Bessany Weyman had taught Chilaili much about the humans in the process. There was a great deal to admire, as well as fear. The human acted with honor and clearly respected Chilaili. Not once had the human made Chilaili feel inferior, despite the enormous gulf between Chilaili’s knowledge and primitive tools and the human’s almost magical ones. Tiponi Weyman treated Chilaili as a valued friend, one who respected Chilaili’s thoughts and sought her opinions.
And now the Ones Above had ordered Chilaili to destroy every human in the world.
Chilaili blinked at the Council fire, then met the gaze of Great-Grandmother Anevay once more. Anevay—and the rest of Icewing Clan—waited for her to speak, to explain herself and her insistence that this war with the humans was not only a disaster, but unnecessary. She glanced into the eyes of every Grandmother on the council, met the viho’s gaze and the akule’s, knew that the Oracle Kestejoo served would be listening, weighing, judging. Speak aloud where the machine left by the Ones Above could hear her treasonous, heretical arguments? She suppressed a shudder.
Choosing her words with great care, she said, “As katori to Icewing Clan, it is my sacred duty to protect our people, to guide the clan when we must make important decisions that affect our health, our very survival. The humans are powerful creatures, able to make and use tools far beyond our comprehension. They rival the Ones Above who created all the true Tersae there are in this world—”
“No one doubts the humans’ cleverness in making weapons that kill effectively,” the akule interrupted, earnestly. “Of course they can. They are devils. Murderous fiends sent to destroy us. You know how deeply I love Icewing Clan, Chilaili, what I gave up to come here. Can anyone in this clan doubt my loyalty, my sincerity?”
Not even Chilaili could argue that.
Kestejoo had given up his home and blood kin for Zaltana and for Icewing Clan. When season after season passed, producing neither daughters nor sons—which left the clan without an heir to become Speaker for the Oracle—Kestejoo had learned all the rituals of Zaltana’s office as akule. During the long months of her final illness, he had not left her side even to sleep and eat, grieving and vowing to accept the mantle of akule.
He had been zealous in his work, after Zaltana’s death.
Too zealous, perhaps.
He took a single step forward, holding out one hand toward Chilaili, and his voice rang with the power of profound belief. “We must fight these demons from the stars. We must fight with every ounce of our strength, our determination, our courage. And yes, if necessary, our warriors must fight to the death. Such monsters cannot be allowed to draw breath under our sun. If we do not destroy them or at least drive them back to the stars, they will hunt us down and kill us all, to the last unborn hatchling still in its eggshell!”
“If we make enemies of such creatures,” Chilaili snapped, “we do so at our own peril! If we attack, as the Ones Above demand, the humans’ tools are quite capable of killing the clans by the thousands. There are not so many of us, anywhere in the world, that we can sustain such losses. If Icewing Clan, at least, does not make war, if we remain safely hidden in our winter nest and keep them ignorant of our presence, the humans will have no reason to attack us.”
Worried murmurs buzzed like summer insects.
The war leader shook his grizzled head. “No, Chilaili, you are wrong.” Yiska’s voice was a low rumble, startling to hear at the Council fire, since Yiska usually remained silent, merely carrying out the will of the Grandmothers and Huntresses. “The Ones Above have warned us. The human devils can locate us by any open show of fire or heat against the snow, even the heat of our bodies. They can track us through the magical power of our Oracles, if we use them while the humans still possess their weapons. Do you really think we can remain hidden from them? No. They would find and kill us, so we must—”
“The Ones Above are killing us already! Must we rush to finish it by suiciding?”
Shocked silence fell.
Even the akule trembled. “Chilaili! Th-that’s blasphemy!”
“Is it blasphemy to speak what every Mother and Grandmother of every clan already knows?” Chilaili demanded. “If so, then our entire race is guilty of it! What can you, a male, possibly know of such matters?”
