Lackey, Mercedes - Mage Storms 04 - Darian's Tale 01 - Owlflight.doc

by Owlflight [lit]

  If he could get away from the invaders in the first place. A posthumous revenge was not going to be very satisfactory from his point of view.

  The undergrowth thinned, as he knew from past explorations that it would, and he put his arrow back in the quiver, fastened the cover over it, and unstrung his bow, slinging it over his shoulder. Now that he could see for some distance, he knew that he no longer had much of an advantage with his bow-if he saw an enemy now, it would not be a case of surprise at short range, and the enemies were armored. He might be the best shot in the village, but a small-game bow had no chance against armor. His only chance of felling one of these men would lie in a lucky shot through the helm-slit, and today did not seem a good day to trust his luck.

  He picked up his pace into the lope his father had taught him for covering the greatest amount of ground with the least effort. Now it was possible to see for some distance under the trees; what growth there was here was composed of thin, delicate bushes with slender leaves, a few sparsely-leaved vines with stems as thick as his leg, and some pale-green weeds liberally festooned with prickles. There wasn't a great deal of cover, and it was the huge tree trunks themselves that blocked vision. He got off the path, and under the trees, hoping that he would be able to see trouble before it saw him.

  A few furlongs farther on, he ran into the enemy's second line. He literally ran into it; a patrol of three mounted men-he rounded a huge tree trunk and suddenly there they were, their horses shying away from the unexpected intruder.

  That was all that allowed him to escape them. As they fought their startled horses, he dodged between two of them, and ran, darting in and around the trees, feeling the place between his shoulder blades crawl as he expected an arrow to hit there at any moment.

  After the initial surprise, they seemed to treat his appearance as something of a joke. He couldn't understand their language, but their laughter was plain enough-cruel though it sounded. Evidently they thought that hunting him was going to be an entertaining way to pass the time. As he ran and dodged, hoping to get to his rockpile and hide, they pursued him without putting their horses into a lather, and before too many moments had passed, it was obvious to him that they were making a game out of herding him before them.

  He glanced back once or twice and saw that they'd taken off their helms and gorgets and both were dangling from the pommels of their saddles by the straps. That only allowed him to see their faces more clearly, and what he saw in those brief glances chilled him. These were cold and hardened men, who were getting a great deal of cruel amusement from playing with him as a cat plays with a terrified mouse. They clearly thought he was as soft as one of the villagers and wouldn't last long before tiring-and they had every reason to believe that. He was skinny and looked younger than he was, and they were on horseback. If they could get him running in a straight line, they could easily tire him out and run him down.

  So he wouldn't run in a straight line, and he would try to get to his rock pile, where horses couldn't go without breaking an ankle. Once he got wedged into his hole, he could draw his knife and keep them at bay.

  And then what?

  Well, maybe they'd get tired of trying to pry him out. At the moment, this was his only hope, faint though it was.

  He dodged around a tree, waited until they thundered past him with his back pressed against the bark, and then made a dash for another temporary obstacle in the form of a patch of vines. He dove into those, rolled beneath them and came out the other side while they were still hacking their way through the stems with their swords. Now he saw the sign that he was nearer his goal than he'd thought-a tall, standing stone, shaped like a finger pointing straight upward. He dashed for that, ducked around it, dove and scrambled beneath a bush as one of the men charged him with an incomprehensible shout. He made it through to the other side of the bush, and scrabbled to his feet again to make the last dash for the rock pile.

  The men bellowed laughter as they chased him; he threw himself flat as they charged down at him, then picked himself up and made a scramble over the last couple of furlongs. They overshot him and had to pull their horses around in a wide circle to avoid riding them into the treacherous footing of the rocks. His heart was pounding so hard it rivaled the sound of the horses' hooves, and all he could think about was that narrow triangle of dark that meant his hiding place. If he could get in there, he'd be hard to get out-

  He scuttled over the rocks, the stones shifting under his feet and making him slip and fall, bruising palms and knees. The crevice was close, almost within reach-

  A shadow fell over him as his hand actually touched the first of the great stone slabs that formed his shelter. He flinched away, tried to throw himself to the side, but it was too late.

