Dragon's Teeth Page 25

  That was a long speech for him, made longer still by the fact that he had to gasp bits of it out between flashes of pain. But he meant it, every word—and the Horseclansman took it at face value, simply nodding, slowly.

  “I just—” A shout from the forward scout stopped them all dead in their tracks. The full moon was nearly as bright as day—and what it revealed had Kevin’s jaw dropping.

  It was a mixed herd of horses, mules and donkeys—all bone-weary and covered with froth and sweat, heads hanging as they walked. And something slumped over the back of one in the center that gradually revealed itself to be two near-comatose people, seated one before the other and clinging to each other to keep from falling of the horse’s saddle. The clan chief recognized the one in front, and slid from his horses’s back with a shout. The herd approaching them stopped coming, the beasts moving only enough to part and let him through.

  Then Kevin recognized the other, and tumbled off his horse’s back, all injuries forgotten. While the clan chief and another took the semi-conscious boy from the front of the saddle, cursing at the sight of the chains on his wrists and ankles, it was into Kevin’s arms that Chali slumped, and he cursed to see the three feathered shafts protruding from her leg and arm.

  ****

  Chali wanted to stay down in the soft darkness, where she could forget—but They wouldn’t let her stay there. Against her own will she swam slowly up to wakefulness, and to full and aching knowledge of how completely alone she was.

  The kumpania was gone, and no amount of vengeance would bring it back. She was left with nowhere to go and nothing to do with her life—and no one who wanted her.

  No-Voice is a fool, came the sharp voice in her head.

  She opened her eyes, slowly. There was Brighttooth, lying beside her, carefully grooming her paw. The cat was stretched out along a beautifully tanned fur of dark brown; fabric walls stretched above her, and Chali recognized absently that they must be in a tent.

  How, a fool? asked a second mind-voice; Chali saw the tent-wall move out of the corner of her eye—the wall opened and became a door, and the young man she had helped to rescue bent down to enter. He sat himself down beside the cat, and began scratching her ears; she closed her eyes in delight and purred loudly enough to shake the walls of the tent. Chali closed her eyes in a spasm of pain and loss; their brotherhood only reminded her of what she no longer had.

  I asked you, lazy one, how a fool?

  Chali longed to be able to turn her back on them, but the wounds in her side made that impossible. She could only turn her face away, while tears slid slowly down her cheeks—as always, soundlessly.

  A firm, but gentle hand cupped her chin and turned her head back toward her visitors. She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting these Gaje to see her loss and her shame at showing it.

  “It’s no shame to mourn,” said the young man aloud, startling her into opening her eyes. She had been right about him—with his hurts neatly bandaged and cleaned up, he was quite handsome. And his gray eyes were very kind—and very sad.

  I mourn, too, he reminded her.

  Now she was even more ashamed, and bit her lip. How could she have forgotten what the cat had told her, that he had lost his twin—lost her in defending her people. For the third time, how a fool?

  Brighttooth stretched, and moved over beside her, and began cleaning the tears from her cheeks with a raspy tongue. Because No-Voice forgets what she herself told me.

  Which is?

  The enemy of my enemy is my brother.

  My friend. I said, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Chali corrected hesitantly, entering the conversation at last.

  Friend, brother, all the same, the cat replied, finishing off her work with a last swipe of her tongue. Friends are the family you choose, not so? I—

  “You’re not gonna be alone, not unless you want to,” the young man said, aloud. “Brighttooth is right. You can join us, join any family in the clan you want. There ain’t a one of them that wouldn’t reckon themselves proud to have you as a daughter and a sister.”

  There was a certain hesitation in the way he said “sister.” Something about that hesitation broke Chali’s bleak mood.

  What of you? she asked. Would you welcome me as a sister?

  Something—he sent, shyly,—maybe—something closer than sister?

  She was so astonished that she could only stare at him. She saw that he was looking at her in a way that made her very conscious that she was sixteen winters old—in a way that no member of the kumpania had ever looked at her. She continued to stare as he gently took one of her hands in his good one. It took Brighttooth to break the spell.

