She had a lovely accent, thick and rich like everyone else born in the north. A lift of her right hand, and the beast lifted its other wing.
She tossed it something dark and bleeding – fresh meat – from a pouch that hung on her hip.
The eagle snatched it mid-air and ruffled its feathers as it swallowed the meat in one bite.
It wore a bridle, much like that of a horse. The Minder attached a chain-link lead and began to direct it around the ring. The fledgling followed with graceful steps, its wings tucked, its tailfeathers held in perfect position above the sandy floor.
The five important Sacred inclined their heads or clapped gently in admiration.
The woman led the eagle to the center of the ring next.
She had it bow for the crowd.
Then she directed it in a delicate circle, before it lowered itself to one side, dipping its wing as if to allow a rider to climb easily aboard. A lift of her hands, and it raised both wings.
The Minder removed the halter next and did the same motions. This time, fully free, not a tether upon the beast. It watched her intently the entire time, gold eyes blazing.
‘Incredible,’ Ezer breathed.
She knew she should go, but she couldn’t help the feeling that she was seeing true magic for the very first time. The kind of thingno onegot to lay eyes on.
A gift.
When it seemed the display was done, and both Minder and war eagle had bowed in the center of the ring, Ezer realized they were heading her way, for she stood at the gate that allowed the eagle entrance back into the barn.
She backed away, trying to fade into the shadows. But the back of her heel landed on a mucking fork that was leaning against a stall door.
‘Gods be damned,’ Ezer hissed.
She tried to grab it, but her fingers missed by an inch, and beforeshe could stop it, the rake slammed against a pile of empty metal pails in the stall aisles.
The racket was enough to wake the dead, so sudden she felt her own heart rocket into her throat. The Eagleminder’s head spun towards the noise.
They locked eyes for a breath of a second, before the war eagle reared up.
With a screech, it lifted its wings, opened its beak …
… and lunged towards the Eagleminder, like it was ready to kill.
The Minder dove out of the way.
The eagle lunged, beak snapping, and missed her by an inch.
She stood and scrambled for the end of the chain lead, trying to regain control, but it had already been lost.
The others jumped into the pen, a scramble of flurrying cloaks, and surrounded the beast.
In the end, it took magic to settle it.
With a surge of white light from one of their hands, the beast backed down.
The Eagleminder finally managed to halter it again and drag it, flapping and screeching, to the other end of the pen, where she tied it up.
And left it standing there, sides heaving, wings lowered to its sides.
The trainer turned, eyes narrowed, as if searching for Ezer.
But she’d already scurried into the shadows of a nearby storage space full of barrels and bags of shavings and enormous bins overflowing with grains.
