The moon was at its full and well up, so soft, silvery shafts of light pierced the canopy and illuminated patches of ground all around him. The night was anything but still; insects and frogs called or sang, and an occasional bird pierced the forest with its call, harsh or sweet. Other birds high overhead called complainingly as their sleep was disturbed, and bats flitted like bits of the darkness itself in and out of the shafts of moonlight, chasing the moths drawn to dance there.
Snowfire was also aware of two other minds linked with his own - the ever-present dignity of Hweel, and the unfamiliar exuberance of Kel.
:We’re waiting for you at the clearing,: Kel Sent back, and Snowfire sensed that he and Hweel were perched side by side in the concealing boughs of a great tree on the farther side. :There’s no sign of any trouble, or any guards.:
Hweel confirmed Kel’s observation without words, turning his head and peering through the darkness so that Snowfire could see for himself. It was very strange to look through the owl’s eyes; from Hweel’s point of view the place was as brightly-lit as daylight, although the colors were very faded. The bondbird’s eyes were so much keener than a human’s that Hweel had no trouble focusing on tiny details far below him on the ground. The barbarians had packed up their two dead and left no real traces of the fight behind, except for a bit of disturbed rock and scuffed earth.
Hweel’s keen sight and hearing alerted him to the smallest movements and faintest of sounds, even so small as a rat or a mouse would make, so if there had been anyone left as a sentry out here, Hweel would have spotted him without any trouble. So, the barbarians had not posted watchers out this far from the village. Did that mean they had simply looted it and left?
I don’t think so; there wasn‘t enough there to loot. I think they had some other purpose in coming there, and that Starfall is right about what that purpose is. They‘re here for power, and perhaps to establish a stronghold here on the border of Valdemar.
Motive was irrelevant right now, though; he was out here to learn facts, not speculate on motive. :Go farther in,: he told Hweel. :Go in until you’ve spotted a sentry, then come back.: Here was another advantage of flying an owl; sentries would neither hear nor see him, and that meant Hweel was never a target in night-stalks. That gave him a degree of security that those who flew other birds didn’t have.
Hweel took off obediently. Snowfire stopped Kel before he could follow. :Wait for Hweel to come back; I want to get as near as I safely can before I take to the trees. It might be easy for you two to flit about, but I’m going to have to work to get in as far as the first sentry.:
Hweel returned in fairly short order, and as Sifyra paced swiftly through the trees, Snowfire let the dyheli set their own path as he concentrated on what Hweel had seen.
He directed Hweel and Kel to move nearer to the village, and gave Sifyra the landmarks to look for just as they came to the edge of the rock-strewn clearing. It seemed to his impatient soul to take forever to reach the tree where Hweel and Kel waited, and he knew it seemed like twice that to them. They were ready to go, and Kel probably felt that they hardly needed him.
Well, that’s where those who are inexperienced differ from old hands. I’m Kel’s backup, whether or not he thinks he needs one.
He pulled out his climbing staff as Sifyra approached the giant trunk, and swung the bark-hook at the body of the trunk with his left hand as Sifyra actually came alongside. The hook bit solidly into the bark of the trunk, and he pulled himself up and off Sifyra’s back and onto the rough bark of the tree with his one good arm. As his feet cleared Sifyra’s back, he sank his right palm-cleat into the bark and used the rough soles of his climbing boots to further brace himself in place. As soon as he had a palm grip and secure footing, he swung the bark-hook up for his next step, and worked his way up the trunk like a tree-hare, and nearly as fast. Because he had chosen a tree with rough bark, he was able to keep most of his weight on his legs rather than his arms, but by the time he got to where the others were perched, his hair was damp with sweat and his muscles burning with fatigue.
Kel and Hweel were a pair of oddly-shaped shadows crouched together amid the warm semidarkness here in the boughs. The other two were not too impatient when he reached their bough, a branch as broad as a highway and as easy to walk on. By that time, Sifyra and the mares had found a patch of grass and were pretending to graze on it, with one wary eye out for hunters. “Take me to where the first sentry is, and I’ll stop there,” he told the other two. “Then you can go on; if something goes wrong for you and you can’t fly, I can take out the sentry before he knows there’s anything going on, and leave a hole in the line.”
