“There are thousands of them.”
Thousands?
“They have drained the livestock of blood and cleared the wildlife from the forests. They are hungry, and they are starting to widen their attacks.”
Where are they coming from? There were no such thing as Volgar when I was a child.
“Nobody knows. The first time I saw a Volgar was three years ago. Since then, they have become the biggest threat to Jeru. Some think they originated from an island in the Jyraen Sea. All I know is that their numbers continue to grow, and we’re losing the battle.”
What about the army on the border of the valley?
“They’re being picked off, one at a time.”
We arrived at the edge of the valley near noon on the fourth day, but we didn’t pitch our tents. Tiras bade everyone eat and rest, and he and Kjell and the leaders of the existing army stole away to make battle plans. I could feel the Volgar the way I could always feel large numbers, and the awareness made me jittery and obliterated my appetite.
Like most creatures, their words were simple. Fly, eat, mate. They didn’t worry or dread. They didn’t seem to fear us, and they certainly weren’t making war plans. They just instinctually existed—eat, fly, mate. Kill.
The difference between them and any other large herd was that they enjoyed the kill. They lived for it. Their instincts were basic . . . but they were also base. They were simple, but they weren’t good. They were predators at the top of the food chain, and their numbers had become problematic.
They normally slept during the day and had much better night vision than a mere human, but Tiras thought if we could lure them in at dusk, when there was still some light and they were just waking, it might improve our odds at taking larger numbers of them down.
We rested a full day, giving the horses a chance to recuperate from the journey, but the collective unease of the camp made the day feel wasted. Shrieks and shouts filled the night as the Volgar picked off men in the dark, the way they’d been picking off soldiers on the border, and when the day dawned tepid and grey, it reflected the mood of every warrior. No one wanted to wait any longer.
The weather was advantageous. The dark skies and the wan light made it much more likely that the Volgar could be lured into a daytime hunt. Tiras said we needed them to come to us, and that was where I came in. By late afternoon, the entire army—save Boojohni, the wounded, and the cooks—were gathered in the trees at the edge of the valley just to the west of Kilmorda. “A mile as the eagle flies,” Tiras said, and Kjell shot him a look.
Black clouds curled and tumbled in their haste to flee the lightning that sheared off sections of the sky and touched down on the cliffs and crags that shot up from the ground like Tiras’s castle in Jeru city. He held me in front of him, his armored arm tight around my waist, and we galloped through the warrior throng, Tiras throwing out instructions and encouragement even as the horse beneath us trembled with fright. I tried to speak peace to Shindoh’s mind and felt the red emotion of his fear begin to weaken my own control.
“Save your energy,” Tiras commanded, his mouth close to my ear. “I need you whole. Shindoh is accustomed to battle. He won’t fail me.”
I obeyed, but my hand sneaked out to curl in the cropped mane of the black horse, and Tiras said no more. He’d slung a shirt of mail over the green tunic and breeches he’d demanded I wear, but I refused the helmet and the clanking armor he’d urged upon me. It was so heavy I wouldn’t have been able to move, and Shindoh wouldn’t have been able to run as swiftly beneath our combined weight.
Tiras wore a helmet, but he told me it was to hide his identity more than anything else. Killing the white-haired king would be the ultimate prize. My own hair hung in a long rope past my waist, and I feared my presence would only draw attention to him, a woman in the midst of battle.
“Call them, Lark. Urge them to come closer.”
I reached out, feeling the sigh in the clouds, the threat of rain, the hum of life that rose up from the ground, and I sifted through tepid light.
There they were.
I could hear them and the simple bloodlust that pulsed from them. They lived to kill. Not for hate or power. But still, they killed. They killed because death meant food. Death meant life. Death meant that their blood pounded hotter in their veins, and their flesh grew thicker on their bones. They were simple monsters, but monsters all the same.
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, s
tunned 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.
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.
“Lark!” Tiras shouted, “Where are you?”
I started to climb over bodies toward his voice.
Here. I am here.
I felt Shindoh’s red fear streaking toward me, even as I found my feet and instinctively stretched out my arm. Then the king was there, swinging me up behind him, no armor, no helmet, no mail or gloves. Only a sword, which he brandished in his left hand, and a spiked flail which he swung with his right. We had been caught completely unaware. I wrapped my arms around his waist and gripped Shindoh’s
flanks between my knees, and the battle waged on.
Among the Volgar birdmen were those who seemed unaffected by my spells, those who dove and flew and carried men away, impervious to the susceptibility of their brothers. But the greater number tumbled from the sky when I wielded my words. Those who survived the fall turned on each other as I’d instructed them to do. Our vulnerability became superiority, even as Jeru’s warriors fought off the surprise attack.
When a fresh wave of birdmen descended, I sent up spells to bring them down, and as dawn’s timid light crept over the shivering trees, the Volgar who remained were dead or dying.
I laid my weary head on Tiras’s back, welcoming the end of the second conflict, refusing to entertain the thought of more. His back bowed as if he too had reached his limit, and a tremor shook him, making me tighten my grip around his waist. His breath hissed, and his hand clamped down on my arm, repositioning it.
You’re wounded.
“Not seriously. I need to change.”
I pulled at his tunic and he hissed again, the wool tugging at his wound. His flesh was warm and sticky beneath my hands, and he shivered again.
“Leave it, woman. You’re spent,” Tiras commanded, but I pressed my palms to the long gash across his left side. Blood spilled over my hands and he cursed.
All the ills, the dirt and grime
Flee this wound and quicken time.
Gaping flesh and broken skin
Mend together, whole again.
Tiras sighed and relaxed, lifting his hand to cover mine, thanking me without speaking. I pictured his flesh repairing itself, the torn skin uncurling and binding together again.
Heal the wound beneath my hand, ease the pain inside this man.
It wasn’t a well-crafted spell, but it was all I could conjure, and I pressed the words into his abdomen through the tips of my fingers, giving him the last of my strength.
My eyes were heavy, and my awareness hung on by the thinnest of threads, but I thought I heard him mutter.