Owlknight v(dt-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  Black Bear, however, had been wary and careful; the travelers saw only their warriors, and never had been invited to the camp. Keisha had asked about their Shaman and Healing Woman, and had been greeted with blank stares and no information. Still, Black Bear had not been actively hostile - or else they hadn’t wanted to take on a formidable enigma like Kel - and had let them pass.

  Kel was up above now. Hashi and the dyheli doe Neta were somewhere ahead, acting as advance scouts. Neta was years past the age of breeding, but was just as agile as a doe half her age. More to the point, she was wary, clever, and experienced. The young stags were half afraid of her, since she had acted as a disciplinarian to each of them at some point in his life. Keisha was very glad to have her with them.

  As her mount Malcam began picking his way down the hillside, Keisha scanned the valley below. There were no thin streams of smoke from possible campfires, nothing moving through the small clearings among the trees, nor along the banks of the river.

  The air was so clear that everything stood out in sharp detail, and the scents were more like those of early spring than of early summer.

  “We’ll camp early, on this side of the river,” Hywel called back over his shoulder, then urged his mount on ahead to pick out a good campsite.

  Good! Steelmind and I can look for edible plants while a couple of the others hunt. Now that she’d gotten the hang of things, she’d be able to help with setting up camp, too.

  In next to no time, they were under the trees again, and the branches cut off all sight of those intimidating mountains looming over them. The dyheli continued to pick their way down the slope in single file, with Steelmind taking rearguard just behind Keisha. There was no discernible track, but the rocky slope didn’t support much underbrush, so the way was clear between the trees.

  It was a lot farther to the river than it had looked from the top of the hill; they were still making their way toward the river long past the time Keisha would have figured that they would have already been in camp.

  They heard the water long before they saw it; a deep rumble that alarmed Keisha, though she saw no signs of worry in any of the others. When they finally came out into the sunlight, just on the riverbank, she saw why.

  To her right, on the downstream side, a smooth and silky expanse of broad water passed into a much narrower and rockier channel. Instead of rolling placidly along, the river leaped over boulders the size of a house and roared along a series of descending cascades.

  Yet to her left, there could have been nothing more peaceful. The channel was three times the size of the one to the right; the water was placid and relatively slow-moving. It should be no great problem to ford or even swim it.

  Darian and his mount had already turned to the left; Shandi and Karles followed. There was no sign of Hywel, who must have gone ahead to a campsite upriver.

  He had, and it took several more furlongs of moving westward before they caught up with him. Hashi, Kel, and Neta were with him, acting as perimeter guards while he made some of the initial preparations for the camp. The rapids were no more than a far-off rumble, not disturbing, but the noise might cloak the sounds of anyone or anything approaching.

  Keisha dismounted, pulled off her dyheli’s saddle, and set to work. Her job was to make a fire pit while Darian and Hywel went in one direction to hunt, Kel took to the air to find prey for himself, Steelmind to the woods to find edible plants, and Wintersky took fishing tackle to the river. That left Keisha to take care of fire and water duties, and Shandi to get out all their camping gear and decide how she was going to prepare camp for this night’s terrain.

  By the time the hunters, fisher, and gatherer had returned with their bounty (or lack of it), Shandi and Keisha had the camp set up and the fire ready.

  By sundown, everyone had been fed except for the dyheli, who would graze on-and-off all night. Tonight they had eaten better than usual, since Wintersky had successfully hooked and netted a nice lot of fish. The ones that hadn’t been eaten yet were smoking over the fire, along with strips of meat from the small rabbitlike animals that Hywel and Darian had killed. That would give them tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch - that, and whatever else Steelmind gathered in the morning.

  Tonight, with one side guarded for them by the river, Shandi had strung the hammocks at ground level and downwind of the fire where the smoke would drive away blackflies and other biting insects. Keisha brought in a last armload of wood before darkness closed in completely, and she and Darian set themselves up for the first watch of the night.

  Hywel and Wintersky took the second, and Shandi and Steelmind the third. The arrangement suited everyone well except Wintersky’s bird, and that hardly mattered, since the handsome falcon was ideally suited for daylight scouting.

  While everyone else went straight to their hammocks, Keisha carefully turned the strips of meat and fish fillets to make sure they cured evenly, and Darian made the first of his many rounds of the periphery with Kuari. When he returned, Keisha made a space for him on the pile of leaves she was sitting on - leaves that would eventually end up on the fire to make more smoke.

  “Is there a ford, or are we going to have to swim tomorrow?” she asked, as he put his arm around her and held her close. It might not have been a very romantic question, but he didn’t seem to mind that.

  “There’s a ford - Ghost Cat used it coming here,” he told her. “Hywel doesn’t think the water is much higher than it was then. It is bound to be some higher, since they came through in summer, not spring, and there’s still snowmelt coming down off the mountains.”

  “I know about the snowmelt,” she replied, with a wry smile. “I gave up on the idea of a bath the moment I dipped out the first bucket of water. It feels cold enough to have been solid ice a candlemark before I dipped it out!”

