She was nearly at the edge, but now on the far side, Hylas saw Telamon shoulder his bow and start across the bridge. Hylas whipped out his axe to cut the footrope—but Pirra was still on it. “Hurry! ” he urged her.
Her foot slipped. He pulled the rope taut about her waist as she fought to steady herself.
The wind whipped Telamon’s long dark hair about his face, but still he came on. Then Kreon—Kreon, the tyrant of Thalakrea—moved right to the edge and drew back his bowstring to take aim at Pirra.
Suddenly a dark bolt hurtled out of the clouds and swept past Kreon’s head. The Crow Chieftain faltered. So did Pirra. “Echo,” she cried. “You came back!”
“Pirra, come on!” yelled Hylas.
The next instant she staggered to safety—and Hylas brought down his axe on the footrope.
The rawhide resisted, but Telamon lurched and nearly fell.
“Telamon, turn back and get off the bridge!” warned Hylas. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you take another step!”
Telamon took another step.
Hylas hacked at the rope. Telamon’s face worked in fury, but he saw that Hylas meant it, and made his way back to solid ground. A heartbeat later, Hylas struck the rope and it snapped. With Crow arrows hissing and clattering around him, he used the oaks for cover and cut one of the hand ropes, then ran to help Pirra, who was sawing at the other with her knife.
On the far side of the gorge, Telamon lifted his sword to the sky. “You can’t get away from me, Outsider!” he roared, his face twisted with rage. “I swear by the Angry Ones and by the dagger of Koronos that I will hunt you down, I will feed your carcass to the dogs!”
For a moment they faced each other across the void. Then Hylas cut the last rope and sent it hurtling into the gorge.
17
“Wait,” panted Pirra, “I have to rest.”
“Just for a bit,” said Hylas. “Dark soon, we’ve got to find shelter.”
Wearily, she slumped onto a rock. Hylas was alarmed to see that her lips were tinged with blue. She couldn’t go much farther.
They hadn’t spoken since leaving the gorge. It had taken all their strength to scramble over boulder-strewn slopes and through snowbound forests, and now they were at the bottom of a wooded gully. Silent firs guarded a frozen stream, and the slopes were pocked with the dark mouths of caves.
There’d been no sign of the Crows, and Hylas guessed they must be at least a day behind. Unless of course they’d found another way down.
Leaning against a tree, he waited for Pirra to recover. She sat in a cloud of frosty breath, clutching her knees. They glanced at each other, then swiftly away, both aware of the months they’d spent apart and the weight of things unsaid.
“Better be going,” said Hylas.
Raising her head, Pirra gave him a level stare. “What are you doing on Keftiu? Why did you come and find me?”
“Pirra, not here, there isn’t time—”
“I need to know.”
There was too much to say and he didn’t know how, so instead he said, “Why are the Crows after you?”
She licked her lips. “They think I’ve got the dagger,” she said under her breath.
“What? But—I thought they did.”
She shook her head. “I brought it to Keftiu.”
He stared at her. “So—on Thalakrea when I put you on that ship—”
“Yes. I had it then.”
“Where is it now?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Do you really want me to tell you out here in the open, where anyone might be listening?”
She was right and he didn’t press her; but as they headed off, he struggled to take it in.
Night gathered under the trees, and he started looking for a campsite. Pirra kept glancing expectantly at the sky, as if she was waiting for something to appear. He spotted a cave that might do. Telling her to wait, he climbed up to check it for bears.
At first the cave appeared promising, but as he crawled deeper, he felt the warning ache in his temple. At the corner of his vision, he glimpsed a shadowy man and woman. Their breath didn’t smoke—because they had no breath—and around them swarmed a seething mass of Plague.
“That one’s no good,” he told Pirra as he ran down to her. “We’ll have to keep looking.”
“What’s wrong with it? You’ve gone pale—”
“It’s nothing, it’s—it wasn’t right.”
