The deer wasn't a bad find, by any means. Hell, if Naesala had been a bit younger and in less of a foul mood, he may well have been pleased. The doe couldn't have been dead for more than a few hours—enough time for the blowflies to find it and for the maggots to start crawling, but still hours before the carrion beetles would start wriggling their way inside. He preferred the texture of fly-eggs and maggots to the stiff, bitter-shelled beetles, and he much preferred carrion to the bother of trying to hunt down a deer with his own talons.
Still—though the flesh was still soft, it had just been so long since he'd had to feed out in the wild. Years of schmoozing with Begnion nobles and being seated upon the throne, it seemed, had made his palate go soft.
A faint, ancient admonition of Tibarn's echoed in his mind: let yourself get coddled too much and you'll become useless as the beorc. At the time Naesala had laughed at Tibarn's reverence for the old ways; now, he frowned.
Ah well. Flipping the deer on its back, Naesala sprawled its legs flat and jabbed sharply into its neck. Then he scraped around the puncture, pulling and stabbing and peeling—worrying the wound open and revealing the dark flesh beneath. At some point he grazed the windpipe, tore it—and as he scraped across the skin he could feel it flay in his beak like shaved salami.
Once he'd thoroughly opened up the little gash, he hooked his beak around a fur-coated skin-flap at the puncture's edge and pulled it backward—a jerky, ragged, messy business. The torn bit of skin widened as he pulled it down past the deer's shoulder; by the time it reached the stomach Naesala was no longer pulling, but instead began tearing at the tough fleshy tendrils that bound fur to skin, until nearly the whole side and stomach was laid bare and furless.
Then, at last, he drew a set of talons down the center of its chest; as he jerked down through the flesh, the deer tipped onto its side, spilling its innards. The intestines pooled at his feet, a gray twisted snarl.
Good. Naesala lowered his head to eat, but just as he did so, a sudden sweep of shadow caught his eye. Jerking his head up from the carcass, he twisted around to survey the area—eating out in the open like this, old instincts were strong, and he bristled his feathers in anticipation of a rival. Some upstart raven, maybe, or a wild mountain-cougar. When he glanced up, however, he saw only the ragged silhouette of Nikolias, scrappiest of all his attendants.
Naesala sighed, seeing how cluelessly the raven seemed to be circling in the sky—Nikolias had a mind sharp as flint, Naesala knew, but his street-sense and talon-strength left something to be desired. Kilvas's old king never would've paid any mind someone like him, but Naesala had taken special interest in the boy—particularly after the raven's knack for tactics had helped them weave their way out of a jam off the west coast of Begnion a few years prior. The old way of letting raw muscle rule the roost had to come to an end, Naesala had decided; it was not Begnion's muscle but their trickery and wit that had gotten Kilvas ensnared by the damned blood pact. The cunning beorc nobles may be able to try something like that on meatheads like Kalik or Salir—but not a cautious, clever mind like Nikolias's. Naesala hoped, at least.
Either because Naesala was suddenly in an indulgent mood, or perhaps because the raven's appearance had given him a strange stab of loneliness, Naesala gave a sharp caw—come down here—toward the smaller raven's shadow. Nikolias turned mid-flight, quick and obedient, and as he spiraled down Naesala edged to the right, giving the younger raven a place to crouch by the deer's upper flank.
As the raven landed, Naesala was busily nibbling away at a particularly fat bit of intestine. Nikolias stood still for a moment, expecting Naesala to address him—customarily the king ate alone, and he did not recognize this invitation for what it was until a few moments later. Once Nikolias understood, however, he joined the meal in silence—eating with small, tentative pecks, digging at scraps of muscle that were bound to the body by only a few thin tendons, or plying away bits of membrane to snatch the tenderness beneath. Naesala, by contrast, was ravenous—once he'd tired of intestine he began digging into the tougher parts of the carcass—spitting fur, scraping his beak down bones, wrenching chunks of the shoulder-meat away with such force that sometimes he yanked the whole carcass with it.
After a few minutes of tentative pecking, Nikolias stopped eating altogether; for a moment he just stood hunched over deer-flank. Then, with a small sigh, he shook his head, stepped backwards, and shifted human. For a moment his face scrunched up in disgust; human-noses were more sensitive to the stench of rot than raven-beaks, and the impulse to retch was strong. But he regained himself, swallowing: "My king, might I ask a question?"
