by Andre Norton
A Falconer!
This was legend indeed. Had those men, born for no other life than that of fighting, been so reduced through the mischance of chaos? Their Eyrie had stood in the mountains—but Tirtha had heard that the warning, which had brought the Borderers down from the heights before the Turning, had been relayed to them also, and surely they must have survived. Yes, in the months past she had heard of some serving on Sulcar vessels as marines—even as they had done centuries ago when first they had come to Estcarp.
They were not such as to find any favor with the Witches of Estcarp, even when they offered their well-trained force to augment the badly depleted army of Estcarp. Their way of life was too alien. To those all-powerful women, it was also hateful and perverse. For the Falconers were a purely male clan—holding females in contempt and revulsion. They did have their women, they bred their own kind, yes. But those were kept in an isolated village to which selected sires went at ordained times of the year. Also they were ruthless with their own get—killing any child not whole and perfect at birth. To the matriarchy of Estcarp they were totally opposed by custom. Thus they had settled in the mountains, built their great stronghold—the Eyrie of Falconers—and border watch towers and carried on a service of protection—first for the merchants who would travel the roads, and then as a barrier for Estcarp against Karsten in the latter bad days.
The Borderers claimed them, though not as sword brothers, and held them in respect. They served together in good accord. Supplies were sent, first secretly since the Witches forbade it, then more and more openly to both the Eyrie and their village of women. In the last days of all there had been very little barrier between the male fighters of Estcarp and these strangers who had come originally from some disaster overseas.
Not only were they expert at arms, but their prized falcons, fitted with devices that were part of their secret, formed a network of aerial spying, which time and time again had proved to be the deciding factor in many skirmishes and mountain battles.
Now Tirtha instinctively looked for that bird—black with the white vee on its breast, its dangling red tresses—which should be riding on its master's wrist. But there was none. Also there was no hand on the arm that would have offered perch to such a bird. Instead there protruded from the fine mail of the sleeve a thing of brighter metal. The man kept his mail, his dilapidated helm, and doubtless his sword, well polished and honed. This thing he wore was not a hook; rather it split at the end into five narrow prongs, resembling a bird's tearing talons. Tirtha thought that it was a formidable weapon, nor did she doubt that he knew well how to use it.
But a Falconer—and she could not deny her own sex. This was the tool she had been seeking, but whether he would consent to her service might depend upon how desperate he was. She wished she could see more of his face—but the half-masking helm turned it into a mystery. Well—Tirtha squared her shoulders as she faced him, taking two steps forward to be out of the fury of the swiftly rising storm. She raised her voice to outbattle the wind as she asked:
“You are a blank shield?”
Such were for hire, though she had never heard of a Falconer who proclaimed himself so. They were a clannish lot, and, though they hired out their services, it was always as a troop or a squad—their commander making the bargain for them. Nor did they then mingle with those they served.
For a moment she believed that his inborn contempt for her sex would keep him silent, that she would have no chance at all to suggest hire. However, he did break that almost too long moment of silence.
“I am a blank shield.” His voice was emotionless. He had not raised it to outvoice the storm, but it carried well.
“I have need of a guide—a mountain guide—and a fighter. . . .” She came directly to the point, shifting her position a little, not liking it that he could stare at her through the eye holes of his helm and yet deny her a similar view of him. As she moved, her cloak loosened, fell a little open, so that her leathern riding dress, that of a Borderer, though she lacked the mail overshirt, was plainly seen.
“I am for hire. . . .” Again that level voice. It was as if she spoke with a man of metal, one lacking all emotion or purpose. Had what brought him here made him only a husk of the fighting man he had once been? She could not waste her small funds on any such. Still, he kept his armor as well as he could. Her glance returned to that claw hand. It was, to her mind, more dangerous every time she saw it.
She looked out into the storm, then back to where he stood so statue-like by the pillar.
“There are better places to talk of this. I lodge at the inn—the common room is not private—but the stables . . .”
He made his first real movement, a nod of his head. Then he turned and stooped to pick up a bundle lashed into a blanket, which he shouldered, steadying it in place with his claw. Thus they returned to the inn stable where she had left the mare. It was by the latter's stall that Tirtha seated herself on a bale of hay, waving her companion to a similar perch.
With this one it was best to be direct, she believed. There was something about him that reassured her instinct, which she had come to rely upon through the past four years. She dealt with a man who had faced the starkness of ill fortune, but not one who had betrayed himself because of that. This one might break, but there was no bend in him—nor perhaps much breaking either. The more critically she surveyed him, the more she was aware that he was a fighting man still to be reckoned with.
“I need to go through the mountains—into Karsten,” she said abruptly. There was no reason why she should explain her mission there. “The old paths and trails are gone—there are also masterless men abroad. I am not ignorant of the use of arms nor of living off the land. But I have no desire to be lost and perhaps make an ending before I do what I desire to do.”
Again he answered her with a nod.
“I shall pay two weights of gold for a service of twenty days—half in advance. Do you have a mount?”
