Victory of the Hawk

by Angela Highland

  Rab grimaced—and then, surprising Faanshi greatly, he reached over and gave her an awkward one-armed hug. Before she could think to reciprocate, he was already pulling away, his face set and brisk, and turning to catch up with the other armed elves and humans heading out of the caverns. “Well, come on then, Rook, don’t make me fight off all the Hawks without you,” he called back over his shoulder as he went.

  Julian by contrast didn’t hug her at all, though his hands came back to her shoulders, and his gaze lingered upon her, fierce and dark and blue. His fingers squeezed, a single time, in unspoken invitation. Faanshi threw her arms around him, holding him for as long as she dared.

  But at last he pulled away, just long enough to brush a kiss across her brow. “I’ll be back,” he said. Then he too was hurrying off, overtaking Rab in a few quick steps.

  Faanshi watched them go, then flashed a look to where Ganniwer stood before her son. With her mouth skewed into a grim line, the baroness was pulling back on the string of a bow someone had given her. It must have met with her approval, for she nodded and took up the quiver of arrows at her feet. Celoren and Kestar fell into step with her as she strode off in Julian and Rab’s wake—but even as they went, Kestar looked back toward Faanshi.

  She had but a moment to meet his eyes, and that was enough to glimpse what sparked in his gaze. Fear, yes. Yet there was also sympathy, and what she knew to be the steady, quiet resolve he could bring to any challenge that rose up before him. The sight of it heartened her.

  “I hope, young Faanshi, that you’ll do as the akreshi Rook has counseled you and keep shelter within these caverns. Blood doesn’t belong on a healer’s hands.”

  This time the voice beside her was in the language of Tantiulo, and that too was heartening. Faanshi turned to the old Tantiu soldier Semai el-Numair Behzad, former captain of the guard of Lomhannor Hall, and the last of the human companions who’d come to Dolmerrath because of her. “Eshallavan, akreshi, and do not worry,” she answered in the same tongue as she bowed to him over her hands. “A great part of me wants to join those who go out to fight for Dolmerrath. But a greater part knows that if I did, my shields would crumble like sand in the face of such death and pain. I must do something to help, though.”

  Like Julian, Semai made a stark contrast to most of Dolmerrath’s inhabitants. He was the only full-blooded man of Tantiulo among them, and he strictly adhered to Tantiu ways in his dress. He kept his head and most of his face swathed at all times in his slate-blue korfi. Only his dark eyes were visible above the scarf, and thus far, Faanshi had seen him face everything and everyone in his path with the same stoic, guarded gaze. “The Lady of Time calls us all to battle, each according to our strengths. How will you answer Her?”

  It was as if a silk-clad mountain had issued her a challenge in a voice of stone, and Faanshi took a moment to let the deep rumbling words wash through her, so that she could think it through.

  What would happen if she stepped outside to join the others?

  “If I go out to the fighting,” she said softly, “my magic will rise. It is strong, and I give Djashtet thanks for its strength, but I do not yet have the skill to deny it what it wants when it breaks free. And in truth, I’m not sure I should.”

  “If the Lady of Time has given you so strong a gift,” he countered, “then to deny healing to any, simply because of their creeds or stations, would break the ridah of compassion.”

  “Wisdom is also a ridah, akreshi. Those who come here now seek to destroy Kestar, Alarrah, Kirinil and all of the people who shelter here. I can’t believe that they will do as Kestar did and allow me to remain free if I heal any of them, or that Almighty Djashtet would call upon me to make myself a target. If I am struck down, I will not be able to help anyone.”

  “Well said.” The approval in Semai’s voice hinted at a smile behind his korfi. “Keep that foremost in your heart and Djashtet will smile upon you.”

  “I pray She smiles upon us all, akreshi.”

  Semai bowed to her and she to him, then the old warrior turned to follow the others streaming out of the cavern. Several of the elves were beginning to sing, far too quickly for Faanshi to follow. The ethereal harmony didn’t rattle the stone of the caverns like the thunder of the great horn, yet it echoed through the air and caught at her ear and her blood. She didn’t know the words, for she’d barely begun to learn the words of her sister’s language. From rhythm and pitch alone, she could guess that they sang a song of war.