  Pah—two-legs! she sent in disgust. Everything is complicated with you! You need clan; here is clan for the taking. What could be simpler?

  The young man dropped her hand as if it had burned him, then began to laugh. Chali smiled, shyly, not entirely certain she had truly seen that admiration in his eyes—

  “Brighttooth has a pretty direct way of seein’ things,” he said, finally. “Look, let’s just take this in easy steps, right? One, you get better. Two, we deal with when you’re in shape t’ think about.”

  Chali nodded.

  Three—you’ll never be alone again, he said in her mind, taking her hand in his again. Not while I’m around to have a say in it. Friend, brother—whatever. I won’t let you be lonely.

  Chali nodded again, feeling the aching void inside her filling. Yes, she would mourn her dead—

  But she would rejoin the living to do so.

  Bibliography

  Arrows of the Queen (DAW)

  Arrow’s Flight (DAW)

  Arrow’s Fall (DAW)

  Oathbound (DAW)

  Oathbreakers (DAW)

  Magic’s Pawn (DAW)

  Magic’s Promise (DAW)

  Magic’s Price (DAW)

  Reap the Whirlwind, with C. J. Cherryh (Baen)

  Knight of Ghosts and Shadows, with Ellen Guon (Baen)

  By the Sword (DAW)

  Summoned to Tourney, with Ellen Guon, (Baen)

  Winds of Fate (DAW)

  Winds of Change (DAW)

  Winds of Fury (DAW)

  The Elvenbane, with Andre Norton (TOR)

  Bardic Voices One: The Lark and the Wren (Baen)

  Bardic Voices Two: The Robin and the Kestrel (Baen)

  The Eagle and the Nightingales (Baen)

  Cast of Corbies, with Josepha Sherman (Baen)

  Born to Run, with Larry Dixon (Baen)

  Wheels of Fire, with Mark Shepherd (Baen)

  When the Bough Breaks, with Holly Lisle (Baen)

  Chrome Circle, with Larry Dixon (Baen)

  The Ship Who Searched, with Anne McCaffrey (Baen)

  Castle of Deception, with Josepha Sherman (Baen)

  Fortress of Frost and Fire, with Ru Emerson (Baen)

  Prison of Souls, with Mark Shepherd (Baen)

  Wing Commander: Freedom Flight, with Ellen Guon (Baen)

  If I Pay Thee Not In Gold, with Piers Anthony (Baen)

  The Black Gryphon, with Larry Dixon (DAW)

  The White Gryphon, with Larry Dixon (DAW)

  The Silver Gryphon, with Larry Dixon (DAW)

  Sacred Ground (TOR)

  Burning Water (TOR)

  Children of the Night (TOR)

  Jinx High (TOR)

  Darkover Rediscovery, with Marion Zimmer Bradley (DAW)

  Storm Warning (DAW)

  Storm Rising (DAW)

  Storm Breaking (DAW)

  Elvenblood, with Andre Norton (TOR)

  Tiger Burning Bright, with Marion Zimmer Bradley and Andre Norton (Avonova)

  The Fire Rose (Baen)

  The Firebird (TOR)

  Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Baen)

  WEREHUNTER

  Mercedes Lackey

  Introduction

  Those of you who are more interested in the stories than in some chatty author stuff should just skip this part, since it will be mos
tly about the things people used to ask us about at science fiction conventions.

  For those of you who have never heard of SF conventions (or “cons” as they are usually called), these are gatherings of people who are quite fanatical about their interest in one or more of the various fantasy and science fiction media. There are talks and panel discussions on such wildly disparate topics as costuming, prop-making, themes in SF/F literature, Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, X-Files, SF/F art, medieval fighting, horse-training, dancing, and the world of fans in general. There are workshops on writing and performance arts. Guests featured in panels and question and answer sessions are often featured performers from television and movies along with various authors and the occasional professional propmaker. Larry and I no longer attend conventions for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we have a great many responsibilities that require us to be home.