She shot him a puzzled glance, but didn’t ask any more. Then she saw something over his shoulder and her face lit up. “Echo!” she cried. “You came back! You came back!”
Farther down the gully, Hylas made out the young falcon, perched on a rock by a clump of junipers.
“Echo!” Pirra called softly—and to Hylas’ astonishment, the bird flew to her and landed on her wrist. “I kept calling her in my mind,” she told him. “I felt that she was coming, but I didn’t know when. And look, she’s found another cave.” She pointed to a patch of darkness behind the boulder that had been the falcon’s perch.
“How do we know it’s all right?” said Hylas.
“If Echo thinks it’s all right,” said Pirra with startling confidence, “then it is.”
The cave turned out to be perfect: hidden and dry, with a fissure at the back, which meant they could risk a small fire. Hylas went to gather wood, and Pirra crawled inside and slumped with her head on her knees.
She was dizzy with fatigue and still shaky from the fever. She was also confused. Now that Echo had returned and they seemed to be safe for a while, she could allow herself to think about Hylas. All through the winter she’d been furious with him, but now . . . she didn’t know what to feel.
And she dreaded telling him about Havoc. How was she going to break the news that his beloved lion cub had been lost in the Great Wave?
As if sensing her confusion, Echo ran toward her, her talons clicking on the rocks. With her forefinger, Pirra stroked the falcon’s scaly yellow foot. “I’m so glad you came back,” she said softly. Echo took the toe of Pirra’s boot in her beak and gave it a tug. Then she decided it wasn’t worth eating and flew to the rock at the cave mouth, where she settled herself on one leg for a nap.
Pirra realized she was ravenous: She hadn’t eaten since Taka Zimi. Rummaging in Hylas’ food pouch, she found six wizened olives and a lump of sooty cheese the size of a goose’s egg. She wolfed two olives, left three for him, and offered one to Echo—who just blinked at it, so Pirra ate it herself.
Hylas crawled in with an armful of firewood. Without looking at her, he started laying the fire. “Feeling better?” he said.
“Mm,” she lied. “I ate some of the olives.”
He nodded. “We’ll split the rest when I’ve woken a fire. When the snow in the waterskin’s melted, we’ll have something to drink.” He was talking too much. Pirra wondered if, like her, he didn’t know what to say.
She watched him strike sparks between two stones in a handful of bark. A tiny red flame flared, and he bent and blew on it softly to make it grow.
He’d changed since last summer. He was taller, and his shoulders were broader. His voice was deeper, which made him seem different from the boy she had known, and in his rough sheepskins, he looked startlingly foreign: more Akean than when she’d last seen him.
“Did you find your sister?” she said awkwardly.
“No,” he said, snapping sticks over his knee. “I heard—I heard your mother died. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said curtly.
“Right.”
She was almost disappointed that he took her at her word. The harder she tried not to think about her mother, the more she did. Her feelings were a painful tangle of anger and loss. She wished Hylas would help
her sort it out.
On her perch, Echo stretched out one wing and began preening with furious little beak-clickings.
“Does she need water?” Hylas said suddenly.
“She needs meat, but I don’t think she knows how to hunt.”
“She doesn’t. I saw her chase a baby crow and get mobbed by its parents.”
They exchanged tentative smiles.
Hylas described how he’d seen Echo wheeling over Taka Zimi. “That’s how I knew you were there.”
Pirra went to the falcon and put out her finger. “Thank you, Echo,” she said. Echo gave her finger a gentle peck, then went back to tidying her feathers.
The fire crackled and warmth stole through the cave. They shared the cheese, and Hylas put a crumb at the foot of Echo’s rock. The falcon shot him a wary glance, then surprised Pirra by hopping down and eating it.
“I didn’t even know she liked cheese,” said Pirra with a twinge of jealousy.
“Tomorrow I’ll see if I can catch her a mouse,” said Hylas. He asked how she’d met Echo, and she told him. Then she asked how he’d survived since Thalakrea, and he told her about roaming the Sea with a gang of escaped slaves.
