Wall of Doom 1 (Epic Fantasy) (Saga of the de Magela Family) by Abigail Keam

Author:Abigail Keam [Keam, Abigail]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780989374507
Publisher: Worker Bee Press
Published: 2013-12-14T05:00:00+00:00

13

Princess Maura was an enigma to her people.

During her young years she would swoop down upon the back of a great hawk, followed by falcon guards, who would drop her off on the roof of the palace.

At first this unsettled the people, especially when the great Bird People tarried in the city, walking upright, speaking to the frightened citizens in their mother tongue, drinking ale in taverns and singing bawdy songs with drunken Sivan merchants.

The Sivans seemed to know the Bird People well and did not find the hawk females strange with their painted feathers, tattooed faces or hands with retractable talons. They deferred to the Dinii.

Children also wanted to be with the Bird People. They loved to creep up behind a hawk, pluck a feather and then run off screaming with delight. The purloined feathers were placed in the hair or worn around the neck in the form of a necklace.

Children rebuffed their fathers loudly if they tried to cut out feathers from tangled hair or untie a Dinii feather necklace in order to wash a dirty face and neck.

Frequently scores of hawks and falcons of all colors and sizes entered the city, flying in a V formation, landing right on the palace grounds. They would stay for months and work with the high-ranking officers of her Majesty’s army. They inspected storehouses, weapons and fortifications.

Then they would strap nervous Hasan Daegian officers to their bodies and fly out into the countryside to study each small village’s preparations for the inevitable conflict. Always they would exhort in their high-pitched voices, “Not good enough, not good enough,” to the dismay and frustration of the royal Ministers and Governors.

Only when the combat-hardened mercenaries, recruited by the Sivans, arrived and began training the grumbling Hasan Daegians in the art of sword play, axe throwing and hand-to-hand fighting with a mace did the Dinii seem to relax a little.

In the early days, the mercenaries would taunt the observing Dinii to spar with them in front of their pupils.

Typically a hawk would good-naturedly lumber over to some arrogant, over-muscled soldier of fortune and wait to be rushed. The challenged hawk would fly up and hover just out of reach of her opponent, jabbing at him with her taloned feet. Otherwise she liked to catch the face of her opponent and hold him at arm’s length while he struggled to break free.

Yesemek, Empress Gitar’s Commander and First Advisor, issued a decree putting an end to the fighting when it was discovered that the mercenaries would nearly suffocate.

The real reason the direct challenges stopped was that the mercenaries realized that the hawk soldiers, especially the females, were too powerful and quick.

A new game of rivalry ensued soon after. Several mercenaries would attack a lone hawk in the streets, usually at night. The fight was dispatched quickly with one of the mercenaries being thrown into a wall or another landing on his head in a water tank. Then the attacked hawk would quietly gather a coin from the

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