by Vox Day
Theuderic smiled wryly. He wondered how the proud immortels of L’Academie would react to learning that they were merely the pale shadows of true immortal powers. It would certainly be amusing to see how quickly the news would wipe the arrogance off Grandmagicien d’Arseille’s face.
“I see two, no three hawks approaching!” Lithriel cried, pointing toward the north.
Theuderic peered into the night sky, but even his mage’s vision could not match the keen eyes of an elf. He started as a piercing whistle nearly deafened his left ear. He looked over and saw Miroglas lowering his hands from his mouth.
“Was that really necessary?” he asked, wincing and thumbing his ear.
“She doesn’t know exactly where we are,” Miroglas said. “Well, now she does. Here they come! Step back. And you might want to hold onto something—three of them can generate a veritable wind, and it’s a long way down to the street.”
Theuderic felt a little cowardly retreating from a bird. But when he saw all three elves get down on one knee, he quickly followed suit. Moments later, he was glad he had.
Three giant warhawks backflapped their wings at the last moment as they came in for their landing. The force of the breeze they stirred up nearly caused him to fall over.
The hawks were huge beasts, nearly twice as large as he imagined, with bright, intelligent eyes and beaks that were easily capable of snapping off a man’s head. His eyes widened and he wondered whether sneaking out through the inner and outer walls, then spending a month trying to evade Amorran patrols, bandits, and desperate refugees on the winter roads would actually be any worse than coming within reach of those vicious, curved beaks. To say nothing of soaring high above the earth on one of their backs.
Only the middle warhawk bore a rider: a surprisingly short elf with a reddened, runny nose and bright red cheeks. She wore a strange leather armor that covered her from her fingers to her toes.
“Lady Caitlys Shadowsong,” Silvertree said to her, “what an honor to finally meet you.”
“The privilege is mine, Lord Morvas Silvertree. I’m so pleased I could be of assistance to you and your companions.” Caitlys turned to the larger riderless warhawk beside her and stroked the back of its head. “What a beautiful bird you have, Lord Silvertree! My own Vengirasse had the devil’s own time keeping pace with your Miroglas, so eager was he once your summons arrived.”
The elf smiled at the compliment to his hawk, which he was stroking just under the huge, saucepan eye. His bird was rather striking in comparison with the others. It had a golden ruff and white streaks on its wings that distinguished it from the drab dark brown on light brown pattern on the feathers of the other two. Theuderic shook his head, thinking about the size of a writing quill constructed on the scale to make use of the massive feathers.
“Lady Shadowsong,” Lithriel said, “I am Lady Lithriel Everbright. And this is my companion: Theuderic de Merovech, the Comte de Thoneaux. I thank you so much, Lady Shadowsong, for helping us leave this accursed city. Lord Silvertree tells us there is great evil here.”
In her flight gear, Lady Shadowsong looked less like a lady than Lord Silvertree had in his robes. She frowned. “You’re a sorcerer, aren’t you?” she observed, sniffing and rubbing at her nose with her sleeve.
“That too, my lady,” Theuderic admitted. “We ask only that you take us past the walls, and preferably leave us where we can purchase horses for our journey north, if it would not be too much of an imposition.”
“Oh, we can do better than that, I think. Lord Silvertree, you said you had some letters for Marcus?”
The high elf nodded, bent down, and handed her a leather satchel.
Shadowsong turned back to Theuderic. “I’ve got to find my…well, my young Amorran friend. These letters are for him. Apparently he is marching his legion down into Vallyrium, so I’m going to fly north and west. You will both accompany me. That might take you a little farther west than you were intending, but it should put you considerably closer to your destination. And I imagine I can convince him to give you a pair of horses, as I understand he has several hundred of them.”
Theuderic raised his eyebrows. Had the young Amorran officer seduced the elfess? Well done, lad, he thought. No, he must not have actually followed through, not if the elfess was still flying her warhawk. If she was still a sorceress, she was still a virgin. Still, it wasn’t just any man who could manage to befriend a beautiful high elf.
