A Gathering of Wings (28 page)

“Finally!” Orion gasps, skidding to a halt and clutching his chest with both hands. “You had a day’s lead on us. I thought we’d never catch up to you! We have news!” He stops to lean an arm on one of the Peacekeeper’s shoulders as he fights to catch his breath. “We were wrong!” he says, panting.

“About what?” Malora asks.

“About the wild centaurs,” Orion says. “All this was just to throw us off. While they made their getaway north with Zeph.”

Malora and Neal exchange a look, mouths agape. Then they collapse into each other’s arms, limp with relief. Neal
growls at Orion over Malora’s shoulder, “You had better be right about this, Silvermane.”

Orion says, “Believe me, I am. The port captain brought in one of his workers. The hauler had been lying unconscious behind some bales of flax. He’d been clobbered over the head—by two male centaurs dragging a female along the docks. The female had
gold-painted hooves
and a burlap sack over her head.”

Neal claps Orion on the back. “Did you hear that, Malora?” Neal says to her. “The Leatherwings didn’t eat our girl, after all!”

“I heard!” Malora says happily.

Orion narrows his eyes at them. “What in the world are you two going on about?”

“Nothing!” Malora says.

“Never mind,” Neal says, grinning.

Giving them both a wary look, Orion goes on, “They stole a pack boat and are probably halfway to the Downs by now.”

“Then what are we standing around here for?” Neal says with a lusty clap of hands. “After them! Onward to Ixion!”

That the Leatherwings have begun to range far north of the Ironbounds and have made an attack within a day’s ride of Mount Kheiron is something Malora can give no further thought to right now. Finding Zephele comes first.

“To Ixion!” Malora cries.

Malora leads Sky along the docks toward the Apex’s blue-and-white-painted barge, bobbing on the river’s current. When her traveling companions—Neal, Honus, and Orion—see her coming, they shake their heads in unison. The message from them is clear:
Sky stays
.

“Not this time, pet,” Neal says. “It’s bad enough that the Learned Master is coming along.”

“I heard that,” Honus says, looking up from a crate of food he is tying down with a rope. “You never know when having someone
learned
along will come in handy.”

Malora says, “Even if I wanted to leave him behind—which I don’t—he wouldn’t stay.”

“But a stallion on a barge …,” Neal says helplessly.

“Is it really so different from a
centaur
on a barge?” Malora asks.

“It is not. But two clumsy quads aboard are more than enough, thank you,” Neal says. “Turn around and take him
back to the paddock. West will figure out what to do with him.”

“Sky doesn’t listen to West. He only listens to me,” Malora says. “Believe me, you want him along. The wild centaurs are afraid of him. Do I have to remind you that they think he’s a god?”

Neal gives Sky a pointed look. “Will
you
listen to reason, even if
she
won’t? You’ll hate being on the water. I know I do, but I have no choice. It’s the fastest way to the Downs.”

Sky stretches out his hind legs, lifts his tail, and sends a stream of urine splashing down onto the dock.

“
Another
excellent reason for banning horses on board this vessel,” Neal says. “At least the rest of us know to aim our streams overboard.”

Malora makes one last attempt. “He’ll remember the safe route through the Downs better than I will.”

Neal tosses up his arms in surrender. “Keep him directly amidships and
make sure he stays there
!”

“Thank you, Captain,” Malora says, leading Sky on board.

After she has parked Sky’s saddlebag and her Kavian snake stick, she and Sky pick their way around the deck. She lets him sniff and poke his nose into everything, discovering in the process that there are four crossbows, two spears, Neal’s buffalo-whacker, a Bushman’s Friend—the long dagger with a snakeskin hilt that is poking out of the top of Honus’s trousers—and that Orion carries what she thinks is a Pantherian blowgun.

She asks Orion, “Do you know how to use that thing?”

Orion smiles ruefully. “A little.”

“He’s too modest,” Neal says. “Silvermane’s a sharpshooter. We used to play at being river pirates. We both had blowguns. Orrie here could hit a frog between the eyes from fifty paces. Pushing off now. Brace yourselves, everyone.”

Malora stands next to Sky as Orion casts off. She feels Sky plant all four hooves as the deck beneath them starts moving and rocking. Never having been on a boat herself, Malora feels almost as leery as Sky. She has thrown Jayke’s rope around Sky’s neck, just to be safe.

