Owlflight v(dt-1 Read online

  “With magic?” Darian asked hopefully. Surely if even Snowfire, who said that he was inferior as a mage, could do things even Justyn couldn’t - what could Starfall do?

  “Well, you told us that there was a mage with these people,” Snowfire began.

  “I did?” Darian blurted.

  Snowfire nodded. “When you told us of the creature riding the lizard - and the men with the aspects of bears. Only a mage can work such changes, which meant that there must be one among them. Well, you know what has befallen magic and you know that our task is to reestablish order in the patterns of magic. This means that Starfall must, before all else, seize control of the magic here.”

  “So that the other mage can’t get it!” Darian exclaimed.

  “Exactly so. Then, once we have control of the magic energy, he will be weaker. That is the good aspect.” Snowfire frowned. “The bad aspect is that this means Starfall will be busy holding the power, and unable to do other things he would otherwise - such as watching the enemy from afar or protecting us from the enemy’s magic. And in the meantime, the enemy mage is not having to hold the power-matrix, and he is free to act. None of the rest of us are his equal, and I do not know that we could be, even acting together. So - we will ensure that some message comes to your people, calling for help, and meanwhile we will wait to see what happens.”

  Wait and see. Wasn’t that what Justyn was always harping about? Patience.

  But this time, rushing into things is going to get people hurt and killed. He sighed, and nodded his head.

  “I guess that’s what you’ll have to do,” he said reluctantly. “But - “

  Whatever he had intended to say was interrupted by an enormous yawn, and he found himself blinking hard, trying to keep his eyes open.

  “Hold the thought, little brother,” Snowfire said, and got up. “Whatever it is can wait until morning. For now, sleep is waiting.”

  Darian stumbled along in Snowfire’s wake, trying to keep his thoughts in order. There was something about Starfall holding the magic - something important -

  But whatever it was, it didn’t last past putting his head down on the pillow.

  When he woke up, his memories of last night and the nightmare that had awakened him were waiting for him. Snowfire, however, wasn’t.

  He went through most of the day, doing whatever chores the hertasi or Hawkbrothers asked him to, without once seeing his new mentor. He guessed that Snowfire must be out doing his job, scouting, and that made him feel a little better. Something was being done; it might not be obvious to him just what it was, but clearly the Hawkbrothers were not lounging about looking decorative.

  He helped Nightwind groom Kelvren after the latter returned from his own scouting foray, making certain that the enemy wasn’t getting too near their encampment. Kelvren told him more of the night-sortie, especially the combat with the two smaller monsters; it was exciting, but scary, too, when he thought how Kelvren could have been hurt. Now all those old stories about battles and fighting took on an entirely different complexion when he thought about these people he knew being in the middle of all the hewing and smiting and all.

  The notion of seeing Kel sick with poison - of Wintersky with some terrible wound, bleeding into the dirt - it was horrible. Not that he hadn’t seen nasty injuries, because obviously he had, but to think of such things being inflicted by other people on his friends, and on purpose, to hurt or kill them - well, it was just entirely different from seeing the results of an accident, and it was hard to wrap his mind around the idea. Not just hard - ugly. It made him feel horrible inside to realize that people could actually want to hurt other people. Oh, there were plenty of times when he’d wanted something nasty to happen to other people, but the wish was always vague and ill-defined, and what he’d wanted was for something to happen to them, not that he wanted to inflict a hurt.

  But - I think I could have hurt those men who were chasing me. He considered it a little more. I know I could have hurt them. I was ready to shoot them. He recalled quite clearly how he had felt at the time - coldly calculating an eye-shot, as if the men were nothing more than tree-hares he was hunting for the pot.

  But they were going to kill me and Snowfire. And they attacked the village. And for no reason! Or, not for no reason, but not for any good reason.

  When he finished with Kel - who had really enjoyed being able to tell someone about his fight - Wintersky caught him before anyone else did.

  “We need to get the hawk furniture in order,” Wintersky told him, “and you’re the only one free,” without any explanations of what “hawk furniture” was, or how to get it in order. Instead, the youngest of the Hawkbrothers left him in the charge of a painfully shy hertasi in someone else’s hut, the entire left side of which was full of - hawk furniture.

  Which was not little chairs and tables for birds of prey, as his imagination had devised, but the bits and pieces of hawk equipment needed for the bondbirds.

  For all their intelligence, bondbirds were still hawks, and a hood slipped over their heads would let them sleep in a noisy and brightly-lit room. “Darkness - makes them sleep,” the little hertasi whispered, cupping her hands over her eyes by way of illustration. “If the bondmate needs to be awake, the bird must still sleep - to feel well, they must sleep from dawn to dusk.”

