Winds Of Fate v(mw-1 Page 29

  He had then vanished for many days. He was found wandering, dazed, within the burned area, near nightfall on the third day. His bondbird was gone, and he himself could not remember anything after leaving the Vale. Injured, burned, dehydrated, no one was surprised at that-but when days and weeks went by and he still could not remember, and when he chose to bond again with a crow, from a nest outside of the Vale-some people, like Dawnfire's mother, wondered...Darkwind had once said something after another of his angry confrontations with his father-something about his feeling that Starblade had changed, and was no longer the father he had known. He blamed the change on the disaster, Dawnfire wasn't so sure.

  Starblade had not been that close, emotionally, to Darkwind's mother, though Darkwind had never accepted that. Dawnfire was not at all certain that Starblade would have been so badly affected by her death that his personality had changed. She blamed the change on the death of Starblade's bird. It seemed to her and her own mother that Starblade had become silent and very odd afterward. And that crow he'd bonded to was just as odd...She pulled her thoughts away from the past and returned them to the present. She was off-duty today and had decided to indulge her curiosity in something.

  Darkwind's gryphons.

  She had been terribly curious about them for a very long time, and had even gone to visit them a time or two. But the gryphons, while still being cordial and polite, had made one thing very clear to her: the only visitor they truly welcomed was Darkwind.

  That-had hurt. It had hurt a very great deal, and not even Darkwind knew how much it hurt. She brooded on that, as Kyrr neared the the ruins, coming in high over the forest.

  I've never had anyone rebuff me like that, she thought resentfully. Every other nonhuman I've ever met seems to think I'm a good person to deal with and to have as a friend. Tervardi, kyree, dyheli, hertasi-even firebirds, teyll-deer, wolves, the nonsentients... why don't the gryphons want me around?

  She'd asked that question any number of times. Darkwind wouldn't tell her a great deal, citing the gryphons' desire for privacy. That had only inflamed her curiosity-at the same time, she felt she had to respect that need. But why wouldn't they be willing to meet with her, once in a while, away from their nest? Why was it that only Darkwind was worthy of their attention?

  Over the months and years, the unfulfilled questions ate at her, and she had slipped over to the ruins more than once to watch the gryphons and their offspring from a distance. Darkwind had never forbid her that; in fact, he said once that she had eased one of his worries, helping to keep an eye on the young ones while the adults were off hunting.

  They had to spend a great deal of time in hunting; they were very large, flighted carnivores, like the birds-of-prey they resembled, and they needed a lot of meat. They ranged very far in order to keep from overhunting any area, and they often spent an entire morning or afternoon away from the nest. Dawnfire had taken this tacit approval as permission to watch them whenever she wasn't otherwise occupied, so long as she did it from afar, feeling that she might be able to earn the acceptance of the adults with her unofficial guardianship of their offspring.

  But then, a week or so ago, Darkwind had specifically forbidden her to go anywhere near the ruins today, without giving any explanation.

  And that had driven her curious nature wild, as well as rousing resentment in her that he had simply ordered her as if it was his right.

  He probably shouldn't have told me, she admitted to herself, as her bird soared just at the border of the gryphons' territory. If he hadn't told me, I probably wouldn't be doing this-But then anger at him and his authoritative attitude burned away that thought-an anger nearly a week old, born of resentment, and nurtured on his continued silence. How dare he forbid her to go where she wanted to go on her own time? He had no authority over her, over her freedom!

  He hadn't asked her, simply and politely, he'd demanded that she promise, then and there, refusing to answer any questions, either before she reluctantly promised, or after. He refused to explain himself, or even talk about it. Her anger smoldered, hot, and grew hotter with every day that passed.

  Following anger had come suspicion, slowly growing over the course of several days; a feeling that he was hiding something, and nothing had alleviated it since.

  Her suspicions centered around the Changechild. He was always with the gryphons-he was with them, and with that Changechild. He wouldn't talk about either. It was not unreasonable to suppose that the two were connected-and that there was something about the Changechild that Darkwind didn't want her to know.

  He'd never hidden anything from her before. There was no reason why he should want to start now.

  Or so she had thought. Until this morning, when an overheard comment told her something very important that Darkwind had somehow left out of his few stories about the Changechild.

  "Has Darkwind said anything more about the Changechild?" Iceshadow asked someone. "Is she ready to leave, yet?" She? This Changechild, neuter in her mind, suddenly took on a different face. "It" was a she.

  Suddenly the senseless questions had sensible answers. And there were plenty of reasons why Darkwind would want her kept in the dark about this female. Especially if she was attractive.

  And Dawnfire's imagination painted her as very attractive. Most Changechildren were. And there were the attractions of the exotic, of course...Not that I care if he's enamored with the girl, she told herself, as Kyrr soared a little closer to the gryphons' nest. It's not as if we're lifebonded or something. We haven't even traded bondbird primary feathers. I would if he offered, but we haven't, just coverts. I don't exactly have a hold on him...Excuses, excuses, and none of them meant anything, not really.

  Damn him, anyway.

