The Hawk Lord by Amy Sumida
Chapter Forty-Four
I was standing on the prow of a ship, staring at the distant shores of Alantri, dressed in nothing but my new war robe. Morning mist shrouded the beach. We had decided to sail around the tip of the continent to bring us closer to Gremara's fortress. There was a risk that we'd be spotted this way, but the fortress would be less than an hour's march from that shore so the risk was deemed worth it. Beside me stood the Hawk Lord and beside him stood the Lynx Lord—a breathtakingly beautiful man with hair as dark as mine and eyes that shifted from blue to green. I might have been attracted to him if the hawk inside me hadn't been so damn nervous around his beast. Cats and birds don't mix; it was even worse than cats and dogs. But we were also fae, and we Hawks would control our beasts long enough to ferry the Lynx Sidhe to shore.
The plan was for the Avians to fly the Canines, Felines, and grounded Unsidhe to the beach before the ships got close enough to be spotted. The first line would clear the coast and scout beyond while we continued to ferry the others to shore, and then the humans would row to land. I glanced at the woman I'd be transporting first. She was the Lynx Lord's General and his lover. General Neela, a redhead with a cool demeanor and a reputation as one of the finest fighters in the Lynx Army—second only to the Lynx Lord himself. She wore a war robe with a flight rig strapped over it and stared at the shore eagerly.
Dalsharan held up a hand and the Lynx Sidhe stepped back, giving all of us Hawks room. War robes dropped and magic swept the deck of our ship. To either side of us, something similar happened on the other ships in our armada with the rest of our Hawks as well as the Owls, Eagles, and Falcons shifting. Normally, this many birds would mean a terrible cacophony, but the Avians were eerily silent as we took to the air, hovering above the deck as we latched onto our passengers' rigs before heading toward land.
I flew beside Dalsharan as ordered, Neela hanging from my claws, stretching her hands as if itching to sprout some claws of her own. Her robe flapped in the cold air, flashing a length of strong, tan leg, but the General couldn't care less about the amount of skin she was showing. Her lips were pulled back in a snarl as her eyes scanned the beach. Dal shrieked once—a short, clipped sound. The signal to drop our passengers.
That's right, we weren't taking the time to set them down carefully. We dropped them, though it was only about four feet and onto sand, no less. I watched Neela slip out of her harness and robe all in one motion and sprint across the beach as she shifted into a giant Lynx. Her warlord ran beside her, his sleekly muscled body moving from man to cat in three steps. Their ears laid back, the tufts of black at their tips blending into their spotted hides. I turned back to the ship to fetch my next passenger.
Part of me itched to be the one scouting the shore, but a soldier follows orders. I'd even had a say in deciding what those orders would be, so I couldn't bitch about it now. I swept down to snatch up the next Lynx and swung around to head back to shore, all while the ships continued to make for land. Back and forth we went, over and over, never landing.
We still had a few Unsidhe passengers left when the ships anchored, but we kept flying them in, getting them there faster than the rowboats that transported the humans. All but the Red Caps and Trolls, that is. Even the strongest Avian couldn't carry one of those enormous Unsidhe. They couldn't use the rowboats either but instead jumped overboard and trudged through deep water with their heads popping up just above the waves.
Finally, we were all on Alantri and the path ahead was clear, scouted by Felines. The Unsidhe swept into the lead, Sylphs gliding through the air while the hooves of Glastigs pounded the earth. Goblins boiled forward around the legs of Trolls and Red Caps, their taller cousins, all of them grinning eagerly. Leanan-Sidhe—beautiful but deadly blood-drinkers—cast their glowing eyes at the horizon and licked their lips in anticipation. In contrast, the Dwarves marched grimly, battle axes slung over their thick shoulders. There were also Imps, shorter even than Dwarves, and Spriggans who were normally small but had inflated their bodies to sizes that rivaled even the Trolls. The only Unsidhe who weren't allowed to join the Unsidhe Armies were the Brownies and Pixies, both races too delicate to fight. But the rest of the fae races of Varalorre had come to Alantri to face the Farungal together.
The humans marched behind the Unsidhe with the flightless Sidhe while we Avians flew overhead, keeping a sharp eye on the unfolding landscape. So, when we made it inland, we were the first to discover that Gremara was prepared for us. Farungal soldiers lined the battlements of her fortress, arrows notched and spears ready. They weren't going to come out until forced to. Which meant it would be up to the Avians to smoke them out. And I mean that literally.
Dalsharan swooped down to advise the other warlords to set up the front lines and the fires. Our armies spread out, ringing the Farungal fortress in a sea of fae, but staying well beyond the reach of their arrows. Fires burst to life everywhere, human soldiers setting up the pits and faeries lighting the kindling. Oil-soaked, leather cannonballs attached to metal chains were piled beside each fire, ready for Avians to snatch them up and set them aflame. The other fae races—both Sidhe and Unsidhe—prowled the perimeter, watching for any weakness as they scented the air and unsheathed their weapons. They would leap into action as soon as we smoked the Farungal out, but for now, they had to wait.
