A Gathering of Wings (35 page)

“Good idea.” Malora sighs, sinking onto folded legs, her head dropping down over her lap as she holes up in a tent of her hair. She doesn’t want to say this aloud, but she screams it in her mind:
If Sky had not scared the Beast stiff, I would have lost that fight!
The fact was, the Chimera, too, was beyond her ability to even imagine defeating. Only the Sphinx failed to frighten her to her core. Just very nearly to it. And the Leatherwings …

And yet she peers out through a gap in the tent of her hair
and sees Orion, calmly rummaging through the pile of treasure. Zephele and Honus hover over Neal, whispering comfort and encouragement and even making little jokes. And didn’t Lume say that fighting Leatherwings alongside them had been
fun
? The hibes, all of them, seem to be taking this monster-ridden adventure in stride. Why? Is it because both hibes and monsters are the children of the Scienticians? Would it be like feuding with a brother or a sister or a cousin? Having had no brothers or sisters or cousins, she cannot say. All she knows is that her hands still tremble.

“This will do nicely,” Orion says as he reaches for a bronze staff that is sticking out of the treasure heap. Moments later, fishing around with both hands, he cries out in triumph as he begins to pull an enormous robe made of ermine from the pile. Then he takes staff and robe and blowgun and, settling onto his haunches, sets to work.

Malora bursts out of her tent. “You’re using the blowgun to make the sling?” The same blowgun that slew the mighty Chimera, the scariest, most hideous animal Malora has ever seen or imagined. It is enough to make her weep.

Orion looks up at her with a look of mock severity. “Now, Malora. You know that this is a much better use for it.”

Malora makes no comment. The last time she saw the wild centaurs, they were preparing her to be the Beast’s next meal. There is probably no way out of this underworld without passing directly through Ixion. Malora will have to make do with her knife and Neal’s sword—not that she has any confidence in her ability to wield that sword against the wild centaurs, most of whom have probably
teethed
on such swords. She is sitting up now, taking an interest in Orion’s project. He
has lashed blowgun and staff into a V and is now arranging the cape to stretch across the V.

“Can I borrow your knife?” he asks.

Malora reaches into her boot for it and passes it to him, handle-first. Orion gives her a look of sympathy when he sees how her hand shakes. She watches as he uses it to punch a neat line of holes in the cape. He hands the knife back to her, then threads the silver wire through the holes, wrapping the wire around the poles and making a secure sling with just enough give in it to absorb the shock to Neal’s body when they move him. It is as good a job as she would do. Better, in fact. She compliments him.

He looks up from his work with a crooked smile. “You seem surprised.”

“Well, it’s just that …” She isn’t sure how to say it.

“How could I possibly be so adept with my hands when I spend so much of my time dreaming and listening to the notes of scent in my head?”

Malora shrugs, embarrassed, but that is it exactly.

“Ah, but you see, I grew up with Neal Featherhoof.” Then he adds, “I’ll expect you to help me with the harness for Sky. I wouldn’t want to design anything that might bind. Jayke’s rope will suffice?”

Malora nods.

“We can pad it where you see the greatest danger of chafing.”

She is touched by his consideration. “Thank you,” she says. “I’m sure Sky will appreciate that.”

Malora arranges the rope around Sky’s neck and chest and pads it here and there. Orion attaches the ends of the harness
to the sling. When Malora has moved Sky around so that the sling is as close to Neal as they can get it, they hoist Neal into it. It takes all of them working together to do this, including Neal, who sucks air through his teeth with every move. Moments after they have settled him into the sling, he passes out once again, whether from the pain or the painkiller, no one is sure.

As they work their way out of the labyrinth, Malora walks next to Sky to regulate the pace, not to lead him. Sky is the only one who knows the way out. The stallion moves steadily, pulling the sling with care around each corner without jostling his passenger. The sling supports Neal’s upper body, while his hooves drag along behind, the tip of the blowgun bumping and grinding along with them.

The path runs uphill now. Sky slows down and scrambles as the footing softens. His hide foams with the sweat of his exertion. When Malora catches her first glimpse of blue sky, she bends over and removes her knife from her boot. Then just as quickly, she returns it to her boot. She imagines the wild centaurs snickering at her little knife.

