Victory of the Hawk

by Angela Highland

  Did Faanshi feel the same strange, piercing urge to sing with them? Did that hearth within her heart resound as his inner meadow did, with harmony that seemed forged of both sound and light?

  Would his father have wanted to sing with them too?

  He never saw his mother step quietly up beside him, and only when the elves’ singing faded at last into silence, only when Gerren’s people escorted the newcomers away, did Ganniwer finally speak. “You have such sorrow in your eyes, my son, for a man who’s just helped several people back to long-awaited freedom.”

  Startled, Kestar turned to her, and had to wrestle with his own roiling sentiments before he finally offer her a lopsided smile. “I was just thinking of Father,” he murmured.

  “As was I, Kescha. I think he’d be proud of you. And what you’ve helped do here today has given his soul some peace.”

  “I hope so, Mother. But we’re not done.” He reached for his father’s amulet, in its place about his neck, and for the first time could think of it as something other than dead silver. Between his fingertips, the pair of discs was warm from proximity to his skin. It was no longer blessed by holy power—it never had been. But memory of his father made it sacred, and that was more than enough.

  No surprise showed in Ganniwer’s aquamarine eyes. “You’re going to have to leave me here. It’s the only way you’ll travel fast enough.”

  That his mother knew exactly what he was thinking was both comfort and consternation; it made it all the harder to have to leave her. “I hate this. After all we’ve been through, I don’t want to let you out of my sight.” I don’t want to have to lose you again.

  “Dearest boy, I’m the one who’s supposed to say that to you.” Ganniwer wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close, with enough fierceness to make up for all the times she hadn’t been able to embrace him when he was small. “I will be perfectly safe in the company of several thousand soldiers, so don’t concern yourself with me. Do what you must do. Go to Dareli. Find that gun and put an end to this.”

  “I won’t be alone,” he promised. Most of the others would come with him, he was sure. Celoren and Faanshi went without saying, and where the healer went, the assassins were sure to follow.

  “Which is the only reason I can accept your leaving—because I know they’ll look after you, just as you will them. Find our friends before I change my mind about letting you go. May the gods be with you, Kescha.”

  * * *

  To Kestar’s relief, once he sought their council, neither the duchess nor Gerren forbade him to carry out his plan or to ask Faanshi if she would come with him.

  “You will move faster without my army,” Khamsin agreed when he came to see her in her tent. “If you can eliminate the threat of the mage Marwyth, then by all means, do so. Better still, take this to the Bhandreid, or to her authorized representative.” She handed him a packet of folded documents on paper of fine enough quality that it glided against his fingertips, bound in golden cord and sealed with a stamp of bright red wax. “One of these is the statement that I, Sister Sother, Father Grenham and others have composed to declare Nirrivy’s independence, and the terms by which we will ask Adalonia to abide. The other, in Adalonic and Elisiyannè, is the affirmation that Nirrivy supports the free elven peoples, and that we call on Adalonia to grant immediate freedom to all elven slaves. They are copies. The akreshi Gerren and I retain the originals. Deliver yours if you can. If you cannot, we will deliver ours.”

  Just in time Kestar stopped himself from asking what language Elisiyannè was—for it had never occurred to him that of course the elves would have their own name for their own speech. And of course she’d have asked, he thought ruefully. She’s a duchess. Out loud he said, bowing, “I’ll do my best, Your Grace.”

  She dismissed him to find the others. Perhaps warned by his mother, or perhaps simply because they knew him best of anyone in their number, Celoren and Faanshi had anticipated him. They’d already gathered their gear by the time Kestar finished his circuit through the camp, leaving messages for his friends when he couldn’t find them face-to-face. Likewise, Julian and Rab were waiting with the horses, the Rook grim-eyed, and his partner practically beaming with anticipation.

  “Of course you’ll need us,” Nine-fingered Rab said at Kestar’s startled look. “Unless you’ve somehow acquired some other master thieves who can help you fetch that magic gun you’ll be looking for.”

