Mother Gyrull, who is now dying in agony because of you,’ the female said in the common tongue. ‘You are my prisoner and I’m going to see the colour of your blood.’
Liett’s wings caught the sunlight with a shimmering, pearly opalescence. Had he seen her before? Yes, he had. His eyes widened.
‘Do I know you, human?’ said Liett.
‘You slashed my balloon near Tirthrax, the winter before last. I was lucky to survive.’
‘Had I done the job properly,’ she said savagely, ‘we would not be here now. What is your name?’
He told her. She bent down and, though smaller and less muscular than the others, easily picked him up in one hand. Liett inspected him from top to toe. ‘There is a vague memory. You humans all look the same – like the squirming grubs we hooked out from under the bark of trees to feed the despised tetrarch.’
Liett tossed him into the dust. ‘Bind him tight,’ she said to the other lyrinx, though in the common tongue. ‘If he tries to escape you may eat his feet and lower legs, if you can stomach them, but no more. I don’t want him to die until after we have questioned him; and he has answered.’
Nish was bound hand and foot and left on the ground. Liett crouched beside her mother, spreading her beautiful wings to shade the dying matriarch. After giving Gyrull a drink from a canister on her hip, Liett spoke to her at length in low tones, in the lyrinx tongue.
She kept pointing to the northern sky and shaking one fist, as if counselling an all-out attack. The gathered lyrinx flashed the same aggressive reds and yellows as Gyrull had displayed earlier, but now Gyrull’s colours were muted pinks and purples, in swirling patterns that Nish interpreted as soothing or conciliatory. Acquiescence to Gilhaelith’s demands? More likely it would be feigned acquiescence until they recovered the relics, followed by an overwhelming onslaught to destroy the man who had so insulted them. And he, Nish, had been part of that sacrilege. He could expect no mercy either.
Liett glanced at him, her expression only marginally less threatening. She turned back to her mother, though this time she seemed to be presenting a different argument. She went to her knees, bowed low and spoke in a submissive way, looking up sideways at the matriarch.
Gyrull spoke so quietly that Nish didn’t catch a word, though Liett seemed vexed at her reply. She began her pleading anew but Gyrull only shook her head.
‘Ryll!’ she said.
Liett stood up abruptly. ‘Ryll?’ she repeated, as if dumbfounded.
‘Ryll.’
Liett turned away and stalked across the dirt, raising a storm of dust. She came back at once, trying to look contrite, and bowing until her head touched the ground. The matriarch said something in the lyrinx tongue. Liett called her fellows and they formed a tight circle, lifting Gyrull to her feet, supporting her and leaning over her with their foreheads touching. They began to chant.
Gyrull was beyond healing, as they must realise. He had the impression that they were combining their powers to broadcast a sending to their brethren, telling them of the theft, and Gilhaelith’s demand.
The chant built up until it became a thigh-slapping, foot-stamping roar. Finally, with a cry that went ringing across the plain, they broke apart and all flopped down, panting.
All but one. The matriarch swayed on her feet for a moment. She turned her head and her golden flecked eyes met Nish’s, but she was already dead. The air rushed from her chest with a sighing sound and she fell into the dust.
Liett enveloped her mother in her wings, held her for a minute then let her go. She stood up and signed to the group, who began to excavate a grave with their claws.
Stalking across to Nish, Liett lifted him again. ‘The call has gone out,’ she said between her teeth. ‘While we wait, I will talk and you will answer.’
SIXTY-THREE
Nish told Liett as little as he could without seeming uncooperative. Fortunately he had no idea what Flydd’s plans were.
After the interrogation was over, the lyrinx separated. Liett picked Nish up in her claws and carried him, dangling like a rabbit in an eagle’s talons, on a long flight north-west. She flew for the remainder of the day, stopping at dark in a nondescript range of hills where she tied him to a tree while she went hunting. He hung there miserably, the claw punctures in his back and sides throbbing. She soon