Owlflight

by Mercedes Lackey

  He was right. Justyn also dropped his bow and quiver of arrows at his feet. “Since you’re going to be out there for some time,” the wizard continued, “you might as well hunt. Bring back something for our dinner tomorrow. If I have to look at another turnip, I may start breaking plates.”

  Darian stooped again, gathered up the bow and arrows, and turned, still without saying anything. As he slouched away, he thought he heard Justyn mutter under his breath, “And it would serve you right if the Hawkbrothers got you.”

  That last almost made Darian break into hysterical laughter, it was so incongruous after the things he’d just overheard, for it was a threat that was always being given to naughty children: “You’d better be good, or the Hawkbrothers will get you!” Even Darian’s Mum had said it playfully, now and again, when he’d been into harmless mischief. Of all the things to tell him now!

  As he trudged openly between the rows of corn, heading for the Forest, he sighed and slung his quiver over his shoulder. People always talked about Hawkbrothers, as if they were all male, and no one had ever said anything about seeing a woman of their kind. Was that why mothers said that Hawkbrothers would get a naughty child? Were there no women, and did they kidnap children to replace their numbers?

  No, that didn’t make any sense—they were supposed to be allies of Valdemar, and your allies didn’t go about snatching toddlers. Maybe they might ask the Heralds for orphans to adopt; that would be perfectly all right, since the Hawkbrothers were certainly capable of protecting children and caring for them, but it wouldn’t make sense for them to out-and-out kidnap little ones. Not that you could convince anyone here of that. After all, the Hawkbrothers were foreign, and as everyone here knew, you couldn’t trust foreigners.

  Still, given how no one here wanted him, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the Hawkbrothers did carry him off. At least it would be an adventure. Maybe they would know something about what had happened to his Mum and Dad—or they would be willing to help him try and find out. After all, they were supposed to know everything there was to know about the Pelagiris, and they actually lived in and off of the Forest itself, never needing any kind of supplies or help from outside. Not even his Mum and Dad had been able to do that. Maybe his best bet would be to try and find Hawkbrothers, instead of trying to avoid them.

  But given the way my luck has been running, if I run away and try to find them, there won’t be any of them for leagues around, he thought dispiritedly while he shuffled toward a copse of trees. Everything I touch falls apart. Even Justyn would have been better off if he’d never seen me. Hellfires, I bet he really doesn’t want me around anymore. He’d probably be grateful if I just disappeared.

  He hunted for the fungus in a rather halfhearted fashion as he tried to formulate plans that didn’t fall apart the moment he considered what opposition to them he might encounter. One thing he knew; even if nobody in the village wanted him around, the moment he tried to run off, they’d go after him. It wasn’t logical, but it was the way they did things. It didn’t matter if the outcome was what they wanted, whatever happened had to be accomplished under their control.

  Take the case of Ananda’s rooster, for instance. Ananda Pellard had an old rooster that was the most evil-minded, aggressive bird Darian had ever seen. She couldn’t catch it to trim off its spurs, and it would attack anything, even grown people, inflicting some painful punctures on children. Ananda always said that she ought to put it down, but it was obvious she was afraid to try and catch it to kill it. One night something plucked it out of the tree it roosted in—Ananda said she heard it squawk, and in the morning there was only a pile of loose feathers with blood on them. Probably it had been an owl, and you would have thought that everyone would be glad that the nasty old bird had been taken care of.

  But no. Nothing would do but that the men sat up for the next several nights to try and kill whatever had come in to get the rooster. Darian wouldn’t have been surprised if it had only been Ananda who was upset—after all, it was her bird, and even a tough old rooster made perfectly good soup—but it seemed as if half the village was annoyed, and all because what had happened hadn’t been under their control.

  So if he ran away, even though none of them wanted him there anymore, they would be angry and upset and sure to send someone after him to catch him and bring him back. So whatever course he took, he had to be somehow certain of being able to elude pursuit.

