Bronze Magic (Book 1) (6 page)

It took him over an hour of solid climbing to reach the top of the
cataract. The path he had been following ended there. Before him, the
river filled the ravine from cliff to cliff. Tarkyn’s only choices were to
turn back or to climb. He studied the cliff face on his right, looking
for some likely cranny in which to hide his leather bag. Then, a little
distance along the right hand cliff, a hundred feet up but nowhere near
the top, he spotted an eagle’s nest perched on a small ledge. Sorcerers
respected eagles, both for their strength and beauty; no one would dream
of attempting to invade their nests. If Tarkyn could secrete his valuables
there, no one would find them.
Perfect, he thought, Impossible, but perfect. Tarkyn shrugged and
grinned to himself. He had nothing to lose. He was a man without a
future. He would attempt the impossible.
It was not reaching the nest that was the problem. He and many other
of the stronger sorcerers could levitate, not necessarily a hundred feet,
but enough to rise from one foothold to the next. It was running the
gamut of the eagles that made it so tricky. And if he was busy levitating,
Tarkyn could not raise his shield or fire a beam of power at the eagle to
defend himself. Besides, killing the eagle would defeat the whole purpose
of hiding his valuables behind its nest.
Tarkyn settled down on a wet rock to eat while he watched the eagle’s
nest. It was hard to see exactly what was happening but from time to
time, he saw the head of a large golden eagle jutting over the top of the
nest. Judging by the way it kept shifting its position, he was fairly sure
that there must be an insistent chick beneath it. He wondered why the
eagle didn’t take off straight away to hunt until he remembered that it
would be waiting for the air to heat up.
It was still early morning and the air was cool and fresh. Tarkyn decided
that he might as well find himself somewhere in the undergrowth to doze
until the warming air created the thermal currents the eagle was waiting for.
The sound of voices woke him a little before noon, dragging him up
out of the depths of a sound sleep. For a few moments, he lay groggy and
disoriented, trying to remember where he was and why. He gave his head
a shake and rubbed his eyes, glad that he was safely out of view behind a
curtain of overhanging branches. He listened carefully for a few minutes
and caught enough snatches of conversation to decide that the voices
belonged to a group of sightseers, out on a walk to view the spectacle of
the falls. Not as dangerous as soldiers, but still able to report a sighting
of the renegade prince on their return, even if they chose not to tackle
him themselves.
Tarkyn was just about to let himself doze off again until they left, when
it occurred to him that he might snore and alert them to his presence. So,
instead, he spent the next half an hour, jerking himself awake every time
he felt himself nodding off.
Luckily, the dampness underfoot and the spray in the air were a little
too uncomfortable for the day trippers to stay long. But just as he was
about to emerge, he heard more voices coming up the track from the
bottom of the falls.
Oh Blast
, thought Tarkyn,
I’ve trapped myself, right in the middle of the
local attraction.
He thought back to the last large village he had passed. It
would have been about two hours from the bottom of the falls. So it was
reasonable to assume that the last day trippers would leave the top of the
falls at least three hours before dark. Tarkyn heaved a sigh and resigned
himself to a long wait.
Inactivity was not natural to him and by the time the last voices had
died away down the side of the valley, most of his supplies had been drunk
and eaten, out of pure boredom. By the time Tarkyn could crawl out of
his hiding place, he felt damp through to his bones. The sun was heading
towards the horizon but once he was away from the overhang of the trees,
there was still a sting of heat in the air. Without further ado, Tarkyn hitched
his pack firmly on his back and walked to the bottom of the cliff to plan out
his route. The cliff was not completely sheer. In fact, an experienced climber
could probably have scaled it without ropes. However, Tarkyn planned to
climb where he could, and levitate to the next ledge whenever he got stuck.
This plan worked well, but he had underestimated the height of the
cliff and the difficulty of the climb. When he was only half way up, the
eagle had swooped back onto its nest. Tarkyn pressed himself in against
the rock face and waited motionlessly while it fed a large rat to its insistent
fledgling before taking off again. After a few minutes, Tarkyn cautiously
resumed his ascent but by the time he was sitting on a ledge just below
and some thirty feet short of the eagle’s nest, he was running out of both
time and energy.
