“We are not far from the Vale now,” Ayshen told him with a toothy grin. “One day, two at the most. Then you will see! Nothing we passed through in Valdemar compares!”
“Nothing we passed through in Valdemar was bigger than two or three villages put together,” Darian reminded him. “We were not exactly traversing through the height of Valdemaran civilization, you know.”
“Oh, indeed.” Ayshen chuckled. “You will see.”
Darian laughed, and slapped the little lizard-creature on the back. “I’m certain that I will,” he agreed. “But for tonight, all I want to see is my bed.”
He wouldn’t have thought, back when he was Justyn’s apprentice, that simply riding all day long would be tiring. After all, it was your mount that did most of the work, right?
Well, that turned out to be only partially true; riding was more work than Darian would have imagined four years ago. Riding literally from dawn until dusk was enough to tire anyone out - riding as tail-guard was exhausting mentally as well as physically.
So he wasn’t joking when he told Ayshen that all he wanted to see was his bed. He continued to share a tent with young Wintersky; it was a tent made for three, but only the two of them used it now. Snowfire had long since made his union with Nightwind a formal one, which just gave Wintersky and Darian more room.
Wintersky sat beside a small campfire in front of their tent, contentedly toasting a stick. Darian sat down beside his friend and took another dry twig, breaking it into tiny bits and casting each bit into the heart of the fire. “Ayshen says we’ll be at the Vale in the next day or two,” he said, and Wintersky nodded.
“Probably late tomorrow,” he replied. “Everybody’s pretty anxious to get home. My guess is that they’ll roust us out before dawn and tell us to eat in the saddle.”
“Which is why you’re roasting a stick to calm down so you can get to sleep quickly,” Darian finished for him, and yawned. “Believe me, I don’t need that to get me to sleep.” Then he snickered. “Poor Snowfire - he and Nightwind won’t get much chance to cuddle tonight!”
Wintersky snorted and elbowed him; Darian elbowed right back, and both made moon-calf faces at each other so that they both broke into peals of laughter.
As the two youngest members of the team, they spent a great deal of time together, got into a certain amount of mischief together, and despite coming from such different cultures, had far more in common than Darian had found with the boys his age in Errold’s Grove. Darian really felt by now that he was part of a family, with Wintersky the brother he had always wanted.
They chortled themselves breathless, paying no attention to the quizzical looks of some of the other Hawkbrothers; Wintersky tossed his stick into the fire, Darian followed it with the remains of his, and they both went straight to bed. Wintersky’s bird was already asleep on his perch inside the tent, Kuari dozed in the branches of the tree above them. Although most owls were nocturnal, the eagle-owls were comfortable in darkness or daylight; their size gave them a hunting advantage in the daytime, and their night-sight and silent flight the advantage after dark. Kuari could adapt his sleep schedule to suit his bondmate.
As Wintersky had predicted, hertasi rousted them out while it was still as dark as the inside of a cold-drake’s belly in an ice cave. They weren’t given a lot of time to ready themselves, either. Hertasi were efficient under any conditions, but Darian had never seen them work quite so quickly before. The camp was down and packed up by the time he had Tyrsell saddled, and Ayshen must have known last night that this was going to happen, because one of his helpers came by with pastry-wrapped venison that Ayshen must have put to baking in the embers of the cook fire the night before. Darian actually got to eat his without being in the saddle; no one had told him he had a new assignment, so he, was tail-guard again this morning. Tail-guard’s morning duty was to make sure the camp was clear, that all the fires were out, that nothing had been left behind. So he ate his meat-roll and drank his bittersweet, hot kava while everyone else bustled about, getting their riding order straight, then started the day’s trek - still in the dark. Darian was entirely unsurprised to see that Snowfire had lead-duty; with not one, but two owls as bondbirds, he was the only logical choice for a ride in total darkness.
