The Feverbird's Claw Read online

  Moralin glanced at their baskets swinging in unison. Full of the giddy joy of the hillside and sunshine and the sweet smell of crushed fruit, she laughed with her new friends. A young man bent to pick a starfruit. He straightened, opened his mouth wide, apparently not caring that they were watching, and stuffed the fruit in. It felt good to stare right at a person’s face. His open mouth became a cave of redness, and juice ran down his chin.

  Without warning his laugh turned into a choking sound. He staggered one step back, pointing at … what? For the second time that day Moralin turned her head at just the right half instant to see her death coming straight at her.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  GIANT BIRDS WITH CURVED BLACK BEAKS bounded over the hill’s crest. What kind of bird had a human body? Moralin staggered down the hill, stumbling on her dress. Around her, the air exploded with shouting and screams. A whistling sound cut above the other noise. She turned and stretched out her arms to the man who had laughed so joyously, now falling forward. The weight of his body sent her sprawling backward.

  Hands. Pulling her out from under the man. She fought them off, but there were more, wrapping the velee roughly over her open mouth to stop the screams. What kind of bird had hands? The creature hoisted her, kicking and twisting, onto its shoulder. The last thing she saw of the hillside was the basket tumbling slowly away.

  She expected to fly, but the creature merely ran. The velee wrapped more tightly around her face, blinding her, choking her. She felt a shoulder blade jammed against her ribs, smelled sweat. These were surely no birds. After a while the one carrying her swung her down and forced her to walk. “Mercy,” she heard one of the other girls gasp.

  Carry us, Moralin wanted to command. Where are your wings?

  Behind her, someone began to wail. Come, Moralin cried silently in her mind to the Delagua guards standing just inside the closed gates of the city. Hurry. But by now, with the rains over for the day, the city would be full of street noise. And the gates swung open only to let soldiers in and out. Still, Old Tamlin would soon know she was gone. And then? And then he would come after her. Until then? Pay attention. Manage your fear.

  Before long they were surrounded by strange and twisted trees. In temple tapestries Moralin had seen such reddish trunks and thick branches. She looked around. Only the young—three boys, four girls—had been taken. Everyone else must be dead. She saw now that their captors wore bird masks. They carried spears and sticks carved with the writhing bodies of snakes. In her dry throat, her sand breath caught. These had to be Arkera. Age-old enemies of the Delagua.

  They walked and then ran and then walked some more. The Arkera warrior men pushed or hit them every time they slowed down, every time someone stumbled. One boy fell and didn’t get up. A warrior bent over him, and Moralin called out the beginning of a war chant to block out the thump of the spear, the gasps of death.

  The survivors had to walk faster, faster. Darkness opened its wide mouth and swallowed them. After a while the ugly moon rose to glower down with its unblinking eye—white, the color of restless and malevolent spirits. She covered her head the best she could.

  They lost their shoes. Their feet bled. “Mercy.” The girl with patterned fingers raised them in a pleading gesture. She and her friend with the black and gold belt crouched like baby birds, their weeping mouths helpless and open. A warrior tried to force them up, but they refused. He raised his spear.

  “No!” Moralin tried to leap at him, but hands grabbed her, dragging her on.

  On and on. Churning with rage, she staggered forward, cowering under the moon’s terrible gaze. One of the warriors was carrying Salla as if she were a sack of grain, but no one gave Moralin an arm to cling to. Only four prisoners left. She would have been dead already if she had been weak—if she had spent her childhood hours at the weaving loom and dye pots as her mother wanted. Thanks to Old Tamlin and praise the Great Ones, she was not weak.

  When the moon was low in the western sky, they reached a clearing. A mass of Arkera swarmed out carrying flaming sticks, their naked faces horrible. In the whirlpool of sound and motion, Moralin struggled to stay on her feet. Beside her, one of the boys fell.

  She tried to reach out to him, but she was swept along, and in a moment she and the two others were in the middle of a swirling circle. Salla, her dark hair plastered to her face, was weeping. A warrior man, his bird mask fierce, stepped toward her, but a man in a thick cloak made of fern green feathers lifted his hand, and a woman dragged Salla away.

