The Feverbird's Claw (4 page)

When she woke, the red dusk was already fading and there were hundreds of ponga players thrumming
changa, changa, changa
rhythms. The smell of food made the air thick. All around her, people were eating, throwing bones to the ground, where the skinny animals growled and fought over them. From time to time someone screeched a bit of a loud, high song.

Moralin glanced around. Figt was nowhere.

Was it time? The sky was almost dark. A man threw wood on a fire in the middle of the camp, and people's shadows leaped across the ground. The warriors had approached the camp from the clearing, so she'd move that way. If people noticed, they would think she was only getting food.

She rubbed her sore legs firmly, the way Old Tamlin had taught her. Then she rose.
Shhhh, shhhh.
As she walked, she made the crooning sound of Old Tamlin as he dressed her fighting wounds.
Shhhhh.
You are not afraid. She passed a fire, and someone held out steaming meat. Good. Hard to get far, weak from hunger. She put a piece in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed, even though the spices bit her tongue and made her eyes burn.

Softly. Ignore the pain, and walk steadily, all the time pretending to watch the fire. She was almost to the ponga players. Be careful. Move silently, as the shadows did. She would find the soldiers. Soon she and Salla would be home. Home with Lan and Grandmother and Old Tamlin and Mamita and—

Flup.
She jumped as something cold touched her leg. The nose of the furry animal. A few steps behind the animal was Figt.

Moralin made a great show of throwing the bone to the animal and then dragged herself over to sit on a stump not far from the fire. She felt light-headed with frustration.

As darkness dropped, the pongas sang with a wild thumping, and women began to wail a song of their own. Warriors in their bird masks gathered near the fire, leaping, thrusting their snakesticks. They tossed something from one stick to the next. A woman warrior began to shake her shoulders and trill.

The fire flared, and the thing glinted black and gold in the firelight. A belt. Ah, this was a victory dance. Arkera victory. Delagua defeat.

Why had she eaten the meat? Moralin's arm prickled, and she thought it was a pinching insect, but when she grabbed at the spot, nothing was there. She looked at her feet to steady herself.

The ground seemed to be moving.

It was alive with toads.

She shrank back. But something seemed familiar about the scene. Something … Of course. A picture on one of the tapestries in the temple that showed a ceremonial dance. She bent down. One toad did seem bigger than the others and shimmered with a soft glissim.

“Cora Linga,” she whispered. With the pongas, how could anyone hear her and how could she hear anything?

Huh. Huh.
Someone or something was grunting a kind of throaty chant.

“Cora Linga. Why are you here and not in the temple?”

Low and soft, a liquid voice seemed to say, “Who speaks my Delagua name?”

Moralin crouched, jostling a few of the toads out of the way. “Are you testing me? I thought you were my … well … my special guardian. You know me.”

She peered at the shapes, but she heard no answer. She was faint and floating. A little way off, dancers began to circle as if someone were stirring them with a spoon. Around and around they went, their barbaric song rising and falling like the ripples of a stone-gray river.

She swallowed. Her head swirled with the circling dance. A Great One visiting a dirty Arkera camp? Something in the meat she ate was giving her waking dreams. “Cora Linga,” she whispered. “Is this a vision of you? Help me get home.”

Huh. Huh.
Toad voices croaked in rhythm. “Who,” a faint voice seemed to sing, “who, who can escape the spinner's web?”

Moralin heard the sound of her own panting. “I'll die if I stay here. Even a fly caught in a web may escape with the Great One's help.”

For a long time she heard nothing but the music and the sound of feet. As the fire dropped down, the camp grew darker and colder. She could no longer see the toads. Her thighs began to ache. There. Was that quavering sound a voice? Cora Linga's voice, low and rumbling?

“Where, where are the sons of the earth? When travelers quake, they alone remain unafraid. He will open your ears, the son of the earth.”

“Son of the earth?” She put her fingers on her lips. Had she said those words or just thought them?

“Where, where is the daughter of the sky? Caught on a thread under the ground. Free her and carry her. Beware, beware of her. Use her not, the daughter of the sky.”

“What—”

“Where, where is the daughter of the night? Kneeling in the bloodred web. Go to the web when a sword is at your throat. She will save you, daughter of the night.”

“Cora Linga …”

Huh. Huh.
The voice, if it was a voice, began to fade. It seemed as if the fire had died low, and the toads were swaying toward the embers and then away in their solemn dance.

S
OMETHING WAS TRICKLING DOWN
M
ORALIN'S
neck. She groaned and opened her eyes. The animal panted happily and licked her face. “Get out of here,” she said fiercely. “How dare you drool on me?”

Figt loomed over her. She said something in Arkera and then reached down and patted the creature's skinny side.

It was morning. Moralin sat up, clenching and unclenching her fists as if readying for a fight. Someone had covered her with a blanket and let her lie where she fell asleep in the dirt. Smoke from the almost dead fire made her cough. A long gray finger trickled out of the pile of burned logs. The whole camp looked sooty.

She rubbed her forehead. Toads! What had seemed real enough last night was absurd in the morning air. Grandmother had talked of food that gave hallucinations. The lingering taste of the toad dream made her mouth feel sour.

Never mind. She was used to depending on herself. Today she must figure out a plan for getting herself and Salla to safety when the Delagua soldiers descended on the camp. The Arkera would think nothing of running a spear through them rather than let the Delagua take them back.

Figt knelt and rolled her blanket up tightly. She motioned for Moralin to do the same. “What's happening?” Moralin asked.

Figt muttered something impatient and unfriendly.

Moralin pushed the animal out of the way, hardly bothering to brush the dirt off the blanket. It would only get dirty again. She looked down at her dress. How long did Delagua cloth last when it was worn day and night and never washed?

