A Place of Winds

It was still dark when Tathar set out from the shore in the slender, hidebound boat. Suara, dark against the dark, helped him push the light craft into the incoming waves as the tide receded from land, and then they both climbed in as the sweep of the current pulled them out to the sea. Each of them had a slim paddle, and he bent his back to rowing with more strength than skill. He was not accustomed to crawling across the surface of land or sea, but rather soaring above them.

The dark was cold, and the wind blew chill spray in their faces as they fought the waves and headed out into deeper water. He took care to row evenly, not threshing the surface. If their strokes were uneven they would seem like a wounded animal and attract hunters from below. The sky overhead was half-covered by tattered clouds, but through them shone the jeweled scatter of the stars and the glow of the broken moon like a silver chain rising from beyond the horizon.

Ahead of them the offshore island loomed like a black mountain. Tathar admired it as they fought closer to the base of the cliffs, seeing the sheer dark sides above the white glimmer of the surf. It was splendidly placed, unassailable from the land, and if it held caves as he hoped it did, then it might be home to many eagles like his own. This was the season for hatched eggs and hungry young, and the birds would leave the nest early to seek food. That was why he and Suara were seeking to cross the water before the sun rose. He wanted to be ashore before the hunters took wing.

It was hard, cold going, but they reached the rocky base of the island just as the horizon turned to silver. The rocks were jagged and rose from the sea like columns from some ancient ruin, and it was not easy to make their way among them. They warded off the rocks with oars as best they could, and then a wave heaved them against the cliff and the small boat splintered open.

Suara cried out, and he flung a rope around the nearest stone as water rushed in. He held them steady as she climbed over him and onto the slippery stone. He seized the coils of rope he had brought with him and shouldered them, then dragged himself from the sea as it sucked the boat away and crushed it. He gritted his teeth and climbed, and they both fought their way above the waterline. The low tide had left the rocks exposed, and they crawled with small sea life and were slimed with sea-weeds.

Suara climbed ahead of him, quick and light and sure, and he envied her as he labored after her. The path was not difficult, only unpleasant, and soon enough they drew themselves onto a small ledge that was dry enough that it lay above the tide line. Tathar sat down gratefully, wet and cold and already weary. He was not as young as he had been.

“Do you think they will see us?” Suara said, looking up at the cliffs above them. The sky was turning lighter, and the formerly hazy pallor of the horizon was changing to red. Tathar looked up as well, trying to see the mouths of caves as the day began to break.

“They can see anything they try to see,” he said. “Their sight is so sharp they can see you before they are more than a speck in the distant sky. If they look down, they will see us, but I do not think they will look down.”

A scream split the morning air, and he crawled back and pressed himself against the stone, Suara close beside him, and he felt her rapid breathing and the tremble in her muscles. He looked up again, his heart speeding, and then he saw the shadow. From here he could not see the cave mouth, but he saw the spread of great wings, and then an eagle launched itself into the sky.

It seemed to drop almost straight down, and then the wings opened wide and caught the drafts rising from the sea, and the immense beast swooped up away from the waters and rose shrieking into the sky. Another came, not so large as the other, and then a third one arced upward, wingbeats sounding like marching armies. Their war-cries echoed out over the sea, and Tathar put a hand on Suara and held very still.

They watched as the hunters spiraled up higher and higher, riding the warming wings of the dawn, and then they all turned and flew southward, toward the wide grasslands that lay in that direction, and their calls diminished with distance until they faded away.

“Is that all of them?” Suara said. “Only three?”

“There will be one left behind to tend the nests and watch for predators,” he said. “Usually a younger male. He will be a good place to begin.”

“You mean to tame them all?” she said, unbelieving.

“In time,” he said. “In a colony like this there will be one chief female who rules them all. But if I were to rope her, the others would tear me apart. No, we will possibly tame the male left behind today, but it will not be easy. I want to count the eggs and see if all the young have hatched. By spring I can tame the whole eyrie, and then I can train your people to ride.” He smiled and touched her shoulder. “But I will begin with you.”

“I do not know if I can do it,” she said, her voice very small. “I am afraid.”

“I was afraid as well, when I first saddled Zakai,” he said. “You would be a fool if you were not afraid.” He looked up and thought he saw a shadow that could be a cave mouth. The day was growing brighter. “Come, it is light enough to climb.” He gathered up the coiled ropes. “We have work to do.”

o0o

It was no easy climb, and the higher they went, the fiercer the awakening winds became, pushing them hard against the cliff face, or swinging them side to side until they were dizzy. Suara was the better climber, and she went ahead, fastened the ropes, and then Tathar followed after. It had been too many years since he had been forced to make such an ascent, and they lay heavy on him. The sun and wind and the spray of the sea below reminded him of better times, and he felt older even than he was.

