Lisa Smedman - Realms of Shadow

At the same time, Atop the Sky spun his carved wooden staff in a circular blur at his side, away from his wing and smashed the wood into the side of a soldier with crooked teeth-or he tried to, at least. The soldier with crooked teeth took one quick step back and placed the wide, heavy blade of his black sword into the blur of the spinning staff. The staff was cut cleanly in two. Atop the Sky followed Astride the Wind down and under the boat with a squawk of frustration.

The kenku-Astride the Wind, his three remaining images, and Atop the Sky-pulled their wings out to their sides and twisted them to slip under the boat and begin a gentle arc back up the other side. They were as tall and nearly as heavy as the humans they fought, but they were birds. Astride the Wind opened his beak to taste the dry air over the burning wastelands of Anauroch and sensed a storm brewing in the distance. The clouds were over the mountains and would stay there.

They'll need to be drawn there, Astride the Wind thought to his companion.

To the mountains, Atop the Sky responded directly into Astride the Wind's mind. To the storm, yes?

Draw them there, Astride the Wind told him.

The soldier with the crooked teeth looked over the edge of the boat just in time to meet the last two of the party of seven kenku. Borne on the Drafts and Suspended in Air were coming up from below almost as fast as Astride the Wind and Atop the Sky came down from on high. Suspended in Air's scimitar was out in front of him, and though Astride the Wind was sure his friend was going for the soldier's face, the tip of the scimitar drove hard into the man's chest. The human with the crooked teeth fell back hard into the boat.

As Astride the Wind came up along the opposite side of the flying boat, he saw the man with the crooked teeth sprawled on his back in the bottom of the strange vessel. He was breathing hard but was already starting to stand. Suspended in Air's blade had failed to penetrate the ornate gold armor.

Astride the Wind turned his attention to the human who had eliminated one of his images. Again, this human looked like a copy of the others, but he held his black sword in grotesquely hairy hands, hands like the hands of an ape-which is what these creatures were, after all.

Astride the Wind, his three magical images dancing around and through him, swooped in at the boat. The man with the hairy hands tried to follow them all. His jaw was set, and his eyes were narrow. He was obviously trying to figure out which was the real Astride the Wind but was having no luck. He'd seen one of the images disappear into thin air and didn't seem to want to be fooled again.

Astride the Wind's scimitar rang against the human's black sword, and the blow sent a vibration up the kenku's powerful arm, rattling the humanoid bird's skull and momentarily blurring his sharp vision. The human's grunt made Astride the Wind think he'd felt the same thing.

One of the images passed in front of Astride the Wind, and another passed through him. Astride the Wind turned one wing down to move out of the range of the hairy-handed human's blade. The kenku made the motions of a duel to keep the images active. The human stepped back, still trying to figure out which kenku was real and which illusion.

Astride the Wind took a second to scan the other soldiers and saw one of them, a man wearing a shiny copper ring, pull something small from a belt pouch. Atop the Sky and Suspended in Air were swooping in to engage the other soldiers and were coming in for another pass. For some reason Astride the Wind realized just then that none of the humans were speaking. Astride the Wind's experience with humans was limited, but he remembered them doing a lot of shouting and talking. Atop the Sky, his staff in both hands, shrieked a war cry and pulled around to face the boat. The man with the copper ring threw whatever it was he'd taken out of his belt pouch at Atop the Sky and Suspended in Air. Astride the Wind cracked a peel of kenku laughter realizing it was a small stone. The human was throwing rocks at them.

Atop the Sky ducked the thrown rock easily and Astride the Wind thought to him, Careful, Atop the Sky, they're throwing rocks at The flash was white at first, followed quickly by a roiling mass of orange brilliance. The light burned Astride the Wind's vision and made him close his eyes. He heard Atop the Sky and Suspended in Air scream in unison and felt a wave of thought from them that was the beginning of their dying wishes. It was their good-byes to the Soaring Heights Clan.

The orange fire broke apart in the air to reveal the blackened forms of Atop the Sky and Suspended in Air, feathers gone from their wings. They fell impotently, dead. Atop the Sky's steel scimitar whirled, spinning down next to the bodies. Astride the Wind had come with six seasoned warriors of the Soaring Heights Clan, the clan that called him chief, to confront six of the humans. One of the humans was dead, but now Astride the Wind had lost two of his own.

The man with the hairy hands growled something in his indecipherable human tongue and Astride the Wind saw that another of his conjured images was gone.

Some seventeen hundred years before, the kenku who would one day form the Soaring Heights Clan were an undisciplined, barbaric race who lived high in the Columns of the Sky and hunted in the Myconid Forest north of Shade Enclave. The kenku sometimes harassed the citizens of the town of Conch, which sat on the eastern slopes of the Columns of the Sky.

They could not speak. They had no written language, and their manners were more like the birds they resembled than the humans they stole from. They had mastered fire and were carving crude tools from shale and wood. Strangely, they were devoid of religion and superstition. They had no mythology or philosophy. They had no fear of gods or mortals.

Kaeralonn Jurneille was determined to put an end to that.

He was called "General," though the title was more ceremonial than a real military rank. The men he commanded were assassins, scouts-the sort of soldiers who went in either first or last, but never in the middle, and never in force. Not all of them were human. Kaeralonn drew his operatives from whatever race or construct was most suited for the mission at hand. He employed everything from enormous, powerful, and mindless golems to fickle and wily sprites.

The kenku were brought to his attention by a farmer who sold barley to Shade Enclave and kept an eye on the village of Conch for the Twelve Princes. Kaeralonn paid the farmer well for a dead kenku, then he erased the man's memory and began studying the bird-men in great detail.

Scouts, Kaeralonn thought. These creatures would make exceptional scouts.

Kaeralonn put the dead kenku on ice and started to think. He walked the streets of Shade, sailed through the cool skies on his private skiff, and haunted the libraries of House Tanthul.

The plan formed quickly enough. It was a simple plan and one he'd used before. Kaeralonn was three hundred years old and did very little quickly. It was months before he opened the self-freezing casket and began to thaw the dead kenku.

As the bird-man thawed, Kaeralonn removed the arrows and sealed the wounds. He set the creature's broken wing and helped some missing feathers to grow back. When the time was right, he brought in a priest of Shar, who muttered his prayers and waved his hands and brought the kenku back to life.

The creature burst up from the table and the sound of its wings unfurling echoed in Kaeralonn's laboratory. The priest grumbled and stepped back, but Kaeralonn smiled and stepped forward. It was a beautiful beast, and Kaeralonn knew it would serve him well.

The kenku twitched its head to take in the chamber, crowded with glass and apparatus. It glanced sideways at the priest, then fixed its eyes on Kaeralonn, who had just finished a hastily-cast spell.