“Crows,” Khara confirmed. “The soldiers were not expecting an attack from the air. Crows can’t kill a man, but they can blind him. They can rip his ears and lips and throat.”
“Rorid?” I asked, puzzled.
Luca, looking disturbed, said, “The raptidons have no direct control over crows. However . . .” He shrugged.
“As humans use dogs, so raptidons use crows,” Gambler said. “They’re intelligent birds, the crows. Useful and deniable.”
I shook my head. “Deniable?”
“It seems Rorid is a wily old bird,” said Gambler. “He didn’t want to directly commit himself or his followers to help us, but crows? He can claim he had nothing to do with that.”
I pointed to Gambler’s wounds. They were terrible.
“You must be in pain,” I said.
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “But we are good at handling pain.”
“I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you all alive.” I had to pause to choke back more tears. “But at the same time, it makes my heart heavy. You might have died, and why? For what’s almost certainly a lost cause.”
“If you’re the endling dairne, then the cause is lost,” Khara said. “But if you aren’t, if we can expose the Murdano and Araktik as liars who’ve tried to bring the dairnes to extinction, if we can bring dairnes back as truth tellers . . .well, it’s probably still a lost cause”—she smiled—“but at least there will be hope.”
Her words were meant to be encouraging. But all I felt was their weight on me, a know-nothing pup of questionable judgment.
“In any case,” said Khara, “it’s all the cause we have.”
She stood slowly, wincing at the pain. But as she straightened, her weariness seemed to vanish. “So,” she said, “what shall it be? Do we continue, or do we not?”
Tobble was the first to speak, and the loudest. Luca voted last. The vote was unanimous. Still, I couldn’t help worrying that my friends might come to more pain because of me.
At Khara’s direction, we settled in for a few hours of rest. I volunteered to keep watch. I sat near the group with a blanket draped around my shoulders. It smelled, just a bit, of horse, but that was fine with me. I felt nothing but gratitude toward Vallino after our wild ride.
Under the twinkling canopy of night, I watched everyone sleep. Khara, making her soft toad sounds. Luca, tossing and turning. Gambler, tail flicking. Vallino, standing upright, head drooped. And Tobble, dear Tobble, lying next to me, his round belly rising and falling.
My new family, bathed in a sheen of silver starlight. Wounded, exhausted, but not necessarily defeated.
I thought about how my parents used to check on us while we slept—or pretended to sleep. How protected I’d felt! How certain that my family would always be a part of my life!
I reached into my pouch. Carefully I removed my crumpled map, the flat stone Tobble had retrieved near the mirabear hive, and the little leather-bound journal Luca had given me.
The moon was bright enough for me to just make out my scribblings:
Heard a marsh wolf cub howling for its mother.
Charred vole meat for breakfast. Tobble had willow leaves.
I feel sorry for dogs. They must have so much they want to say, and no way to say it.
Sometimes I think of Dalyntor’s lessons and wish I’d asked more questions.
So afraid today. Afraid every day, it seems.
Am I truly the endling? Why me?
“Am I in there?”
It was Tobble, watching me with one eye open.
“Of course you are.” I turned to another page and read: “‘Tobble is so little and yet so brave. I wish I could be more like him.’”
Tobble smiled with satisfaction. “That stone, Byx,” he said. “What does the writing on it say?”
I picked up the smooth black stone, running a finger over the tiny letters, so carefully carved.
“Xial renarriss,” I said. “It’s Old Dairnish. No one speaks—spoke—it, except for Dalyntor and a few others. My parents knew a bit, too.”
A breeze eddied the grass. Tobble pulled his blanket tighter. “What does it mean?”
“It was the motto of our pack. It means ‘In truth lies strength.’” I squinted at the letters. “I’m not sure who this belonged to. Myxo, maybe. Our pathfinder.”
“You’re the pathfinder now, Byx.”
I shook my head. “Not me. Not yet. Not ever, probably. I’ll never be ready for that.”
