But at the moment, all Snowfire could think of was how glad he was to see them all. He slid down off the horse and found his legs unexpectedly wobbly; he managed to save himself from embarrassment by holding for a moment to the pommel of the saddle, and offered the boy his good hand as an aid to get down.
Darian smiled at him wanly. “You don’t look so good,” he said, with that blunt frankness of a child who hasn’t yet figured out that one doesn’t always have to voice what one observes. “I can manage to get down myself.”
And he did, but his legs were just as wobbly as Snowfire’s when he slid off the horse’s rump and landed on the ground—though in his case, it was probably from a mixture of fatigue and unaccustomed riding than from pain.
“This is Darian k’Valdemar,” Snowfire told the others, in Valdemaran. “He’s never seen Tayledras before, and he knows nothing of us. Darian, this is Adept Starfall, who is our Elder and the leader of this group. This is trondi’irn Nightwind, who is going to patch up the tears in your hide as she does for the rest of us who have the misfortune to run through brambles.”
Darian rubbed some of his scratches with a bit of self-conscious embarrassment, even though some of them were deep and he had many bruises as well.
“And this is Wintersky—” He looked askance at the younger man, who grinned at Darian and finished the sentence.
“Wintersky, who will share his quarters with you and Snowfire, unless you prefer to camp alone in a tent, or have us make some other arrangements.” The young man winked. “I pledge you I do not snore. My Valdemaran is the best of all of us save the mighty hunter Snowfire, so I thought I’d volunteer our ekele. It’s always better to have people about who know your tongue fairly well. Snowfire does snore, though.”
Darian was clearly getting overwhelmed; his eyes looked a trifle glazed, his face was pale, and his expression bewildered. “I don’t mind, I mean, that would be good—whatever you like—”
“Whatever it is that I like is that you are to come and be tended, and be eating and drinking, and be then sleeping,” Nightwind said firmly, taking the boy in charge with maternal authority. The boy yielded to her with relief and gratitude, and she ushered him off.
“I’ll report in brief, and then I need to be tended, eating, drinking, and then sleeping after you’ve gotten the full report,” Snowfire told the Adept, as Wintersky took the horse and led it away to be watched by the dyheli herd. “Hweel saw the boy being chased by northern barbarians. Bearclan would be my guess, but they were all wearing identical armor, and I don’t much care for what that implies.”
“Neither do I,” Starfall said, his brows furrowing.
“Their tattoos would have told me more, but things were rather impolite at the time, and I didn’t stay around to request a viewing from those remaining.” Snowfire noted Starfall’s lips twitch as he tried not to smile at the understated and off-hand manner Snowfire was taking with the tale.
“How impolite?” Starfall asked.
“Only two casualties. Not even a minor quarrel by Bearclan standards. Hardly more than an ordinary drunken brawl—though I did make sure to substitute the boy’s arrows for mine; I didn’t want to alert them to our presence. Still—one of them had caught the boy by the time I got there, and he and his colleagues were exchanging pleasantries that implied they had been … improving some Valdemaran settlements.” He dropped his tone of levity. “I think that the boy belonged to the latest one, though I have not yet questioned him at all. I wished an Empath to be present when I did.”
Starfall lost all trace of humor at that. “So, you have barbarians in identical armor, what amounts to something more serious than a little banditry, and all this a good bit farther south than we should expect to see mountain tribes. I shall check my maps, but… .” Starfall shook his head. “I do not like this, Snowfire.”
“Neither do I, since the barbarians don’t move in groups larger than a dozen without having a shaman-mage along with them.” Snowfire had been letting what he knew about the northern tribes dig itself out of his memories during the last part of the journey; he was better at recollection when he allowed the memories to surface on their own. “And they don’t use horses as a rule, yet all of the barbarians I saw were mounted.”
“This isn’t sounding very promising.” Starfall bit his lip for a moment. “Well, the best thing that I can do is to move the progress I was making on ahead. It won’t take more than a day or so, and I’ll have the matrices set up and completely in my control; I’d like to see the mage that can get it out of my hands then.“
“I wouldn’t,” Snowfire replied. “But if there was someone able to do that, he’d have challenged you already, so the worst we’ll have to deal with is someone your equal. I think we can do that.”