Here, he could hear the incessant squawking of the eagle chick. He
could see the eagle far above him, circling in a thermal that brought it
out over the ravine and then sent it out of sight over the top of the cliff.
Each time it disappeared from sight, he scrambled a few feet closer to its
nest, and froze each time the eagle’s path brought it back into the open
sky above him. At last, he was within ten feet of the nest. Now that he
was close to it, Tarkyn could see that the ledge on which it rested was
wider and deeper than it had appeared from below and there would be
room for him to stand on it while he found a secure place for his leather
pouch. The eagles had chosen well. The cliff face was completely smooth
in every direction around the ledge, so Tarkyn would have to levitate
himself across the last stretch.
He waited until the eagle circled out of sight then made his move. He
glided the short distance across the gap, to land in a crouch next to the eagle
chick. The chick immediately addressed its complaints to him, at double
the volume. Before he could even straighten, the sun was blotted out by
huge wings as a second eagle came at him from behind, its fearsome talons
spread before it. Tarkyn threw up his shield, instinctively cowering back
against the cliff face as the enormous bird swooped in to land straddling its
chick defensively, its hooked beak only inches from Tarkyn’s face.
Oh no! Of course there are two of them. I should have known that.
Tarkyn
lowered his arms and slowly uncurled himself. He leant, still crouching,
against the back of the ledge, and raised his own amber his eyes to look
directly through the bronze haze of his shield into the hard amber eyes
of the eagle. Tarkyn was by no means safe, even within his shield. If the
eagle forced him off the edge of the ledge, he doubted whether he could
wave away his shield and then incant his levitation spell as he plummeted
downwards, in time to avoid smashing onto the rocks below. And when
the time came to leave the eagle’s ledge, he would have to drop his shield
before he could levitate. No, not safe at all.
Slowly, Tarkyn removed the pack from his back and set it down in
front of him. Without taking his eyes off the eagle, he felt around inside
until his hand closed on the last of his game pie. He brought it out
slowly and raised the edge of his shield so that he could push the offering
towards the eagle. The eagle tilted her head so that she could see what
Tarkyn had laid before it. Then she shrieked her derision at him.
With no conscious effort at all, Tarkyn found himself slammed hard
against the cliff face as the sound assaulted him. But despite this, he kept
his eyes firmly locked on the eagle’s. At the smell of food, the chick’s
cries became even more plaintive as it struggled beneath its parent to
reposition itself and stretch out far enough to reach the pie. The eagle
gave it an impatient nudge back with her beak but the chick was not to
be denied. After several frustrated attempts to quell her chick, the eagle
flapped into the small space between Tarkyn and her nest so that she
could reach the piece of pie.
Pastry was not the easiest substance for an eagle’s hooked beak to
grapple with and it took several attempts before most of the pie had
disappeared down the chick’s throat. During the whole procedure,
she alternated her baleful stare between the food and Tarkyn. Overall,
Tarkyn felt that his gift had probably antagonised the eagle more than
pacified her.
Minutes later, the male eagle landed on the nest and, ignoring
Tarkyn, used beak and talons to rip apart a large crow and feed it, piece
by piece to the squawking chick. At last the chick’s cries subsided and
Tarkyn felt his nerves settle slightly as silence descended. But now he
had two huge birds glaring at him from inches away and the ledge had
become extremely crowded. Slowly he stood up so that he was taking
up less space. As he rose to his feet, he saw a deep recess at waist
height. With a very slow wave, he changed his shield from a dome to
a curved wall in front of him. Then he reached into his pocket, drew
out the leather pouch and, keeping his eyes all the time locked with
the eagles’, pushed the leather pouch deep into the crevice with his
right hand. All was going well until his hand flinched back from a
sharp piece of rock.
