Zadayi Red (29 page)

In a moment Su-Li reappeared, flying the tightest of circles in the hole. The lower part of the vine dangled from his mouth.

Zeya pulled hard on the vine several times to get higher. He wanted to see what was happening. He couldn’t imagine. Saved or killed?

At the top Su-Li disappeared behind a boulder. Zeya heard rustling. Then he felt the vine rise up into his crotch.

Su-Li hopped to the rim, looked down at him, and squawked.

Incredulous, Zeya let his weight sink onto the loop in the vine. It was like sitting in a kid’s swing. He chuckled. Swings were made of vines.

A while later, rested, he pulled up until he could see the rim at eye level. It was out of reach. He swung back and forth. He wasn’t high enough.

Three more good pulls. He swung again. Maybe enough.

He kicked out for his best swing, sailed toward the warm light—now it looked bright as suns—and flung himself into the air.

He hit the rim with his belly. He began to slide. He pawed everywhere for purchase with his hands.

He felt himself start to topple backwards. Just then a toe found a jutting rock, just enough of a bump . . .

He planted his palms flat on the rim and with the greatest exertion of his life muscled himself onto the rim.

He collapsed and lay flat.

He might have slept except for one thought.
Paya is dead
.

Z
eya made the long walk toward the Tusca village in low spirits. He had eighty-one war eagle feathers wrapped in his hide, almost all good ones. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Paya.

He also couldn’t stop fretting. Su-Li rode the air above him constantly, keeping a double-sharp eye out for miles around. Zeya had nearly been killed twice, and now he was walking toward the village where his mother grew up and where he normally would have lived all his life. It was also the village where his great enemy lived, his grandfather Inaj. He had never laid eyes on it.

He topped the ridge on the west side of the valley and looked down on storied territory. On the grassy slope below
his mother had been hit by lightning. And there, as she died, he had been born.

Far beyond, by the river in the valley below, he could see the tip of the village.

“The one place I can’t go,” he said out loud. An odd feeling rummaged around in his chest.
For my entire life my grandfather has been threatening to kill me. And now he’s going all out
.

So he left the trail, angling across the slope toward the forest below. He would make a wide circuit to the north, around the Tusca village and toward the five nests Awahi described, in the mountains on the far side.

Still, he was sure.
The one place they’re bound to be waiting for me is here
.

Zeya made a fire for his cave camp and started broiling strips of back strap on a stick. Today, for the first time in all his quest, he’d killed a deer and now intended to take time to make meat. He tossed the liver to Su-Li, who pecked at it.

“You like that, don’t you? I like this. Let’s take the next two days off and dry this meat. Let’s take the next two weeks off. Let’s quit this mission before we get killed. I mean, I get killed.” Sometimes he forgot Su-Li was immortal.

He took a big bite, chewed it, and studied Su-Li. “So what are you thinking in whatever language you speak that I can’t hear, much less understand? You’re thinking, I hope this kid gives me time to find the murderer who’s waiting out there.”

He swallowed and bit off another big piece. When he’d finished it, he said, “That’s the plan. I’ll stay here tomorrow while you search. And the next day, too, if you want.”

He spiked more steak onto his skewer.

“Do you think Inaj knows where we are? Think he knows I killed his first two men? Does he know you’re my secret weapon?”

Su-Li shook his head in the motion that meant,
No, uh-uh
.

Zeya laughed. Su-Li hardly ever communicated that way. Zeya had almost forgotten he could do it.

“So go out tomorrow and tell me where I meet my fate.”

At sunset the next day Su-Li came back and perched high in the mouth of the cave.

“Well? Where is the killer?”

Su-Li shook his head no.

“No killer? Oh, sure.”

Su-Li shook his head no.

“Okay, seriously. How many nests did you see, all five?”

Su-Li dipped his head down and back up.

“You know which one they’re hatching eggs in?”

Su-Li nodded yes.

“How many killers did you see, five?”

Su-Li shook his head.

“Four?”

No again.

“Three?”

When Zeya got to one, he was really scared.

No again.

“You saw none?”

Yes.

“Not any?”

Yes.

“That’s terrifying.”

Yes.

“It means they’ve outsmarted us both.”

Su-Li squawked.

“You’re probably saying, ‘Damn right they did.’ ”

Zeya walked toward the last nest in euphoria and dread. He’d left it for last because it was the easiest one to get to, and he’d be worn out by the time he got there.

