“If all goes well, we reach Hokaia this afternoon,” xe informed her, chewing at the meat as if it was a personal affront to breakfast itself.
She wanted nothing more than to get away from Golden Eagle. Terzha had unsettled her, and the premonition of Teek’s destruction felt like a warning. She berated herself for even mentioning Teek navigation the night before, but a more reasonable voice in her head assured her that Terzha was no seafarer, and besides, she had not said anything that Terzha might use to find her homeland. Nevertheless, she worried.
Mother waters, she wanted free. Cuecola was not so far once they reached Hokaia. But Cuecola might not welcome her back. Lord Pech likely still held a grudge, and if not him, the tupile from the Kuharan jail. She did not know if she could count on Lord Balam to defend her. She had gotten Serapio to Tova as promised, but then she had lost a very expensive ship and crew. The jaguar lord might not look generously upon her. But there were other ports, other places along the coast she could hide until this war passed her by.
And what of Serapio? she thought. Would you leave him to fight these vipers alone? Never mind the treachery in his own clan that Iktan had alluded to. No, she had followed Iktan from Tova knowing that she could find a way to help Serapio by spying among his enemies, and she was determined to see it through. What she found in Hokaia would be what he needed most. And once she understood Golden Eagle’s war plans, she would find a fast ship back to Tova. And if she could send a message to Teek, a warning that war was coming from the outside world, she would do that, too.
They came in over Hokaia as the sun began to settle low on the horizon. The network of rivers that ran around and through the city sparkled in the setting sun, and the vast mound city glittered brightly along its wide avenues and waterways. She thought perhaps she had never seen a city so breathtaking. Tova was something out of a story, its buildings and banners clinging to the cliffside wreathed in clouds and held together by silky woven bridges. And Cuecola was the hot breath of the world, heavy with humanity and jungle sweat and the decadent memories of magic. But sunlit Hokaia blazed orange and red and joyful, a defiant splash of heat across the yellow winter grasslands, and she was thankful, if only for a moment, to experience it from a vantage point that no other Teek had likely ever seen.
The city itself was divided into four main plazas laid out along the cardinal directions, with a massive three-tiered mound in the north. Before it, a river ran neat along man-made banks to empty into a lagoon, and Xiala could make out boats docked at its shores. Her breath caught at the sight of black-hulled sailing ships, and she leaned over as if to get a better look.
“Careful!” her rider chided, and she immediately straightened.
They looked like Teek ships, the fast ones that made quick work of distance, the ones they called tidechasers, but surely there could be no Teek in Hokaia. Unless some had come to trade. Her heart sped up. Perhaps she could give her warning to these Teek and, at the same time, gather some news from home. It had been more than a decade since she had seen another Teek, and she knew return was an impossibility, but to even hear news… it would do her good. She rubbed at her legs. She suspected being back at sea would cure her land sickness, too, but she might also ask the visiting Teek if they knew a remedy. Suddenly, she felt a glimmer of promise at the prospect of getting to Hokaia.
The Golden Eagle riders spoke to each other in a series of complex hand motions to make themselves known, and together they descended toward the central mound. The top of the earthen structure stretched a mile long at least, the building at its top running the width of the back end. It looked big enough to house a thousand people, and Xiala wondered if it was temple or palace. Iktan’s history lesson rose in her memory, and she knew this must be the place where the Treaty of Hokaia had been signed. Palace and temple, she thought to herself, as the great birds landed before it.
A woman approached, adorned in an antler crown and carrying a spear that she recognized as kin to Serapio’s bone staff. She was flanked by a half dozen women with painted faces, carrying the same spear. She knew who and what they were.
Nuuma met the spearmaidens in the middle of the field, flanked by her own Shield. Xiala was too far away to hear their conversation. Minutes passed. Five, and then fifteen. The great birds flapped their wings in agitation, wind rippling across the mound top. She could see people gathering at the edges of the grounds, and behind the spearmaidens, through the broad open doors of the palace, figures moving in the interior shadows. Her rider had stayed behind, as had the two rear guards, and she could sense their tension, ready to strike and save their matron should the command come.
Finally, Nuuma turned and spoke their hand language, and Xiala felt her rider relax.
“They are well met,” the woman told her. “All is at peace. The matron goes to feast with our allies now.” She began to maneuver her eagle around.
“Are we not joining them?”
“We will house our mounts just there, over the river.”
Xiala looked. “Just there” was at least five miles away. “Is that safe?” she asked. “I mean, it’s so far. What if there’s trouble?”
Her rider lifted a brow. “Do you expect trouble?”
“Always.”
That earned her a laugh. “Suhtsee and the honor guard will stay here for now, but this mound is no place for an eagle. It is best to bunker them outside the city where they might roost.” She eyed Xiala. “You are to stay with me.”
Xiala watched the matron, Terzha, Iktan, and the majority of the Shield disappear within the palace, the grand doors closing behind them. She bit at her lip, unable to shake her concern but helpless to do anything about it. And then they were airborne again, and she was clinging to the woman’s back, her worries reduced to not plummeting to the ground below.
* * *
They arrived at their destination in a matter of minutes. What had looked distant from the mound was quick work on eagleback, and that, at least, was reassuring. There were only four of them tasked with setting up camp and providing for the eagles, so Xiala offered to help.
“We have it in hand.” This Shield was a man, as slender as a blade and half as friendly. “You can make yourself comfortable until you are needed.”
In other words, get out of our way, Xiala thought. Well enough. She understood she was not one of them and should not confuse herself over it. She wandered away a bit, admiring the trees that surrounded them. She could hear the river rushing in the distance, the gurgle of water over stone, and a light breeze stirring through the giant elms. Unlike Tova, Hokaia was on the cusp of spring. No snow dotted the ground here, and the air smelled of pollen, not ice.
She found a shaded spot on the far side of a tree large enough to fit inside and sat down with her back against its massive trunk. She picked at a new blade of grass sprouting up between the winter yellow.
The Shield behind her worked at setting up camp, and she closed her eyes, listening to their chatter.
“What will happen?” the woman who had been her rider asked. “Will they give us soldiers to fight the Crow?”
“It is not just the Crow we fight now. All the clans have united under the Sun Priest.”
The woman scoffed. “I could have told her Abah would fail to kill her. She was always overconfident, even when she lived in the Great House.”
“She left at twelve. You didn’t know her.”
“I knew her enough. And her brother, too. That family is…” They moved away out of hearing.