Owlflight

by Mercedes Lackey

  Darian just nodded, and waited while the others slipped out, two and three at a time, his gut clenched tight all the while.

  How am I going to get out of here? he asked himself, once the last of them were gone. I can’t move and hide like they can! Somebody is going to see me for sure!

  As if to underscore that fear, he heard precisely what he had feared most to hear—the sound of three or four drunken men approaching the cistern house, talking loudly in some foreign babble.

  Were they coming here? Where could he hide? Could he get inside the cistern? Would they see him if he did? As he felt blindly about for the edge of the cistern, his hand encountered a bucket that had been left behind, and suddenly a plan burst in on his mind in a blaze of illumination. Quickly, he grabbed the bucket, filled it at the cistern, and just as the men reached the door, he opened it, trudging openly out into the square with his heavy, sloshing bucket.

  Exactly as he had hoped, the men ignored him. He was just another slave, and a child at that, insignificant and unworthy of a moment’s thought. They shoved past him, and as he trudged away, he heard them splashing and choking in the water, trying to sober themselves up.

  Ugh. It’s a good thing that from there, the water goes to the horse trough. But if I was a horse, I wouldn’t want to drink it after they’d had their dirty heads in it.

  He continued to trudge toward the stable, carrying the bucket-handle in both hands, hoping that no one would notice his long knife at his side, the only weapon he had with him. Snowfire wouldn’t let him have anything else, and at the time he had thought it a pitiful excuse for a weapon, but he rather doubted that these people allowed their slaves to have anything as dangerous as a knife.

  At last he reached the shelter of the stable. He put down the bucket, opened the door, picked the bucket back up and slipped inside. Just in case Hweel had been mistaken, he wanted an excuse to be here, and a bucket of water was a perfectly good excuse.

  But it was black in there, without even a night-lamp. That meant that there was nothing, and no one waiting, except for horses.

  He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, listening to them stamping and blowing, breathing in the scent of horse sweat and hay. Once he could see a little, he walked up to the nearest stall. Each of the stalls had an outside half-door, so that the upper half could be left open for ventilation, and in this weather the upper doors were left open all night so the horses got air. The beast on the other side of the stall door seemed far too large for the stall he’d been put in. Darian stared at him in awe; he was huge, bigger than any horse he’d ever seen before, and a true war-horse. Every stall in the small stable was full, and it was quite clear why the barbarians had put their beasts here instead of using the place to quarter more fighters. These horses must easily have been worth a small fortune apiece. They were certainly worth more than a simple foot soldier, or even a squad of them.

  Darian put his bucket down and closed the door, then felt for the ladder built into the wall beside him and climbed up into the loft where the hay was stored, moving carefully and feeling for each rung to keep from making any noise. He would have a good vantage point and a comfortable place to wait as well.

  Both loft doors were open to the night air, and he got down on his stomach and wormed his way over to the one that pointed in the direction of the threshing barn. Loose hay covered the floor to the depth of his knees in the middle, and his neck on either side. Mice skittered about in the hay; in the silence he heard two of them fighting, voicing their anger in tiny squeaks.

  He settled in with his nose barely poking up above the sill of the door, and strained eyes and ears, trying to penetrate the night. The plan called for the Hawkbrothers to get to the threshing barn, remove any guards that were there, and free the villagers. Wintersky and Raindance would lead them through the village, across the bridge to the road on the other side of the river, and upriver to Kelmskeep; Snowfire and the others would form a rear guard to deal with pursuit.

  Nothing in the plan called for actually attacking the barbarians, except in the person of the guards watching the captives. At the time, Darian had been disappointed, but now he was relieved. Trapped inside the cistern house, he had suddenly become aware that he was one young boy surrounded by many, many, strange, hostile men who would not think twice about killing him. Once again, he felt his insides go to water, felt the fear he had experienced when the barbarian army attacked. This was not the time or place for a confrontation, and now he was glad that Snowfire had already made up his mind about that.

