Owlflight v(dt-1 Read online

  He collected more meat and bread from the stores; the berries were gone, but when Ayshen heard who this next meal was going to, he pulled Snowfire aside and passed him a honeycake surreptitiously. “The hatchling didn’t get enough the last time I made them,” Ayshen said, as if daring him to challenge the statement. Since Snowfire had seen Darian stuffing himself with the coveted sweets, and knew Ayshen knew he had, it was clear that the hertasi had taken very strongly to the boy.

  “I’ll make sure he knows who sent it,” Snowfire replied, and carried the treasure off. He’d seen Ayshen watching the boy out of the corner of his long eye; evidently this was the hertasi’s way of rewarding hard work.

  He met Darian on the path, hair damp, dressed in fresh clothing. “Here, I brought you something to eat,” Snowfire said, holding the napkin out to him. “There’s a honeycake in there from Ayshen.”

  “There is?” Darian looked as pleased as if it had been a lump of amber. “I love Ayshen’s honeycakes! Where can we go so I can eat, and help you with those maps of the village you wanted at the same time?”

  “Let’s try the council clearing,” Snowfire suggested. “There’s a game place there that no one is going to be using tonight. We’ll have a drawing surface there.”

  Darian nodded, his mouth already full of bread and meat. He followed Snowfire to the clearing and at the far side Snowfire took over the game place, a flat sheet of rock balanced on a stump that served as a table, and two more stumps, one on either side of it. He took the taller of the two, and Darian took the shorter, as he spread out the first sheet of paper and took out a scribing rod. “All right,” he said, making a diagonal line for the bank of the river. “Here is the riverbank. Let’s start there.”

  “Put one edge of the forest here, and one here,” Darian suggested, pointing with a sticky finger. “And the bridge would be here.” He devoured the last crumb of his cake and licked his fingers clean while Snowfire sketched. “Right, now put the back edge of the forest there. The road goes from the bridge to the center of town, and stops there. Here’s the mill, with the waterwheel there. There’s the forge.”

  Snowfire was agreeably surprised at the lad’s clear and precise ability to remember and place everything in the village, but there just weren’t enough adequate areas of cover to sneak a number of people in without getting caught.

  “. . . and here’s where the aqueduct starts,” Darian was saying, and the words brought him out of his thoughts with a jolt.

  “Aqueduct?” he said, suddenly interested. “What aqueduct?”

  “We use it to bring river water to the fields in summer,” Darian explained. “See, it goes around through the middle of the planted fields, then to the cistern house and the watering trough in the center of town.”

  “And where does it stop?” Snowfire demanded. “What’s it made of?”

  “It stops at the river, I guess,” Darian said, confused by the sudden barrage of urgent questions. “There’s a water-lifting wheel beside the mill that brings water up to the aqueduct and that brings the water out of the river down to the fields because it’s always sloping down from where it starts. As for what it’s made of - hollow tree trunk, mostly. It’s covered to keep trash out of it.”

  “Is it big enough for a man to crawl in?” Snowfire persisted.

  “Oh, certainly - and I see what you want to do!” Suddenly Darian was all smiles. “It’s absolutely big enough for a man to crawl inside. What’s more, even though we use it all summer, I doubt that anyone’s tending to it now. I can’t imagine a bunch of barbarians thinking to irrigate the fields, and I doubt that anyone in the village is inclined to help them by telling them that the fields need water.”

  “So it starts at the river?” Snowfire asked. “Where, precisely?”

  Now Darian’s face fell. “I don’t exactly know,” he confessed. “It’s all overgrown there; I know it’s somewhere near the mill, but not exactly. At least, I don’t know what the place looks like at night. It’s real tall, though, because otherwise it wouldn’t be able to slope down to the fields.”

  “But if we can find it, we can get right into the heart of the village undetected.” This was exactly the sort of thing Snowfire was looking for. “Dar’ian, your memory is so good, surely you can remember where the aqueduct starts!”

  But Darian shook his head unhappily. “I know what it looks like, but I can’t tell you where to find it,” he confessed. “I only remember that it’s near the mill, not in it.” He looked up at Snowfire hopefully. “I could guide you, though.”

  Snowfire frowned. “I don’t want you anywhere near possible fighting,” he objected.

  “But if you won’t let me guide you, how do you expect to convince people you aren’t a different kind of enemy?” Darian asked shrewdly. “None of them have ever seen a Hawkbrother, and they’ll probably be frightened of you!”

  That was something else Snowfire hadn’t thought of, and he hated to admit it, but the boy was probably right. Still, it went against the grain to permit someone as young as Darian anywhere near combat.

  He argued with the boy for some time, and in the end Darian had more good, sound reasons why he should go than Snowfire had counters for them.

  “All right,” Snowfire sighed. “You can guide us. But just to a place of safety, mind! You aren’t to rush in and try to help if there’s fighting. You’ll only get in the way, and you might make someone lose his concentration and his life.

  “I promise!” Darian agreed, his eyes shining.

  Snowfire only hoped that both of them - and ultimately, the village and the Hawkbrothers - would not regret this decision.