“There—” He was certainly sparing of speech. He gestured with his claw to another stall two away from where Valda crunched hay.
Another mountain pony, slightly larger and heavier than the mare, was stabled there. Its mane had been clipped and over the edge of the stall hung a riding pad with the forked horn that should have given rest to a falcon. But there was no bird here either.
“Your falcon?” She dared now to ask that.
There was a feeling of chill; she might have walked into some forbidden place of the Power where there was a walling against her and her kind—so it seemed for an instant. She feared a second later that her question had indeed put an end to any bargain that might have been struck between them—natural though the question was under the circumstances.
“I have no falcon. . . .” His voice came a note lower.
Perhaps that lay at the root of his exile from his kind. She knew better than to pursue the subject any farther.
“The terms suit you?” She made her voice as cold as his to the best of her ability.
“Twenty days . . .” He spoke as if he mused upon something in his own mind. “And at the end of that time?”
“We can see what comes.” The girl got to her feet and held out her hand for the bargain grip. At first she believed he was going to lay that cold metal claw across her flesh, his arm twitched a little as if that movement came the more natural to him. Then his other true hand clasped hers.
She had reached under the shadow of her cloak during their walk here and loosed a disc of gold from her money belt. Now, as he speedily broke their clasp, she gave it to him. He held it for a moment, as if weighing it against her offer, then nodded for the third time.
“I have supplies to buy,” Tirtha told him briskly. “But, in spite of the storm, I would be out of town this day. Do you hold with that?”
“I have taken shield service. . . .” He began and then stopped as a thought seemed to occur to him. “What badge do I now raise?”
The old custom still held, it wo
uld seem, with this Falconer. A blank shield taking service put on the new badge of the House employing him. She smiled a little grimly and slid her sword out of its sheath, holding it into the rays of a stable lantern that some groom had lit against the storm dark and left hanging nearby.
Though the device was faint it could still be seen, the head of a screaming hawk, voicing defiance to both man and world.
“The House of Hawkholme, Falconer. It would seem that we share something in common, though Hawkholme has been rubble for more years than I would waste now to tally.”
He bent his head well forward, as if to see the better. Then he looked to her.
“Who speaks for the House?”
Again she smiled, and her smile was even more bleak and bitter. “I speak for the House, Falconer. For I am the House, and the Blood, and all the kin there is in this world—and no one yet has learned the trick of summoning ghosts to answer any rally. Thus you ride for Hawkholme and I am Hawkholme.”
So saying, she turned and left him, to carry out the rest of her bargaining, the beginning of what she had planned for so many hard-lived years.
2
THE storm's fury lasted half a day, forcing them to brace their bodies, huddle into their cloaks, and urge their unwilling mounts onto an upward trail that became only a bare trace a half-league out of Romsgarth. From the first, the Falconer took the lead as a matter of course, moving with a self-confidence, which assured his employer that he did indeed know something about the twisted lands of the heights.
However, that faint trail did not hold him long. Within a short time of turning into it, he paused for Tirtha to draw level with him, speaking the first words to break the silence between them since they had ridden out of town.
“It is your will to go with as little notice as possible?”
He had asked no questions concerning their reason for heading south, nor did she intend to supply any. However, now he appeared to guess part of her purpose.
“You know another way?”
She resented once more, with a growing spark of warmth, that he could look plainly upon her and she could not view him unmasked.
“It will not be easy, but I do not think anyone moving along the path I know will be overlooked. There was a hosting hereabouts two months ago. The Marshal's men swept out a nest of raiders and their lookouts.”
“Well enough.” Tirtha had no mind to ask him how he had become familiar with a raider path. Falconers did not turn outlaw—or so she had always heard. Also, she had her own way of recognizing danger. The Old Race—yes, a measure of their heritage still held, even for such draggletailed roamers as herself. She did not claim even a shadowing of true Power, but she had that sense which she could also use with animals in the wild, knowing where lay peril and where was only common hardship, such as she had long faced. This man would be true to this oath; he was no turncoat.
Thus they struck farther west, and the way was rough, leading up slopes where it was necessary to dismount, urge their snorting ponies to tread delicately over chancy footing, winding around drifts of season-old avalanches, halting at regular periods to rest their mounts and themselves.
By night they emerged upon a ledge half-roofed by an overhang. This certainly was a former camp, for at the back of the shallow cave was a smoke-blackened half-pit in which were charred ends of wood.
By all the signs, there had been none nighting here for some time. In the windblown ash Tirtha could trace the clear marks of paws. The gorex of the heights—and they were timid creatures—had padded freely about since the last fire. There was room enough at the far end of the cave to shelter the ponies. Pulling off the riding pads, they rubbed down the beasts with twists of coarse rags carried for such purposes. There was no herbage here, but both carried bags holding supplies Tirtha had frugally bargained for—grain out of Esland which she had found in Romsgarth market.
She divided portions scrupulously between the two ponies, though she must scant on what she would give them, since they had passed little grazing during the day's trailing—sighting no valley or slope that gave root to fodder plants. Nor had they found water, so that this also must be rationed.
