Dorrel waited a moment, waited for her to say something more, but Maris knew that if she opened her mouth again it could only be for a scream or a sob. She could see anger warring with sadness on Dorrel's face, and anger finally won. He turned without another word and stalked away.
She felt, as she watched him walk away from her, that she was bleeding to death, and she knew it was a self-inflicted wound.
“My choice,” she whispered, and the tears ran down her face as she stared blindly out to sea.
They had flown away two by two; they returned, hours later, one by one.
Crowds of the land-bound waited on the beaches, their eager eyes scanning the horizon. They had engaged in their own games and contests as well as in eating and drinking as they waited for the results of the flyers' contest.
The judges watched the skies through telescopes made for them by the finest lensmakers in Stormtown. On the table before them were a number of wooden boxes, one for each match, and piles of small pebbles: white pebbles for the flyers, black pebbles for the challengers. When a race was completed, each judge tossed a pebble into the wooden box. In a particularly close match, a judge might choose to vote for a tie by putting one stone of each color into the box. Or—but this was rarely done—if the winner was especially obvious, two white pebbles or two black could be cast.
The first flyer was sighted from the boats before anyone on shore saw him, and the shout went rippling over the water. On the beach, people began to stand and raise their hands to shield their eyes from the sun. Shalli lifted her telescope.
“See anything?” another judge asked.
“A flyer,” Shalli said, laughing. “There”—she tried to point—“below the cloud. Can't tell who it is yet.”
The others looked. Maris could barely see the speck they were straining at; it might have been a kite or a rainbird to her, but they had their telescopes.
The Eastern woman recognized the flyer first. “That's Lane,” she said, surprised. The others looked impressed as well. Lane had started in the third pair, Maris recalled, which meant that not only had he outflown his own son, but four others who had started ahead of him as well.
By the time he had landed, two other flyers had come surging out of the clouds, one several wingspans ahead of the other. The first pair to depart, the judges announced. One of the Landsman's attendants passed two of the wooden boxes down the table, and Maris heard the small clicks as the stones were dropped.
When the boxes were set aside, she drifted closer. In the first box, she counted five black pebbles and one white; four judges ruling for the challenger, one for a tie. The other, the box representing the race in which Lane had flown, had five whites in it, but as she watched the judges dropped in three more—two more flyers had appeared, far apart, but neither one was Lane's son. When he finally did appear, some twenty minutes later, five others had preceded him, and Lane's box had ten white pebbles in it. A formidable margin; the boy had probably lost already, Maris knew.
As each incoming flyer was recognized, the judges announced the name to the crier, who shouted it out for all to hear. Ragged cheers went up for some of the announcements from the land-bound thronging the beaches, and now and again Maris heard a loud groan as well. She suspected that most of the cheering was for financial reasons rather than personal. Most of the land-bound did not know flyers from other islands well enough to like or dislike them, but it was traditional to gamble on the outcome of the races, and she knew that a lot of money was changing hands below. It would be difficult, however, for S'Rella. This was Skulny, Garth's home island, and he was familiar and popular with many of the spectators.
“Arak of South Arren!” the crier yelled.
Sena swore softly. Maris borrowed a scope from Shalli. It was Arak, sure enough, flying alone, ahead of not only Damen but of Sher and Leya and their opponents as well.
One by one the Woodwingers and their rivals struggled in.
Arak came first, then the man Sher had challenged, then Damen, followed by Leya's rival. Minutes later, three flyers appeared bunched close together; Sher and Leya, inseparable as always, and close to them—moving ahead now—Jon of Culhall. Sena was swearing again, her face screwed up in disappointment. Maris tried to think of something reassuring to say, but nothing came to mind. The judges were dropping pebbles into the boxes. On the beach, Damen was down and getting out of his wings, while the others approached for a landing.
The sky was clear for a moment, with nothing to see. Kerr was losing badly too; Jon of Culhall had landed now, and Kerr was nowhere in sight. Maris took advantage of the free moment to see how the judges had scored her students.