  Likewise, there was no surprise in the presence of Semai el-Numair Behzad. “I travel where Faanshi travels,” he proclaimed, “as I pledged to the akresha Ulima.”

  As they loaded their packs onto their horses, though, a voice Kestar hadn’t expected in the slightest hailed them out of the deepening evening shadows. “Don’t leave without us, humans.”

  They whirled to find two more figures approaching with horses of their own, but it was Faanshi who spoke up first, in surprise and pleasure. “Tembriel, you’re coming with us?”

  “Alarrah and Gerren sent me,” the she-elf said in grudging tones. “They wish you good fortune, and Gerren wants me to make sure you make it back safely to our people, mouse. Especially since Alarrah must tend to those we’ve recovered from Riannach.” Then all at once she grinned, a tight and feral curl to her mouth. “And besides, if I come with you, I have a much higher chance of setting humans on fire.”

  “As long that doesn’t include any of us,” Kestar warned.

  “If you insist. Vaarsen, you’re no damned fun.”

  He choked back a laugh, even as he had to admit that having someone capable of fire-magic with them could be useful indeed. But that didn’t explain who’d come with the she-elf, and who even now stood stiffly, avoiding the measuring stares trained on her. “What about you, Lieutenant?” Kestar asked.

  Jekke Yerredes finally looked his way, pulling herself to her full height with a kind of bruised pride that didn’t diminish the discomfort in her eyes. “The Church lied to us. The Order lied to us. I need to see why with my own eyes. And if I can, I want to help set it right.”

  “I can hardly argue with that,” Celoren said. Striding to Jekke, he offered her his hand while tossing a sidelong nod at Kestar. “And I know the cloud-head and I don’t exactly qualify as fellow Hawks anymore. Even so, we’ll welcome a sister to our swords.”

  “Ani a bhota—” Jekke began, and then cut herself off with a harsh little laugh. “Though I suppose we can’t say that anymore, can we? And I can’t call myself a lieutenant anymore either. I’ve deserted.”

  “But you’re here in the name of what’s right, and if the gods’ eyes are still on us all, hopefully they’ll know. So thank you for coming,” Kestar said, swinging his gaze from face to face, taking in the sight of each. “Thank you all. I couldn’t do this alone.”

  “Thank us when we pull this off, Vaarsen.” Julian hoisted Faanshi up onto Morrigh, then climbed into the saddle behind her. “We’d best get moving, before the duchess decides our making off with the figurehead of her revolution isn’t a good idea after all.”

  The healer maiden smirked, or at least as much as she ever did. Next to the practiced smirks either of the assassins could produce, hers was still quite gentle. “I have no wish to be a saint. Djashtet bids me follow Her ridahs, and the ridahs say I must help Kestar. I believe the Lady of Time will watch over us, but I can hardly speak for Her, much less any other gods.”

  “Don’t look at me,” put in Rab. “I myself am a devout atheist. Mostly I find deities useful for creative cursing, and little else.”

  “Tykhe does what She does. We’ll get Her left hand or Her right, but don’t expect Her to broadcast Her intentions,” Julian said.

  Tembriel sprang effortlessly into her horse’s saddle, and the smirk she leveled at them all was as sharp as any of the assassins’ blades. “I’m hardly convinced the Mother of Stars wants me on this fool’s err
and, never mind any of you. I’ll let you know if I decide otherwise.”

  Last of them all to mount, Celoren said, deliberately bland, “And as none of us appear yet to have adopted any of the other gods of Nirrivy in this roll call of the divine, I suppose that leaves me. Can I interest any of you in joining the First Church of Kestar’s New Horse?”

  Startled laughter broke out at his words, and though neither Tembriel nor Jekke could be said to smile, even they relaxed ever so slightly as their company set out. The duchess must have sent orders down to the sentries, for they rode unchallenged out of the camp, and even caught a few calls of farewell and good luck as they passed. Kestar acknowledged what hails he heard, and strove to look as calm and brave as he could as they left the camp. He could only hope that between them all, they’d draw the eyes of at least one god or goddess who’d be willing to grant them success and fortune with what they sought to do.