  His heart literally stopped, and a dark film passed over his vision.

  A hand seized the collar of his shirt and hauled him upright, dangling him in the air in front of the crudest face he had ever seen in his life. The man's greasy hair was braided back in a tail and bound around the forehead with a dirty, red scarf. He had cold, flat brown eyes, like dead pebbles, his right eyebrow was split by a scar that continued on down his cheek. His teeth were broken and discolored, his beard untrimmed and full of tiny bits of straw. He held Darian up and shook him, roaring laughter.

  Darian stopped breathing.

  He was the biggest man Darian had ever seen, bigger than Kyle, and every muscle of his arms and legs under the sweat-damp, dirty skin was rock hard. And a great deal of those arms and legs showed beneath the metal corselet and thigh guards-the armor was very nearly too small to protect him adequately. He said something to his two companions, and chortled, shaking Darian again. He smelled, too; bad breath and rank sweat, and rancid grease all combined to make him stink like a sick and unclean animal.

  Darian's mind went blank. He hung limply in the man's grasp, waiting for whatever the men was going to do to him. Whatever it was, it would probably be very bad.

  The other two remained on the horses at the edge of the rockfield, shouting encouragement to their fellow. Whatever he planned to do, they obviously approved of.

  Darian wondered if it would hurt for very long.

  Please, he pleaded silently, hoping some god would listen. Let it be over quickly.

  At that instant, the shaft of a white-feathered arrow appeared in the man's throat, as if conjured up by his prayer. The man's eyes bulged, blood sputtered from his lips, and his hand came up to claw at the arrow that Darian hadn't even heard pass over his own shoulder.

  t

  THREE

  Snowfire k'Vala, a Hawkbrother of the k'Vala clan, had only twice or three times before this mission ever been inside the border of the land called Valdemar. He considered himself only passably, and imperfectly, acquainted with the customs of these Valdemarans. He thought of himself as a good scout, an excellent hunter, and an indifferent mage of no better than Master level, but not any kind of an expert on their affable foreign allies.

  But he did know this much: law-abiding mounted Valde-maran fighters of whatever ilk did not chase young boys afoot without a very good reason. They certainly did not chase such boys in the manner of a cruel game, taking pleasure from the child's obvious fear, nor would they do so with clear intent to harm him.

  Therefore, when Hweel, his bondbird, came flying silently out of the treetops, projecting urgent images of just that into his mind, Snowfire did not need to ponder diplomatic contingencies to make a decision.

  Hweel made one of his rare calls, warning him that he was coming down. The bird's call was a long, profound bass note like a thunderous breath, deeper by far than that of a more common hoot of an owl of normal size and breeding. Snowfire held up his arm with the heavy, wrist-to-shoulder leather gauntlet on it, and prepared for Hweel's landing. As Hweel dropped out of the canopy with his wings spread wide to slow his glide, Snowfire braced himself. He had to; Hweel was easily three or four times the size and mass of most bondbirds, and twice the size and mass
of a normal eagle-owl. Even with no intent to harm, simply landing came as something of a shock to the one Hweel was landing on.

  Feet the size of Snowfire's hand closed relatively gently on his arm upon impact, and through a triple-thickness of leather, he still felt their potentially-lethal strength. Snowfire endured the buffeting of Hweel's wings for a moment as the bird steadied himself; then Hweel folded his massive pinions and settled on Snowfire's arm. Snowfire stared into the round, golden eyes and opened his mind fully to his bondbird.

  Hweel showed him images from above, of course, but every detail was unnervingly sharp. There were three well-armed but ill-kempt fighters on horseback, apparently patrolling through the tall trees. Through Hweel's memory, Snowfire saw a thin boy with a bow, and not much else, suddenly blunder in among them. The boy ran, the fighters followed, making a game of letting him stay just far enough in front to make him think he might escape, taking pleasure in herding him.

  :Guide me,: he told his bird, and with an effort that drove a short grunt from him, he cast Hweel up into the air. The bird spread his wings, and with powerful downstrokes, drove himself upward.