In her room, shining dresses hung in rows. Her mother might be studying them right now, wondering where her daughter could be. She saw Mother reaching out, pressing her hand tenderly against the soft cloth. Moralin rubbed her own rough blanket as if she could smooth away her mother's sadness.

She had tried to do as well with the weaving as with the fighting moves. The dance of the loom was beautiful, Mother and Grandmother's arms lifting and falling in rhythm, sweeping the bright colors into place. If she ever got back, she would have the patience to sit for hours helping to lift the heddles and bind in the silky warps that floated over the wefts.

Without warning, Figt grabbed one of Moralin's feet and began to rub something oily into it. Grimacing with pain, Moralin tried to pull away, but the other girl gave a menacing hiss. All over the camp, people were working silently and quickly, nudging sleepy children out of the way.

Figt finished the second foot and leaned over for a pair of sandals, saying something that clearly meant “put them on.” Moralin obeyed. Then she scrambled up and limped quickly toward Salla's house. Figt followed.

Salla was kneeling, scooping grain into a bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I don't know. What they showed me.” Salla's voice was unsteady. “What will happen to us?”

“I think we're getting ready to leave this camp.” Moralin made her voice emotionless, hoping Salla wouldn't crumble. “I guess they're getting ready to move everything they've gathered. Food … and us.”

“I don't want to go.” Salla covered her face with her hand and whimpered. “Deep into the red forest? I can't.”

Figt pinched Moralin's shoulder and tugged her away. “Be strong,” Moralin called.

At least the oily goop on her feet was helping with the pain. She set her face in the fierce expression Old Tamlin had taught her to use just before a fight. Even if no one rescued them, she could find a way to get them home.

In front of her, a woman pulled down a hump house, folded the skin, and piled it onto a two-handled tray. She whistled. One of the skinny animals loped over and stood so the woman could loop a leather harness around its body.

“I suppose this one pulls our things?” Moralin pointed at the animal that now was trotting after them wherever they went.

Figt moved her lips slowly as if trying to understand how lips might make such strange sounds.

“Actually,” Moralin said, “this one does not look smart enough to pull anything.”

The animal grinned at her—and drooled.

Only bare, curved sticks were left. Now Moralin understood the stories about Arkera who disappeared as if gulped by a flapping sky fish. Figt gave her a push. Her gestures said, “Pick up the blanket. Tie this pouch and waterskin around your waist.”

A sky fish was only one of the strange things that could happen out here in the wilderness. Every Delagua was told from childhood the danger of ever leaving the city walls. “Our ancestors built this huge city,” the elders chanted, “to allow us to become strong. We remain safe only within these walls, close to the temple where the Great Ones live. Praise to the Great Ones who gave us the secrets of the cloth.”

A man lifted a giant shell to his mouth and blew a low, mournful note.

As Moralin knotted the blanket, waterskin, and pouch around her waist with leather thongs, she remembered the slope in the sunshine just before the Arkera warriors flowed over the top of the hill. She could almost smell the fruit, feel the handle of the basket against her palm. How rock-stupid she had been to underestimate the enemy. She scolded herself in Old Tamlin's stern voice. How could she have been so desperate for friends that she had broken her training? One day of bait had obviously shown the Arkera just where to fish the next day.

A warrior woman walked by and shouted, shaking a snakestick. Figt pulled Moralin into the long line that was forming. So many Arkera and only one of her. She made herself calm and strong.
Cora Linga, speak to me.
Long before the temple was built for the Great Ones to live in, they moved from place to place with the Delagua. Maybe something of their spirits still lingered here.

Speak to me in a way I can understand.
The Great Ones usually spoke in riddles. They also planted tests to make sure people were worthy.

Would she be worthy? She looked around. Could she remember this place if she found her way back to it, and did she know for sure which direction to go from here to home? Even the skeletons of the hump houses were gone.

Some warrior women loped by, waving their snakesticks, chanting softly. Moralin shuddered, but they didn't glance at her. Though her legs were stiff and sore, she did her best to match Figt's stride. Block the pain. That's what Old Tamlin would say. She concentrated on the wind stirring the leaves. Make a plan. She focused on Lan, sitting by the fire, holding up her embroidery for Grandmother to see, holding up her face for Grandmother to kiss.

Now they were walking beside fields the Arkera must have cultivated during the little rains. This was something she would recognize if she could get away soon. Beans and gourds had been harvested, leaving twisted vines and leggy stalks. A twig caught in her sandal, and she stooped to pull it out. When she straightened, she almost bumped heads with the person bending toward her, a person who seemed to have been suddenly woven out of the wind that whirled around them making her velee flutter.

“I was sent to speak to you.” It was a boy. About her own height. Amazingly, using her language. With an accent, yes, but her own lovely language.

“Who sent you?” Cora Linga, her heart cried triumphantly.

“Up there.” He pointed with his chin to the front of the line. He leaned in closer so the wind wouldn't carry his words away. “You can call me Song-maker. They do.” He waved his arm in a gesture that said, “All of them.”

She couldn't stop gaping. “An Arkera with Delagua words?”

“Me?” He laughed and lifted a flute to his mouth. Blew three haunting notes. “I'm not one of The People. I worked for them this rainy season as a translator when they needed to trade for things. The iron for their spears and knives. Feathers. Beads, if they're to be found. Delicacies like the fruits my people grow.” His eyebrows pulled together in a slight frown. “Now that the rains have ended, I was to be allowed to return home, until they ordered me to speak to you.”

She gave him several sideways glances. He was dressed in the Arkera way and had two stripes of paint on his cheeks, but his hair was long and pulled back, and his eyes were not that strange Arkera color.