She was not cheered. Sher's box had seven whites in it, Leya's had five, Damen's eight. Kerr had six against him at the moment, but the judges were dropping in more as minutes went by and he did not appear. “Come on,” Maris mumbled under her breath.
“I see someone,” the Southern judge said. “Very high, angling down now.”
The others lifted their scopes. “Yes,” one of them said. Now people on the beach had spotted the incoming flyer as well, and Maris could hear the buzz of speculation.
“Is it Kerr?” Sena said anxiously.
“I'm not sure,” the Easterner answered. “Wait.”
But it was Shalli who lowered her telescope first, looking stunned. “It's One-Wing,” she said, in a small voice.
“Give me that,” Sena said, snatching the telescope from her hands. “It is him.” She passed the instrument over to Maris, beaming.
It was Val, all right. The wind had picked up quite a bit, and he was using it well, slipping from current to current, riding with a veteran's grace.
“Announce him,” Shalli said numbly to the crier.
“Val One-Wing, Val of South Arren!”
The crowd was hushed for a moment, then erupted into noise; wild cheering, groans, cursing. No one was indifferent to Val One-Wing.
Another pair of silvered wings sliced into view from above. Corm, Maris guessed, and a glance through Shalli's telescope confirmed it. But he was behind, too far behind, with no chance of catching up. It was by no means a humiliation for him, but it was clearly a defeat.
“Maris,” Shalli said, “I want you to see this, so everyone will know that my judging is fair.” She opened her hand, and a single black pebble rested in the hollow of her palm, and as Maris watched she dropped it into the box. Four others followed it.
“Another one,” someone said. “No, two.”
Val had landed, and was calmly taking off his wings. As always he had refused the help of the land-bound children who crowded around him. Corm came sliding over the beach and cliffs, then swept around in an angry predatory circle, reluctant to come down and face the fact of his defeat. Corm did not take defeat well, Maris knew.
All eyes moved to the two new flyers. “Garth of Skulny,” the Outer Islander said, “and his challenger. She's close behind him.”
“Yes, it's Garth,” the Landsman put in. He had not been happy when S'Rella challenged one of his flyers; the prospect of losing a pair of wings was something no Landsman relished. “Fly, Garth,” he said now, openly partisan. “Hurry.”
Sena grimaced at him. “She's doing well,” she said to Maris.
“Not well enough,” Maris said. She could see them clearly now. S'Rella was one, two wingspans behind. But with the beach in sight, she seemed to be faltering. Garth began his descent, cutting sharply in front of her, and the turbulence created by his passing seemed to shake her. Her wings seesawed for a moment before she regained stability, giving him a chance to open his lead a bit wider.
He passed over the beach about three wingspans ahead of her. The pebbles began to clatter into the box. Maris turned to see. It had been a close race, credible, spirited. Perhaps some of the judges would score it a tie.
One did, but only one. Maris counted. Five white pebbles for Garth, one lonely black for S'Rella.
“Let's go down to her,” Maris said to Se
na.
“Kerr hasn't come in yet,” the teacher replied.
Maris had almost forgotten about Kerr. “Oh, I hope he's safe.”
“I should never have sponsored him,” Sena grumbled. “Damn his parents' iron.”
They waited five minutes, ten, fifteen. Sher, Leya, and a very dispirited Damen all wandered up to join them. Other wings appeared on the horizon, but none of them was Kerr. Maris began to grow seriously afraid for him.
But finally he was there, the last of all those who had left that morning, and coming from the wrong direction too; he had been blown off course, he explained, and overshot Skulny. He was very sheepish about it.
By then, of course, ten white pebbles had been cast against him.
The crowds of land-bound were breaking up below, going off in search of food or drink or shade. Flyers were preparing for the afternoon games. Sena shook her head. “Come,” she said, throwing an arm around Kerr. “Let's find the others and get some food into them.”
