Masar recognized Joss with a start of amazement, quickly controlled. 'Can you take a passenger? What of that other eagle, the one with you?'
'He's freshly jessed and the eagle is still a fledgling. I can take two. Scar's strong enough.'
'Strong enough, but you can't risk two. Arrow shot — they're so close now-'
Beyond the gate, guardsmen fought a hopeless rearguard to buy time, but the clash ended with a shout cut off in the midst of a word. Hammering shuddered on the closed gates that walled off the training ground. There were three eagles left, in addition to Scar, and seventeen fawkners, hirelings, and adolescent debt slaves watching with not one begging for passage despite the army killing their comrades outside.
'Masar! I can take two.'
Masar's age already weighed on his shoulders; he seemed to wilt, his spirit burdened until it might break as he scanned those who remained.
'You two,' Masar said, 'and you three.' The five he indicated
were experienced fawkners, not the youngest by any means. Not the prettiest. That unfortunate distinction went to a young woman whose strained expression trembled, then firmed, as she realized — or perhaps she had already known — that she was to be left behind.
'Jenna,' the marshal added, 'take the rest to my cote and hide in the cellar. They'll burn everything, but you can wait it out as long as they don't find you. We'll send sweeps and pick up the survivors as we can.'
'Yes, Grandfather.' She turned to the others. 'Move!'
'Masar!' Joss cried as the girl led her companions away. 'You can't possibly be leaving-'
'We must save the experienced fawkners,' said Masar. 'You take Gerda and Eiko, they're the smallest.'
Two small-boned women trotted up. They had the wiry toughness of fawkners who have survived many years caring for the raptors. Their expressions were fixed and bitter. Eiko carried a spare harness and leashes.
He weighed their builds, Eiko's height. 'Eiko, you first and Gerda below,' he said, knowing full well that the outermost person took the greatest risk of being hit. They nodded. They'd faced death before. He had often thought fawkners were the most courageous people he knew.
In silence the last reeves hooked in themselves first and the five fawkners after. One by one they flew, Masar lifting with his eagle Shy only as the gates came down. Up and up, with arrows flying. Gerda grunted, rocking in the harness. Scar's trajectory staggered momentarily; the raptor dipped, then caught a draft and pushed sloppily upward.
Two eagles were hit, their wings a broad target, but they labored on. One passenger shrieked, caught in the leg, his blood raining down over the compound as the enemy swarmed in. Torches were thrown onto thatched roofs of the outbuildings, while the gates of the big storehouses were thrown open. Copper Hall's guardsmen and hirelings lay scattered throughout the alleys and at walls and gates, having given their lives to allow others to escape.
Joss tugged on his jesses to get Scar turned north.
'Reeve,' said Eiko, 'Gerda's hit.'
Unbelievably, he hadn't even noticed. No doubt he'd been too busy searching for sign of Masar's pretty granddaughter.
He reached past Eiko's torso and patted Gerda. His hand came away slick with blood. Impossibly, she had been hit in the throat, her life's blood pouring down her chest and legs. She hadn't made a sound, hadn't even kicked or thrashed, just crossed the Spirit Gate that quickly.
'She's dead,' said Eiko. 'I'll cut her loose.'
'Eiya! Are you sure?'
'She's my good friend and comrade. I'm not about to cut her loose to settle an old score or save myself. She'd tell you to do it, to spare the eagle.'
His breathing pinched, making it hard to force out words. 'Do it.'
She fished a knife from her vest and sliced the leashes. The body plummeted. He looked for Badinen because he could not bear to watch the impact. The lad trailed behind obediently. The hells knew what he was thinking now. If Eiko wept, she did so silently.
Lightened, Scar found a thermal and rose. Wind blustered against their ears. After a while Scar tipped out of the thermal and started the long sail to Clan Hall.
'If you don't mind my asking,' said Eiko, 'I don't know your name.'
'I'm Joss.'
'Joss?' The timbre of her voice changed.
'Yes, that Joss.'
She snorted, finding a moment of humor in a grim day. 'Aren't you the new commander at Clan Hall?'
" I am.'
'Copper Hall in Nessumara is under siege and couldn't have taken us anyway. They've not had the room for a full complement for generations.'
Each reeve hall housed by custom six hundred reeves, although at any given time many fewer were actually present in the halls: some eagles would be absent for their breeding season in Heaven's Reach; many would be out on patrol or, in more peaceful days, presiding over assizes. If what Marit said had been true, then in the days long ago reeves had spread themselves farther afield in outposts built to house family groups rather than the larger aggregations found in the halls.
'Copper Hall can't take you in,' he agreed, 'yet neither can Clan Hall. We can't even feed ourselves.'
'What are we going to do?'
The land unrolled below, under siege or overwhelmed. Scar shifted, adjusting to the current, and Joss hitched his own position to accommodate the eagle's flight.
We will kill the Guardians.
Even to think it was like breaking the boundaries and violating the gods' law.
'We've lost, haven't we?' she said.
'We haven't lost.' He wiped his eyes, but he only smeared the sticky remains of Gerda's blood on his face. 'We're developing a new plan of attack. We'll set up outposts. Change our patrol tactics. We'll leave a contingent on Clan Hall. As long as we hold Law Rock, we can say we guard the law, can't we?'
'But where are we going to go?' she demanded.
It was so cursed obvious, death falling everywhere to remind him of what had been lost.
Horn Hall.
Captain Arras walked through the marshal's cote of Copper Hall pulling scrolls from cubbyholes and unrolling them to squint at the undecipherable writing before he tossed them on the low writing desk for a clerk to read. They would burn what was useless. In the marshal's sleeping chamber, an unlocked chest stored jackets, kilts, and sandals in different sizes. On top sat a basket of fruit, including a half-eaten plum hidden beneath two green globe-fruit, as if a child had taken a bite of the plum when he wasn't supposed to and decided he didn't like the taste. The storage cupboard contained five rolled up sleeping mats, old harness, a pair of cloth dolls, a basket of combs and brushes, two sun umbrellas, and several rain cloaks folded and stacked. It had mice, too; he heard scrabbling and then, as a board creaked under his weight, silence. He'd always imagined reeves lived more grandly, dining on rich folk's china with lacquered spoons and silk hangings to decorate their halls. These folk seemed pretty cursed lacking.
Sergeant Giyara clattered into the audience chamber. 'Captain Arras?'
'Here I am.' He stepped back into the main room.
The six subcaptains tramped in with boots on. Arras sat on the pillow behind the writing desk and pushed aside a bowl of half eaten nai porridge, now cold and congealed.
'Your reports?'
Over the past months he had trained them to give efficient and effective reports: all the information he needed but not more, delivered in a straightforward order.
Casualties. Eight eagles were definite kills, six bodies recovered and two lost in the bay. Eight reeves also dead, thereby. How many wounded eagles and reeves none knew for sure, but they'd done damage. On the ground, they'd collected seventy-eight corpses and one hundred twelve prisoners, adults who had been working as slaves, hirelings, and assistants at the reeve hall as well as thirty-seven additional folk who claimed to be fishers and farmers, refugees come to Copper Hall to beg for food.