Owlflight

by Mercedes Lackey

  “He’d own the clan to the point of being able to reconcile all the feuds between the septs,” Starfall said flatly. “And there was someone who managed that, once.”

  “Yesssss.” The shadow behind Nightwind rose, and loomed up over her head. “Yessss, therrre wassss. And we all know hisss currrsssed name.” The shadow resolved itself into a shape, and the shape into a creature, a creature with the mantling wings and head of a raptor, but a raptor of enormous size, and with four limbs instead of two. “He wasss called Ma’arrrrr.”

  “I don’t think we’re in any danger of seeing another Ma’ar, Kelvren,” Nightwind soothed. “It’s all right.”

  But Starfall frowned. “Perhaps. And perhaps not. I can’t help but think that this is a rather nasty coincidence, these barbarians, presumably led or backed by a mage, suddenly moving into territory where no one has yet established a matrix for magic. The difference between a Ma’ar and a petty tyrant is largely a matter of power.”

  “All the more reason for you to form and hold the matrix,” Snowfire replied firmly. “That will have to be our first priority, it seems to me. If the boy is correct, most—if not all—of his people escaped. Surely one will reach Lord Breon, and he can take care of the military problem from there.”

  “That would be best,” Starfall replied, but with a little reluctance. “We are hardly the group best suited to taking on an army.”

  “But think of what it would have meant if sssomeone had ssstopped Ma’arrr when he wasss gatherrring the trrribesss,” Kelvren urged, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “Would it not have been worrrth everrry sssacrrrificssse to do sssso?”

  “We can stop any mage just as easily by holding the magic energy of this area away from him,” Snowfire replied. “I think we should concentrate on getting that done first. By then, we should know if the Valdemarans have taken care of the military situation themselves.”

  “And if they have not?” Kelvren persisted.

  “We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” Starfall said firmly, ending the debate.

  The gryphon folded his wings, feathers making a cloth-on-cloth sound as they slid across each other into precise order. “Verrry well. I will be—rrready. And if they do rrrememberrr Ma’arrr and hisss waysss—” Kelvren reached for a log of firewood and purposefully splintered it into several pieces merely by squeezing it. “—then I will ensurrre that they rrrememberrr grrryphonsss asss well.”

  Four

  Darian woke in the morning feeling as if his head weren’t working quite right. It was difficult to put his thoughts together; he seemed to be taking a very long time to get even a single thought to form. He stared for a long time at the wall that was a hand’s breadth OF two past his nose, and wondered why the rough texture didn’t look the way it should. Why did each rough-sawn plank look rounded? And why wasn’t the wall itself slanting toward him as it formed the peak of the roof? His mind moved slowly and his thoughts felt fuzzy around the edges. And what was wrong with the light? It was greenish, and it was much darker in the loft than it should have been.

  It couldn’t be just turning dawn, because he never woke up that early. Maybe it’s going to rain? Justyn hadn’t Fore-Seen any rains, though, and that was one thing that he could do right; his weather-watching was always accurate.

  He’d had the strangest dream, too—that the village had been attacked by a whole army. There was fire, a lot of fire in the dream, the whole town had been on fire. It had been more of a nightmare. Darian shivered and tried to remember more. There was a lot of him running, and monsters chasing him, then more running through the forest, then horrible men on horseback chasing him—getting rescued by a Hawkbrother and an owl, a huge owl—

  A pretty strange dream, too. When would I ever see a Hawkbrother? Never in a thousand years. And who would ever bother to attack Errold’s Grove with an army? What could they possibly want? Beans and turnips? Or maybe chickens— He had to shake his head at the way he was trying to make sense of a dream. Anything can happen in a dream, of course—one of Widow Clay’s chickens must have started laying silver eggs with golden yolks. Or maybe Justyn’s spells finally worked and everyone was suddenly rich, and that was why an army came.

  Then he rolled over, and saw that he wasn’t in the loft, but in a strange, octagonal hut made of rough logs—windowless, and with vines over the door. There was a huge owl, the same one he thought he’d only “dreamed” about, blinking sleepily on a perch to one side. At that moment, he realized with a plummeting heart that it hadn’t been a dream at all. It had all been real, horribly real. Errold’s Grove was gone—or if not gone, it was in the hands of an army of violent strangers, and everyone he knew had fled in fear of losing their lives.

