Windhaven

Where the road from Thossi joined the broad thoroughfare up from Port Thayos, the flyers passed directly overhead, and for the rest of the journey the walkers moved beneath them. Maris could make out the flyers quite well by then; a few kept high, up where the wind was stronger, but most skimmed along barely above tree-top level, and the silver of their wings and the black of their clothing were equally conspicuous. Every few moments another flyer caught and passed Maris and Evan and their escort, so the shadow of wings washed over them as regularly as silent breakers crashing against a beach.

The landsguard never looked up at the flyers, Maris noticed. In fact, the procession in the sky seemed to make them surly and irritable, and at least one of the party — a whey-faced youth with pockmarks — trembled visibly whenever the shadows swept over him.

Near sunset the road climbed over the last hills to the first checkpoint. Their escort marched through without stopping. A few yards beyond, the path dropped off abruptly, and there was a high vantage point from which the entire valley was visible beneath them.

Maris drew in her breath sharply, and felt Evan's hand tighten in her own.

In the shimmering red haze of sunset, colors faded and vanished while shadows etched themselves starkly on the valley floor. Beneath them the world seemed drenched in blood, and the keep hunched like some great crippled animal made of shadow, impossibly black. The fires within it sent up heat ripples that made the dark stone itself seem to writhe and tremble, so it looked like a beast shivering in terror.

Above it, waiting, were the flyers.

The valley was full of them; Maris counted ten before losing track. Heat beating against stone sent up great updrafts, and the flyers soared on them, climbing halfway up the sky before spinning free to descend in wide graceful spirals. Around and around they moved, circling, waiting; dark scavenger kites impatient for the shadow beast to die. It was a somber, silent scene.

"No wonder he is so afraid," Maris said.

"We are not supposed to stop," the young officer leading their escort said to them.

With a final glance, Maris proceeded down into the valley, where Tya's silent mourners flew ominous circles above the shadowed fortress, and the Landsman of Thayos waited inside his cold stone halls, afraid of open sky.

"I have a mind to hang the three of you," the Landsman said.

He was seated on the wooden throne in his receiving chamber, fingering a heavy bronze knife that lay across his knees. Against a white silk shirt, his silver chain of office gleamed softly in the light of the oil lamps, but his face was at odds with his clothing: pale and drawn and twitching.

The room was full of landsguard; they stood along the walls, silent, impassive. There were no windows in the chamber. Perhaps that was why the Landsman had chosen it. Outside, the black flyers would be wheeling against the scattered evening stars.

"Coll goes free," Maris said, trying to keep the tension from her voice.

The Landsman frowned and gestured with his knife. "Bring up the singer," he ordered. A landsguard officer hurried off. "Your brother has caused me great trouble," the Landsman continued. "His songs are treason. I see no reason to release him."

"We have an agreement," Maris said quickly. "I came. Now you must give Coll his freedom."

The Landsman's mouth twitched. "Do not presume to tell me what to do. By what conceit do you imagine that you can dictate terms to me? There can be no bargaining between us. I am Landsman here. I am Thayos. You and your brother are my prisoners."

"S'Rella carried your promise to me," Maris replied. "She will know if you break it, and soon flyers and Landsmen will know all over Windhaven. Your pledge will be worthless. How will you rule then, or bargain?"

His eyes narrowed. "Oh? Perhaps so." He smiled. "I made no promise to release him whole, however.

How well will your brother sing of Tya, I wonder, when I have had his tongue yanked from his mouth, and the fingers of his right hand cut off?"

A wave of vertigo washed over Maris suddenly, as if she stood on the edge of a great precipice, wingless and about to fall. Then she felt Evan take her hand again, and when his fingers twined within her own, somehow she found the threat she needed. "You wouldn't dare," she said. "Even your landsguard might balk at such an atrocity, and flyers would carry word of your crime as far as the wind would take them.

All your knives could not long protect you then."

"I intend to let your brother go," the Landsman said loudly, "not because I fear his friends and your empty threats, but because I am merciful. But neither he nor any other singer will ever sing of Tya again on my island. He will be sent from Thayos never to return."

"And us?"