  None of this made any sense, of course, but nothing was making any sense anymore.

  He honestly, truly, tried to keep from going too far away, but he couldn’t find any of the shelf-fungus growing near at hand, and he really hadn’t expected to. The last time he’d hunted for the stuff, he’d had to climb so far up tree trunks that Justyn had been alarmed, and he knew that it wouldn’t grow farther up than he’d gone, since there was too much light. So, since it needed a great deal of indirect light, and that meant the edge of the Forest, he finally decided to work his way along the riverbank.

  It was a slow process; he hunted tree by tree, looking for fungus at ground level, then peering up along the trunk to see if there was any higher growth, then finally climbing to see if what he had spotted was the kind of fungus he wanted, or something else. And that was probably exactly as Justyn had planned, too, for Justyn knew more about where things grew on the edge of the Forest than Darian did. He must have climbed twenty trees before he found a single growth.

  By that time, at least, he had worked out something to try to keep the fetid-smelling juice off his hands when he broke the piece off. He wrapped several layers of leaves over the place where he held the fungus to break it off, and immediately discarded them once the fungus was safely in the basket. Although it still smelled terrible, he managed not to get any of the smell on himself.

  He was up a third tree, when he gradually became aware of a great deal of noise and shouting from the direction of the village. He craned his head as far as he could around the tree trunk, and nearly fell off the limb he was sitting on.

  There was smoke rising from the village, and from the road beyond it—he saw people, made small by the distance, trying frantically to catch loose horses, or heading toward the river with bundles on their backs and children stumbling along behind, moving as quickly as they could.

  A moment more, and he saw the red of flame flickering on the other side of the river, light glancing off something very bright and metallic, and the shouts turned to screams.

  A single thought formed through the shock. Something was happening. The village of Errold’s Grove—somehow, for some reason—was under attack!

  * * *

  What am I going to do with this boy? Justyn thought, as he watched Darian slouch his way through the corn, heading to the edge of the woods. The boy vanished from sight within moments—and he wasn’t trying to hide, this time. No wonder he could evade virtually any watcher! Why, he didn’t even make the stalks move as he passed through them—if you didn’t know he was in the field, you’d think it was empty.

  Justyn sighed heavily, went back into the cottage, shut the door firmly behind him to discourage visitors, and sank into his chair. He didn’t want to see anyone else today, unless it was a tearing emergency. All morning he had been receiving visitors eager to give him their own idea of what he should do about Darian’s latest infraction, and some of the speakers had voiced something stronger than mere opinion. It was clear that if he couldn’t get Darian turned around, there were those who would take care of the situation for him.

  Most of them wanted him to dismiss the boy, and didn’t really care what happened to him after he was dismissed. He wouldn’t be allowed to stay here, that was certain. The villagers didn’t like the way their children were reacting to his presence—or, more specifically, his actions. “He’s a disruptive influence,” was how Derrel Lutter, the shopkeeper, put it. “He doesn’t fit, an’ every part of a village has to fit.”

  Widow Clay had dropped by on the pretext of having her bad knee loo
ked at, and had been more to the point. “The other children think he’s some kind of hero. Or at least, they think he’s somebody to look up to. If he’s allowed to sass his elders and get away with it, every young’un in Errold’s Grove is gonna start doin’ the same,” she’d pointed out. “So unless you want to be the reason for a lot of spanked bottoms and soapy mouths, you’d better get that boy to act like something other than a savage. Folks have given him a certain amount of room, on account of losing his parents and all, but they’re out of patience.”