  She wanted to go out with them, to sing with them. But Djashtet had given her gifts other than fighting, and she had other ways to help Dolmerrath’s defenders as well, for she knew now that healing wasn’t all that her power could do. At Arlitham Abbey she’d been the only thing standing between her friends and the Anreulag’s searing blue-white fire. She’d shielded them, just as Kirinil shielded all of Dolmerrath with his Wards.

  Faanshi drew in a breath, squared her shoulders, and began to search the cavern for her teacher.

  Chapter Nine

  Outside Dolmerrath, Kilmerry Province, Jeuchar 10, AC 1876

  It was bad enough that Jekke Yerredes had lost Bron Wulsten, and worse that the magic of the elven heretics had reduced her to a shuddering wreck, scarcely able to wield her sword and gun or to ride her horse. Fleeing back to Shalridan was no option; the city had already turned against the Order. Nor could she run to Marriham, for the town of her birth had joined the growing rebellion, and her own siblings had been among the militia who’d chased off Captain Amarsaed’s patrol there.

  She was in disgrace, banished to the very back of their charge rather than at the captain’s side where she belonged. So there was no one behind her to see her flinch when the call of the horns rose up in the woods ahead of them, echoing from all directions, until it seemed that the very trees sounded an alarm against them all.

  Then came the greatest horn of all, with a voice like the bellowing roar of an angry mountain, and her scream of terror drowned beneath the battle cry her brothers and sisters of the Hawk hurled back in reply. Jekke held on for dear life to the reins in her one hand and her gun in the other, and prayed to any god who would listen that she could still fight beside her fellow Knights—that they’d take her howling as part of their own zeal to carry out the will of the gods.

  But if the Anreulag had turned against them, she could see no fate before them but blood and fire. The Good Folk of the North knew they were coming. The forest, the earth and the air all sang of their fury.

  Jekke rode, and as her amulet began to blaze, braced herself for the wave of bone-deep terror to surge over them all.

  When the magic struck, the force of her panicked weeping almost blinded her. Her thoughts wheeled in desperation, searching for something, anything on which she could anchor herself for strength. Just before she tumbled from her horse, she found it. Saint Merrodrie, the very first of the Order of the Hawk, would not have crumbled in the face of elven magic. Merrodrie the Holy, Merrodrie the Far-seeing, would have ridden through blood and fire and come out again on the other side.

  You are no Saint Merrodrie. You’re not worthy to ride in the Order of the Hawk. You let Bron die and you’ll die with him!

  She couldn’t argue with the terror, for she didn’t have the strength. Somehow, still, Jekke found it in her to lift her head and her voice in song.

  Her voice wasn’t strong—if anything, it cracked harshly on the first several notes, and she shrieked more than sang half the words. But it was enough to get the attention of the riders nearest to her, and soon they too joined in on the song she brandished like a blade before her to strike back against the demons howling unworthy and alone inside her.

  The demons might have had a point about her unworthiness—she had indeed, after all, fled and let Bron die at elven hands. But she could not, would not, let his death be meaningless. In Bron’s name and
in his honor, she would sing.

  Hers was not the only panic-stricken face, or the only voice breaking as they rode headlong into whatever sorcery the elves had used to fill the woods with fear. But as their voices joined together, more and more of the riders around her began to sit taller in their saddles. Soon the singing gained strength and purpose and power. Fear still cut into the expressions of her fellow Hawks, but resolve rose up against it. Every member of the Order of the Hawk knew “Merrodrie’s Lament,” from the newest cadet to the oldest captain. Soon enough even Captain Amarsaed’s bass joined in at the front of their line, grounding the growing harmony.

  At the sound of his voice, their singing redoubled into the prayers of a choir of war.

  For a few long moments the air around them all grew thick and close, while Jekke’s amulet burned so hot against her chest that she feared it would set her uniform alight. But their singing held, and all at once, they broke through the spell woven through the woods. The air cleared, showing her a stretch of woods little different than what they’d just ridden through—save that now she could see the trees thinning, giving her glimpses of jagged sandstone cliffs and the distant blue expanse of the sea. A salt-laden breeze struck her face. Jekke welcomed it, for it cleared her thoughts along with the air. She sang more loudly, and her compatriots sang with her.

