Winds of Change Read online

  In a way, that statement was something of a relief. It meant that the secretive Hawkbrothers were human enough to be curious. For all the time she had spent in Darkwind’s presence, there was more that was a mystery about him and his people than there was that was familiar.

  “In that case,” she replied, rising from her own seat, “let’s not keep them waiting any longer.”

  Elspeth followed Darkwind’s direction, as Iceshadow escorted Starblade in another direction - presumably, to rest. “We have had little enough to celebrate, of late,” Dark-wind told the two Heralds and their Companions in a quiet voice, as he shepherded them down yet another path bordered by wild growth. “The stalemate with the Stone, the constant harassment on our borders, the separation - it has been difficult for everyone here. Add to that my father’s attempt to foster dissension between the scouts and the mages, and there was more tension than many could bear.”

  “That particular dust-up was all because of Falconsbane, wasn’t it?” Skif asked. “I hope that’s been settled. I’d just as soon not find myself in the middle of a private quarrel.”

  “You won’t,” Darkwind actually chuckled, as Elspeth hid a sigh of relief. “It’s been settled. I can pledge you, everyone is ready for a good celebration. The fact that you are the cause of it - and are strange Outlanders into the bargain - will make you very popular. “

  That gave Elspeth a bit of a qualm; not because she was ill-at-ease at the idea of being the focus of so many strangers, but because of what Darkwind had called her.

  Outlander.

  She was a stranger here. There was nothing in this place that would remind her of home. If Darkwind seemed alien to her, his words were a reminder that she must be just as alien to him, and by extension, to his people. She wasn’t used to being the stranger; it made her feel disconnected and unbalanced.

  And now, for the first time since she had arrived, she felt completely alone, completely without roots. And felt a wave of terrible homesickness wash over her.

  At that moment, she was within a breath of weeping. Her throat closed, and she couldn’t speak. Her eyes clouded, and she stumbled -

  But when she looked up, she found herself on the edge of another clearing, but this one was full of light - people.

  Her training took over; there were people waiting to meet her out there. She was the Heir to the Throne, she was a Herald. Her homesickness could wait. She must put on a good face for them, impress them, so that they would see that Valdemar was worth aiding.

  She blinked once or twice, clearing her eyes. The Companions, Skif, and Darkwind got a pace or two ahead of her, giving her the chance to compose herself further. She took a deep breath, another, then followed them out into the radiant clearing.

  She had expected mage-lights, and mage-lights there were in plenty, but the chief illumination came from the moon. The soft, silvery light blurred and softened details; and as she looked around her, she suddenly realized that not all of the exotic occupants of the clearing were human.

  Hertasi, the shy lizardlike creatures that were roughly half the height of a very tall man, she had seen once or twice before, in colored beads and satins - and the gryphons of course.

  Their presence was a welcome surprise, and she waved at Treyvan when she knew he had seen her. She hadn’t known that the gryphons were coming, and Treyvan’s wide-beaked grin from across the clearing chased away the last of her homesickness. She couldn’t help herself; the gryphon grin was so contagious it left no room for such trivialities. Hydona saw that Treyvan was staring in their direction and turned to see what he was looking at. When she saw them, she nodded; her smile matched her mate’s and welcomed the newcomers with a warmth that surpassed species boundaries.

  The gryphons occupied one entire nook of the clearing all by themselves, but beside them were three graceful, horned creatures that Elspeth guessed must be dyheli. And scattered among the Hawkbrothers were a handful of two-legged creatures whose feathers were real, and growing from their heads, not braided into their hair.

  Tervardi! Elspeth’s years of protocol schooling kept her from staring, even though she would dearly have loved to. Along with the gryphons and the hertasi, these creatures were the stuff of legend in Valdemar. Legend said the tervardi were shapechangers, that they sprouted wings and turned into real birds when they chose. One of them turned, and Elspeth caught sight of a still, serene face with a mouth rimmed by something that was either a small, flexible beak, or hard, stiff lips. The creature gestured before she turned back to her conversation-group, and Elspeth saw the stunted, colorful feathers, the last vestige of her wings, covering her arm.

