A Whisper of Wings Read online

  “Like war. It must be quick. We must not prolong the agony.”

  “Will the tribes fight?”

  “Keketál does not know. He trains his own men to fight. It iss enough.”

  Hupshu tried to jerk his mind away from the memory of a maiden’s face - a maiden’s laugh; the bride that had died beneath a demon’s knife. He stared into the swamps and ran the grass beneath his hands.

  “So how do you actually make an army? I mean, we can get the men and find some weapons. Is that all there is?”

  “Training. Lots and lots. We learn to fly.” The hunter heaved an unhappy sigh. “Keketál still needs a weapon for his men. Flint spears iss no good; not sharp enough to poke through demon armour. We need something to back up the slings.” Keketál prodded irritably at the dirt. “We find a way. We have a thousand men now. Someone will think of something.”

  The noble’s friend helped him to his feet.

  “You know a lot about hunting, don’t you. What else do you remember, my Lord? Is there anything of the past inside your mind?”

  Keketál turned away and wiped his hands against his kilt.

  “Keketál remembers nothing! There iss only here and now. There are families to be fed.”

  Families. Hupshu’s bride was dead. He still had trouble believing she was lost. The man gazed out across the swamps and let Father Wind blow through his fur.

  Keketál heaved the kill up across his shoulders and began the dreary trudge towards the camp. Hupshu stirred himself and duly followed.

  “Oh well, at least this isn’t as difficult as I thought. Living off the land, I mean.”

  Keketál gave a sigh.

  “These lands are easy. Plenty of game.”

  “Ah well, at least there’s meat tonight. The others might have done as well.”

  “Keketál hopes so! Hunter never eats his own catch. Iss bad magic.” He handed his companion the spears and woomera. “See if you can hit a tree thiss time. Rocks bend the point.”

  The handsome villager gave a sigh and passed the weapons back.

  “Ah gimmie the sling back! I’ll go get you a duck.”

  “Duck iss good. Keketál bagsies wings!”

  “Whatever you like, my friend. Whatever you like.”

  Months had passed, and yet the old lands seemed unchanged. Harïsh led the Harapii tribal ambassador past peaceful flocks and fields; sheep bleated in the meadows while grapes ripened in the sun. It seemed as though there were not a single worry in the world.

  They alighted outside of a new settlement and watched women working in the fields. Harïsh wagged her wings as she peered carefully between the bushes.

  “Shall we go closer, my Lord Looshii? We can try speaking to them if you like.”

  Round, grey-furred and with whiskers that his his face behind a screen of silver hair, Lord Looshii wrinkled up his snout in thought.

  “I think we should. I would like to talk with one of them and hear their feelings on dwelling in a conquered land. The council requires all the information I can bring them.”

  “Follow my lead then! It’s my third time in enemy lands. Do as I do. If you’ll pardon me, my Lord, you must act like any other shepherd. There are no nobles here any more.”

  The girl sped across the grass like a supple golden spear, and Lord Looshii drew a breath and did his level best to follow. Harïsh zig-zagged down a gentle rise and landed bang smack in the middle of team of villagers.

  “Ho there! Hot work? Whatcha doing?”

  An old woman shot the girl a withering glance and bent back to her work. The villagers were constructing a sturdy ditch; Harïsh wandered over to poke at dirt clods with her foot.

  “A funny kind of thing to be doing. What’s it for?”

  “We’re planting yam daisies. Go away!”

  “Yams? But yams only grow by the river! How are you going to water them?”

  “We’re digging a ditch through the field. A pump will fill it with water from the river. One of the forest people thought of it. She’s building the pump, we’re doing the ditch. Each contributes as they can. Praise be to The Dream.”

  Harïsh shrugged away the subject and clasped her hands behind her back.

  “Yep! Praise The Dream! I have a message for the village leader. Where might they be found?”

  “Kaláka the Hunter is village leader. You’ll find him in the new meeting hut.”

  “He’s a forest man?”

  “Course he is! And a better leader than the old Speaker ever was! There’s a meeting of the village committee right now. They’re sending the old bastard off for trial. He refuses to join the community. If we’re lucky the Leader might make an example of him!”

  Harïsh scratched her chin.

  “So he’s going to trial for not digging in the fields?”

  “Aye! And high time too. There’s forty extra mouths to feed in this village. We’ve quotas to maintain!”

  “You-uh-you don’t mind the extra work? I mean - is it more difficult than the old days?”

  “T’aint so bad. Not now I can see priests and nobles gettin’ their lily white hands dirty!”

  The old woman stood and warily brushed her hands against her skirt, glaring at Lord Looshii’s bright red wings.

  “You ask a lot of questions.” More farmers had begun to gather around the strangers. “I think we’d better take you to the village leader. I think you’d better come right now.”

  Harïsh turned her golden eyes upon the villagers and gave a thankful smile.

  “Oh really? You mean you’ll take us? Oh thanks, that’s most hospitable!”

  Harïsh led the way towards the village square. The pair of spies were ushered to a brand new wooden hut and thrust in through the door. Two villagers remained on watch while the others went back to the fields.

