Owlknight

by Mercedes Lackey

  “No hertasi,” Ayshen said reluctantly. “It is very cold in the north, even in the summer.”

  “Not that cold!” the Shaman protested. “You speak as if there is snow upon the ground everywhere at midsummer!”

  But Starfall shook his head. “No, I agree. This is not like our foray into Valdemar, where the hertasi were protected and we were in no great hurry to cover ground. This expedition will move too quickly, and have too many risks for any hertasi to go along safely. Ayshen, your people are fine fighters, but only in large numbers, and what’s the point of asking for fifty hertasi to go and be chilled solid up North, when they’re needed more in the warm Vale?”

  “No argument here,” Darian agreed, nodding. “Ayshen, I agree with you completely, even if it does mean I have to eat my own cooking.”

  That brought a laugh as he had hoped, and the talk turned to provisioning for a little while, until Shandi cleared her throat. That brought silence, and all eyes turned toward her.

  She flushed a little but said into the quiet, “Karles and I want to go along. Actually, Karles and I think we need to go along.”

  Now that was a surprise! Of all of them, only Steelmind nodded, as if he had guessed as much.

  “Anda and I talked this over very seriously before Darian went to the village, and spoke to the Snow Fox people,” she continued. “Anda would like us to see what conditions are like up there. It is not intended as a slight to any of you, of any species, but depending upon what was encountered it could be very advantageous to have an official Valdemaran presence there. No offense meant, Shaman Celin, but we need to know if there are any more - ” She paused to pick out the least offensive words. “Any more aggressive peoples, like the Blood Bear tribe.”

  “You need to know? You are not the only ones!” the Shaman replied. “We stand between you and any armies, recollect! And we have pledged to guard this place, have we not?”

  “Well, there you have it.” Shandi shrugged. “Karles and I put our necks into this, too, then.”

  Anda traded a look with her, then spoke to the rest. “This is something that is very important to us. I would have hesitated to send her and Karles alone, but this is going to be a group that is large enough - not to protect her, but that she can work with.”

  This was not the first time that Darian had gotten the feeling there was a great deal going on between the two Heralds that was not spoken aloud. There was an entire conversation taking place - probably in personal Mindspeech - that no one else was privy to.

  “My Gift of Empathy can be pretty useful in figuring out if someone is telling the truth without having to use a vrondi-based Truth Spell, you know,” Shandi pointed out. “And I probably know as much about rough camping as any of you. And I can do one thing that none of you can. Through Karles, I can keep in touch with Anda and the Vale.”

  Darian raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing; he could read between the lines easily enough. Valdemar and the Hawkbrothers were friends and allies, but . . . it was always better to have a pair of your own eyes along.

  He couldn’t find it in his heart to feel resentful either; he’d have felt the same if the shoe had been on the other foot.

  In fact, I don’t think any of us here at the Vale would want a set of Heraldic spies going up there without one of us along. After all, we’re the ones who’d be getting the arrows and spears in our teeth first.

  But the greatest surprise of all was that Steelmind then said, “And I would go, too, if you will have me.”

  From the startled look that Shandi threw at him, this was a complete surprise to her as well as everybody else - except possibly Silverfox. “Why?” was the question on the tip of everyone’s tongue, Darian suspected, but no one asked it, in part because it was, frankly, no one’s business but Steelmind’s. “We can certainly use you,” Darian said gratefully, and left it at that.

  We-ell! There must be a great deal more going on there than I had thought! And Steelmind’s decision to come took Shandi by surprise, too! I wonder why - unless it’s that she’s closing off that Empathy of hers when it comes to Steelmind . . . maybe because she didn’t want to know what he was feeling?

  Hywel and Celin had gotten their heads together and now Celin said, “We two believe that it would be well if you went as traders. Traders have some protection among our people, more than any other outsiders; they tend to be left alone by all except wolf-heads and outlaws, for if the traders were molested, who would bring new goods in the coming year, or pretty things for our women?” He chuckled. “I tell you, our women would take our scalps for that, if the traders were frightened off!”