“And I think you’d better have someone look at that arm while you get some hot food inside you,” Starfall pointed out. “Your stoicism is respected, but not required. Go, you can make a more detailed report after you’ve rested and gotten properly patched up—and by then, the boy will be rested, too, and we can find out why barbarians on horses were chasing him.”
Now that his initial report had been made, he had the relief of the discharge of duty, and a great weariness descended on him. He decided that the best place for him was in his shared ekele. Fortunately, it was one of the nearer structures; he rounded two vine screens, and there it was, looking like nothing so much as a leafy hummock. He parted the vines with his good hand, and found that Nightwind had already preceded him there.
He had taken weather-felled limbs and constructed a fine log home, octagonal in shape, with a roof of sod held up by logs and willow withes woven into fine mats. The snug dwelling would probably serve as well in winter as in summer, except that he would have to fill in the bottom rank with sod; he had left off the bottom rank of logs on four of the eight sides so as to allow the movement of air through the place. A cool breeze came in at the level of the floor and went out at the smoke hole in the middle. It had been a great deal of extra work to make this ekele, but he reckoned it had been worth the work. A lantern with a mage-light in it hung from one of the ceiling logs. His sleeping place and Hweel’s perch were on the far right as one came in the door, and Wintersky’s sleeping pad and Tiec’s perch were on the left. That left a cooking place in the middle, and any gear they shared near the door. Now there was a third sleeping place at the rear, with the boy sitting sleepily on it and Nightwind beside him.
Snowfire saw at once that someone had left a young rabbit on Hweel’s perch, which meant Hweel would not have to hunt tonight. Pleased by the courtesy, he slipped back out before Nightwind noticed he was there and called Hweel to the fist.
The owl dropped down on his arm with customary aplomb, and ducked his head as Snowfire brought him in. This time, the boy, who did not seem to be noticing much, reacted very strongly and positively to Hweel.
His mouth formed a silent “Oh!” and his eyes went round, but there was no sign of fear in him. Nightwind noticed the lad’s reaction, and smiled over her shoulder at Snowfire.
Snowfire took that as an invitation to come closer. Darian stared at the huge owl with intense interest. “Is that your bird?” he whispered, as if he was afraid that he might startle the owl. “I heard Hawkbrothers had birds, but I didn’t know they were that big! He’s—he’s amazing!”
Snowfire flushed a little with pleasure; he was not proud of much, but he did take a certain pleasure in having so magnificent a partner as Hweel. “Yes, he is, isn’t he?” he agreed. “His name is Hweel, and he was watching out for us, flying behind us in the trees, all the way back. Would you like to touch him?”
“Can I? He won’t mind?” Darian looked quite as if Snowfire had given him permission to shake the Queen of Valdemar’s hand.
“Hweel is excessively vain, and extremely fond of scratches, and if you are going to offer him plenty of admiration and caressing, he will be your friend for life,” Nightwind said with mock severity.
Hweel clacked his beak at her, then softened the rebuke with the soft “huuur” an adult would give a nestling.
“Go ahead,” Snowfire urged.
Darian reached hesitantly to touch Hweel’s breast-feathers, but the owl had other ideas. Quick as thought, he leaned down and butted his head against the outstretched hand, and before he knew it, Darian was scratching the top of the owl’s round, densely-feathered head.
“He’s so soft!” the boy exclaimed with delight.
“Don’t be afraid to give him a good scratching,” Snowfire told him, as Hweel stepped down off the gauntlet to the floor, and made his odd little sideways sidle up to the boy. “You’ll have to work to get through all the feathers on his head.”
The owl closed his huge eyes in bliss as Darian scratched with more vigor, and shoved his head practically into Darian’s chest. Snowfire was delighted, both with the boy’s reaction and with Hweel’s, and for the first time he entertained the thought that if the boy had nowhere else to go, he might wish to join k’Vala.
Well, it is enough for now that he is not terrified of the bondbirds, and that the bondbirds take to him. Either would be amazing enough, but having both is wonderful. We can worry about what is to become of him when we have a better idea of what he has involved us in.
