Venom and Song (26 page)

“Stop thinking stuff like that,” Kat whispered. “Yikes.”

“Sorry.”

The scratching grew louder as they climbed. Tommy went around a bend and stopped. Kat bumped into his back. Tommy whispered urgently, “STOP, don't move.”

“What?” Kat looked over his shoulder. The spiral staircase ended at a tower chamber, the entrance of which had once been bricked up like the opening far below. Now it was a jagged hole and on the other side, with the Allyran sky darkening behind it, was a large solitary window. In the window was an immense bird. At least nine feet tall, the avian creature had a raptor's profile, like a hawk or an eagle, only it was covered in brilliant scarlet feathers, and its fierce eyes were gold. It stood on a dark marble dais in the middle of the room with a small curved set of stairs leading up to it. The dais itself was strewn with countless parchments that spilled all over the chamber floor. Aside from the window and the perch, the only other feature in the room was a stone bookshelf behind the bird, filled with very dusty, very large books.

Tommy blinked. It seemed to be staring directly at him.

“I think we should go back,” Kat whispered from behind.

The bird screamed. Every tiny hair on Tommy's neck and arms stood straight up. And it was so loud it made both their ears ring.

The bird released Tommy from its gaze. It hopped down onto the floor and lifted one of its long, taloned claws and began scratching at the dark stone of the chamber wall. Its talons had to be ridiculously sharp to gouge the stone like that. Several strange symbols, scratched in white, were already there, and the creature was finishing another. It almost looked like a language of some sort.

Screech!
The bird had apparently finished writing on the wall, and it turned its golden eyes on Tommy. It made a kind of deep chirp and bobbed its head in the direction of the symbols on the wall. It chirped again, louder and more urgent this time.

Tommy took a step forward.

“What are you doing?!” Kat clutched at his tunic. Tommy didn't answer, but she knew what he was thinking. “Tommy, come back! I don't think you should get near it!”

Tommy looked back over his shoulder. “I think it wants me to look.”

“I think it wants to eat you! Tommy!”

But Tommy didn't listen. He turned and kept going. As dangerous and strange as it appeared, there was something about the bird that felt . . . right. The creature watched Tommy intently, staring down its beak with unblinking eyes.

Tommy stepped through the ruined entrance to the chamber. It happened too fast for him to react. The bird's claw shot out and raked Tommy's forearm. Kat screamed and watched him fall backward, blood dribbling from the new wound. She reached Tommy's side just in time to see the fierce scarlet raptor spread its vast wings and leap toward them.

“Anyone seen Tommy?” Jett asked as he walked into the study.

Johnny and Autumn were deep into a game of
Tawlbwrdd
—an ancient Elvish version of chess, but with two unequal teams both with different objectives—so their eyes never left the board.

Jimmy peered over the edge of a book called
The Precepts of Vexbane
. “No, why?” he asked.

“I carved a football out of that spongy wood they call celura, and I wanted to see if he'd throw it around.”

“Football?” Jimmy's coppery eyebrows rose comically. “Yu carved a football? I canna' believe it. I love football. I'm a striker, yu know. I can bend the ball and—”

“Not that kind of football,” said Jett. “I mean my kind of football.”

“Oh,” said Jimmy. “That American rubbish.”

“Harrumph,” said Jett. “Don't knock it till ya try it.”

“Don't mind if I do,” said Jimmy, closing the book.

Kiri Lee entered the study next. “Have you seen Kat?” she asked.

“No,” said Jett.

“Nay,” said Jimmy.

Johnny and Autumn said nothing, but Johnny moved one of his assailants six spaces to the north.

Jimmy looked from Jett to Kiri Lee and said, “We canna' find Tommy or Kat, huh? A wee bit odd, don't yu think?”

This time Johnny and Autumn did look up. They filled the study with a chorus of
“Awwwwwwwwwww!”

RaaaAAAA!
The fierce scarlet bird bore down on Tommy and Kat as if they were two helpless hares hiding at the base of a shrub. The raptor's wings spanned the entire tower chamber. It wheeled about at the last second but extended a talon so that it sliced across Kat's shoulder.

“Kat!” Tommy yelled, drawing his sword.

She yelled and fell to one knee. Blood ran down her upper arm. Meanwhile, the huge raptor landed back on its perch among the parchments.

“You okay?” he asked.

“It stings,” she said. “But it's not deep. C'mon, let's go while it's not looking.”

“How do you know it's not looking?” asked Tommy. Even though it was clearly focused on something in the bed of scrolls, Tommy thought it very likely that those huge golden eyes could still easily track their movements.

“I don't know,” she replied. “But we've got to try. That thing will kill us.”

She pulled Tommy toward the stair, but again, he stopped her. “Wait,” he said. “Look at it. What's it doing?”