  :Whatpasses?: his mount asked, tossing his long, curved horns and tilting his head so that the intelligent eyes faced Snowfire.

  :Nothing good,: Snowfire replied, dismounting. He told the dyheli stag who was his partner to go back to the others with a message that he had been detained and why, then got his bow and quiver down from the roll tied to the dyheli's cream-colored saddle pad that nearly matched the stag's creamy coat.

  :Are you certain you wish to do this afoot?: the stag asked, flicking his ears with aloof interest.

  :No point in making it obvious that I'm not of k'Valdemar,:

  he replied, stringing his bow with a little effort. :Besides, if these ruffians see you, they'll probably shoot you for meat.:

  The stag snorted with affront and disgust. :Barbarians, then, and ignorant,: the stag replied. I will tell the others.: And with that, the stag leaped easily and gracefully away, heading unerringly for the encampment. He made scarcely a sound as he ran; the dyheli were masters of their environment, the deep Forest.

  Snowfire followed Hweel, nocking an arrow to his bow, making even less sound than the stag. Like the dyheli, the Tayledras were masters of the Forest.

  The others were expecting him to return to their base camp with game soon; dealing with this situation would probably not take long to resolve. But having sent the dyheli Sifyra back with word of what he was doing, if he did not return within a reasonable time, some of the others would come after him, and Sifyra could lead them to the right place.

  Half of being clever is making certain you are not being stupid. That was a Shin'a'in proverb, and one of his favorites. He might not be one for swift thinking, but he seldom put a foot wrong. Perhaps Nightwind, his lady love, preferred Most battle plans do not survive the initial encounter with the enemy, but she had associated with the gryphons for too long for some of their cavalier and devil-may-care attitude not to have rubbed off.

  Snowfire kept every sense alert, now that he was afoot and alone on the ground. He noted every deeper shadow beneath the canopy of the enormous trees here, noted the tenor of birdsong up in the canopy itself, drank in the scents of forest litter, searching for the aroma of newly-bruised greenery. Hweel did not see everything; it was perfectly possible that there was an ambush waiting here somewhere.

  Hweel flew silently up through the lower branches of the canopy; Hweel could fly silently, because he, unlike every other bondbird in the ye'dorkandan k'shulah was a short-eared eagle-owl. Owls flew with no betraying sound at all unless very close, thanks to their soft-edged feathers. And unlike most owls, the eagle-owls were equally adept at day or night flying, making them ideal bondbirds for a scout or hunter who might find himself moving by day or night. Yet there were few of them among the Tayledras of k'Vala, for there were only four breeding pairs in the entire Vale at the moment. Snowfire considered himself incredibly fortunate that Hweel had chosen him as his bondmate.

  In such a circumstance as this, he felt even greater gratitude. No one would see Hweel unless Hweel chose it to be so-and that would be a bad thing for the one making the sighting, as it would probably be the last thing he saw. The talons of a Tayledras-bred eagle-owl could pierce the skull of a goat, so great was the pressure behind them, and what they could do to a goat, could easily be done to a man. Unlike his lesser kindred, Hweel was intelligent enough to pick distinct targets for his talons-such as vulnerable eye sockets. Although Snow-fire had not yet needed to put such killing power to the test against a man, Hweel had already proven himself valiant and valuable against the Changebeasts loosed by the mage-storms.

  :Hurry!: Hweel Sent urgently, and filled Snowfire's mind with the image of a brute of a man pursuing the boy across a pile of rocks, laughing. The man was afoot now, having left his horse at the edge of the rockfield.

  Snowfire broke into a swift but cautious run. He did not want to betray his presence by either noise or movement, so he dashed from the cover of one giant tree trunk to the next, keeping himself well out of sight.

  He reached the edge of the clearing just in time to see the man in question catch the boy and haul him up by the collar. Howling with laughter, he held the boy limply from his hand; he was big enough that the boy's feet dangled some distance off the ground. The boy was as pale as ice, clearly terror-stricken. There were two other men very nearby, mounted on horses, also laughing. Even from here, Snowfire caught an unpleasant scent of rancid grease and stale sweat.