He decided to accept the high elf’s offer. If her young Amorran friend had his own legion, and Theuderic saw no reason to assume the elfess was lying, he could hire a small escort from the army of camp followers that accompanied every legion.
“We should be most pleased to accept, Lady Shadowsong,” Theuderic told her.
The high elf looked from him to Lithriel. “So you answer for both?” she commented. “By ‘companions’ do you mean to say ‘lovers’?”
“Ah, well,” Theuderic mumbled, looking to Lithriel.
“Yes,” Lithriel said, ignoring him.
“Now that is interesting,” Lady Shadowsong said. “Lithriel, I think we must speak more of this later. But for now, both of you must call me Caitlys, as we shall be in rather close quarters on Vengirasse’s back where it would be absurd to observe the formalities.”
Theuderic hadn’t realized before then that all three of them, plus their chests, would be riding one bird. But of course, since Silvertree’s bird and the warhawk would be used to bear the Ambassador and his colleague from the city. He glanced up at the big bird, wondering if it was big enough.
“Are those your chests?” Caitlys asked.
“Yes, my lady.”
“Good, give me a hand with them, Miroglas. And then, with the Lord Ambassador’s permission, we will be underway. Considering what Marcus has told me of this place, I don’t wish to stay here one moment longer than necessary.”
As soon as the chests were stowed in the thick-roped netting that was cleverly attached to the huge leather saddle that was strapped to the hawk’s back, Theuderic found himself climbing up the swaying corded ladder that hung down from the saddle’s horn.
The bird’s head swung around, and he nearly fell off in panic. But it didn’t try to bite him with its wicked beak, which looked as if it could take off his arm. It merely considered him with what he hoped was idle curiosity and not irritation or hunger.
The saddle was an impressive construction made out of several thick layers of leather. It was divided into three sections, so each rider essentially had his own saddle, complete with a horn. Three thick straps were firmly affixed to each horn. These, he learned, as Lithriel adroitly wrapped them around his belt and tied them off, were designed to prevent him from falling to his death. Two straps held him securely fore, and the third one held him aft.
He was given the rear seat, partly because Caitlys was interested in talking to Lithriel, but mostly, he suspected, because she didn’t want him pawing and clawing at her in terror or shrieking in her ears throughout the flight.
As he and Lithriel wrapped themselves in the blankets they’d been provided, he saw that Silvertree and Miroglas had both changed into their own flight leathers, which apparently had been stowed on the back of their birds. Thusly armored against the frigid air of the winter sky, the two high elves were carefully arranging their chests in the saddle netting. That done, they began tying the saddle lashes to the rings sewn into the waist of their leathers, firmly attaching themselves to their saddles.
Silvertree gave the lashes a few firm tugs then raised a hand in a manner that was both benediction and farewell.
“The best of fortune to you all,” he called out to them. “Good luck finding your Valerian, Lady Shadowsong. Lady Everbright, you shall be welcome should you ever choose to visit Elebrion. And Magus, do try not to fall off!”
That caused the other elves, including Lithriel, to laugh, which only served to underline his theory that elven humor was not merely inhuman but downright ghastly. The Lad
y Shadowsong—or Caitlys, he reminded himself—said something in Elvish too rapid for him to follow, and the two high elves responded similarly.
“Are you ready?” Lithriel called over her shoulder.
No, sweet heavens, no, he thought to himself. Are you mad? Never in ten thousand years! But instead of shrieking like a coward, he heard himself grandiously quoting a half-remembered poem:
“When winter’s winds their quarrels try, let us contend them for the sky.”
He suddenly found himself wishing that he had taken any of the many opportunities to repent of his many sins, or at least confess a few of them, when he had been travelling with the archveques. Then again, the Sanctiff himself had blessed him—surely that had to count for something! He was still in the middle of a silent but complicated bargain with God that involved both proposing marriage to Lithriel and limiting his use of sorcery to express orders given by the king or the appropriate haut conseilleur, when Vengirasse gave out a great shrieking cry and leaped into the night air.
