Time of the Eagle (2 page)

The Main People in My Story

Shinali

Navoran

Igaal

Hena

I
was the first child born to a hunted people, in the first winter of their flight.

My earliest memory is of being carried on my mother's hip across barren plains, with wild mountains all around, and of rough tents made of skins stretched across sticks planted in the dust, of hunger and thirst and a feeling I did not like or understand, but which I know now was the fear that shadowed my people, as a wolf shadows a wounded deer. Always we were moving on, always looking behind us, always afraid to rest.

My people were called the Shinali, and by the time I was born there were only a few of us left, for we had fought many battles with many enemies and lost much. Early in my life I came to realize that the tribe held me high in their hearts, and I thought it was because my mother, Ashila, was the healer, with skills that meant the difference between life or death. But later my mother told me who my father was, and I knew why I was beloved. My father was Gabriel Eshban Vala, from the stone city of Navora, far to the south of our journey-lands.

Things were not good between my father's people and my mother's, for the all-conquering Navorans had stolen nearly all the Shinali lands and left us only one little plain. When my parents first met, my people still had that plain. Navorans were not allowed on our land, but my father came, for my mother invited him. He, too, was a healer, famous and honored among his own people; but when he chose to sit at the feasting-fires of the Shinali, it cost him dearly. His own people turned against him and against us. In the end they drove us off our last land, imprisoned us in a stone fort, and would have killed us all; but my father saved us and traded for our freedom with his life.

A hard freedom it was, for the Emperor in the stone city wanted us all dead. All my childhood life we wandered, staying only a little season in each place, afraid of the bands of soldiers we saw sometimes, far out in the desert or in the mountain passes, searching for us; again and again we moved, living the life of the hunted, until I was fifteen summers old. And then we found a valley, protected and hidden by a ring of mountains, and there seemed to be a shield of peace; and the awful fear that had hung across my people all the years suddenly lifted, and they knew a kind of contentment. For the first time in my life I stayed in one place for more than six full moons, and the river and mountains and hunting grounds and places of gathering became familiar and loved.

It was there, in that peaceful valley, that the day came for the celebration of my sixteenth summer. It was a day high in importance, for in our tribe when she is sixteen a girl becomes a woman, and the whole tribe rejoices and honors her and welcomes her as a new person. The sixteenth borning-day is always celebrated in
summer, when food is plentiful, so there can be a big feast.

Because in our tribe women are the healers, my mother was teaching me her ways, and my work it was to gather herbs along the riverbanks and from the mountains. That afternoon of my sixteenth borning-day I went gathering, leaving the women and children to prepare gifts and special food for my celebration feast. Always I gathered alone, though I knew to be watchful, for battalions of soldiers still searched for us. And the Hena and Igaal peoples—age-long enemies to us—drove us off with arrows and spears when they found us sometimes on the edges of their lands. But I had not seen any enemies during my gathering-times, until that day.

That day I walked beside the great river we call the Ekiya. I went to the very end of the ravine, to the edge of the desert lands, the only growing place for the
eysela
flowers, from which we make medicines for the wiping out of disease. I had gathered almost half that were there, when I went back to the river for a drink, for the day was hot.

I drank quickly, glancing often across the baked grasslands to my right, for beyond them lay enemy lands, the country of the Igaal. I could see no sign of human life, and the peaceful hills seemed to dance in the haze of heat; yet a feeling of danger swept over me. It was an impulse familiar to my people, and we never ignored it. Quickly I bent to pick up the gathering-bag at my feet, and in that moment heard the throb of many hooves. Then I heard distant shouts. From the south they came, the riders hidden by the rocks guarding the entrance to the gorge. Snatching up my gathering-bag, I looked for a hiding place.

To my left soared the walls of the ravine, the river snaking
between them. The nearest bend was far away, with no hiding place between. The hoofbeats were close. Clearly I heard the yells of men racing their horses to the water. Not far into the ravine was a wide rock higher than the others, flatter and sloping upward where it jutted out over a deep pool. I ran to it and, holding my breath, slid over the edge into the still water below.

Silent, icy green engulfed me. I swam under the overhanging rock into the deep shade and found myself in a shallow cave, chest deep in water, the rocky roof close to my head. Even then I was not much afraid, for I thought that they would ride on, following the river as it turned northward. Shivering with cold, I waited.

The pounding in the earth slowed, and there were sounds of iron-shod hooves striking stones. From above came the snorting of horses, and men's voices. I heard the crunch of boots on stones as the riders dismounted. Their voices rang across the water, echoing back from the cliff on the far side of the ravine. A little way to my right, hands reached down from overhanging stones, to drink as I had done. Some held strange water flasks made of metal, which they filled. Farther along, where the river widened into stony shallows, horses dipped their heads and drank.

Clearly I heard the men's words. They were not Igaal hunters but soldiers from the stone city. I recognized many of their words, for their language was my father's, and my mother had taught it to me. Then I heard the word
Shinali
and knew they spoke of my people. And then I was afraid, a high lot afraid. I still remember their words, for that day, every hour of it, is carved deep into my knowing. Some of their words I did not fully
understand, but here record all that I understood or guessed was their meaning.

“They won't be around here,” one of the soldiers said. “If they were, they'd have been found by now. They'll be a hundred miles away, up north by the marshlands, I reckon.”

“We should have killed them years ago, when we had them locked in Taroth Fort,” another said. “Or we should have kept them all as slaves. Then we wouldn't be off on raids like this, to get slaves from the Igaal instead.”

“What I can't understand,” said someone, “is why the Emperor Jaganath, with all his powers, can't find the Shinali.”

