Shadow Weaver Book 2: Song of the Naga

Chapter 7

A tepid, southerly breeze blows through the streets, tugging at our hoods and cloaks. Unquestionably, I follow Tug, the hope inside me flourishing as we get closer and closer to the Pit. The last time we were here, the crowds to get inside were so big, they only let us in because of Kel's glittering eyes. Tonight, the guards move about with their feet clanging in metal leg bracelets, allowing people through at a steady trickle. Perhaps there is less demand because it is late, and men drink and revel rather than sell their wares or conduct business.

Before long, we are at the front of the queue. The guards wave us on into the entrance tunnel. We wade through sludge that stinks like rotting corpses, manure, and dying. Brown liquid drips down the sides of the black stone walls.

The only light in the pit comes from the fire lamps hanging on the walls and lanterns resting on stalls and tables. It is so murky, I do not see the men curled up near the outer walls sleeping until I stumble over one. The day-time bustle, haggling, and bargaining is a distant memory, sunken beneath the night lethargy, as though the fug in the air carries a trance-inducing vapor that puts men to sleep and makes everyone docile.

In the center of the arena, raised on enormous platforms that stretch back for a hundred meters, sit rows of wooden cages. The animal cages are first: wolves, falcons, eagles, wolverines, deer with striped blue coats, scaly creatures similar to giant chameleons, and forest lizards. As my eyes roam over the cages, my body remembers the great gulf of panic and danger that consumed me the last time I was here. My pulse accelerates, pressing against the skin of my neck. Logically, I know I will not see Kel crouched in one of the cages raised on the crisscrossed metal platform high above the back of the hall. But tell that to my sweaty palms and racing heart.

My feet grind to a halt before the enormous velaraptor cage. The motionless creature sprawled at the bottom of its cage looks dead. Months ago, I had watched it rise into the air, wings pounding, cries echoing off the pit's high black walls. It had launched into the top of its prison, the heavy chain clanging around its webbed foot, its mind lighting up the mind-world in enraged flashes of madness.

I peer closer at its enormous beak and lizard-shaped eyes. It is definitely the one I saw at the beginning of spring. Three months in a cage, and it is dying. Dark coagulating crimson blood trickles from missing scales where it picks itself to death.

I reach toward its mind, mentally prodding to see if there are any lingering traces of its glacial mountain origins, any sense of the smoky wild world of cold beauty from where it has come. The velaraptor flown by the bird-men had minds with a mesmerizing melody, a winter's dream of emptiness and space.

From this one, I get nothing.

I step away. The velaraptor is a grim reminder of what might have become of Kel if I had not found him. A reminder of what awaits the other glitter-eyed children snatched from their parents and now awaiting their fate in the cages above our heads.

"Wait!" As I move away from the velaraptor, a short, balding man comes rushing toward me. Tug is by my side in a second, knife-drawn. "Look, look!" the bald man says, pointing back at the wooden cage. "It likes you."

I tilt my head back and see one of the velaraptor's yellow eyes blink open. It is watching me.

"Magical creature. Powerful. Very lucky. Four silver pieces." He holds up his hand. He has a scar instead of a thumb, so there are only four fingers.

"Not interested," Tug growls.

"No, no, don't go," the seller says, rushing around to head me off. He then back peddles fast so that I don't walk into him. "You have a special gift with big bird. Big bird not moved for six days."