How he managed to avoid shrieking himself as the bird beat its wings against the cold, heavy air, he would never know. The sudden ascent felt like being rowed along a river, if every stroke of the oars thrust you backward with the force of a lance striking your breastplate, then was interrupted in regular intervals by the empty-bellied sensation of plunging to your doom.
The violence of the bird’s motion as it struggled to rise into the sky first left him with the distinct impression that he was about to tumble backward over and off the bird’s feathery arse. And then they were all falling downwards together. For all its noble efforts, efforts that Theuderic saluted with all that was in his well-stained soul, the laboring hawk couldn’t seem to gain any height.
Just as he was about to shout into Lithriel’s ear and ask her if they should jettison some or all of the chests that were weighing the bird down, everything went silent. It was as if he was not flying on an oversized bird’s back anymore but floating on top of a cloud. He felt a relief that was so powerful it nearly caused him to wet himself—followed by a wild, unreasoning panic. Were they falling? Had the bird given up? Was this what death was like?
“You can open your eyes now, my lord,” Lithriel told him. “Look at the fires of the city, how large it is!”
He started to protest but, realizing how foolish that would be, looked down instead.
The sight of the city below was astounding. They were soaring high over the center of Amorr—about a mille above it, if his eyes could be trusted, and the view was simply spectacular. He could see hundreds of fires, from small ones in pairs indicating torch-lit paths to various clusters of larger ones that indicated group gatherings in places like the Forum and the palestras outside the baths. Between the light given by the fires and the stars above, he could just make out the two vast oblongs of the inner and outer walls. Below them to the left, the large white edifice of the Sanctal palace thrust upwards from the Inculpatine like a challenge raised against the dark of the night.
“We’re flying south first,” Caitlys shouted back at them. “I doubt anyone was watching us, but it can’t hurt to lay a false trail. And I wanted to see the city. I’ve never seen it before.”
“Where are the other two?” Theuderic looked around but couldn’t see them. “Did they go north?”
“No, I expect Morvas had much the same notion.” Caitlys pointed down, ahead of them and to the right. “They can fly faster and maneuver more easily, so they can risk flying lower. Do you see them there?”
Lacking the sharp eyes of the elves, Theuderic couldn’t make them out at first. But then one of them flew over a large white-roofed building, and he saw the unmistakable shape of the warhawk, its wings outstretched, before it disappeared into the darkness again a moment later. He thought it must be Silvertree, since he didn’t see any of the white markings indicating the other elf’s bird, but the sight was too brief for him to be certain.
“Is it dangerous, flying that low?”
“Only during the day,” Lithriel said. “At night, no one but other elves can see well enough for archers to be a danger, and they’re not low enough to risk running into anything. But flying through the mountains at night is a very good way to kill yourself and your hawk.”
“We won’t be doing any of that, I hope.”
“How fast do you think we can fly? The mountains are at least a week’s flying north of here, and I believe her Amorran friend is well south of them.”
Theuderic nodded and returned his attention to the city below them. It was truly a beautiful sight, almost worth the stark terror required to see it from this altitude. During the day, one would be able to see for leagues in every direction. What the king would not give to have such scouts at his disposal!
Now he truly regretted the failure of the dragonspell. Before, he had only imagined what the power of flight could do, but now he clearly saw how no walled city, not Amorr and not even Malkan, would be able to resist an army that could enter it at any place, at any time, as easily as if they were strolling through the gates.
And whereas a warhawk carried only three riders and could be brought down by an arrow, a dragon could carry thirty, and it would regard anything but a war machine’s bolt as no more than a pinprick. If they could be taught to breathe fire on command, even a small squadron of trained dragons would make for an invincible weapon.
One that might even prove effective against immortals such as the one presently hidden in Amorr.