Su-Li flapped, glided, and soared across the sky all day and saw absolutely nothing.

At the first nest Zeya was sure he and Su-Li were fooled by some demonic trick and he was about to die. He got nine good feathers there, and a pleasant breeze blew the sweat off his body. Fifty feet away from the nest he suddenly whirled back on it, spear cocked. Still nothing, still no one. He didn’t know what to think.

At the second nest he found seven nice feathers—up to 105 now. No matter where he cast his suspicious eye, he saw no trouble. The world was a lovely shape of jagged mountains, rolling hills, shining rivers, and endless reaches of green trees. The breeze was dancing and fresh, the sky innocent of clouds.

At the third nest he found six feathers, giving him three more than the minimum required. But nearly a dozen of his feathers were scraggly, and the Cape deserved the best he could find.

Besides, something was wrong. Life as he knew it was hard, never pungently sweet and exhilarating, as it seemed today. Something was always hidden behind the facade. The last nest pulled him with a mysterious force.

When he got close, he saw that it was probably the biggest nest he’d seen, wider and longer than two buffalo robes laid side by side. It was in good condition, tight everywhere. The eagles must have used it only last year.

He walked around it gingerly, hands on the sticks for balance. He couldn’t walk around a lot of the nests, because they literally hung over their ledge on three sides, and the fourth was a vertical wall.

His inspection made him smile. At least a dozen feathers were caught in the twigs or bark or moss. This was a big find.

He laid his spear on the lip of the nest, pushed himself high, and raised a heel to clamber up.

Twigs crackled in the center of the nest. A human head poked up.

Dazed, Zeya noticed that the face had a long chin with a knob on the end.

Frozen, Zeya watched the hands lift a stick to the mouth.

Zeya heard a
pffft!
sound and felt a stabbing pain in his belly.

He looked down and saw a dart hanging there.

The world tilted.

Zeya fell. Limp legs hit the ledge and crumpled. His body toppled backward into the air, and the air was dark.

Su-Li dived.

The assassin stepped awkwardly across the springy nest and peered down at Zeya.

In despair Su-Li saw that the youth wasn’t moving. He’d fallen two or three times his own body height onto a steep, shaley slope.

Su-Li steepened his dive and fired despair into fury.

Knob Chin lowered himself off the nest onto the ledge and started climbing carefully down toward his enemy’s body.

He couldn’t have made a bigger mistake.

At full speed Su-Li raked talons across his face.

The enemy screamed and tumbled head over heels. He hit the slope on one shoulder, and his momentum rolled him over Zeya’s body.

Knob Chin tried in a befuddled way to get to his feet. Su-Li hit him again, a sharp stab of beak to neck.

The victim wailed in terror, looking around frantically.

Su-Li saw that he hadn’t dealt a mortal blow. The neck wound was bleeding freely but not pumping blood.

Su-Li turned in the tightest wheel he could and hurled himself like a spear at Knob Chin’s back. At the last moment
he spread his wings, caught air, and plunged his talons into the bastard’s shoulders and neck.

Knob Chin screamed. He clutched at the buzzard’s legs and tried to rip the talons out. Su-Li laughed wildly in his mind.

Suddenly the warrior tried something else—he threw himself downhill and rolled.

Su-Li let go and fluttered up. When Knob Chin stopped and hoisted himself onto his knees, Su-Li swooped at his face. The assassin screeched in horror. He batted at Su-Li’s talons, but the buzzard got both shoulders.

Knob Chin rolled again, a momentary reprieve. Then he did the only thing that could save him. He ran downhill. Ran pell-mell. Fell, rolled, banged himself up, and ran some more.

Su-Li attended to Zeya. The young man was breathing. As far as Su-Li could tell, he hadn’t broken his neck or back, not even his arms or legs.

The dart had fallen out somewhere along the way. The wound barely dribbled blood—it was a deep slit. Su-Li sniffed at the wound, and then he knew the danger was not bleeding or infection.

Luckily, he also knew someone with the knowledge of how to treat poisons.

Z
eya saw things, he heard things, and none of it made any sense. The Darkening Land, he supposed, didn’t make sense. He floated through enough sounds and pictures to believe that he was being carried. From the mud of his mind a memory grogged into consciousness. The Darkening Land was seven days’ travel to the west. Then everything made sense.
You had to be carried on the journey, because the dead couldn’t walk.

Zeya swam up and up and up and at last his face broke through—through water or fog or something else?—into the light.