  She had given a promise, and she never broke one-no matter what.

  Even if the person she had given the promise to turned out to be a worthless sneak.

  So she had spent most of the morning trying to think of a way around that promise, so that she could see what Darkwind was really up to when he slipped off to his gryphon friends. She wasn't entirely certain why she was tormenting herself, it was as if she kept biting at a sore tooth.

  It hurt, but she just couldn't seem to stop doing it.

  Then the answer to her dilemma had occurred to her; she had promised that she wouldn't go near the gryphons, but she hadn't promised that Kyrr would stay away. And what Kyrr saw, she could see. Kyrr could be her way to see just what Darkwind was really up to.

  The only problem was that to do that, she would have to hole up in her ekele and go into a full trance. That was something she was secretly ashamed of; that she could not make full contact with Kyrr's mind unless she performed a full bonding. She didn't know why; scouts generally had no trouble using their bird's senses. There were one or two others who had the same trouble, but no more than that. Darkwind had speculated that she found the experience of having her consciousness split to be too traumatic to deal with unless she was in a full trance-since in a full trance, her consciousness wasn't really split.

  Normally this wasn't a handicap; her communication with Kyrr was otherwise excellent. The big hawk was one of the most intelligent of all the scouts' bondbirds, and had no trouble with simply telling her what she needed to know. Kyrr could "speak" in full sentences, she had a sense of humor, and had no trouble in cooperating with her bondmate.

  There had never been any rebellion or any real disagreements with Kyrr.

  But Kyrr could not read facial expressions; she could not pick up the nuances of behavior that Dawnfire needed to know. She wanted to know how he really felt about this Changechild. Kyrr only understood things as they related to raptor feelings and instincts. And she didn't want Kyrr to misinterpret things that she saw in light of those instincts. After all, it was entirely possible that Darkwind had other reasons for keeping her away, legitimate reasons.

  It's entirely possible that pigs will fly, too, she thought sourly.

  Darkwind wasn't at the gryphon
s' nest, and neither were the gryphons.

  Surprised, she sent Kyrr ranging out to find them. After a bit of searching, she spotted them, near the edge of the ruins, where the forest began; she must have passed them at a distance when Kyrr flew in.

  Darkwind's figure blended into the landscape of tumbled stones and overgrown hillocks, rendering him very difficult to see, but the gryphons stood out against the ruins very clearly. More clearly than she remembered, in fact; their feathers shone with color, gold and red-brown, and they seemed to capture and hold the sunlight, shining in all the colors that Kyrr could see and she couldn't. For a moment, their striking beauty drove all other thoughts from her mind.

  Then she wrenched her attention away, to look for anything that might be the Changechild. But there were only the gryphons and Darkwind, with no sign of anyone else, nor any of the signs that several days of occupancy would put around a hiding place in the ruins. Unless they were trying to conceal it-and they had no reason to-there would be distinctive signs of habitation.

  Her anger faded and died, giving way to embarrassment.

  Was I wrong? she wondered, as the gryphons fanned their wings in the sun, and she and Kyrr circled nearer. She had never felt so stupid in her life. She was just glad that she hadn't made this blunder in public.

  Was I just a suspicious, jealous bitch? Was I overreacting to something that hadn't even happened?

  It certainly looked like it. As Darkwind bade farewell to his two friends and slipped into the shadows of the forest, she very nearly sent Kyrr home. But sheer curiosity kept her aloft, circling above the two gryphons, and something about their colors nagged at the back of her mind, reminding her of a memory she couldn't quite put her finger on.

  Then it came to her, as the larger of the two gryphons bit the neck of the smaller one in an unmistakable act of sexual aggression.

  Gods and ancestors-they're going to mate. that's why he didn't want me around them.

  For a moment, that was even more embarrassing. She felt as if she'd been caught watching the dyheli stallions and their mares for the sheer, erotic amusement of it...

  But they'd had mating-flights before, lots of them, and Darkwind had never forbidden her to go near. What was it that was so different this time?

  Curiosity overcame embarrassment. Whatever it was, she was going to find out.

  As first one, then the other of the gryphons launched themselves into the air, she circled the sky around them, keeping them in sight at all times.

  The male-Treyvan-wheeled and stooped and circled his mate, who hovered as he circled, followed him in his dives, and climbed beside him as he dove upward again. This was not simply "flight"-this was an aerobatic dance, breathtaking and beautiful, and as impressive as anything she had ever witnessed.

  The gryphons moved higher with every turn of the dance, gaining altitude as the dives grew shallower, the climbs steeper, and the circles more fluid and sensuous. They came even with Kyrr, then climbed above her, continuing to climb higher as she tried to follow. Finally they climbed into regions where she couldn't follow, leaving her gazing in wonder from below...Then there was just one single dot in the blue. And it was growing larger.

  Dear gods-they mate on the wing, like eagles-For two minutes they fell together, claws locked in ecstasy-plummeting toward the earth so fast that the wind whistled in their feathers, eyes closedthey aren't going toat the last possible moment they broke apart, spreading their wings with a crack as they caught the air and shot upward again, side by side, beauty so incredible that she couldn't breathe-When the beauty of the moment was shattered by the thunk of a heavy crossbow firing, and a bolt streaking toward Hydona.