“We’re almost there,” she says to the others. Orion and Zephele are following close to the sling in case Neal starts sliding off. Sky’s feet churn as he hauls his burden up the steepest stretch of footing they have yet encountered. Mercifully, Malora can see the end of the path, in a cave that looks out on the paddock in the Valley of the Beast.

What will they call it now? she wonders.

As she guides Sky past sharp rocks toward the cave’s mouth, a lone sentry leaning against a dune wall springs to attention, his eyes widening with shock. He runs off and returns
with four more centaurs. Soon, a mob of wild centaurs fills the valley, crowding in around the paddock. There are males and females, children and old ones. Except for the latter two, they are all heavily armed. Malora hopes that the presence of children and ancients will dispose the wild centaurs toward civilized behavior. Then again, they might just want to set a good example for the young ones by showing how to punish interlopers and horse thieves. Weapons notwithstanding, they don’t look as if they are contemplating slaughter. They are talking in low, animated voices amongst themselves. No one makes a move to speak to any of them. The travelers remain isolated in the paddock, more like prisoners than visitors.

Malora stands in the safest place she can think of, next to Sky. Orion stands next to her, and Honus joins Orion. Zephele tends to Neal. When a sandy-haired centaur with a big blue fish tattooed on his upper torso ambles into view, Zephele raises a hand and wiggles her fingers at him. “Hello, Drift darling!” Then she says to the semiconscious Neal, “That’s the wild centaur who reminded me so of you. His name is Drift. He taught me how to wave-ride. Hello, Drifty dearest, were you all ever so worried about me?”

“Duna took it hard. But we thought Archon would bellow down the heavens, he was so angry with the Beast for taking you. We had given you up for dead. We were going to seal up the cave first thing in the morning, treasure and all. It’s good you got out when you did.”

Malora realizes that he is younger than Neal, not much more than a boy. Still, the resemblance is remarkable.

“Could Neal have had a child?” Malora muses aloud.

“Cauterize your tongue, girl,” Zephele says, her eyes flashing.

Honus laughs softly. “I wager Drift is the offspring of Neal’s uncle Markon, who was turned out for wife-stealing when Neal was just a tyke. I believe his lover went with him voluntarily. And is that Mather I see with the extraordinary body art across his shoulders and arms?”

Mather raises a limp hand in greeting but makes no move to join them.

“They call them body glyphs,” Zephele says. “If I hadn’t been taken by the Beast, I would have my first glyph by now. Athen thought it would help me get in the wild centaur spirit. Ah, there’s my dear brother now!”

Archon is shouldering his way through the centaurs. Like the Apex, he is a head taller than the tallest centaur there. When he arrives at the front of the crowd, he stops and stares at Zephele.

“So it’s true. You’re alive!”

“I am,” she says.

His eyes sweep coldly over the rest of the group and come to rest on Malora.

“You again,” he grunts.

Sky mutters.

Athen’s eyes flick to Sky.

“And you, too, Belerephon? I thought I’d seen the last of you.”

Sky snorts as if to say that he is not particularly happy to be seen.

“His name is Sky,” Malora says.

But Athen’s attention has shifted. “Honus,” he says, with a dip of his bearded chin.

“Athen,” Honus says.

“Archon,”
Athen amends.

“Of course,” Honus says, inclining his head. “Archon.”

He returns his attention to Zephele. “Had I known that you would go wandering off in the night, I would have tied you into your stall.”

“This was the part of wild centaur life I didn’t particularly favor,” she says to her companions. “Very uncomfortable living quarters. One might even say squalid.”

“You made your opinion known from the start,” Athen says curtly. “As I made mine: those of us who truly live in our bodies have no need for creature comforts. I assume, Orion, that you are responsible for rescuing our sister? Always the savior. I trust you didn’t aggravate the Beast while you were at it.”

Orion, who has charge of the blue velvet pillowcase, consults Malora with a look.

Malora nods.

Orion upends the bag and out rolls the head of the Beast.

The wild centaurs move closer to peer at it. When they see what it is, they gasp and pull back. The level of chatter rises, then subsides quickly as the bloody head comes to rest at Athen’s feet.

Neal lifts his head from the sling. “I’d say that’s
very
aggravated,” he says, then flops back.

Zephele and Malora exchange relieved grins, glad that he is feeling well enough to make a joke.

Orion says, “It was Neal Featherhoof and Malora who did the deed. Neal is in need of a healer’s ministrations, as you can see.”