As soon as the last dyheli cleared the camp, Darian summoned up a mage-light and made a thorough inspection of the site. This time he uncovered evidence of the hasty departure in the form of a couple of misplaced small articles of clothing and adornment, a bit of trash that needed burial, and one fire that had not been thoroughly extinguished and still smoked. These small tasks attended to, he mounted Tyrsell, and with Kuari following in the trees, he caught up with the rest.
He banished the light as soon as he drew up with the rearmost rider - Sunleaf, whose forestgyre dozed on a perch incorporated into the saddle-bow in front of him. Riding in the darkness like this, the team now depended on the eyes and ears of only three birds and Kelvren to protect them. Even Daystorm’s flock of crows rode - two on the saddle-bow perch, two on the horns of her dyheli Pyreen, and the rest on the horns of any other dyheli that would let them.
With nothing to look at but the vaguest of shadows, Darian was acutely aware of every calling insect, every time a bird chirped or squawked its sleepy protest at being disturbed, every crackle of dead leaf or rustle of undergrowth. None of this made him at all wary or nervous; he’d grown up in forest like this, and these were all normal night sounds. He’d be alerted only if they stopped, or if a sudden burst of noise betrayed that something had disturbed the sylvan sleepers.
Kuari was perfectly composed - and perfectly full; he’d eaten well last night, and would not need to eat again until tonight. He wasn’t tempted to hunt, not even by the flocks of drowsy birds he passed beneath. What Kuari saw danced like a ghost-image in front of Darian’s eyes, a double-vision that did not disconcert him in the least now, though it had taken him months to get used to it.
The air was very still, not a breath of breeze; it was cold, and smelled of damp, old leaves, and fog. It felt heavy, somehow; morning before dawn almost always felt like that, as if it was just possible that the sun might not rise, after all.
It was difficult to judge the passing of time; Kuari would rise above the treetops once in a while, to take the measure of the dawn, and for what seemed to be the longest time he saw nothing but darkness and stars.
Finally, though, the strange sense of heaviness lifted, ever so slightly. Kuari lofted through the leaves to catch the first brightening in the east, and the first tentative notes of the birds’ dawn chorus drifted down to the travelers below.
Sunleaf’s forestgyre roused all his feathers with a quick shake - still more heard than seen - as those first notes brought him out of his doze. Gradually, faint light filtered down through the trees; at first the light was so very faint that everything seemed painted in shades of black and gray, but as the sun rose, the light brightened to a thin, dusty rose, and color came back into the world.
Up and down the line of riders, birds were shaking out their feathers, stretching their wings, preening and yawning. Then, one by one, they hopped onto their bondmates’ gauntleted arms to be tossed into the air.
The crows were the first, and taunted the others as lazy loafers with their derisive claws as they rowed up into the canopy. Stung by the good-natured insult, the younger birds followed immediately. The older birds were too seasoned to be tempted into flight by a pack of delinquents before they’d warmed up their muscles; there was plenty of stretching and flapping before the rest took to the air.
Two enormous shapes lofted silently toward the line beneath the lowest branches, one from ahead and to the right, one from the left. These were Hweel and Huur, Snowfire’s bondbirds; that meant that Snowfire had dropped back and someone else with a fresher bird had taken over the forward position. There were three dyheli in the herd with peculiar saddles - more of a perch, than a saddle - and no reins. These were for Hweel and Huur, and sometimes Ku
ari, who were all far too large to sit a perch in front of anyone. It was all Darian could do to carry Kuari on his shoulder or give him a short and temporary ride on his gauntleted arm; the eagle-owls were big, and awfully heavy. On Snowfire’s advice, Darian had built up his arms and shoulders with a great deal of lifting and carrying and wood-chopping in order to be able to support the weight of his friend.
It’s just a good thing that nobody with us has real eagles as a bondbird, Darian thought, as he watched the eagle-owls disappear somewhere up ahead, presumably making a landing on their mounts. Snowfire had once told him that the only person in k’Vala to have a true eagle and not a hawk-eagle as a bondbird was the black-smith! All bondbirds were easily twice, even three times, the mass of their wild counterparts. Darian could hardly imagine how large a true bondbird eagle must be. . . .