  In one moment, he went from sleepy and laughing at himself to despair. His insides became cold; a lump rose in his throat that was half grief and half fear, and his thoughts spun dizzily with nowhere to go. He still couldn’t quite remember all that had happened, and the way his thoughts kept spinning didn’t help. There was something about Justyn—and his mind shied away from the thought, as if he didn’t want to remember, as if remembering would be the most horrible thing that had happened to him.

  The village had been taken—but why? What could anyone possibly want with a little town that was on the verge of drying up and blowing away? If there were a single gold coin in the place, he would be surprised. A few of the women had jewelry, silver and silver-gilt, but he was sure there was not enough in the whole village to fill a hat. The women depended on their needlework to brighten their apparel. Most ornaments were made of carved and painted wood, plaited straw, beads and beadwork, copper, and bronze, and not a single precious stone in the lot, just turquoise, agate, and colored quartz. There simply was nothing worth looting—and even if you cleaned out every bit of beer and liquor in the place, by the time you parceled it out among all the soldiers, there wouldn’t even be enough to get them mildly intoxicated!

  This is insane; nothing is making any sense. I should be home, I should be in the loft, not here. Wherever “here” is… .

  But if he wasn’t in the loft in Justyn’s house, where was he?

  I’m with the Hawkbrothers— he remembered. This house belonged to them. What were they going to do with him now? He remembered, with a dreamlike vagueness, that they had asked him questions about what had happened, but they hadn’t given him any idea what they planned to do. Where was he going to go if they didn’t want him to stay? Could he get them to take him to Kelmskeep? But then what would he do?

  Thoughts of Kelmskeep led him back to the village. Kelmskeep must have been where all the villagers were trying to escape to, and that was why they were running without trying to take anything. They could make Lord Breon’s lands in a few days or a week or so—it would be a hardship, but this was summer, and no one would die of exposure or thirst. But what had actually happened to the rest of the villagers? How well-planned had that attack been? Had those horrible fighters caught anyone else? How could they not have? If there had been four men on horseback ranging out that far from the village to catch those who tried to escape, mightn’t there be more?

  No matter what the town did to me—they never hurt me on purpose, they just wanted me to be like them. They never did anything to anybody, they don’t deserve to have those awful men get hold of them!

  What would happen to them? The man who caught him hadn’t killed him right off, but what would he have done when he learned that Darian didn’t have any money and didn’t know where any was? Darian had only vague notions of what enemy soldiers wanted, based on what bandits wanted. If you didn’t have money for them, what would soldiers do? How could you satisfy them if you didn’t have what they had come for?

  Now Darian’s vivid imagination portrayed all manner of terrible things that could have befallen the folk of Errold’s Grove, and he grew more and more agitated as he thought about their possible fates.

  The owl turned his head then, as if it sensed something
was wrong. It opened a pair of enormous eyes completely and fastened its gaze on him. He found himself locking eyes with it. It clearly was not afraid of him, and strangely enough, he was not afraid of it, although it was easily large enough to hurt him quite seriously, if not kill him, if it took the notion to attack him. In fact, the more he looked into its huge, golden eyes, the calmer and quieter he felt. It was so strange, and warm-feeling, and it made every thought seem to slow down. It was almost as if the owl was putting its wing over him and sheltering him, and telling him that everything would be all right… .

  Then the owl blinked, and the spell was broken. The bird yawned hugely, snapping his beak shut with a loud click. Darian yawned along with the owl, then watched as the bird shook its tufted head so fast it blurred, and felt as if he had to laugh a little at the sight.

  The curtain of vines over the door to the hut parted, and a shadow blocked out the light for a moment. By the long, braided hair and the odd clothing, the newcomer had to be a Hawkbrother. As the Hawkbrother came into the light, he saw that it was the one who had rescued him yesterday. He was very tall, with long hair that had white roots, and was dyed all over in patterns of pale and dark brown, golden brown, and bark-gray. His square, chiseled face was very friendly, with many smile-creases at the corners of his mouth. His blue eyes contrasted oddly with his weathered, golden skin. He wore clothing in many shades of brown leather and closely-woven fabric, and his left arm and shoulder were completely encased in a sleeve of padded leather.