  Some of those responsibilities are that we are volunteers for our local fire department. Larry is a driver and outside man; I am learning to do dispatch, and hopefully will be able to take over the night shift, since we are awake long after most of the rest of the county has gone to sleep. Our local department is strictly volunteer and works on a very tight budget. Our equipment is old and needs frequent repair, we get what we can afford, and what we can afford is generally third or fourth-hand, having passed through a large metropolitan department or the military to a small municipal department to the Forestry Service and finally to us. In summer I am a water-carrier at grass-fires, meaning that I bring drinking-water to the overheated firefighters so they don’t collapse in the 100-plus-degree heat.

  Another duty is with the EOC (formerly called the Civil Defense Office). When we are under severe weather conditions, the firefighters are called in to wait at the station in case of emergency, so Larry is there. I go in to the EOC office to read weather-radar for the storm-watchers in the field. Eventually I hope to get my radio license so I can also join the ranks of the storm-watchers. We don’t “chase” as such, although there are so few of the storm-watchers that they may move to active areas rather than staying put. Doppler radar can only give an indication of where there is rotation in the clouds; rotation may not produce a tornado. You have to have people on the ground in the area to know if there is a funnel or a tornado (technically, it isn’t a tornado until it touches the ground; until then it is a funnel-cloud). Our area of Oklahoma is not quite as active as the area of the Panhandle or around Oklahoma City and Norman (which is why the National Severe Storms Laboratory is located there) but we get plenty of severe, tornado-producing storms.

  In addition, we have our raptor rehabilitation duties.

  Larry and I are raptor rehabilitators; this means that we are licensed by both the state and the federal government to collect, care for, and release birds of prey that are injured or ill. Occasionally we are asked to bring one of our “patients” for a talk to a group of adults or children, often under the auspices of our local game wardens.

  I’m sure this sounds very exciting and glamorous, and it certainly impresses the heck out of people when we bring in a big hawk riding on a gloved hand, but there are times when I wonder how we managed to get ourselves into this.

  We have three main “seasons”—baby season, stupid fledgling season, and inexpert hunter season.

  Now, injuries—and victims of idiots with guns—can come at any time. We haven’t had too many shooting victims in our area, thank heavens, in part because the cattle-farmers around our area know that shooting a raptor only adds field rats and mice to their property. But another rehabber gave up entirely a few years ago, completely burned out, because she got the same redtail hawk back three times, shot out of the sky. Injuries that we see in our area are most often the case of collision—literally—with man’s environmental changes. Birds hit windows that seem to them to be sky, Great Blue Herons collide with power-lines, raptors get electrocuted by those same lines. But most often, we get birds hit by cars. Owls will chase prey across the road, oblivious to the fact that something is approaching, and get hit. Raptors are creatures of opportunity and will quite readily come down to feed on roadkill and get hit. Great Horned Owls, often called the “tigers of the sky,” are top predators, known to chase even eagles off nests to claim the nest for themselves—if a Great Horned is eating roadkill and sees a car approaching, it will stand its ground, certain that it will get the better of anything daring to try to snatch its dinner! After all, they have been developing and evolving for millions of years, and swiftly moving vehicles have only been around for about seventy-five years; they haven’t had nearly enough time to adapt to the situation as a species. Individuals do learn, though, often to take advantage of the situation. Kestrels and redtails are known to hang around fields being harvested to snatch the field-rats running from the machinery, or suddenly exposed after the harvesters have passed. Redtails are also known to hang about railway right-of-ways, waiting for trains to spook out rabbits!

  Our current education bird, a big female redtail we call Cinnamon, is one such victim; struck in the head by a CB whip-antenna, she has only one working eye and just enough brain damage to render her partially paralyzed on one side and make her accepting and calm in our presence. This makes her a great education-bird, as nothing alarms her and children can safely touch her, giving them a new connection with wild things that they had never experienced before.

  But back to the three “seasons” of a raptor rehabber, and the different kinds of work they involve.