  Moralin grabbed the arm of the young boy who stood beside her, but he just whimpered with a look of dazed horror. She saw a smear of blood on one side of his mouth.

  Arkera women began to circle. One was chanting with a high, wild sound. Every time she went by, she flicked Moralin across the legs with a whippy stick that stung through Moralin’s thin dress. On the third time Moralin waited for her, listening for the voice. An instant before the woman got to her, she reached out, jerked away the stick, and threw it on the ground. The woman howled and jumped toward her.

  Moralin heard Old Tamlin giving instructions. She danced a step backward, whispering, “By Cora Linga, may I die fighting,” and flipped the woman to the ground.

  The circling stopped.

  I’m finished, she thought. Now they’ll kill me.

  The silence lasted five breaths.

  The man in the green cloak laughed, a short, crazed burst of sound. Then everyone was laughing. Moralin smelled the crush of bodies, fought the cloth they pulled over her nose. Everything blurred.

  Sometime later she felt a pinch and opened her eyes. A scowling face leered at her. Dark paint was spread across the nose and cheeks as if a big winged creature perched there. A hand tried to stuff some food into Moralin’s mouth. Moralin spit the food out and curled into a ball.

  In the nightmare she was running to her mother. Everything around her was turquoise, exactly the way the sky had looked from the top of the city wall when she was dangling in midair, seeing nothing but sky, feeling terror and the flickity-flick of soft rain against her face. In her nightmare Mother was not smiling and not frowning, but standing just beyond Moralin’s outstretched fingers. “Mamita,” Moralin called in the dream, even though she wasn’t a little girl anymore. “Mamita, wait.”

  “Chagat!”

  Moralin flashed awake. She was sweating, and her bones ached. Her earlobe stung where the ring must have gotten torn out as she struggled. Slowly she opened her eyes to silver-pale dawn.

  “Chagat.” The warrior poked at her with his snakestick. The strange word was rock-ugly. He had taken the bird mask off, and she could see his matted hair and glinting eyes. He shook the stick at her as if she might fight. Or cry out.

  In the fighting yard she had thought she liked fear, that fine, shimmering tightness when she could feel every muscle singing. But that fear wasn’t like this feeling, her breath fuzzy in her throat as though she had swallowed a mouthful of winged insects.

  After a moment he walked away, turning once to scowl at her. Moralin eased her breath out in a shaky sigh and scrunched her velee into a kind of pillow, twisting her fingers tenderly into the soft silk cloth. If she ever got home, she’d wear the velee and never complain. “The cloth saves us,” Old Tamlin often said to her. “It’s the only way.”

  She closed her eyes, but her mother was gone. The ground was like cold, lumpy bones under her hip, and the red glissim of the trees irritated her even when her eyes were closed. Deep in the woods a feverbird screamed.

  She groped in her pocket for the serenity stone she’d carried since her seventh year. In a small home ceremony Grandmother had put it into Moralin’s hand, saying, “Someday, my child, anyone who looks at you will see only smoothness.”

  She found the center, glossy from where her thumb had rubbed it. From Old Tamlin, she had learned that you could be perfectly still even with insects crawling on you. Who would want to look around an Arkera camp anyway?

  At
home her family would be waking up to the smell of festival foods, to joy cries and the fine harmonies of the chants floating out from the temple. How could she have ever been angry with her mother? If she could just get home, she would never quarrel with anyone again.

  The night air was cold. Had anything harmed her while she slept outside under the angry eye of the pale moon? Cautiously she rubbed her aching feet against each other. Her legs were sore, too. Everything hurt. She lifted the serenity stone to her lips and whispered, “I wish I were dead.”

  Instantly she was afraid. Delagua girls had died yesterday. Wait, Cora Linga, she thought. Don’t listen to my foolishness. I didn’t mean it. Could Cora Linga hear her? By now Moralin was far away from the temple where the Great Ones lived.

