Rurik's Arc

Chapter 8 of 22

Both watchbirds lay dead on the ridge. Rurik stood and started for the slope. Then he heard it. A thin, high whine, steady under the wind. One raven still moved. Its wing dragged. Its leg band caught the last of the moonlight, and the knotwork glowed faint blue. A warning-charm. It had not screamed, but it did not need to. The charm carried its own voice. If that sound reached the tents below, the camp would wake before Rurik crossed the open ground. "The band," Brenna said. She dropped to a knee beside the bird. Her hand hovered over it. "It's singing. I've seen this. Break the bird, you don't break the charm." She had scouted this camp for days and read every fire in it. Now she read the sound and shook her head. "Cut the leg. Fast. But the cut carries too." Thorin crouched over the raven. He said nothing for a moment. The old dwarf had walked out of one betrayed pass alone, and he weighed every plan like it might be the one that killed him. "Bury the sound," he said. "Not the bird." Rurik understood. He looked at the wyrm. "Under it," he said. "Whole beast on top." He gave the low whistle and pointed at the twitching raven. Bjorn caught his arm. The man had ridden here on Rurik's promise and a knife given in trust, and he trusted nothing he could not see done. "One beast makes noise too," he said. "Its scales on stone." "Then we cover the scales with dirt," Rurik said. He knelt and dug with both hands into the soft ground under the dead tree. Brenna dug beside him. Thorin scraped a trench with his axe blade. The whine climbed. Rurik felt it in his teeth. The wyrm settled its bulk over the raven and pressed it into the hole. Rurik shoved the loose earth up against its flank. Brenna packed it hard with her shield. Bjorn dropped his cloak over the last gap and stamped it flat. The whine dropped to nothing. Rurik held his breath and listened past the wind. No horn. No shout from the tents. The charm sang into dirt and beast and heard no answer back. "Down," Rurik whispered. "Slow." They moved off the ridge. But Bjorn stopped at the tree line and pointed his chin at the sky. Above the far end of the camp, a third dark shape circled. Wide bands on both legs. Another watchbird, already up, already turning toward the north slope they had just opened. "They keep a spare," Brenna said. Rurik looked at his wyrm, half-buried and slow to rise. The blind gap was theirs. But the enemy still had one eye in the air, and now it was flying home.