Sword Quest (2 page)

Resistance is hatched from oppression.

—FROM THE
O
LD
S
CRIPTURE

N
o empire since the creation of the sword had spread so quickly or so ruthlessly as that of the archaeopteryxes. They were a shrewd, hardy species. The key to their sudden expansion was that they thrived on everything: fruit, seeds, insects, fish, and carrion. Soon most of the other tribes were serving them as slaves or paying them tribute. Even the powerful alliance of the crow, myna, and raven clans had fallen.

Some surrendered and, in return for their lives, agreed to serve in the archaeopteryx army. Only the eagles, in their remote mountain stronghold, lived free, but they were too busy guarding their own liberty to come to the aid of others.

The archaeopteryx empire was divided into six regions: Castlewood, or the Emperor’s Wood; the Forests; the Dryland; the Plains; the Isles; and the Marshes. Each region was ruled by one of the emperor’s most trusted officers. Sir Kawaka commanded the Marshes Battalion.

Early in the morning on the first day of winter, Kawaka was hosting a dinner for his officers, proudly displaying the treasures he had gathered for the Ancient Wing. A beautiful yellow crystal was his most magnificent tribute. He’d seized it from a tribe of weak little kingfishers only the week before. Wouldn’t the emperor be pleased!

“To Sir Kawaka! To Emperor Hungrias! To the expansion of archaeopteryx territory!” The traditional toast rang from the leafless branches of the tree that Kawaka had made into his headquarters.

Below, in a storeroom hollowed out beneath the roots of the tree, a scrawny bird was scrubbing pots. His white feathers were smeared with grime, his red bill and feet blackened by grease. A dark smudge on his face almost
covered the slash of red dye that marked him as a slave.

A bored sentry at the mouth of the cave sighed as he lit his pipe. Dubto could hear the toasts and the shouting from the branches above, but he was stuck here guarding this.
What kind of bird was that slave anyway?
Dubto thought. He looked like a dove but was bigger than any dove Dubto had ever seen. He supposed that was why they called the bird “013-Unidentified.”

“Who’re your parents?” he barked, blowing smoke rings out of his nostrils.

“My mother’s a dove, but I’ve never seen my father,” the young bird said. His voice was so weak that it was hard to hear above the sloshing of the pans.

So why did a feeble young drudge like this need his own guard? The fledgling barely looked strong enough to attack a greasy pot. Indeed, as the archaeopteryx watched, the white bird slumped over the cauldron he was scrubbing, too exhausted to continue.

“Here, you,” Dubto said gruffly, and tapped his pipe. He didn’t dare risk being seen or heard speaking to a slave with kindness in his voice. “Leave that. I need you to run an errand.”

There was nothing truly urgent that needed to be done. But the slave would surely be the better for some fresh air.

“Yes, sir?” 013-Unidentified said weakly.

Dubto looked around and spotted a small barrel of ale, half hidden under a tree root. “Take that over to the outpost on the edge of camp,” he said. “The sentry needs supplies.”

Take your time,
he almost added, but he thought he had been kind enough for one day. After all, the bird was a slave, not an archaeopteryx.

Outside, 013-Unidentified gulped in life-giving air, feeling the tiredness wash out of his sore back. His soul was dazzled by the azure spread that was the sky. He tried to fly, but the heavy cask of ale kept making him tip forward. He was outside! For months now, ever since he’d been captured by an archaeopteryx patrol, he’d been cooped up in the back of that earthen cave, alternately cleaning whatever pots and pans were flung at him and sleeping. He scanned the green-tinted ponds and the cedars looming nearby.
Howling winds!
he thought.
What a murky, frightening land!

“Over here! The sun’s barely up and I’m cold,” a raucous voice rang out.

013-Unidentified handed over the cask of ale to the sentry, who was perched on the bare, gray limb of a dead tree near the entrance to a burrow in the ground. A clattering came from within the dark hollow.

The sentry popped the cork off the cask of ale and took a long drink while 013-Unidentified cocked his head to catch the sound. Then there was a muffled groan. “What is inside, sir?” he asked.

The sentry sighed in disgust. “Tomorrow’s dinner, fool! Go back to your cave immediately, hear?” He jumped from his perch and glided toward 013-Unidentified.

013-Unidentified fluttered back. “But sir, I…”

The archaeopteryx swung his lance at the white bird’s
face. 013-Unidentified dodged it, ducking under a branch. The archaeopteryx swooped after him, but his tail, dragging behind him, struck a tree branch. His wings flapped frantically and a strangled croak burst out. He dropped his lance, which barely missed 013-Unidentified.

Alarmed, 013-Unidentified stumbled backward. What was happening? Then he saw that a metal chain necklace around the archaeopteryx’s neck had gotten caught. The sentry was choking and twisting. His necklace snapped. With a splash, he crashed into a puddle on the ground below.

013-Unidentified peered at him suspiciously, but the archaeopteryx didn’t stir. A faint moan from inside the burrow made him remember what he had been curious about originally. He wasn’t likely to have such a chance again; the archaeopteryxes usually watched him very closely. Cautiously he pushed aside some ferns at the entrance and ducked inside.

There was a flash of something moving behind some metal crates. 013-Unidentified took a few steps forward.

“Hello,” he whispered into the darkness.

Something squirmed back away from him as far as it could.

“Who are you?” 013-Unidentified said under his breath. His eyes gradually adjusted to the dark and he could see the frail figure cowering inside one of the crates. A tattered vest covered black and white feathers; a red head gleamed in the murky darkness.

“Don’t eat me…” The bird rested his head against the crate.

