She pointed as a bird shot from the cover of the trees. It was black and hawk-shaped, flying crazily, as if drunk.
Shrieks, metallic and shrill, tore the air. Eight giant things – they looked like birds at first – chased the hawk out of the cover of the trees. Immense wings beat the air that reached the women and ponies, filling their noses with a stink so foul it made Daine retch. The ponies screamed in panic.
Daine tried to soothe them, though she wanted to scream too. These were monsters. No animal combined a human head and chest with a bird’s legs and wings. Sunlight bounded off talons and feathers that shone like steel. She counted five males, three females: one female wore a crown of black glass.
Onua gave a two-fingered whistle that could be heard the length of the valley. When the monsters turned to find the source of the noise, their quarry dropped into the cover of the reeds and vanished. The monsters swept the area, over and over, trying to find the black hawk, without success.
‘Look at them,’ Onua whispered. ‘They use a grid pattern to search by – they’re working that part of the marsh in squares. They’re intelligent.’
‘And they can’t land easy on level ground,’ Daine pointed out. ‘Those claws aren’t meant to flatten out. They have to fly – they can’t walk.’
When the creatures gave up, they turned on the women.
Daine watched them come, her bow – like Onua’s – ready to fire. The attackers were smeared with filth. When they spoke or smiled, she saw razor-sharp teeth caked with what she knew was old blood. Halting over the road, they fanned their wings to stay aloft. Their smell was suffocating.
‘We almost had the motherless spy,’ one of them snarled.
‘But you had to interfere,’ another said. ‘Never interfere with us.’ It lifted its wings above its head and stooped. The others followed.
‘Daine, fire!’ Onua shot: her arrow struck the first, hitting a wing with a sound of metal on metal, and bounced off. Daine struck a man-thing square in the throat. He dropped with a cry that brought sweat to her face.
Onua and Daine fired steadily, aiming for the flesh of heads and chests. A female almost grabbed Daine by the hair before Onua killed her. Cloud got one by a leg, and Tahoi seized its other foot. Together pony and dog tore the monster apart. Birds – herons, bitterns, plovers, larks – rose from hiding places to fight the creatures, blinding some, pecking others, clogging the air so the enemy couldn’t see. Many paid for their help with their lives.
The glass-crowned one was finally the only monster alive. She hovered just out of Onua’s range, one of the K’mir’s arrows lodged in her shoulder.
‘Pink pigs!’ she snarled. ‘How dare you defy me, maggots! You filth!’
‘Look who’s talking,’ Daine shouted, sliding an arrow onto her string. She lowered her bow, wanting the creature to think she was done. ‘Your ma was a leech with bad teeth,’ she taunted. Onua laughed in spite of herself. ‘Your da was a peahen. I know chickens with more brains than you!’
The queen screamed and dropped, claws extended. Daine brought the bow up, loosing as she reached the best point in her swing. Her arrow buried itself in the queen’s eye as Onua cheered.
Daine had another arrow on the string and in the air, but the queen pulled away. Blood dripped from her ruined eye. If she felt pain, she ignored it, hovering well out of bow-shot, her good eye furious.
‘Ohhh, I’ll remember you, girlie.’ The hate in her voice forced Daine back a step. ‘Your name is on my heart.’ She looked at Onua. ‘I’ll return for you two ground crawlers. You belong to Zhaneh Bitterclaws now.’ She launched herself into higher air and was gone.
‘I can’t believe it.’ Onua sounded as if she were talking to herself. ‘The rumours said there were monsters abroad, but these? Where did they come from?’ She went to examine the body of one of the creatures, the stink so bad she had to cover her nose to get close to it.
Limping, Daine followed. She was unhurt, but she felt battered and cut and torn in a thousand places.
A chickadee lay in the road. She picked it up, to find a wing was attached by only a bit of skin. Tears rolled down her cheeks to fall on the dying bird. All around her, birds lay in the rushes, bleeding, dead.
‘I’m sorry, little ones,’ she whispered. ‘You should’ve stayed hid.’ Her temples pounded. Stripes of black-and-yellow fire crossed her vision. Her ears filled with a roaring sound, and she fainted.
Onua saw her fall. The bird that had been in Daine’s hand jumped into the air and zipped past, nearly missing the K’mir’s nose. In the marsh, she heard a rush of song. Birds took off, clumsily at first, as if they were stiff. An owl that lay in the road moved, then flew away as she stared. She was positive that the bird’s head had been cut half off.
Shaking her head, she went to the fallen girl. As far as she could tell, Daine was unhurt. With a grunt the K’mir levered her onto a shoulder, surprised by how light she was. ‘You need to eat more,’ she told her burden as she carried her to the ponies. Cloud trotted over to nuzzle Daine, worry in every line of the pony’s body.
‘I don’t suppose you know a place where we can get off the road,’ Onua asked, half jesting, never thinking these animals would understand her as they did the girl. Cloud trotted into a nearby stand of reeds. Just beyond her, Onua saw a clearing, floored in solid ground.
This was food for thought. Onua followed Cloud. The remainder of the ponies followed her, Tahoi bringing up the rear.
Coarse hairs tickled Daine’s face. Opening her eyes, she saw nothing but Cloud’s nose.
‘Let me up.’ Her voice emerged as a croak. ‘I’m fine.’ She wasn’t really – her whole body ached – but the pain that had knocked her out was over.
‘Swallow this.’ Onua brought over a cup of water. Drinking it, Daine tasted herbs. A tingling filled her veins and left her feeling much improved. The only sign of the pain that had knocked her down was mild stiffness.
‘I didn’t faint ’cause I’m a baby or anything—’ she began, afraid the K’mir would be disgusted by her weakness. She struggled to sit up, and finished the water.
‘Don’t be silly.’ Onua gave her a silvery feather. ‘Don’t touch the edges,’ she warned. ‘They’re razor sharp.’
It was metal, etched and shaped like a feather. If it was steel, as it seemed to be, it was paper thin, impossible to bend. Moreover, it felt wrong, as the sight of the creatures had felt wrong. If she knew nothing else, she knew nature. Such creations did not belong in the world: seeing them made her feel wobbly and sick. ‘What were those things? Do you know?’
‘I’ve heard tales, but – they aren’t supposed to exist, not here. They’re called Stormwings.’ She heard awe and fear in Onua’s voice.
‘What are Stormwings?’
‘The Eaters.’ Onua wrapped the feather and put it away. ‘But they’re legends. No one’s seen them for three, four centuries. They lived on battlefields, desecrating bodies – eating them, fouling them, scattering the pieces.’ She crouched beside Daine again. ‘Listen – I need to leave you and the ponies for a while – I hope not too long. I can’t tell you why.’
‘Then I’ll follow.’ Daine was comfortable enough with her now to be blunt. ‘This is a marsh, remember? Quicksand, mud bogs, snakes – you told me you don’t know anything about marshes.’
‘I can’t help that. What I must do is important. You stay put—’
A picture of the Stormwings as they’d first seen them flashed into Daine’s mind. ‘It’s that hawk, isn’t it?’ she asked, and Onua looked away. ‘That black one. You tried to call him, but he couldn’t make it, so