Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 55 of 57

Damian meant to ride for the ridge at once. But the raven would not settle. It clung to his wrist and shivered, wings loose. The grazed strip on its back seeped red through the cloth. When he lifted his arm, the bird tried to fly and dropped instead. It could not scout again. Damian was blind now. He had the shape of the house from one pass, but not the guards. They could move a wall's worth of men before he reached the gate. "It can't fly," Damian said. "I need to know where they've put the guards. They heard the alarm. They'll have shifted." Rolo took the bird from his arm and cupped it against her jacket. "Then you ride in guessing. That's how you die." She stroked the glossy feathers back into place. "It needs rest, not another flight. Push it now and it never flies again." Damian knew she was right. He hated that she was right. He knelt and set water in his palm. The raven drank, slow. Its chest still heaved. One more hard pass would kill it, and he would still be blind. So he made a choice. He would not send the bird. He would learn the walls another way. "Give it to me," he said. He wrapped the raven in his cloak and laid it in the crook of a low pine, hidden from the sky. "We leave it here. It rests. We go on foot to the ridge and watch the house ourselves." Rolo studied him. "On foot. Not the horses." "Horses draw eyes. We crawl the last stretch and count the guards with our own eyes." He looked at the wounded bird. "It gave me the shape. I find the rest myself." They tied the horses in the pines and climbed. The ridge rose steep and stony. Damian went low, sword strapped tight to his back. Near the crest he dropped to his belly and pulled himself the last stretch. Rolo slid beside him. Below lay the high house. A stone wall ringed it. One gate faced the road. Damian counted. Two men at the gate. Two more walking the wall, slow, watching the sky, not the ground. A fifth stood at the door. He watched them a long time. He learned the pattern of the walkers, the gap between their passes, the blind stretch of wall where no eye reached. "There," he breathed. "The east corner. They never cover it together." Rolo nodded. "You see it now. All of it." Damian slid back down the ridge. His raven rested in the pine, breathing easier. It had cost him a scout, but it had bought him the shape of the fight. Now he had eyes of his own. He knew the gate, the wall, the blind corner. He knew when to move. "We go tonight," he said. "Through the east corner, when the walkers pass wide."