"Yes!" Shadow said. "We kill the rider and the reins go slack, blinkering the bird. If one of us flies in close with a long hook, then we could catch the reins and drop the hook, see? The bird holds its head back, like we saw, and the weight of the hook will hold the reins back--"
"It doesn't work," the farmer snapped. "We tried something like that. You forgotten, Ryl?"
"Why not?" Shadow demanded, suddenly deflated.
The older man counted on his fingers. "First, there are a dozen other troopers shooting at you, lad. Second, it's almost impossible to get two birds that close in the air because they get in each other's wind. Third, there isn't time. A blind bird without human guidance panics and just drops," he finished triumphantly.
"He's right, Shadow." Karaman sighed. "We did try something like that. It worked in rehearsal a couple of times, but not in practice. You use your ears to balance, did you know that? The birds have none. They need their eyes. Sorry, sonny. Nice try."
Shadow sank back into his seat angrily.
There had to be a way!
"I do not wish to impose on your charity," Vindax said to the president. "I believe that I could write to...to the duke of Foan and he would send money. Then I could buy a suitable place and hire servants."
Shadow stopped listening. He was a skyman--was he anything else? Was there any other way of looking at the problem which the farmers and merchants could not see, which Karaman had not seen when he led the rebellion? Karaman was a priest, a student of the ancient ways--wise but not trained to think of new things. He was emphatically not a fighter. He was a bird fanatic, of course, and had taught Shadow something of how the birds thought, although their way of looking at the world was so different from men's that it was almost incomprehensible.
Up on the roof, NailBiter had inspected and approved every feather and was now standing on one leg, licking the talons of the other with that same tongue he had used to wash Shadow's hair. NailBiter thought that Shadow was his friend--the man who had unhooded him in the hellish dark of Dead Man's Pass and so freed him. So he thought. But it had been Karaman who had freed NailBiter. Shadow would not have known. He would have acquired another hood at the first chance he got and gone back to business as usual with a captive mount, a beast of burden.
Not a friend. How could a man be friends with an eagle? The affair in the pass had been an accident, caused by exhaustion, by carelessness, and by the wind.
"You can't trust Jarkadon," Vindax was insisting.
The president wanted that letter of abdication, and the sword was sliding slowly from the scabbard.
The wind?
"Wait!" Shadow shouted, leaping to his feet in excitement. "Maybe there is a way!"
"Now what?" a man growled, standing between Shadow and the president.
"Wecanfree the eagles!" Shadow tried to pass, but the man stared down at him without moving away.
"Playtime is over, sonny," the president said quietly. "This is grown-ups business."
Shadow felt blood rush to his throat, and his fists clenched. A tradesman speaking to the son of a baronet? An elected king speaking to a homeless exile?
"Go ahead, lad," the spice merchant said, eyes glinting. He spoke not as a king or a tradesman, but as a big man speaking to a smaller one.
Shadow spun on his heel and stalked out of the circle, face and soul burning. In Rantorra he was a commoner among nobles, and in Allaban he was a runt. There never was justice, he thought bitterly. He was nothing. All he had was his skymanship, and he should have gone Piatorra while he had the chance. Free the eagles? He was the last one who should want that.
In his blind anger he almost tripped over a heap of old fence posts, broken farm tools, and rusted bicycles. Flailing arms to regain balance, he put up a flock of chickens, which rushed flapping and squawking in all directions. The flapping became a continuous roll of thunder and was joined by screams and huge shadows leaping over the grass as an eagle came slithering down the roof to sprawl onto the grass, wings wide, narrowly missing Vindax. Then two more filled the air, wings beating madly and loudly. The human screams were redoubled, and the meeting exploded into flight. Eagle Speaker reared tall and spread her wings, a living curtain shutting off the lagoon, her comb blurring in a silent shout. Feathers and dust filled the air. More giant birds went lurching noisily away, fighting for height...chickens shrilled madly among legs...
What the hell?
Up on the roof NailBiter had squared off with a young brown wild, both rearing as high as they could, wings thrashing, combs inflamed, beaks locked and breast straining against breast in a battle quite silent except for the drumming of wings and talons scraping on wood. Other birds were dropping from the sky, coming to restore order. Then IceFire dislodged the last of the other wilds, turned toward the duel, and took the brown from behind, leaping bodily on his back, and all three overbalanced and started to slide. The fight was forgotten in more thunder and clouds of dust...
It was a subdued but angry meeting which eventually reassembled. NailBiter and IceFire had the roof to themselves and were unrepentantly preening each other. The wild eagle, Shadow now learned, had remarked that The-one-who-came-through-the-dark had obviously been eating batmeat. NailBiter had taken action which might seem reasonable to a man but was not correct eagle behavior. Karaman looked more shaken than anyone.
"I must have taught him bad habits," Shadow said, regarding NailBiter affectionately. He found the episode amusing.Big mutt!
Karaman shook his head. "Or driven him crazy. First he spared you in Dead Man's Pass, now he's going around picking fights like a human being. It isn't allowed, Shadow!"
"What do you mean, 'isn't allowed'?"
"The High Ones have banished them," Karaman said. "NailBiter and IceFire. As soon as they've taken us home, they have to leave Allaban." He nodded at Shadow's astonishment. "Yes, they even had a trial already, after their fashion."
The president called the meeting to order. Shadow strutted over to him, turned his back, and addressed Vindax.
"King," he said loudly, "I can give you your justice--I can put you on your throne. But I would need the help of the republic, so you must waive claim to Allaban. I would need the help of the eagles, so you must swear to free all the birds in Rantorra. Are you willing to pay the price?"
The mask regarded him steadily, unreadably.
"Yes," Vindax said. "I agree to those terms."
Shadow swung around and looked up at the president. "I shall need an army. It won't matter if they're not very good--there won't be much fighting, but I must have men to seize the palace. Will you permit King Vindax to raise a force? With the help of the church, of course. He will need money, but you will gain security. You will never need to fear attack from Rantorra, ever."
The spice merchant folded his arms. "How are you planning to work this miracle?" he asked, but his manner was cautious; money had been mentioned, and he was wary now of this puny youth whose displeasure had so aroused the eagles.
Shadow grinned. He turned to Karaman, who had been translating for Eagle Speaker. "The birds can't keep a secret, can they? Anything we tell them here will be all over Allaban and then the Rand?"
The circle of eyes was skeptical and impatient, but Karaman was giving Shadow a stare of shrewd appraisal. "They can't keep a secret," he said. "And I wouldn't keep that one. Think before you speak."
"Come with me!" Shadow snapped. He almost dragged Karaman from his chair and led him off to the side, out of the shade and into the sunshine beside the pile of grindstones and cartwheels and old bicycles.