"Impossible," she said, clearly. All heads turned in her direction. "Absolutely impossible," she repeated, just as firmly. "You're asking me to haul an entire armed force along with me. I'm trying to make speed—and I doubt if you could find fifty fighters with beasts able to keep up with a Companion even among the Skybolts. I may have to leave Rethwellan, and the presence of a troop like that could greatly offend the rulers of other countries that I might find myself in. But most importantly of all, insofar as my movements remaining a secret from Ancar, you might just as well post him a message every day telling him where I'm going, because that's how visible I'd be with that many armed fighters around me."
That brought all the arguments to a dead silence. The Lord Marshal actually looked sheepish.
"Now," she continued reasonably, "if you really want to make a big, fat target out of me, I wish you'd tell me. There are easier ways to get rid of me."
"Oh, come now," replied Lord Palinor, the Seneschal, wearing a superior expression that made her want to bite something. "Surely that's an exaggeration."
"Is it?" she asked raising one eyebrow, but otherwise keeping her expression sweetly innocent. "You just heard a description of something that could have destroyed an entire garrison—a weapon Ancar deployed inside our borders, and without having to come within sight of Valdemar. Protected Valdemar. What's likely to happen if he knows my every movement outside our borders?" She chuckled dryly. "Kind of negates the benefit of being a moving target, I'd say."
Silence for a moment, while they thought that one over. "Well," said Prince Daren. "What do you want to do?"
"My preference is to go alone," she admitted. "Basically, I'm safest if no one else knows where I am."
But the Prince shook his handsome head. "No," he said, with a touch of regret. "If it were anyone else, that wouldn't be a problem—but not you. You may think you're expendable, but you're still the Heir right now. You can't go running off the face of the earth all alone. And there is one argument that applies to Talia that also applies to you. If you were taken, you could be used as a hostage as well."
Elspeth sighed, but nodded in agreement. "That's true, Stepfather. I admit that I hadn't thought too much of that—but frankly, between Gwena and myself, I don't think we could be taken by anything but a small army."
"There's always treachery," Daren said firmly. "You'll have to take at least one other person with you. And personally, I would suggest a Herald."
"Someone responsible, capable—" said Father Ricard.
"Crafty and clever," said Talia.
"Fine," she agreed—and then, before they could engage in a till-dawn debate on exactly who she could take with her, said, "But it's going to be Skif, or no one. There is no one in the entire Heraldic Circle who is better suited to watching my back."
She expected an explosion of argument; after all, given the fuss there had been over the rumors started simply by being in Skif's company, the Councilors should, one and all, roundly denounce such a notion.
And after they argued themselves into exhaustion, she just might be able to talk the Council into letting her have her own way and going out alone.
"Fine," Selenay said, instantly. "Skif is perfect. He's everything we could ask; responsible, capable, clever, crafty—"
Lord Palinor laughed. "Aye, and tricky, the young devil. Ancar wouldn't catch him napping, I'd wager."
And while Elspeth gawked, caught entirely flat-footed with surprise, every single one of the Councilors agreed to the choice she would have bet money they thought unsuitable. Before she quite realized what was happening, they approved her authority as negotiator for the Crown, approved her escort, and closed the session.
And began filing out, heading straight for their beds, while she stared at them, dumbfounded. Talia even patted her on the shoulder as she left, whispering, "Good choice, kitten. I think it was the only thing that could have convinced them."
Finally she was alone in the Council Chamber, sitting back in her seat, staring at the guttering candles, still wondering what on earth had happened.
And wondering just who, exactly, had been outmaneuvered.
Chapter Six
DARKWIND
Council meetings. Endless dithering about nothing, while we guardians dance with death out there on the border. And no help for us, either. If I could get anyone else to do this, I'd give up the Council seat in a heartbeat.
Darkwind pushed aside a tangle of vines covered with blue, trumpet-shaped flowers and restrained himself from pulling the whole curtain of vegetation down in a fit of anger. It had been days—weeks—since his confrontations with his father and the Council, demanding that they do something about the situation of the Clan, of the scouts, and what had they done?
