Winds Of Fate v(mw-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  There was no time to wonder if Skif and Cymry survived; no time even to think. She bottled her fear, her anger, though they made her want to run to her old friend's side-or run and hide. The Hawkbrother had joined in combat with the Changechild Adept, and there was no turning back now. Elspeth joined her power to Darkwind's, feeding him with the raw energy she drew up from the node. He knew how to use it; she could only watch and learn-for when he tired, it would be her turn to strike. From the other side, lances of fire rained down on Falconsbane, power pouring from the outstretched claws of Treyvan, with his mate backing him as she backed Darkwind.

  For a moment, it was impossible to see the Adept beneath the double attack-and during that moment she dared to hope.

  But then, a shadow appeared amid the glare of power-then more than a shadow-then-Pain.

  She thought she cried out; she certainly fell back a pace or two and covered her eyes with her upraised arm, as Darkwind's blast of power reflected back into their faces.

  When she blinked her tearing eyes clear, Falconsbane stood untouched, within a circle of scorched earth.

  Darkwind had taken the brunt of the blast on their side, as had Treyvan on the gryphons'. Treyvan crouched with head hanging, panting; Darkwind was on his knees beside her, shaking his own head, dazed and unable to speak.

  Falconsbane ignored the rest and concentrated his cold gaze on her.

  Her stomach turned into a cold ball of ice. He smiled, and she stepped back another pace, her hand reaching for a sword she no longer wore, palms sweating, feeling the blood drain from her face.

  "Well," he said, his voice full of amusement. "So you have some fight still. I will enjoy breaking you, Outlander." His eyes narrowed, and his voice lowered to a seductive purr. "I will enjoy taking both your mind and your body-"

  "Not this day," called a high voice, in pure Shin'a'in, from the ruins behind Falconsbane.

  Falconsbane's head snapped around; Elspeth gathered her primitive, clumsy power just in case this was nothing more than a ruse.

  But there were people behind the Adept; perched atop rocks, peering from behind walls, an entire line of people. Black-clad, one and all, some veiled, some not, but all with the same cold, implacable purpose in their ice-blue eyes. And one and all with drawn bows pointed at Falconsbane's heart.

  "Not this day, nor any other," Darkwind coughed, struggling to his feet. Elspeth gave him a hand, and stood beside him, helping him balance.

  He did not look to be in any shape to enforce those brave words; he swayed as he stood, even with Elspeth's unobtrusive support, and his face was drawn with pain.

  But there were all those arrows pointed at Falconsbane; surely they had him now-didn't they?

  Or did they?

  After the first flash of surprise, Falconsbane straightened again and laughed, sending a chill down Elspeth's back. "Do you think me so poor a player, then, to show all my counters before the game is over?" Elspeth did not even have a chance to wonder what he meant.

  She had no idea of where the thing came from, but suddenly it was dropping down out of the clouds-a huge, black, bat-winged creature that seemed big enough to swallow her whole and have room for Gwena afterward. It buffeted her with its wings, knocking her off her feet with a single blow, then slammed her into a rock-all the breath was driven out of her by the impact; her head snapped back against the stone, and she slid down it, seeing stars.

  She blacked out for a moment, but fought back from the dark abyss that threatened to swallow her consciousness. As she struggled back, shaking her head and swallowing the bile of nausea, Falconsbane laughed again.

  Her eyes cleared. That was when she saw that there were two of the things. One of them had Hydona trapped beneath it, its talons on her throat, ready to rip it out if she struggled. She looked out helplessly as the creature drew blood and looked expectantly at its master. Then Elspeth could only stare in horror-The other had Gwena in the same position.

  Darkwind lay in a heap just beyond her; eyes closed, unmoving.

  Treyvan faced the beast that had his mate with every feather and hair standing on end, kill-lust making him tremble. Muscles rippled as he restrained himself from attacking, and the stone beneath his talons flaked away in little chips from the pressure of his claws.

  "Gwena-: she Sent.

  "Don't!" the Companion shot back. "Don't move, don't anger it!.. Her mind-voice died to a whisper as the beast tightened its grip on her, and little beads of blood stained her white coat under its talons. "Don't do anything. Please."

  "Stalemate, I think?" Falconsbane said genially. The arrows of the Shin'a'in did not waver, but neither did the archers loose them.

  "Well, then. In that case, I think I shall fetch what I came for." Hydona uttered a wail that was choked off by the brutal grip of the beast prisoning her. Treyvan seethed with rage, eyes burning with fury.

  "It is not yours, Changechild," said one of the Shin'a'in, in a hollow voice that sounded as if it came up from the depths of a well. "It was not made by you, it does not obey you; it is not yours." Falconsbane lifted an eyebrow. And half-turned to lash out with yet another bolt of power; this one aimed at the young gryphons, a flood of poisonous red.

  "no!

  The cry was torn from Elspeth's throat-but from others as well. One of those others was free to act.

  Nyara leapt to her feet, her hands full of Need's hilt, holding it between herself and her father. The bolt of power struck the blade instead of the young gryphons, and built with an ear-shattering wail as Need, collected the blast And changed it; from sickly red to burnished gold. Elspeth's hea~. stopped as she watched, not fully understanding what was happening . but fearing the worst. She heard Darkwind utter something about "transmuting," and then he trailed off into a stream of what she guessed to be incredulous Tayledras curses.