Kel nodded. “That isss a good plan,” he acknowledged, with a little surprise in his voice. “I had not thought of having to passs ssssentrrries’ss on the grrrround.” Hweel just roused his feathers, ready to be off. This time Kel dropped off the bough first, but Hweel, being smaller and more maneuverable among the branches, was leading the gryphon before the latter had taken more than two wingstrokes.
Hweel was actually guiding his bondmate as much as the gryphon. Now Snowfire followed them by “walking the tree-road,” balancing along the branches, and moving from tree to tree by following Hweel to the intersections of branches and jumping from one to the next with the aid of either his grappling hook and rope, or his climbing staff. It was easy enough to follow the boughs, and when he needed a better look at a crossing, he examined it through Hweel’s eyes. This, in many ways, was the part of his duties that Snowfire lived for. There was something about doing all this in near-darkness, with the scent of bark and leaves all about him, the sounds of insects and frogs far below, that made all of his senses come alive. He felt as if he could see with his skin, and as he concentrated on the placement of each footstep, it seemed as if he and the forest were a single living entity.
He had been doing this since he was old enough to walk, as had most Tayledras, and he didn’t even think about the risks anymore, though occasionally Kel would pause and perch to watch him, the gryphon’s mind fairly radiating pleasure and surprise. This was just something Tayledras did, and it was largely how they were able to travel undetected through the forest. It was hard work, certainly, and required a great deal of planning and concentration, more so since he had only one “good” arm, but he was never afraid, any more than he was when walking on the ground. At this level in the canopy, branches tended to intersect when they were about as big around as his waist; they were still broad and easy to walk on, with very little sway. Higher up - well, things would have been more of a challenge.
He was pleased that he detected the movement of a sentry on the ground below only a little later than Hweel did; he slowed at that moment, and crept forward, making no noise at all, until he reached the trunk of the tree he was in. Then he settled down with his back to the trunk to wait, concealed from detection from below by the bulk of the branch.
Not that any barbarian would think to watch the tree canopy, even if he heard a noise above him.
Now Hweel and Kel went on; as soon as Snowfire was settled in place, he closed his eyes and opened his senses to the owl, concentrating most of his attention on what the bondbird heard and saw.
For a little while, that consisted mostly of branches going past, with occasional backward glimpses to make certain Kel was following. But then, the growth up ahead vanished, and Hweel swooped up to land on a branch overhanging open fields. A moment later, Kel landed beside him, and the two of them looked down at the village of Errold’s Grove.
There seemed to be very little damage; only a single house, a couple of barns, and a handful of sheds were burned, although those had been allowed to burn to the ground and there was nothing left of them but piles of blackened rubble with a timber or two sticking out of the ashes. The bridge, amazingly enough, was still there - at a single place in the middle, the timbers of the floor had been replaced with a patch of newer wood, obvious because it shone whitely in the moonlight. Evidently the f
ire that Justyn had called had been put out before the bridge suffered much permanent damage. There was no other sign of conflict.
Hweel could not smell the remnants of smoke from the burned-out buildings, for owls had no sense of smell, but he could taste it in the back of his throat, and he sneezed as it irritated his nostrils. Snowfire felt his own nose itch in sympathy.
There were a lot of horses in makeshift enclosures at one side of the town. The houses were dark, not a single light showing anywhere, and from the chimneys, a little smoke trailed out, showing that the fires were banked until morning. There were no tents, no sleeping forms in bedrolls out in the open. However, there were more of those makeshift enclosures everywhere, and they were full of livestock. Evidently the barbarians were all sleeping in houses, barns, and sheds, displacing the animals into the open. Obviously they didn’t care if the livestock broke loose or strayed during the night, probably because those animals were all destined for the cookpot sooner or later. To the conquerers of Errold’s Grove, those animals represented a resource for the present, not the future.