Nothing. Or rather, they had "taken it under advisement." They would "weigh all the possible options." They were "studying the problem."
They're sitting on their backsides, afraid to do anything, that's what's really going on. Father won't let them act because he's afraid of what it will do to the Heart-stone. And they still won't go outside k'Sheyna for help.
Not that he had really expected anything else after the way Starblade had treated him. Really, when it came to anything important, especially where magic was concerned, the entire Council spoke with Starblade's words.
I'll have to start considering those other plans of Dawnfire's, using the hertasi and some of the others. They've left us no choice; if we're going to guard them effectively, we'll have to use whatever allies we have.
And he didn't particularly care if pulling the hertasi away from their other duties left some of those jobs undone. So what if the Vale got a little more overgrown? It didn't look to him as if it would make much difference. And maybe if some of the Elders had to suffer a little, if their ekele went unrepaired and their gardens untended because the hertasi were out helping keep their Vale safer—well, maybe then they'd notice that there was something wrong with their little world. And maybe they'd decide that it might be a good idea to try and fix what was wrong.
I hope. But I'm not going to count on anything like sense out of them.
He took the shortest possible route to the pass out of the Vale, cutting down long-neglected paths until he reached the boundary and the shield-wall. As he burst through a stand of wildly overgrown, flowering bushes, he saw Vree waiting for him in a tree growing just outside the mage-barrier. The gyre preferred not to enter the Vale itself if he could help it; many of the other bondbirds demonstrated Vree's distaste for the Vale proper, and tried to stay outside of the shield. Darkwind wasn't sure if it was because they shared their bondmates' dislike of magic, or sensed the problems with the Heart-stone. One thing was certain, he knew that aversion dated back to the disaster, and not before.
He just wished he could avoid the Vale as well.
The place made him uneasy, for all its luxury. Here, near the edge, it wasn't so bad. The flora were tropical and wildly luxuriant, but it was nothing that couldn't be found in a glassed-over hothouse. But the closer he came to the damaged Heartstone, the stranger the plants became—and the odder he felt; slightly disoriented, off-balance, lethargic. As if something was sapping his energy, clouding his thoughts.
And it's not my imagination, either, he thought stubbornly. If Vree and the other birds don't like the Vale, that should tell us all something. No matter what Father claims. What would he know, anyway? His bondbird is that damned crow—hardly bred out of the wild line, and it might as well be a metal simulacrum for all the intelligence it shows. It does what he tells it to, it doesn't talk to the other birds at all, and most of the time it sits on its perch in the corner of the ekele, like some kind of art object.
He passed through the barrier—a brief tingling on the surface of his skin—and emerged into the real world again. Already he felt lighter, freer, and it seemed to him as he walked out on the path taking deep breaths of the pine-scented air, that even his footfalls were more confident. No cloying flower-scents, no he
avy humidity—just an honest summer breeze. No one to answer to, out here. No one questioning his judgment unless it really needed to be called into question.
:Vree!: He Mindcalled the gyre, suddenly anxious to feel the bird's familiar weight on his shoulder. Vree obliged him by sweeping down out of the top of the nearest pine, landing on his leather-covered wrist with a thunder of pinions, and stepping happily from there to his favorite perch, on the padded shoulder of Darkwind's jacket.
:Don't like Vale,: the falcon complained. :Too hot, too empty, feels bad. Don't like crow, stupid crow. Don't go back.:
He Sent agreement tinged with regret. :I have to, featherhead. But you don't have to go in if you don't want to. And I don't have to go back for a while.:
The bird crooned a little, and preened a beakful of Darkwind's hair, as the scout laughed softly. Feeling considerably more cheerful now that he was outside the Vale and wouldn't have to face another Council meeting for days, Darkwind returned the bird's affectionate caress, scratching the breast and working his fingers up to the headfeathers. Vree made a happy chuckling sound, and bent to have his head scratched a little more.
"Sybarite," Darkwind said, laughing.