“Who cares what it's doing?” But even Kat, scared as she was, couldn't help but be captivated by what she saw. The towering scarlet bird of prey stood, balanced upon one foot, on an outstretched scroll. It bowed its regal head low and stared as if concentrating. Then it stretched out its other foot, extending first one talon and then the other, daubing blood from each in turn on the scroll. Once there were two small blots of blood on the parchment, the raptor lowered its head even more, and the whole creature became stone still.

Tommy and Kat couldn't help but stare. Birds weren't supposed to act like this. Of course, they knew very little about birds in Allyra. But this creature seemed so focused, so . . . knowing. The way it scrutinized the blotches of blood, it seemed to be thinking about them, thinking carefully . . . deciding.

The raptor looked up suddenly. Tommy and Kat stepped back a pace. It screeched, but it was no mere caw or cry. It was something with syllables, something spoken. In an instant, the great bird turned its back on the two teens and mounted its perch. When it turned around again, it had a large book clasped within one of its clawed feet. It held the book out toward Tommy and Kat.

“Are you kidding me?” exclaimed Tommy.

“I think it wants us to have the book,” said Kat.

“Not sure if that's a good idea,” said Tommy. “The last time I took a strange book from someone, I found out I'm an Elf and ended up in another world.”

Kat almost choked with laughter. “Be serious,” said Kat. “I'm going to get it.”

“You were the one just telling me to stay away.” He shook his head. “Take my sword!”

“No, I don't want to look like a threat.”

Look like a threat?
Tommy didn't understand girls at all. “Just be careful.”

Eyes locked on the bird, Kat stepped forward. It made no move but held the book out with seeming ease. Three wide, rounded steps led up to the perch. Kat climbed them very slowly. She stood now within reach of the book, but being so close to the creature, she realized just how large it was. It towered over her. Its thick, tufted breast and shoulders were well muscled, and its wings—even while folded—looked massive. Its beak was long and curved down at the end, finishing with a sharp point.

It was a powerful creature and very beautiful in its color and strength. Kat looked at its nest among the scrolls and wondered how long the bird had lived in Whitehall. That was when she looked a little more closely at the unrolled parchment near the bird's foot, the one the bird had daubed blood upon. There were four blotches. Two of them glistened, still wet. The other two were very dark . . . very old.

Rawwwaaawwwk!
The bird shook the book and extended it a bit farther.

Her mind reeling, Kat looked away from the scroll and back to the bird. She wished she could read the raptor's mind.
Not that I'd understand bird thoughts
. She smiled in spite of the potential danger and reached for the book. The scarlet raptor stared down at her as she took the book, and bobbed its head. The book was so heavy Kat needed both hands to keep from dropping it.

Rawwwaaawwwk!
The bird bobbed its head some more and flapped its wings.

“What's the book?” asked Tommy, wind buffeting his body.

“I don't know,” she replied, wiping dust from the thick volume. “There's nothing on the cover.”

“Think it's another copy of
The Chronicles of the Elf Lords and Their Kin
?”

“If it is”—Kat measured its thickness with her thumb and fore–finger—“ then it's the extended director's cut.”

Sheathing his sword and shaking his head, Tommy joined Kat at the first step. “Open it,” he said.

She did and was met with a pungent but not unpleasant old-paper smell. There were a few blank pages of parchment paper and then what seemed to be a title page. “
Elfkind: The Histories and Prophecies of Berinfell
.” She shrugged. “Maybe it is the same. Our books were histories, also.”

“Maybe,” said Tommy. “It is handwritten, too. But it looks older . . . smells older.”

“And ‘
prophecies
'? That wasn't part of my book.”

“Mine, either. Let's bring it back. Maybe Goldarrow will know what it is.”

“Good idea,” she said, but as she turned to leave, the gigantic bird did something very strange.

Rawwwaaawwwk! Rawwwaaawwwk!
Still bobbing its head, the raptor leaped down from its perch, landed on the chamber floor next to the teens, and laid its long wing at their feet.

Tommy marveled at the intricate spread of feathers—long and short, wide and thin—spread majestically before him. “Is . . . is it bowing?” he asked.

Kat shrugged. “I don't know what to think.”

The scarlet raptor cocked its head sideways, looking directly at Tommy. It squawked, flapped the extended wing a few times, and then sidled over so that its wing actually lay over the tops of their boots.

“It wants something,” said Kat.

“Seems like,” Tommy agreed. “But what?”

Before Kat could answer, the bird shifted to the side, knocking both teens off balance. Tommy fell directly on the creature's back. Kat toppled right behind him and almost lost the book.

Rawwwaaawwwk!
Its cry sounded almost jubilant compared to the piercing screeches from before. So quickly did the raptor rise up on its legs that Tommy and Kat had to scramble up and straddle the creature's back—that or fall off. And it was supremely good that they did not fall off, for the scarlet raptor leaped up onto its scroll-strewn perch, and with a mighty push from its strong legs, it dove out of the chamber window.

“Did yu hear something?” asked Jimmy, picking up the hand-carved football from the grass behind him. He and Jett stood in the grassy courtyard on the northern side of the main castle. The sun had gone behind the trees, casting Whitehall in the gray of twilight.