“
Eat
you?” 013-Unidentified gasped, horrified. He’d known for seasons now what the archaeopteryxes did with captives they thought too weak or too useless to make good slaves. But he’d never before had a chance to speak to what the sentry had called “tomorrow’s dinner.”

The next thing he knew he had picked up a rock and slammed it with all his might at the lock of the crate. He did not know how many times he repeated the action, but finally the lock gave way and he threw it aside with a sudden rush of fierce satisfaction. He leaned against the side of the burrow, gasping for breath, and said huskily, “Come out! Come out!”

The prisoner raised his tearstained eyes. “Thank you! I’m 216-Woodpecker.” Then he added, “No, I’m Ewingerale…‘Winger.’”

“I am…” It had been so long since anybird had called the white bird by his true name that he found he had to
grope in his memory for it. A scene flashed in his mind—his mother stroking his head tenderly, her sweet voice lingering in his ear. “I’m…Wind-voice.”

Wind-voice hadn’t planned to escape when he woke that morning. And when Dubto had ordered him outside, he hadn’t planned to do anything more than stretch his wings. But now, with a broken lock, a freed prisoner, and an archaeopteryx lying unconscious in a puddle outside
the burrow, what choice did they both have but to fly as fast as they could?

“Now is the time to fly away,” Wind-voice whispered.

“Let’s go,” Winger agreed.

From the corner of his crate Winger snatched up a quill and a piece of wood, which was carved in a peculiar curved shape, and followed Wind-voice outside. They both peered cautiously out of the entrance to the burrow. Nothing was to be seen. The puddle where the sentry had been lying was empty. Holding their breath, they stepped outside.

“Ha! You think you can just walk out?” From above them, the slime-covered sentry, recovered now, leaped down and crushed them with his claws.

Without thinking, Wind-voice twisted around and pecked madly at the face of the archaeopteryx guard. Not expecting such violence from a slave, the bird flinched, and Winger twisted free.

“Fly!” Wind-voice shouted. “Fly!”

“You filthy little slave!” the guard said, panting, and his claws gripped Wind-voice even more tightly as he made a second grab at the woodpecker.

Winger dodged, leaping into the air, but hesitated, hovering. “Fly!” Wind-voice cried. Winger swooped around, but helpless to do more, he took flight.

Wind-voice was no match for the stronger, heavier bird once the archaeopteryx had recovered from his surprise. In a moment he was pinned flat in the mud with the sentry’s claws gripping his throat. The claws squeezed tighter and tighter. Darkness began to close in on Wind-voice’s vision.

“Halt!”

The angry voice was faintly familiar to Wind-voice. The claws around his throat loosened, and he gasped for air.
Sir Kawaka
, he thought. Why was the commander of the Marshes Battalion intervening to stop the killing of a lowly slave?

“This one is not yours to punish, fool!”

Wind-voice wasn’t sure what Kawaka meant by that, and nobird bothered to explain it to him as he was bound and forced back to his dark den under the roots of the headquarters tree. But even in that darkness, when he closed his eyes, he could almost see the woodpecker, with his bright red head, zipping away to freedom.

“Who let him out of the cave? Who?” Kawaka, garbed in silken tassels and gray-and-khaki uniform, shouted from a branch of his headquarters tree. Usually he only turned his profile to other birds, since his beak was slightly curved to one side in a way that looked half silly, half
intimidating. “Crookbeak,” the other knights called him behind his back. Lower-ranked birds didn’t dare to talk about the beak, much less look at it. But now he was facing his soldiers, a bad sign.

The fifty or so officers in the Marshes Battalion stood at attention, eyes either looking off into space or focused strictly on the knight’s forehead. Outside, lesser soldiers bustled about, sensing that something was wrong.

“I did, Kawaka, sir.” The voice came from somewhere behind the barrel-chested local-resistance captains. “I was on maintenance duty.”

“And you are?” Kawaka held his breath, trying not to shout at the fool.

“Dubto, spear-bird, of the sixth elite band of the tracking division of the Marshes Battalion.”

Kawaka strode along the branch, trembling with impatience. “By my teeth! Do you know why I kept this mangy little crossbreed so carefully all these seasons? He could have been a nice dumpling in the supper pot!”

“Yes, sir,” said Dubto mechanically. “You kept him to give to His Majesty the Ancient Wing. It is well known that the emperor likes rare gemstones and rare birds. But the fledgling was weakening, sir,” Dubto said. “So I thought fresh air…”

“Cheek!”
Kawaka screeched. He marched about
impatiently, the tassels on his chest fluttering with each huff of his breath.

A year before, while on a trip passing over the seaside, four of his soldiers had raided a cliff. After two of them had drawn away the mother and killed her, the remaining birds had seized her scrawny baby. Seeing its strangeness, they had reported it to Kawaka.

“All that work to keep him safe,” Kawaka blustered, “and now this incident has sown seeds of rebellion in his heart. But time is running short! You,” he ordered one of the birds, “put a heavy rope around 013-Unidentified’s foot. We must start the journey.” Kawaka snatched the yellow stone from its display stand and put it in a small wooden box.
At least I have this. The emperor will be pleased with me,
the knight thought.

Ewingerale bobbed up and down in his undulating flight. Alternating between mad bursts of wing flapping and short glides where he tucked in his wings, he paused only to pull up the hood of his tattered vest. His round red head was dangerously obvious in the woods.

But as the sun brightened, the hope that Wind-voice was still alive dimmed. The woodpecker’s long tongue tensed in his skull and he swallowed hard. How could the white bird not have been sentenced to death already?
“Fate holds both grit and gold in store for us,” he whispered to himself. If Wind-voice was fated to die, there was little that Winger could do to save him.