Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  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—"

  "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—half-conscious 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 rrrrremember—"

  "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 nonspecific, 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 back-blast. 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 awa
y 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 were 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.

  Vree, for his part, hopped down to a rock that stood just shoulder-height to the youngsters; he spread his wings and the little ones huddled up to the rock, one on either side, trying to cower under his wings, the tone of their cries changing from frantic to merely distressed. Vree replied to them with reassuring chirps of his own, "protecting" them with his wings.

  It would have been funny, if the little ones hadn't been in such distress.

  Whatever the cause of their fear, it could be dealt with later, once Treyvan and Hydona were settled into their nest, and the hertasi Healer brought to help them.

  He left Treyvan leaning up against the stones with Vree and the little ones, while he helped Hydona into the nest-area to clean her wing wound. The bolt had passed completely through the wing, leaving a ragged, round hole. It needed a Healer; there was no way for him to bandage it properly, and it continued to ooze blood, despite the primitive pressure-bandage he put on it. She clamped her beak shut and obviously tried not to complain, but moaned softly despite her best efforts as he bound the cloth in place. Darkwind found himself sweating and apologized clumsily for her pain. He returned to help Treyvan into the nest, keeping the little ones back until the still-unsteady gryphon had settled himself.

  "I'm going to get the Healer," he said. "Do you want me to leave Vree with you?"

  "Yesss," Treyvan sighed, as the forestgyre herded the youngsters in with all the skill of an expert nursemaid. "If it would not leave you in danger. He issss much help. And after thisss," he concluded, with a hint of his old sense of humor, "I may even give him my cressst featherssss."

  One thing at a time, he told himself. First the gryphons, then the little ones—and then I find out who and why—and what this attack on them really means.

  One thing is certain. The quiet we've been enjoying was just a momentary lull. We're in for more and worse trouble; I can feel it.

  He had felt trouble ahead, like the ache before a storm in once-broken bones. Like a storm, that trouble would strike—and with no warning where or when. He little thought that this time the fury would strike straight at his heart.

  He gave Nera and the rest of the hertasi a brief explanation of what had happened, while Nyara listened unobtrusively in the background. The Healer, Gesta, left halfway through without waiting for permission—so like the Healers of the Tayledras that Darkwind had to smile. No one gave them orders either, and they were not much inclined to wait for permission when they thought their services were needed. Vree came winging in over the swamp just after he answered the last of the lizard people's questions—mostly concerned with their own safety, and what, if anything, they could do to safeguard it.

  With Vree back, there was no reason to postpone his regular patrol—and every reason to complete it. There might be traces of those invaders—they might even still be within Tayledras territory, though Darkwind doubted it. In the past, those who had invaded to strike at the Hawkbrothers generally moved in, made whatever action they had come to take, and moved out again.

  And there was still no telling if this was a danger to the Tayledras, or simply the foolishness of a trophy-hunter.

  But when in doubt—assume the worst. The Hawkbrothers stayed alive by that rule, and it had always been the precept Darkwind operated on. He went over his ground with eyes sharpened by anxiety, looking for traces of the interlopers.

  He found only vague tracks, places where something had passed through, but the ground was too dry to hold marks, and it was impossible to tell what had made those traces. It could have been the marksman and his (presumed) companion; a thread caught on a thorn showed it was not simply an animal, despite the trace of lynx hair below it.

  At sunset he completed the last of his circuits, being replaced by Starsong, Wintermoon's current lover. He thought she looked at him strangely when she passed him—a pitying glance as she vanished into the underbrush. He puzzled over that odd expression as he headed back toward his ekele, thinking only of changing, getting food for himself and Vree, and going back to the gryphons.

  But as he hurried up the path, Vree suddenly swooped down in front of him, crying a warning. He froze, one hand on his dagger, as a man-shaped shadow separated itself from the rest of the shadows beneath the trees.

  Then Vree swerved away, his cry changing from warning to welcome, as a huge, cloud-white owl rose on silent wings to meet him. Darkwind's hand fell from the hilt of his dagger, as he recognized Wintermoon's bird K'Tathi.

  "Brother—" he called softly. "What brings you out here? I thought you were on hunt-duty for a while."

  Wintermoon said nothing; only came forward, slowly, worriedly searching Darkwind's face with his eyes. "Then—you have not heard?"

  Darkwind shook his head, alarmed by his brother's expression, and his words. "Heard? No—nothing from the Vale, anyway. Why? What—"

  Wintermoon clasped Darkwind in his arms, in a rare display of emotion and affection. "Little brother—oh, little brother, I wish it were not so... I grieve for you, sheyna. Dawnfire... is dead."

  He searched his brother's face... and saw only regret. Darkwind was prepared for almost anything but that. He stood within the protection of his older brother's arms, and tried to make sense of what he had just heard.

  "Dawnfire? But—this was her rest day! She wasn't even going to leave her ekele, she told me so! Surely you must be mistaken."

  "No," Wintermoon said, his voice soft with seldom-heard compassion. "No, there is no mistake. She was found in her ekele—"

  Then it hit him, with all the force of a blow to the gut.

  "No!" he shouted, pulling away and staring at Wintermoon wildly. "No! It can't be! I don't believe you!"

  But Wintermoon's pitying expression—exactly like Starsong's—told him the truth that he did not want to hear.

  He was too well-trained and disciplined to break down—and too overcome with shock to move. His knees trembled, and threatened to give way beneath hi
m. Wintermoon took his shoulders and gently steered him over to a fallen tree at the side of the trail. He urged Darkwind to sit as Vree dove in under the tree branches and landed, making soft whistling noises in the back of his throat.

  Darkwind felt blindly behind his back and got himself down on the log before his legs collapsed. "What—happened?" he asked hoarsely, his throat choked, his eyes burning. He blinked, and two silent tears scorched down his cheeks.

  "No one knows," Wintermoon replied quietly. "Thundersnow came to see if she wanted to go hunting for game birds, and found her this afternoon. She was—" he hesitated. "Little brother, did she full-bond with her bird often?"

  "Sometimes," Darkwind croaked, leaning on his left side. He stared out at nothing, more tears following the first. "She—could not full-bond without trance, but Kyrr was so bright, she didn't need full trance often."

  How can she be dead? Who could have touched her in her own home?

  His fists knotted, and his stomach. More tears welled up and flowed unnoticed down his face.

  "Little brother, it appeared that she was in full trance; that at least is how Thundersnow found her. There were no signs of violence or sickness upon her." Wintermoon paused again. "I would say... she must have undergone full-bond with her bird, and that some ill befell the two of them." He paused. "She was not known for caution. It may be that she sent Kyrr into the Outlands, and met something she could not escape from." He rested his hand on Darkwind's shoulder. "I am very sorry, little brother. I—am not known for words. But if I can help you—"

  Darkwind seized the comfort he had thrust away earlier, and clasped Wintermoon to him, sobbing silently into his older brother's shoulder. Wintermoon simply held him, in an embrace of comfort and protection, while Vree whistled mourning beside them.

  Nyara twisted on the sleeping mat in her little cave, a ball of misery and confusion. When Darkwind came to the hertasi with his story of attack on the gryphons, she had been as confused and alarmed as any of them. But now she'd had some time to think about what he had said—and to think back to that last confrontation with her father.