  As she moved hesitantly into the clearing, she realized that the previous occupants were - not ignoring her, but permitting her politely to fit into their group. That was certainly more comfortable than being mobbed and was exactly what a similar gathering of Heralds would have done.

  She looked around; there were birds everywhere, some sleeping on perches, some awake and perched on shoulders or poles. The Companions both had joined a small group of mixed humans and nonhumans, along with Tre’valen; somehow, Darkwind and Skif had vanished, she had no idea how, but it left her on her own. With all those people carefully, politely, not looking at her, she felt more conspicuous than she would if they had been staring at her.

  She hurried across the rest of the grassy space between her and the gryphons. Odd that of all of that gathering, they were the strangest physically, and the most familiar in every other way. . . .

  “Sssso!” Treyvan greeted her, extending a taloned fore-claw in a token of welcome. “You are now Tayledrasss, Clansssssib! Do you feel any different?”

  “Well, yes and no,” she replied. “No - I mean, I’m still a Herald, and I’m still everything I was before.”

  “But yesss?” Hydona spoke gently. “I think perhapsss it isss homesssicknesss?”

  She blinked, surprised, and in an odd way, grateful. “How did you guess?”

  The female gryphon nodded at the rest of the gathering. “We arrre the only two of our kind herrre asss well, except for the little onesss. We know how ssstrange you musst feel.”

  She flushed, embarrassed that she could have missed something so very obvious. “Of course. It’s just that you and Darkwind are such friends, it never occurred to me -”

  Treyvan laughed. “If it neverrr occurred to you, then I would sssay that iss a compliment on how well we have come to fit in herrre!” he exclaimed. “And trrruly, the hu-mansss of the Valesss arrre not that unlike the humansss of our own landsss.”

  “Ah,” she replied vaguely, not knowing what else to say. “Oh, where are the little ones?”

  “Therrre.” Hydona indicated another corner of the clearing with an outstretched talon; there, in the shadows, the two young gryphlets were sprawled on the grass, listening sleepily to what appeared to be -

  A very large wolf?

  - except that it wasn’t speaking, so how could they be listening?

  “That isss a kyree; they arrre not often in thisss Vale,” Hydona said, as if she had heard Elspeth’s unspoken questions. “It isss a neuter. It hasss taken a liking to the little onesss and hass been kind enough to tell them taless sssince we arrived. I believe it iss called - ” She turned to her mate for help.

  “Torrl,” Treyvan supplied promptly. “It wass a great friend of Dawnfire, and iss sstill a great friend of Darrrkwind. Kyree neuterss are often yerry fond of little oness of any speciessss; it iss a good thing the childrren arrre both sstrong Mindspeakersss.”

  And that, of course, was how the kyree was “telling tales” to the young gryphlets; directly mind-to-mind, as the kyree who helped Vanyel at the last had spoken to Stefen. Elspeth’s mouth had gone very dry; this was like being inside of a tale herself, the experience being made even more dreamlike under the delicate illumination of mage-lights and moonlight.

  She managed not to jump, as something tugged at the hem of her tunic. She looked down quickly; it was one
of the hertasi, carrying a tray laden with fruits and vegetables that had been carved into artful representations of flowers. It offered the tray to her, and she took one; she hadn’t the faintest notion of what she’d taken, but she didn’t want to offend the little creature by refusing.

  It slipped into the crowd, and she bit cautiously into her “prize.” Crisp and cool, it had a faint peppery taste, and a crunchy texture; encouraged by her success, when the next hertasi came by, this one with a tray of drinks, she took a glass with more enthusiasm.

  This proved to be a light wine; she sipped it and continued to chat with the gryphons, deliberately keeping the subject light, asking innocuous questions about the kyree and the other nonhumans, until other Tayledras drifted up to join the conversation. Gradually she began to relax, and to enjoy herself.

  When a touch on her elbow made her turn, she found that Darkwind had found his way back to her. He handed her a slice of something breadlike, with something like a tiny, decorative flower arrangement atop it, and slid into the group beside her.