“Maybe you could ask him why, sometime,” said someone else, and laughed. “If you dare. Personally, I'd rather confront a pit full of vipers.”

“Maybe the Emperor's not the only one with powers,” said a different voice, bright to my mind. “Maybe someone's protecting the Shinali. Years ago, before the Citadel came under Jaganath's control, some of the old masters there used to have great powers. I remember my father talking about it. The old masters disappeared when Jaganath took over, and everyone said they were murdered, but I think—”

“If you fought as wildly as you dream, boy, you could go and fetch the Igaal slaves all by yourself,” another said, and they laughed.

“It is nothing to laugh about, this work we have to do today,” said a different voice, older, gruff, and weary. “There's no glory in putting helpless women and children to the sword—nor much victory in carrying off a few terrified slaves. When I first joined
the army we were proud, as soldiers. I'm not proud now of what I do. And I don't wish to hear jokes about it.”

“That's mighty close to treason, Boaz, my friend,” someone warned.

“It's not treason to wish for the betterment of our Empire,” replied the one called Boaz. “Nor is it treason to wish for the end of a reign of fear.”

They were silent then for a while, and I could hear only the talk of men farther downriver.

Then a different voice, quite close, asked, “Are we coming back this way, after the Igaal raid?” The speaker sounded young for a soldier, and his voice shook. I wondered if he was afraid.

“No, lad,” said someone else. “We're only going this way so they won't see us approach. When we leave with the new slaves we'll stick to the middle of the plains, where there are no hiding places if they try to escape.”

“Does this water have to last till we're home again?”

“According to the scouts' report, there's a river by the Igaal camp. Don't worry, boy. You won't die of thirst.”

“It's the Igaal arrows you need to worry about, not water,” said another, and there was laughter again.

All along the riverbank toward the plain, horses and men drank, their dark outlines confused against the dazzling light. Through the voices I heard the jingle of harnesses and the stamping of hooves. I watched and listened and waited, quivering with cold and fear, and praying to the All-father that they would soon depart. Then I heard boots on the rock directly above. The soldier stood very still for a while, and I heard him sigh deeply. I heard something drop and slide on the rock, and he said a word
I did not know. A water flask flashed downward just in front of me, plopped into the pool, and sank.

I heard him walk up to where the rock was flat. There were scuffles and sounds of metal grating on stone, and I supposed he was unbuckling his sword and taking off his heavy armor and clothes. There were comments and jokes as his friends cheered him on. Someone warned, “Don't dive, Embry; there might be hidden rocks.”

In the dimness below, I prepared to hide underwater. I heard the man sliding on the rock, saw his bare feet, then his white legs as he lowered himself, yelping at the cold, into the pool; then I sank down, down, my breath locked, my long hair wound tight about my free hand so it would not betray me.

Opening my eyes, I looked through the emerald silence and saw a naked form, pale as a filleted fish, flashing in clouds of bubbles. Several times he dived, sometimes frighteningly close, and it seemed an age before he found his flask. I waited, agonized, hungering for air. Suddenly, unable to wait any longer, I shot upward, gasping. When I opened my eyes the man was still in the water, laughing and yelling, waving his flask above his head. Then he saw me.

Shock showed in his face. He swam slowly, looking at me, frowning as if puzzled. I stared back, perfectly still but for my right hand sliding down to the knife in my belt. In those few heartbeats I saw that he was a little more than thirty summers old, his face and forearms burned red by the sun, his shoulders pale. He was beardless, with a long crooked scar on his chin. His eyes were green; his wet hair, almost shoulder length, was light as straw. He was the first Navoran I had seen up close, and I wondered if
my father had looked like him.

Above, someone yelled, “Come on, Embry! We're going.”

A heartbeat more he looked at me; then, to my astonishment, he smiled. Not a fleeting smile, but a wide, warm smile, as if he suddenly recognized an old friend and was glad.

“Coming!” he yelled, looking up at his companions again. Without a backward glance he swam along to the shallows where the horses had been drinking, and clambered ashore.

I listened, trembling like a rabbit before the blade falls. I heard the man's bare feet slapping on the rock as he ran back to his belongings. Then I heard boots on the rock, and the soldier thanked someone as they helped him strap on his armor. I strained to hear. But he said nothing else; nothing about me. There were sounds of men mounting their horses, and more commands. Then there were the sharp sounds of horses crossing stones. For a short time the ground throbbed with their going; then all was quiet.

Still I waited in the water, my hand clenched about the bone handle of my knife. At last, stiff with cold and with teeth chattering, I pulled myself out of the water and looked across rocks and the wide grasslands to the east. Across the brown plain a dark smudge marked the battalion, already vanishing in dust and heat.

I watched until it disappeared, then, with shaking hands, I spread the gathering-bag on a flat rock and pressed the water out of it, hoping the herbs within were not ruined. Putting it over my shoulder, I began to walk home. I walked quickly, running at times on the hot stones, avoiding the soft dust in between where footprints could be tracked. Yet despite my caution, there was a
peace in me, for I remembered the soldier's face, and how the light about him had shown no hate, but only a brief joyfulness I could not understand.

It was afternoon's middle when I came to the place where the ravine widened suddenly into the green valley, and I saw my home. Children played outside the tents, and in the river beside the dwellings the young men swam naked, wrestling one another, laughing. Smoke rose from the smoke-holes in the tents, carrying the fragrance of bread-cakes. Beyond the dwellings rose the mighty peaks of the Napangardi Mountains, brown and desolate in the summer's heat. A group of men approached the tents from the foothills, carrying bows and spears, and bearing the carcasses of three deer.