  And if Tykhe wished to intervene on their behalf, it’d be all the better. Even though he’d been raised to disdain any gods but the Father, Mother, Son and Daughter, Kestar could think of no better Nirrivan deity to guide them than the goddess of luck.

  They were going to need all the luck they could get.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Somewhere in the city of Dareli, Jeuchar 19, AC 1876

  Her doom was no longer in a form she remembered—but when the bullet pierced her, her flesh recognized what her mind did not. Blind rage made her hurl fire at the old human woman who dared to raise a weapon against her, the woman she knew only as Bhandreid, ruler of her round-eared enslavers. Pain made her will herself out of the human church, before any of the Bhandreid’s servants could claim the doom and use it on her a second time.

  Even in her rage, even in her pain, her mind began to offer her fragments of memory. Human bullets had wounded her before, but this one was different, searing her with a fire she recognized in her blood and bone. Amathilàen. Somehow the humans had found it and forged it anew into a shape that could strike her from afar, though the arts of their smiths couldn’t disguise the enchantment in metal shaped by the Moonwise. The spell was almost as old as she, and once, in the proper hands, it had almost killed her.

  In the hands of the human queen, it could only wound. Yet that was enough to drive her to ground in the first place her magic took her, the quiet dark of a chamber that smelled of dust and wood and burlap, and within the burlap, grain. Like a wounded wolf she curled on the sacks, drawing a veil of power and warmth over her to conceal herself from watching eyes while she healed the assault on her flesh. Not even the cats that prowled restlessly through the barn in search of mice could find her.

  As safe as she could make herself, she slept. She dreamed. She remembered.

  Janlec Dalrannen, with ash and blood on his face, lunging at her with the sword in his hands. It blazed with the clarion silver of the stars, and his eyes caught and reflected the brilliance until he seemed made of starlight himself. Her hands hurled back red-golden fire in reply, but as long as Amathilàen was in his grasp, she couldn’t strike him. And so she struck at Astàlleramè instead, turning a city of white granite and marble into a city of flame.

  Janlec again, younger. There was no difference in the lines of his face, for like all their kind he could go unmarked by time for many hundreds of years—but she knew he was younger, for the weight in his eyes was lighter. Until it began to change. Because of her.

  Then the faces of the Amatharinor, though only two names flashed across her dreams from the recesses of her oldest thoughts: Jerendriel, the second youngest and the lightest of spirit, and Brendalah, the eldest and most powerful. Their faces changed as Janlec’s did, first open and welcoming—and then shuttering against her, turning worried, turning cold.

  Earlier still, to a recollection so old it might as well have been the beginning of time. The birth of her power, when she herself was young and untried, and saw the land itself and the living creatures that walked on it warp themselves to her slightest whim. An entire human village changed before the Moonwise found her and made her one of their own. Made her, for a time, a friend.

  She awoke screaming. None of the names that emerged in the backward roil of her dreaming thoughts were her own. How many hours had passed in her slumber was irrelevant, as was the barn that exploded from her wrath when her will set the grain afire. She stalked out of its ruins, hale once more, and allowed the cats who fled in terror to live only because they were creatures too small to command her notice. She had other hunting to do.

  Amathilàen was awake. She could feel it across leagues of distance, and the new scar its bullet had dealt her dully burned in response to its call. The pain was negligible now. What was left was almost welcome, for it was her beacon, her hunting hound.

  The humans had Amathilàen, but not the proper hands to wield it. Therefore she would take it from them. She couldn’t recall if she’d killed the queen of her enslavers—the aged human who’d dared to strike her with a weapon that should have by rights incinerated her unworthy hands—though that too was immaterial. If the Bhandreid lived, she would be the next to fall. If she ordered her followers to raise Amathilàen against her again, then she would, with pleasure, kill every human who dared to touch it.