Owls, Falcons, Eagles, and Hawks circled, waiting for the signal to attack. But before we could begin, Gremara stepped onto the battlements with two male warriors who dragged a human between them. The Sidhe howled, yipped, and roared in warning while Trolls rumbled and Imps screeched. Everyone could sense that something bad was coming—that Gremara had a plan. I rode the currents beside Dal, watching the Farungal Queen warily. She was smiling; that couldn't be good.
“Welcome!” Gremara shouted at us. “Welcome fae and humans. Welcome Sidhe and Unsidhe. Welcome to your death!” She cackled wildly.
The human beside her was gaunt and dressed in torn clothing. He wasn't chained but he might as well have been. Monsters surrounded him, grinning as if they'd been having fun with him for days. He looked freshly scrubbed, like a hog on his way to the slaughter. His eyes stared hollowly out of his lean face, and he wore an expression I recognized. It was very similar to the one Kervel had worn in Brendallen's tent. But this was a human, whatever had been done to him by the Farungal, he wouldn't recover from it as easily as a faerie. It would take an incredible strength of will to remain sane through the horrors they had doubtless put him through, but he looked as though he had his senses... and wished for the opposite. The man stared at the armies before him as if they were his ruin, not salvation.
“We need to get him out of there!” I shouted at Dal. “Whatever Gremara's planning, she needs him to do it.”
“Do not leave my side!” he roared at me.
“Dal!”
The Hawk Lord shrieked.
“Do you remember a time, not so long ago, when the first Valorian was made?” Gremara called to us.
I went silent, focusing on her again. Everyone did.
“Do you remember the curse that we made? The beautiful weapon a human destroyed?” Gremara laughed as the two Farungal brought the human up beside her. “I have reconstructed that curse except that now, the human shall be the catalyst!”
The Farungal pushed the man to his knees as he suddenly started to struggle, then pried open his mouth.
“Dal!” I shouted and started for the man. Fuck this. Gremara had practically said it herself—this guy was the key to her plans. I had to get him away from her.
“Ravyn!” Dalsharan shouted and chased after me.
The Hawks followed their warlord, and the other Avians took it as a signal to attack. Giant birds swooped down to snatch up chains and swing the attached leather balls through the fire pits. The night sky came alight with flying firebombs. But I carried nothing in my claws. I was after something instead.
Below us, the flightless fae sprinted into action, running for the fortress in the hopes that it would soon be open to them. Sylphs spiraled above them like specters. On the battlements, Gremara ignored us all as she poured dark liquid down the human's throat. He gagged, but they rubbed his neck and forced him to swallow. I screeched in fury. I was too late. I should have ignored Dal and grabbed him sooner!
The man fell to his knees, out of my reach, and I swung up, arching back toward our armies. Arrows flew past me, one clipped my wing. Feathers fell but it was a minor injury. Nonetheless, Dalsharan shrieked in fury and herded me back toward safety while firebombs fell on the Farungal fortress.
Fires caught and the fortress started to smoke, but Gremara only laughed harder. Laughed while the human man screamed. His body was trembling and bulging grotesquely. He shot to his feet with a roar, and the world went silent. Even Gremara stopped cackling as the human stepped forward. No longer human, he was a beautiful monster, his body thickly muscled and his skin black as pitch. Eyes like twin stars stared out of his sharp face and his hands spread out to display long claws. He roared again, lifting his face to the moon.
“Isn't he fantastic? Isn't he beautiful?” Gremara shrieked. “Darkness made flesh! Poison in the shape of a man. Keep your seed, Hawk Lord; I have my child now! Gaze upon your ruin! My glorious creation shall walk across the world and burn it to ash. Poison your continent and the very magic within it. Your wards will fall to him and your cities will crumble! But first, all of you brave warriors will feed him. You will be his first sacrifice. Nearly all the races of Stalana and Varalorre laid before my beautiful curse to whet his appetite! A banquet befitting my prince!”
Beside her, the monster was panting, his shoulders hunched and his claws clicking together as if anticipating his first kill. His bright gaze swept over the armies again and again. I tried to circle back. I had this feeling... maybe I was wrong. Maybe I wasn't too late. I needed to get to him. I needed to get him away from Gremara. But Dal swept by me, clipping my chest with the back of a claw, and pushed me back. I shrieked at him furiously.