  Snowfire. His name is Snowfire. And his owl is Hweel.

  That was when Darian remembered a calm and friendly voice telling him that this hut was Snowfire’s, and someone else’s too, and as he took another quick glance around he saw two sleeping pads like the one he was still on, and a scattering of other belongings. There was a second perch on the other side of the room across from Hweel’s—although no one had actually said anything about a second bird—but there wasn’t a bird on it. From the size of the perch, the bird must be half the size of Hweel, and he wondered what kind it was.

  “Well and good,” said the Hawkbrother, standing just inside the door and looking at him in the friendliest possible fashion. “It seems that you are awake at last, though I am certain you needed to sleep. It is difficult to tell what time it is in this ekele, I know. You have slept entirely through breakfast, and it is now time for lunch. Would you care to eat anything?”

  The Hawkbrother had a very odd accent and his phrasing was a little strange, but Darian had no trouble understanding him. I thought they had their own language; didn’t Justyn tell me that? Somehow Snowfire must have learned Valdemaran from someone, but Darian thought he remembered him talking with—a woman?—in some other tongue.

  “Thank you. I’m—not sure if I’m hungry,” he replied vaguely, knowing he should say something in reply, but unable to come up with anything appropriate. What did you say to someone who’d saved your life? How many times were you supposed to thank them for it? Did the Hawkbrothers have some special significance attached to saving someone’s life? It wasn’t the sort of thing covered in The Booke of Manners that Widow Clay insisted he read—

  For that matter, The Booke of Manners seemed to give the impression that everyone in the world was Valdemaran.

  The Hawkbrother—Snowfire, yes, that was right, he was sure now—came up and sat down beside him on a folded—up blanket. Snowfire’s arm was bandaged, and obviously stiff and sore from the way he held it, and Darian felt very guilty all at once. After all, if he hadn’t gotten into trouble, Snowfire wouldn’t have gotten hurt rescuing him. “I’m sorry about your arm,” he said awkwardly, blushing. Should he beg Snowfire’s forgiveness for getting him into difficulties?

  “My arm?” Snowfire looked surprised, then shrugged, as if it meant nothing to him. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. It’s hardly a serious injury.”

  “It doesn’t look good,” he persisted. “I mean, it must hurt an awful lot, and you won’t be able to use a bow until it heals up some.”

  “Oh, I have had worse insect bites,” Snowfire said nonchalantly. “Truly, it is nothing for you to concern yourself about. It does give me an excuse to laze about the camp while others go out and do my hunting for me!”

  “It’s just, if I hadn’t been there, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt rescuing me—” he began. “But I was so scared, I couldn’t think, and after Justyn—”

  And then, as if those words had been a trigger, he suddenly remembered everything that had happened yesterday—the fight with Justyn, running off, returning and being sent out as punishment—coming back in time to see Justyn—see Justyn on the bridge—

  —see Justyn sacrifice himself—one moment, standing there, facing down that Thing, the next moment, seeing nothing of the bridge except a sheet of flame.

  Some barrier he had not even been aware of let go at that moment, and there was nothing he could do to stop what happened next. Darian felt all the blood draining from his face, leaving him cold and empty; he trembled, then simply fell apart. A thousand unformed regrets triggered the avalanche, and they tumbled together with self-recrimination, simple grief, guilt, and mourning. They held him so paralyzed that he could not even move, he could only shake and stare at Snowfire with a sea of unbearable sorrow flooding him and choking his throat—

  Snowfire somehow saw it, or part of it, for he murmured, “Ah, poor fledgling! Let it go, let it out—” and put his arm around Darian’s shoulders in a gesture completely natural and fraternal. And that was enough, just enough, to release the flood entirely.

  He flung himself into Snowfire’s shoulder, and howled. And Snowfire held him, firmly and comfortingly, and let him cry himself out. There was nothing awkward and self-conscious about it; the Hawkbrother just let him cry until he had no more tears left, as if he let total strangers cry on his shoulder all the time. For the first time since his parents disappeared, Darian had someone to cry with, someone to share his grief with. It helped. It was amazing how much it helped.

