The Shepherd of Weeds (31 page)

Clothilde’s eyes narrowed. “Not if I can help it.”

“Ivy is coming. I know—I have my spies.…”

With a swift look of disgust, Clothilde swung the doomed monkey across the room, where it met with the wall in a loud thud. “Now you have one less.”

Axle dared not move for a long time after Clothilde had stormed out. He was too buoyed by the news he had heard.
Ivy is coming
, Verjouce had said. Ivy was close. He must muster his strength to stay alive.

rig’s engineered mists provided deep cover for Ivy’s journey. Flanked by Rue and Klair, and Rowan with his springform wings, Ivy and Lofft made the quick passage across the remainder of the moors surrounded by the first wing of the caucus. It was disconcerting flying blind—the veil of cloud was thick and obscuring—but the birds flew true, guided by a sixth sense. Nor did Ivy wish the mists away. She dreaded the moment when they would clear—for only then would she be treated to the fearsome image of their enemy.

When the mist did finally melt away, it mingled with the inkworks’ smoke and ash. Morning had yet to come. The group hovered above the dark city. The air smelled of decay.

Something small and fast whizzed by Ivy’s ear, and suddenly Lofft was taking evasive action—jackknifing, careering
chaotically through thin air—and Ivy held on desperately. A chorus of shrieks rose from the gulls, who were armed with great stones that they dropped on the city beneath them, pelting the wall and inner courtyard with a hard rain. Angry, guttural shouts rose up as the alarm continued to clang.

A further volley of small, burr-like projectiles ripped through the air, and with horror Ivy saw a cluster of several birds fall—as if the magic that propelled the creatures away from earth abandoned them in an instant. The air was filled with feathers.

Great searchlights were lit, illuminating the stark underbellies of the bobbing weather balloons, a ceiling above the city. The powerful flares cast about the skies, everywhere. Birds darted and soared through the pillars of light—there one minute, vanishing the next into the gloom.

Rue and Klair banked steeply to the right, carving through the rancid smoke at a sharp angle above Dumbcane’s fountain, heading for Snaith’s lecture hall. For a brief instant, Ivy spotted Rowan. His beautiful wings were cupped beneath him; he appeared to be floating as he searched her out. Their eyes met—he smiled—and Ivy was struck with a sudden surge of hope and fondness for her friend.

Then, on all sides, harsh, chilling cries rose from below—vast drifting shadows were grasping for purchase in the air. Here were the Rocamadour vultures, and a great dread swept over Ivy’s body. So many of them, she saw. She was sickened
by their numbers. Dark, swirling sparks floated before her eyes, and she resisted the urge to wave them away.

They flapped wildly. The terrible birds were slow to gain altitude, though—their great wings, made for soaring on thermals or catching the winds from the cliffs, did not serve them well for the swift needs of aerial warfare. They were at a disadvantage. But they made up for it by the true horror of what they carried upon their backs.

For the vultures of Rocamadour, great beasts that feast on death, each carried with them a passenger. Seated behind each of their gruesome heads and gripping roughly at their feathers was an oily, cruel ink monkey. Yellow eyes glinting and teeth bared, they urged the vultures on with their spiked tails.

Ivy watched in horror as several of them fixed on Rowan and, rising on an invisible wind current, surrounded him.

uddenly the wind picked up, and the sky was full of the soaring monsters. Rising like a dark spike in their center—the sheer black spire and its shattered window.

“Hold on, Ivy,” Lofft cried as he fell into a tumble, descending dramatically.

Black shadows flashed past, tinged with the smell of rot, the screeches of the ink monkeys upon their backs piercing her ears. The ink monkeys hacked mercilessly at the air with their spiked tails, their shrieks louder even than the alarm. Smaller birds, the juncos and sharp-billed nuthatches, pursued the vultures in packs, plucking at the larger birds’ tail feathers to destabilize them. One vulture, off balance and top-heavy, groaned. Wobbling, it began a slow roll, careening to earth, its furious monkey with it. It was a small victory, for Ivy saw as
soon as one was toppled, another rose to take its place.