Kestejoo’s pupils dilated for one long, thunderstruck moment. Then naked hurt throbbed in his eyes, causing Chilaili to clamp her beak tightly, wishing she could take back the harsh words. Chilaili had often wondered if the Ones Above had been responsible, somehow, for that terrible lack of hatchlings at Kestejoo and Zaltana’s hearth. Once, as recently as three turnings of the moons ago, Chilaili would have accepted such a cruel dictate as natural and right. But the time she had spent with Bessany Weyman had made Chilaili doubt many things.
Huntress Alsoomse rose to her feet, bowing deferentially to the Council members. “I would add my voice to Chilaili’s.”
Great-Grandmother Anevay nodded.
“I have traveled far,” Alsoomse said quietly, “trading with distant clans, with my mate and often my older sons at my side to protect me. I have spoken to many Mothers and Grandmothers about such matters. I have risked much to learn what we desperately need to know. As dangerous as our own situation is, things are far worse in the other clans. Mothers and Grandmothers elsewhere hold no power, as we Huntresses do. They must bow to the dictates of their clan lords—even in matters of the eggs. Even so, the Mothers and Grandmothers of all the clans are whispering rebellion, for we all feel the same anger and terror. The Ones Above are destroying us.”
The akule turned a shocked, disapproving glare on Alsoomse. The Huntress ducked her head unhappily, but she did not back down. “I am sorry, akule, but I will not deny what I have seen and heard, no matter what you tell us the Oracle has said. Chilaili speaks the truth. Mothers and Grandmothers everywhere are saying it. The blessing chambers, in which we have been so strictly commanded to place our eggs, do not bring blessings. They bring death. The chambers leave our eggs changed, akule, not just Icewing’s, but the eggs of all the clans, with damage so visible, even Grandmothers with no say in their own clans’ affairs have begun to hold back eggs, refusing to put all of them into the blessing chambers.”
Kestejoo stared at Alsoomse in horror. “You dare—?”
“Yes, we dare!” an aging, grey-furred Grandmother snarled, coming angrily to her feet. “The eggs which are destined to become male show the greatest damage! I have watched for years as our young males have changed—and never for the better. The shells of eggs that hatch out male come out of the blessing chambers riddled with tiny holes—and each new male hatched from such eggs is more hot-tempered, more eager to die than the ones before him! They are far more violent than males hatched from eggs hidden away to mature naturally. We fear for the future of our race, akule. The Ones Above are doing something to us, to our males, and what they are doing brings nothing but death!”
Great-Grandmother Anevay hissed softly. “Then it is not my imagination, about the younger males? I have worried that perhaps I had forgotten what it was like when my mate was young.”
Chilaili’s precious daughter, Sooleawa, shook her head, the silver patches on her fur ruddy from the Council Cavern’s fire. “No, Respected Great-Grandmother, you have not forgotten. I am the youngest Huntress in this circle and I have watched my nestmates closely these past fifteen years. My youngest brothers are far more violent and dangerous than my oldest ones. It troubles me, as well, that I am the only female born to my mother’s nest. Ten nestmates I have, all male—and two of them were killed by their own brothers. How many other bloodlines can claim more than one female breaking shell? How many have lost sons to other sons? I will not put my eggs in the blessing chambers, Respected Great-Grandmother, for I desire daughters to hunt at my side and I refuse to watch my sons murder one another senselessly. I fear for the future of our race. If all the males seek nothing but crazy battles without purpose, fighting and killing one another, destroying their wiser fathers in challenge after challenge, who will be left to make us fertile? And the death toll in this new war will be disastrous. Even you, akule, have admitted this.”
Several Huntresses nodded agreement, sending a low murmur through the assembly.
“The Ones Above insist on calling the humans devils,” Sooleawa said quietly. “I am not so sure of that. The humans have been among us for many moons without once using their weapons against us. Would devils intent on destroying us sit quietly for cycle after cycle of the moons? They did nothing against us until we attacked them and now they are destroying the clans, using weapons the Ones Above would be hard-pressed to duplicate. And the fighting has gone on for only a handful of days! The clans cannot sustain the loss. It will be years before some of our clans recover—if they ever do. I am a newly blooded Huntress, akule, and I would very much like to take a mate before all the males are dead, fighting a war we cannot win!”