The afternoon passed quickly. Some of the Woodwingers went off to watch the flying games—an Outer Islander and two Shotaners won the individual prizes, and Western came away with the medals in the team races—while the others rested, talked, or played. Damen had brought a geechi set, and he and Sher spent hours bent over it, both of them trying to recoup some of their lost pride.
In the evening the parties started. The Woodwingers had a small party of their own outside Sena's cabin, in a halfhearted effort to lighten dampened spirits. Leya played the pipes and Kerr told sea stories, and all of them drank from the wineskin Maris had brought. Val was in his usual mood, cool and distant and invulnerable, but everyone else remained glum.
“No one has died,” Sena said at last, her manner gruff. “When you lose an eye and shatter a leg as I did, then you will have a right to be morose. You don't have that right now. Get out of here, the lot of you, before you make me irritable.” She waved her cane at them. “Off now, and to bed. We still have two more days of competition, and all of you can win your wings if you fly well enough. Tomorrow I expect more of you.”
Maris and S'Rella walked along the beach for a while, talking and listening to the slow restless sound of the sea, before heading back to the cabin they shared. “Are you angry with me?” S'Rella asked quietly. “For naming Garth?”
“I was,” Maris said wearily. She did not have the heart to speak of her break with Dorrel. “Maybe I had no right to be. If you beat him, you have a right to his wings. I'm not angry now.”
“I'm glad,” S'Rella said. “I was angry with you, but I'm not now. I'm sorry.”
Maris put an arm around her shoulders. They walked in silence for a minute, and then S'Rella said, “I've lost, haven't I?”
“No,” Maris said. “You can still win. You heard what Sena said.”
“Yes,” said S'Rella, “but tomorrow they'll be judging grace, and that's always been my weakest point. Even if I win at the gates, I'll be so far behind that I won't be able to catch up.”
“Hush,” Maris said. “Don't talk like that. Just fly as best you can, and leave the rest to the judges. It's all you can do. If you do lose, there's always next year.”
S'Rella nodded. They had reached the cabin. She darted ahead to get the door, and then drew back. “Oh,” she said. Her voice was suddenly frightened. “Maris,” she whimpered.
Alarmed, Maris hurried to her side. S'Rella stood trembling and looking at their cabin door. Maris looked too, and felt sick.
Someone had nailed two dead rainbirds to the door. They hung limp and disheveled, bright feathers dark and stained, the nails driven through their small bodies, blood dripping slowly and steadily to the ground.
Maris went inside for a knife and came back to take the grisly warnings from the door. But when she pried loose the first nail and the dead rainbird thumped to the ground, Maris discovered to her horror that it had not only been slaughtered, but mutilated as well.
One wing had been ripped from its body.
The second day was chilly and overcast. It was raining at dawn, and although the rain stopped by the time the morning contests got under way, the day remained damp and cold, the sky heavily overcast. The land-bound spectators were fewer—sitting on the beach was not so pleasant now—and the choppy seas carried only a few boats of observers.
But all that mattered to the flyers was the wind, and the wind on the second day was strong and steady, promising the possibility of some excellent flying.
Maris pulled Sena apart from the Woodwingers on the beach below the cliff, and spoke to her quietly.
“Who would do a thing like that?” Sena demanded, her voice shocked.
Maris put her finger to her lips. She didn't want the others to overhear. S'Rella had been badly frightened by the incident, and there was no sense in alarming the others.
“A flyer, I would guess,” Maris said grimly. “A sick, bitter flyer. But we have no proof of anything. It could have been done by a flyer who was challenged, or the friend of someone we challenged, or simply some stranger who hates Woodwingers. It might even be some local land-bound who lost money on a bet over Val One-Wing. My own suspicions fall on Arak, but I can't prove that.”
Sena nodded. “You were right to keep it quiet. I only hope S'Rella wasn't too disturbed by it.”
Maris glanced at where S'Rella stood among the other students, talking softly to Val. “She needs to do well today, or it is all over for her.”
“They're starting,” Damen called, pointing up at the cliffs.