Then the monster who had once been a man took a step forward. His clawed foot scraped the stones and sparked. The monster lifted his hands and magic crackled over them, gleaming darkly. Oily, dirty magic. Evil. He held out his arms and stared up at the sky as that darkness ran across his chest. And that's when I saw the wet tracks on his cheeks. He wept. The human was still inside that monster, and he hated what he had become.
“Stalana!” the monster shouted the battle cry and leapt off the wall, his arms still spread wide. He turned as he fell so that he stared up at the star-filled sky, a peaceful expression coming over his face.
Gremara screamed and reached for him, bending over the battlements to snatch at her fallen prince, but he was too heavy and fell too fast.
I shrieked and dove for him as well even as a part of me trembled and pulled back.
Let him go, something whispered inside me.
Dalsharan sensed it too. He swept by me again and angled me away from the falling human. The sound of Gremara's rage echoed over the land as her monster hit the earth with a resounding crack. The earth trembled as magic erupted in a dark cloud over her dark prince. When the magic cleared, the bulging, black body had dwindled back into the beaten, gaunt, man. The broken hero stared wistfully at the heavens as he took his last breaths, a smug grin on his face.
The humans shouted, “Stalana!” echoing his battle cry in tribute to him, and he smiled wider as he used the last of his strength to flip the Farungal Queen the bird. My heart ached for him even as my chest filled with admiration. He had gone out on his terms, and he'd given the Farungal Queen a big fuck you as he went.
Good for you, buddy, I thought.
As I swung back around yet again, heading to the pile of oiled bombs, I saw a giant Lynx sprint across the field to the fallen human and then shift into the Lynx Lord himself. The warlord cradled the dying human as a group of Sylphs flew over them, shielding the men in a blanket of air that deflected the Farungal's arrows. A flash of green caught my eye and sounds of awe spread through the Fae. I glanced back just as the broken human sat up and stared at the warlord in shock. The Lynx Lord picked up the revived hero, tossed him over one broad shoulder, and ran for the safety of our front lines. The Sylphs flowed over and around them, protecting them the entire way.
I shrieked in joy as I scooped up a bomb and swung it through a fire pit. A shining feeling of righteousness filled me as I flew back toward the fortress. The Lynx Lord made it to lines of human soldiers and gently laid the human in the grass. He was alive. One, broken human had sacrificed himself to save the whole fucking world, and then he was saved. His valor had won him a fae soul. And damn if that fucker didn't deserve it more than I did. I saved one guy while he had saved us all. If he didn't become a Valorian, I was going to have a word with the Goddess.
Dalsharan shrieked orders beside me as we flew our bombs to the fortress. Farungal fired their iron-tipped arrows at us as their queen continued to rage; the bitch was losing her damn mind, going doubly crazy now that the human had been saved. We couldn't use magic to deflect their arrows in our beast form, not that I was able to do that type of magic yet anyway. But we could fly higher than the Farungal could shoot. We simply angled up sharply, then dropped our bombs from a great height.
The Farungal scrambled without leadership, their queen nearly mindless with her failure. Yeah, that had to suck, being so certain that you had one over your enemies and then having victory snatched away at the last second like that. Bummer. What was a real bummer was that I couldn't smile in my hawk form. I was able to poop though, and I let one out on the Farungal fortress after I dropped my firebomb. I sailed back with Dalsharan, laughing my feathered ass off.
“Please, tell me you did not just shit on them,” Dalsharan said with barely hidden amusement.
“Fuck yeah, I did!” I shouted. “I dropped one bomb after another!”
“You are such a child.” Then he laughed uproariously.
The Farungal fortress burned, and the Queen had to be pulled down from the battlements by her soldiers. The monsters swarmed out of their stronghold and met the waiting horde of enormous beasts and very pissed off humans. But the gates shut behind them, and Gremara went into the burning fortress instead of out.
I shrieked at Dalsharan, and he looked back at me. “They're just buying her time to escape! She went inside the keep!”
“Not fucking happening,” Dalsharan snarled.
He let out a high-pitched scream that had a contingent of Hawks—including his guards—flocking to him. We dove for the fortress and landed amid thick smoke, flames leaping around us. My eyes stung and I drew my wings in tightly to keep them from getting singed. Wood creaked and crumbled, but most of the stronghold was stone and it held. The gate, though closed, was now on fire and the courtyard empty. The fighting was happening just beyond the fortress walls but within, it was almost peaceful. The roar of battle was dulled by the wind-like bellow of hungry flames.
“This way!” Dalsharan shouted and shifted. He ran into the fortress buck naked.
I did the same and followed him inside without hesitation, as did every other Hawk there. Male and female, they all ran naked into the burning building after their warlord. That's the kind of loyalty Dalsharan inspires—the kind of trust. They would follow him anywhere.