:Feels good,: the bird agreed. :Scratch:
:Report, featherhead,: he told the gyre, :Or no more scratches.:
Vree actually heaved a sigh, and reluctantly complied. The bondbirds had some limited abilities at relaying and reporting messages; while Darkwind was in the Vale, he depended on Vree to keep in contact with the rest of the scouts under his command. Vree had messages from most of the scouts; all those who had not reported in person before Darkwind went to the Council meeting this afternoon.
Most of the messages were simple enough, even by Vree's standards: "Nothing to report," "All quiet," "All is well." A normal enough day; he'd been half expecting that something disastrous would happen while he was out of touch, but it seemed that all the scouts had things well in hand.
All except for the handful of scouts who shared the southern boundary with him.
Those sent back messages that there were problems. Three of them said that they had turned their watch over to the night-scouts and would meet him at his ekele, to make their reports in person. Vree could not imitate the emotional overtones of those Mind-sent messages, relayed through their birds to Vree, but the tense quality did not auger well.
He swore silently to himself; the last time he'd had to take reports in person, he and the rest of the scouts had faced a week-long incursion of magically-twisted creatures that ultimately cost them two scouts and the only mage who had deigned to work with them.
That had been shortly after he'd joined the scouts, and before they made him their spokesperson. He could only hope that if this was the situation they faced again, they were sufficiently aware of the problems now to deal with it without more losses.
:Home?: Vree asked hopefully when he'd finished listening to the last of those messages.
:Yes,: he confirmed, to the bird's delight. :Meet me there.: He let Vree hop back down to his wrist and tossed the heavy gyre into the air; Vree pushed off and flapped upward, driving himself up through the branches with thunderous wing-claps. Darkwind waited until he had disappeared, then started off through the forest at a trot—not on one of the usual paths, but on a game-trail—heading for his ekele.
He never took the same route twice; he never approached his ekele the same way. While he ran, as silently as only a Tayledras scout could, he kept his mind as well as his other senses open, constantly on the alert for traces of thought that were out of the ordinary, for the scent of something odd, for a color or texture where it didn't belong, or movement, or the sound of a footfall in the forest beyond him.
Other scouts had not been that cautious. Rainwind hadn't; he'd been ambushed halfway between the Vale and his ekele after a long soak in one of the springs. He'd been lucky; his bondbird had spotted one of the ambushers first, so he had only had to deal with one enemy. The creatures had not sported the kind of poisoned fangs and claws so many others had and he'd escaped with only a permanent limp from a lacerated thigh.
Others had not been so fortunate; they had been just as careless, and had paid for it with limbs or lives.
That was the cost of living outside the Vale. No single Tayledras could hope to shield more than his ekele, even if he were an Adept-class mage. Since most of the scouts weren't, they paid the price of freedom in personal safety.
But anyone who lived out here felt it was worth that cost.
There were too many other things that were bad about living in the Vale these days; it was good to have a little distance from the Heartstone, and space between themselves and the mages.
The run stirred up his blood, and made him feel a little readier to face whatever trouble was coming. He Felt the presence of the other scouts long before they knew he was there. Out of courtesy, they had not climbed to his ekele while he was not in it; instead, they waited below, patiently, while Vree perched above, impatiently.
:Hungry,: Vree complained, as soon as his keen eyes spotted Darkwind approaching. The three scouts waiting caught the edge of the Mind-sent plaint, and he Felt their attention turning toward him, little brushes of thought, as they each tested for him and found him with their individual Gifts.
They waited until he came into view, though, before tendering some very subdued greetings. And not the usual "zhai'helleva," either; Winterlight and Stormcloud only raised their hands in a kind of sketchy salute, and Dawnfire tendered him a feather-light mental caress, a promise of things to come, but also carrying overtones of deep concern.
This did not indicate good news at all.
