Winds Of Fate v(mw-1 Page 32

  "They are Heralds, from the Queen in Valdemar," he told his apprentice. "I do not know what brings them, but since our cousin Kerowyn is also one of them, I think that everything Dira told us could be true."

  "Hmm." Tre'valen nodded thoughtfully. "That must be tested, of course. As they must be tested."

  " But not by us." Kra'heera reminded him. "She must test and mark them. But-what were you thinking?"

  "That they might prove worthy allies, perhaps enough to help us with these intruders." Tre'valen blinked, owlishly, in the moonlight. "Did you have any other thoughts?" I"Yes," Kra'heera responded, smiling slowly. "I have in mind that they might become our distraction. They have to be tested in any case; why not make their testing a matter of seeing how they respond to these intruders?" Tre'valen frowned, which surprised his teacher. "Is this fair?" he demanded. "They do not know what it is they will encounter, nor do they know the Plains. We know the girl carries a magic thing, the spiritsword. If these hunters are seeking out magic, will they not sniff it out? And what then?"

  "Then they must defend themselves if the hunters come for them," Kra'heera said with a shrug. "They are outsiders, are they not? They must prove their worth, must they not? If She finds them worthy, perhaps She will aid them."

  "But what of us?" Tre'valen asked. "Should we not aid them?"

  "Why?" Kra'heera responded. "I see no reason to aid them. If they survive, very well. If they survive and grant us the time we need, we will aid them. If they do not?" He shrugged. "The Plains are ours to guard. She never told us that we were to take in random strangers who come looking for help from us. In fact, by allowing them to cross the Plains, we are granting them more than any other in all of our history.

  It is only because they are Heralds, and because they come from our cousin, that I allow this at all." Reluctantly, Tre'valen nodded. "It is in the interest of the Clans," he admitted. "But I cannot like it."

  "That which does not overcome us, strengthens us," Kra'heera replied callously. "This will be good for them. And here is what we shall do... Elspeth knew by a sudden change in the air that she was no longer alone in her little room.

  Tonight she had demanded another room, separate from Skif's. She was not going to share a room, much less a bed, with him anymore. She had hoped that would make it clear to him that she was not going to put up with his nonsense any more.

  Skif had protested, but she had overruled him. Now she was sorry she had.

  There was an intruder in her room, and if she was very lucky, it would only prove to be a thie She risked a quick mental probe, and met a block as solid as a wall of seamless marble.

  Crap. It's not a thief-She started to reach for the knife under her pillows, and started to call for Gwena-only started; no more. She was frozen in place by a sudden flare of light.

  It was the candle at her bedside, lighting itself. And at the foot of her bed was a sinister shadow, arms folded.

  Clad in black from head to toe, veiled-there was no mistaking that costume. Kero had described and sketched it in detail, and no one here in Kata'shin'a'in would dare counterfeit it. Not here, not on the edge of the Plains.

  *Chapter Seventeen DARKWIND

  As he passed beneath the trees and away from open sky, Darkwind redoubled his shielding. When he had been fourteen and had been caught up in his friends' mating-spell, it had been an accident, and one that brought all of them a great deal of chagrined amusement. But if he were to "eavesdrop" now, it would be deliberate-and since he had not been invited, he was not going to intrude on this most private of moments for them.

  Or at least, he had not intended to intrude-But he was given no choice, after all.

  Everything seemed quiet up by the swamp, and he didn't think there was any particular reason to double back and check the area beside the ruins; the gryphons themselves had made an aerial patrol of the forest before the flight. He doubted that anything large would have gotten in under cover of the trees.

  On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to check the trails for signs of intruders. It wouldn't take all that long.

  He had just called to Vree, and was halfway through this particular patch of forest. He was heading in the direction of the path to the swamp and the hertasi, when a scream of agony cut the sky. A second scream answered the first. A heartbeat later, the world came apart for an instant.

  At least that was what it felt like. He knew what it was as he slammed down another kind of shield and fought his senses clear; the resonating effect of a magic-blast, powerful, crude, and close at hand. And the tortured scream that had accompanied it, that echoed across the sky, and pierced all his mental shields, had come from Treyvan Vree was already shooting up through the treetops, s~ off m the direction of the shriek of rage and pain, screaming a battle cry of his own.

  Running all out, Darkwind followed on the ground as best he could.

  This was wild land, hard to cross at any speed. He ran through it without any of his usual care-breaking branches, leaving behind tracks an infant could read, crashing through the undergrowth like a clumsy young deer in a panic. But still the terrain itself held him back; brushes clutched at him, roots tripped him up, thickets too thick to be forced blocked his way. Heedless of his own risk, he opened his mind to the gryphons, but heard-nothing.

  And that was even worse than the cries had been.

  Rage and fear blinded him to pain; rage and fear drove him through plum thickets, across a tumble of razor-sharp stone fragments, and loaned him wind and strength. His heart pounded too loudly for him to have heard danger coming up behind him; his soul was torn with claws of agony for what that silence might mean.