  The room was hung with mats and rugs of weird alien designs. Harïsh found a little pot fashioned out of badly fired clay and examined it with a disdainful air.

  “The village looks well enough. Fairly typical. They all talk the same now: ‘contribution to a greater whole’ and ‘following The Dream’. It’s all just a facade. There’s no freedom for the plainsfolk here. The Ochitzli are all split up and intermingled with the newcomers. The Demon Queen has given them all new identities.”

  Lord Looshii was utterly aghast.

  “When I scoffed at your reports, I simply had no idea! That-that old woman. She actually seemed proud to be slave to some uncircumcised savage!”

  “She loves it! She has power now! Her hate’s been turned against the nobles and not the savages. Oh the demon queen is clever! In two months they’ve managed to absorb an entire people. They all truly seem to believe in this-this Dream.”

  Harïsh removed her headband and began tying it in knots. Looshii gave a gasp of irritation.

  “My dear girl, people can’t just have accepted all this lying down! There must be some unrest? Every time the savages whittle at a tradition, it must saw at the heartstrings of the folk!”

  “Whittling? Oh no my Lord! All the changes happened almost overnight. You’d be surprised how soon people can adapt. Everyone’s been busy building and working. It creates the illusion of achievement.”

  The door opened with a bang, and a forbidding figure glared towards the prisoners. All male savages seemed to be tall. Harïsh sketched a salute and bawled out in a chaotic foreign tongue.

  “Greetings forest comrade! Being am Surookii of courier teamings seven.” The girl pulled her headband from her belt and merrily untied a knot¹. “I bearing messagings from southern district for honoured leader person.”

  The savage bent to chill her with his shadow.

  “Why does it take two of you to pass a message?”

  “Comrade, sorry am I if not understandings. Wordy talks is beings difficult.”

  “Him! Who is this man here?”

  Harïsh craned around to suddenly see Lord Looshii, and her gorgeous eyes turned bright with understanding.

/>   “Aaaah, pretty wings? Surookii find him! Poor pretty-wings being lost. Now Surookii is here for the guidings!” The young girl proudly placed one hand upon her breast. “Surookii will pass forest comrade’s speakings to Pretty Wing. He is not having goodly forest wordings like Surookii! Surookii is clever, yes?”

  The savage refused to comment. It was no wonder the villagers had said she asked too many questions.

  “Just give me the message, you obnoxious little whelp! Hurry up or I’ll have you treading grapes until your fur turns blue!”

  Harïsh closed her eyes and made a great show of fingering the message rope.

  “Message him say: “Silverblood creek is dry as dead old bones. Kakáka must make room for twelve more villagers transferred from the east.”

  “What?” Kakáka slammed his fist against the wall. “What idiot ordered this? Don’t they know these villagers can’t hunt? How am I supposed to feed all these useless little darlings?”

  “Tch-tch! Leader-person should keep more calm. You should take it easy and get some sleep.”

  “I don’t want to sleep! Now listen here, you go right back to Silverblood and tell those idiots to go get stuffed!”

  “But…”

  “No buts! I can’t take them, I won’t take them! If I see one freeloader come fluttering down that path I’ll send him back to Silverblood in a wicker basket!”

  Harïsh stuck out her tongue in concentration as she tied another knot at the far end of her headband. The village leader started strangling with rage.

  “What in Poison’s name do you think you’re doing now?”

  “Iss doing job! Kakáka’s message comes last. First Surookii must go to Yabbie-Dale, then Ghost-Hollow, then Rainbow-Cave…”

  Kakáka’s eyes were slowly changing colour. Veins bulged at his temples as he leapt wildly up and down.

  “You brainless little hatchling! Get back to Silverblood! You deliver my message right now!”

  “Well, alright. Surookii was only trying to…”

  “Now”

  The savage tore open his door and booted the two travellers out. Harïsh proudly dusted off her skirt and buzzed up into the air. The girl led the way into a stand of old dry wattle trees and softly drifted to the ground, and suddenly her facade of merriment was gone.

  “So now you’ve seen it, my Lord. We did not lie. The conquest of the savages is total. They not only take the body, they also eat the soul.”

  Lord Looshii planted his back against a tree, his eyes still staring back towards the village.

  “They all seem so passionate. Everyone seems so-so filled with fire!”

  Harïsh suddenly turned cold.

  “Never forget River-Bend, my Lord. Never forget those corpses that I showed you. One of those rotting skeletons was my own mother.”

  “But if they are really happy…”

  “Oh yes, the people here are happy. A sheep is also happy. The moment they fail to meet the Demon Queen’s expectations, they will pay.”

  Looshii stared back towards the village.

  “I believe you. Tell your husband Keketál that he will have his army. The Harapii tribe stands with you. Any man who wishes it will be allowed to train for war.”

  “I’ll get you home, my lord. We’ll cut through the forest to be safe. The savages have abandoned it.”

  Harïsh sprang into the light. The two fugitives moved south to lands where freedom still had leave to dwell.

  ***

  Through long days and sleepless nights, Shadarii laboured in the forest. Savage abuse had left its mark upon the land, and animal species had dwindled from predation and disease. Whole vast regions had been laid waste by the teeming Kashra tribes; untold swoops of forest had been burned to the ground. Before abandoning their home, the alpine tribes had stripped it to the bone.

