Owlknight v(dt-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  But the moment everyone else was ready to go, he was off at a lope, trusting to Kel and the birds for guidance through the mist, and to the abilities of the others to keep up. The way led literally downhill, down the slopes of the mountain to the water; that made it easy for his dyheli. Everything conspired to help him except the mist; there were clear game trails to follow, the trails themselves were easy and not strewn with rocks, even the mossy turf was springy and dulled the sound of the dyheli’s hooves. His mount Jakir positively frisked his way through the trees, enjoying the run. He couldn’t see much through the fog, though - the nearest tree trunks, the lowest branches. He could just as readily have been running over the same piece of ground, except that the paths always led downward.

  The others caught up with him, but he kept the lead; they broke unexpectedly into a meadow just as the sun began to burn off some of the fog and startled a herd of deer into flight ahead of them. As the fog thinned, they saw more and more of their surroundings, and they were nothing short of amazing; as lovely as a Tayledras Vale in a very different and far wilder fashion. There was water everywhere; in tiny rivulets that trickled down the mountainside and made miniature waterfalls, in larger streams they crossed in a single bound, and crystal-clear brooks that laughed through stone-strewn beds, in still pools full of fish, in the cool but humid air itself. Moss covered everything; rocks, tree trunks, branches; it hung in pendulous beards from the branches overhead, and cushioned every step the dyheli took. And everywhere was green, a thousand shades of green, from the black-green of water weeds in the pools through the blue-green and emerald of the underbrush, to the bright green of leaves overhead with sunlight shining through them. Even the light was green; Darian glanced back at Keisha, and saw she was looking about her with enchantment in her eyes in spite of the hard pace they were setting. The cool, damp air was full of wonderful scents; green growing things, the sharp scent of crushed pine needles, the ghosts of flowers, the promise of rain. Unfamiliar birds called in bell-like tones that echoed down through the branches, and from all around came every sort of song that water could possibly make, from the musical laughter of the tiny waterfalls and the gurgle of the brooks, to the steady, soporific dripping of water on leaves. But rather than lulling, the surroundings conspired to make him exhilarated, ready to do anything and everything.

  They were getting dripped on themselves, of course, but today in Darian’s excitement it seemed more refreshing than annoying.

  They stopped long enough for the dyheli and Karles to snatch a few mouthfuls and get a drink; the others dismounted to stretch stiff legs, but Darian begrudged even the time it took for that. He tried not to show his impatience too blatantly, closing his eyes to check with Kel and Kuari.

  :You’re not far now,: Kel replied, :You’re making better time than I’d thought you could,:

  :It’s all downhill,: he replied, greatly cheered by this. :How soon do we reach them at this pace?:

  :Huh - maybe a couple of candlemarks, no more. But do slow down before you get too close - you’ll raise an alarm, galloping in this way, and I’d hate to see you shot full of arrows.:

  Darian grimaced, but Kel had a point. Normal traders would not come riding in as if a cold-drake were on their heels. :Give me an idea where to slow down, and I will:

  :Darian, I have to say that I have seen no sign of your people. All the folk here look like Northerners.: Kel parted with that information reluctantly. :Of course,: he added, brightening, :l know I haven’t seen all, or even most of them. There are surely some out hunting, and women in the log houses.:

  Once again, Darian clamped down on both hope and disappointment, reminding himself that he was looking only for a direction, not for his mother and father in person. :Stay alert for trouble.: he warned Kel. :I caught the edge of a magic-search last night.:

  He caught Kel’s assent, and turned his attention to Kuari, who flew along just behind them, with Win-tersky and Steelmind’s birds, who were much swifter, taking lead. :Anything to our rear, old friend?:

  :Was tree-hare. Very tasty. No tree-hare, anymore.: Ku-ari’s mind-voice, overlaid with great satisfaction at an easy kill and the pause to eat it, made him chuckle in spite of his anxiety.

  He heard the others mounting up, and opened his eyes again. “Kel says we’ve made better time than he’d thought we would, and we’re nearly there,” he told them encouragingly. Shandi made a movement that caught his attention, and he looked over at her directly.

  “I want to borrow you and Keisha when we get there, to give Karles a boost for his mind-voice,” she said, in a tone that made it more of a demand than a request. Karles bobbed his head and stamped a hoof to emphasize the “request.” “The information about Wolverine is too important; I have to get it back home, so that it gets there regardless of whether or not we make it back.”

  “That’ll take magic,” he said, with some reluctance, as his mount shifted restlessly under him. “I’m not sure that’s wise, given that - ”

  Shandi eyed him with disfavor, and Karles snorted, giving him a similar look. “You picked up a magic-sweep last night, didn’t you? And you didn’t tell us.”

  “So did I, and I didn’t tell you either,” Steelmind put in, mildly. “It doesn’t matter; nobody was using magic, so whoever it was - ”

  “ - the Wolverine Shaman - ” she interjected with annoyance.

  “ - won’t have found us. He probably thinks the magic we used was a futile effort against the cold-drake, and it ate us.” Darian finished the sentence for Steelmind. “But using magic again might tell him it didn’t.”

