in my temples, and it reverberated like a gong. I wretched and quaked, too weak to keep myself upright. I careened forward against Shindoh’s neck, not caring that his mane was slick with sweat and blood. I felt myself slipping, unable to hold on any longer.
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.