  Another song entirely rose up to answer them, sung by more fluid voices than any man or woman among them could produce, and the earth beneath them shook with the thunder of approaching horses.

  “They come!” Captain Amarsaed roared. “In the name of the Father, Mother, Son and Daughter, I bid you, Knights of the Hawk, to meet them!”

  From her vantage point at the back of the charge, Jekke couldn’t see where the rocky ground led or what paths marked the way from the ridge they’d found down to the ocean. For all she knew, the elven riders might have ridden their horses straight up the cliffs from below—for they thundered as if out of nowhere into her line of sight, lean and lithe, with two dozen archers and their hail of arrows in the lead. Riding among them was a copper-haired she-elf with eyes like molten gold, whose arrows burst into flame as she shot them. An elf who, to Jekke, looked abruptly and terrifyingly familiar.

  She was one of the ones who killed Bron.

  This time the howl that tore out of Jekke Yerredes was a howl of rage, and she cast aside all thoughts of hymns to Saint Merrodrie as she drew forth her gun to let it sing in her stead, a lethal paean of powder and steel.

  Dolmerrath, Kilmerry Province, Jeuchar 10, AC 1876

  Kirinil started and swore in an outburst of Elvish, his eyes unseeing, and Alarrah had to catch and steady him before he could fall out of his chair. “Astàllemerron!” she cried, before flashing a glance at Faanshi and shifting to Adalonic. “What did you see?”

  Faanshi hadn’t had to work to find Kirinil—Gerren had ordered her to his brother’s quarters, even as he himself rode out with Dolmerrath’s scouts. She’d found Alarrah on the way, and her sister had briskly informed her that their task would be to sustain Kirinil while he in turn strengthened the Wards. Faanshi stood on Kirinil’s other side now, letting him grip her arm for support as he was Alarrah’s, and stared unhappily at his strained, ashen features. She hadn’t needed to understand what her teacher had just cried out. Even if the look on his face hadn’t been warning enough on its own, her magic, roused in response to his, sensed the urgency shooting through his frame. His heart pounded. His brow gleamed with sweat. And his voice, normally a mellifluous tenor, had roughened to a hoarse croak.

  “They’re coming over the Wards, aren’t they?” she asked him, and her heart sank as Kirinil gave her an unsteady nod.

  “I’ve never felt so many humans trying to cross the Wards at once,” he rasped. “Can’t tell what they’re doing, not from here. I can only tell they’re coming.”

  “Then we’ve got to strengthen the Wards. Can Faanshi and I help?” Alarrah said.

  Once more Kirinil nodded, slamming his eyes shut. “Got to shift them so the boats can get out.”

  The boats with most of Dolmerrath’s humans on them. The old. The young. And the elves who can’t fight. Without her gift of healing and shielding, Faanshi might have been among them—but then, if Djashtet hadn’t granted her those gifts, she would still have been in Lomhannor Hall as the Duke of Shalridan’s slave. Nor could she spare any worry for how those who sailed the vessels would fare with neither of Dolmerrath’s healers to sustain them. Those she knew the best and loved the most were all fighting to keep the stronghold free, and she could do nothing less.

  Faanshi clenched her teeth, prayed for the Lady of Time to bless the steadiness of her hands, and held on to Kirinil’s arm as his power surged. It felt terrifyingly familiar. She’d crossed the Wards before, and she’d lashed out in blind panic with her own power when the elf’s older and far more skilled magic had overwhelmed her human blood.

  That same protective magic scalded her senses now, enough that she nearly screamed with the force of it, only to dimly note Alarrah urgently calling for her to shield. Kirinil’s power roiled for a wild moment, and he too called out to her. But it was too late now for her to flee, no matter what threat the full strength of her teacher’s magic might pose to her.

  I can do this.

  Faanshi remembered pulling Julian and Kestar to her in Arlitham Abbey, just before the fire of the Anreulag struck—and with that, the hearth she’d constructed in the center of her mind, the place she’d learned to make the seat of her magic, erupted with sunlit radiance across her thoughts. It banished even the possibility of pain, for with her power roaring at its greatest height, she could do whatever the Lady of Time might command of her.

  “Yes, that! Do that, Faanshi, share that shield with Kirinil and let him guide its strength. Do you have it, valann?”