Here and there they saw pieces of rusted metal jutting from the cliff face, or the impression of something ancient long worn away left in the stone. This had not always been a lonely, wild place. There were remnants here of the elder ages, and he wondered at that. Often he had thought that the eagles had to have been bred in some earlier time, made to serve as steeds for humankind. They were too much larger than other birds, and too readily tamed, for them to have risen on their own.

At last the lower cavern mouth yawned before them, and Tathar smelled the familiar scent of an eyrie. The feathers dropped down, the faded smells of old bones, the musk of eggshells – it all made for a definite and distinct smell that was as much a part of him as breathing. It reminded him of home, and that was a bitter taste.

They climbed inside, and he distantly heard the low cries of young, and then the deeper growl of an adult, and he put his hand on Suara’s shoulder and fixed her in place. “Stay behind me, and go quietly. The young may be large enough to be dangerous, and so they must be watched for. I will go ahead and seek the nest guardian, and deal with him.”

She nodded and hung back as he crept down the passageway. He saw pieces of metal and old, corroded cables jutting from the walls, and he smelled the hard tang of salt in the air, beyond the taste of the sea. He reached out and touched the wall, crumbled away some of the stone, and then tasted his fingers. Salt. This was a salt cavern of some kind, formed by the sea and then thrust upward. Gouges and claw marks on the stone showed that the eagles dug and ate some of the stone and soil for the salts. It meant they would have made this place larger, over time.

He watched his feet, for there were feathers on the cavern floor, and many bones. It would be easy to step wrong and give himself away. He kept a coil of rope in his hand and thought on how he would approach the adult. Males were smaller, and so he would need less strength yet more finesse. They also tended to be less aggressive, which was why they were more often trained for war. Females tended to be uncontrollable once they scented blood.

There was light ahead of him, and he moved even more carefully. There was a fresh smell of rotted meat, and he heard the low, grumbling sounds of feeding young. He crept to the edge and looked out into the central cavern, and he took a breath, for it was a sight.

The cave was huge, and all the tunnels seemed to converge here. There was a fissure high above, and light came down from it and illuminated the whole in a warm, red glow. The walls of the cavern were festooned with jagged remnants of another age, and heavy metal beams laced back and forth across the chamber, trailing down vines and pieces of cable. This had been the heart of something, long ago, now a heart tunneled out by feral gods of the sky.

The nest was against the far wall, tucked into a hollow, and he saw four young huddled there, as big as three men, each of them. White-feathered and ugly, with their heads dyed with the red of the animal carcass they feasted on even now, grunting in satisfaction.

Tathar held very still, watching, knowing there must be an adult here somewhere, but unable to see it. The interior of the cave had many places to hide, so he took the time to be sure. Then he heard the sound of a deep, gravely trill and it was close to him. He barely breathed, waiting to see it, but he did not. He wondered if it was above him, and he crept out, little by little, until he could look up at the wall above the tunnel, but there was nothing. He let out a breath, puzzled and wary, and then he saw the hole.

Part of the floor had fallen in, making a hole far enough across that he could have almost flown Zakai down into it. A rise in the floor and his own poor angle had hidden it from his sight, but now he saw it plain, and saw that the young were nested on the far side of it. He heard the breathing, and then another croaking growl, and he knew the adult was down in there.

Slowly, with great care, he crept forward, weaving in and around pieces of debris and stepping with deliberation so as to make no sound on the littered floor. He was wary of the edge of the hole, not knowing how ready it might be to crumble beneath him and pitch him into an uncertain depth with an angry guardian. At the edge, he had to lie flat and creep on his belly through the feather down and stained bones, until he could see down into the hole.

There in the dark was an immense eagle, the largest female he had ever seen. She crouched like a devil out of legend in the pit, and he saw her wings were tangled with ancient cables and trapped there, unable to move. She had not been there long, but she could see she was beginning to thin from lack of food and water. The skin at the edge of her beak was dark and bruised-looking, a sure sign of thirst. She had fouled the pit, and the smell was harsh.

In his mind, he could see what must have happened. She was the largest, the heaviest, and her own weight had caused the floor to give way after untold ages. She had fallen in among the rubble and the ruins, and once entangled she had not the room to escape. The others might hunt for her, but with young to feed there would not be enough, and regardless, if she could not escape, she would die soon.

Tathar took a deep breath, and another. Here was a great opportunity, but it would be even more dangerous than what he had planned. She was clearly the dominant adult in this nest, and if she were tamed, then the entire wing could be brought under control. But he had never done it like this. Any large female would be aggressive and combative, and this one, while weakened, would be on the edge of madness from being trapped. He had to free her, and he had to do it without letting her rend him to pieces.

He moved quick now, slung his rope off his shoulders and made a loop fast about a jutting piece of metal well back from the edge – one he could be certain was well-rooted and would not come loose under his weight. Then he fixed the rope around his body so he could play it out as he descended. He took a last breath, gathered himself, and then swung over the edge and dropped down.