Naesala tilted his head back slightly, indicating that he was listening, but didn't stop digging into the carcass.
"It's Lekain." Ah. That. Nikolias's stance was small and uncertain. "I know our arrangement with him is profitable, but I—I'm just not sure if—I mean, this attack was an awfully bold move, and… I don't think I fully understand it."
Still raven-shaped, Naesala spat out a bit of flesh and fixed Nikolias with a glare—both curious and critical. For a moment Nikolias balked, but Naesala's posture was encouraging in its own sharp way.
"I don't care for Tibarn or his hawks, particularly," Nikolias continued, "and ordinarily I'd have been glad to press our advantage. But the time wasn't ripe, and this was… too much. Inelegant. And Lekain." He scowled. "Lekain, he's useful, but he's no ally."
Naesala snorted. No ally—an understatement, even moreso than poor Niko knew. At the wild whim of that senator, they'd been sent halfway across a country and over an ocean against the hawks—and the hawks, though ambushed, did not go quietly; a fifth of Naesala's own number was struck down. Afterwards they'd flown night and day in retreat, nearly nonstop—had to keep from getting caught by Tibarn's band, who surely would be at their failteathers soon—had to beg Begnion for sanctuary. In Lekain's manor, Naesala had dropped a handful of hawk-beaks in front of the senator as evidence of the deed and fought against the dizziness and the bleariness that came from those nights of sleeplessness; Lekain did not offer a seat.
And what had they gotten in return? A laugh, as Lekain picked up one of the hawk-beaks and stroked it with his hand, holding it way one might hold a particularly intriguing antique, and asked about the differences between hawk-beaks and raven-beaks—holding the hawk-beak near Naesala's face—what does that King Tibarn's beak look like, I wonder? Then Lekain had told him the manor was too full to accommodate them that night (despite the obvious lack of other guests), and mildly suggested that they ought to find a place to rest somewhere out there (gesturing toward the field where the cattle and goats slept). And so here they were, feasting on dead deer they'd scrounged for in the hills outside the manor, readying themselves to find someplace to roost for the night. Maybe he ought to just count it fortunate that Lekain hadn't tethered them all to stakes in his manor—though that'd nearly amount to the same thing.
With a sigh, Naesala shifted human at last. Unlike Nikolias, he did not scowl or gag when the rotting deer-flesh scent struck him. "Your concerns are well-placed. They are also accounted for." Naesala gave his attendant a deliberate look—cutting, probing. "I'm sure you understand."
A pause. "Of course," Nikolias answered, though his voice was uncertain.
Naesala didn't bother clarifying. Turning back to the carcass, he saw that Nikolias's half was still barely picked at. "Weren't you hungry, Nikolias?"
Nikolias scrunched his nose up all over again, following Naesala's gaze. "I'd… I'd rather not. It's… It's beneath us."
Nikolias had eaten so stiffly and daintily that after shifting to human form, he was spotless. Naesala hadn't been half so careful—he stood with smears of blood on his cheeks, stood in boots soaked with guts and grime, stood with the faint stench of rot clinging to him.
"You say this is beneath you, Nikolias?" Naesala asked.
Nikolias lowered his head and started stammering out something insensible, sensing the darkness underlying Naesala's tone—sensing how Naesala was bristling. Naesala, standing soaked in the guts of what little profit he'd managed to wring out of Lekain, suddenly had very little patience for overcautious runty hatchlings, and it struck him how very much Nikolias's square jaw and beady little eyes reminded him of so many of Begnion's senators.
Naesala shifted raven on impulse—whether out of anger or annoyance, he wasn't sure. Nikolias balked, staggered backwards, turned around, and shifted; two seconds later he was raven-shaped and flapping away, cawing weakly as he did so.
Cowardly runt. Naesala watched until the raven's silhouette disappeared into the trees, then turned once more to the deer. He'd picked out all the juiciest bits but there was still plenty of meat left. He wasn't hungry anymore, but he kept at it, gnawing the flesh down to the bone out of spite.