  “That’s why we’re crossing in the morning - it’ll give us the full sun to dry out in once we’re across.” Darian looked toward the water, and Keisha knew he had planned every moment of the crossing and just beyond. “Then we spend a full day hunting and fishing.”

  “Oh?” She craned her neck around to look him in the face. “Why?”

  “Because when we reach the mountains, there won’t be much worth hunting,” he said. “At least, that’s what Hywel says. There’s supposed to be a big pass going right through the range, but Hywel never went through there; Ghost Cat’s traditional territory is in the mountains, but east of here on the other side of the river. We need to go west, though. Once we get across and into that pass we’ll be following Snow Fox directions.”

  “Hmm.” She put her head on his shoulder and tried to listen for noises beyond the distant thunder of water. “Well, we knew that was going to happen at some point.”

  He didn’t seem at all tense or worried, so she made up her mind not to worry either. How much farther do we have to go? she wondered. All that she knew for certain was that the Raven tribe was said to be living near or on a large body of water, but also in the mountains. I suppose it could be both, she decided, and got up to put more green wood and leaves on the fire.

  They spent the rest of their watch making rounds and tending to the smoked meat, then took to their hammocks when Wintersky and Hywel awoke to take over. And yet, in spite of that (or was it because of that?) she felt more relaxed and at ease with Darian than she ever had before.

  Their hammocks were strung within easy touching distance, though not so closely that they would bump into each other, and they twined the fingers of one hand together every night before they dozed off. That little ritual had come about entirely by accident, but they’d fallen asleep that way every night since.

  And she fell asleep tonight the same way, taking and giving comfort with that simple, wholly natural connection.

  “Well, this is deeper today,” Hywel said dubiously, eying the fording place. “We should have crossed yesterday; something must have happened up in the mountains. A storm, maybe, or massive snowmelt.”

  Hywel was right; t
he water was higher by a significant amount, and faster, too. It licked at the rocks just beneath his feet now; if he stepped down to the point where yesterday’s waterline had been, he’d be knee-deep in the torrent. “Too late now; let’s just swim and have done with it,” Darian replied with a shrug. “It’s not that wide; we’re in good shape. We can get across.”

  “No, but the current is swifter than yesterday,” Hywel pointed out. He peered upstream. “Look there. If we’re going to swim anyway, let’s pick where we want to come ashore, then go upstream from there and cross diagonally. That way we won’t have to fight the current as much.”

  Darian nodded, and sent Kuari up into the air ahead of them. The owl often got a better vantage from above than they had. Looking through Kuari’s eyes, he examined the riverbank on the other side. Kuari perched in a tree just above the ford, and looked down at the riverbank. Water swirled treacherously among rocks, creating turbulent eddies and vortices.

  “I don’t much like the look of the ford,” he said.

  “Now that the water’s high, there’s a nasty current right there at the bank, and a lot of rocks for hooves to get caught between. But - ” This time he asked Kuari to land right on the bank, as he spotted a much better candidate for a landing point. “Look where Kuari is - we’ve got a nice, shallow slope going up to the shore and no loose rocks - yesterday that was a stone shelf leading down to the water.”

  “There’s quite a drop-off at the end of that shelf, but that won’t matter since we’re swimming anyway.” Hywel considered what he could see of the bank from here. “All right; that’s probably the best we’re going to get. Let’s go upstream and see what we can find for a starting point.”

  They checked spot after spot; they had Kuari drop chips of wood into the river at various points to gauge the current. It took the better part of a candlemark to find what they were looking for, which was another shelf to allow them to walk into the river, but by midmorning everyone was ready to make the crossing.

  Half the dyheli would carry baggage only. The other half, and Karles, had handhold-straps fastened to either side of their saddles. Like it or not, the larger creatures were better equipped to make the crossing, and the humans would have to take advantage of that.

  Those carrying the baggage went over first, and Darian ran downstream as they were carried by the current, anxious to see them safely on the other side. He was just as anxious to see how their initial guesses panned out.

  Not well. He knew that as soon the dyheli were halfway across. They fought the current every bit of the way, necks stretched out, eyes fixed on the farther shore, legs pumping, nostrils flaring as they panted - and they were the strongest of the mounts. One by one, they clambered ashore, where they stood with heads hanging and sides heaving. They had barely made it to the assigned landing spot; if any of them had been any weaker, he could have gotten swept along to a point where there were no more places to climb out. And after that came the rapids, which were certainly much worse by now.

  Darian came back to the group on the shore, and looked from Steelmind to Hywel and back. “What do you think?” he asked them; Shandi had already disavowed any experience in these matters, as had Wintersky.

  “We can’t rely on the dyheli to help us; they’re going to have enough to do to get themselves across.” Steelmind spoke first, and Hywel nodded.

  “I think we can get across all right anyway. We’re all strong swimmers.” Hywel didn’t sound as certain as Darian would have liked, though.