  Finally, after what seemed like days, the torrent of tears turned to a stream, the stream to a trickle, and the tears at last stopped altogether. It left him with an ache still in his heart, a burden of guilt pressing down his soul, and a void of loss he could never have expressed in words, but he was too tired for the moment to continue his mourning.

  “So, who was Justyn?” Snowfire asked with careful gentleness. “Besides the one who held the bridge so your people could escape.”

  “Justyn was—was the wizard,” Darian managed, as Snowfire let him sit up and handed him a real handkerchief. “I was—he was my Master, and he was teaching me, or he was supposed to be.” He flushed a painful crimson, even to the tip of his ears, which burned as if he had gotten frostbite. “I wasn’t a good apprentice,” he admitted with profound shame and grief. “I kept running off, and I didn’t want to practice the way he wanted me to.” But there was a tinge of resentment, too, and he couldn’t help voicing it in his own defense. “But, Snowfire, no one ever asked me if I wanted to be a wizard! They just said I had the Gift, so I had to be one! I wanted to be a hunter and a trapper, like—like my parents—” He would have said more, but his throat closed again.

  Snowfire was silent for a moment. “I do not know you well, Darian,” he said after a moment. “But I think that you must have had a reason for running off and not practicing those magics.”

  Darian shook his head, still flushing, and took refuge in one of the phrases the adults of Errold’s Grove had always seemed to hate. “I dunno,” he mumbled. Every time he said that, the adult he was talking to always replied with, “What do you mean, you don’t know? How can you not know why you’ve done something? You did it, didn’t you? Then why did you do it?” The reply of “I dunno,” always seemed to trigger an angry interrogation which only got angrier as he retreated farther into himself.

  Snowfire, however, did not challenge that phrase. “Perhaps someday you will know how to say what you felt, wh
at your reasons were,” he murmured encouragingly. “I would like to know, when you can tell me. It is just hard to say with words. Sometimes, one can feel a reason without being able to say what the reason is. We all feel that.” He sighed. “So—Wizard Justyn is the one who blocked the bridge against the army. Then he set the bridge afire, and perished in the flame?”

  “I think—” Darian began, then stared at Snowfire with his mouth dropping open. “I didn’t say anything! How did you know what happened to Justyn?” For a moment, wild tales of how Hawkbrothers could read one’s thoughts swept through his mind.

  “I am a mage, too,” Snowfire reminded him. “If I had been in his place, and brave enough, and desperate enough, it is something that I would have done. It is something that all those who have that Gift know that they may someday need to do, if the situation is hopeless and the need great enough. And those who have given of themselves in that way—are much honored for their bravery and nobility of spirit.”

  Darian swallowed and took a deep breath, while Snowfire nodded, to reinforce his words. Someone as strong and exotic as a Hawkbrother, honoring Justyn? If only Justyn could have heard it when he was alive. “He was trying to keep those fighters back,” Darian said, grief clenching his stomach as he once again found himself holding back tears. Justyn—this Hawkbrother was saying that Justyn had been brave and noble! “I think he must’ve told everybody to run while he held them back. I think that’s why no one was fighting. I think he told them not to fight, because he knew they couldn’t fight an army, and he was buying time for them to get away.”

  “He probably was, and that was the wisest course for everyone.” Snowfire put a finger under Darian’s chin and lifted it, so that Darian was looking straight into his eyes. “I want you to listen to me and believe me, Darian. What you described to us last night was definitely a very large and organized group, and perhaps as you thought, an entire army, of well-trained fighters. If Justyn determined that the best course was for people to run, he was right. There is absolutely nothing your people could have done against them, except be killed. That is the way armies are. It is what they do, it is why they are armies. They are made so that all that can stand against them is another army. Running was not only the best option for your people, it was the only option for them. They were not being cowardly; they were accepting the gift that Justyn offered to them. And I will tell you something else; I think that if they had known in advance that the gift included his life, they would not have accepted it, and they would have insisted that he escape with them.”