The house nearest them looked as if it might have been Justyn’s cottage. Unlike the rest, it had no cottage-garden, and it seemed to match what Darian had told them about the place.
:There’s something odd over there - : Kel swooped ahead of Hweel, intent on getting a closer look at whatever it was that he’d spotted.
That was when the two - things - crawled out from an airspace beneath the very house at the edge of the village that Snowfire had been examining through Hweel’s eyes.
:Wyrsa!: Snowfire warned Kel - but they weren’t wyrsa, or not exactly. They had a similar look to them - as if someone had crossed a dog with a serpent, getting something with a hound-shaped body, scaled skin, with the head a melding of viper and canine with sulfur-yellow eyes and fangs. But the wyrsa Snowfire knew had the look of emaciated greyhounds, whereas these two -
Well, the big one was the size of a pony and had the blocky, muscular look of a mastiff, and the little one was the size and general configuration of a terrier. Whatever they were, they didn’t match the wyrsa that Snowfire was familiar with.
Furthermore, they seemed to know exactly where Kel was.
The little one started to make a kind of high-pitched keening sound as it followed Kel’s flight, eyes gazing intently. It trotted after the gryphon, the bigger creature trailing behind, the smaller continuing to emit the whining keen. With every passing moment the sound grew louder, and it would not be too long before the creature’s masters heard it and came to see what the matter was.
Kel looked down at the two creatures with some alarm, and ducked into the forest canopy to try and lose them. :If I hide from them, they‘II probably lose interest in me and go away,: he told Snowfire, coming to a soft landing on a massive branch screened from view from below by foliage. Hweel swerved to follow them, coming down from above Kel’s perch. :They can’t possibly smell me, the wind’s not in their favor, it’s in mine. Can wyrsa follow a scent?:
Snowfire watched them trotting along, with the little one still making that annoying, whiny noise. :Evidently no one told them that they’re not supposed to be able to find you,: he suggested, as the two creatures broke into a lope and wound up directly beneath Kel, looking up at him. :And yes, wyrsa can follow a scent trail very well indeed.:
Kel suddenly slammed his shields up, locking Snowfire out of his mind with no warning whatsoever, and flung himself off the branch in a steep dive.
Snowfire slipped quickly into Hweel’s head, acutely aware of how helpless he was to stop the gryphon - and he didn’t even know what Kel planned to do!
Assuming he even had a plan -
Through Hweel’s eyes, he saw the gryphon burst through the foliage at an angle so steep it looked as if Kel was falling. It took the two creatures below him completely by surprise, too - they both froze where they were for an instant, and that was an instant too long.
At the last possible second, the little one broke and ran, leaving the bigger one to stand its ground. That was the worst thing it could have done; it gave Kel the chance for a tail-chase, and the gryphon snapped open his wings so abruptly that Snowfire winced, knowing how much the move would hurt. Kel had made the classic aerial maneuver of trading height for speed; fast as the little monster was (and it was greyhound-quick), Kel was faster.
He hit it with outstretched talons and bound to it, bringing it to the ground and pulling it to his beak; before it could turn its own teeth or claws on him, Kel had snapped its neck, and just to make sure it was dead, gave it a doglike shake.
By now the bigger creature was charging Kel from behind, but this time Snowfire could do something; he had already directed Hweel to attack the bigger creature’s head and eyes. Even if those scales armored it, the eyes would still be vulnerable, and it would stop to protect them.
Hweel went into a dive of his own, intending to make a raking pass from behind. He hit the creature’s head just as it had covered about half the distance between the tree and Kel, Hweel’s talons scraped across the scales without penetrating, but the silent and unexpected attack from behind disoriented the creature and it stopped, whirling, to face whatever had struck it.
But of course, Hweel was already out of reach, and his attack had given Kel a chance to recover. The gryphon launched into the air, dangling the body of the smaller creature from his foreclaws, pumping his wings laboriously for a few moments, then going into a relatively shallow glide beneath the branches.
The larger creature snarled with rage, and followed; Hweel followed it, flying just above the lower branches.