Nightwind allowed the boy some time to caress Hweel, and before either of them tired of the sport, she Mindspoke to the bird, :Enough. He will still be here in the morning, and so will you. Right now, he needs to sleep.:
As Hweel heaved a great sigh of regret, she said virtually the same thing to the boy. “Sleep, it is time for; you and Hweel will be here both when sun rises.”
Reluctantly, the owl raised his head and the boy took his hand away, but before he could take it entirely out of range, the owl reached out with his powerful beak and gently nibbled Darian’s fingertips.
“That is a high compliment,” Snowfire told him, as the boy glanced at the Tayledras for an explanation. “He doesn’t offer that particular sort of ‘thank you’ to just anyone.”
Darian looked dazzled, and as Hweel waddled toward his perch with an owl’s awkward and ungainly ground gait, Snowfire got one of the larger body-feathers, about the size of the boy’s hand, from a little basket he had woven of pine needles and tacked to the logs on his side to hold molted feathers. He lifted Hweel up to the perch—given the owl’s huge wingspan, he preferred that Hweel not use his wings inside the ekele—then gave the feather to Darian. The boy took it with shy thanks, and occupied himself with stroking and examining it.
“That was neatly done,” Nightwind complimented him. “I was having trouble getting him to relax enough for the drug I gave him in his tea to work. I want him to be drowsy when you and Starfall question him.”
“Thank Hweel for cooperating so nicely,” Snowfire replied, as she pushed him over to his own sleeping pad and began unwrapping the bandage on his arm.
“I already have,” came the calm reply, and then Snowfire endured a few bad moments as she examined the wound and gave it a thorough cleansing. Once it was clean, however, she was quick to put a numbing salve on it, so that when she stitched it up for him, he scarcely felt the prick of the needle. The boy watched them intently, but with a detachment that Snowfire thought was probably thanks to the drug.
“I am very concerned by the little I have sensed from this boy,” Nightwind told him. “He is quite traumatized, and on the whole, I am concerned about what will happen to him when he allows himself to feel the emotions he is holding inside.”
“I got the impression that he doesn’t show half of what he is feeling,” Snowfire confirmed, as Starfall tapped the door-frame lightly, then entered.
“He keeps things to himself, I think,” she told Snowfire. “His griefs are many, and not all concerned with whatever led him to us; once he allows one to be free, the others may come flying out. That will be good for him, but it will be a hard time as well.” She looked troubled. “I cannot tell you if your questions will trigger this release. They may, or they may not.”
“Whether they do or not, we need to know why Snowfire found him in the predicament that he was in,” Starfall pointed out. “And the sooner we know, the better.”
“Darian, now that you have eaten and rested, we would like you to tell us what happened to you,” Snowfire said in his best Valdemaran.
The boy nodded; he looked awake, but not entirely alert. “Those men that were chasing me—there were fighters like them that attacked Errold’s Grove,” he said plaintively. “I guess the militia went to stop them, but they probably didn’t have a chance.”
“How many men?” Starfall asked quickly. “What were they like?”
“It wasn’t just men, it was some kind of monster, too, and—I didn’t actually count how many there were, but they were in ranks of five, and I saw ten times five ranks and I know I didn’t see all of them,” Darian said, growing agitated, as Nightwind put a steadying hand on his arm. “There were just a lot—an awful lot. I was out in the woods, getting some tree-fungus that Juh—that we needed, and I saw smoke and fire and came running back. When I got there, everybody was running away, and this whole army was on the road to the bridge. They had lots of armor, and all kinds of pikes and swords and things, and not all of them were men, they were kind of half bear and half man! And there was another thing, a monster or a demon or something, that wasn’t anything like a man at all, and it was leading them—it was riding on this big lizard. J—” A spasm of pain swept over the boy’s face, and Snowfire made a mental note to find out who or what began with “J” that the boy avoided talking about so carefully. That might be the key to releasing some of that pent-up grief. “The bridge got—destroyed—set afire to keep them off, but they came across the river anyway. That’s when I ran, and I got away from the first lot, but those others were deeper in the forest and came after me when they saw me.”