  She tried not to think about what might be breathing in the red forest. Grandmother told haunting stories of forest creatures that tore people to pieces hundreds of years ago when the Delagua had roamed this area, living in tents, fighting the Arkera for food and scarce water. That was before the city with its comforting, thick wall. Before a mysterious messenger of the Great Ones gave a Delagua royalborn the secret of making silk cloth, cloth that felt like water rippling in a person’s hands, cloth so sumptuous that caravans came from faraway kingdoms to trade for it. People whispered that the thread came from the fuzz of special leaves. Or spiders spun it.

  Once the wall was in place, villages sprang up to the west and south of the city like dawn plants after rain. They offered the Delagua food in tribute, grateful for protection provided by the soldiers who patrolled the area enclosed by the four sacred hills. Whenever a caravan from a faraway city drew near, the soldiers placed lengths of cloth outside the gate where the traders, who had traveled for many days, could lay their goods down and retreat. Then the Delagua elders made their decisions whether or not to accept the silent trade.

  Moralin hugged her shoulders, longing to be safe inside those gates again, not out here with … with beasts. And the moon, that bald, bone-colored murderer.

  Where was Salla? There had to be a way to escape. The Arkera might be ferocious, but Moralin had highborn Delagua blood and a Delagua brain on her side.

  She lay tense and silent until the morning sun turned the trees scarlet and beetles began to scuttle in the dirt. Then she sat up and looked around the camp.

  Here and there people were crawling out of small domes fashioned of animal skin. Nearby a woman dropped twigs into a fire ring, then stooped and blew on the coals until the twigs brighted up. A man thumped softly on a ponga.

  The lump beside Moralin stirred. A girl with tangled light hair shook off a coarse blanket and sat up. Moralin looked away politely, waiting for the girl to leave. When she didn’t hear any noise, she turned back. The girl stuck a finger toward Moralin’s face.

  “Stop it!”

  In one swift motion, the other girl had an obsidian knife out, pointed menacingly at Moralin’s neck. After a moment she lowered it and then stood with a low growl.

  Smells of cooking filled the camp. Women were pouring water from clay pots into gourds. They placed hot rocks into the gourds and then dropped in something yellow from pouches they carried on their hips. This morning Moralin would eat, no matter how disgusted she was. You had to eat to stay alive. And you had to be alive to escape.

  The thrumming grew louder. The girl walked over and brought back two leaves full of steaming yellow food. Those green flakes were probably bits of sheena peppers, which couldn’t be too bad, since they were sold in the marketplace in the city. But the brown spots were probably dirt.

  Moralin looked up and saw a funny-eared animal crouching nearby. Its eyes stared hopefully into hers, and it thumped its tail gently on the ground. “Not for you,” she told it.

  The girl looked at Moralin curiously. Then she squatted and began to scoop the yellow glop from her leaf, using her fingers to shovel it into her mouth. “How uncivilized,” Moralin said to the animal. The animal coughed at her with a low rrut rrut sound and flapped its tail from side to side. She turned her back. Civilized people never ate in public. Even inside their houses, Delagua highborn women had their own room for eating.

  Trying not to let her fingers touch the yellow glop, she tore off some leaf. The food burned her lips and throat as she choked it down. She tossed the leaf to the animal and watched him gobble it.

  The other girl laughed. Dark, painted wings covered her nose and cheeks, and she was wearing some kind of dull, rough cloth that wrapped under her arms and ended at her knees. On her right leg was an ugly pink scar in the shape of a half-moon. Feeling her skin crawl, Moralin studied the girl’s upper arm, on which she wore an iron band.

  Someone would have to practice a long time in the fighting yard to get muscles like that. Her hair had a reddish glimmer and was streaked with dirt. “Figt.” The girl touched her own chest.

  “Figt?” The word felt funny on Moralin’s tongue.

  The girl thumped herself.

  Was it her name? Fig—like the fruit. A loud t on the end, tongue just behind the teeth. “What kind of name is that?” Moralin asked the crouching animal.

