Free In the Ruins by Kate Elliott Page A

wilderness. “This is what humankind made—a wasteland. You are old. Our people are diminished. Kansi said so herself, and if these rags are the best you have to wear, then I see it is true. The humans are many, but they are weak and the cataclysm has hurt them.” He touched the stained cloth that bound his shoulder. “Their king gave this wound to me, but I killed him. He is dead and your grandson risen in his place.”
    Risen in his place
.
    Liath took a step back. The others did not notice, too intent on Zuangua’s speech.
    “He seeks an alliance. We did act in concert when his need was great, but now we must consider him a danger. We cannot trust humankind.”
    “We trusted them in the old days.”
    “A few. The others always fought us, and will do so again. They will never trust us.”
    “They won’t,” said Kansi. “They hate us. They fear us.”
    “Do you speak such words even of your son?” Eldest Uncle asked.
    “His heart lies with his father. I do not know him.”
    “None of us know him. Better to learn what we can, scout the ground, before we act precipitously.”
    “Better to act before we are dead!” retorted Zuangua. “So your daughter has advised me.”
    “So.” Eldest Uncle sighed and shut his eyes a moment. “The first arrow has pierced deepest. You will believe her, despite what anyone else has to say.”
    Liath had backed up four steps by now, one slow sweep at a time so as not to attract attention.
    “Look!” cried Falcon Mask from up on the wall. “Is that an eagle?”
    On the White Road, a hundred warriors raised their bows and each nocked an arrow.
    “Let her go.” Eldest Uncle caught Liath’s gaze and lifted his chin in a gesture uncannily like that of his daughter. The message was unspoken:
Now
!
    She bolted. Kansi leaped after her and got hold of the mantle’s hem, but as Liath strained and Kansi tugged, EldestUncle shut his eyes and muttered words beneath his breath. The binding cord fell away and the mantle slipped off her shoulders into the Impatient One’s clutching grip. Kansi stumbled as the tension was released. Liath ran.
    “She is most dangerous of all—” cried Kansi.
    Other voices called after her.
    “That scrawny, filthy creature is a danger to us?”
    “Not only a sorcerer, but … walked the spheres—”
    “Let her go, Zuangua! I ask this of you, by the bond we shared in our mother’s womb.”
    She stumbled over the White Road and tripped and banged her shin as she slipped over bare ground covered with ash and loose stone. The ground seemed to undulate of its own accord under her feet. Sharp edges sliced through her soles. Where her blood spattered on rock, it hissed, and the surface skin of rock gave way, cracking and steaming, as she leaped for a flat boulder whose surface remained solid. She smelled the sting of sorcery, a spell trying to slow and trap her: Ashioi magic, that manipulated the heart of things.
    Liath sought her wings of flame, but the Earth bound her. She was trapped by the flesh she had inherited from her father.
    “Hai! Hai!” shouted Zuangua far behind. “At will, archers! Do not let her escape!”
    She had to turn back to face the attack. A score of arrows went up in flame, in a sheet that caught the next volley. But they would shoot again, and again. Arrows had felled her before. She had only one defense against arrow fire and she could not use it, not even to save her own life. Not again.
    She would rather die than see another person melt from the inside out.
    “I’ll trap her!” cried Kansi. “The rock will eat her!”
    A third volley vaulted into the air toward her and erupted into sparks and a shower of dark ash as she called fire into the shafts. The rock beneath her splintered with a resounding
snap
. The ground cracked open, and she fell.
    The gust of wings and a sultry heat swept over her, and the golden griffin swooped down and took her shoulders inits claws. With a jerk they lurched up, then down so she scraped