  I just wish someone could have told the enemy so we’d be sure that they would leave us alone—

  Suddenly, the peaceful night was split by flashes of red, orange, and green light and a roar as deafening as the worst thunderstorm he’d ever lived through. Darian stifled a yelp and winced away from the door, but immediately reversed himself and peeked back over the top of the sill. Something awful must have happened out there—

  It was all coming from the direction of the threshing barn, and he knew with a thrill of dread that the enemy had not gone along with the plan of avoiding confrontation.

  More brilliant flashes of light lit the village below, followed by more thundering noises, and men boiled out of the nearby houses like so many angry hornets streaming from a disturbed hive.

  His heart pounded, and there was a metallic taste in the back of his mouth. He began to sweat, and had to clench his hands on the sill to keep from jumping up and running out there. What do I do? Where do I go? Nothing in the plan told him what to do now—

  Don’t panic. Think of something! He didn’t dare move from where he was, and yet there must be something he could do! If I can stop some of these men, delay them—if only I had a sling, or a rope to trip them with! What had he learned? How to raise things—how to heat water and call fire—how to sense magic and—

  Wait a minute; if I can raise things, can I keep them down? Too late to guess, he just had to try; spurred by fear and excitement, he reached out with his tiny spark of magic toward one of the barbarians running below him, and momentarily glued his toe to the ground.

  The man tripped and fell heavily, taken too much by surprise to fall properly, and Darian heard something break with a dry crack—though whether it was a bone or a weapon, he couldn’t tell. The man staggered to his feet, dazed, and stumbled off; he was clearly not in a condition to fight now, and might not be for a while.

  Encouraged, Darian did it again, and once again, it worked, sending the man crashing headlong into the ground and driving all the breath from his body. This one was stunned, and only moved feebly rather than trying to get up. It took him a long time to get to his feet and lurch away.

  Darian tried the trick again, and yet again, with equal or better success. It was working! He was doing something!

  If only he knew what was going on out there—

  There was more light, real fire this time, rising above the roofs of the nearest buildings, the harsh smell of smoke, and the sounds of shouts and screams in the distance where the barn stood. He could not tell what was going on, except that the quiet raid had become a full-scale confrontation, and that was not good.

  There were no more barbarians where Darian could see them, and he realized belatedly just how exposed his position was. He wormed his way back into the loose hay, pulling it up over himself until there was hay all around him to the depth of a pitchfork’s tines; he could still see out the loft door, but now he was peeking out from under the hay like a mouse in a burrow.

  He got under cover just in time; someone with a mage-light following him ran toward the stable, and by the long robes the man was wearing, he was not one of the Hawkbrothers, nor one of the barbarian fighters.

  The stable door slammed open as Darian lost sight of the man, then slammed shut again. He heard a thud, the creak of wood and a voice uttering what sounded like curses, and heavy steps on the ladder. He was shudderingly grateful for the cover of the hay, as the mage-light poppe
d over the side of the loft, and the entire loft lit up as brightly as day.

  More heavy steps, a shadow passed over Darian’s hiding place, and the man stepped into Darian’s line-of-sight. He blocked about half of Darian’s view, but Darian had a very good view of him. Tall, a bit less muscular than the barbarian fighters, but just as shaggy and bearded, he wore an outlandish reddish-brown robe, with a design pieced into it in dark brown leather. It appeared to be the stylized head and forequarters of some beast, but what, Darian couldn’t tell. There was a pendant around his neck that swung into view as he turned; a sun-disk, with the rays in metal but the disk in black. An eclipse?

  All his attention was centered outside, which was a very good thing, as Darian was in plain sight from where he stood if he chose to look in that direction.

  Is this the mage? It must be. What’s that pendant mean? Is it magic? Darian tentatively stretched his new “magicsense” toward the man.

  And he was all but “blinded.” He shielded himself again, as he’d been taught, and lay there, dazed. I think this is the mage, all right.