  Seven

  Now, in some ways, came the worst part. All of the traps were constructed and set, and now came the waiting. Daystorm had her birds over the village, while Starfall created his “bait,” and the nagging question was, would their foe take it?

  If he closed his own eyes, Snowfire could picture the scene as clearly as if he himself were there. A flock of five crows perched in a tree above the rooftops of Errold’s Grove, an unusually silent gathering, but no one in the village seemed to notice either their presence or their silence. Through their eyes, Daystorm watched the activity in the village below. Two of the crows were bonded to her, the rest were the offspring of her original pair, but all were willing to lend her their eyes and wings, especially when the activity at hand promised to be entertaining. Snowfire occasionally envied the Tayledras who bonded to crows and ravens; the birds had tremendous senses of humor, and as a matter of course, when the original bird took a mate, the mate also became his or her bondbird. Sometimes Hweel’s sober dignity was a little wearing, and he would have welcomed the raucous hooliganism of a band of crows; he would also have welcomed having both halves of a pair as his bondbirds. He sometimes worried that having an unbonded mate gave Hweel divided loyalties.

  Last night the dyheli doe Pyreen had taken her place upriver, carrying the double burden of an illusion of a heavily guarded caravan and the newly-strengthened power-point. She had remained stationary until daybreak, then moved slowly southward, mimicking the plodding pace of heavily-laden mules. By then Daystorm’s birds had already been in place to see if the mage somewhere below would take the bait. Tentative experiments had proven that either the mage could not sense anything different about the bondbirds, or that there was enough magical energy in the form of his own Changed fighters to mask the magic of the birds and their links to their bondmates. To Snowfire’s mind, that only confirmed his impression that it had been Kelvren that the “watchdogs” had reacted to, and not Hweel.

  Daystorm was simply sitting quietly with her back braced against a tree at the side of the Council circle, with an eager audience waiting around her. She took it all in stride, including the audience; there was very little that rattled this experienced scout. She sat so quietly that she could have been a painted statue, for her chest rose and fell so slowly that it would be very difficult to tell that she was breathing.
Her hair, shorn short on the sides, cut into a stiff crest on the top, and braided in a long tail down her back, never moved in the fitful breeze that came with sunrise, contributing to the statuelike illusion.

  Finally she broke the silence. “There’s some activity around the Lutters’ house,” Daystorm announced. “Someone just dashed out. Now - he’s going around to all the houses of the village at a run. He’s pounding on the doors and shouting something at each house. Now there are men coming out of the houses, one out of each, walking fast toward the Lutter house.”

  Well, that confirmed the guess that whoever was in command of this force had taken over the Lutter house, which - although it was not the largest - was definitely the finest house in the village, according to Darian. Lutter had been one of the dye-merchants, was still the only merchant in the village, and was possibly the wealthiest man in Errold’s Grove before the Storms. By now, of course, his store of ready cash was used up, but his house and the contents were still the finest in the village.

  So, naturally, the place would be taken by the most powerful person in the invading forces, and that person appeared to be the mage. That was good to know, but it did leave several questions unanswered. There was a question of who was in absolute control - was the mage the definitive leader, or did he serve a military leader? Was there more than one mage, and if so, how powerful were the others? So far, no recognizable mage had come within view of any of the birds.

  “Just the usual, now,” Daystorm announced. Snowfire sighed; after several days of observation, they had a good idea of the usual daily schedule. Once the sun rose, the villagers were roused from sleep by the slavemasters - they had all been crammed into the threshing barn, which was the least weathertight of all of the village buildings, serving merely to keep rain and damp away from grain while it was being threshed from the stalk. Men, women, and children were all housed together, and at a rough guess, the barbarians had managed to round up and take most of the villagers prisoner. Everyone, old and young, regardless of physical condition, was expected to work in the fields or do menial tasks. The numbers didn’t add up exactly, but there were probably a few “special” slaves in the houses, serving the barbarian leaders and elite fighters, and thus, exempt from field work.

  “The fighters are coming out to practice.” Every morning the fighters had limbering and practice sessions before they ate. The fighters were mostly housed in the barns, though some of them had taken over the houses that those of higher rank didn’t want, cramming two and three times as many people into each dwelling as the houses had been intended to hold. But, from all Snowfire knew of their way of life, they were used to cramming themselves together like wolves in a winter den, and probably didn’t think they were suffering from overcrowding. After the practice sessions were over, and the morning meal distributed and eaten, the leaders would pick out men for hunting parties and fishing parties, and the rest would be drilled in formation-combat. That was quite unlike the barbarians Snowfire knew of, who fought as individuals rather than groups. This signified a new and disturbing development, and something that would have to be looked into when he had the time.

  If I ever have the time. Well, he’d made notes on all of this, and if everything went wrong, Starfall would take those notes with him as he escaped to safety.

  Daystorm collected more of an audience as the morning passed; after all the preparations, the Tayledras were on edge and eager to get into action. Ayshen had somehow found the time to bake more flatbread, and hertasi were passing around rounds of the stuff wrapped around bits of honeycomb. Snowfire took one and munched it without ever taking his eyes off Daystorm’s face.

