by Andre Norton
It had been no illusion, her mind countered, and she recognized that she had been altered by it all. She was now what she had never thought or wanted to be, a veteran warrior with so much blood upon her sword that she could not number the lives she had taken.
The Daleswoman remembered the first time she had ever slain, that day a seeming eternity ago when she had first encountered Tarlach of the Falconers. The mercenary had told her shortly afterward that killing became easier but to beware the man for whom it was a pleasure. She shuddered now in her heart, wondering what sort of depravity could find delight in such infinite horror.
Tarlach did not. She could all but feel his disgust at what he needs must watch, his desire to be gone from this place, although his rank would allow him no escape until the inevitable conclusion of the battle had been reached and the last Sultanite had fallen.
Neither could she go, nor would she have left him. He needed her now, the little comfort of her presence which was all she was permitted to give him.
Una looked upon this man who had become her life more closely and more critically. The ordeal had ravaged him. How deeply, she feared even to think, and she trembled at what might yet lie before him, this time at the hands of his own people, these very ones who had ridden to the salvation of them all.
The Captain looked once more at the great pyre being lighted on the beach below and shuddered, though to his race, flame was clean and a fitting couch for a warrior's shell.
He had long since dismissed his command, and most of the warriors had left the wall. Only he and Una of Seakeep remained on this section of it.
“Will you take charge here, Lady?” he asked. “There are matters to which I must attend before speaking with Varnel.”
She smiled and nodded. “Do not work too hard, Mountain Hawk. I shall come to you as soon as I can, and together we should be able to put it all to flight in short order.”
22
Tarlach had been in his quarters in the round tower for some time and was deeply absorbed at his desk when a sharp rap and the almost simultaneous opening of the door brought Column Commandant Varnel into his presence.
He rose quickly and touched hand to his sword in salute to his commander, then the two men clasped arms in the friendship greeting of their kind which they used when they were free from the observation of strangers.
The Warlord drew back and studied the younger man intently for several seconds.
“I have never seen you look so tired, Tarlach,” he said at the end of that time.
“The reaction is beginning to set in, I suppose. I am lucky to be alive at all. We all are. If you had not come …”
“You knew that I would.”
“Yes, but I could not be sure that it would be in time.”
His head bowed, and his eyes fell on the neatly lettered paper on his desk. It had been too late for some. “My casualty lists,” he said, seeing the other had followed the direction of his gaze. “Most would call my losses miraculously light, yet to me …”
“That is part of command,” the Warlord said gently, “a spear in the hearts of us all save for those officers so callous of life that their comrades’ deaths have no effect upon them. To my mind, they are scarcely half human and are an eventual danger to any hold or any company with which they are associated.”
Varnel deliberately turned the paper over. He then went to the fireplace and after gazing into it a moment, drew up two chairs before it and lowered himself into one of them. “Someone went to the trouble of laying this fire. Let us not be so discourteous as to waste its warmth.”
The other did not move to join him, and he sighed. “Sit down, Mountain Hawk. I do not enjoy craning my neck when I talk to a man.”
Tarlach obeyed. “Where did you hear that name?”
“From your courier and from just about everyone else since we arrived.—Your situation here and in Ravenfield is unique, my friend. I want to have the details, everything, from the time of your first involvement with them.”
The Captain's heart gave an ugly jolt, and he could feel the muscles of his stomach tighten. Here it was, then, the moment that would confirm hope for their kind or, perhaps, work his utter doom.
“The decisions and the actions I have taken are mine only. No other of my company or our allies must be faulted for them.”
“If nothing else, I trained you to be direct,” Varnel observed.
“You trained me to care for my own as well!”
His hands balled but released again. He had known from the moment he had made his choice that this meeting must eventually come.
Tarlach described all that had occurred since his fateful meeting with Una of Seakeep, described his growing fears for the Falconer race and the solution the Holdruler had offered to provide and the conditions under which she would do so.
Both were silent for several minutes after he had finished. “Ravenfield by itself will not serve us?” the Warlord asked at the end of that time.
Tarlach shook his head. “Not alone. There are fine, fertile valleys there for the villages and a good site for an Eyrie, but there would not be room to house the columns and maintain our mounts.” Even when the old Eyrie was at its height, the bulk of the warriors camped and trained beyond its walls. “Only with Seakeepdale's lands at our disposal as well would we have sufficient space.”
“And to win the use of those, we must accept this treaty?”
The Mountain Hawk frowned, fighting both despair and his anger at the Commandant's tone. “It is just and very little to give in return for what we shall be gaining. The Lady Una is placing great trust in our honor by allowing us and our descendents access to her lands. She is sincere in her desire to aid us, but she can hardly be expected to condone, much less reseed, what she sees as a deep wrong, an evil, to accommodate us utterly.”
His eyes suddenly fixed the other like burning spears as anger welled up in him at the memory of the Daleswomen's role in the fight just ended and the service the healer Pyra had given these last weeks. “So it is an evil, one we should fight long and hard to break were we used as we do those who were once our own.”