Having seen to their animals, they returned to hunker down on either side of the fire pit. Tirtha, willing enough to be guided by one she was sure knew this land, looked to her silent companion for a lead. Was it wise to risk lighting some of the small stack of wood? He had said that this portion of the country had been cleared by Estcarp forces. Still, during two months, another band could well have descended upon an empty territory, setting up its own holdship.
The wind, which had pushed and punished them in gusts throughout the day, died down, while the clouds lightened, turning gold and crimson to mark a sun that had been sullenly veiled. There was a clean, fresh taste to the air here. Oddly enough her spirits felt a lift—as if, having taken the first day's journey successfully, she sensed that fortune was smiling. Yet she also knew that same fortune was fickle and had seldom favored her.
Tirtha's fellow traveler fitted wood carefully into the fire pit, using his claw with dexterity now and then to snap some longer piece into place. Thus they had fire, a comfort to the eye, as well as for its limited warmth, as the dusk closed in.
They whittled sticks to spear pieces of the dried meat Tirtha had added to their provisions, toasting them between bites of journey bread, sliding the hot morsels directly from the improvised spits into their mouths.
Having finished, her new shieldman slid off his helm for the first time, so she could see the full face of the man she had taken on trust. He was neither young nor old—she could not have set any age on him. Though there was a gaunt youthfulness about his chin and thin-lipped mouth, there were also lines between his eyes and a great weariness in those eyes themselves.
His hair was as dark as her own, clipped tight to his skull like one of those woven caps the Hold Ladies wore abroad. For the rest, she thought he looked much as any man of the Old Race might—save that his eyes were not the dark, storm-gray of her people, but rather held in their depths a spark of gold—as might those of a bird of prey.
She learned this by quick glances, not wishing to reveal open curiosity. He seemed unaware of any regard from her, smoothing his forehead with his one hand as if to rub away an ache caused by the weight of the helm, his hawk's eyes on the fire between them. He might be reading some message in those flames after the fashion of a Wise Woman, learned in far- or foreseeing.
“You have traveled this path before.” Tirtha made of that more a statement than a question.
“Once. . .” he returned absently, his attention all for the flames toward which he now stretched his single hand. “I was scout two years ago when there was some thought of return. . . .” His voice trailed away—still he did not look at her. “There was nothing left.”
The finality of those last words came harshly, and for the first time, he raised his eyes to meet hers. In them the yellow sparks might be the fire of long controlled rage.
“We were caught by a mountain fall. These ways are still unsettled. That which the Witch Women stirred into life does not yet sleep. I was to the fore and so—” He made a small gesture with his hand, not enlarging on it but leaving it to her imagination.
“You have ridden alone since then?” Tirtha did not know just why she wanted to force him into some personal disclosure. This was no man of easy words; to pressure him at all might lead even to his withdrawal. All she knew of his race and kind argued that they held strictly aloof from those not of their blood.
“Alone.” With a single word he made answer and in such a tone as left Tirtha well aware that she must press no farther. However, there were other questions she could ask now, and those he could not deny answering, for they were no part of his own inner life.
“What do you know of Karsten? Men talk, but I have had only rumors to shift and those can be less than half-truths.”
He shrugged, setting the helm beside him on the rock, once m
ore smoothing the band of furrowed skin immediately above the well-marked line of his brows.
“It is a land of battles—or rather petty skirmishes, one lordling against another. Since Pagar, their last overlord, fell, there have arisen none who can impose their wills—or the weight of their swords—enough to bring a binding peace. The Sulcar come, under arms, to deal with some merchants. The iron out of the Yost mines, the silver of Yar—those can pay any captain. But trade is near dead, while there are those who die for lack of food because none dare tend fields which may be at any moment trampled by raiders. The riches that were once here are plundered, hid, scattered to the winds. Thus it is, along the western coast and below the mountains. What lies farther east . . .” He shrugged. “There are not even rumors that seep back from that region. When Duke Yvian horned the Old Race, he began the rot and it spread, until now the whole land is half-dead and the rest forsaken.”
Tirtha wet her lip with tongue tip. “The Horning then began it—” Again she did not question, for her thoughts were quick and alive. Did the secret, which had brought her here, have such a root?
He shot her a measuring look, and she thought that, for the first time, she had shaken him out of that deep preoccupation with his own concerns which had held him since their first meeting. A fighting tool and an efficient one he had hired himself out to be, but he had shown no curiosity at all concerning what drew her south.
“The Old Race”—he paused, put out his claw to snap another length of wood and feed it to their fire—“they had their own secrets. Perhaps one of those was keeping a firm peace. It is said that, before Duke Yvian was possessed by the madness of the invading Kolder and turned into one of their mind-dead, men held the Old Race in awe, and their being there—few as they might seem—was a check upon lawlessness. Then the Duke proved that the Old Race could be killed—like any others—when he ordered their Horning, and there were those who had always hated and envied them. They wanted to appease that hatred. Also the Kolder, possessed, rode to push the slayings. But why do I say this—it is your blood that we speak of—is that not so?”