  And the man was doing something; he had his hands cupped in front of him, and he was muttering. And from a point just below them, Darian heard an ominous, deep sound of growling, and the noise of very heavy feet shuffling away.

  He’s—he’s got monsters! He’s turning monsters loose! The Hawkbrothers had no warning of this—bad enough that they were facing half an army, but no one had thought about facing monsters, too!

  He had to do something. He had to! He couldn’t let Snowfire down, the way he’d failed Justyn! The man was still muttering, probably calling up another monster. Darian couldn’t wait any longer.

  With a yell, he leaped out of the hay, pulling his knife at the same time.

  The man turned, quick as a thought, but only in time to keep from getting knocked out of the loft door. Darian hit him with a shock, his right shoulder nearly wrenched out of its socket as the man deflected it. They both went down in the hay, with Darian on top; he tried to bring up his knife to finish things, but the man seized his wrist, and rolled to the right. Now Darian was underneath; the man tried to get the knife away from him, bashing his hand down uselessly into the soft hay, his knees digging into Darian’s stomach. Darian squirmed, trying to break his hold and get away, and the man held off Darian’s knife hand with his right and got his left around Darian’s throat and began to squeeze.

  He couldn’t breathe. His throat was agony, his chest felt as if it were going to burst, his blood pounded in his ears. He writhed and twisted, clawed for the man with his free hand, kicked and thrashed, while the man held him down and throttled him.

  Darian’s mouth opened, but nothing came out; his eyes felt as if they were going to pop out of his head, his ears and face burned, and he couldn’t hear anything but a roaring. His vision went red, then began to tunnel, until all he could see was the man’s impassive, bearded face, and that was starting to black out.

  Then, with no warning, the man let him go and flung himself backward.

  Darian rolled out of the way, coughing and gasping, and looked up to see Huur attached to the man’s scalp, flapping her wings furiously and digging bloody furrows along his forehead with her talons.

  She must have come in the hayloft door—she saved me!

  The man was screaming at the top of his lungs and flailing at the bird with his fists; she in her turn battered him with powerful strokes of her wings, disorienting him. Belatedly, Darian realized he had to get out of there. She hadn’t managed a killing hold, she couldn’t hang onto him forever, and once she let go, he was free to go after Darian again. Darian scrambled for the ladder and slid down it, with his feet braced on the outside of the uprights and his hands slowing him. He had lost his knife somewhere—he didn’t know where, but right now all he wanted was to get away.

  But the door was closed, and the bar was down across it. The mage-light dropped down into the stable, and the man stopped screaming; Huur must have let him go.

  Please, please, don’t let her be hurt!

  The horses were all frantically stomping and neighing, upset by the commotion and wanting to take their agitation out on something or someone. The mage would be down there any moment—

  Where can I hide that he can’t find me?

  There wasn’t much room in the tiny stable—and with the horses ready to kick anything that stood in their path—

  The horses! Yes!

  He darted along the center aisle, throwing open the doors to the stalls as he went. The horses hadn’t been tied, and once they felt space behind them, they kicked and backed out into the aisle, then proceeded to fight with each other, milling and squealing, and providing a barrier of large and angry bodies between Darian and the ladder. Just as he opened the last stall, he spotted the mage’s feet on the ladder, and he saw a pitchfork leaning against the back wall. He seized it, and darted into the last stall, dangerously close to the horse that was vacating it. Fortunately, the horse was more interested in getting a piece of one of his rivals than in stomping Darian into the straw.

  This stall had no half-door at the back, and neither did the one opposite it. There would be no escape that way.

  As he cowered in the back of the stall, pitchfork clutched in his trembling hands, he heard the mage’s voice roaring over the squealing and bugling of the fighting horses, and the thud of hooves on wood. He heard the louder sound of the stable doors slamming open, and then the noise of a riding whip on flesh and the thunder of hooves receding. The mage had opened the stable doors and was driving out the horses. Soon he would come looking for Darian.