“I disagree,” said Tobble. “But I understand how you feel. It’s like the wobbyk stibillary.”
“The tail-braiding ceremony?”
He nodded. “Maybe someday it will happen when I’ve earned it. Not yet, though.”
Tobble closed his eyes. I watched him fall asleep the way my parents had watched me so many times, and for the first time in a long while, I felt a strange kind of peace settle over me.
42.
Saguria
The weather grew worse day by day.
Autumn in the south, where I am from, is a time of fantastically tinted leaves, occasional drizzle, cool days, and chilly nights. How I’d loved those nights, my whole sleeping family woven together for warmth, with our tangled tails and our dream-twitching paws! Each night we created a refuge on the ground as reassuring as the nests our ancestors had once twined in the treetops.
Autumn in the north was far different. Each day we encountered more rain. And rain is not encouraging, especially when you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing.
Mud sucked at my feet until my legs ached. Vallino’s hooves were clumps of muck and leaves that Khara had to scrape off every hour. Gambler managed to stay clean, but only by virtue of spending hours at night grooming his fur. Tobble, who insisted on walking, sometimes sank up to his waist in goo.
But it was Luca who worried me. Thus far, he’d been sullen and reserved. He’d also been deferential to Khara, who had no hesitation about chiding him when he moved too slowly or failed to carry his fair share.
Now, day by day, Luca seemed both friendlier and more argumentative. I wondered if he was one of those types who actually enjoy bad weather. Or maybe he was just shy, and had finally grown more relaxed around us. Every now and then I caught him looking at me in ways that made me uncomfortable, but each time I met his gaze, he would simply smile.
“Today we will reach Saguria,” Khara said on our eighth day of mud. We were walking side by side as she urged Vallino along.
“The Murdano’s city,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Saguria the Great,” “Saguria the Impregnable,” the capital of humankind in Nedarra.
Saguria, capital city of the Murdano.
It was said to be home to a hundred thousand humans, plus many thousands of natites who clustered at the water’s edge. Districts had been set aside for felivets and raptidons as well, while terramants had dug a network of tunnels beneath the city. Still, there was no question who was in charge. Saguria belonged to the Murdano.
“Khara?”
“What, Byx?”
“What are the chances that we will make it through?”
She didn’t answer. She did, however, glance down at her sword, as if for reassurance.
“Can’t we go around the city?” I asked.
“Not without going hundreds of leagues out of our way,” she said. “And do you honestly believe we can manage a hundred-league detour?”
I glanced at our miserable, underfed, wet, cold crew and said, “Perhaps not. But how can we possibly pass through? Isn’t it packed with soldiers?”
“The upper city, certainly. But the lower city is a sort of sprawling mess of random streets, home to all manner of vice and corruption. Or so I’m told. I’ve never been there.”
The land had transformed from gently rolling hills to stony rises. The road, far off to our right, passed through the rocky areas by way of tunnels and bridges. For our part, we moved the hard way, up and down, feeling our way forwar
d, occasionally finding our path blocked so that we had to double back.
The only good news was that we’d seen no sign of the Knight of the Fire, nor of the soldiers who’d been attacked by the crows. Maybe we had lost them. Maybe they had given up.
As the afternoon passed into evening, Khara led us up a tall hill, hoping to spy out the route ahead.
From this height I got my first glimpse of the Perricci Mountains, a long line of stony peaks topped with snow all the year round. They ran like an endless wall, and I understood why Khara had decided to risk passing through Saguria.
But it was the city ahead that took my breath away. I had not known that humans could build anything so imposing and impressive.
“There it is,” Khara said. “Saguria.”
The city sat astride a narrow strip of relatively flat land, hemmed in by the sea to the east and the mountains to the west. As if in response to some great theurgic spell, the clouds parted briefly and a shaft of golden light shone down.
“They say the walls are seven leagues around,” I said.
