Sword Mountain (28 page)

“Tell me, then, why is the paper bloodstained?” Sigrid raised the sheet high for all to see.

Birds murmured, frowning.

“And you promised,” whispered Sigrid to Fleydur. She turned to the court. “Check his words! You all heard him promise he wouldn't break his father's heart.” Sigrid placed a set of talons upon her own chest. “But now our king's heart is broken, utterly broken.” Her words turned into sobs.

“Let us vote. Is Fleydur guilty of the two crimes, yea or nay?” said Amicus. He turned to the bronze scales. “O founder eagle of our mountain, who sees truth and falsehood alike, show us which direction now the Skythunder tribe is to fly.”

Fleydur had known he would hear those words again. But, instead of an assembly to vote on his dream of a music school, there was an assembly to try him for atrocities committed against his own father!

He lifted his eyes toward the bronze eagle of the balance. The eagle that had seemed so kindly to him before this now stared emptily ahead. The advisers placed their voting stones on the scale.

How the bronze eagle groaned, tilting far to one side, as if it had been stabbed in the back. Fleydur listened to the staccato of yeas.

Ten yeas. Five nays.

Then Forlath, holding the king's three-vote stone, chose nay, but it was no use: with his vote it was still ten to eight. The vote was close—yet this time, the king's stone did not shift the balance.

“Prince Fleydur,” boomed the secretary. “The Iron Nest has found you guilty.”

“An eye for an eye, a feather for a feather, a death for a death!” the Iron Nest chanted.

Sigrid flung the black veil from her face. “Nothing less than death!” she agreed. The shouts grew to a feverish pitch, nearly drowning out Forlath's voice:

“No!”

Sigrid glared at Forlath, who was gripping Morgan's scepter tightly.

Forlath did not look at Fleydur. “Father's funeral must be attended to first—that is the law. You cannot tarnish a king's burial with the death of a criminal. The execution will be postponed.” He struck the ground with his scepter, his face a cold mask. “Till then, throw him into the dungeon!”

It had been generations since the dungeon had been inhabited, years since it was last opened. Many did not know what it looked like, so they crept to the padlocked entrance and watched the guards oil the rusted locks and push open the creaking, heavy iron door. A foul wind of mildew and rot blew out.

Fleydur glanced back once, as the two guards steered him down into the dark mouth of the dungeon. His heart tore against his ribs. Never had he imagined anybird accusing him of killing his father. He had done nothing! No, he corrected himself. He
had
done something. He had returned home when nobird wanted him to.

 

Hurry, scurry, work and worry: helter-skelter, hurly-burly.

—
FROM THE
B
OOK OF
H
ERESY

I
t is done,” Tranglarhad said, slamming the iron door behind him. Silence filled the vast space in the Castle of Earth, for all the owls there knew what he meant. Tranglarhad hurried toward his laboratory in the depth of the caverns. There, Kawaka stood up, angry. “Finally you return!”

“What ails you?” said the owl.

“While you were on the mountaintop, enjoying playing teacher, I went off to recruit other archaeopteryxes. It was hard enough for me to sneak a band into Sword Mountain unnoticed. When I brought my recruits to your door, your underlings refused to let them in! What's the meaning of this?”

“Did they? It must have been a misunderstanding,” Tranglarhad replied, although it was he who had given this order. The owl had worried that while he was away Kawaka would gather forces to usurp his Castle of Earth.

“There isn't anyplace else to hide such a large group of soldiers,” continued Kawaka. “I had to remove them and house them just outside the mountain range. Many of them got fed up and deserted. Now only a few dozen remain.” Kawaka pounded the table. “And you stand there nodding your big head, doing nothing.”

“Excuse me?” Tranglarhad shouted, incensed. “I have accomplished what I said I would do; I have the gemstone right now, and have snapped the wings of the eagle kingdom!” The owl wrenched the Leasorn gem out of his pocket and flashed its purple light into Kawaka's eyes.

Surprised, Kawaka forgot his anger. “I cannot believe it! No army's chased you down?”

“That's because the king is dead.”

“Such great timing!” the archaeopteryx exclaimed admiringly.

“Why, thank you. I wish I could have stayed to watch, indeed.”

“I have never met a bird like you.” Kawaka shook his head. He extended a claw. “Since that's all finished, give me back the
Book of Heresy
!”

“Not so fast,” said Tranglarhad.

“I have to have it! It bears my former emperor Maldeor's script. It will help me recruit more soldiers, in the name of the empire.”

“I need it for tonight,” said Tranglarhad.

“I need it more! If what you said about the eagle king is all true, then now is the time to attack them. They are at their most vulnerable. Why do you delay?”

“Upon my pellet, have I not already expressed to you my profound indifference to the blood and guts of battle?” the owl said calmly. “I have gotten what I wanted—the Leasorn gemstone. And I need the
Book of Heresy
for a little longer.”

“What for?” Kawaka's face darkened.

“Your emperor was very interested in this type of gem and I intend to use the Leasorn to make sunglass lenses,” said Tranglarhad. “In owl legend, if an owl wears sunglasses made of a magical stone, he will gain the sight of day. And when he takes them off, he retains it forever. The
Book of Heresy
will verify whether the Leasorn is the stone that I need. Then, I will be as powerful as the eagles; no, more so. I will be a bird of both worlds, of both night and day!”

“You can keep the book a little longer,” consented Kawaka. “But I will bring my recruits here, and this time you will let them in.”
And you will give the gemstone, too, I'll see to that!
he added silently.

Tranglarhad started to fill his alchemists' furnace with coals. “Leave, then,” he said. But as soon as Kawaka departed, he motioned to one of his owls. “Some effort it took to pry the archaeopteryx from this book! Hide it in a cliff for safekeeping till this evening's work is done.”

As the other owl flew off, Tranglarhad coaxed the flames inside the furnace. He trod up and down on the bellows pedals. “It will take a while to reach the desired heat,” he said to his owls. “Meanwhile, let the party begin!”

Never had Dandelion left Sword Mountain and flown so far.

She beat against the wind through snow, hoping she would be able to find Cloud-wing at Double Pain Peak. As she kept low to escape the worst of the wind, the snowfall intensified, whole chunks hitting her in the face and clattering on her wings.

She glanced about for stars to get her bearings, but the eyes of the sky were closed to her. Her face upturned, Dandelion was caught unawares by a strong gust of wind. Her wings buckled. The next thing she knew, tree branches cut her cheek and she was tossed into a snowdrift. She could not see anything.

Dandelion waited to catch her breath. She was snugly curled within the snow as if within an eggshell.

The raging of the wind outside was muted. A voice in her mind said to her,
You should have planned better.

Dandelion tried to move, but the voice told her,
Just rest now. See, it's so calm here. It'll soon get comfortable. And you won't have to worry anymore about the world outside.

Dandelion shook the words from her mind. She raised her talons and pounded the snow, trying to find a place to break free.

Why don't you stay here?
the voice said, louder.
You've lost your crown. You are an orphan again. You're released from responsibility.

Angered by the words, Dandelion clawed to break free of the ice shell. As she emerged, she stood wobbling on her feet, panting.

She didn't have a crown anymore, but that did not mean she hadn't learned a thing or two about the responsibilities of a princess. Princess or not, she would stand up for those around her. Princess or not, she would not perch aside, watching injustice slip past, without doing everything in her power to right it. And princess or not, she would not be afraid to do what it takes to stand against it.