“Do you miss them?” she said.
“I miss Periphas. But sometimes when I was with him, I almost forgot about Issi and you and Havoc. I hated that.”
At the mention of Havoc, Pirra’s belly turned over. “Hylas . . .” she faltered. “About Havoc—”
“I wish she was here now. The last time I saw her was on the other side of the mountain, and—”
“She’s alive?” cried Pirra, startling Echo. “I thought she’d drowned in the Great Wave!”
“It’s because of Havoc I knew about the Crows,” said Hylas. “I pulled one of their arrows out of her shoulder.”
“They shot her? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did.”
At the thought of the Crows, they fell silent, listening to the firs moaning in the night wind. In her head, Pirra saw Kreon’s murderous glare as he took aim at her with his bow. She heard Telamon screaming his oath to hunt Hylas to the death.
“Do you miss your sealstone?” said Hylas, startling her. “You keep rubbing your wrist.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve had it since I was born, so it feels weird without it.”
She asked if he still had the lion claw she’d given him, and he drew it out on a thong from the neck of his jerkin. Then he asked if she had the knife he’d made for her.
“Um. No,” she said. “I chucked it overboard as the ship left Thalakrea.”
“Ah,” said Hylas.
“I threw away your falcon feather too.” She flicked him a glance. “Seven moons, Hylas. Seven moons shut up at Taka Zimi—because of you.”
He sat with his arms about his knees, scowling at the flames. Firelight glinted in his fair hair and lit the strong, bony planes of his face. “The last thing you said to me on Thalakrea,” he said, “is that you’d hate me forever.”
“You’d just bundled me onto a ship and sent me back to captivity.”
“I was trying to save you.”
“You didn’t give me a choice, you decided for me.”
“There was no time! And when I put you on that ship, I had no idea Keftiu would suffer worst of all. I didn’t know the Great Wave was going to happen, or the Plague.” He paused. “But you’re right. It’s my fault you were shut up at Taka Zimi. I’m sorry.”
Pirra stared at her boots. “Well, if it wasn’t for you, I’d have burned to death or been caught by the Crows, so I’m glad you found me.”
She glanced up to find him watching her with an unreadable expression in his tawny eyes. “It’s good to see you, Pirra,” he said quietly.
She flushed. “Is it?”
“Yes. It really is.”
Her flush deepened, and she sucked in her lips. “Well. It’s good to see you too.”
Another silence.
A beetle had wobbled its way to the end of a stick and was in danger of falling into the fire. Hylas picked it up and set it down at a safe distance. Then he went off, muttering about fetching fir branches to sleep on.
As Pirra waited for him to return, the warmth of the fire made her sleepy, and her thoughts began to blur. She seemed to be back in the cellar, with the flames crackling overhead and smoke seeping through the hatch . . .
She jolted awake. “Userref!” she cried.
Echo squawked, and Hylas came running. “What’s wrong!”
“I just realized! Userref—he’ll find Taka Zimi in ruins, he’ll think I’m dead!”
Hylas looked puzzled. “But you’re not, so what does it—”
“No, you don’t understand! When I was ill, I made him swear that if I died, he would fetch the dagger and destroy it. So now . . . oh, poor Userref.” She pictured the Egyptian staring in horror at the smoking ruins of Taka Zimi. He would be devastated. He had devoted his whole life to keeping her safe.
“Pirra?” said Hylas. “Did you hear what I said? The dagger. Where is it now?”
She swallowed. “I hid it. As soon as we got to Keftiu, I hid it, but then my mother sent me to Taka Zimi that same day and I didn’t have a chance to take it with me—”
“So where is it?” he cut in.
“In the House of the Goddess.”
“The House of the Goddess,” repeated Hylas. “Which is standing empty. Unguarded. The Crows could just walk in and take it.”
“They’d never find it,” said Pirra, “not if they searched for ten years. Besides, they don’t know it’s there, they think I’ve got it.”
They fell silent, turning this over in their minds.
