Starsinger

Avians

The avian in front spread his wings wide and pointed them downward, clacking his teeth together threateningly. From its back sprouted the shaft of an arrow. Aaron winced. It was the monster that had taken down the billy goat. The monster he'd attacked.

Around their camp the avians hooted and clacked and called out strange guttural words Aaron couldn't understand, but with human voices. Jace's eyes swept over the trees, counting. Eight halfbeasts in the shadows and one in front, already injured. Aaron kept his bow aimed at the avian in front, waiting for Jace's signal to fire.

"Legends," Raelyn's green eyes were wide as saucers. "By all the gods, they were supposed to be legends."

Eight human-like heads bobbed and weaved in the trees at the sound of her voice. The old stories said the first avian had been a mage, a woman who wanted desperately to fly. Driven to near madness by her desire, she used all her magic to break free of gravity and raise herself into the sky – so high that Hyperion, the sun, took notice. Seeing her desperation, Hyperion granted her wish and turned the woman's bones hollow and sprouted eagle feathers from her arms. Part-bird, part-human, her avian children took on the shapes of all the birds that roamed the earth and skies, sparrows and hawks and ravens and owls. Or so the story went.

"Are you hurt?" Jace kept his voice low, his lips barely moving.

"Fine," Aaron and Sapphire muttered in unison.

"Good," said Jace. "That's good. Next time you're planning to bring company home, give a fellow a heads up, yeah?"

"Wasn't much of a plan." Aaron flexed his fingers around the belly of his bow.

Raelyn grabbed at Jace's ankle and he jumped.

"Talk to them," she hissed. "They speak."

"Speak what?" Jace shot back. But the avians' conversations were echoing through the trees as clear as anything. Slowly, Jace lowered his sword to the side, raising one arm in defense. He took a tentative step forward and the wounded avian shouted and dug his sharp talons into the earth. His feathered horns were solid black against his reddish plumage.

"We don't want to hurt you." Jace's normally confident voice cracked, just slightly, and Aaron felt his stomach drop. "We mean you no harm."

The black-horned avian snarled something through clenched teeth. Even in his strange owlish eyes, Aaron could recognize the burning of violence only barely contained. The look of an enemy. Blackhorn shouted again, but the rest continued to stare.

Something pricked at Aaron's awareness. He forced himself to look at the other avians. They watched the travelers not with a predatory gaze, he realized with a start, but a curious one.

"Keep talking," Aaron whispered. "They're listening."

"Please," Jace continued. "Our friend is hurt. We don't want to fight."

Another murmur rippled through the assembled avians. Feathers ruffled nervously as they whispered to each other, one phrase repeated back and forth like a thousand echoes.

"Humakyn," Raelyn gasped. "They're saying humakyn. They speak Vlynnish."

"What?" Sapphire demanded.

Vlynnish. The language of magic, and of the Old World, of the days before the Division. How old are these creatures?

"She's right." Delia swore colorfully. "Gods damn it, of all the times to forget the word for friend..."

"Starts with a 'p', doesn't it?" Raelyn murmured.

"Pati!" Delia shouted. All the avians, including Blackhorn, jerked their heads up in surprise. "Pati, we are pati, we mean you no harm... no harm, ny grauht, that's it."