  Shandi looked him square in the eyes, and Karles moved a pace closer. “This is my duty. I’m helping you with yours, it’s only fair that you help me with mine.”

  Great good gods, they’re getting more alike with every day. Are all Heralds and Companions like this, I wonder? Her logic was inescapable, however, and he knew that she was right, even though it seemed to him that she didn’t have to be so forceful about it. He wasn’t all that hard to convince. He shrugged. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help, I was only advising you that we’ll be putting up a big, thick smoke signal for anyone with the right kind of eyes to see it. If you believe it’s worth that risk, then we’ll do it, and try to do what we can to prevent anyone from noticing.” Shandi seemed completely satisfied with that; Karles tossed his head and gave a nod of agreement. “All right, then,” she replied, and swung up into her own saddle, the last to do so. “Let’s get moving.”

  Once again, Darian’s heart was in his mouth, and his blood singing in his ears; the emotion filling him was a very close relative to the fear he’d felt against the cold-drake. As they walked their mounts toward the distant village, situated above an expanse of water so large he couldn’t see an opposite shore, he tried, and failed, to keep from hoping to see a familiar face among the people coming slowly to meet him.

  And as they neared, and he could make out the features of the wary men approaching, he tried, and failed, to keep his heart from sinking with disappointment.

  These were tribesmen just like any others; brown, lean, dressed in the felt and tanned deerskin garments of others they had met with. He saw vests on some, but they were all decorated with tribal totemic animals, chiefest among them being the beaky head of Raven. He stifled his own feelings, put on a smile, and walked forward with Hywel to introduce his group.

  Of all the folk they had met so far, these were the friendliest, and the least suspicious - but that might have been because they wore tokens from Red Fox, Snow Fox, and Ghost Cat; tokens that were not given out lightly, from three relatively peaceful tribes. Learning they were ostensibly traders brought looser grips on weapons, and a few faint smiles.

  “And what have you brought to trade?” the Chief of Raven asked, tilting his head to one side inquisitively. “I see no pack-animals. . . .”

  “Dyes, oh, Chief,” Darian replied, slipping into his role of trader as easily as slipping on a well-worn slipper. “Colo
rs such as you have not seen the like of. We bring another thing, also, and that is the learning of our Wisewoman - ” He gestured, and Keisha came forward, “ - who has the means to defeat the Summer Fever and the Hammer Lung, if you should be cursed with either, and will teach these things to you, in gratitude to the spirits who permit us to bring these trade goods to you.”

  “Indeed!” The Chief looked impressed. “We have neither sickness among us, but we know of them. Can she teach such to our Wisewoman even if there are none so touched?”

  Keisha bowed her head slightly. “I can, Chief, and gladly will. But since you have no sick in urgent need, would you look to our dyes?”

  “We will; come, be welcome in the house of the Raven.” He waved them on, but Darian raised his hand. “We have representatives of our totems, Chief, and an ally you might find monstrous. We wish you to see them before you welcome us, for you must welcome all of us or none at all.”

  The Chief nodded; as one, Darian, Steelmind, and Wintersky raised their arms, and their birds came in to the glove. Gasps of surprise, followed by admiration followed the appearance of the hawk and buzzard, but when Kuari came in, everyone stepped back a pace. Kuari looked about - as fast as his head could turn, for he knew how funny humans found the way he could swivel his head in nearly a full circle - and chuckles followed.

  Then came Kel.

  He did not drop in suddenly, he approached gradually, so that the tribesmen could see him approaching in the distance, with huge, graceful wingbeats, and become accustomed to him. It was still a dramatic entrance, though, and Kel was still an imposing figure that took even the Chief aback.

  Kel folded his wings with immense dignity. “I grrrreet the Chief of Rrrraven from the Chief of Ssssilverrr Grrryphon,” he said, enunciating slowly and clearly. The Chief gathered his wits and his courage to approach.

  “You are called a gryphon, then?” the Chief asked, looking up at Kel’s golden eyes and immense beak.

  “I am; my name issss Kelvrrren,” Kel replied. “And in rrreturrrn forrr yourrr hossspitality, I beg you to accept my aid in hunting deerrrr and otherrr larrrge crrreaturesss while we arrre herrre.”

  “Gladly!” the Northerner said with alacrity; it didn’t take a genius to figure out that so large a predator as Kel could be an enormous asset in hunting. “I thank you, and bid you welcome as well.”

  They followed him into the circle of log houses, escorted by the warriors, who were relaxing more by the moment. Darian saw at once that there were scores of drying racks covered with a red-fleshed filleted fish, with smoldering fires beneath them. That made sense - in this damp, fish would cure better smoked than simply dried. But the sheer quantity made him pause and wonder if those stories about fish being so thick in the river that you could walk dry-shod on their backs might have a solid kernel of truth to them.

  Keisha and Shandi spread out the contents of the trade-pack, together with the samples of dyed wool - drawn by the colors and encouraged by the actions of the Raven Chief, the women of Raven gathered closer to look. In moments they were passing around the bits of wool, exclaiming over the colors, asking if they could be painted on leather or used to dye quills or fur, while the men feigned indifference, coming up cautiously to Kel to discuss a future hunt.