He lowered himself, casting loops and then sliding down, slow and deliberate. He had hoped that by not simply dropping the rope, he would not alert the bird to his presence, but that proved a vain hope. He was not even halfway down before the great bird began to growl and hiss, and he looked behind him to see her golden eyes blazing at him. In the shadows her black feathers merged with the dark to make her seem even bigger than she was.

Tathar was not certain whether she could reach him on his way down, and he had his answer when he dropped low enough and she snapped at him. Her black beak, as long as his body, scythed closed only inches away from his leg, and he felt the wind from it. The eagle screamed deafeningly in the enclosed space and struck again, again missing by the narrowest distance. He dropped more quickly and fetched on the floor, rolling back as she thrashed and shrieked. She ripped metal beams from the floor and bit them in half, struggled to get closer to him where he lay.

As he suspected, she tired quickly. This beast was losing her strength, and that was the only reason he might have a chance to save her. He edged around the chamber, stepping over broken rubble and sharp pieces of metal, moving to her right flank. She hissed, but otherwise only watched him with eyes made radiant with hatred. He could see, now, that her wing was tangled with a coil of rusted cable, and she had torn some of her feathers off trying to get loose from it.

He had a few tools on his belt, but he didn’t know if he could cut through that cable. It was not too heavy, and the corrosion would help, but he would have to hope the beast was willing to stay still while he sawed at it. She didn’t like having him behind her, and he saw her shift, her great talons digging into the stone beneath her. He saw the gouges she had already made in her attempts to escape.

Carefully, he approached her right wing, seeing there were three loops of cable over it, and one was pulled very tight. He knew that was the critical one, but if he cut it first, then she would fight to get free and might pull the others tighter in her struggles. Eagles were intelligent, but she was hungry, thirsty, and desperate.

He dug in his toolkit, which was made for repairing harness, not cutting through metal, but he would have to do what he could. He selected the biggest saw he had, made for wood and horn. He reached out and took hold of the cable and felt his way up, squeezing it, feeling for weaknesses. The cable was made from many smaller wires, and rust had eaten deeply in among them. He found places where the cable was puffed up by all the corrosion and the wires warped from age, and he thought they would be the easiest to sever.

His hand closed on a weak patch just behind the wing, and he judged he was as close as he could get. She could reach him from here, so he had to watch her. He set the saw against the cable and dug it in, dragged the teeth across and saw a multitude of the wires snap apart. The bird hissed and twisted her head, staring at him under her own wing, but she did not lunge for him. Either she was too entangled, or she lacked the strength.

Tathar worked quickly, cutting, flinching back from the clouds of rust as he worked. Halfway through, then he gave one more hard cut and the cable dropped loose. He stepped back, waiting for the bird to struggle and pull, but she only watched him, stare murderous but with perhaps a flicker of intelligence behind it.

Slowly, not meeting her gaze directly, he moved closer, under her wing, and found another weak point. He heard her growling back in her throat as he began to saw, rust sifting down, wires snapping. She shifted her weight and he froze, waiting for the strike, but she didn’t attack him, only watched. He worked faster, cutting and cutting, until the cable parted, and the last loop fell open, loosened, and she shook her wing, almost knocking him down as she pulled free.

She made a great, tearing snarl, and then she was finally able to fold her wing properly. The feathers were in disarray, and he reached up without thinking and smoothed them, arranging them into the layers and patterns he knew so well. He did not see any blood, and he thought she had perhaps not broken the skin. She hissed and turned in place, shrugging off lesser entanglements, and there was a moment when her beak was over his head and he waited for her to cut him in half, but she did not.

When she turned her back and began to dig her claws into the wall, he knew she was going to climb out, and he steeled himself and climbed up onto her back. She hunched and screeched, turned to fix him with a deadly stare, but she allowed it. Once he was between her wings she turned back and dug her claws in, raking the stone as she pulled herself out of the pit. She beat her wings for additional lift, sending up clouds of dust and debris from the wind of them.

Tathar held onto her feathers as she climbed up from the hole, and then she was free. She screamed in triumph and lumbered for the cavern mouth, and he realized she would launch herself into the sky and fly for water and food at once, and he had to decide what to do. If he unseated himself he might never catch her again, and so he dug in and held on.

He saw Suara crouched to one side, wide-eyed as she watched him, and he lifted a hand to reassure her, but then he had to hold on as his mount gained speed. She took three long strides and then she leaped out into the open air, and her wings snapped wide and caught the wind as she fell. Tathar clung to her for his life and laughed as the air rushed past them both. She arced upward, and then they were flying out over the morning sea. The eagle cocked her head and looked back at him one more time, and he met her gaze with his own, the fierce and burning stare of kindred beneath the skin.