  Darian didn’t much like the idea of posing as traders. He didn’t want to end up weighed down by a lot of clattering goods, and he certainly didn’t want to be a target for outlaws because of those same clattering goods!

  “Could we trade in dyes?” Keisha asked instantly. “I know your women really like the ones I have.”

  Oh, good thought, ke’chara! Dyes are light, and a little goes a long way! We’d have a reason for not carrying much baggage! He had not liked the idea of being loaded down with pure mass to maintain the ruse, or perhaps even being forced to bring a wagon for trade goods.

  “Dyes would be good,” the Shaman ruminated. “I tell you what you may ask for. Earth-amber, gold, and carved ivory. Dyes are valuable; we weigh them out, weight for weight, with such treasure. Those things will not weigh you down; you will look like proper traders, but wise ones, who are willing to move quickly and venture much for much gain.”

  Darian privately had decided that if anything threatened to weigh them down, he would discard it without a moment of hesitation. This was not a real trading expedition, and he had no intention of looking for a profit.

  With that decided, the planning began in earnest.

  When they finally returned to the ekele, very late that night, Keisha looked around with a sigh. “If I’d had any idea what this expedition was going to be like - ” she began.

  “You’d have volunteered to come along anyway,” Darian replied confidently. He was already selecting clothing for the journey - and curiously, the first thing he picked was his Ghost Cat outfit.

  Perhaps I’d better take mine, too.

  “I don’t know about that,” Keisha muttered, but mostly to herself. It hadn’t occurred to her that she was going to be camping rough when she volunteered. She’d scarcely been camping at all, and when she did go, it was with full amenities; tents, cook-stoves, plenty of food, and lots of hertasi to help out.

  But there weren’t going to be any comforts on this trip; no tents, no cook-stoves, and they’d eat mostly what they killed or found for themselves.

  Thank goodness for Steelmind. He’ll be able to tell what’s good and what’s not without our having to experiment with it. An all-meat diet would be very bad - though I doubt Kelvren would agree.

  They’d be cooking over the fire, without pots for the most part. They’d be sleeping in hammocks, sometimes strung high in the trees for safety. If it rained, they’d each have a rain cape to drape over themselves and their hammock - or they might put up a lean-to, if they had time.

  It could be worse. We could be sleeping on the ground, I suppose.

  True, there wasn’t much danger of anyone becoming sick, not with her along, and one thing was certain, she wasn’t going to scrimp on her medicines. Darian could always use magic to keep them warm, if he had to, and maybe even sheltered from the weather. Still “Heyla, you’ll enjoy it,” Darian said, putting his arms around her, as if he had been reading her thoughts. He probably didn’t have to; her thoughts were written clearly enough on her face. “I know it’s not what you’re used to, but camping this way can be a lot of fun. You miss sleeping out under the stars when you’re in a tent, and you miss waking up to the dawn.”

  “Insect repellent,” she muttered absently, thinking about the black flies and nocturnal mosquitoes that Hywel had described. “I’d better come up with an i
nsect repellent we can wear. There’s a camphor balm I can mix up.”

  “Exactly. It’s not as if we aren’t clever enough to improvise, or as if we haven’t done this before. You’re the only one of us who’s never camped this way.” He turned her around and gave her a winning smile; a little reluctantly, she responded.

  “I’ll try not to be a burden on the rest of you,” she told him, looking up into his eyes. “That’s the part I’m really afraid of - that after a week you’l wish I’d never come along, and after two, you’d wish you’d never met me.”

  There it was, out in the open. The confession hac slipped out before she could stop herself. She pushec away from him, as he considered her words.

  “You might say the same thing about me,” he finally answered. “When it’s cold and raining, and we haven’t had any luck hunting, or when we’re trying to sleep knowing that there’s something prowling around at the foot of our tree, just waiting for a ropt to snap or a limb to break. Or when I order you around - you might wish me on the other side of the world.”