  And the woman was perfectly right. Although he held himself aloof from the other children in the village, Darian was a profound influence on them and even Justyn had noticed it. They envied his freedom, freedom to run off and do what he wanted, and freedom to speak his mind even to an adult. They all wished that their parents had been as adventurous as his, and when he was willing to talk about it (which was not often) they hung on every word of his stories about living in the Forest. Any one of them would happily have traded places with him, even though life with Justyn was hardly one of exalted status. And when they could get away with it, they flat-out imitated him. The most coveted item among the village children at the moment was a tooled leather vest like Darian wore; that was what virtually all of them, of both sexes, had requested as birthing-day presents. Justyn had actually considered that attitude a healthy one, and he had secretly hoped some of it might rub off on the parents. It had been something of a half daydream of his. If their elders got some spine back, and decided to stop fearing the Forest and go back out to do what had brought prosperity to the village in the first place, then the place would stop stagnating. It might even prosper again, and they would discover that there was nothing so terrible in the Pelagiris after all. They would stop denigrating Darian’s parents, and might even stoop to consulting him about the Forest, which would raise both his status and Justyn’s in the eyes of the village.

  Even if Darian’s influence had only been on the children, they looked likely to go out and do what their parents feared to. Errold’s Grove would prosper again; perhaps not this year, or the next, but in the future.

  That was the good influence; in the meantime, the children were as prone to imitate Darian’s sins as his virtues. So Darian was likely to cause another uproar when word of this day leaked out to the children. Without a doubt, there would be a brief plague of children sneaking out on their appointed tasks to play truant, and defying their parents when taken to task.

  That had not been in any of Justyn’s half-formed plans.

  He sighed, then rested his aching head on his hand. It seemed that nothing he had thought of for Darian was working out in the way he had hoped.

  Perhaps if I proved to him what his behavior is doing in setting an example, and a bad one, among the other children? He’s not an unreasonable child, and he wouldn’t want to get the others in trouble. That might do the trick; perhaps Justyn had been going about this all wrong. Darian had been treated as a sort of miniature adult by his parents; he’d had a great deal of independence with them. He was used to relative freedom and the responsibility of deciding what he was to do for himself, but Justyn had been treating him as a directionless child.

  Justyn tapped a little marching rhythm on the arm of his chair with his free hand, and frowned as he thought. I should sit down with him, I think. Instead of lecturing him, or going on about how much he owes us, I should point out to him—no, that’s wrong. That would be treating him as a child again, and although what he is doing is childish, I am no longer certain his motives are entirely those of a child. Instead of telling him anything, perhaps I should begin by listening to him. If I can get him to tell me what has been going through his mind these many months, perhaps we can work out the best way to proceed together. And—perhaps I should tell him my own story, and let him see why I am teaching him the way I am. That might be the way to get through to him.

  Lost in these thoughts, and unexpectedly wearied from the stress of dealing with all those unhappy visitors, Justyn closed his eyes. Just for a moment—just to ease them. One moment turned to two, and two to many, and without intending to permit himself the luxury, he dozed off, dreaming of a repentant apprentice, now willing to be taught and to take on the responsibilities of a proper student … then he reached the point in sleep where his dreams themselves faded away.

  Justyn was so deep in slumber that it took several moments for the sound of the alarm bell in the village square to penetrate his consciousness. When it did sift through, it brought him awake with a start. It took another few moments for him to collect his thoughts and realize what it was that had awakened him, it had been so long since that particular bell had been rung. The last time had been due to a flood—but what could possibly be amiss this time? A quick glance out the window showed that there was no sign of a storm, and the village had been so quiet that Darian’s peccadillo was the worst thing to disturb the dull routine of the day. What had happened to change that?

  His heart pounded uncomfortably at the sudden awakening. He struggled up out of his chair, every joint protesting violently at such sudden movement, and got his walking stick down off the wall. He opened his door on pandemonium. Outside beyond the nearest houses in the village square, there was a babble of voices, the noise of many people running to and fro. He heard many people shouting, and there was panic in their tones; he hobbled out his door to see folk streaming toward the center of town from the fields. He joined them, alarm giving him more energy than he’d had for many a day. By the time he reached the square, most of them had beaten him there. Some had already heard the news, which must be terrible indeed to judge from the way they were pelting back to their houses, faces pale and eyes gone panicky and full of fear. Others had already been to their houses and were returning, with hunting bows, boar-spears, and rusty old antique weapons in their hands.