The morning passed uneventfully, and so did the afternoon, except that the break for lunch was hardly more than a pause while more pastry-rolls were passed out to the riders and nosebags of grain to the dyheli. They all ate on the move, something that until now had been done only during wretchedly cold weather, to enable the team to get to shelter faster.
It was late in the afternoon that the biggest bird Darian had ever seen in his life swooped down out of the trees and screamed a greeting as it passed over the heads of everyone in the team. The wingspan alone was so wide not even Huur could match it; more than the height of a mounted man, easily.
All the bondbirds set up a deafening chorus of replies, converging on the riders from every direction, and taking to their perches to go into full, wing-spread display. The huge raptor that had triggered the cacophony made another pass over the heads of the team, this time flying from the rear to the frontmost rider, then disappearing into the branches again.
:Darian, you can stand down.: The mind-voice was Snowfire’s; no point in trying to shout, he wouldn’t be heard. :Remember the eagle I told you about, that’s bonded to a blacksmith? That’s her; we’re under k’Vala guard now. You can relax.:
Darian took a deep breath and let it out in a low whistle; the birds were finally quieting down and settling. So that’s a bondbird eagle? If I were dyheli, I think I’d make her walk!:
As dusk fell, there was a distant glow through the trees ahead of them, and just as the last light of day faded from beneath the trees, the next lot of escorts met them.
This was a veritable stampede of dyheli, first an avalanche of young stags and does, then followed by the older does and their fawns, with five king-stags bringing up the rear. They poured around the line of riders, the youngsters frolicking, the older dyheli trotting up to rub noses with friends, and the king-stags making straight for Tyrsell. Judging by all the vigorous head-nodding going on, the king-stags went into an immediate six-way conference, one which would probably last for several days. After all, Tyrsell was an ajnbassasor to Valdemar in his own right, one looking for riew grazing lands for dyheli, and he had negotiated his own set of treaties with various Valdemaran populations through the medium of different Heralds.
Unburdened dyheli separated from the group and joined the massed herds, who all cleared off, heading back to the Vale. That left room for the next lot of greeters, a flood of hertasi. They seemed to appear out of nowhere - as hertasi were wont to do. There were probably a few hundred of them, but it seemed as if there were a couple of thousand at the least. When they had finished swarming the team and disappeared back into the darkness, there was not a single scrap of baggage left anywhere in the line, for they had stripped it from every burdened dyheli, leaving them free to run ahead as well.
Then came the first of the wonders that would leave Darian breathless for most of the evening.
Lights approached the line of riders, lights bounding along just below the level of the first branches. As the manycolored lights neared, Darian identified them as mage-lights, but they were carried - or rather, pulled along - by bondbirds. Mage-lights weighed nothing, of course, but how wonderful to see the bondbirds, each trailing a different colored sphere in its wake!
The birds with the team again set up their greeting display, and the birds from the Vale remained with the team, lighting their way home, perched overhead in the lowest branches. As Darian passed the birds at the rear, they flew ahead to the front of the team and took up new perches.
Then, as the light ahead grew stronger and stronger, they came to the entrance to the Vale itself, and the crowd of friends and relations waiting there for them. A cheer went up as the long-absent team broke through the cover of the forest.
Now, for the first time, Darian saw Hawkbrothers in all their festal glory, and he was, to put it mildly, dazzled. No one on the team had brought any sort of “fancy” garments with them - though Hawkbrother clothing had been exotic enough to Darian’s eyes - so he’d had no idea what he was going to see. No wonder Ayshen had warned him that he’d be surprised!
Men and women alike dressed in spectacular costumes - what one wore seemed to be more a reflection of his or her personality than gender. Long pale hair was beaded, braided, feathered, dyed, and cut in the most amazing styles. They didn’t look real, somehow, yet they surged forward like any group of folk meeting with people they’d been parted from for too long.
