Sir Corvus Riddlemire's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Sir Corvus Riddlemire wanted the tallest weathervane in Hollow Bend, and a hawk sat on it. The hawk shaped like a hawk. Iron feathers, iron beak, a perch above every roof in town. Corvus had studied it for three days from the willow's drooping branches. He still could not tell if the thing was rusted, welded, or cursed. Attack now and he'd break his neck for nothing. "A throne I cannot see," he muttered, "is a throne I cannot steal." He needed a closer look, and he needed someone who already had one. He found the cat on the cottage roof, tail flicking, watching sparrows she was too lazy to chase. Whiskers knew every ridge and gutter in Hollow Bend. She wore a little bell that gave her away, and she gossiped worse than she hunted. "You climb roofs," Corvus said. "I need the shape of the hawk up top. Tell me its weakness." Whiskers yawned. "Birds don't pay. What's the riddle, feathers?" "I fly but have no wings. I point but have no finger. Rust eats my ankle before my crown. What am I?" He tilted his head. "Answer, and you've told me the weakness yourself." The cat's ears twitched. She liked puzzles. "A weathervane." She licked a paw. "And the ankle bit's true. The base is soft. I've seen it wobble in wind. The rooster on the barn spins loose down low." "Not the rooster," Corvus said. "The hawk." Whiskers went quiet. "Nobody climbs that one. Too high. But the old man knows." She flicked her tail toward the field. "He built it." The old man was Gustonia McGee, a farmer who chased crows off his corn with a rake and language Corvus admired. Corvus dropped onto his fence post. Gustonia squinted up, red-faced. "Off my post, you black rag." "You made the iron hawk," Corvus said. "Tell me how it stands, and I'll leave your corn a week." Gustonia snorted, then spat. "Made it forty years back. Hollow pole, thin at the collar. Meant to turn easy in wind. Never meant a live hawk to nest there." He jabbed his rake. "Now shoo." Corvus flew off with what he wanted. The weathervane's neck was hollow and thin. Strike the collar hard, and the whole hawk would tip. He no longer needed to fight the living hawk in the air. He needed to break the perch beneath it. But Whiskers, pleased with herself, could not hold a secret. She trotted the rooftops and told the sparrows, the pigeons, the barn mice. By dusk the news reached the tall perch itself. The living hawk turned her yellow eye down toward the willow where Corvus roosted. Corvus had his weakness at last. He'd also lost his surprise. The hawk now knew a crow was coming for her throne, and she spread her wings wide to wait.