At the sudden movement, pandemonium broke out. Both eagles
spread their wings and battered at the outside of his shield, shrieking
and snaking their heads towards him, their beaks and talons hooking
onto the bronze hazy barrier. In the background, the chick squawked in
alarm. Breathing hard, Tarkyn resisted the urge to back away. Bringing
to bear the natural arrogance of his heritage, Tarkyn outfaced everything
the eagles threw at him. He would not let them drive him from the ledge.
He brought his hand slowly down to his side and forced himself to stand
motionless before them, keeping his eyes on theirs.
Gradually, as their aggression had no effect on the intruder, the
eagles quietened and after ruffling their feathers into place, reverted
to glaring at him. Slowly, more slowly than he had ever done it before,
Tarkyn faded his shield away. After a minute, the female jabbed her
head forward and used the rounded part of her hooked beak to push
Tarkyn in the chest.
Tarkyn kept rigidly still. Then slowly, keeping his eyes trained on theirs,
he placed his hand over his heart and gave these lords of the air a small
bow, as the acknowledgement of one equal to another. He doubted that
they had any idea what he meant by it, but it felt the right thing to do, to
pay them homage and to thank them for protecting his valuables. They
cocked their heads at him, as though studying the gesture. Suddenly with
a parting shriek, the female took off and with a few strong wingbeats,
rose swiftly on the air to become a silhouette against the sky. The male
stepped into the nest and settled himself on top of the chick, muffling
its cries.
Tarkyn could hardly believe his eyes. Returning stare for stare with
the remaining eagle, he muttered under his breath, “
Ma liefka
” and rose
gently into the air. The eagle stayed where he was and let Tarkyn go.
When at last Tarkyn had levitated and clambered his way to the top
of the cliff, he stretched himself out on the grass and found that he was
trembling, whether from exertion or reaction he wasn’t sure. He was still
dazed by his escape. He reflected ruefully that even for a man with no
future, his venture into the eagle’s domain had been foolhardy.
ver the next few days, Tarkyn skirted villages and farmsteads, losing
all idea of where he was heading. Twice he waylaid a small child to
ask him to buy something for him from the village shop in exchange
for a small fee, but these villages were so small that everyone knew
everyone’s business, and both times he had had to run for his life as
suspicious villagers had come looking for the stranger. By the fourth day,
he was living mainly on berries and some apples he had found in an old
gnarled tree by the side of the road. His big frame demanded more than
this and his stomach growled constantly as he walked along mile after
mile of dirt roads.
It was nearing sunset on the fifth day away from Tormadell when
he sat down by the side of the road to rest before finding somewhere
safe to spend the night. Up ahead of him, Tarkyn could see the
beginnings of a forest and he hoped that it might provide him
with some respite from the constant tension he had endured since
leaving Tormadell.
He was tired and dispirited after days of living on his nerves. He
had travelled fast, avoiding villages and farmhouses, shying away from
contact with people. He was becoming very weary of detouring around
the slightest signs of humanity and starting at every sudden sound.
After days of unaccustomesd solitude, he was sick to death of his own
company and was beginning to think that his unknown future would be
slow starvation if he could find nothing better than berries and apples to
eat. Heaving a disconsolate sigh, Tarkyn put his hood up and dozed for a
while in the shadows of an old oak.
When he awoke, an old man was sitting beside him. Tarkyn retreated
further into his hood and glanced around to check whether the old man
was alone. He seemed to be.
“Good evening,” said Tarkyn warily.
The scruffy, old man seemed to be completely relaxed, “Good evening,
young man. I was wondering, if you are going my way, whether you might
like some company for a while, going into yonder forest? I have been
travelling alone for some time and would appreciate a bit of company.
Besides, the forest always feels safer when there is more than one person
travelling through it, if you know what I mean.”
Tarkyn studied him for a minute, trying to discern any guile in his
voice. Then he realised that the old man could have captured him while
he slept, had he known who he was.
“I don’t suppose,” ventured Tarkyn hopefully, “that you’re any good at
hunting or trapping, are you?”