  As they clustered around Keisha and Kel, Darian looked in vain for one of the special vests, or any other sign of Valdemaran handiwork. He ached with impatience, he longed to take someone aside and ask about the vests, but he knew that now wasn’t the time. They had to establish a relationship with these people before he could go about asking questions of them.

  Keisha got free for a moment, turning the questions over to Shandi and Hywel, since Hywel’s heart was truly into getting the best possible bargains he could, and Shandi loved bargaining. “Any sign of your family?” she asked Darian in Valdemaran, all the while smiling pleasantly, as if she was simply commenting on how eager these people were for their dye.

  He kept his facade up as well. “No,” he replied, a bit louder, so that the tribesmen wouldn’t think they were making some sort of secret comments. “No, I haven’t seen anything, not a vest, not even a bit of embroidery that looks familiar.”

  But just as he said that, something odd happened. A young girl at the edge of the gaggle of chattering women jerked her head up as if it was on a string and stared at him.

  Then she was off like a shot arrow speeding to a target - the target being one of the log houses.

  “What was that all about?” Keisha asked, having noticed it too. “That girl acted as if something frightened her.”

  “I have no idea,” he replied, his attention more on his own concerns than those of a strange Raven girl. “Maybe she was just shy of being around strange strangers. Kel probably made her really nervous, then it scared her over the edge to hear a different tongue. It doesn’t seem to have bothered anyone else.”

  Almost before he finished his sentence, the girl reappeared, pulling a seemingly reluctant woman along by one hand. The woman was protesting, and it was clear why. In her other hand she held a headless, gutted fish, and she had obviously been interrupted in the middle of preparing a meal. She was looking down at her daughter - for surely that was who the girl was - and laughing along with her protests. Then she looked up.

  Darian felt his head start to spin. His jaw dropped; he grabbed Keisha’s arm, and stared. Older - yes - gray in the brown hair, a face weathered and lined with the cares of ten years, but -

  “Mother!” he shouted, and ran toward her. As if the world had slowed, he watched her reactions. She stared, first without any recognition in her eyes, then with puzzlement, then the look he longed for dawned, and grew, and burst forth like the sun coming from behind a cloud.

  “Darian!” she shrieked - the fish went one way, the little girl the other, and she ran for him with outstretched arms.

  He caught her up in his embrace, a tiny part of him bewildered by how small she’d become, and held her as he’d hoped to for too many lonely years. She hugged him, laughing and crying at the same time; she put both her hands about his face, looked into his eyes, kissed him, looked again, kissed him again. His throat swelled, and tears of his own streamed from his eyes, though his mouth was stretched in a smile so large the corners of his mouth ached; the smell of fish suddenly became the most wonderful perfume in the whole world.

  By this time, of course, they had gathered a substantial audience, and not only the little girl was dancing around them, but a second, slightly younger one, and a littler boy, all chanting his name and tugging on their mother’s deerskin shirt.

  As for Darian - he didn’t care. His mother was in his arms, babbling endearments - he held her tightly, babbling nonsense of his own. No matter what happened in the next moment, or day, or week - he savored where he was, right now, and no one could ever take it from him.

  Darian looked dazed as well as blissfully happy, and Keisha held one of his hands as he and his mother slowly caught up on the last ten years. They all sat on benches or flat grass-stuffed leather cushions on the ground in front of the log house. She had insisted that he go first, plying him with honey-sweetened berry juice whenever his voice grew hoarse.

  “So strange,” she marveled at last, shaking her head as a cool breeze toyed with strands of her hair that had escaped from her single braid. “Of all the things I had imagined you would become, a mage was not one. And a Hawkbrother! Your father will be speechless.”

  “Where is Father?” Darian asked eagerly.

  His mother laughed. “Where would you think? Out on the river, trapping fish this time, rather than four-leggers. You wouldn’t expect the loss of a mere foot to slow him down, now would you? Kelsie’s twin Kavin is with him.” She ruffled the hair of the oldest girl, who watched her brother Darian with undisguised adoration. The younger two, solemn six-year-old Ranie, and two-year-old Tel, snuggled against their mother’s legs. “I suspect that these littles came as a great surprise to you - ”

  “I�
��d be lying if I said they didn’t, but they’re a wonderful surprise,” he replied, smiling down at the little girl Kelsie, then at her sister and brother. “I never thought of myself as a big brother before. But tell me what happened, from the beginning.”

  Darian’s mother - Daralie Firkin, Keisha reminded herself, Her name is Daralie, Dar for short - sighed, caressed the hair of the smaller girl, and began. “We had just finished setting up camp, when - something happened. I don’t remember what being caught in the magic felt like, and I suspect that’s just as well. The next thing I knew, we were halfway up that mountain there - ” she nodded at the mountain to the north of the village. Even at this distance, there was a spot of terrain that was visibly different - no doubt the sphere of Valdemaran land that had switched places with the piece of terrain originally there. “Kullen was screaming, and no wonder, since his foot had been cut off clean. The fire had come with us, and - I don’t know where he got the presence of mind to do this - and he shoved the stump into the coals. That seared the severed veins off; if he hadn’t, I think he would have bled to death.”