  And then she would make their city burn.

  It took only a thought to follow the ancient weapon’s call, and once more the world rearranged itself around her at her power’s demand. This time she appeared in the midst of a wide square, one that showed signs she’d attacked it before. The fountain in its center was cracked asunder, with no water flowing from the vase held up in the stone hands of the now-headless statue of a maiden. A third of the buildings in her immediate sight were as ruined as the barn she’d abandoned, and of the rest, their shattered windows and brickwork were scored by fire. The air stank of scorched stone and wood. It was glorious.

  Waiting for her by the fountain, though, were a score of humans in uniforms of russet and black and white, all of whom swung weapons in her direction as soon as she appeared. Rifles. They spat their own paltry fire, and she strode through the stinging of their bullets as she might have done a cloud of gnats.

  With a casual flick of her hands, she threw power into the formation the humans had set up against her and sent bodies of rifle-wielders flying to either side. That cleared the way for one more human, the one she wanted—the one who wielded Amathilàen. Yet to her shock, it was not the aged queen. It was the young human woman, the one she’d spared, only because she’d wanted nothing of her but her freedom.

  “I am Margaine Araeldes,” she called, “mother to Padraiga, heir to the throne of this realm, and in the name of peace I bid you stand down.”

  There was only one response to make to that, for despite her brave words, the human’s gaze was flat with fear. Her fear made her prey, and the weapon in her hands made her a lawful target.

  “I will have peace when your entire city is ash!”

  Once more she hurled her fire—but the woman Margaine fired Amathilàen in the same moment, a wild shot that struck her head and sent her stumbling back the way she’d come. Snarling, she obliterated what was left of the broken fountain in her retreat, and the last thing she heard before she vanished was the terrified cry from one of the woman’s soldiers.

  “It didn’t work, Your Highness. Damn it all, it didn’t work!”

  The countryside near Dareli, Jeuchar 23, AC 1876

  Eight people were not as small a company as Julian or Kestar would have liked, Faanshi suspected. But eight people—on seven horses, for she was still too new to riding any horse but Morrigh to swiftly move on a mount of her own—nonetheless moved far more swiftly than an army. Soon enough they left Kilmerry Province behind, and Faanshi learned anew that the world was far larger than she’d ever dreamed.

  They crossed the Brannaligh Hills first, hills that ran from Kilmerry
southward to Carrowdaw and Gallister, the other two provinces that had sent soldiers to join Khamsin’s army. Brannaligh, she learned from the others, meant borderline in Old Hethloni; they’d once served as the easternmost boundary of Nirrivy. At Kestar’s insistence they took the southern road through the hills, for the northern road led to the village of Hawksvale. The academy where he, Celoren and Jekke had trained as Hawks was there, and Faanshi could see nothing but wisdom in avoiding it, even if the amulets of the Hawks had ceased to raise their alarm against elf blood and elf magic.

  On the other side of the Brannalighs lay the province of Hedmark. It was flatter than the land that Faanshi knew, and the road they followed took them through vast fields of corn and wheat. The broad, rolling terrain let them move quickly, though Tembriel had to ride with the hood of her cloak up, and Faanshi hid her face behind her korfi. They weren’t the only travelers on the road through Hedmark—and the farther east they rode, the more people they found hurrying frantically westward. Halfway through the province, each time they stopped to buy or barter for food or water for themselves and the horses, they began to see why.

  Field after field lay blackened and burned. Buildings were leveled, with neither rhyme nor reason; some villages they passed had but a single ruined building, while others had been flattened as though from massive explosive force. None of their company really needed confirmation, for they’d seen what the Anreulag—the mage Gerren had named Marwyth, the Black Sun—could do. Yet as they hastened across Hedmark as fast as they could ride, the word from the people remained the same.

  “The Voice of the Gods burned our fields and the Church won’t tell us how we’ve sinned!”