Inside, smoke covered the burning ceilings but the chill in the stone walls battled it back, keeping the air below clear enough to breathe. Dal led us through the corridors, down into the depths of the stronghold. He seemed to be following something, but I couldn't tell what it was at first. Then, I saw it, a gleam of light on the floor—cold patches. Farungal footprints. He was tracking the Queen.
Down and down we went until the sound of battle disappeared entirely and the corridors got ice cold. I couldn't see the footprints anymore but it didn't matter now, there was only one way forward. Our path let us into a dimly lit cavern and there, crossing it no more than fifty feet ahead of us, was the Farungal Queen and ten of her soldiers—at least three of them female.
Dalsharan shifted and launched into the air. The rest of us followed suit, flying across the vast space toward the fleeing Farungal. The Queen spun and dropped into a crouch, splaying her clawed hands wide and lifting her poisonous tail. Her soldiers spread around her, drawing their swords to use in addition to their deadly claws and poisoned barbs. They swung as we dove and bird shrieks mixed with Farungal screams.
The Farungal were vicious, deadly, and desperate, but we outnumbered them two to one and although we didn't have poisonous barbs on our tails, we dead have claws and beaks, both made to rend flesh. I used the opportunity to perfect my beak-work since I'd done such a shit-poor job of it with Brendallen. I struck and bit. Slashed and clawed. I held Farungal soldiers down with my talons and bit poisonous barbs off their tails before stabbing their black hearts.
Then a sword hit my wing, and I screamed. Dalsharan roared and spun. He was at my side, as he had been the entire battle, so it took only a second for his claws to lash out and gut the Farungal who had hit me. The Farungal dropped to the ground as I did, but he wasn't breathing. His guts painted the floor and the stench of it stained the air.
“Ravyn!” Dalsharan nudged me with his beak.
Behind him, I saw the Queen leap, jumping over the Hawks that had surrounded her. Her poisonous barb lifted and her clawed hands curled as she focused on her target—Dal.
“Dal!” I shouted.
Dalsharan twisted and opened his beak in one beautiful movement. I gaped, and so did the Farungal Queen as his beak snapped closed around her throat and broke her neck. Blood gushed and the Hawk Lord twisted, tearing Gremara's head from her body. He tossed it away as if it were nothing—as if killing her was nothing—and hurried back to me. Around us, the cavern went quiet, all the Farungal lay dead.
“How bad is it?” Dalsharan growled as his bloody head nudged my limp wing.
I let out a sharp, surprised laugh. “The bitch is dead and you're worried about my wing?”
Dal looked at me with one golden eye and scowled. How he managed to scowl with a bird face is beyond me, but he did. Which made me laugh harder. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Of course, it came out more like shrieking. But the other Hawks recognized it as laughter and started to laugh as well until, finally, their lord let out a small chuckle.
“You're a fucking child,” Dal grumbled. “You're my consort; of course, I'm worried about your wing. Now, shift, damn you.”
“You're so bossy.” I shifted back into my man body and grinned at him. Then I winced. “Ow, what the fuck?” I looked at my broken arm in shock.
“You've harmonized,” Dal said smugly. “The injuries sustained in hawk form have translated to your Sidhe form.”
“Yay, just in time to get my arm broken,” I huffed. Then I recalled the way I'd been able to see Gremara's cold footprints. My eyesight had improved; I should have realized then that I'd harmonized.
“You'll heal,” Dal said, then he shifted too. “We'll get you a doctor to speed up the process.”
“Just get me out of this fucking icebox,” I muttered and headed toward the archway.
“We'd best head the way the Farungal were going.” Dal grabbed my uninjured shoulder and turned me around. “We don't know how bad it will be up there.”
“Oh, right,” I mumbled as I cradled my arm to my chest. “Hey, what's that?”
Dalsharan followed my gaze to the side of the cavern where something gleamed. The cavern was lit by a strip of lights that ran down the center of the ceiling, leaving the rest of the vast space in shadows. But something had caught the light—something metallic—and now that I was focused on the darkness, I saw strange shapes lurking there. The Hawk Lord stepped away from me, his expression going stern. He slapped a hand on one of those odd shapes and a series of lights came on. The other Hawks gasped.
Farin stepped up beside me in hawk form. I didn't know it was him until he said, “Creskal flowers. You just found the Queen's greenhouses, Valorian.”
Dalsharan held out a hand and the flowers caught fire. The other Hawks spread out and searched the rest of the cavern. Soon, more lights came on and more fires started. When every last blossom had been turned to ash, Dal returned to me.
“Nicely spotted, Corporal. Now we can go,” the Hawk Lord said. “Shift back. Your hawk will handle the cold better.”
“Shift. Shift back,” I muttered, but I shifted.
Dal lifted a brow at me chidingly before he shifted too. Then he led us out of the cavern and through the escape tunnels, away from Farungal corpses and the remains of their corpse flowers.
