Shadows in the Cave Read Free Page A

trees, and from rocky crevices. The enemy closest to Shonan was squatting next to the hides he and Meli had slept under. Shonan kicked him in the head so hard he heard the man’s neck crack.
    He whirled, his stone club cocked. A Brown Leaf was foolish enough to charge and thrust with the point of a spear. Shonan swept it aside with one hand, spun, and clubbed the man fiercely in the back of the head. He loved the clamor of battle.
    Shonan’s comrades shouted, roared, swung, slashed, stabbed—they roused themselves into an orgy of slaughter. He himself jumped across several empty beds, grabbed a Brown Leaf from behind, and slit his throat. Then he said to Yim, who was winding up with his own club, “Sorry to interfere, you get the feather.” Galayi warriors were awarded eagle feathers for brave deeds like killing enemies.
    Shonan, Yim, Fuyl, Feyano, and his son looked around. It was over.
    Shonan corrected himself. It might be over. Six enemies, Meli’s count had been right, but maybe she hadn’t seen them all. His eyes found her in the skies.
    Aku spied her, too. She slowly glided around the camp, still checking. Then she wingflapped her way upward, so that she could see further.
    At that moment Aku noticed far above his owl mother the dark shape of a high-flier, wings fixed, body sailing imperiously above all. Though the light was barely enough, he saw it was a hawk. Yes, a red-tail hunting in the predawn light.
    Horror strangled him. He tried to cry out loudly, but his voice clotted in his throat.
    The hawk hurtled down. At the last instant, points jutted out below its belly. Talons and the hurling weight of the predator hit his mother at full ferocity. Aku thought maybe he heard a sound like a hiccough, or the first squeak of a hoot.
    Several owl feathers spurted into the air.
    The hawk winged off, feet clutching a dark lump.
    Aku, Salya, and Shonan looked at each other, eyes glassy with agony. No words were possible.
    Dead enemies were strewn around the camp, but Aku’s eyes were fixed on the real enemy winging away. He sent Meli a thought— Change back into a human being and you’ll be too heavy for him . But he knew the talons had pierced her heart in the first instant. The lump got smaller, to him a mother, to the hawk a meal.
    Aku and Salya held each other and wept.
    When that was over, the brother and sister walked out onto the hillside and spent endless time meandering around. At last they found three of their mother’s feathers.
    “Do you want these?” Aku asked Salya.
    “No,” she said, “but I ask you to wear them in your hair.”
    Aku gave her a wild look.
    “Aku, say out loud why you must honor our mother.” Her brother was kind and sensitive, but he often needed coaching.
    “She died to save her children.”
    “And her husband,” said Salya. “And because?”
    He looked at her foolishly.
    “Mother gave you the gift she had, the gift to change shape, like she did. Now you will wear these as a sign that you know she was an owl as well as a human being. To honor that.”
    She tied them into his long hair in back, tail feathers properly pointing down.
    When they got back to the group, ready to go, Shonan stared at the feathers. Aku and Salya stared back.
    Finally, their father said in a raspy voice, “We don’t have a body to bury.”
    He meant that they could hold no proper ceremony for their mother, give her no food or water or even moccasins for her trip to the Darkening Land. They could do no proper mourning. She was gone without a farewell.
    Shonan grabbed Aku roughly by the shoulders. “Remember what got her killed. It was that damn magic.” The father glared at his son. Aku said nothing.
    “I see you’re wearing her feathers. Take them off.”
    Salya spoke first. “No.”
    “This is how I honor her,” said Aku.
    Shonan’s face contorted. “I know, she used to say you have it, too, you could be a shape-shifter. I made her promise she wouldn’t teach you. Look! Now you know