Athen ignores the plea and looks down at the head. “His sisters will starve now,” he says.

There is such a note of tenderness in his voice, Malora almost hates to tell him, but she does. “There’s only one sister now.”

Athen looks up quickly. “You slew the Sphinx, too?”

“No,” Malora says. “We spared her. She seemed harmless enough,” she lies.

Athen’s eyes bore into Malora, his eyebrows furrowed. As bushy as his father’s, they are pierced all along with tiny golden rings that glint in the sunlight. “You have slain the Chimera?” he asks, his voice faint and tinged with respect.

Orion clears his throat.

Malora says, “I’d love to take credit for it, but Orion slew the Chimera.”

Athen squints at his brother, as if trying to imagine it. He gives up, shaking his head in mystification.

“Najeeb!” he roars. Herd and visitors alike jump. He sounds so like the Apex that Malora expects Ash to come scurrying forward instead of this ancient centaur, older than Cylas Longshanks, who comes hobbling forth from the back of the crowd.

“Follow me, my dear,” he tells Zephele in a parched voice.

“Drift!” Athen now bellows. “Sound the conch!”

Drift lifts a large pink seashell to his lips and, throwing back his curly head, blows into it until his face turns bright
red. The sound, loud and deeper than the cry of bull elephant mourning, fills the air.

When the noise dies away, Athen says, “Our guests have given us a reason to celebrate!”

Maybe it is just the fearsome glyphs, but he looks as if he would rather throttle them than invite them to a celebration. But the wild centaurs seem happy and enthusiastic. They rear up in unison, then settle back on their hooves, drumming them rhythmically on the ground. “Bon. Fire. Bon. Fire. Bon. Fire!” they chant. Those whose faces are tattooed look as if they were wearing jubilation masks.

“Go now,” Athen says, indulgently, shooing them off. “Prepare a great roaring fire, and show our guests,” he says, flashing a resentful look at them, “that we wild centaurs know how to enjoy life.”

Malora pulls Orion to the side and crooks an eyebrow.

“This may be as friendly as it gets,” he whispers to her.

“But they are thieves and murderers,” Malora says.

Orion looks around. “I see many familiar faces here, distant relatives, friends of friends, descendants of those long turned out. It is disturbingly like being back home. A home I could never have dreamed of in my wildest imagination …”

“Exactly,” she says. “They are savages.”

“Whatever they may have done,” he says, turning to her and meeting her look, “they did it because they were being held hostage by the Beasts. Now that the Beasts are all but gone …”

Malora turns away. Where is Zephele? Zephele cannot possibly feel this charitably toward her abductors. But Zephele
is leaving the valley, leading Sky and Neal’s sling in Najeeb’s wake.

“Where are they going?” she asks.

Honus says, “Calm yourself, child. They are seeing to Neal’s wound.”

Reluctant to let Sky out of her sight in this place where he was trapped by fishing nets and held prisoner, she hurries to catch up. The centaurs she passes smell like horses and salty seawater. She feels their eyes on her, fascinated and a little frightened. Do they know she stole their horses or has Athen kept that from them? She follows Zephele down the same sandy corridor through which she and Sky once escaped. They pass the horse pens, which stand empty now. Have the wild centaurs failed to replenish the supply, or did Athen let them loose when he decided to bury the monsters alive? She catches up with Zephele just as they are passing beneath a high white arch lined with jagged teeth.

“That is the jawbone of a sperm whale,” Zephele says, her eyes flashing with amusement.

“Where are you going?” Malora says, in a tense whisper. Two young male centaurs are serving as escort and Malora doesn’t want them to overhear.

“To Najeeb’s stall. To see to Neal. You may come along, if you wish. But please don’t glower so. You have slain monsters. You and Neil and Orrie have freed the wild centaurs from their terrible yoke. You should be pleased and proud.”

“You would trust Neal’s life to these thieves and murderers?” Malora says.

Zephele laughs. “Najeeb is neither thief nor murderer,” she says. “He was put out of Mount Kheiron for blasphemy
that gave rise to public brawling when he stood up one day in the temple—he was a priest, you know, and a noble-blooded Goldmane by birth—and announced that the Scienticians were the only gods we hibes could ever legitimately lay claim to. Isn’t that so, Najeeb?”