He signaled to Vree, who swooped down and landed on one of the lower branches. Although he could not see the bird, hidden as he was by growth, he knew what Vree was up to. The gyre sidled along the branch to the trunk, and pulled a strap on the hook holding his rope ladder out of reach. The ladder dropped down to the ground with a clattering of wooden rungs; Darkwind motioned the others to precede him, and followed after with the strap that was attached to the end of the ladder tucked into his belt.
The others were far above him on the ladder; he had to go slowly, as he was bringing the end of it up with him. They were already hidden in the branches when he was only halfway up. His ekele, like those of the other scouts, was actually more elaborate than any of those inside the Vale. It had to be; it had to withstand winter winds and summer downpours, snow and hail, and the occasional "visit" from some of the distinctly hostile creatures from the Outlands.
At last, after penetrating the growth of the first boughs, he reached the place where the ladder-release was fastened to the bark of the trunk. He hooked the end of the ladder back in place, and followed his guests up through the trapdoor in the floor of the first chamber of the ekele.
The tree holding his home was an amazing forest giant, but it was nothing like the trees that supported a half-dozen ekele apiece, back in the Vale. Like them, though, it was a huge conifer, with a girth more than ten men could span with outstretched arms, and an arrow-straight trunk that towered without a single branching up for several man-heights above the forest floor. The first branches concealed his ladder; his ekele began, well sheltered, another man-height above that.
He pulled himself up onto the floor, closed and locked the trapdoor, then went to the glazed window of the first chamber, unlocked the latch at the side, and held it open for Vree. The forestgyre dove through it in a rush, landing on his outstretched arm, then hopped to his shoulder. Darkwind shut the window and relatched it, then turned to climb the stairs to join his guests.
The entire ekele was built of light, strong wood, stained on the outside to resemble the bark of the tree, but polished to a warm gold within. The first chamber was nothing more than a single, barren room, meant to buffer the effects of the wind coming up from below; there were all-weather coats hung on pegs on the wall, some climbing-tools and weapons, but that was all. The other scouts had al
ready gone ahead of him, following a staircase built into the side of the trunk, a stair that spiraled up to the next chamber.
Each chamber was built upon the one below it, in a snailshell-like spiral pattern, using the huge branches as supports for the floor. The next chamber was one commonly used for the gathering of friends; it was considerably larger than the entrance chamber, and covered an arc fully one-third of the circumference of the trunk. Heated in winter by a clever ceramic stove that he also used for cooking, it supplied warm air to the two chambers above it. One of those was a sleeping room, the other, a storeroom and study. To bathe, he had to descend to the ground. As soon as his head and shoulders had cleared the doorsill—if one could rightly call an entrance that was placed in the floor a "door"—Vree hopped off his shoulder and bounced sideways toward his perch, in the ungainly sidling motion of any raptor on the ground. The floor and wall-mounted perch was a permanent fixture of the room, placed in the corner, where it could be braced against two of the walls, and near one of the windows. Vree leapt up onto it, roused his feathers, and yawned, waiting for his dinner.
Aside from the perch and the stove, the only other permanent features of the room were the low platforms affixed to the floor. Those platforms, upholstered in flat cushions, now hosted the three scouts: Winterlight, Stormcloud, and Dawnfire.
Three of the best. If they have problems, it's not from incompetence.
Winterlight was the oldest of all of them; he had held the position of Council-speaker and Elder but had given it to Darkwind with grateful relief when the others suggested him.
Now I know why he gave it up. I'd gladly give it back.
He seldom dyed his hair; longer than his waist, he generally kept the snow-white fall in a single braid as thick as his own wrist. Winterlight was actually Starblade's elder by several years but was of such a solitary nature that he had lived outside the Vale for most of his life. He was also unusual in that he flew two bondbirds; a snow-eagle, Lyer, by day; a tuft-eared owl, Huur, by night. Both birds had mated, and although the mates had not bonded to the scout, they provided extra security for Winterlight's ekele, nesting near each other in a rare show of interspecies tolerance, for given the chance, owls and eagles would readily hunt and even kill one another. Huur and Lyer's offspring had been in high demand as bondbirds.
Valdemar Books Page 596