Page 71 of Son of a Witch (The Wicked Years 2)

“You just said it’s not up to you to decide whose face gets scraped or not,” said the Cliff Eagle. “If you believe that, put your face out there and deal with what happens.”

“This isn’t going to work,” said Liir. “I can’t do anything for you. I’m not a Bird. I’m not a witch-boy. I don’t even have a broom anymore. And even if I had it, maybe I wasn’t meant to fly. Maybe I shouldn’t even have that liberty.”

“Maybe none of us should have the liberties we have. We keep going as we are, we’ll find out soon enough. But if you help us squelch the dragon threat, we’ll do what you ask. We’ll hunt for that human female you’re seeking.”

The Wren hopped forward again. “You’re going to do it,” she said to Liir. “You’re going to try, ain’t you. I kin tell.”

“You read the future, Dosey?” said Liir.

“Begging your pardon, sir—”

“Dosey!” interrupted Kynot. “No begging!”

“Ooh, sorry I’m sure,” Dosey continued. “No, Mister Broom-boy. You’re going to do it for a perfectly selfish reason—our looking for your lost girl-fing—and that’s okay. Why not? Long as the job gets done.”

The Birds were silent.

“You’ve had a taste of it,” she said in a softer voice. “Not many has, but you has. You’ve tried flying, ain’t you. Now try giving it up.”

She came nearer. “Try giving it up,” she said. “Begging your pardon, sir, you cain’t.”

The Birds began to flap their wings and, one by one, to lift up, making their final argument. They swept counterclockwise around the dead little lake, perhaps in deference to the Owl whose wing anomaly made him list in a particular direction. There were more Birds than Liir had first perceived. Several hundred. The more timid ones must have been hiding higher in the branches, but listening intently: all listening. Now they flew, and as they flew, there could be no leader, no follower: they traced the same track in the air, faster and faster. The very force of their rhythmic pumping made the surface of the lake stand up in waves of its own, higher and higher, till wingtips of white froth were beaten up, and then the clots of pale spume lifted and circled beneath the vortex of birds like a second population, like ghost Birds, like the relatives of the Conference who had been slain. But what were ghosts without voices?

The birds were silent—none of them, even the Geese and Ducks, who liked to honk in flight, dared risk attracting attention to their stronghold.

“Stop,” cried Liir and held up his hands—not out of pity, nor fear, nor a new moral conviction: simply out of the lack of any further reason to resist.

The blind, gimpy Heron hobbled forward and pecked at Liir’s leg to locate him. “I can’t fly either, now my sight’s gone,” the Heron said. “Makes me no less a Bird, though, do it?”

Kumbricia’s Cradle

1

THE WALK BACK WAS FASTER. Now that his bones were knitted, all this trekking was building up muscle again. He hurt, but solidly, recuperatively.

The Disappointments afforded little by way of a blind, so he traveled by night as much as he could, hoping that dragons wouldn’t be abroad then. He tried to keep to clearly marked tracks, goat paths, stream sides, where the going was smoother, though the cover less useful.

Arriving back at Apple Press Farm an hour shy of dawn, he was unwilling to frighten Candle by approaching in the dark. He found an old tree on the edge of the orchard still forcing out small, deformed fruit, and he made a breakfast for himself, shivering with his hands in his armpits. He tried to feel the day warm instant by instant as the sun rose over the horizon, but his apparatus for appreciating such subtlety was too crude.

Then the donkey brayed, and a cock cried out his serrated Confiteor through the rising mist. Where had Candle got a cock from? She must still be roaming the province, releasing creatures from homesteads with impunity. She was lucky she wasn’t caught, as the donkey and the cock weren’t exactly keeping their whereabouts secret. The cock sounded like a tenor.

With all that noise, she’d be stirring by now. Still, he waited till he saw the smoke from the kitchen chimney roll up, and he heard a window shutter bark against the stone. He came toward the house ready to call out, but she was standing in the doorway on one foot, the other foot rubbing against the back of her calf. “What have you been waiting for?” she asked, her head tilted forward. “Isn’t it cold out there in the orchard?”

“You’ve been clearing the undergrowth.”

“The donkey has. Makes my life easier; he’s done enough for a kitchen garden. If we remove a few more trees, we’ll ha

ve a good open space, and fertile, by the look of it. But we’ll need fencing against the donkey and other comers. Why do you loiter, come in, you must be ice.”

He was about to say I was afraid I’d frighten you, and then he remembered: She possessed some sort of a talent for reading the present. She’d probably known he was there; and indeed, she admitted as much when asked.

His fists clenched and opened at the notion of touching her sleep-warm body, of wrapping his arms around her, diving his cold fingers into the folds of her simple broadcloth sleeping tunic. But she ducked into the shadowy doorway before he could embrace her, as if his time away had made them strangers again.

The place was that much straighter, simpler, more pleasant. She’d been busy. Dried flowers set round in cracked terra-cotta pots. Tassels of herbs drying from strings, spooling their fragrance across the kitchen. In the fire nook, the andirons had been polished, and from the trammel hung a fine bulbous kettle with scented water roiling in it. “How did you know I’d be back today?”

“The cock crowed more self-consciously, so I guessed he must have an audience. Anyway, I sensed it would be you. Or maybe that was just hope, who can tell the difference? You must be weary. Rest your bones, Liir, and I’ll fetch some rennety milk pudding from the cold room belowstairs.”

“Don’t move about so. Just sit—here.” He patted a stool near him and smiled. Her hands flexed and met his at the fingertips, and their fingertips bounced gently against one another. Then she took herself off to get the pudding.

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