“With any luck,” says Honus, “we will collide with Zephele’s abductors before they even arrive at Ixion.”

“I doubt that,” Neal says grimly. “But we will make the best possible time.”

As they are floating upriver past the paddocks, Malora waves to West and the other wranglers, who raise paws in salutation. The horses gallop back and forth along the fence line. Shadow calls out to Sky as if to say,
Where are you going? You just got here!
The horses from Ixion say,
Take us with you! We don’t care how dangerous it is!
Thunder merely tosses his mane and says,
Don’t tell me you’re going back there! You must be crazy!
Sky, ever his own horse, doesn’t answer any of them, but Malora can feel the tension in his body as he braces his legs and growls low in his chest.

It isn’t long before waves of nausea overtake Malora. She wonders if the dates she ate for breakfast were bad. She leans into Sky and closes her eyes, hoping it will pass. She dozes woozily on her feet. Suddenly, she staggers as Sky erupts from under her. She hears Orion and Neal call out just as Sky leaps over the barge’s rail into the river. Malora is left holding Jayke’s rope in her hand.

“Sky!” Malora runs over to the rail. “Come back here!” But Sky is swimming steadily toward the bank.

“Well,
that’s
a relief,” says Neal.

“Will he return to the paddocks?” Honus asks.

Sky wades up onto the bank and shakes himself from mane to tail. “I hope so,” Malora says. But Sky faces north and begins to amble along the riverbank, keeping pace with the barge.

“He seems to be following us,” Orion says.

“Oh, Sky! No!” Malora says. “He’ll never be able to keep up with us. Maybe I should get out and go with him.”

“Not a good idea, pet,” Neal says.

Neal is right. As badly as Malora wants to dive off the barge and join Sky, she knows it’s important to stay with the others. The quickest and surest way to Zephele is by water. A barge doesn’t have to stop to graze and sleep.

“Take care, Sky,” she calls out as the barge overtakes him.

Malora spends a good portion of the rest of the day with her head hanging over the side, emptying the dregs of her stomach into the river. “You had the right idea, Sky,” she says bitterly as she stares down into the murky waters of the Neelah.

Orion offers her a scent from his traveling case. “It’s largely ginger,” he says. “It will calm your stomach.”

But her nausea is stronger than Orion’s scent, which only makes her gag.

There is a brazier in the cabin where Honus cooks their meals. The aroma of this, too, makes Malora retch. But Honus brews her cups of chamomile tea, and eventually she is able to
keep them down along with a few crusts of bread. She finds that if she fixes her eyes on objects along the shore, her gorge rises. But if she allows her eyes to relax and skim the landscape at the same rate the boat is moving, her stomach settles.

The others stay busy. There is always one of them in the prow to keep watch and one of them in the stern manning the rudder, which is also an oar. It is nighttime when Malora is able to move around without feeling sick. She joins Honus in the prow, where he sweeps a lantern back and forth over the river before them. The smells—weeds and mud and fish—nearly set her off again. They remind her of her death or, as she prefers to think of it,
near death
. The familiar smoky tang of bush sage and river lilies calms her. And if she looks directly overhead, she is actually soothed. It is like gliding down a river made of stars. She wonders where Lume is right now. She wonders where her horse is. She asks Honus, “Have you seen Sky?”

“Oh, he’s out there. Every so often, the lantern catches the flash of a blue eye,” Honus says.

“Oh good,” Malora says, squaring her shoulders. “Well. I think I’m ready to be useful now.”

“Excellent,” Honus replies. “I was just about to go riverblind.” He hands her a whistle and the lantern. “Keep a lookout for menaces to navigation—branches, sandbars, rocks, elephants, crocodiles, hippos, what have you. If you see something, blow the whistle and guide the helmsman around the obstacle. We’re moving quickly, so reacting quickly and signaling clearly are essential. I will go below and brew you up a stimulating tea.”

After Honus delivers her tea, he stays to enjoy a pipe. Malora swings the lantern toward the dark bank. “What was Athen like when you knew him?” she asks.