But, of course, no one came forward to greet him. . . .
Now, for the first time in years, Darian felt very much the outsider, and painfully alone. A young hertasi skittered up and took his bridle, looking up at him expectantly. Tyrsell lifted his head up, and the small hertasi was lifted off the ground for a moment, squawking at first, then emitting a long burble of laughter as he was lowered back down. Older hertasi appeared on each side, sharing the laughter. He dismounted from Tyrsell’s saddle and let the hertasi strip his friend of tack and carry it off. Then Tyrsell himself stepped away, leaving him even more alone with all of the meetings and greetings swirling around him.
“Dar’ian!” Snowfire pushed his way through the crowd, with an older man and woman in tow, his face alight. “Here - Mother, Father, this is Dar’ian Firkin, k’Valdemar; Dar ‘ian, this lady is my mother, Dawnmist, and this is my father, Heartwood.” He grinned. “Yours, also.”
The two Tayledras smiled warmly and each held out a hand. Darian took them, tentatively at first, then with the dizzying sensation that he was settling into something real and solid and welcoming. His loneliness evaporated, and with a wonder-filled grin he entered k’Vala Vale with the rest of the Tayledras.
From the moment that Dariari passed through the impressive vine-covered entrance td k’Vala Vale to the moment that he fell asleep, he was half afraid to blink lest he miss some new wonder. Now he knew why Ayshen had been so smug!
Just past the faintly visible barrier that protected the Vale from outside weather, he stepped into an entirely new realm.
The barrier distorted some of what lay beyond it, and cloaked the rest, so that from the outside it appeared that there was nothing beyond it except more ordinary forest. But when he passed through it, feeling a faint tingle as he did so, he saw what it had concealed.
Before him lay a softly curving path that wound deep into an exotic garden within only a few paces from the entrance - but it was not at all dark, for light glimmered and gleamed through the foliage. He followed the path to its first turning; mage-lights were supplemented by fantastic lanterns in glowing colors - round, square, oblong, in the shapes of flowers and leaves, stars and the phases of the moon. The lanterns hung from decorated poles crafted of carved wood on either side of the pathway. Some of these poles were carved with vines twining about them, some in the shapes of fantastic animals and birds, some decorated with geometric shapes or abstract curved lines. The path itself, “paved” in tiny pebbles of river gravel, was bordered in larger, water-smoothed rocks and was intersected at frequent intervals by a tiny sparkling stream that danced and laughed over similar stones. Where the path crossed these streams, it led over charmingly carved bridges, no two alike. The stream wasn’t so wide that the br
idges were needed, they were simply there because they were attractive.
Unlike the forest outside, where undergrowth was sparse, here plants, bushes, and even smaller trees throve to the point of luxury. Blossoming vines formed screens and curtains, flowering bushes poured scent onto the breeze. More flowers, closed now in the fragrant half-light along the path, gave promise that day would bring even more beauty. It was noticeably warmer here, the same gentle warmth of a summer night rather than the cool of a spring evening. Frogs and crickets sang in little pockets of shadow, and overhead, nightingales poured out melody into the darkness above the lanterns.
But that was only the beginning of the wonders. As Darian followed Snowfire and his parents deeper into the Vale, other sounds overhead made him look into the branches of the huge trees. It was at that point that he realized that the trees were even bigger than the ones outside the Vale - and that they held dwellings cradled in their huge boughs! The branches were as big as the trunks of the trees that he was used to. So high up were these living places that at first he had taken them for more elaborate lanterns.
So these were the famous ekele of the Hawkbrothers! Darian marveled at the highly individual “nests” resting above. Once again, so far as he could tell, no two were alike; some showed lights and movement, some were dark - and lights twinkling further up the trunks suggested that there were still more of these ekele higher up. The mere thought of how high they must be made him dizzy. Staircases spiraled up the trunks, showing how the Hawkbrothers gained access to their homes, and the staircases were just as ornamental as anything else Darian had seen so far.
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