“We can’t leave it there,” said Hylas. “As long as it exists, it’s a threat.”
“I know. We have to get it before they do. We have to destroy it.”
Yes, but how? thought Hylas. To destroy the dagger of Koronos was no easy thing. He remembered what Akastos had told him in the smithy on Thalakrea: No forge made by mortal men will ever be hot enough to destroy it. The dagger of Koronos can only be destroyed by a god.
And how, thought Hylas, are we to make that happen, when the gods have abandoned Keftiu?
“Of course,” said Pirra, “if the Crows pick up our trail, we’ll be leading them straight to it.”
“I thought of that too,” said Hylas. “But we’ll have to risk it.” Then he met her eyes. “Problem is, Pirra, how do we find the House of the Goddess? I’ve no idea where we are. Do you?”
18
Hylas dreamed about Issi, and woke with an ache in his chest.
It was still dark, and Pirra was fast asleep. Silently, he got ready to go hunting by masking his scent with woodash; then he took his slingshot and crept out into the snow.
The sky was beginning to lighten and the forest was waking up. A pine marten peered down at him from a fir, and a pair of jays chattered overhead. This told him that the Crows couldn’t be close; otherwise, these creatures would have fled.
In the gray half-light, he spotted more signs of life: the knife-sharp pattern of an owl’s wings where it had punched into the snow after a vole, and the tracks of a badger, like those of a small purposeful bear. But not the paw prints of a lion.
The ache in his chest sharpened. He missed Havoc. He missed her eager little grunts when she told him things in lion talk, and her determined, mostly doomed attempts to sneak up on him unawares. Somehow when she was with him, Issi didn’t seem so far away, and he felt that if he could look after Havoc, the Lady of the Wild Things would watch over his sister.
His hunting luck was good, and he downed a hare nibbling willow bark, and two partridges. He set the hare’s head in a tree as an offering for the god of Mount Dikti, left the paws for the Lady of the Wild Things, and on impulse, placed one of the partridges under
a bush for Havoc.
He couldn’t bear to think of her out here alone. If he didn’t find her, she’d be on her own for the rest of her life. And that wouldn’t last long. Lions need company, or they die.
“Havoc!” he called softly.
A weasel glanced at him as it flickered past, and a raven lit onto a branch with a sonorous cark!
“Havoc! Where are you?”
Snow sifted down as the raven hitched its wings and flew away.
“Havoc, where are you?”
Hylas’ voice sounded rough with longing, and Pirra withdrew behind a boulder so that he wouldn’t see her.
A bit later, she joined him. He was squatting in the snow, plucking a partridge. His face was open and raw, and she felt sorry for him.
“Sleep all right?” he said without raising his head.
She hesitated. She still felt a bit shaky, but she didn’t want to go into that, so instead she asked if he’d seen Echo.
With his knife he pointed to a crag. “Up there, watching for prey.”
Pirra peered at the falcon-shaped dot. Suddenly Echo bobbed her head a few times, then spread her wings and swept down the gully. Pirra felt a tug in her chest, and the painful sense that she could almost fly.
“Bad choice, Echo,” murmured Hylas. “Don’t go after magpies.”
“What’s wrong with magpies?” said Pirra.
“They’re too clever, they know all the tricks.”
Sure enough, the wily magpie sped straight for a patch of brambles and disappeared. Echo flew over it a couple of times, then realized it was hopeless, and returned to Pirra for reassurance.
“Better luck next time,” Pirra told her soothingly. The falcon drew a lock of her hair through her bill, as if to preen.
“She should stick to pigeons,” Hylas remarked.
He seemed to be feeling better, so Pirra asked him to show her how to use a slingshot. He gave in when she insisted, and back at the cave, while he butchered the hare, she loaded the slingshot with a pine cone and swung it over her head.
“Faster,” said Hylas. “You only get to swing it a couple of times before the prey hears, so you have to be fast. Now let go of the knotted end and you’ll hit that bush . . . Or not.”