The Mountain Hawk gripped himself. This would not advance whatever miniscule chance he had. “Is such a great deal being asked of us?” he demanded. “Those joining us here, at the risk of placing themselves and their offspring in a tight and deadly prison, must do so by their own freely given consent and then remain by their consent. We must treat with them and with the Dalesfolk, high and lowly born alike, with respect and forego the power of life and death over the villages.”
He studied his commander somberly, trying to gauge his reaction, but Varnel's face was a mask. He would hear everything before he would make his decision.
“We are not being asked to live as do the men of other peoples,” Tarlach continued. “Some changes will probably take place over time, perhaps sooner than we could now imagine given the closer contact we shall perforce have to maintain, but at the outset at least, neither columns nor villages should suffer that much actual disruption of their lifeways.”
Tarlach smiled suddenly, briefly. “That may be as welcome to our females as to ourselves. They are not likely to be any more eager to have us in close association with them than we are for their company. They have by all signs done very well without us for a very long time.”
Varnel started. “That, I had not considered.”
“Until this crisis hit us, I had thought of little else in these last months except the ramifications of this proposal,” Tarlach told him wearily. “If it be true, it will make the transition easier for all of us. The worst we will have to face at the start is their training and that of the Dalespeople, which we must give them as we do our own. Courtesy has ever been demanded of us when dealing with outsiders, and extending that to members of our own race, even with the slightly increased contact we can expect, should not be an unendurable hardship.”
The Warlord came to his feet. He stared for a while into the fire,
then turned to his companion once more. “You know what this means?”
The Captain's mouth hardened. “If rejected outright, it may cost me my life or see me outcast. If accepted at all, it will never be by more than half our race. We will be split, sundered, riven column from column, comrade from comrade.” His eyes fixed Varnel's. “I know full well that mine will be the responsibility for dividing our people in a schism such as we have not seen since Jonkara won her victory even in her seeming defeat when terror of her return rent us male from female,” he concluded as the bitterness within him surged forth with a force that for a moment threatened to sweep him utterly.
Varnel studied him. “You bear a weight of anger,” he said quietly.
“It is chiefly fear,” the Mountain Hawk replied, his head lowering in shame and in the defeat he could already taste. “I knew what I faced when I first agreed to the Holdruler's proposal, and I accept the consequences of that decision, but I do not hunger for death or disgrace. If I did not believe to the depths of my soul that this was our one hope of surviving as a viable people, I would not so much as consider it, but I fear, I know, that if we, or a sufficient number of us, do not choose to walk the path I describe, extinction only lies before us.”
The Commandant came over to him and lay his hand on his shoulder. “There will be no condemnation of you, whatever my decision regarding your alliance with Seakeep.”
Tarlach had to fight himself not to laugh. “No? I think Xorock will have something to say about that, and both Gurrin and Langhold with him.”
“Those three have no right to any say with respect to the continuation of our kind!” Varnel shot back. “It is in a good part because of them that we are in our present difficulty, or at least that we have reached this stage of it already.
“Commandant Xorock thought so little about our future that he simply left his village behind when we had to abandon the Eyrie, never bothered with it at all. Of course, no one was left when we went back, whether they were all dead or had left or were in hiding, but we lost the whole lot, including any get fathered on them in his warriors’ final visit. The other two have followed his ways and each of them has succeeded in losing so many of their females that they now have less than half the number they brought with them out of the highlands despite a good seeding of offspring since then.”
The Warlord shrugged at his surprise. “Did you imagine I was oblivious to this drain?”
“Pardon craved, my Lord. I was arrogant and a fool besides to imagine that I alone …”
His companion smiled. “A fool, perhaps, but no one can fault you with arrogance.”
“How do Breen's and Arnel's villages fare, and yours?”
“The others have lost about a tenth of their population, mine no more than five percent, and that flight occurred primarily in the first couple or three years of our exile.”
“It is better than I had believed,” Tarlach said with relief.
“For now. Even so, you are right. Without a place of our own, our eventual doom is inevitable. That is the reason I sent out the Council Call and then set High Hallack as the site. I wanted to shake some of our more hidebound brethren enough out of their complacency that they would at least listen to me.” The silver eyes pierced him. “I chose Linna because it was the port town nearest to Ravenfield. I had heard of your gaining the Dale and hoped that we might use it even as you suggest. Now you tell me this is not possible without involvement with Seakeep and its Holdruler as well.”
“It is not,” he declared positively. “You shall see maps, and we can ride through something of both Dales once matters here have settled a bit.”
“I will need to examine both before making my final judgment.”
“Together, they are suitable,” the Captain assured him.
This was as much as he could expect, more, yet an infinite grief filled him. “Even by entertaining the plan, you will lose—”
“We will lose somewhat less than half our force,” the Warlord stated flatly. “Each man must make his own choice, but Xorock, Gurrin, and Langhold will violently oppose any such agreement, any easing of our treatment of our females, any altering of our lifeway whatsoever. Their columns are loyal to them, and the bulk of their warriors are likely to follow their example. Arnel and Breen will probably go with me if I can present my case well, and our troops with us.”
