The Eye of the Falcon Read Free

moonlight. In secret. Now, how’d you know that?”
    â€œLike I said, Pirra told me!”
    Another command—and Hylas was hauled back to the shore. The noose was removed, the spears withdrawn. Someone chucked him his axe and his knife.
    The old woman hawked and spat a gobbet of purple snot on the stones. Then she turned and lumbered back into her hut. “Yassassara’s dead,” she said over her shoulder.
    Hylas flinched. “What about Pirra?”
    â€œYou better come inside.”

3
    T he lion cub heard ravens calling from the ridge and quickened her pace. Ravens meant carcasses, and she was hungry.
    The Bright Soft Cold lay deep on the mountain, and by the time she’d struggled onto the ridge, the ravens had left only bones. The cub crunched them up, but the hunger didn’t go away.
    The cub was always hungry. Long ago, men had brought her to this horrible land of shadows and ghosts. She remembered fleeing in terror as the Great Gray Beast came roaring in and savaged the shore. Afterward, there had been piles of carcasses—dogs, sheep, goats, fish, humans—and swarms of vultures. The lion cub had fought for her share, until men had chased her away with their great shiny claws.
    She’d fled to the mountain, because she knew mountains, but this was nothing like the fiery Mountain where she’d lived with her pride. There were no lions, only frozen trees and Bright Soft Cold; hungry creatures, ragged men, and ghosts.
    It was a land of shadows. When the cub sat on her haunches and gazed at the Up, she couldn’t see the Great Lion whose mane shone golden in the Light and silver in the Dark. And there was no real Light, only this gray not-Light, in between the Darks.
    The cub had grown used to the not-Light, as it helped her hide from men; but as the Darks and the not-Lights passed, the cold bit harder. Her breath turned to smoke, and she couldn’t find any wet to drink, so she ate the Bright Soft Cold. She learned to crawl into caves when the white wind howled, and her pelt grew thick and matted with filth. It kept her warm, but she was too hungry and frightened to lick herself clean.
    Then, alarmingly, her teeth started falling out. She was horrified, until new ones thrust painfully through. They were larger and stronger than the old ones: She could rip open a frozen carcass with one bite. And she got bigger. Now when she stood on her hind legs to scratch a tree, her forepaws reached much higher than before.
    Here on the mountain, there weren’t as many dead things as on the shore, so as well as scavenging, the cub tried to hunt. Mostly she did it wrong, charging too soon, or getting confused about which prey to chase; but finally she felled a squirrel with a lucky swipe. It was her first kill. If only there’d been someone with her, to see.
    That was the worst of it, the loneliness. Sometimes the cub sat and mewed her misery to the Up. She longed for warmth and muzzle-rubs—and to sleep without fear, because other ears and noses were keeping watch.
    A jay cawed to its mate, and from high on the ridge came the squawks of vultures. The lion cub struggled toward them through the Bright Soft Cold.
    The vultures were squabbling over a dead roebuck. The cub wasn’t yet able to roar, so she rushed at them, snarling as loud as she could and lashing out with her claws. It was good to see the vultures flying off in a clatter of wings; and the buck was still warm. Tearing open its belly, the cub hunkered down to feed.
    She’d hardly gulped a mouthful when two men burst from the trees, shouting and waving big shiny claws.
    The cub fled: down a gully and up some rocks, anywhere, as long as she got away. She didn’t stop until she could no longer smell that horrible man-stink.
    The lion cub hated and feared all men. It was men, with their terrible flapping hides and their savage dogs, who had killed her mother and father when she was little. It was men who