The odour emanating from the conical peak of the nest was not so unpleasant as the stench of the tunnel beneath, but still brought a wrinkle to Shamil’s nose. It was rich in raw meat, as he would have expected, but also bore the taint of breath exhaled by inhuman lungs.
“Right,” Tihla said, dumping the sack containing a recently butchered goat at the entrance. Getting there had required a confusing climb of a dozen crisscrossed ladders made arduous by the burden of meat they had to carry. “Best if you spend no more than an hour feeding them at first; they’ll get scratchy otherwise. When you’re done, report to Ehlias. Time you two got fitted for your helmets.” With that Tihla started back down the ladder.
“We don’t need to be . . .” Lyvia began uncertainly, “. . . introduced?”
This provoked a short laugh from the second wing as she continued her descent. “Rest assured, they’ll introduce themselves,” she said before her head disappeared from view, “if they like you.”
“And if they don’t?” Lyvia called after her, receiving no reply apart from the sound of Tihla leaping to grasp a nearby rope swing.
Shamil and Lyvia exchanged an uneasy glance before turning to the dark oval of the entrance. As yet, none of the birds within had felt the need to call out, but the two could hear the rustle of feathers and the scrape of talons on stone or wood.
“I shan’t take offence if you wish to precede me through this doorway,” Lyvia murmured. “Terrible breach of etiquette though it would be.”
Shamil grunted a resigned laugh and bent to retrieve the sack Tihla had dumped, hefting it alongside the one already on his shoulder before taking a breath and stepping into the gloom. At first he could see only an overlapping matrix of slanted sunlight streaming through the numerous openings in the nest’s flanks. Motes and fragments of feathers drifted from dark to light, swirling when one of the unseen birds twitched its wings. Shamil progressed along a wooden walkway for a dozen paces before it opened into a wide circular platform. A loud fluttering of wings and swirl of displaced air told of birds alighting onto perches in the surrounding gloom. Still, it took the space of several laboured heartbeats before he caught his first close-up glimpse of a great wing.
Two points of light glittered in the gloom to the side of the platform, joined by the thin curve of a gleaming beak as the bird bobbed its head. Shamil made out the red-gold sheen of its crest before it slipped back into the gloom, beak snapping in what he read as an impatient gesture.
Unslinging the sacks, he set one close to the platform’s edge, drawing back the canvas to reveal the meat within. The bird’s head flashed out of the gloom, snapping up a large chunk of goat haunch before fading back into the shadows. Soon there came the sound of tearing flesh and the dull wet grunt of food being gobbled down an eager throat. The only expression of gratitude or appreciation came in the form of a high-pitched screech and a gust of wind as the bird took flight. Shamil looked up in time to see the broad shadow flicker through the cat’s cradle of light before it flashed through an opening and into the sky beyond.
Hearing a chorus of snapping beaks on all sides, Shamil set down his other sack and began to empty out the contents of both, distributing the hefty morsels of flesh evenly around the edge of the platform as Lyvia did the same. Sharp beaks darted from the darkness in a flurry, and Shamil counted perhaps two dozen, seeing mostly the shimmer of red-and-gold plumage but also the occasional flash of blue or brown. Most seemed intent only on feeding, taking to wing when they had gobbled their fill, but a few would pause to cast an eye at the two human newcomers. None, however, seemed inclined to linger for more than a second or two of scrutiny, and Shamil was forced to ponder just how he would ever form a bond with any of these creatures.
“Oh, hello.”
Turning, he saw Lyvia face-to-face with a bird that had hopped onto the platform’s thick oakwood railing, head tilted at an inquisitive angle. Although smaller than the fire wings, with plumage of blue flecked with emerald green, it still stood three times the size of the woman who raised a tentative hand to touch its beak. Shamil began to shout a warning but stopped when he saw the bird still its head, shuddering a little at Lyvia’s touch but not drawing back. From the faint click of contentment that emerged from the blue falcon’s throat, it was abundantly clear that Ashinta’s worries were unfounded. This great wing at least saw nothing to fear in one who so closely resembled the long-vanished Wraith Queen.
“Aren’t you beautiful,” Lyvia told the falcon, smoothing her hand along its beak, receiving another appreciative click in response. “What’s your name, I wonder?”
The bird lowered its head, allowing Lyvia to play a hand through the short feathers of its crest, letting out a small contented chirp that abruptly turned to a squawk of alarm as a very large shadow covered the platform from end to end. The blue falcon immediately hopped about and launched itself into the shadows, a massed drumbeat of wings and subsequent whirlwind of colliding air indicating the other birds had followed suit. Shamil’s gaze snapped up to see a broad black silhouette, growing swiftly to obscure the slatted sunlight. The platform shuddered as the shape completed its descent, the impact sufficient to send Shamil and Lyvia staggering against the rails.
Shamil’s gaze fixed on the bird’s talons first, sabre-like lengths of jet that had stabbed all the way through the platform’s timbers. His gaze tracked upwards over the grey flesh of its legs to the feathers covering its chest, all as black as the talons, before settling on the bird’s face. But for the gleam on its eyes and beak, it would have been indistinguishable from the shadows, forcing an inevitable conclusion.
“A black wing,” Shamil breathed, taking a tentative step closer.
“I thought they were all gone,” Lyvia breathed back. “Not seen in the Treaty Realms since the Wraith Queen’s time. Shamil,” she added, voice hard with warning as he continued to approach the huge bird.
“It’s all right,” he said, taking another step, finding himself captured by the sheer majesty of this beast. It towered over him, larger even than the mighty fire wing that carried Morgath Durnholm. The bird displayed no trepidation at his approach, merely tilting its head, eyes blinking white then black as a membrane slid over the shiny half spheres. As he neared, Shamil saw numerous scratches in the black wing’s beak, though its point and edges shone sharp in the meagre illumination. He also saw furrows in the plumage around the bird’s mouth and eyes, glimpsing the pale, puckered flesh of long-healed scars beneath. This, he knew, was an old creature and no stranger to battle.
He came to a halt when the black wing abruptly bent its legs, lowering its body to peer directly at Shamil’s face. It shifted from side to side with a slow, even grace he might have termed gentle but for the hard inquisition he saw in its gaze, the calculation behind the eyes born of something far from human. The rush of recognition brought a gasp to his lips, making him stiffen as the memory flashed bright and ugly in his mind.
The raptorile tried to raise itself from the sand, a hiss of pain escaping the long row of clenched, pointed teeth that lined its jaws. The wounds Shamil had inflicted upon it were too severe, however, and it collapsed, raising a pall of dust that soon cleared to reveal a defeated foe. Its eye rolled up to regard Shamil as he stepped closer, daggers raised for the killing strokes to the throat, the final act of this drama that would herald his graduation from the Doctrinate. Today, he became an anointed warrior of Anverest. All the years of pain and degradation, every blow suffered and hard lesson beaten into his soul led to this. He raised his daggers, looked into the defeated raptorile’s eye, and stopped . . .