Dead Stars - Part Two by Ben Galley

Author:Ben Galley [Galley, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Fiction
ISBN: 9780956770097
Publisher: BenGalley.com
Published: 2013-05-29T05:00:00+00:00

The birds smelled foul. She knew that much about hawks. They smelled foul, and they shuffled around on their perches, rattling their claws and making her flinch. Jeasin hated birds. She clutched the scrap of parchment in her hand and edged closer to the nearest hawk.

It screeched and Jeasin quickly backed away. Curse those mages, she hissed inside her head. If she had been standing on dangerous ground before, she was now perching on the edge of a very tall and very unstable cliff.

Jeasin bit her lip and tried again. The hawk stayed silent this time. She reached forward and gingerly felt its feathers, cold and soft. The hawk didn’t move. She took a breath and reached for its leg, where Modren had told her she would find a little loop of twine. The mage had been right, and her fingers found the roughness of it. While she tried not to think of the sharp beak, inches from her face, she rolled up the parchment with her nervous fingers and pushed it through the loop.

A noise in the corridor outside made her freeze. Boots, on cold marble. She paused, parchment halfway through the loop, heart beating, while she listened to the boots recede.

‘Too bloody close,’ she muttered, as she pulled the loop tight and tugged it hard. The bird whined. It seemed secure enough.

Jeasin moved to the window and felt for its latch. Gods. Of course it was stuck. Jeasin grit her teeth and jiggled it. Still stuck. She pushed harder and it came loose with a stomach-clenching bang. A blast of cold air slapped her in the face, and she winced. Behind her, the birds began to flap and screech. Jeasin flinched again. They were making far too much noise. Jeasin quickly reached for her hawk. Its wings hit her hard in the face as she lifted it from its perch but she hung on grimly, holding it up to the open window.

‘The Old Dragon!’ she snapped at it, before tossing it out into the night.

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