  Ahead!" called Vree, shooting under the tree branches like a winged arrow, turning faster than the eye could follow, and shooting away again.

  "Here!.

  The bird was too excited and angry to manage anything more coherent than that. Darkwind plunged after him, his lungs burning, his side pierced with a lance of pure pain. Just when he thought that he could not possibly run any farther, he literally stumbled into a tangle of broken branches, then over a fur-covered leg, and fell into a mass of broken brush before he could regain his balance.

  The leg belonged to Hydona, who was sprawled in an unconscious tangle, bleeding from one torn and wounded wing.

  "Come on, Treyvan," Darkwind crooned, cradling the gryphon's head in his hands, and slapping his beak lightly. "Come on, old boy. Wake up. Come on, Hydona needs your help; I can't move her without You." Treyvan lay in the middle of a half-crushed bush. It had obviously saved him worse injury when he hit the ground, but Darkwind couldn't free him from the snarl of broken branches unless he could revive the male gryphon and get some help from him.

  The eyelids fluttered, the beak opened a fraction, and closed again.

  The head stirred in Darkwind's hands and Treyvan protested his treatment wordlessly. "Arrwk-rrrr-Daaa-Daaarrrwk-"

  "That's right, it's Darkwind. Come on." Darkwind slapped the beak a little harder, pulled at Treyvan's crest-feathers. "Come on. Say something with some sense in it. Wake up, old friend."

  "Rrrrrrr." The eyelids fluttered and stayed open this time; the weight of the gryphon's head left Darkwind's hands as Treyvan raised it a trifle. "Hydona-" the gryphon croaked, whining wordlessly with pain, as he tried to turn his head. "Hydona-" t She's hurt," Darkwind told him, "but I think she'll be all right.Her wing's hurt, I don't think she's broken anything, and she's kind of half-conscious, but I can't get her out. I need to get you out of this tangle, so you can help me get her out of hers."

  " Can't-move-" the gryphon said, starting to thrash weakly in alarm.

  It was obvious then to Darkwind that Treyvan wasn't really hearing him-that, in fact, he was only half-conscious.

  He opened his shields to the gryphon, and touched him directly, mind to mind. "Don't move till I tell you. You're caught. Hydona is all right, but she's hurt and tangled up in some brush, and I'm going to need your help to move her." He glanced back over
his shoulder to the right, where the female gryphon lay, eyes half-closed, one wing folded awkwardly beneath her, the other oozing blood from a wound. Vree sat right beside her head, his eyes closed in concentration. He was in complete mental contact with her, helping to keep her calm and unmoving. He'd done this before, with wounded bondbirds, and he was remarkably good at it-in fact, if there were such a thing as a Healer among the bondbirds, Vree might well qualify. He might not have been able to hold Hydona if she had been completely awake and aware enough to fight him, or if she'd been delirious and raving, but like Treyvan, she had been-at best halfconscious when the two of them arrived.

  The mental contact seemed to steady Treyvan; he stopped thrashing, and held still. Satisfied that the gryphon wasn't going to lose control, panic, and disembowel his rescuer (a very real possibility with a predator as large and strong as a gryphon), Darkwind moved over to his side.

  All right, old friend. I'm going to start with your left wing. Lift it just a little-that's it-" It took them much longer than Darkwind wanted to get Treyvan free; by the time they finished, Hydona had slipped a little farther away from consciousness. It took all three of them, Vree included, to rouse her and all three of them to get her on her feet.

  "What happened?" Darkwind asked, glancing sideways at what appeared to be fresh human remains-shredded-as they finally got Hydona, swaying, into a standing position.

  "I-don't rrrremember," Treyvan said unhappily. "We completed the flight-yesss-and-"

  "Aahhh," said Hydona. She shook her head, and gave a faint cry of pain. "There wasss-a man. Below. Usss. With a weapon. A crosssbow. ' "Yesss, a man-" Treyvan nodded, as he put his shoulder to Hydona's to support her. "He sssshot Hydona-that isss all I remember-"

  "Can you hold her up a moment by yourself?" Darkwind asked. "I think I see something, and I didn't get a chance to look over there." Treyvan nodded and winced as if his head hurt. That gave Darkwind another little piece of information, confirming one of his suspicions. The male gryphon had been the one receiving the blast of magic that Darkwind had felt smash into his own shields, as if it had been non-specific, and unfocused. Magic was a poor way to render someone unconscious-rather like taking a boulder to smash a fly. The amount of sheer power required to overwhelm was ridiculous-in fact, it was far easier to shape a bit of energy into a dart and shoot them with it. Better far to use a true mind-blast, if one had the Gift, or a physical weapon like the crossbow.

  A magic blast to the mind had certain side effects-and a headache was only one. It was not the weapon-of-choice, even against a flighted target.

  That meant that the gryphons' attacker had no mental abilities of his own. And might not have had any magical ones, either.

  Darkwind made certain that Hydona was balanced well, before leaving her side and walking over to what was left of the human who had attacked them.