  First is “baby season,” which actually extends from late February to July, beginning with Great Horned Owl babies and ending when the second round of American Kestrels (sparrowhawks, or “spawks” as falconers affectionately call them) begins to push their siblings out of nests. The first rule of baby season is—try to get the baby back into the nest, or something like the nest. Mother birds are infinitely better at taking care of their youngsters than any human, so when wind or weather send babies (eyases, is the correct term) tumbling, that is our first priority. This almost always involves climbing, which means that poor Larry puts on his climbing gear and dangles from trees. When nest and all have come down, we supply a substitute, in as close to the same place as possible; raptor mothers are far more fixated on the kids than the house, and a box filled with branches will do nicely, thank you.

  Sometimes, though, it’s not possible to put the eyases back. Youngsters are found with no nest in sight, or the nest is literally unreachable (a Barn Owl roost in the roof of an institution for the criminally insane, for instance), or worst of all, the parents are known to be dead.

  Young raptors eat a lot. Kestrels need feeding every hour or so, bigger birds every two to three, and that’s from dawn to dusk. We’ve taken eyases with us to doctor’s appointments, on vacation, on shopping expeditions, and even to racing school! And we’re not talking Gerber’ here; “mom” (us) gets to take the mousie, dissect the mousie, and feed the mousie parts to baby. By hand. Yummy! Barred Owl eyases are the easiest of the lot; they’ll take minnows, which are of a size to slip down their little throats easily, but not the rest. There’s no use thinking you can get by with a little chicken, either—growing babies need a lot of calcium for those wonderful hollow bones that they’re growing so fast, so they need the whole animal.

  Fortunately, babies do grow up, and eventually they’ll feed themselves. Then it’s just a matter of helping them learn to fly (which involves a little game we call “Hawk Tossing”) and teaching them to hunt. The instincts are there; they just need to connect instinct with practice. But this is not for the squeamish or the tender-hearted; for the youngsters to grow up and have the skills to make them successful, they have to learn to kill.

  The second season can stretch from late April to August, and we call it “silly fledgling season.” That’s when the eyases, having learned to fly at last, get lost. Raptor mothers—with the exception of Barn Owls—continue to feed the youngsters and teach them to hunt after they’ve fle
dged, but sometimes wind and weather again carry the kids off beyond finding their way back to mom. Being inexperienced flyers and not hunters at all yet, they usually end up helpless on the ground, which is where we come in.

  These guys are actually the easiest and most rewarding; they know the basics of flying and hunting, and all we have to do is put some meat back on their bones and give them a bit more experience. We usually have anywhere from six to two dozen kestrels at this stage every year, which is when we get a fair amount of exercise, catching grasshoppers for them to hunt.

  Then comes the “inexpert hunter” season, and I’m not referring to the ones with guns. Some raptors are the victims of a bad winter, or the fact that they concentrated on those easy-to-kill grasshoppers while their siblings had graduated to more difficult prey. Along about December, we start to get the ones that nothing much is wrong with except starvation. Sometimes starvation has gone too far for them to make it; frustrating and disappointing for us.

  We’ve gotten all sorts of birds over the years; our wonderful vet, Dr. Paul Welch (on whom may blessings be heaped!) treats wildlife for free, and knows that we’re always suckers for a challenge, so he has gotten some of the odder things to us. We’ve had two Great Blue Herons, for instance. One was an adult that had collided with a powerline. It had a dreadful fracture, and we weren’t certain if it would be able to fly again (it did) but since we have a pond, we figured we could support a land-bound heron. In our ignorance, we had no idea that Great Blues are terrible challenges to keep alive because they are so shy; we just waded right in, force-feeding it minnows when it refused to eat, and stuffing the minnows right back down when it tossed them up. This may not sound so difficult, but remember that a Great Blue has a two-foot sword on the end of its head, a spring-loaded neck to put some force behind the stab, and the beak-eye coordination to impale a minnow in a foot of water. It has no trouble targeting your eye.