  “Your friend Skif and my brother seem to have discovered that they have much in common,” he said by way of joining the conversation, “And they have gone off to discuss weaponry. Knives, I think.”

  She shook her head. “That figures. Offer to talk about knives, and you’ll have Skif’s undivided attention for as long as you like. Do I eat this, or wear it?”

  He chuckled. “You eat it. I think you will like it; it is smoked fish.”

  She nibbled the edge of it, tentatively. The smoked fish she was used to generally had the consistency and texture of a slab of wood, and tasted like a block of salt dipped in fish oil. She was pleasantly amazed at the indescribable blend of delicate flavors. As Darkwind chuckled again at her expression, she devoured it to the last shred.

  “I have been asked,” he continued, both to her and to the gryphons, “to request the presence of my good friends Treyvan and Hydona at the waterfall, and my wingsib Elspeth at a gathering of the scouts.”

  “Ssso?” Treyvan replied. “What isss at the waterrfall? And whom?”

  “Kethra, Iceshadow, and my father, among others,”

  Darkwind told him. “And, I am told, a very large selection of fresh fish and uncooked meat and fowl. Some of our more sensitive guests, like the dyheli and tervardi, might be distressed by refreshments of that nature, so we took them out of the way.”

  “Wissse,” Hydona acknowledged. “But the little onessss - ”

  “Toni assures me that they are not too far from falling asleep,” Darkwind answered, “And when they do drift off, the hertasi have promised to keep an eye on them.”

  “I amfamisshed,” Treyvan said, with a look of entreaty at his mate.

  Across the clearing, Elspeth noticed the kyree raising its head from its paws, and looking directly at them.

  :Every parent deserves some time without the young,: she heard, just as clearly as if the kyree was her own Companion. :They are too tired to get into mischief that I cannot distract, and anything that wishes to harm them will have to come at them through not only me, but all the defenses of the Vale. And, I suspect, the large white hooved ones.:

  Hydona gave in; Elspeth readily understood her reluctance to have the gryphlets out of her sight, considering all that had happened to them, but the kyree was right. If the little ones weren’t safe here, none of them were. They rose to their feet, folded their wings tightly against their sides to avoid knocking anything or anyone over, and took their leave.

  Darkwind led the way up and down yet another path; this one ended beneath one of the enormous trees she had only glimpsed through curtains of bushes and vines. There were quite a few Tayledras gathered beneath it, but for the first few moments, all her attention was taken up by the tree itself.

  Simply put, it was so large that an entire house could have been built within the circumference of its trunk. A curving staircase had been built around it, leading up to a kind of balcony three stories above the clearing. Soft lights hung from the bottom of the balcony, preventing her from seeing anything above that level, but she had the feeling that the staircase continued upward. When she shaded her eyes and peered upward, she caught sight of other, fainter lights near the trunk, half-obscured by the enormous branches. The Chronicles had once referred to the Hawkbrothers as the “tree-dwelling Tayledras,” and she knew that Darkwind lived in a kind of elaborate platformed treehouse. So it looked as if that was the norm for the Hawkbrothers, rather than a concession to danger.

  At least now she knew why they made a point of cultivating those enormous trees. Such marvels could support not one, but several dwellings.

  When she turned her attention back to the gathering, she discovered that most of the Tayledras here were dressed very like Darkwind; in relatively “plain” clothing, and with hair either cut or bound up to be no longer than just below the shoulders, dyed in patterns of mottled brown and gold. They looked more like the Shin’a’in than the mages did, and it wasn’t just that their hair wasn’t white. . . .

  It’s because they‘re scouts, fighters, she realized, after a moment. Like Darkwind, they couldn’t wear clothing that interfered in any way with fighting movements, nor could they afford to indulge themselves with elaborate hairstyles. Like Darkwind, they had a certain economy of movement; nothing dramatic, nothing theatrical - nothing done just for the effect. There were strong, well-trained muscles under those silken tunics, hard bodies that saw furlongs of patrolling every day.