  “I might,” she agreed. She’d meant it to sound teasing; it came out as a bit waspish.

  “So we’re even.” He didn’t pay any attention to her sharp tone; he just grinned and shrugged. “We’ll deal with it when it happens. In the meantime, we’ve other things to think about. What is going on witli Steelmind?”

  That’s certainly changing the subject! “Why are you asking me? I don’t have any more clues than you do,” she replied, making no effort to conceal her own confusion. “I suppose it might have something to do with Shandi, but you know that he’s far too steady to be doing this on a whim, or halfheartedly. Does it matter why he’s coming?”

  “Actually - no.” He looked down into her eyes. “As long as I know why you are.”

  Once again, words came from her mouth that she hadn’t intended to say. “For you,” she whispered. “Just - for you.”

  It seemed to be the right thing to say.

  Thirteen

  Keisha fingered the talisman at her throat and stared at the mountains before her in disbelief, drawing comfort from the little clay owl figure on her necklace. Since Owl Knight Darian’s induction into the clan, the Elder Women had been making the talismans along with their dyheli figurines. Each of them in the traveling group had one of the clan’s talismans - given to them by Shaman Celin before they left, strung on sliding thongs in the Northern fashion. Hywel’s featured cat claws, understandably enough; both Keisha and Darian had little handmade owl figurines and semiprecious stone beads on theirs. Hers featured the color green in its beads as a reminder of her status as a Healer. Shandi’s had an odd sort of charm - a Tayledras-made chiming ball, enameled with a white horse. Steelmind’s was a silver hawk on a crystal arrowhead shape. Wintersky’s was a pair of hawk talons in stone, with a stone knot between them.

  These talisman necklaces were meant to identify them to other northerners as friends to at least one of the tribes. Celin and Vordon had advised them not to wear their Ghost Cat costumes, at least not at first; the relationships among the tribes were complicated, and it was better to be thought of as traders and healers first, and allies of a particular clan second.

  They were now altogether out of familiar territory; for the past several days they had been taking a barely discernible track through hills that had been plenty tall enough for Keisha, but today they had come up over a particularly lofty range to see the real mountains.

  Keisha could only sit slackly in her saddle and stare. Between the top of the hill where they were and the beginning of the mountain range was a wide river valley, a meandering river running through it that they would have to ford.

  “Is there snow on the tops of those?” she asked Hywel incredulously, pointing to the white-dusted peaks looming against the blue sky.

  “Probably,” he replied, shrugging his indifference. “It doesn’t matter; we won’t be going up that high.” The young tribesman was in his element now. So far as he was concerned, this trip was the height of pure pleasure. Not that he disliked living on the border of Valdemar, but here he was, ranging and hunting rather than staying in one place and herding, and doing it all by dyheli instead of his own two feet. This was a much superior form of travel, and Hywel very much enjoyed the experience.

  Keisha had mixed feelings; she was finding more pleasure in this form of travel than she had expected, but that was leavened by the fact that she seemed so much clumsier at rough-camping than anyone else. Steelmind, Darian, and Wintersky were already part of a functioning “team.” They had worked and traveled together for four years before Keisha had ever met them. That left Keisha, Shandi, and Hywel to fit themselves into the pattern somehow.

  Hywel had insinuated himself into the working trio within a day; his role was clear cut, after all. He was the guide. Between everything that he had absorbed from his elders and the Snow Fox folk, and his own memories, he had a fair idea of where he was going. Between Hywel and the sole dyheli doe that had come as Tyrsell’s representative - who served as their scout - they had clear courses marked out for them every day.

  Shandi had learned the essentials of camping all through her two years at the Collegium, by going out with Anda on a regular basis with little more than a bow and arrows, a fire-starter, and a few essentials in a saddlebag. Within three days, Shandi also had fit herself into the regular rhythm of things.