With the exception of the cold, which, in addition to burning his face, was now beginning to cause his fingers and his toes to grow numb, he was starting to feel almost comfortable when the southern walls came into view and the sky suddenly seemed to whirl around him.
He shouted in alarm and for a moment lost his balance as well as his grip on the pommel. But just as he felt that he was sliding off the left side of the saddle, the lashes held him tight. Then Vengirasse was back flying on a smooth and level path, his wings beating powerfully as they headed north.
“Are you all right,” Lithriel leaned back against him and looked up. “I thought I heard you cry out.”
“It must have been the wind,” he lied easily. He leaned up and kissed her forehead. “But if you don’t mind, my love, would you please ask the Lady Shadowsong if she would be so kind as to warn us before her damnable bird changes course again?”
Theuderic arranged the kindling in the middle of some deadwood he’d collected the night before, then he snapped his fingers. It obediently burst into flames. That useful little trick made the King’s Own tremendously popular on the borders, even if it had occasionally made him feel as if he was little more than a walking tinder box during his stint with the royal rangers. They’d even called him Torche, although the nickname was spoken with considerably more respect after he’d burned to death a troublesome orc-shaman they’d been hunting for weeks with a pair of well-aimed fireballs.
He heard a noise from the snow-covered lean-to in which the three of them had slept the previous night, and it occurred to him that even if he was still spending his nights without a proper bed or even a roof, his life had improved considerably from the times he’d shared a tent with five of the king’s rangers. Unfortunately, the presence of Lady Shadowsong inhibited intimacy with Lithriel as effectively as Sieur Osmont, Sieur Gautier, and the archveques had on their journey south.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the Lady Shadowsong’s face, which had improved considerably in his estimation now that it wasn’t chilled, wind-burned, and leaking from the nose, appeared at the entrance as she held out a handful of leaves of indeterminate origin to him.
“I see you’ve got the fire going. Will you make us some tea, Magus?”
He nodded and took the leaves from her, whereupon she promptly returned to her blankets. Lithriel, he assumed, was still sleeping, as she harbored an intense dislike for rising with the sun. It was a habit that proved useful when he wanted to get things done without being forced to hear her op
inion on the matter. Such as which particular strips of meat he should cut from the deer that Vengirasse had left hanging gutted and half-eaten on a tree about thirty paces away at some point during the night. Theuderic found he had come to rather appreciate the warhawk’s bloody version of manna from Heaven.
Either the bird wasn’t naturally possessive of its kills or it had been trained otherwise, as it raised no fuss when Theuderic wrestled the deer off the branch upon which it was suspended then bent over it and carved away enough meat to supply the three of them with their next three meals. But the scent of blood did draw the hawk’s interest, and it bobbed its man-sized head up-and-down until Theuderic tossed it a hunk of raw venison, which it caught and swallowed in a single gulp.
“We’d make a good team, you and me, noble Vengirasse. However, speaking of breakfast…I don’t suppose there is any chance you also lay eggs?”
The hawk stared at him, its huge eyes expressionless. Then it spread its wings and leapt into the air, just about scaring Theuderic witless. For a moment he’d thought it had taken offense and was leaping at him. The creature couldn’t possibly have understood him!
Fortunately, he managed to quell the lightning spell he’d inadvertently begun to cast. Still, little sparks of electricity danced and leaped on the end of his fingertips for a short while, numbing them as the energy of the interrupted spell dissipated. He breathed a sigh of relief, as he really didn’t relish the notion of trying to explain to an elven sorceress why he’d blasted her little pet. And it would have truly been a shame to harm such a magnificent beast, which looked all the more spectacular as it majestically rose into the dawn-red sky.
So there were no eggs to be had, but at least there was a surfeit of fresh meat to fry in the high elf’s battered brass pan. Once the water was boiling, he called out to the two elfesses and was surprised to see Lithriel crawling out of the lean-to behind Lady Shadowsong, yawning and rubbing her eyes.