“All will be explained,” Vaintè said. “This flying creature will enable us to find the ustuzou den where they hide their cubs and females. But first I want the reports in detail of everything that has passed while I have been away.”
The raptor recovered quickly from the sea voyage: Vaintè waited impatiently for the next ustuzou raid. When the report reached her she issued rapid orders and went at once to the outlying pasture where the attack had occurred. Stallan was there first, pointing out with disgust the butchered corpses on the blood-stained grass.
“Wasteful. Just the rich hindquarters have been taken.”
“Very practical,” Vaintè said, showing little emotion. “Easy to carry, little to waste. Which way have they gone?”
Stallan indicated the opening that had been torn in the thorn fence, the trail beyond that vanished under the tall trees.
“North, as always. An easy trail to follow which means we were meant to see it. The meat is gone and only death, traps, and ambushes will be on that trail if we dare to follow it.”
“The bird will go where we cannot,” Vaintè said as the raptor was brought up. The captive creature screamed angrily and tore at the shackle that held its leg. It was not caged now but sat instead on a wooden perch mounted on a platform. Long poles supported this so that the fargi that carried it could not be reached by claw or beak. Kerrick arrived at the same time, wondering at this early summons.
“Do your work,” Vaintè ordered the handlers.
Kerrick found himself suddenly no longer a spectator as hard thumbs seized him and dragged him forward. The raptor was excited by the sight and smell of the bleeding carcasses, screeching and flapping its wings thunderously. One of the handlers carved a lump of flesh from the flank of a butchered beast and threw it towards the bird. It seized the red meat greedily with its free foot, clamped it to the perch with its claws and tore bloody gobbets from it. Only when it was done did they continue. Kerrick struggled as he was pushed forward, almost within reach of that gory, hooked beak.
“Follow, find. Follow, find,” the handler shouted, over and over, while they forced Kerrick even closer.
The raptor did not attack, but turned its head instead to fix one cold, gray eye upon Kerrick. It stared unwaveringly at him while the commands were shouted at it, only blinking and bobbing its head when the orders ceased.
“Turn the perch until it faces the trail,” the handler ordered, then reached out from behind and swiftly released the shackle.
The raptor screamed, bent its legs—then hurled itself into the air with the thunderous beat of great wings. Kerrick fell back as the bird looked in his direction and the handler shouted instructions.
It had been well-trained. It mounted swiftly into the air, soared about in a single lofty circle-then started north.
“It has begun,” Vaintè said with great satisfaction.
But her enthusiasm ebbed as day after day went by—and the raptor did not return. The worried handlers avoided her, as did everyone else at the sight of the anger in her movements. As long as Kerrick was not summoned to her presence he stayed as far away as he could. The hanalè offered a quiet retreat where he could not easily be found; he had not been there since their return from Inegban*.
Ikemend opened the door at his approach. “You have been to Inegban*,” she said, her words a question and an answer at the same time, excitement in the movements she spoke.
“I have never seen such a city.”
“Tell me of it, for I will never see it again with my own eyes.”
While he spoke she fitted the leash into a groove that had been worked into the wood of the doorway, then closed the door against it. Kerrick knew what she wanted to hear and told her only of the glories of the city, the crowds and the excitement—and nothing of the hunger and cold of the winters. He valued his visits to the hanalè so made sure that Ikemend would always look forward to seeing him. She listened as long as she could, hurrying away only when the urgency of her work demanded it. The males did not like Ikemend and carefully avoided her company. None of them were in sight now. Kerrick looked down a dark hallway, to the interior he would never see, then called out when someone passed at the far end.