Kel glanced back over his shoulder to make sure the monster was still following him. When it began to lag a little, he dropped lower and slowed a bit, dangling the body of the little creature tauntingly just out of reach. That seemed to drive the big one insane with fury, and it would redouble its efforts to reach him.
Now Kel opened his shields just a little, and Snowfire seized the advantage. :Just what do you think you’re doing?: he demanded, trying not to project the thought with the edge of incipient hysteria that he certainly felt.
:Leading the Big Dog away so I can kill it quietly,: Kel replied, sounding amazingly cool.
:I don’t suppose anyone told you that wyrsa have poisonous fangs and claws, did they?: he asked, just before Kel slammed his shields shut again, locking him out. He tried not to curse with frustration.
At least I got the warning in, he consoled himself, and continued to watch through Hweel’s eyes. He figured that Kel would repeat the same dive and tail chase he’d used to kill the “Little Dog”; he didn’t expect what Kel actually did, and neither did the “Big Dog.”
Kel suddenly slowed and went for height again, but at the top of his upward-reaching arc, he flung the body of the “Little Dog” at the “Big Dog” with all of his strength.
Snowfire had forgotten that the structure of the gryphon’s forelegs actually allowed him to throw things if he chose, and certainly the “Big Dog” hadn’t anticipated any such thing. The carcass hit the larger animal dead-on, and sent it tumbling end-over-end, and then Kel went into a dive.
If he’d stayed on the ground to meet it, the fight would have been equal, with Kel having the advantage of size, but the “Big Dog” having the advantage of speed and poison. But Kel had no intention of getting within reach of those fangs and claws; he made dive after raking dive, pounding the thing with fisted talons that sent its head into the forest floor, and raking it with open talons with enough speed behind him to penetrate even the tough scales that protected it.
Dive after dive he made, choosing to rake or strike based on what the monster itself was doing and how well it had recovered from the previous hit. Snowfire held his breath and even the normally stoic Hweel was excited, gripping the bough he had chosen with enough power to drive the talons through the bark and deep into the wood.
It began to seem as if the thing was indestructible; it had taken a dozen blows t
hat would have shattered the skull of a lesser creature, and as many raking strikes that left furrows along its head and back. Wyrsa were known to be tough, but this monster was tougher than any wyrsa that Snowfire had ever fought. Now Snowfire saw the wisdom of leading it away; had this combat taken place anywhere near the village, Kel would have had an unwelcome audience in very short order.
What’s he doing? Snowfire wondered, fretting. It was obvious to him that Kel had a plan, but what was it? Surely the gryphon could see for himself that his worst blows just weren’t having the effect he wanted!
In fact, the monster had worked itself into the partial shelter of a bush, and in a moment, Kel wouldn’t be able to reach it at all.
Abruptly Kel did a wingover and another steep dive, heading deliberately into the bush! Snowfire flung out a hand and stifled a cry of dismay.
Kel crashed into the bush - and brought it down on top of the creature, pinning it completely to the ground with so many branches that it was unable to move at all!
Kel stood up, still atop the bush, holding it and the creature pinned beneath it to the ground. Then, in a manner that was almost insulting, it was so casual, he began breaking twigs and branches with his beak until he exposed the nape of the creature’s neck. He contemplated it for a moment, as if choosing exactly the right place. Then his head darted forward savagely, and he bit through scales, hide, and ultimately, spine, sawing with his beak until the spine was completely severed.
He stood atop the beast still, until its final convulsions were over. It took a very long time.
Finally the body went flaccid, and Kel cautiously opened his shields again.
:I’m sorry,: he said apologetically, but behind the veneer of apology was a seething cauldron of satisfied bloodlust, the euphoria of conquest, the thrill of victory. :There is an old lesson of Tadrith Wyrsabane‘s first combat with a litter of Changed wyrsa, that could sense and eat magic. When these followed me, I suspected that they were following the “scent” of magic, and I didn‘t want to give them a chance to get any farther than just the scent.:
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