  A monster? Bandits? Surely not war—who would we be fighting? The Hawkbrothers? No, that’s not possible. Surely there is some other explanation—

  Derrel Lutter stood beside Nandy, who was still ringing the bell with wide-eyed determination. Her hair had come undone and flew in wild tendrils all about her face. Beside Derrel was a stranger holding the reins of a tired horse, whose clothing showed the effects of a hard ride, and whose face was pinched with terror he was trying not to let loose.

  “Don’t try to fight, you fools,” the man shouted over the bell and the shouting, his voice cracking with strain. “Run, I tell you, run! I tried to tell you before, and you didn’t believe me! This isn’t some band of brigands, this is an army, and you haven’t a chance against it!”

  Bewildered, Justyn looked around and saw Vere coming back to the square with a determined scowl on his face and a boar-spear in his hands, and seized his arm. “What in the name of heaven is going on?” he shouted.

  Vere thrust his chin at the stranger. “That there’s a feller from Riverford Farm, big estate upwater where Derrel does some trading,” he shouted back. “Derrel vouches for him. Came riding in ‘bout mid-dinner. Says a gang of men and monsters came storming in and massacred everybody in sight; says he was out with the herds and managed to get away on his horse and make a run for it. He wasn’t too clear on what he’d seen, not then anyway, so we figured it was bandits, and Tom Kalley rounded up the militia.” The man paused when he saw the look of noncomprehension on Justyn’s face. “He mounted up, and led ‘em out, just like always. Wasn’t nothing to frighten the women about, he thought, so nobody told ‘em except for the ones whose men hadda go; men’d just go out, turn ‘em away from the village, and send a messenger over to Lord Breon. You know we ain’t never had no trouble before. We figgered Riverford just been caught out, that’s all. Too bad for them, but we were ready, see?”

  Justyn shook his head, not yet understanding the cause for such a high level of panic. The Errold’s Grove militia never had experienced any trouble discouraging bandits from coming after the town. It didn’t make any sense!

  Vere wasn’
t through yet. “One of them—just one—came back a short bit ago; his horse was foundering, and it dropped and died right after he tumbled off. The rest—they’re gone.”

  Justyn gaped at him. The militia—twenty men in all—were well armed and quite adequately trained, and their ability to fight on horseback had given them a considerable edge over bandits, who were generally afoot and even when horsed did not know how to fight as a group. When the Guard had been forced to leave to go to the front, the Queen had no intention of leaving them defenseless; she had sent spare horses and arms, and someone to train volunteers from the village in fighting. Their Herald had supervised the training, and had seen to it that the trainer left instructions on drilling and practices, which the militia undertook with religious regularity. One of the duties of their Herald was to make sure that they stayed in training, and the occasional bandits only gave them incentive to continue that way. Justyn had watched them, and they weren’t bad—and the level of their expertise was obvious in the fact that they had handled every bandit group that they had come up against. How could they have been wiped out so easily?

  The stranger grabbed Nandy and took the bell-rope out of her hands by force, so that the clangor finally stopped. “Listen to me—Listen to me!” he shouted, and the cries and screams stopped as abruptly as the cessation of the bell peals. His words fell into the sudden silence like cold, round stones into a pool.

  “You heard the boy—your men are dead,” he said forcefully, and a woman’s hysterical sob pierced the quiet, only to be muffled by her neighbor pulling her head into the shelter of her shoulder. The stranger ignored her. “You can’t do anything for them; you can only save yourselves, and there’s not much time to do that. Send someone downriver to Kelmskeep and Lord Breon, someone on a fast horse or in a swift boat and do it now. The rest of you, grab what you can, and run, as fast and as far as you can. This is no bandit horde, I’m telling you, I know because I saw them. This is an army; it’s men and monsters, and it looks like a demon is leading them. They killed everyone at Riverford that resisted, and they’ll do the same here.”