The Eye of the Falcon (Gods and Warriors, Band 3) - Hardcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

"What happened here?" said Hylas. "Where are all the people?"

"There's one over there," said Periphas, "but he's not going to tell us." He pointed at a ship that the Sea had flung halfway up a hill. Snagged in its rigging was the skeleton of a man. Shreds of rotten tunic flapped in the wind, and one bony arm swung in a grisly wave.

"Looks like the gods punished Keftiu worst of all," said Glaukos.

"Smells like it too," said Medon. The others muttered and gripped their amulets.

Hylas was stunned. Over the winter he'd seen many horrors, but nothing like this. The Sea had smashed huts, boats, trees, animals, people. The shore was eerily silent, and wherever he turned, he saw mounds of rotting wreckage. Dirty gray surf clawed at his boots, and he breathed the throat-catching stink of death. How could Pirra and Havoc have survived this?

With his knife, Periphas turned over the skull of an ox. "This happened months ago. Everything's covered in ash."

"But someone must've survived," said Hylas. "Why didn't they come back and rebuild?"

No one answered.

"This can't be Keftiu," said Hylas. "It's a huge rich island with thousands of people, Pirra told me!"

"I'm sorry, lad," said Periphas. "You won't find your friends now. We'll see if there's anything worth taking, then we're off."

While the others spread out to forage, Hylas spotted a hut farther down the shore and picked his way toward it, desperate to find someone alive.

The icy wind tugged at his sheepskins, and he startled a vulture, which flew off, raising a haze of ash. He hardly noticed. All through the winter the Great Cloud had hidden the Sun, plunging the world into perpetual twilight and shrouding it in ash. He'd grown used to the gloom, and the black grit that got into hair, clothes, food. But this . . .

He thought of his friends as he'd last seen them, seven moons ago on Thalakrea. The Mountain had been spewing fire and there'd been chaos on the shore, people fleeing in whatever boats they could find. Somehow, he'd gotten Havoc and Pirra on a ship: Havoc scrabbling in her cage and yowling at him, Why are you abandoning me, and Pirra white with fury-for the ship was Keftian. "I told you I couldn't go back!" she'd screamed. "I'll never forgive you, Hylas! I'll hate you forever!"

He'd done it to save her. But he'd sent her to this.

The hut was mud-brick and thatch, and someone had crudely repaired it after the Sea's attack. They'd also marked the wall with a stark white handprint. Hylas didn't know what that meant, but it felt like a warning. He halted some distance away.

The wind flung more ash in his face. As he brushed it off, he felt an ache in his temple, and from the corner of his eye, he glimpsed two ragged children. They vanished inside, but he saw that they were girls, one about ten, the other younger. Both had bizarrely shaven heads, except for one long lock hanging from the temple, and angry boils on their necks the size of pigeons' eggs.

"I'm not going to hurt you!" he called.

No answer, but he knew they were listening. And he caught a sense of anger, and hopeless searching.

To reassure them, he turned his back.

Again they appeared at the corner of his vision.

"Are you looking for your parents?" he said without moving his head. "I'm looking for someone too. My friends. Is anyone else alive?"

Still no answer. The anger and loss came at him in waves.

Belatedly, he remembered that he was a foreigner here, so they wouldn't understand him. "I'm Akean," he explained. "I can't speak Keftian!"

Once again when he looked, they vanished inside. After a moment's hesitation, he followed.

The hut was empty.

Yes, empty-and no way out except for this door. The back of his neck began to prickle, and his hand went to the lion-claw amulet at his throat.

Dim gray light filtered through the thatch, and the air was thick