In a little clearin stands a tall bull pine. Tracker circles frantic in front of it. There’s a crow spiked to the trunk. Jest above head height. Wings spread wide. Dead.
Nero.
My heart seizes. I stop. I fall to my knees.
Everybody’s come runnin, weapons in hand. Their sleep broke by the racket. Ash lights the way with a torch.
Emmi screams when she sees him. Nero! No! She rushes to the tree, scrabblin to git at him. It’s Nero, please, somebody help him!
I choke out one word. Lugh!
Molly runs to Em an grabs her, sayin, Hush now, honey, he’s dead, poor thing. Come away.
An Lugh’s here. On his knees. Holdin me. I cain’t breathe. Cain’t breathe. Nero. No. Ash, he says. Take him down, please.
She’s the tallest of us all. Gawdamnmit, I’ll kill whoever did this, she says. Light me, Tommo. He holds the torch close. With her pocket knife, she starts to prise the spikes from his wings. Fergawdsake, she says. Somebody shut Tracker up.
He’s still howlin an yammerin his distress. Mercy soothes him with soft words, soft hands. He quiets to a pitiful whimper.
Creed helps Ash, foldin each wing as she frees it. They’re so careful. So tender. Makin sure they don’t hurt him. They cain’t. He’s dead. He cain’t be mustn’t be cain’t be please. Lugh holds me to him.
Hey Saba? says Ash. C’mere.
There’s somethin in her voice. Tight caution. I stumble over to her. She lays him gently in my hands. He’s a limp, heavy weight. Take a look, she says.
Tommo lights him with the torch. His sleek black body. His soft smooth breast. My heart lurches. The breast feathers shine full an glossy. Nero’s breast don’t look like this. His feathers is still growin back. From the wound that DeMalo’s hawk dealt him. Fer a moment, I cain’t take in what I see. Then the truth starts to smoulder.
Well? says Ash.
It ain’t him, I says. This ain’t him. The breast feathers. It ain’t Nero.
They exclaim an crowd in to look. I couldn’t hide that Nero’d bin injured. So I fixed on a likely tale of a hawk attack on him an me sneakin into a Settler’s hut to steal a medicine bag to patch him up. More secrets, half-truths an outright lies. They all listened with one ear, if that. At the time, we had much bigger things to concern us.
My brain starts to tick. Clear an calm. This crow died natural, I says. Look, he’s got a lump in his neck. Seems to be some kinda bubo.
Emmi shudders from weepin so fierce. Tears wet her face. Yer right, she says. It ain’t him. But I don’t unnerstand.
Somebody wanted us to think it was him, says Mercy.
But why? Em says. Who would do such a cruel thing?
The Tonton, says Tommo. They’re the only ones spike like this.
If it was Tonton, we’d be dead, says Ash. Another Darktrees.
But I’m thinkin to myself, No, this is jest the kinda thing DeMalo would do. To send me a message. Prove to me how close he can git. How easily he could kill us the moment he wanted to. The next move in our endgame? Here it is.
Maybe it was one guy on his own, says Tommo.
That makes sense, says Molly. One guy couldn’t take us all on, but he could leave a message. A warnin. You’ll be the ones spiked next time. I’d say Tommo’s right.
DeMalo could of had us followed from the bridge, I think. Or a lone man might of acted on his own. If there was somebody hid here in the woods, waitin fer their moment to play this foul trick, surely Tracker would of sniffed ’em out earlier. We beat patrols with him regular an often.
Ash, I says. You an Tracker did a sweep soon as you got here, right?
She nods. An there’s bin one of us on watch the whole time, she says.
Not the whole time, says Creed. When I got back, there warn’t no one on watch. Everybody was in camp.
It’s my fault. Emmi’s face crumples in misery. Saba told me to go back, she says, but then Lugh came an I didn’t. I didn’t. I’m sorry, it’s all my fault.
Never give a child a grown-up’s work, says Creed.
Lugh turns to him with a frown. You must of bin followed, he says.
I cain’t see how, says Creed. I took a seriously snaky route back here.
We’ll check jest the same, I says. Emmi an Mercy stay here. The rest of yuz, take yer track.
I whistle fer Slim to come down as we fan out an run circles around Painted Rock. It don’t take long. It’s all clear. Jest as we gather back at the campfire, Slim rushes through the gap, chest heavin from hustlin from the top of the Rock.
What’s happened? he gasps. I heard the dog howlin an then all the commotion—oh lordy, no! He’s seen the dead crow on the ground.
It’s okay, it ain’t Nero, I says.
Somebody wanted to frighten us, says Lugh. They managed pretty good, too.
You must of seen somethin, Slim, says Ash.
Not a thing, he says. It’s bin quiet, I swear. Jest Saba an Tracker comin back, jest now.
Creed rounds on him. Stabs him in the chest with a finger. You must of missed ’em, he says. Stupid old man, yer useless, y’know that? You an yer gawdamnn dress. The Tonton was right here an you didn’t see ’em.
Creed, stop it. Molly snaps, hot as fire. Don’t you dare talk to Slim like that.
Enough, I says. Who, why an where can wait fer later. We’re outta here. I’m thinkin Starlight Lanes, I says. Yer friend Peg the Flight. What about it?
Good idea, he says.
Besides Slim, we don’t none of us know his junkjimmy pal Peg. But he’s friendly to our cause an his place, Starlight Lanes, is in Sector Five. That ain’t too far from Weepin Water an DeMalo’s bunker in the hill. Good for meetin Jack tomorrow night.
But Nero, says Emmi. Saba, we gotta find him! We cain’t go without him! She clutches my hand, her eyes big with pleadin.
Nero’s bin with me his whole life. He was huddled on the ground when I found him. A helpless scrap of skin an fuzz. He’d fell from the nest, his ma nowhere in sight. As I held him, his tiny heart beat quick time in my hands. He looked at me, I looked at him an I swear, he knew I didn’t have no ma neether. We joined souls at that moment an fer always.
But Jack’s voice speaks to me, Jack’s words run in me.
Yer tied to yer family by blood an love. That means you’ll rush to their rescue, no matter what, an that’s dangerous to the rest of us. Love don’t make a good leader. It weakens you.
I got eight other souls to consider. Standin right here. Waitin fer me to be the leader they need. To do what’s best fer all, not jest them that’s closest to my heart.
I’ll bury this crow, I says. Creed, take Tracker once around the rock. Have a quick look fer Nero.
I’ll go with, says Tommo.
Tommo don’t jest lip read real good. His other senses lie higher than us who can hear. He’s got cat eyes, cat feet an a nose fer anythin outta place.
Good idea, I says. The rest of yuz, strike camp.
They’d wakened her at dawn yesterday. The earth songs.
Emmi had been dreaming of such things for many nights. Of the earth and the stones and their songs. And her touching them and being able to feel and hear and know their songs with her heart and her head and her body. And the songs leading her, telling her, teaching her. Not songs with words. No. No words.
Dreams. They were places where anything could happen. Life awake was nothing like a dream. At least, not until yesterday dawn. When she woke to a world and herself full of songs.