  He bent over the remains and poked at them with the tip of his dagger where he saw a glint of metal. Sure enough, there was a tarnished amulet of some sort about the neck, and the remains were as much blackened and burned as they were clawed.

  He checked back over his shoulder; Hydona seemed to be doing better by the moment, so he spent some little time investigating the state of the corpse. When he stood up and returned to the gryphons, Hydona was standing on her own, and Vree had taken a perch in the tree above them, showing not the slightest interest in Treyvan's crest-feathers.

  Well, it looks like I can piece together what happened," Darkwind said, as he reached out for the leading edge of Hydona's injured wing.

  "At least I think I can.

  "I wisssssh I could," Treyvan fretted. "I do not like thisss, not rrrememberrring."

  Treyvan... you may never get the memory back," Darkwind told him, fighting off his own guilty feelings. I should have stayed nearby. I should have guarded them. It wouldn't have taken that long, just to wait around until they were through and on the ground again. "Here's what I think happened. This fellow was watching you, and when Hydona got within range, he shot, wounding her. Treyvan, when you dove at him, he hadn't yet had time to reload the crossbow-I think he was counting on you to be very slow, since you're very large. I think your speed took him by surprise. He has an amulet around his neck, the kind that can be used to store very basic magic. When you dove at him, he blasted you with it as kind of a reflex action."

  "But-we have defensssessss," Treyvan said in surprise. "Magic defensssessss."

  True-but they were partially down because of your mating. I remember noticing that as you took off, then thinking it wouldn't matter." Now I wish I'd said something.

  Treyvan hissed. "Trrrue. It isss neccesssary. I had forgotten that. Not fully down, but-reduced" He nodded. "Anyway, they were down enough that the blast knocked you unconscious, but up enough that you reflected part of it back to him. Since he didn't have any defenses at all, you got him with the backblast.

  I don't know if you killed him, but in the end it didn't matter. If he wasn't, Hydona, you definitely killed him when he fell and was within your reach. See?" He pointed to her foreclaws. "There's blood on your talons, and he's fairly well shredded."

  "But why don't I remember?" she asked unhappily.

  "Because you weren't more than half-conscious at the time," he told her. "It was mostly reflex on your part."

  " Ah." She accepted that, carefully putting one foot before the other, while Darkwind walked beside her, holding up the drooping wing so

  that it wouldn't drag on the ground.

  "I... will have an aching head for a while, then," Treyvan said ruefully. "And I did not even rescue my mate-"

  "oh, you did, it was just rather indirect," Darkwind soothed him.

  "I wouldn't worry about the headache; I'm going to get the hertasi to send over their Healer as soon as I leave you. She'll put you both right." He was making light of the incident-because he was afraid it might mean more than a simple trophy-hunter, trying to shoot down the gryphons.

  How had he found out about them, whoever he was? How had he traced them here? Where had he gotten a protective amulet powerful enough to have knocked Treyvan out of the sky? Why did he use the crossbow instead of magic, if he'd had access to magic that formidable?

  And why had he gone after them in the first place?

  There were more questions. What were those faint traces Darkwind had seen, before he had gotten the two gryphons to their feet-traces of a second person who had been moving about the two of them?

  He'd been forced to destroy those traces, much against his will; there was no way to get to the gryphons without doing so. Getting in to disentangle their limbs and move brush away was the only way to help Treyvan and Hydona up and get them moving. He hadn't seen the scuffs and prints anywhere else, not even entering the area-and they had been quite clear around Treyvan's body, which meant, whoever it had been, the print-maker had not been the same person as the archer. The archer had been stone cold by the time the unknown had meddled with Treyvan's unconscious body.

  If I had gotten here sooner, I could have caught him- Yet another lance of guilt, none of which was going to be assuaged until Treyvan and Hydona were safely back at their nest, and both of them were healed enough to take to the skies again.

  The gryphlets boiled out of their nest as the quartet approached, hysterical with fear, so completely incoherent that not even their parents could get any sense out of them. They simply crowded under the adults' wings, pressing as closely to their bodies as they could, whimpering and trying to hide.

  This, of course, did not help at all, but the little ones were too terrified to be reasoned with.

  Darkwind couldn't tell if something had frightened them directly, or if they had linked in with their parents and experienced what had happened to the adult gryphons indirectly.

  Whatever had happened, it rendered them completely irrational, and also turned them into complete nuisances.

  He wanted to comfort them-and Hydona was nearly frantic with maternal worry-but they w
ere in the way, underfoot, and demanding the total attention and protection of their parents, neither of whom were in any shape to give it.

  Finally, in desperation, he tried the only one of them who wasn't already fully occupied. "Vree!" he called, hoping the bird might be able to at least chase the little ones out of the way.

  The gyre came down from his protective circle above them in a steep dive, braking to a claws-out landing on the top of one of the stones. He looked sharply at the shivering, meeping gryphlets, and opened his beak to give a peculiar, piercing call.

  The little ones looked straight at him, suddenly silent. Then they resumed their cries, but ran away from their parents and straight for Vree.