Kate Elliott - Spirit Gate

In the Year of the Black Eagle

In the Hundred

On a hot summer's day like today Flirt liked to fly straight up along the shoreline of the river, huge wings huffing against the wind. The draft off the running water cooled eagle and reeve, and gave the raptor a chance to get close to any unsuspecting deer come out to drink. This time of day, early afternoon, they didn't see a single creature along the shore except once a man chopping wood who had flung up a hand at the sound, poised, listening. When he saw them he relaxed and went back to his work as Flirt's vast shadow shuddered along the rocks. His brindled hound barked, then hushed, ears flat, cowering, as Flirt answered with a piercing cry of her own. She didn't like challenges.

Marit grinned. The man kept chopping and was soon left behind.

Woodland spread up on both sides of the Liya Pass, hills covered so thickly with beech that Marit couldn't see the ground. Here and there a stand of silver birch glimmered on rockier earth, leaves flashing in the wind. The air was smooth today, a steady wind out of the northeast that blew at crosscurrents to their line of flight, but Marit didn't like the smell. She shifted in the harness and wiped sweat off her brow. There'd been something nasty in the air ever since last winter; she knew it and the other reeves knew it. Anyone knew it, who ever tilted her head back to take a look around; who ever stopped to listen. Probably the woodchopper knew it, which is why he'd been scared for that moment, expecting the worst.

Shadows.

"Lust and greed and fear," old Marshal Alard of Copper Hall had said at winter feast. "Mark my words. Blood has been spilled in the wrong places, but we don't know where, not yet. Keep your eyes open. Don't turn your backs."

Not that reeves ever turned their backs, or kept their eyes closed. The Hundred was a broad land made prosperous by towns and villages and markets, by cultivated fields, wide pasturelands, rich forests, and treasure buried in the earth. Yet there were as many hidey-holes-and forgotten caves and old ruins and secret glades and ravines where dangerous creatures might lurk-as there were laughing children.

Like all reeves, she'd ridden a circuit of the land her first year out of Copper Hall. She knew how wide the land was. She knew how the ocean bounded the Hundred to the north and east and how the Spires and Heaven's Ridge with its Barrens protected the good folk of her land from their enemies to the south and west.

"Our worst enemy has always been the one within, Flirt," she said to her eagle, but the rushing wind against her face caught her words and flung them into nothing. Not that Flirt could understand her words, only shading and emotion. Smart as pigs, the great eagles were, but no smarter than that no matter what the old legends said.

That was the first thing you learned when you were marked out for a reeve: limits. A reeve could do so much and no more, just like her eagle. In the old days, so the story went, the reeves had had more power and been treated with more respect, but not any longer. Shadows had been creeping over the Hundred for a long time but it was only now they seemed to be gathering strength.

She shook away these dusty and useless thoughts. Today had been good so far: Just after dawn in the hamlet of Disa Falls she'd successfully mediated a dispute over the stones marking the boundary between two fields. She'd allowed the local arkhon to offer a haunch of sheep as a snack for Flirt, enough to keep her going until a real hunt. So it went, a typical start to a reeve's day.

Flirt banked and shifted position as the air currents altered because of a notch in the higher hills up to the east. Below, the woodland frayed into the patchwork of saplings and underbrush stretching between broad swaths of mature beech that betrayed human hands at work. Soon enough she saw a pretty green valley nestled between the hills. It was mostly trees and meadows, but there was a village with a small boat dock built out into the river and a few houses on the far bank beside new fields cut into the forest. The summit road dipped down from the east to run by the village, which had probably grown up as a wayfaring stop for travelers and merchants.

As she flew over, surveying the lay of the land, she was surprised to see a man actually in the act of running a red eagle banner up the message pole set in the village square. She circled Flirt around and with a swell of wings and a thump they landed on the stony beach. She hitched her legs out of the harness and leaped down, absorbing the landing by bending her knees. A dozen villagers and more children had gathered at a prudent distance outside the low stockade that kept woodland predators and pesky deer out of their gardens and homes. She slipped her staff out of the harness and sauntered over. The staff in her hand, the short sword rattling along her right thigh, and the quiver slung over her back weren't nearly as daunting as Flirt. The eagle's amber stare, her massive claws, and her sheer, shocking size-bigger than a surly cart horse and twice as mean-were enough to concern anyone. The eagle fluffed up her feathers, whuffed, and settled down to wait.

"How can I help you folks?" Marit asked.

They weren't scared of her at any rate. They stared right at her boldly enough, maybe surprised to see a woman.

"Go get the reeve some ale, and bread and cheese," said the man who still stood with the rope in one hand. The banner snapped halfway up the pole.

In answer, a girl about ten years of age trotted, backward, toward an inn whose low barracks-like building took up one entire side of the village square. The girl just could not rip her gaze away from the eagle. Naturally, after a few steps, she stumbled and fell flat on her rump.

An older girl yelled, "Turn round, you ninny! That beast ain't going nowhere yet."

Others laughed as the girl got up and dusted off her bright red tunic and pantaloons, then bolted through the open door of the inn. The sign creaking over the porch bore fresh paint and the cheerful visages of a quintet of happy, drinking fellows: three men and two women. One of the painted men had an outlander's pale hair caught back in a trident braid, but none of the folk who'd come up to greet her had the look of foreigners. These were good, handsome Hundred folk, dark skin, black hair, brown eyes.

"I'm called Reeve Marit. What's the trouble?" She sorted through the map she carried in her mind. "This is Merrivale."

"Indeed it is, Reeve Marit." The man had a bitter twist to his mouth. Everyone else was looking at him with frowns and whispers. "I'm called Faron. I own the Merrymakers, there." He gestured toward the inn. "It's a lad what works for me has caused the trouble." He coughed. Several folk scuffed their feet on the dirt, looking away. She noted the way their eyes drifted and their fingers twitched. "Stole two bolts of silk I'd had brought in. It come all the way from the Sirniakan Empire."

Marit whistled.

"Indeed. Bought it for my new bride and the wedding. I'm getting married again-first wife died three year back," he added hastily. "I miss her, but life goes on."

"You mourned her longer than was rightful," said an elderly woman suddenly. She had a wen on her chin and a killing gaze. "That's what caused the trouble."

The innkeeper flushed. He fussed with the white ribbon tying off the end of his long braid. Everyone turned to look at Marit.

"How old is the thief?"

Faron blew air out between set lips as he considered. "Born in the Year of the Wolf, he was. Suspicious and hasty. Very selfish, if you ask me."

"You would say so, given the circumstances," muttered the sarcastic old lady, rolling her eyes in a way most often associated with rash and reckless youth.