  She took one without ever opening her eyes, but then, she had always had an extra sense where sweets were concerned. “They’re calling the fighters in to eat. Still nothing from the Lutter house.”

  “I wish we dared send a bird down to the roof to see if it could overhear anything,” Wintersky muttered to him. Snowfire nodded agreement; he would have given a great deal for a set of ears in - or on - that house.

  In no way would he have ever endangered a bird by putting one there, however. Some of the barbarians knew what Tayledras birds looked like, for there had been conflict along the northern ranges with barbarians before this. Even if it somehow escaped notice that the bird in question was much larger than normal, well, bored barbarians with bows tended to make targets out of anything that moved.

  Including each other - they seemed to find it howlingly funny to shoot blunted arrows at each other, with the intended target trying to dodge and the bowman trying to hit in an embarrassing and potentially excruciatingly painful place. Snowfire had spent a great deal of time in the past few days, watching their antics through Hweel’s eyes.

  He had noted that they seemed to have done a pretty thorough job of looting the village, not that there was much to take. Clothing that didn’t fit or that was for a child or a female was either cut up or put to other purposes. Tools that weren’t needed for immediate field work had already gone to the forge, presumably to be remade into weapons. Food and drink were gone, of course, and there were rapid inroads being made on the ripe stuff in the fields; any objects of metal had been melted down, either to be made into ingots or into arrowheads. Livestock had either been eaten or would be soon, except for horses, which had been taken for the mounted fighters. Anything valuable was presumably in the hands of the leaders by now. There wouldn’t be a great deal for the villagers to salvage when this was over. Hopefully they would be grateful just to escape with their lives.

  “Ah! We’re getting some activity!” Daystorm exclaimed. “The leaders are coming out of the house - now they’re heading for the fighters. They’re shouting orders. Most of the fighters are running back to the barns, except for a couple who are going to the houses. Oh, they’re coming back with the leaders’ armor, and here come the rest of the fighters with theirs. Everyone is getting into armor. No, that’s not quite right. Everyone except the mounted fighters is getting into armor - they’re getting ready to send out a raiding force. I think it’s working, Snowfire. He’s taking the bait.”

  “Sounds to me that since your illusion only shows pack-animals, he’s keeping his mounted troops behind,” Rainwind observed shrewdly to Snowfire, leaning over and speaking in a low voice to avoid disturbing Daystorm.

  “That would make sense,” Snowfire agreed. “It would be best not to risk them on this. He knows that his foot troops can easily overtake a pack-train, and why take the chance of losing a mounted fighter who is much more expensive to replace than a foot soldier? It’s what I’d do.”

  “Right, they’re all getting into formation, strapping on their armor,” Daystorm reported. “And packs. They’re taking light overnight packs. So the mage has a pretty good idea of how far the target is likely to get before they reach it.”

  Snowfire nodded with satisfaction. That was good; it meant that the mage wouldn’t think anything of it when his troops didn’t make it back by nightfall.

  Daystorm continued to report on preparations, and then finally said the words he had been waiting for. “This is it. They’re moving out, and they’re taking the river road, exactly as we wanted them to.”

  “Excellent!” he exclaimed. It was time for the next stage, but he didn’t have to tell the others that. Daystorm would leave her crows standing sentry at the village, but Wintersky’s bird would pick up the departing troops as they reached the river. Hweel had already passed word of the departure to Sunstone (or rather, Sunstone’s falcon); Sunstone was stationed at the bluff and would trigger the avalanche blocking the road. Wintersky would count them and pass the number on to Sunstone. Sunstone would wait until the last ranks were in view, then let the stone bluff fall. They had agreed that, although it would be a fine thing if they actually caught some of the enemy under the rock-fall, they wouldn’t actually try for anything more complicated than blocking the path behind them all. It would be a disaster to have even one of the enemy fighters left
on the village side of the blockage, for he would return to get help, and the mage would detect the telltale traces of magic in the fallen stone.

  So, the rock would fall, the enemy force would be whittled down. They would soon find that the riverside path that had been so easy to follow deteriorated into a hellish nightmare of washouts, slippery rockslides, and narrow ledges where only one man at a time could pass. The river itself was swift and deep there, and anyone who fell in would fall prey to Ayshen and his friends. Nor would bodies bob to the surface with obvious knife wounds, for Ayshen had weighted ropes to keep them on the river bottom. All that anyone above would know was that those who fell or jumped in were pulled under and never reappeared. That should thoroughly discourage would-be swimmers.

  When a path leading inland appeared, it would be welcomed with relief, and the steep ravine with its derelict bridge would seem no great obstacle until the men tried to cross it. Only then would they learn that the sides of the ravine were crumbling clay and gravel, and the bottom was a morass of sticky muck as deep as a man was tall, or perhaps even deeper. It hadn’t always been that way, but ever since Snowfire opened up a spring at the bottom, it was. As difficult as it was to climb down, it was even harder to climb up. They probably wouldn’t lose any men to the climb, but they’d be wet, filthy, and exhausted before it was over.