  She felt herself relaxing further in their presence, even before Darkwind began introducing them to her. These were people who, although they were familiar with magic, had very little to do with it; they were somehow more down-to-earth than the mages in their sculptural robes. And they were more like Heralds than anyone she had met yet.

  She took careful note of the names as they were introduced to her, the habit of someone born into politics. Win-terlight and Stormcloud, Brightmoon and Daystar, Earthsong, Thundersnow and Firedance - she matched names with faces, with smiles shy or bold, with personality quirks. Darkwind had explained the Tayledras habit of taking use-names, names that described something of what the person was like. She had to admit that it wasn’t a bad system; it was much easier to match a name with a face when Winterlight (one of the few scouts to grow long hair) had a thick mane that, when he was persuaded to unbraid and unbind it, looked like moonlight pouring down on snow - when Daystar was as sunny of disposition as the twins - and when Firedance was always in motion, never quite still, mercurial in temper and bright with wit. She wondered if she ought to take a use-name as well, though it shouldn’t be hard for them to remember Elspeth, Skif, Gwena, and Cymry. Four names were easier to remember than an entire Clan-full.

  “These are the k’Sheyna scouts,” Darkwind said, when he’d finished the introductions, confirming her guess that there wasn’t a mage among them. “Not all of them, of course; we still have a full patrol out tonight. But enough for now, I think; any more of us, and you would be overwhelmed with names and faces.”

  She smiled, but said nothing. This wasn’t the time to point out that she’d coped with four times their number at ordinary state dinners. True, she had Talia’s and Kyril’s help, and the nobles and dignitaries didn’t look quite so alike. . . .

  “You are lucky, Elspeth,” the young fellow called “Stormcloud” told her. “Truly. We are in festival gear now. If you were to see us tomorrow, you might find it hard to tell one from the other.”

  Earthsong nodded vigorously. “There is a tale among Outlanders that we are all mage-born copies of a single Tayledras.”

  “I can see how they would think that,” she replied after a moment of consideration, imagining them all garbed in Darkwind’s drab scouting clothing, with their hair bound up against snags. If the women - already slender and athletic-bound their breasts, it would even be difficult to tell male from female. “Of course, I’m sure you don’t do a thing to encourage that now, do you?”

 
; She was pleased when they laughed at her sally; sometimes the most difficult thing about dealing with a new people was finding out what they considered funny. And as she had discovered on her own, knowing what made someone laugh was the surest shortcut to making him your friend.

  “Oh, no, of course not!” Firedance exclaimed, eyes wide and round with mock innocence. “Why would we ever do anything like that?”

  The others laughed again at his disclaimer, then settled themselves back where they’d been before Darkwind brought her into the clearing. “We were just having some music and a little dancing,” Earthsong said, as he picked up a flat drum. “We thought you might like to see and hear some of it, so we asked Darkwind if he’d go pry you away from the gryphons.”

  “Not that we’re great artists,” Winterlight spoke up quietly, “But we do enjoy ourselves, and I think music is better than any amount of words at telling people about each other. A language that needs fewer words.”

  “That’s what our Bards say,” she replied, looking for an inconspicuous spot to put herself, and finally giving up and taking a seat on one of the tree’s enormous roots.

  Winterlight gestured in agreement, and picked up something that she didn’t recognize; a trapezoidal box strung like a harp. He set it on his lap and pulled a couple of hammers from under the strings, then glanced at Earthsong. The young scout evidently took that for a signal; he began to produce an elaborate rhythm on his flat drum with a single, double-ended stick; Winterlight listened for a moment, then joined him, not by plucking the strings as Elspeth had expected, but by striking them deftly with the hammers. Within a few moments, others had joined in, either on instruments of their own or simply by clapping. Some of their instruments were things that Elspeth recognized; most weren’t, with sounds that were not - quite - like anything she knew.

  The music was far from unpleasant. There were unexpected bellsounds in the rhythm, a wailing wind instrument that added an unearthly element like a singing hawk’s scream, and the occasional whistling improvisation by one of the scouts. It was quite infectious, and she found herself clapping along with it.