He felt hands fumbling at his restraints. This time they didn't seem to have brought any of their bravos with them. Could he_?
He tried to lash out at them as they freed his arms, tried to leap to his feet. If I can injure one, the other will run and I can hold the injured one and make him take off the hood_
Visions of escape flashed across his mind.
He flung out his taloned hands with a strength only slightly less than that of an unfledged eyas; he got as far as his knees before he threw himself off balance and tumbled in an ungainly sprawl across some hard surface.
The men both laughed, as he sought for a reservoir of strength and found it empty. "I see what you mean," said the other. "Still_we can't keep him around for too long, or our client is going to hear about the new artifacts in the market and is going to wonder where all those vials of blood and feathers are coming from."
"He gave us permission to take what we wanted_" the first man argued.
"But you don't get fresh blood from a week-old corpse," the other reminded him.
Artifacts, T'fyrr thought miserably, as the two men threw him on his stomach, pinned his wing and arms effortlessly, and plucked another handful of secondary feathers. I am nothing to them but an object, to be used at their pleasure. They harvest me as if I were a berry patch.
Each feather, as it was pulled, invoked a stab of exquisite pain; he squawked involuntarily as his tormenters extracted them. Finally they left him alone.
They were only after feathers this time, not blood. Just as well, every talon ached where they had cut each one to the quick to collect blood. Now I know how human victims must feel; why they deem having nails pulled out to be such a torment. If he got free, he would not be able to walk comfortably for weeks. And I will not fly for months until the feathers grow again.
"Shall we truss it back up again?" the first man asked when they finally left him alone for a moment, and he decided that they were done with him for the nonce. "We'll be gone all evening, with no one here to watch him."
The second one prodded him with a toe, and all T'fyrr could do was groan. "I don't think so," he said. "He isn't going anywhere. All those bindings were breaking feathers anyway; we need to get as many perfect feathers from him as we can. Only the perfect feathers are any good, magically. Now that makes me wonder, though_we need to do some research and see if the down and body feathers could be used for anything."
The sounds of their feet receded. "Considering what we're getting for feathers and blood, can you imagine what the heart and bones will be worth?" the first one said, greed and awe in his voice. "Not to mention the skull and the talons?"
"We will be able to purchase mansions and titles, at the very least," the second chuckled over the sound of a door opening. "And as many_"
The door closed, cutting off the end of the sentence.
The heart. The skull. His people did not have much in the way of ceremony to mark one's passing, but the idea that he would be parceled out in bits to the highest bidder made him so sick to his stomach that he started to gag.
And that was when the despair he had been holding off finally swooped down on him and took him.
I am going to die here, alone, in the dark, half-mad and utterly forgotten! Nightingale will never find me; I will never see her again_
He couldn't sit up, he was too weak and dizzy; he could only curl into a shivering ball and clutch his legs to his chest, shaking with despair. No one would ever find him. There was no rescue at hand. Probably no one had even bothered to make the attempt.
No one cared.
No! I can feel her out there; I know she hasn't forgotten me! If no one else tries, she will! She will come to me by herself if she must!
But it was hopeless. How could one woman, however resourceful, find him hidden away in this hive of a city? How could anyone find him, even with all the resources of the King? Lyonarie was too big, too impersonal, for anyone to search successfully.
Even clever Nightingale. There were too many places even she could not go.
He could not weep, but his beak gaped as much as the muzzle would permit, and he keened his despair into the uncaring darkness.