“You will stand with me, then?” the Mountain Hawk asked. It seemed impossible in this moment that he had not been summarily dismissed, a broken outcast without rank or place. That Varnel should actually agree with and support him …
“Assuming that I find your proposal workable,” his commander replied grimly. “As you say, what other choice do we have?”
The Falconer chief shook his head. “We face difficulties on every side, and gaining the support of our warriors may be the least among them. My column alone should suffice, without any of the others. It is the response of the villages that most concerns me.”
Varnel's eyes darkened. “Those belonging to Xorock's faction will not abandon their road to escape. They have no reason to anticipate better treatment from us than they have known from their own columns, and we cannot expect that more than a handful will give us enough of their trust to accept our assurances.
“As for the other villages.” He shrugged. “Who knows how mares think to gauge their response, even if this healer you mentioned does testify for us?”
“If we could get the equivalent of one village to start …”
“It would not be enough, not for long. Another peril threatens us that you have not seen, my friend, or not seen clearly enough.” Varnel was quiet a moment, then went on slowly. “When I was a boy and even when I was first commanded to visit the villages, the destruction of a deformed babe was a rare and terrible event, a sickness on the soul of all involved, and in truth, I shall be glad to lose the right to so remove defective get. It is no less terrible a deed today, but it is far less rare. In some villages, it must be done seemingly every other season.” Tarlach's breath caught, and the Warlord nodded. “If we are showing the sign of too close inbreeding now, what will happen to us if we limit our choice of mates still further?”
“It might be possible to introduce some now blood,” the Captain said thoughtfully, recalling his discussion with Brennan, “not enough to alter us, but—”
“What other blood?” the other demanded with a harsh incredulity. “We are not regarded by the world at large as ideal mates.”
“Some of these Daleswomen, perhaps. I imagine Seakeep's people have no desire to fade, either, to let what they have striven and fought to preserve fall to strangers with their going, yet they are extremely man-poor, and I have noticed no eagerness to bring in mates from other places. It may be that the females here are reluctant to put themselves in the position of being forced back into and again limited to the kind of work their people hold to be appropriate for their sex. Our lifeway offers an alternative, and a few might find it attractive enough to adopt or partly adopt it.”
The Captain pressed his fingers to his eyes. “We talk of the future's problems when we do not as yet even have a present.”
Varnel smiled. “You have never lost the tendency to see the single cloud in a blue sky, Mountain Hawk. Let me worry about that present for the moment. The deciding lies with me, and rest assured that I shall make no delay about it.” He sighed. “I suppose I had best begin by seeing the Holdruler.”
Tarlach shot him a look of surprise, and the Commandant's brows raised. “You did not imagine I would ratify your treaty without interviewing the second party to it, did you?”
“No, I suppose not. The idea just seems strange.”
“Such dealings will be necessary from time to time if we go through with this,” he said without enthusiasm. “I might as well get started now since there can be no avoiding of it.”
Varnel glanced at the door. “I will go to the chamber she has put at my disposal. Would you have one of your sentries or the Da
lesfolk bring her to me there?”
“Of course, Commandant.”
“I know you have much to do with your company, but stay here a short while. I shall be wanting to see you again fairly soon.”
“I will await your call, my Lord.”
23
Varnel turned with an inner sigh at the sound of a knock but was surprised to find Rufon standing before him instead of Seakeep's ruler.
“The Holdlady will be pleased to receive you at once, Lord,” the Dalesman said blandly.
The Falconer stiffened but then nodded, accepting the correction. A Holdruler gave audience. He—or she—did not appear at the command of others in her own keep.
He picked up the cloak he had draped across the back of the chair nearest him and swung it about his shoulders, then followed Rufon to a small council chamber, the very room in which the Dale's danger and defense had been discussed weeks before. A woman awaited him there, and because it was needful, he made himself study her.
She was not clad in the trappings of a nobly born Daleswoman but rather in the breeches and tunic of a warrior, though she was without arms and armor, and he was an acute enough judge of motive to recognize that she had probably done so out of consideration for her guests, to reduce as much as possible their awareness of her sex.
Although she was, like Tarlach, bone weary and drawn with strain, she was beautiful by the standard of any people he had yet encountered. More than beautiful. There was strength and intelligence in her finely wrought face and that pride which comes of worth and hard-earned right.
There was tension on her as well. She knew the importance of this meeting to the plan she had proposed, and its outcome was apparently of personal as well as official importance to her.
With her were a very small tortoiseshell cat and a falcon, a female, who gave him and his own Sky Glory salute as soon as they entered the room.
Una of Seakeep studied the Falconer Warlord intently in her turn. He was, as Rufon had described him in his quickly given report, tall and slim of body. His hair was probably dark to judge by his lashes, and his eyes were close enough to silver to merit the name. From what she could see of them, his features were good but stern of cast in the manner of his kind. He bore himself as a man well used to both the privileges and the heavy burdens of high authority carried in greatly troubled times.