  Shadarii selflessly gave herself to the forest. As days went by, she squandered her reserves of strength. Where she trod, the ground turned rich with life; dead wood slumped and crumbled as new growth shot through the forest floor. The butchered ferns, the tortured earth, all were made whole and good once more.

  Shadarii staggered. Every day the forest cried to her, and every day she gave just a little more. Over two months, she had drained herself almost dry with unending, sleepless labours. The forest screamed for healing, and it seemed as if the task would never be done…

  This day had seemed somehow worse. The evening light had found Shadarii wandering along a stream and shivering with fatigue. Disease spirits hovered in the ïsha; Shadarii coughed and swatted them away, half stumbling into the stream.

  The girl was sick and dulled, her fur sodden wet with sweat. She clung against a tree and felt her stomach spin.

  *Shadarii! What is it? Get up!*

  Starshine flicked a power bolt at a lurking spirit of disease, and her target chittered in alarm.

  *Well I could have told thee it would come to this! Two months wasted on this “great work” of thine. I tire of saying it; seek thy sister! Slay her! Take away her powers. Shadarii, art thou listening to me?*

  Shadarii slumped against the bark and coughed. She couldn’t stay here; Kïtashii would find her, and this time her disciple wouldn’t let the matter slide. Shadarii would be stuffed into bed and held prisoner for weeks. Kïtashii simply didn’t understand how much work there was to do.

  “Beloved one?”

  Shadarii wrenched herself upright as Zareemii gazed up into her eyes. The child offered a tiny creature into Shadarii’s hands.

  “The froggy’s sick. He just sits there and looks miserable.”

  Shadarii sighed; perhaps there was just a tiny little bit of power left. A frog couldn’t drain too much. It looked up at her with great yellow eyes and quivered in its pain. Shadarii bent her head and poured herself into its heart. The creature swayed inside her hand as she caressed it with her love.

  Shadarii‘s vision dimmed. She absently passed the frog back to the little boy. She was still smiling as she doubled up and fell.

  “Revered one! Silent Lady, you’re sick!”

  Shadarii coughed in agony, the fluid cracking in her lungs as disease spirits hissed and closed in for the kill. Zareemii took one look and fled into the sky.

  “Tingtraka! Tingtraka, come quickly! Kïtashii, please!”

  The little boy fled screaming off into the dark. Shadarii pressed her face against the nice warm soil and wondered if the pain would ever stop.

  Shadarii gave a cough and shivered down beneath a pile of sleeping robes. Kïtashii gripped her hand and wiped her teacher’s mouth; Shadarii felt burning hot beneath her touch. The spirit ‘Starshine’ reeled in the ïsha like a drunken moth, delirious from Shadarii’s pain.

  The teacher’s breath bubbled thickly in her lungs. Her bed had been surrounded by a circle of her pupils, and their heads were bowed in prayer as they drew the ïsha from the world. They bathed Shadarii’s body with a healing glow, trying to fight the fever with their simple love.

  Shadarii had stabilised, but no more. She was not healing as she should. This was no ordinary disease; someone or something wanted the Silent Lady dead.

  It would not succeed. Not while there was one spark of life inside Kïtashii’s soul. The acolyte gripped her teacher’s hand and set her fangs in preparation for a fight.

  The pigrims had taken refuge in an empty Katakanii village. The lodge rocked as Tingtraka staggered through the door to spilla handful of herbs upon the rug.

  “Tingtraka!”

  The huntress clawed her breast and spat to ease her burning lungs.

  “Her-herbs from the - the mountain tops. Roots from the bottom of a lake.” The girl scraped her filthy hand across her eyes. “Not much… Don’t even know if they’re… they’re right.”

  Tingtraka sobbed for breath and half collapsed against the lodgehouse wall. Kïtashii snatched up the herbs and furiously began to scrub them clean.

  “You’re the first to come back! And you got it all, too! Are the others
close behind?”

  Tingtraka looked sick. She must have flown like a lightning bolt! The skinny huntress coughed and sucked her tea.

  “Rotïka’s digging ants nests. The others are still out there. All except Mrrimïmei. She wouldn’t come.”

  Mrrimïmei! Kïtashii swore with words no twelve year old should know. She cursed ceaselessly as she jammed on her disreputable pair of leather moccasins, then took up a bag and a pair of digging sticks.

  “Kïtashii?”

  The little girl snatched up her pack and flung herself to Shadarii’s side. She clutched her teacher in an adoring kiss, winding desperate fingers through Shadarii’s hair.

  “Look after her. I’ll be back!”

  “Kïtashii! Stop! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Leaving! We need a healer! I’ll be back.”

  Kïtashii dove away before anyone could stop her. Tingtraka ripped off her heavy robe and staggered to the door.

  “Kïtashii! Kïtashii come back! I’ll not let you go alone!”

  It was too late; Kïtashii had already gone.

  Notes:

  1) The plainsman “quirt” is used in much the same manner as an alpine message stick, but has the advantage of being somewhat more portable.