  Snowfire eased into the cover of a brush-covered boulder held in place by the massive roots of a nearby tree. Between the mottled shadows at the edge of the clearing and the camouflaging effect of his scout gear, that was quite enough cover to keep him invisible.

  One of the mounted men called to the one with the boy; they did not speak Valdemaran, but one of the mountain dialects of the north.

  "You caught your rabbit, Cor, now what are you going to do with him?" called the first one.

  Snowfire held down his anger; the boy wasn't hurt yet, although he clearly expected something terrible to happen to him. A mountain barbarian doesn't normally kill an unarmed captive; they do take slaves, though.

  "He's too small for a work-slave, but he's pretty enough," said the other mounted man. "You gonna keep him for a body-slave?"

  A body-slave? Do they mean what I think they mean?

  "Maybe, if there ain't enough women to go around-" the one holding the boy called back, laughing even harder.

  That was all he ever said again; filled with fury at his words, Snowfire acted on impulse as he rarely did, rose out of the shadow of the trunk he hid behind, and fired. The arrow, fletched with owl feathers, flew as silently as Hweel, and as surely, burying itself in the soft tissue of the man's throat.

  Even as it was still in the air, Snowfire had pulled a second arrow from the quiver at his belt and was sighting it. The man made a gurgling sound, and reached frantically up, pawing at his throat with his free hand, as the second arrow sped to join the first.

  A second arrow appeared beside the first one, and the enemy fighter lost all interest in Darian, letting him go to claw at his throat with both hands. Fortunately, when his captor dropped Darian and began staggering back a little, making hideous noises, Darian was still limp.

  The boy made a "soft" fall on the hard slabs of rock and somehow his body acted for him again, and he quickly rolled out of the way of the toppling soldier.

  Get up! he screamed at himself. Get up and run, while you have the chance!

  As Darian scrambled to his feet, scraping himself on the rough surface of the rocks, he instinctively turned to look in the direction from which the arrows had come.

  For just an instant, and no longer, he saw a strange-looking man in the shadows of the forest on the other side of the rock pile. He was dressed in mottled green-and-brown clothing, and although he didn't look old, and certainly didn't act old,
his long, oddly-cut hair that was braided in a few places and dyed, had stark silver-white roots.

  He had an arrow nocked at full draw on his bow, and he loosed it, just as Darian heard something whistle past his ear from somewhere behind him. He ducked to the side, instinctively. One of his tormentors had returned an attack to the bowman from the woods.

  The stranger uttered a brief exclamation as a fighting knife buried itself to the hilt in his arm. He dropped out of sight; vanishing, so far as Darian saw, and behind him Darian heard a harsh cry, a startled snort, and the sound of something heavy falling.

  He turned again to see that the second enemy fighter, who had still been mounted, had fallen off his horse, an arrow through one eye. The soldier lay on the ground twitching his hands. His head jerked once as he died, then the body was still. The horse shied, but moved only far enough to join the other dead fighter's horse. Both of them paused a moment, then started cropping the thin grass, as if there was nothing whatsoever the matter.

  What are you doing, standing in the open? Hide, stupid, hide!

  Darian scuttled into hiding, behind a boulder, in shock at the sudden reversal of his fortunes. Where had this strange man come from? Who was he? And why was he helping him? This was all happening much too fast-

  Never mind that, scolded that sensible voice in the back of his head. There were three, there's still at least one alive. Where there were three of those brutes, there are probably more. Do something!

  Prodded into action, Darian picked up his dropped bow- by some miracle it hadn't been broken in all of the tumbling and rolling-and quickly strung it. Opening his quiver and getting an arrow of his own nocked, he peered cautiously around the boulder.

  From where he was, he could see two more of the enemy coming cautiously on foot along the side of the rockpile. Where had the second one come from? He took a quick glance around the other side of his boulder toward the last place where he had seen the stranger, and making a quick estimate, figured that his rescuer could not see these two new foes from where he was now. Injured as he was, he might not be able to defend himself.