  She showed him how to clean the hoods, made of hard, but extremely thin leather, odd bulges over the areas of the eyes to keep from touching the lids. Then, when he had cleaned them, she showed him how to repair those that were damaged. Most often, it was the braces, the leather thongs that held the hoods shut at the back, that were damaged, broken, or worn out. That was easy to fix, once he saw the odd way in which they were laced, so that a Hawkbrother could tighten or loosen the hood with one hand and his teeth. But sometimes what was damaged was the welt of leather protecting the raw edge of the bottom of the hood, or the ornamental knot on top, which was supposed to be used to take the hood off and put it on. The hertasi let him repair the simplest of these, but for the really complicated repairs, such as restitching the eye-covers, she insisted on doing the work while he watched. It was fascinating, for he would not have thought that such stubby little fingers could take such delicate stitches.

  Most of the bondbirds didn’t need restraints, such as jesses, but all of them wore the bracelets on their ankles that the jesses fitted through. The bracelets were good for other things, for tying a light string onto, for instance, that a bird could carry up and over a high branch, so that a rope could be pulled up afterward. So the hertasi taught him how to cut and oil such bracelets - then how to make leather- or rope-wrapped and padded perches as well. Hawks took wall- or floor-perches of tree limbs wrapped in leather, while falcons, it seemed, required perches made of upthrust sections of stump, like upthrusting rocks, but padded so that the talons of a sleeping bird had something to grip. Care of the feet, it seemed, was all-important, and sharp talons were hard on wrapped perches. Perches had to be made to withstand hard use, but not made of things that would bruise or abrade the feet; bruised or cut feet could infect, leading to a state called “bumblefoot,” which in turn could cripple a bird if not adequately treated.

  He learned more about birds of prey in that morning than he had ever learned in his life, and when he and the little lizard were done, every bit of equipment that could be mended, had been.

  Then it was time for lunch, and time to help clean pots for a bit.

  It occurred to him after lunch, as he stood beside a-half barrel with his arms up to the elbow in warm, slippery, soapy water, that he had seldom worked this hard with poor Justyn. But this didn’t bother him at all, and that was the odd thing.

  Maybe it’s just - it’s just that no one shouts at me, or tells me what a terrible, ungrateful child I am, he concluded. It’s not so bad to work when no one is scolding you.

  Of course, he’d never had such interesting work before, which might have been the reason. Ayshen always had funny or fascinating thin
gs to tell him while he scrubbed pots, and mending the hawk furniture had been something entirely different from anything he’d ever done before. It wasn’t hard to get through a chore when someone was chatting to you and making jokes, and when the chore required concentration and delicacy, time just flew by.

  And as for helping to tend Kelvren, well, he had felt positively honored. It had been an amazing thing, to touch the gryphon’s huge feathers, and make sure the killing talons were pinprick sharp and immaculately clean.

  Odd, he thought, as Ayshen left him alone for a moment, to tend to the bake ovens, I thought Kelvren was so old, older than Snowfire, but it was almost as if he was my age. I wonder how old he really is? There was no way of telling with a bird, of course. They didn’t exactly show their age in any way that he could recognize.

  I like it here, he thought, with yearning, as he watched Ayshen’s back. I wish I could stay.

  If only there was some way that he could! When things got back to normal, would anyone at Errold’s Grove ever want him back? Was there the faintest chance that the Hawkbrothers would want him with them?

  And what if things never got back to normal? What if no one wanted to go back to the village? Would the Hawkbrothers be willing to give him a home?

  Last night Snowfire kept calling me “little brother.” Is that just something he calls every boy, or -

  “Dar’ian!” Wintersky popped up behind his back, and he yelped in startlement, dropping the bowl he’d been scrubbing back into the water. Wintersky jumped with amazing agility right out of the way, and didn’t even get a single drop of water on himself. He laughed, and clapped Darian on the back. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to creep up on you like that, it’s just habit. Snowfire wants you for a moment, if Ayshen doesn’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” the hertasi said without turning. “He’s done twice the work of any of you clumsy-handed louts. He can consider his work done for the day.”

  “Why, Ayshen, I am crushed!” Wintersky mocked, and threw Darian a towel to wipe himself down with. “Come on, this won’t take long.”

  Wondering what Snowfire could want, Darian followed the younger Tayledras with increasing curiosity. He became even more puzzled, and a little uneasy, when Wintersky brought him down a very narrow path into a part of the encampment where he had never been before. It was heavily overgrown, cool, dim, and so quiet he could hear himself breathing. The path ended in a place completely overshadowed by the branches of the oldest and largest willow Darian had ever seen, with the usual log hut built right up against the trunk of the tree, which was easily as big around as the hut itself. No grass could possibly grow here, but that lack was more than made up for by the thick moss carpeting the area. Sitting on a bow perch beside the door was a handsome cooperi hawk, watching everything with alert, reddish-yellow eyes.

  Waiting for Darian were Snowfire and Starfall. The Adept looked very tired, as if he had been working all night, and Darian wondered if he had gotten any rest at all. They must be taking me seriously enough that Starfall is working himself as hard as he can to keep those people from getting at the magic. That was oddly reassuring.

  “Dar’ian, I understand you have been a great deal of help to us,” Starfall said, by way of a greeting.