The first pair of contestants had taken to the air and were moving quickly over the beach. They would circle over the water, Maris knew, and each would go into a sequence of stunts and maneuvers designed to demonstrate flying skills. The specific stunts were the choice of each individual flyer; some satisfied themselves with performing basics as flawlessly as possible, while others tried to be daring and ambitious. Seldom were there clear-cut winners or losers; it was in this event that the judges wielded the most power.
The first two pairs were nothing special, merely long sequences of launchings, landings, and graceful, sweeping turns, all done skillfully but not spectacularly. The third match was something else. The flyer Lane, who had raced so well yesterday, was a splendid stunter as well. Leaping from the cliff, he plunged down low over the beach, skimming so close to the sand that land-bound had to duck to be out of his way. Then he found a riser and swooped up, up, soaring through the overcast and out of sight before he came diving down again, with reckless speed, only to pull out at the last possible instant. He attempted vertical banks and a full loop, and only went into a stall once—he broke out quickly—and Maris found herself admiring his verve. His son was no match for him; the poor boy would be waiting a long time for wings, unless he challenged out-of-family next year. After they had finished, Maris counted eighteen white stones in the voting box, eight new ones added to the ten Lane had won yesterday.
Sher was the first Woodwinger to try the air. It was a good effort; a clean launch, almost perfect but for a slight wobble, followed by a standard sequence of turns, circles, dives, and climbs, all performed smoothly. Sher seemed lithe and buoyant in the air, compared to the stolid competency of the opposition. Maris would have given the judgment to Sher by a slight margin, but when she looked she found the judges had been more critical of the Woodwinger than she. Two had given the victory to the flyer, two had called it even, and only one had cast for Sher, who was now down eleven stones to three.
Sena sighed when Maris told her the count. “I've grown used to it. I always hate the stunting. Perhaps the judges try to be fair, but the bias creeps in nonetheless. Nothing can be done about it, except to have our Woodwingers fly so well that they can't be denied their victories.”
Leya was next, with the same sequence Sher had flown, all basic, but with less luck. The wind shifted during the match, robbing Leya of the fluid grace that Maris had so often seen her display, giving her flight a ragged appearance. And several times g
usts threw her sideways, breaking up what had been well-executed turns. Her rival had trouble as well, but less. Four judges gave him their stones, and only one made it a tie, leaving Leya behind ten to one.
Damen was more ambitious than either of them. Today, when Arak threw insults at him, Damen spat them right back, which brought a smile to Maris' lips. And he began with a passable imitation of the spectacular swoop-on-the-beach that the flyer Lane had used. Arak tried to shadow him, to fly so close that Damen would be forced to break off his glide clumsily, but Damen twisted away with a graceful bank and vanished into a cloud, losing the older flyer. One of the judges, the Outer Islander, grumbled about Arak's tactics, but the others only shrugged. “Whatever else he might be, he is still the better flyer,” the Easterner insisted. “Note how tight his turns are. The boy is spirited, but slipshod.” Maris had to admit that she was right; Damen habitually slid wide on turns, especially downwind turns.
When they scored it, four judges cast for Arak, only the Outer Islander for Damen.
“Jon of Culhall, Kerr the Woodwinger!” the crier bellowed. The wind was gusting, and Kerr was as clumsy as ever.
After a few minutes, Sena faced Maris. “Even with one eye, this is painful to watch,” she said.
Jon of Culhall accumulated another eight white pebbles, and Maris felt sorry for Kerr.
“Corm of Lesser Amberly,” announced the crier, “Val One-Wing, Val of South Arren!”
They stepped into view on the flyers' cliff, wings strapped in place but folded, and Maris could feel a ripple of excitement go through the onlookers. People along the beach were making noise, and even the landsguard and attendants who stood near the Landsman moved closer to watch.
Corm was not laughing or joking today. He stood as silently as Val, his dark hair tossing in the wind, while his wings were unfolded and locked by others. Val, as usual, waved away the help.
“Corm can be quite graceful,” Maris warned Sena. “Val may have trouble today.”