Honus says, without taking his eyes from the river, “He was my first pupil, my greatest challenge and my greatest failure. He was, in some fundamental way that I will never understand,
untutorable
. Once, he was so frustrated that he picked me up bodily and threw
me
across the room. He was always apologetic afterward. But even when he was happy, there was always the threat that it would not last.”

“He was difficult to live with,” Malora says.

“I’m not sure the Silvermanes will ever admit this—even to themselves—but it was a relief when Athen ‘died.’ It was as if a great, dark cloud had blown away, letting in the sunshine.” After a moment, Honus says, “My guess is that Athen came to believe the Apex was behind the theft of his horses.”

Malora nods, not needing Honus to be any more explicit than this. She flies the Apex’s colors over her paddocks. Athen came to claim his horses and saw the flag. Athen concluded that the Apex had sent Malora to Ixion to liberate the horses. Rather than simply taking the horses back, Athen sought revenge on his father by taking Zephele hostage. She asks Honus, “Do you think he will harm Zephele?” It is hard for Malora to imagine anyone being angry with Zephele.

“Athen is a good deal like the Apex in many respects. Zephele knows how to humor the Apex. She should be able to handle Athen.”

“I hope you’re right,” Malora says.

She remains on watch for the rest of the night and sleeps
much of the next day. While she sleeps, she senses Sky following along the bank, wading in the river, grazing on the grass, rolling in the dust. She wakes up to the sight of the Hills of Melea sliding past, purple against the pale blue sky.

That night, Orion takes the first watch while Neal works the rudder. Malora joins Orion.

“You should get some rest before your watch,” he tells her.

“I slept all day,” she says. The river sweeps past, black and cloaked in a smoky mist that reminds Malora of her flight with Lume. After a while, she says, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Athen.”

“You did what you thought was best,” Orion says, his pale eyes unreadable in the darkness.

“I shouldn’t have kept secrets from you,” Malora says. “You’re my friend.”

“We all keep secrets,” Orion says. “Even from friends.”

They both fall silent, lulled by the river and the lantern light rocking back and forth. At some point, Orion says, “I was dazzled by Athen, even though I was half his age and outshone him in the classroom. He was very strong and sure of himself—and he had a wicked sense of humor. He had Zephele’s gift of being able to light up any room he walked into, but he had to be in the right mood. If he wasn’t, he cast the most terrible pall. He had a band of friends, mostly from the Flatlands. I always thought he was born to be a Flatlander, but now I see that he was born to lead his own ‘herd.’ ”

“Mather says he has never been happier,” Malora says. “Life for the wild centaurs has improved under his rule, even if it is at the expense of horses’ lives.”

They settle into another silence. A baboon heckles. Wild dogs howl. Orion says, “I’ve never told this to anyone before.”

Malora waits. Finally, he begins: “This was years ago, a year or so before we lost Athen. I was on my way back from the Flats one evening, where I had been playing with Neal. I saw a centaur moving along the riverbank. At first, I thought it was a Flatlander gathering herbs or cress, but then I saw it was Athen. And it wasn’t herbs or cress he was gathering. It was rocks.”

“Why rocks?”

“He told me he was going to fill his wrap so that when he walked into the river they would weigh him down and he would drown.” Orion digs thumb and finger into his eyes and holds them there briefly before removing his hand and continuing. “He told me that life was agony for him, that he brought only misery to those he loved, and that he had decided to end it.”

He laughs bitterly.

“He even asked me to help choose the heaviest rocks. Not only did I refuse to help him, but I begged and pleaded with him not to harm himself. I told him that if he destroyed himself our mother was as good as dead. I told him we all loved him.” He stopped, as if struck by his own words. “I meant it, too, when I said it, in spite of all the pain and grief he had visited upon us. Finally, he put down the rocks and came home with me, almost docile. Later on, when he disappeared and everyone said the hippos had gotten him, I simply assumed he had finally succeeded in finding enough heavy rocks to do the job.”

Malora sees tears standing in Orion’s eyes. She takes his
free hand and squeezes it gently. “I’m glad he didn’t kill himself,” she says.

“Yes,” Orion says. “No matter what happens, I am, too.”

Early in the morning, eight days later, the mist is thinning so that Malora, from the bow where she is on watch, can finally see Honus at the stern. She hears a loud whinny and spots Sky on the eastern bank.