Talon of the Silver Hawk Read Free

honey-colored eyes that narrowed when she laughed. Her skin was lighter than the othergirls’ and scattered with freckles, and her heart-shaped face was surrounded by a mane of hair the color of summer’s wheat. He prayed to the gods that his father had met with her father the night before Midsummer, and not with one of the other girls’ fathers. Then with a
surge of panic, he realized his father might have met with the father of one of the girls from close-by villages, the slow-witted Pialua or the pretty but always complaining Nandia!
    He sighed. It was out of his hands. Stories were told of men and women who longed for one another, sagas told by the storytellers around the fire, many of them borrowed from singers from the lowlands as they passed through the mountains of the Orosini. Yet it was his people’s way that a father would choose a bride for his son, or a husband for his daughter. Occasionally a boy—no, he corrected himself, a man—would return from his god’s vision and discover that no bride waited to sit next to him at his manhood festival and he would have to wait another year for a bride. Rarely, a man would discover that no father wished his daughter wed to him and he would have to depart the village to find himself a wife, or resign himself to live alone. He had heard of a widow once whose father had died before her husband, and she had taken one such man to her hut, but no one considered that a proper marriage.
    He sighed again. He longed for this to be over. He wanted food and to rest in his own bed, and he wanted Eye of the Blue-Winged Teal, even though she made him uncomfortable.
    Upwind he caught a sound he knew to be a sow bear with cubs. She sounded alarmed, and Kieli knew her cubs would be scampering up a tree at her warning. Kieli sat up. What would alarm a black bear this close to the mountain? A big cat might, if a leopard or cougar was ranging nearby. They were too high up for the big cave lions. Maybe awyvern was hunting, he thought, feeling suddenly small and vulnerable out on the face of the rocks.
    A small cousin to a dragon, a wyvern could hold off half a dozen or more skilled warriors, so a boy with only a ceremonial dagger and a gourd of water would make a very satisfying break of fast for such a beast
    Hunting packs might frighten the sow bear; wild dogs and wolves usually avoided bears, but a cub was a manageable meal if they could draw the sow away from one of her babies.
    Or it could be men.
    In the distance the circle of buzzards grew. The boy got to his feet to gain a better view and was suddenly gripped with a light-headedness, for he had stood up too quickly. Steadying himself with one hand upon the rocks, he gazed into the distance. The sun was now high enough that the haze of morning had burned off, and he could clearly see the buzzards and kites wheeling in the distance. Kieli’s sight was legendary in his village, for few could see as far as he, and none in the memory of his clan could see better. His grandfather joked that whatever else he lacked, he had a hawk’s eyes.
    For a long moment Kieli’s eyes saw without him comprehending. Then suddenly he realized the birds were circling over Kapoma village! Alarm shot up through him like a spark, and without hesitation he started down the trail. Kapoma was the village nearest to his own.
    There was only one possible explanation for so many carrion-eaters above Kapoma: a battle. He felt the panic rise up in him. Moreover, no one was clearing away the dead. If marauders were ranging through the valleys, Kulaam would be the next village they raided!
    His mind reeled at the thought of his family fighting without him. Twice as a boy he had stayed in the roundhouse with the women while the men had defended their village from attack. Once it had been a clan fight with the men from the village of Kahanama, and another time a goblin raiding party had sought children for their unholy sacrifices, but