  Not the voice of Djashtet, but then, the voice of Alarrah was almost as bracing to Faanshi’s spirit. And perhaps to Kirinil’s as well, for he let out a rough laugh of triumph. He didn’t change how he sat in the chair, or the grip of either of his hands on their arms. All at once, though, the churn of his power steadied and wrapped around Faanshi’s, clasping it, just as his fingers held her arm.

  “I’ve got you, Faanshi,” Kirinil said, and despite its raggedness, his tone warmed with wonder. “Mother of Stars, what a shielder you’re going to be! Let’s just get through this so I can train you. Hang onto my power now.”

  Praise was still a new concept to Faanshi, strange and marvelous enough to make her blush, though now it was tempered with hope. Guide us, Djashtet! “You have to train me to make me a shielder,” she said, striving to sound brave through the shaking in her voice. “So don’t make us have to heal you first.”

  Her teacher laughed again, a slurred and unfocused little chuckle. Then she forgot to breathe, for her awareness abruptly widened—past herself, past Kirinil and Alarrah, past the walls of the quiet chamber where they’d taken refuge to work their magic. All at once she could perceive the shape and path of those walls and where they led, out through the corridors and caverns, and finally to the open air. Everywhere her awareness touched was home, limned in silver by Kirinil’s passing. Faanshi followed the flow of Kirinil’s power in every direction it took, and for all that his body remained hunched and motionless before her in the chair, she was certain she felt his spirit dancing.

  Only in the boat cavern, perceptible at Faanshi’s distance only as an expanse of air and cool salt water, did Kirinil draw back his veil of silver rather than throwing it farther. The boats can leave now, she thought. Djashtet, keep them safe.

  Then her teacher’s power spun in the opposite direction, back the way it had come and then farther still. Past the central gathering hall and its trees of living wood and sculpted stone, past the stable cavern, and out to where sunlight shone down on trees and cliffs and graveled earth, where Faanshi had never consci
ously ventured. This was the land inside the bounds of the Wards. Borne along by Kirinil’s awareness, she sensed the terrain by the shape of the Wards he’d woven on it. Every branch and rock and blade of grass caused a ripple in the shielding magic—and so did every creature it touched. Birds. Beasts. And, as each one kindled a spark at the edge of Faanshi’s thoughts until she seemed to float in the heart of a sea of stars, the minds of humans and elves.

  Deep within Dolmerrath, Faanshi couldn’t tell them apart at first, not until Kirinil poured greater power into the layers of older shielding on the land. Only then did she feel the Wards swirling in irresistible currents toward certain ones of those distant minds. The sea of stars became a thunderstorm, and each gathering pulse of the magic a lightning bolt.

  Even as she sent her own magic in an unstinting flood into her teacher’s form, Faanshi realized that the lightning bolts of the Wards would strike friend as well as foe.

  Rab. Semai. Lady Ganniwer. Celoren. Kestar. Julian.

  They wouldn’t be able to fight for Dolmerrath if the Wards drove them away.

  She had no time to beg Alarrah or Kirinil for guidance, and no thought to spare for speech besides. Nor, if the power the two elves were raising was any sign, could they spare an instant to speak to her. There was but one option before her, and without hesitation, Faanshi took it. The link she’d formed with Kestar when she’d healed him had not in truth been sundered, merely muted as the two of them learned to build shields around their minds. She’d been able to touch his mind since, for out of all the people she’d ever healed, Kestar alone had elven blood.

  By Djashtet’s grace, she had to reach him again now.

  Her body still stood at Kirinil’s side, and on one level she could feel it breathing now in unison with her teacher’s. Her heartbeat had fallen into the rhythm of his, and she could even feel the press of the chair against his back and the pressure of her own hands on his shoulders. It was almost like the bond she’d shared with Kestar, which should have scared her. All that kept the connection from doing exactly that was a veil of detachment across her senses, letting her keep a fragment of herself apart, a single cloud in the midst of the tempest the elf was unleashing. Thus she couldn’t tell whether she shouted aloud or within the confines of her mind, nor could she truly see the faces of those the tempest struck. But she remembered where she’d appeared when she’d spoken to Kestar in their dreams—a high mountain meadow she knew only because he’d loved it as a boy, and which lived in the center of his being now, just as her hearth lived in hers.