Kate Elliott - Shadow Gate

No one disturbed them. Trouble roosted elsewhere, appearing at dawn. She thumped down hard, agitated, and Volias called from the clearing's edge to Nallo, who was folding up the canvas shelter.

'Nallo! Get to your eagle and hook in. Where's Pil?'

'Off to do his business, I think. Or pray. I don't know what the hells he does every morning.'

'Leave everything. Now!'

She dropped the half-folded canvas, abandoned the bedrolls and cooking equipment, but grabbed her gear pouch — fortunately with her gear neatly packed away — and the baton and short sword they had issued her, not that she had the faintest idea of how to use either one effectively. Of how to fight at all, if it came to that.

She ran across the clearing to Tumna, the eagle acting restive, talons digging into the earth, wings half open, neck feathers raised. Shouts broke from the far end of the clearing. Nallo whistled, and Tumna bent her huge head down and raked at the hood with her talons. Got stuck. Nallo released her, tugged off the hood, and hooked in just as three men carrying spears ran into the clearing.

An arrow sprouted — like sorcery! — in the chest of one of the

men. His companions faltered as he tipped to his knees with a hand clutched around the shaft.

Volias had his sword drawn, but it was Pil, at the edge of the forest, who had loosed. He drew again, released, and hit a second man in the shoulder.

'Move!' shouted Volias.

A third arrow buried its point in the earth, shaft quivering, as the men grabbed their comrade and scrambled back, calling to fellows hiding in the trees.

Pil sprinted across the clearing to Sweet, and cursed if the cunning old bird didn't catch her hood with a talon and yank it off so that as Pil hooked in she was already thrusting. Volias, in his harness, waited on the ground until Pil and Nallo were aloft.

A shower of arrows painted the air with ghostly stripes. Volias swore, and then he, too, was up, but Trouble had an arrow in her right leg that shook loose and fell away. Blood dribbled earthward. Volias was still cursing, a stream of words less heard as discrete syllables than experienced like a river's flow. A cadre of men gathered in the clearing. Sweet caught an updraft, and the others followed. Nallo's pulse thundered in her ears and, slowly, quieted.

They flew north over the plain. In village after village, folk labored to complete walls and earthworks instead of tending freshly planted fields and gardens. Now and again a cadre of men rode, or marched, along a path, but Volias took no notice. Trouble flew point, but she began to labor. The sun rose higher. The day grew hot and moist. To the southeast, clouds piled up, but there wasn't much wind to move them.

Just when Nallo feared they would have to land to save the eagle, she spotted the glittering line of a river. The roads and tracks swarmed with people walking, riding, carting, draft beasts pulling wagons, all creeping in the same direction. Soon she realized that the strange cast of ground ahead, the red clay and patchwork fields and textured ground, was not a bizarre land-form but actually streets and buildings grown into the land between two rivers. The city had a massive outer wall, reinforced by a berm and ditch, although a straggle of new settlement grew up outside its protection. The main road seemed almost as wide as the river, its tributary roads and paths lined with villages and hamlets like so many beads

on a string, each bracketed by green fields and flowering orchards. At the southern tip of the city, where the muddy yellow-brown waters of the larger river were joined by the blue of the smaller, a bold escarpment jutted out, its flat top almost the breadth of Olossi's inner city.

Trouble was dropping fast.

'The hells!' She had never landed in a prescribed space which, if overshot, would dump her into water. She shut her eyes as Tumna swooped. 'Thunderer, give me courage, let me die without pissing myself-Oof!'

Tumna chirped interrogatively, and a cheerful voice close beside her said, 'Heya! Unclip, make room, there's another coming in.'

She slid her feet off the training bar and found hard ground to stand on. Unhooking, she sagged, and was helped away by a young man in reeve leathers. Fawkners ran up to hood Tumna. Off to one side, Volias shouted his wrath into the skies, and Trouble listed wrong while fawkners clustered around her with various implements and bindings.

'Heya! Here she comes!' With a grin, the reeve caught Nallo's arm.

Sweet pulled up neat as you please and easily gripped one of the huge perches built into the wide parade ground. That left Pil dangling about his own height off the ground, but he unhooked and let go, catching himself in a deep crouch when he hit dirt, then straightening.

'Eihi!' The reeve had cropped hair, and muscular shoulders and arms revealed by his sleeveless leather vest. Watching Pil, he grinned. 'Interesting. What is that?'

'That's Pil,' she said irritably.

'That may be,' agreed the reeve, 'but what is he? He doesn't look like any man I've seen before, and I've seen plenty.'

'He's Qin.'

'One of those outlanders that fought the battle of Olossi? We heard rumors, mostly from Volias-' He flicked a glance toward Volias and his stricken eagle, then away as if to stare would be rude. '-but now I see the truth. What's he like?'

'He doesn't talk much.' Unlike you, she thought, but held her tongue. 'He saved us today from an ambush. He's an amazing archer.'

'We'll be needing his skills. I'm Peddonon, by the way. An old-fashioned name, I admit. Everyone calls me Peddo.' He grinned.

She laughed, because usually only women had names like that, and she liked him the better for being amused about it. 'Maybe you're a bit like me, eh? I'm called Nallo.'

'You'll fit right in. Let me find someone to get you to the barracks — Likard! Get over here and take her in hand.' He nodded at Nallo. 'I was just about to head out on patrol when we saw you three, and Trouble injured. Wsst!' His brows drew down. 'Volias can be a bit of a jerk, but we all love that bird, and so does he. Will you be all right? Don't let that fat-ass Likard try to give you the bunk by the door. Glad you're here, Nallo. Sure as hells we need you.'

He walked off, head cocked to size up Pil as the Qin carried weapons and gear over to Nallo. The soldier set everything down and glanced around. If he was as nervous as she felt, she could not tell by his bland expression.

A short, thin man with his long hair tied back in a tail hurried up. 'You have the look of novices, eh? I'm Likard. If you'll come with me, I'll show you bunks where you can dump your gear, and then Ofri'll want to meet you.' They followed him, feet crunching on the gritty dirt. 'You been in training long?'

'I haven't,' said Nallo. 'I came here to be trained.'

Likard looked at Pil, who shrugged, his gaze flickering down, and all at once Nallo realized he was not a stolid, laconic, arrogant out-lander but a youth not much older than she was who was simply very shy.

'I figure he's been training at Naya Hall two or three months, since it was established.'

'Naya Hall?' Likard squinched up his face.

'It's what they call it, because of the oil of naya. It's where they sent the overflow of novices out of Argent Hall.'

That Joss is now marshal over, eh? Who'd've thought that cursed drunken womanizer had it in him? I'm impressed, heh!' He led them up onto a porch and had them unlace their flying boots before they went inside. The barracks hall had an open room for work, unswept at this hour and littered with wood shavings and scraps of leather. Behind half-open screens lay a raised sitting room strewn with

pillows and low tables. Pairs of doors opened off either side of the work room. Likard slid one open, gesturing to a shuttered room beyond.