  The animal wagged its tail hopefully and barked its hoarse bark. Its hair, too, was dirty and matted.

  By now more men and women were working the pongas. The camp was hollow with noise. At home the air would be filled with high, clear singing. People were streaming out of their houses, moving together. She should be walking beside Mother and Grandmother up the steps to the beautiful, shining temple. She—Control your thoughts. “Old Tamlin will send soldiers after me,” she said out loud to the animal.

  Its ears moved forward. But it obviously wasn’t a pet. She raised her eyes. Figt was watching her, standing with folded arms and that scowl. Her painted face made her look like some fierce forest creature.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  MORALIN PULLED HERSELF TO HER FEET, hobbled a few steps, sat back down, wincing. Figt crouched, watching her, uncomfortably close. Nearby, children were scooping water from clay pots into small leather bags. When a pot was empty, one of the children would run a little way into the forest and call something that sounded like ho reeahg. In response, a woman would appear bringing another pot of water.

  Two boys rolled small purple gourds onto a hide. Once the hide was full, they lifted it with sticks onto their shoulders and staggered off, laughing. A little girl trotted after them, wearing nothing except an animal skin hanging around her waist. The girl veered and ran straight toward Moralin.

  “Get away.” Moralin pulled back.

  Figt shouted something, and the girl giggled and turned into the forest calling, “Ho reeahg.” She seemed unafraid of the slithering creatures and skulkuks that filled Grandmother’s stories of the wild places.

  Amazingly, the next water carrier was Salla, looking strange in an Arkera dress. She was limping and clutching the pot with both hands. At home servants carried large clay pots on their heads and hips as if the pots were no heavier than a puff of air.

  Moralin stood up and took a few stiff steps. “Hssst.” Behind her, she was aware that Figt had scrambled to her feet.

  Salla didn’t look around. She lowered the pot clumsily, spilling water. “I’m afraid to talk.”

  “But it’s so fortunate I saw you.” Moralin hobbled a few steps closer. “The Great Ones don’t like it if you ignore good luck when it comes. You must have learned that in the temple.”

  “I’m not like you.” Salla was moving like a small, skittery animal.

  “I’m afraid, too.”

  “No, you’re not. I’ve seen the things you can do.”

  “Only because Old Tamlin taught me. No one cares if we talk.” She glanced curiously at the side of Salla’s face, then looked away.

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  Moralin ignored Figt. “They can’t crush me,” she said. “You shouldn’t let them either. Why are you wearing that dress?”

  Salla stiffened. “I wouldn’t even be h
ere if it weren’t for you.”

  Moralin felt her face flame. She hadn’t asked Salla to come along.

  “Anyway,” Salla said sadly, “the woman who showed me to carry the water over here has been kind. You saw the warrior men. What do you expect?” She picked up the empty pot and limped away.

  “I expect you to remember you’re a Delagua.” But Moralin said it softly. What did she expect from someone like Salla, pampered all her life? This was probably the first time she’d had to sleep anywhere but her own soft bed or wash her hands without a servant there to dry them. “Be strong,” she called.

  Salla didn’t turn around.

  As Moralin watched to see which of the houses Salla went to, she smoothed her dress, feeling the softness of the silky Delagua cloth. When the Arkera looked at her, they would remember that she was Delagua—at least until her dress and velee rotted.

  All through the day the pongas thrummed. The camp was heavy with sound and with sweet, sharp smells. Moralin sat in the sun and combed her hair with her fingers. Figt copied her. Moralin pretended not to see because she couldn’t afford to get angry. Not over anything little. If she calmed her breathing enough, she could look at Figt’s silvery hair and eyes without shuddering. Then Figt scooped a handful of red tree grease from a pot and rubbed it into her scalp. Moralin looked away in disgust.

  The camp grew so hot she couldn’t think. She found some shade and rested her head against a tree. Figt followed. The murmur of people’s voices sounded like a weird singing. How terrible not to understand or be able to make herself understood.

  What were the chances that anyone would find this camp? The birdmen had moved fast, but they must have left some tracks. And … bodies.