  :I can help.:

  It was a mind-voice, but it wasn’t any of the dyheli, nor was it Hashi.

  As one, they all turned incredulously toward Karles, who bowed his head and pawed the ground. :I can stay downstream; if anyone begins losing ground to the river, I can come to help him.:

  Darian and Keisha, alone of all of them, knew how astonishing it was that Karles should begin talking to everyone. Darian decided not to make an issue of it; if Karles continued to speak to the rest of the group, all well and good. Maybe he had decided to take his cue from Neta and Hashi.

  “I can tow frrrom the airrr,” Kel pointed out. “I can have a rrrope rrready to drrrop to anyone who needsss help.”

  But that gave Darian an idea. “We can put up a catch-rope across the river at the crossing point; if the water carries any of us off, we can save ourselves with that. Karles and Kel can stand by in case that’s not enough. That’s three kinds of rescue, and that ought to be safeguards enough.”

  It would have to be enough; there was no one to help them here except the members of their own party. Three tries or a freezing, sure death in fast water that would batter them against the rocks, and still they were willing to see Darian through on his quest.

  That seemed the best plan; with Kel’s help, they strung a rope across the river from bank to bank. The unladen dyheli went over first, with Hashi paddling madly beside them. Then Karles, who had no difficulty getting across, unlike the dyheli. It occurred to Darian at that point that the Companion’s strength must be enormous; he already knew that Karles’ stamina was incredible, but his strength must have been incredibly greater than a horse for him to get across with such ease. Then, one by one, the humans crossed.

  Steelmind - oldest, tallest, and strongest - went first, and instead of using the rock shelf, he dove directly into the water a little farther upstream beyond the shelf. If he had trouble, they were going to have to rethink their plan.

  Like the dyheli, Steelmind labored every bit of the way, but did make landfall at the proper place. Without a pause, once he waved from the bank, Wintersky followed him from the same point that he had used. Meanwhile Steelmind gathered tinder, partly for a quick warming-fire on the other side, and partly so the activity would generate more body heat.

  The two girls went next, one at a time; Keisha, who had been swimming every day in the Vale lake, just barely made the landing spot. Shandi overshot and had to catch herself on the rope lest she go farther downstream. Steelmind and Karles both waded in to help her over the last bit.

  Hywel and Darian went in together; Hywel was not the swimmer that Darian was, and Darian wanted to pace him, just in case. Due to the life-debt, or perhaps friendship alone, Hywel did not want to be away from Darian.

  The river was unbelievably cold.

  Darian gasped as he hit the water, shocked by the temperature. He rose spluttering to the surface, and struck out for the shore, but the shock had driven most of the air from his lungs, and he had to fight to get another full breath. Darian realized that it was the life-sapping cold that they had not figured into their calculations. In no time he was numb and shivering uncontrollably; it was hard to get air as the muscles of his chest clenched from the cold.

  He was too busy watching out for Hywel, swimming and fighting for air to think; the swim was a nightmarish experience that required every fragment of his attention. His focus was split between Hywel thrashing along beside him and his own next breath, the next stroke of his arms, and kick of his legs.

  Then he was on the other side; Steelmind and Keisha hauled him out onto the sloping shelf of stone. Beside him, Shandi and Wintersky pulled out Hywel. They both staggered to the land, and dropped to the ground, shivering and coughing.

  But as soon as Darian could manage to think, despite gasping like a stunned fish, he seized the nearest ley-line and used the magic - unshielded - to create heat. Without the shielding, the spell created more heat. The dyheli crowded close, steam rising from their coats, and the humans relaxed and stopped shivering. Hashi moved out of the way and shook himself vigorously, then trotted back into the zone of warmth. The heat made an enormous difference; as it soaked into them, and they stopped shivering, it was easier to catch their breaths, easier to regain lost strength. Steelmind returned with an armful of driftwood and twigs, quirked a smile as he realized what they were doing, then dropped the bundle in place to join the group.

  It was while they were still drying off that Kuari hooted a warning f
rom somewhere out of sight. Darian’s head snapped up, and the dyheli snorted in alarm.

  :Men coming!: he told Darian. :With bows!:

  They all scrambled to their feet; Darian dismissed the spell and readied a trip-up, a variation on the first bit of magic he’d ever used in combat, to make people’s feet stick to the ground just long enough to trip them. With their backs to the river, they waited for the strangers to approach - weapons to hand, but not at the ready. Would they approach, or would they slip up to the newcomers to their land? And if they did, would it be with intent to examine, or to ambush?

  The warriors must have realized immediately that the strangers had been alerted to their presence, for they did not even try to approach unnoticed. They came openly, but very, very silently - by Northern standards.

  Not by Tayledras standards. Darian, Steelmind, and Wintersky heard them long before they appeared among the trees; the crinkle of dead leaves, and the sharp snap of a twig betrayed them. The dyheli snapped their ears forward at each sound until the Northerners emerged from the forest, then they parted to show Kelvren lying at his ease in their midst.