  I’ll only get one chance at this— Darian broke out into a cold sweat, shaking all over, but his mind seemed strangely sharp and clear, and as he watched the lighted space of the open stall door, he saw the last of the bulky shadows vanish, leaving only the long shadow of a man.

  The mage-light’s behind him.

  He watched the shadow, and listened to the footsteps, waiting for the moment when the mage would be just around the corner of his stall.

  The man was thorough; he checked every stall, while Darian’s heart pounded and his gut churned. He’s looking at the opposite ones first. When he first gets up here, I’ll have just that long while he checks the other one—

  He saw the shadow’s legs, the body silhouetted on the wall; he braced himself, and with the next step, the mage himself appeared framed in the stall door.

  Darian charged, screaming.

  This time he caught the mage entirely by surprise, driving him into the wall and pinning him there. He looked terrible, with great gouges bleeding down into his face and his robe wet with his own blood—but he was obviously far from finished. One tine of the pitchfork held an arm pinned between it and the next tine, one pierced the man’s clothing at his side, although Darian couldn’t tell if it had caught flesh, and one was buried in the wood of the back of the stall.

  But the mage wasn’t dead—and he wasn’t done with Darian yet.

  There was an insane rage in the man’s eyes; he foamed at the mouth, and he clawed at Darian with his free hand. Failing to reach Darian, he grappled with the shaft of the pitchfork, and tried to wrench it away, while at the same time, he pushed away from the wall. There was blood seeping into the mage’s clothing, but this was obviously not a fatal wound.

  If he could get off the wall, he could free himself.

  Darian panted, bracing his feet in the dirt of the stall floor, and hung on with the strength of desperation. Why wouldn’t this man die?

  Bit by bit, the mage pushed Darian back, struggling in eerie silence. Bit by bit, Darian’s feet slipped, and he scrambled to reestablish his hold.

  If the mage got loose, he’d kill Darian—then he’d kill Snowfire and all the others. Then he’d go after Nightwind and Starfall and Kelvren. And all because Darian had failed.

  “No!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “Not—this—time!“

  With a last burst of e
nergy, he drove the mage back, and felt a surge of elation.

  But the madness left the man’s eyes for a moment, and the mage screamed something guttural. The handle of the pitchfork burst into flame, splintered, then crumbled away, leaving Darian standing with a handful of kindling and ash. The mage plucked the metal tine out, and cast it to the ground contemptuously.

  Darian stared, frozen.

  The mage laughed, and reached out, his fingers curling into a claw.

  Darian ducked and rolled to the side. He came up running, or trying to, heading for the open stable door.

  Behind him, the mage screamed something else, and the door slammed shut in his face; he hit it, unable to stop in time, and dropped to the floor.

  The mage laughed again, and Darian rolled over, his back to the door, and his hand fell on the bar that had held it shut. He didn’t even think; he just grabbed it, and came up swinging.

  He caught the mage on the side of the head, once again catching him by surprise. The man reeled back, and Darian swung again.

  This time the mage caught the wooden bar and wrenched it out of Darian’s hands, throwing it aside.

  Darian dove underneath the man’s grasping hands, gambling that the wound in his side was too painful for him to move easily. He somersaulted and came up on his feet on the other side; the mage was between him and the door again. He looked frantically about for a weapon, any weapon.

  His eye fell on the forged tines of the pitchfork as the mage turned.

  This time he didn’t dare fail. It didn’t matter if he died; he couldn’t fail the others.

  He snatched up the tines, braced the rounded end against his chest, and charged again, but this time with every last bit of strength, and every bit of his weight, holding back nothing.

  He drove the larger man back against the closed door; felt the tines hit flesh that yielded, resisted, then gave with a wet pop. The man screamed horribly; he flailed at Darian and a terrible blow to the side of his head knocked him away, stunning him; he fell to the ground as everything went dark.