Patricia Briggs - Raven's Strike

“Wait,” said Hinnum. He stared at his feet for a moment, then knelt before Hennea. “I failed you once, lady. I’ll not do it again. Like the Guardian, I’ll go to hold off the Shadowed until you get there, or die in the attempt. I think it foolish. I don’t believe it will work. But I will go.”

“You’ve never failed me,” said Hennea, her voice tender. “Never once.”

Hinnum stood and then, like Jes, he changed form. A magpie, ebony-winged and black-eyed, replaced the boyish form, and then took flight.

“Wizards can’t change form,” said Tier. “Not even Ravens.”

“Hinnum can,” Hennea said. “Hinnum can do a lot of things other wizards never dreamed of.”

Rinnie watched in shock as Phoran fell off the wall. She’d been so glad to see him, though she’d known, really, that he couldn’t rescue her from the Shadowed.

Something cold grabbed her by the shoulder and jerked her to her feet. “Fly, Cormorant,” hissed the Memory in her ear. “Fly!”

And he threw her off the tower as the Shadowed screamed his rage after her.

The winds that had been comforting her ever since Ielian had dumped her on the floor of the guard tower caught at her hands and feet.

Trust us, they said, and then, like Phoran’s Memory they said, fly, Cormorant, fly!

And she did.

“Help Phoran,” she demanded of her winds and they let her speed down the tower, down the cliff, all but falling so that she didn’t lose sight of him. She landed, overbalanced, and then tripped and stumbled, trying to keep her feet. She landed on her knees not ten feet from Phoran’s body. She didn’t bother to stand up, just crawled to where he lay.

There’s no blood, she thought, surely there would be blood if the winds hadn’t obeyed her fast enough. If he was dead there should be blood. But if he wasn’t dead, he should be breathing, shouldn’t he?

“Phoran?” she said.

His eyes popped open in an almost comic expression of surprise. He still didn’t seem to be breathing, but he rolled to a seated position. His eyes watering, he sucked in air shallowly—and Rinnie sagged with relief. She recognized the signs, having fallen out of the rafters of the barn a time or two.

“You’ve just had the breath knocked out of you,” she said. “You’ll be all right.”

“The Shadowed is coming,” said the Memory from somewhere just behind her.

Phoran, still not breathing quite right, got to his feet. Rinnie grabbed his hand hard when she saw what lay just beyond him.

Ielian wasn’t going to be stabbing anyone again.

She turned away, but was caught by Phoran’s hand briefly. “Wait. He had an amulet—no, don’t look.”

He left her for a moment and returned, shaking his head. “No use,” he said taking her hand again and setting off at a jog.

“What were you looking for?” Rinnie asked him.

“An amulet that was supposed to release the Shadowed’s spell.”

“How did you break free?”

He smiled at her, though his eyes were tired. “No one commands an emperor,” he said. “It is unbelievable, inconceivable.”

Rinnie tried to put his answer with her question, but she couldn’t see how they connected.

“His spell was an illusion,” said Phoran helpfully. “When I didn’t believe it anymore, I could move.”

“He hurt some people before he took me,” Rinnie said. “I remember blood and Gura barking.”

Phoran’s hands tightened on hers. “Rufort’s dead. Kissel, I think, will be all right. I bandaged Gura, but he’d lost a lot of blood.”

“Look, there’s Lehr,” said Phoran.

Rinnie looked ahead and saw her brother running toward them. Phoran straightened a little more and sped up until they were running. Lehr caught up to them and turned to run with them.

“The Shadowed is coming after us,” Phoran told her brother. “We need to get out of here.”

Being able to breathe again made Phoran more aware of his surroundings, so he saw Toarsen and Kissel before they saw him. Toarsen had managed a more professional bandage than Phoran had taken time for, and Kissel was on his feet.

Kissel didn’t look like a man about to die, which was terrific. On the other hand, he didn’t look as though he was going to be running back to camp either.

“Gura,” Rinnie ran to the shaggy, black beast, but it was ominously still.

The scream of a hawk echoed through the empty streets. Phoran looked up in the sky toward the tower, but couldn’t see the bird anywhere.

“On top of that building across the street,” said Lehr, sounding grim. “It’s him, isn’t it.”

“Yes. We’re going to go back anyway. Toarsen, watch Kissel,” said Phoran, not taking his eyes off the watching bird. “Is Gura still alive?”

“Yes,” said Lehr reluctantly because he knew, as Phoran did, that the right thing to do was slit the dog’s throat.

“Can you carry him?” asked Phoran.

Willon was playing with them. They were none of them a match for the Shadowed. Only Rinnie and Lehr had any magic at all. Lehr’s bow was back at camp—and a hunting knife, which was the only thing their Falcon was armed with, was no match for Willon.

“Yes, I can carry him,” said Lehr softly.

If we are going to die, thought Phoran, we’ll do it together. “The dog was hurt trying to defend Rinnie,” Phoran said aloud. “We’ll get him out if we can.”

“That’s the Shadowed, isn’t it?” asked Toarsen. “Why is he just watching us?”

“Maybe he’s waiting for us to kill the dog,” said Phoran.

Lehr grunted as he picked up the dog. It must have weighed 140 or 150 pounds, thought Phoran. He couldn’t carry the dog all the way back to camp. No more was Kissel in any shape to walk far.

Phoran glanced at the hawk watching them. Probably carrying the dog was going to be the least of their problems.

“Phoran. Where are you going?” asked the hawk. “Run, Phoran, run. It will do you no—” Something that Phoran couldn’t see hit the bird and knocked it from its perch.

A magpie flew from somewhere behind Phoran and landed on the ground before becoming Hinnum.

“Run, boys,” he said without taking his eyes off the great bird that floundered on the ground in front of them. “I can’t hold him for long.”

“Go,” said Phoran, voice cracking with relief.

“This way,” said Lehr, and led off with Gura in his arms.

The journey was nightmarish. They walked because that was the best Kissel and an overburdened Lehr could do. Phoran took the rearguard position, walking backward so he could watch behind them.

The skies, so bright and blue that morning, had turned dark and threatening. Since Rinnie was muttering softly to herself and had a tendency to stumble over nothing, Phoran was sure she had something to do with the growing storm. He remembered Lehr’s tale of the lightning that had struck the troll threatening them, and decided that Ielian had been proved wrong: Cormorants had more to offer than good weather for a farmer. Give Rinnie a little time to work, and she was a formidable opponent.

There were sounds and flashes of light from the vicinity of where they’d left Hinnum facing the Shadowed. A few of the noises were accompanied by vibrations that shook the ground beneath their feet.

When they reached the base of the ramp, Phoran said, “Lehr, give me the dog, then take my sword. Keep an eye on Kissel. You might have to help brace him from the other side.”

He took the dog and began the long climb. What had seemed an engineering marvel to Phoran the first day they’d come into the dead city was now torturous.

Kissel tried his best, but he’d lost a lot of blood, and their progress was abysmally slow. Lehr slid his shoulder under the one Toarsen wasn’t supporting before they were more than a dozen yards from the bottom.