  It was Keisha who had remained out of step for the longest, much to her chagrin. It took her a couple of days to get the hang of putting up her hammock so that it didn’t fold her in half, nor slip down on one side or the other. She’d never cooked over an open fire before, so she watched, feeling useless, as Shandi and Steelmind made meals. About the only things she could do competently were to fetch wood and water.

  At least I’m good at fetching wood and water - and Steelmind can cook.

  The others were already starting down into the river valley below; Keisha’s dyheli took it upon himself to follow. She stared at the mountains with the same fascination that she usually reserved for poisonous snakes. Beautiful, yes, but -

  How far are we going to have to climb into those peaks? She’d heard all sorts of horrible stories about mountains - trails that ran out, leaving you on a tiny ledge too small to stand on properly, avalanches that swept down in white roaring walls of death, storms that came up out of nowhere, air too thin to breathe, and the dreaded “mountain sickness.” The latter wasn’t an illness as such; it was caused by the thin air; the symptoms ranged from simple shortness of breath to vomiting and delirium. . . .

  And the only way to cure it is to get off the mountain, which could be a bit hard to do if you’re vomiting and delirious.

  Nevertheless, that was where they were going, and she had volunteered to go.

  The river valley was pleasant enough at least, and they couldn’t get farther than the very foot of the first mountain before nightfall. “Hywel, aren’t there any northern tribes around here?” she called to the front of the group. “This place looks deserted.”

  “Oh, yes. This is part of Gray Wolf territory,” he said cheerfully. “They are usually farther upriver this time of year; I do not know if we will see them. They do not herd at all; they hunt and plant some.”

  They had encountered two tribes thus far; Black Bear (not to be confused with Blood Bear) and Magpie. The latter, allied with Ghost Cat in the past, had welcomed them with great enthusiasm for the dyes that Keisha had brought with them. The northerners, like the southern Shin’a’in, had apparently never seen a color they didn’t love, and combined colors in ways that made Keisha’s eyes water.

  Black Bear, however, had been wary and careful; the travelers saw only their warriors, and never had been invited to the camp. Keisha had asked about their Shaman and Healing Woman, and had been greeted with blank stares and no information. Still, Black Bear had not been actively hostile - or else they hadn’t wanted to take on a formidable enigma like Kel - and had let them pass.


  Kel was up above now. Hashi and the dyheli doe Neta were somewhere ahead, acting as advance scouts. Neta was years past the age of breeding, but was just as agile as a doe half her age. More to the point, she was wary, clever, and experienced. The young stags were half afraid of her, since she had acted as a disciplinarian to each of them at some point in his life. Keisha was very glad to have her with them.

  As her mount Malcam began picking his way down the hillside, Keisha scanned the valley below. There were no thin streams of smoke from possible campfires, nothing moving through the small clearings among the trees, nor along the banks of the river.

  The air was so clear that everything stood out in sharp detail, and the scents were more like those of early spring than of early summer.

  “We’ll camp early, on this side of the river,” Hywel called back over his shoulder, then urged his mount on ahead to pick out a good campsite.

  Good! Steelmind and I can look for edible plants while a couple of the others hunt. Now that she’d gotten the hang of things, she’d be able to help with setting up camp, too.

  In next to no time, they were under the trees again, and the branches cut off all sight of those intimidating mountains looming over them. The dyheli continued to pick their way down the slope in single file, with Steelmind taking rearguard just behind Keisha. There was no discernible track, but the rocky slope didn’t support much underbrush, so the way was clear between the trees.

  It was a lot farther to the river than it had looked from the top of the hill; they were still making their way toward the river long past the time Keisha would have figured that they would have already been in camp.

  They heard the water long before they saw it; a deep rumble that alarmed Keisha, though she saw no signs of worry in any of the others. When they finally came out into the sunlight, just on the riverbank, she saw why.