Khara didn’t answer. I saw her hand move, as if sketching out a path forward. “We need to find a place to camp for the night. Tomorrow we can join the road just half a league from the south gate.”
I was barely listening, so focused was I on the city itself. I gazed in amazement at a wedge-shaped rock outcropping that rose hundreds of feet in the center of the city, like a stone pier or even a promontory. At the far end this mass of stone seemed almost to grow from the northern walls, but the walls were man-made and this . . . this was far beyond anyone’s ability to create. It rose steeply from the northern walls, sheer cliffs on both sides, then widened out to shape a plateau, upon which sat the palace. From that plateau the stone promontory had been deliberately shaped, the stone carved into a central ramp that, when it reached ground level, merged seamlessly into a broad avenue. On both sides of that long ramp, and in carved-out flat spaces, were shops and great mansions painted in russet, ocher, and pale pink.
At the top of this impressive act of nature was the palace itself, a sprawling mess of different architectural styles that testified to centuries of building, each new generation adding a tower or a dome or a crenellated defensive wall.
I was awestruck. It was impossibly old and, despite the clashes of style, incredibly grand. The isle had left me astonished, but this was many times larger, and it spoke of great wealth and terrible power.
“How could the human who controls that care about dairnes?” I asked.
“He doesn’t care about dairnes,” Khara said. “He cares about power.”
“Is that all humans care about?” I asked. “Power?”
Khara patted me on the back. “Not all humans, Byx. Just most of them.”
She thought she was reassuring me. Instead she’d made me think. The possibility that a lust for power explained many humans was interesting. Interesting, and just possibly useful.
43.
The Pale Guard
It rained very hard in the night, so hard that the poor shelter we’d found by pressing ourselves into a shallow cave was almost useless. The next morning we set off wet to the bone, hungry, and cold. We crossed a rain-swollen ditch and joined the road. We were a curious sight, even with Khara passing as a boy and me back to playing dog. There was no avoiding the fact that we were humans traveling with a felivet and a wobbyk. Oddly, I was the least suspect of the group. On all fours I could play my part quite convincingly, and no one ever questions the presence of a dog.
We moved at a snail’s pace, as the night’s drenching had washed out parts of the road. One of the bridges over a churning stream was barely hanging on. Guards ensured that everyone crossed in single file but paid no closer attention to us. Increasingly weary and frustrated, we trudged on between collections of shacks that hoped someday to be villages, through drab villages hoping someday to become towns, and into a town with the remarkably functional name of Outpost.
Outpost was the last habitation outside Saguria’s outer wall. It was a busy, bustling place of warehouses and stables, with heavily laden wagons moving to and fro. All the food and supplies Saguria relied upon were assembled and organized in Outpost. It was both servant and wholesaler to Saguria.
“Should we press on?” Lucas asked Khara. He was as weary as any of us but seemed in more of a hurry.
Khara shook her head. “At best we would reach the city walls at sunset, and at night the streets will be heavily patrolled. Better to move through with the usual daytime throng.”
Using almost the last of Khara’s coins, we were able to find a dry barn with fresh straw. We spent the night there with Vallino. A nearby pub sold us simple food, which we consumed like wild beasts. The barn smelled, as barns do, but it felt luxurious compared to many of the places we had passed a night.
Unfortunately, a barn full of horses is no place for a felivet. Horses will not happily tolerate the smell of a predator. Vallino had grown used to Gambler, but the huge cat terrified the other horses. In the end, Gambler decided to sleep in the woodshed behind the pub.
At least we were all dry for the first time in ages.
“Have you ever been to Saguria?” I asked Luca as we settled in.
“Yes,” he said. Then, when I let the silence build, he added, “My family does business in the city. We own an estate a few leagues west.”
“Don’t you want to visit your family since we’re near?” I asked.
“No,” Luca said curtly.