  Need split the sphere of power in two, one half enveloping each young gryphon, filling them with light. Falconsbane's scream of rage drowned

  Elspeth's gasp of joy, but it could not stop what was happening. The golden light burned away at a kind of shadow within the two youngstersthe shadows melted even as she watched, melted and evaporated, leaving them clean of its taint.

  Distracted by the light and their master's cry of outrage, Mornelithe's dark beasts loosed their grip a little.

  Darkwind moved.

  Faster than a striking viper, he whipped the climbing-stick that never left him from the sheath on his back, and hooked it into the beast's throat. He never gave the creature a chance to realize what had happened; he yanked the hook toward himself, giving Gwena the opening to kick and buck herself free of it as the creature tried to both right itself and disengage the hook that was tearing its flesh from inside. The Companion scrambled out of the way, sides heaving, legs trembling, blood pouring from a dozen puncture wounds, to collapse at Elspeth's feet.

  The creature paid her no heed; all of its attention was taken up with Darkwind.

  Elspeth hovered protectively over Gwena; the Companion was shaking like an aspen leaf in the wind, but her wounds were already closing. She leapt up to stand between Gwena and the beast, but there was no need for her protection. She had wondered about Darkwind's peculiar weapontool; now she saw how an expert used it.

  Darkwind's face was contorted into a snarl of rage as he attacked the creature, forcing it to go on the defensive; the spiked end of the tool drove into an eye, blinding the beast, as Darkwind backed it into a rock and it staggered. He slashed in a broad flat stroke, laying the beast's belly open, and it fell forward to protect itself. It screamed, and Darkwind reversed the stick, hooking the beast's mouth and tearing at the tongue and lips. It tried to buffet him with its wings, screaming as its eye and mouth dripped thick, brownish blood; he simply hooked the membrane of the wings and tore them, while he ducked under clawstrikes, or fended them off with the spike. Every time there was an opening, he darted in and stabbed again with the spike; he wasn't yet doing the beast lethal damage, but he had to be causing i
t a lot of pain.

  It bled from a dozen wounds now, and Darkwind showed no signs of tiring.

  Screams of bestial pain from across the court made her dare a glance in that direction. Hydona, bleeding, but still full of fight, stood defiantly between Falconsbane and her children. Her wings were at full spread, mantling over her young, every feather on end. Treyvan clung to the back of the other beast, trying to sever its spine, each strike succeeding in removing a foot-long strip of meat from its neck. The creature screamed and tried in vain to throw him off, leathery wings flailing. No matter the gryphon was half this beast's size; he was going to win. Treyvan was astride the beast's back even if it tried to roll, his claws gouging deep and holding fast with its every swift move, then moving upward as if he was walking up the thing's back like it was a rock, driving deep holes in with every step, and taking a clump of meat with him at every opportunity. Elspeth swallowed in surprise; she had imagined what the gryphons' fearsome natural weaponry could do, but actually seeing it was another matter.

  Falconsbane seemed to be ignoring both the beasts, his attention fixed on the Shin'a'in. A moment later she knew why, as a flight of arrows sang toward him, only to be incinerated a few arm's lengths away.

  Another scream in her ear reminded her that there was equal danger, nearer at hand. Darkwind's beast was holding its own against him now, and even regaining a little ground, its one good eye mad with rage and fixed on its target. Even if Treyvan won his contest, he could still lose if this beast killed Darkwind.

  She had to help him, somehow-One good eye-She acted with the thought; dropped one of her knives into her hand from its arm-sheath, aimed, and threw, as one of the beast's lunges brought that good eye into range.

  It missed, bouncing off the eye-ridge. The creature didn't even notice.

  She swore, and dropped her second knife, as Darkwind slipped on blood-slick rock and fell.

  Crap!

  The beast lunged with snapping jaws, managing to catch his leg in its teeth. He screamed and beat at the beast's head with his stick, trying to pry the jaws apart, stabbing at the eye.

  Suddenly calm, Elspeth waited dispassionately for her target to hold still a moment-and threw.

  The creature let Darkwind go. throwing its head up and howling in agony-and instead of scrambling out of the way as Elspeth expected, Darkwind lunged upward with the pointed end of his staff, plunging it into newly-revealed soft skin at the base of the thing's throat, and leaning on it as hard as he could.

  The creature clawed at the stick, at him, falling over sideways and emitting gurgling cries as he continued to lean into the point, thrashing and trying to dislodge it from its throat, all with no success. Darkwind's eyes streamed tears of pain, and he sobbed under his breath, but he continued to drive the point deeper and deeper.

  It died, breathing out bubbles of blood, still trying to free itself.

  Across the stretch of scorched earth, Treyvan had clawed his way up his enemy's back to the join of neck and spine. As Elspeth looked briefly away from Darkwind's beast, Treyvan buried his beak in his foe's neck, and jerked his head once. The beast collapsed beneath him.

  Treyvan's battle shriek of triumph was drowned in Falconsbane's roar of rage.