Starfall and Snowfire exchanged looks. This did not sound very good.
“Did the others of your village get away from this army?” Snowfire asked. “Did they have somewhere to go for help?”
The boy frowned for a moment, then shrugged. “I didn’t see anybody get caught,” he said finally. “And I guess they must have run to Kelmskeep. Lord Breon has got a whole garrison of his own, and Kelmskeep’s fortified, they say. He has messengers and things he could send for the Guard, so that’s probably where everybody went.”
“Now, what about the men who chased you?” Snowfire asked. “How did that happen?”
The boy winced with chagrin. “I ran into them,” he admitted. “I didn’t think there was any way they could have got ahead of me, and I ran into them, ‘cause I wasn’t looking for anyone. They came after me, and I headed for that clearing ‘cause there’s places in there I could’ve hid, and they couldn’t have brought their horses over those loose rocks. But one of them caught me, and that’s where you showed up, and that’s all.”
“That will do; I’ll have the others gather, and we can discuss this when you are ready,” Starfall said, as he got to his feet and headed for the door of the ekele.
“I’ll be there as soon as the boy is asleep,” Snowfire promised, and turned his attention back to Darian.
“Hweel won’t have to hunt for himself tonight, so even though Wintersky and I will be gone for a little, Hweel will be with you,” Snowfire told him, then asked the one question that was still puzzling him. “Darian, did you really intend to go after those two barbarians with your rabbit-bow?”
“I had to,” Darian replied sleepily. “I knew you were hurt, and I didn’t think you’d seen them. I knew I couldn’t do much unless I got a lucky shot, but maybe I’d distract them, and for sure they’d make a noise, so you would know that they were there.”
“Well, that was good planning,” Snowfire told him, and was rewarded with a sleepy smile that faded into drugged slumber. He waited until he was certain that Darian’s sleep was too deep to be easily broken, then got up to go outside, leaving
Hweel to keep a vigilant eye on the boy.
:Watch and guard,: he told the bondbird, keeping things simple. People had been known to have odd reactions to drugs, and children in particular were prone to sleepwalking after a severe trauma. Snowfire was not in the least deceived by the boy’s apparent calm; Nightwind said that there was great emotion ready to burst out at any moment, and he believed her. :Find me if something happens.:
Hweel roused his feathers and huured his agreement. Now that he was full of rabbit, he was quite content to stay in one place with a foot tucked up beneath his breast-feathers.
Snowfire joined the rest of the group around the small fire that Nightwind kept feeding with herbs to keep the insects away. He accepted a mug of cool water from the spring from Wintersky with a nod of thanks, and took his place in the council session that had formed.
“I’ve told the others what the boy told us,” Starfall explained, as firelight flickered and cast odd shadows on his face. “And the very first question I can think of is whether we should involve ourselves at all.”
“I don’t think we can, to tell you the truth,” replied Wintersky regretfully. “I mean, this sounds like an army! And we have how many? Not quite twenty humans, twice that in the dyheli herd, a couple of hertasi and a gryphon. We aren’t exactly equipped to be fighting battles either.”
The fire popped and hissed, blending with the sound of movement of something large, like the sussuration of canvas across canvas.
“I would sssay that one grrryphon isss worrrth an arrrmy, but I rrreluctantly concurrr,” a deep voice rumbled from the shadows behind Nightwind. “It only takesss a sssingle arrrow.”
“It isn’t just an army of men, but of Changechildren as well, and that means a mage is deep in it somewhere,” Starfall put in. “Unless what the boy saw were just costumes or disguises, and I can’t imagine why barbarians would bother wearing disguises.”
“It sounds to me as if someone managed to reconcile a great many Bearclan septs,” Snowfire mused. “Maybe—well, this is a wild surmise, but from what I know about the northern tribes, they attach heavy religious and emotional significance to their totems, and a lot of emphasis is put on taking on the attributes of those totems. Now, what would happen if a mage came along, perhaps in the guise of a shaman, who could give them physical attributes of their totems?”
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