It was the first false thing he’d said. It was easy to catch, at least to my ears, like hearing a cat bark. But it was hard to interpret. In fairness, I could understand why a boy who’d fled his sinecure on the isle to help an unknown dairne escape might not be welcomed by his family.
“Do you know anyone in Saguria?” I asked.
Luca’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“I thought perhaps you might know people who could help us,” I said innocently.
Luca stared directly at me. “I know of no one in Saguria who would help us.”
It was carefully worded—not a denial that he knew someone in Saguria, merely a statement that he knew no one who would help us. But he walked off, and I could press no further.
The morning was gloomy but dry and we set out early. As soon as we’d left Outpost, I saw the walls of Saguria looming. They were built of dark basalt, gray and grim, and stood ten times a man’s height. Off to the right I saw the distant, whitecapped sea.
The south gate was a tall arch between two massive, circular towers. The crenellated towers and the nearby wall were lined with soldiers. I could make out their helmets and the tips of their spears above me.
Half a dozen soldiers stood guard at the gate, checking wagons for contraband, demanding to know why travelers wanted to enter the city, and, according to Luca, taking bribes.
“I have no more coin,” Khara said.
“I’ll speak to them,” Luca volunteered. “I have this.” He pulled up a delicate chain that hung from his neck and showed us a silver talisman, a cunningly wrought silver fish.
“Isn’t that precious to you?” Gambler asked. “Humans place a high value on objects. Especially gold or silver.” He didn’t disguise the mild contempt in his tone.
Luca shrugged. “I value my life more highly.”
As we approached the gate, Luca moved ahead. We watched him draw an officer aside to speak. I strained my ears but heard nothing, though I did see Luca lift the silver talisman from his neck and hold it out to the guard. What the guard did with it I couldn’t tell, for he was blocked by Luca’s body.
In any case, it worked. They waved us through the gate and into town. I should have relaxed. But the guards seemed to avoid looking at us too carefully. And once we’d passed, I glanced back and saw their eyes following us.
As we entered the city, I immediately understood why it was called, among other names, “Saguria the Impregnable.” The intimidating basalt wall was only the ou
termost defense. Just fifty feet inside rose an inner wall, this one made of crusty pink coral. On closer inspection, I realized that the chaotic surface was in fact festooned with protruding daggers of coral, each shaped like a raptidon’s beak, the sharp points turned down to impede anyone trying to lay a ladder against the wall.
At the top of this wall were gargoyles, mouths open. I assumed they acted as drains, but Luca claimed they were ports for pouring boiling water and liquid fire down on invaders.
We had to walk a quarter of a league counterclockwise down a grassy green band to come to the next gate. Here the guards only searched us for weapons like crossbows. They cared nothing for our swords and smirked at Khara’s rusty-looking blade.
Luca’s sword excited slightly more interest, since it looked like the sort of weapon carried by soldiers, and indeed it was. But evidently the guards thought Luca too pale and weak to be much of a threat and laughed at him when he identified himself as a scholar.
Inside the coral wall was the town proper. It had none of the free-and-easy feel of the isle. Here men and women kept their eyes down and avoided making eye contact with strangers. Mothers clutched their children’s hands. Careful nods replaced joyful greetings.
We saw shops, but they were gloomy and utilitarian. Every building seemed to be the same weary shade of brown. Saguria was a serious place, its people burdened and furtive. At least it was here in the lower town. Between buildings I caught glimpses of the massive promontory, of the great shining mansions, many painted in bright colors, some glittering from golden adornments.
The palace itself was visible, at least to a degree, from just about anywhere in the city. It felt domineering, intimidating, and I realized that the effect was deliberate. Our lords and masters were up there, above us, in the mansions and especially in the palace. They wanted all who passed to be reminded that it was they who held all our fates in their hands.
I had come to understand humans better, and I could sense the emotion that ran through the lower town: it was fear. Soon I understood why when we saw the crowd ahead of us parting, rushing to hug the walls.