  Before anyone could move, the Adept howled again, his eyes black with hate, his hands rending the air as he clawed at it. Elspeth did not realize he was making a magical gesture until an oily green-brown smoke billowed up from the ground at his feet, filling the space between the ruined walls in an instant, completely obscuring everything that it rolled over.

  Poison! That was her first, panic-stricken thought, as the cloud washed over her before she could scramble out of its path. There was a hum of dozens of bowstrings as the Shin'a'in loosed their arrows.

  But though the thick, fetid smoke made her cough uncontrollably and brought tears to her eyes, it didn't seem to be hurting her any. She reached out a tentative Mindtouch for Gwena.

  "I'll be all right," came the weak reply. "Don't move; the nomads are still shooting." And indeed, she heard bowstrings sing and the hiss of arrows nearby.

  But not a great deal else.

  "Darkwind?" she called. "Are you all right?"

  "As well as may be, lady," he replied promptly, pain filling his voice.

  He coughed. "Stand fast, I am going to disperse this. I have enough power for that, at least." A moment later, a fresh wind cut through the fog, thinning it in heartbeats, blowing it away altogether as Elspeth took in deep, grateful breaths of clean air and knuckled her eyes until they stopped tearing.

  She looked first for Falconsbane; he was no longer there, but where he had stood were dozens of arrows stuck point-first into the earth-and leading away from the place was a trail of blood.

  That was all she had time to recognize; in the next moment, a surge of powerful energy somewhere nearby disoriented her for a moment. She might have written it off as a spasm of dizziness, had she not seen Darkwind's face.

  He stared off into the ruins, his mouth set in a grim line.

  "He used the last of his energies to set a Gate-spell back to his stronghold," the Hawkbrother said, bitterly. "Shaeka. He has escaped us."

  *Chapter wenty five

  This isn't finished yet.

  Tension still in the air knotted her guts like tangled yarn. And it wasn't just Falconsbane, either. Something was going to happen. There was unfinished business here-but whose it was-she couldn't tell.

  The trail of blood ended in a little pool of the sticky scarlet, directly in front of an archway in a ruined wall, or so said the Shin'a'in who had followed it to its end. There wasn't any reason for them to lie, and although they did seem a bit too calm and detached for Elspeth's liking, she assumed she could trust them. Darkwind apparently did. He made no effort to see for himself, but simply allowed the Vale Healer to continue working on him, although his lips moved with what Elspeth suspected were curses.

  Elspeth swore under her breath herself as she tested Cymry's legs for any more damage than simple bruises and sprains. Skif's Companion was suffering mostly from shock; somehow between them, the Companion and Darkwind had managed to shield Skif and herself from the worst of Falconsbane's blows. That was nothing short of a miracle.

  Gwena's talon-punctures had been treated, and would soon heal completely on their own. She was in pain, but it wasn't as bad as it could be, and she said so.

  Skif was in the hands of one of the Shin'a'in, the one who had introduced himself as the Tale'sedrin shaman, Kra'heera, and who had seemed oddly familiar to Elspeth. Skif had evidently suffered no worse than a cracked skull that would keep him abed until dizziness passed, and several broken ribs that would keep him out of the saddle for a while. He was unconscious, but not dangerously so. Nyara had satisfied herself on that score even before Elspeth and had taken a place by his side with Need in her hands. Since the blade's Healing power was working on the cat-wornsin's hurts, and might well aid Kra'heera's efforts with Skif if Nyara managed to persuade the blade, Elspeth saw no reason to take it away from her.

  She herself had gotten off lightly, with scratches and cuts; but Darkwind and Treyvan looked like badly-butchered meat. When Hyd na had flown limpingly into the Vale to fetch help, the Vale's own Healer had timidly come out of protection to treat them and bandage them, then had scuttled back to safety like a frightened mouse. Elspeth didn't think much of him; oh, his skills were quite excellent-but she didn't think highly of any Healer who wouldn't stay with his patients until he knew they were well. Darkwind saw her thinly-veiled scorn, though, and he'd promised an explanation.

  It better be a good one.

  The Shin'a'in were still searching the ruins for Falconsbane, though Darkwind was certain that he was long gone out of reach, and Elspeth agreed with him Of them all, only the gryphons were happy, despite wounds and pain.

  Somehow Need had transmuted the power of Falconsbane's magic into something that burned the little ones clean of his taint. Need might not think much of her
own abilities, compared with Elspeth's potential, but Darkwind was impressed. Transmuting was evidently a very rare ability.

  The adults had taken the young ones to the lair and curled up in there, refusing to budge unless it were direst emergency.

  Beside her, Darkwind leaned back against the rock supporting him, and stared at the red-shouldered hawk perched above the door of the lair, her head up and into the wind, her wings slightly mantled. He looked haunted, somehow. As she studied his face, Elspeth thought she read pain and anxiety there, though it was hard to tell what the Hawkbrother was truly feeling.

  But when he looked at Dawnfire, that was when the feeling of tension solidified.

  It's her. that's what isn't finished. She can't stay the way she is-She wrapped Cymry's foreleg to add support, and looked over at the bird herself.