“How do you know an eagle killed these men?”

“Aui!” That was an easy question. “We saw it.”

“You saw it?”

“Yes. The outlaws were coming right up behind us. They would have caught us and killed us, but an eagle attacked them.”

“An eagle? With a reeve?”

“No, just an eagle. One of its wings seemed injured.”

The scarred eagle chirped.

“The hells!” He looked into the sky.

It was as if her words were a summoning. Her eagle—she thought of it as hers, in a funny way—glided down, hitched up as it overshot his eagle, and thumped hard on the path below them. It raised its big head, and chirped.

The reeve stared at the eagle, looked at Nallo, looked back at the eagle, and then again at Nallo. “The hells. Do you know what this means?”

Whatever she had seen in him before—geniality, charm, a gaze that made you feel he was looking at you alone with no thought for anyone or anything else—vanished as he thought through some deep conundrum, as he frowned and made a move as though to grasp her arm, then withdrew his hand and fixed it awkwardly in the straps of the harness he wore around his torso.

“You have to come with us now.”

“The hells I do! Why?”

“No need to snap at me.” He flared. He wasn’t one bit cowed by her temper. “Didn’t you wonder why that eagle dropped down right here, right then, only to aid you?”

“The gods fashioned the eagles to seek justice.”

“So they did, but a lone eagle without a reeve flies to the mountains and lives in solitude, in their ancient hunting territories. Only with a reeve does an eagle seek justice. And you’ll note that particular eagle carries no reeve.”

She didn’t like the probing way he examined her. She wiped her dirty chin with the back of a hand. “I’m not blind!”

“I know that eagle,” he continued, ignoring her outburst. “Her name is Tumna. Her reeve is dead. I thought she’d flown to the mountains, to mark the passing as eagles usually do, but I see she’s already chosen a new reeve.”

Nallo looked at Tumna, at her ragged unkempt feathers, her injured wing, her angry, impatient gaze. Here was an eagle who was irritated that her reeve was dead and she had so much to do and no partner with whom to accomplish all those tasks. How annoying people are! Why can’t things fall out without so much trouble and incompetence muddying the waters?

“Who?”

He took hold of her hand, gently, as would a relative when offering condolences.

“You, Nallo. This eagle has chosen you to be its reeve.”

12

Keshad stood beside a stone pillar, staring nervously over the darkening vista. After days of hard traveling, they’d pushed through the rugged Soha Hills. Tonight they sheltered in ridgetop ruins that overlooked Sohayil, a wide basin with hills rising on all sides. The valley floor blended into the darkness as daylight faded. “Bai, if outriders from the army stumble onto us, they’ll kill us.”