Shoo led the crows and ravens, and as their collection of sharp talons and dense numbers held off the nearer vultures, Ivy and Lofft were able to soar through a small area of unguarded air. Lofft righted himself; they had descended through much of the sky battle, and below Ivy the maze of Rocamadour’s tiny streets was in perfect miniature. They raced to the spire, its diamond-shaped opening a terrifying beacon.

Ivy craned her neck upward, desperate to see Rowan, the searchlights mercilessly revealing their losses as they swept about the sky. The early-morning air was murky over the city, except for the wild beams of gray-green light, which were punctured with the silhouettes of creatures in flight—long-billed thrashers, trogons, and a scattering of sparrows. It seemed to Ivy as if the heavens were tearing apart. Great and small birds battled, the injured falling to the earth like dark stars.

Lofft again corrected his course, bearing down on the lone window—and this slight shift brought Ivy a welcome sighting: Rowan, high above his former school, effortlessly floating. He was surrounded by three large vultures, his mechanical wings outmaneuvering them with ease. Ivy watched her friend; a strange mixture of pride and homesickness nearly overwhelmed her. Rowan tucked his knees in and tumbled, opening wide his arms and hacking at a vulture with his spurs.
The doomed creature squawked once and listed to the side; like a sinking boat, it began a slow dive.

Turning about, Rowan slashed again at a nearby ink monkey, and his feet landed solidly on its greasy fur. It shot off into the night, shrieking, its mount meeting a similar fate.

The former taster now faced the last of the three vultures. It was rattled and uncertain, its monkey jeering it on. Rowan was close enough to smell the stench of the thing. He stared into its tar-pit eyes.

But something was wrong—desperately wrong.

Where one of Rowan’s wings should have been was a broken coil of wire and canvas fluttering at an awful angle. The springform hung limply from his elbow for a moment, and then the former taster began spiraling down—his one good wing desperately cupping at the empty air. Down, down, smashing brutally through vultures and caucus birds alike—farther down, his broken wing delivering him to the Tasters’ Guild below.

s Aster flitted about, darting from fountain to fountain, exploring untold dark alleys and silent, scowling Outriders, she allowed herself a moment of congratulation. Above her, in the air, the birds of the caucus were clashing wildly with the vultures of Rocamadour, getting all that they deserved. Their bodies were piling up upon the cobbles, and there was no one but themselves to blame. She had given them a chance at the caucus, and they had turned on her.

They got what they deserved!

The bird-snacking well keeper was dead.

Aster flew about her new home. Within these walls there was a dark order, of the kind only oppression can bring. It was lovely, thought Aster. Outside the walls, her very own pandemonium was loosed.

But the long list of creatures she had wronged was not to be contained by these walls.

One such creature, adept at climbing (for his fierce claws could grasp any surface) and silent stalking (for he was gifted with thick pads upon his twelve toes), lurked patiently within the deep shadows of a ravaged fountain. He yawned, and half his face disappeared into a set of intimidating fangs. Composing himself, the enormous, matted cat Six looked about.

He sniffed the air. Six had feasted once upon man, and now he craved more. It had drawn him back to Rocamadour, this particular taste. There was a heavy scent of the scribe from the Knox—Six knew him well from his forays into the man’s shop and his inkwells. But the cat was not interested in this man.

No, there was only one man in particular—a meal interrupted.

He crouched and waited for the subrector.

Six smelled him nearby—he was close.

His lair lay behind stone and wood. His prey’s scent mingled with the distinct scent of fear—not the man’s, but others’. Many others’.
Fear, and what else?
the cat pondered.

Fear and
ink
.

In the meantime, spying a distracted hummingbird beside the forgotten fountain, Six would make do with a snack.

In a quick, bright instant, Aster’s short, wicked life ended in the jaws of the cat Six. Her bones—as light as air—crunched pleasurably in his powerful jaws.