  Caught off guard, Darian shrugged. “I guess so. Have to earn my keep, don’t I?” He winched a little, inwardly, for his words didn’t sound very polite, but Starfall didn’t seem offended.

  “We do expect all of those in our own group to do their share if they are not disabled,” the older man said gravely. “We are not so well-equipped that we cannot use another pair of hands. In fact - “ he cast a glance at Snowfire,” - we could use that pair of hands on a more permanent basis, if that would suit you.”

  Darian stared at him, quite certain that his new-won ability to understand Tayledras must be faulty.

  Starfall persisted, grave but earnest. “Our impression is that you do not feel any truly strong ties to those of your people that remain. Is that impression true?”

  He shook his head a little, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. Was Starfall making the offer that he thought? Starfall was clearly waiting for an answer, and Darian was startled enough to give him stark, unvarnished truth. “Uh, I’d say they’d probably be happy to see the last of me right now,” he admitted, shamefaced. “With no Master, I go back on the village to care for, and I don’t think any of them would care to apprentice me now.”

  Bet they could find all kinds of excuses not to, in fact, he thought with sudden bleakness, for how could Starfall take that as any kind of a recommendation?

  “Then, would you care to remain with us?” Starfall asked, watching his face intently. “Snowfire has offered to take you as his younger sibling, and that is all that I need as Elder.”

  “But there is a condition,” Snowfire said warningly, before Darian could burst out with an astonished and immediate acceptance. “You must agree to - to ‘apprentice’ to me, in the matter of magic, at least for as long as I have the ability to teach you. You may outstrip me; I do not yet know how strong your Gifts may be, and if that happens, you must go to a real teacher, Starfall, by preference.”

  “And we shall be gone from our home Vale for some time, several years, perhaps, working to establish the ley-lines and nodes all through the northern part of Valdemar,” Starfall added, watching him closely. “So you will not actually see our Vale until our work is done. If you were hoping for exotic surroundings, well, our surroundings will be less and less exotic all the time that we are out. That is another reason for us to want you with us. It would be good to have someone who has a native’s command of this tongue at our disposal.”

  Darian stood rock-still, thinking furiously. So, that was to be the price of being given a place here - that he must continue the tedious study of magic. Of all the things he wanted to learn, surely that was the last on the list!

  But perhaps he was doing Snowfire an injustice. Justyn was hardly the best teacher in the world, and as a practitioner, he was even worse. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if he was studying with someone who actually knew something.

  And even if it was just as tedious and boring as it had been with Justyn, well, wasn’t that a small price to pay to be where he was actually wanted?

  And Snowfire says he wants me for a brother? Me? They want me to be a real Hawkbrother?

  He made a real effort to contain his excitement, but it surely showed. He stifled his urge to shout, and somehow managed to turn a grave face toward the Adept.

  “I would like to stay, very much, Elder,” he said at last, with a little bow to Starfall. “I am honored that you ask me, and I certainly accept! I promise that I will do all that I can to help everyone here, and I will try to be more patient in learning magic.”

  Starfall smiled, and motioned him closer. Taking his hand, the Adept placed a pendant into it. It was a hawk-talon, mounted in silver; the mounting was decorated with a blue moonstone and strung on a beaded chain. “Welcome to k’Vala, then, little brother,” he said warmly, as he closed Darian’s hand around the talon. “You must wear this as a token of your acceptance into the Clan, as Nightwind does. You both bear the talons of my father’s great suntail hawk-eagle, Skyr, who shared my father’s labors as a Healing Adept and went to white at the age of only four. I know that you will be worthy of the token, even as Nightwind is.”

  Snowfire took the talon from Darian’s nerveless fingers and put it around his neck. Darian looked up at him, trying to find the right words to thank him, and failing completely - but Snowfire acted as if he had already said them.

  “You have labored long and hard already, and I am not minded to begin your lessons with one today, little brother,” the younger Hawkbrother said as he clasped and released Darian’s shoulders. “Why not go out into the forest for a time? It will cool your mind and help you think.”

  If there was one thing that Darian agreed with, it was that he needed some time to think this over. He nodded. “But
- do I need to have someone with me?” he asked, hoping that the answer would be “no.”

  Snowfire shook his head. “That horse that we stole is in need of exercise,” he suggested. “Go take it about for a while. You will be safe enough, riding, and you won’t have to worry about dyheli chatter in your mind.” The corner of his mouth twitched a little, suggesting to Darian that although the remark was intended as amusement, Snowfire had suffered “dyheli chatter” in the past.

  As he hesitated a moment, Starfall nodded at the entrance to his little sanctuary. “Off with you, young one. I am the one most needful of your elder brother’s skills at the moment. We have some tricky work ahead of us before we can rest this day.”

  Perhaps yesterday such a dismissal would have made Darian sullen and resentful, suspecting that they were getting rid of him so that they could discuss him. But now - now he had no such feelings. If Starfall said they had work, then they had work, and he would only get in the way. He stammered his thanks to both of them, and turned and ran, his heart hammering with so many mixed feelings that he couldn’t sort them out properly.