  Dawnfire was watching the female at the moment that the broad-bladed bolt ripped through the air, changing its arc to meet the wing and shred it..

  The female screamed as the wing collapsed; the uninjured wing flailed wildly as she fell in a barely-controlled spiral towards the ground.

  The male's scream of rage echoed his mate's scream of pain; he did a wing-over and turned his climb into a killing dive, claws extended, as he followed his mate down.

  The female crashed into the trees at the edge of the forest and was lost to sight; the male followed an eyeblink behind her.

  Then a sudden flare of light from beneath the trees enveloped him in a tongue of white flame; he screamed again, but this time in pain, not in rage. The light held him suspended for a moment, as he went limp.

  Then he simply dropped, unconscious, through the leafy roof of the forest.

  All that saved him from a broken neck was the fact that it was a relatively short drop. anger filled her, white-hot anger, and the urge to kill.

  Without stopping to think, Dawnfire sent Kyrr in a near-vertical stoop down after them; Kyrr's instinct was to shriek with rage, but Dawnfire clenched the hawk's beak shut. No point in warning whoever it was that had perpetrated this-outrage.

  As she dove through the branches, snaking through the obstacle course with desperate adjustments of her wings, Kyrr's blood boiled with rage.

  It was all that Dawnfire could do to keep her under control and quiet.

  The bondbird wanted blood, she wanted it now, and she wasn't going to accept less.

  "Kill!" she shrilled in Dawnfire's mind. "Kill them all!" Dawnfire gritted mental teeth, and held to her tenuous control as they penetrated the last of the branches and broke out into the clear air beneath the forest canopy. If I lose her now, I lose her for all time. I'll never be able to control her in a rage again-There were two men with the unconscious gryphons; she saw that in a moment. One, the one with the crossbow, was standing guard over the unconscious male who lay in a pathetic and boneless heap at his feet.

  The other was beside the female, who was, at least, semiconscious.

  He was unarmed, dressed in close-fitting leather-and he was without a doubt a mage, one of the Others, who had manipulated himself into a form that was scarcely more than half human.

  And he was doing something to the female gryphon.

  Dawnfire barely had time to take that all in; at that moment, the female gryphon sent up a shriek of heartrending agony. The scream goaded Kyrr into a rage that tore her loose from Dawnfire's control.

  Not that it mattered, because Dawnfire herself was so angered that she released control to Kyrr, to give her all the edge she needed.

  Screaming outrage, they dove together in a full-scale attack, claws extended and aimed for the mage's eyes.

  He looked up-And his eyes were all Dawnfire could see-just before something slammed into her, and darkness swallowed her. His eyes-his slitted eyes...And his hate-filled, sharp-toothed smile...Chapterr Sixteen

  ELSPETH

  Elspeth swore silently as she caught a familiar profile out of the corner of her eye. Skif was following her again.

  The turbaned merchant implored her to examine the clever workmanship of the leather pouch she was holding, conveying grief that his profit margin had already been slashed to nothing. Elspeth lingered over her purchase, haggling a few more coppers off the price of the belt-pouch, as she watched Skif ghosting around the edge of the crowd, keeping an eye on her. He was very good; it was unlikely that anyone around her realized that he was shadowing her. In a bazaar full of foreigners of all shapes, sizes and costumes, neither of them stood out from the crowd.

  Trade season was at its height, and the crowds of small traders, mercs, and the occasional pleasure traveler filled the aisles between the tent-booths.

  It was not the easiest thing to spot Skif as he skillfully used the crowds to cover his movements, but he had trained her, and she knew his moves better than anyone else could.

  It was just a good thing that she was conscientious enough to keep her own watch out for other followers. He could easily be distracting her enough to put her at hazard.

  The scent of fine leather rose from the pouch in her hands as she pretended to examine it further. The merchant swore she was impoverishing him.

  Th
is was getting annoying. No, it had gotten annoying already. She had begun to lose her patience with him.

  Twice now, she had gotten close to someone who had hinted he might know a Shin'a'in or two-and twice, it had come to nothing. The Clansmen were proving incredibly elusive.

  "Alas, you should have been here in the spring," said the folk in the fabric bazaar. "They are only here in the spring. But I have some fine Shin'a'in rugs, and you couldn't get a better bargain on them from a Clansman herself..."oh, you should wait until the fall," said the horse traders. "They never come here except in the fall. Now, I have some outstanding Shin'a'in saddle mares...

  "Well, they were just here," said the shepherds, in a dialect so thick she could scarcely make out what they were saying. "Tale'sedrin, you say? That's the blonds, no? Ah, you just missed them; here last week, they were, buying up them new long-haired goats." Here last week, here last season, not here yet-the herders were the closest she had gotten; at least they knew that Kero's Clan had a number of blond members, legacy of Kero's grandmother Kethry.