"Does she understand about law?" the prince asked. "How a royal command works?"
"Gramps?" Porto said urgently.
Karaman chuckled. "Tell her this. The-one-with-broken-legs is the highest man in Rantorra. If he goes back, then all other men will be lower than he and must do what he signals. He could tell them to free their eagles."
"She wants to know why he doesn't," Potro muttered for the benefit of the rest of the company.
"Tell her..." Then Karaman decided to tell her himself, and flickered his fingers for a few minutes. "I explained about the brother. It's a hard idea for them."
The eagle was scanning the sky, studying the discussion going on up there. Then she put her menu-inspecting glare back on Potro.
"She says would it be like the last time? Would many-many-many eagles die?"
"Yes," Karaman said.
"The High Ones say that that is a big downdraft to kill many-many-many eagles to free not-so-many eagles," Potro announced.
Vindax seemed to shrink inside his homespuns.
The president stood up. "We talked about this in the government. We can't fight, because we have no mounts. I think we need your decision, Citizen: go or abdicate as we suggested. The eagles won't help."
"Shadow?" Vindax muttered. The gaunt and ruined face swung around to him. The heavy brows were still there, and the dark eyes had sunk back into the skull, pits of agony and despair. "What can I do? Advise me."
"Jarkadon will kill you," Shadow said. Here was the loyalty test, then--he must make the sacrifice and the offer. "Accept the land and stay in exile."And I must tend that disgusting lump of flesh until eventually its life of pain comes to an end."Perhaps one day the kingdom will tire of his excesses and send for you."
Vindax reached out a flipper hand to touch his arm; if there was expression on that mask of scar tissue, then it was compassion. "I will not impose on you, my friend. If I go to Ninar Foan? The duke would not hand me over, I think."
That was a possibility; there would be many servants to care for the cripple, and surely the duke's conscience would be stricken by the sight of this horror his daughter had created. But it meant a once-proud prince throwing himself on the mercy of his disowned father. Where was the arrogance now?
"We do not know that the duke is there," Shadow said. "He may be in Ramo; so may Elosa. And if Jarkadon has her as hostage, then the duke is a dry pond."
Vindax nodded miserably and looked away. "I was just hoping," he mumbled, "that you might work one of those miracles of yours, think of something that no one else had. Some other way."
Shadow shook his head. It was easy enough to display fake brilliance when surrounded by marble-minded aristocrats like Lord Ninomar, but these Allaban farmers were deeply practical souls themselves. Unless the equation would work in reverse...
He was a skyman, a trooper, a soldier. Was there something that he should be seeing that they might have missed? He pondered and then realized that everyone was waiting for him, watching him. Yes, perhaps there was something.
"I cannot restore your health," he said. "Within the limits of the practical, though, what do youwant?"
The deep-buried eyes flamed with a fury as fierce as that of the eagles. "Justice!" said Vindax.
"That's all?" Shadow asked.
The eyes searched his. "What else could there be?"
Karaman was peering curiously at Shadow. So were the others. Shadow stood up, thinking of Potro's arrival at Pharmol.
"Can the birds understand experiment?" he said. "I would have to try something, and I'm not sure it would work."
"No, they can't!" the old man snapped, as though he felt responsible for this failing in his beloved eagles. "They're nothandylike us, and their world is unchanging." He signaled. "I've told her you think there may be an updraft but you won't know until you go to look."
Shadow knew that NailBiter's beak could reach almost any part of him except his head, but there was one movement he could not recall seeing in all his years of skyman training. "Ask her if she can put her head back like this," he said, looking straight up at the sky. Then he looked back at the eagle and recognized the flicker. "No, not chick signals. I'm serious."
"Hey, good!" the busy-fingered Potro muttered, approving of his pupil.
The eagle bent its head back briefly in imitation and then glared down at Shadow again.
"Now--could she fly like that for a while? Could she land, maybe even just on the flat--but could she?"
The humans seemed just as irritated and puzzled as the bird. Potro scowled and started to signal.
"She says it could be done. Sometimes it would cause an accident, but it could be done usually. And why are you asking?"
"They're inquisitive devils, Shadow," Karaman whispered. "You've got them all twiddling up there."
"I have another question," Shadow said, mentally crossing his fingers. "Sometimes eagles will carry their kill in their talons. So they could carry rocks--if they dropped them, could they make the rocks land where they wanted them to?"
"Holy Ark!" Karaman was staring at Shadow in stupefaction. "Sure they could! They don't think geometry, they live it. Why did I never see that?"
Because he was not a fighter.
"She says, 'cast,'" Potro announced in a puzzled voice. "What's cast got to do with it, Gramps?"
Karaman chuckled, and he signaled to the eagle. "I've asked her to show us on that," he said, pointing to the children's swing set in the center of the circle.
"That could be dangerous!" Shadow said uneasily, glancing around the group.
"What the hell is 'cast'?" the spice merchant demanded.
For a few moments no one spoke. Then Potro explained in a patient, superior tone, "Cast is what they throw up, the bits they can't digest in their crops. It's hard bails of nails and teeth and pebbles and stuff."
NailBiter had stopped his preening. He and the six or so other eagles on the roof ridge were watching the sky, and so was Shadow, waiting for one of those tiny specks to start a dive, but nothing was happening. Perhaps the birds were having one of the songfests he had heard about and would make their choice in a kiloday or two.
Then a clap of thunder showered the spectators with splinters and hoof fragments and a few sheep teeth--one of the swings had gone, leaving two wildly dancing ropes, each attached to half a plank. There were loud screams and belated raisings of hands in front of faces. Potro's shrill soprano shouted, "Gawrn!"
"Holy Ark!" Karaman muttered.
"Holy Ark yourself!" Shadow yelled. "From that height?"
"I told you--they are spirits of the air!" Karaman insisted. "They know the air as we know the land."
"She asks if that would kill a man," Potro said.
"Yes!" Shadow said. "If he was sitting up, they could smash his head in with that. Even lying down, it would break his back. In fact, it would hurt the bird--it was harder than we would need."
Karaman caught the next message. "She wants to know what the other chick talk was. They understand now that they don't need to carry archers."
Shadow suppressed uneasiness--he had given the eagles a new weapon, something they had never had in their ancient war against mankind. They had never seen that they could use missiles as men did, any more than it would occur to men to kick at the birds. Whose side was he on? Fortunately his other idea needed human hands, so men could still retain some control...
"I'm not sure," he confessed cautiously. "But I think it would work."
"Hooks?" a voice said. The speaker was a small, dark, crinkled man who looked like a farmer.