Owlflight v(dt-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  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, what 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.”

  “But - I’m supposed to be a mage - I should have been there, helping him - “ Darian was overwhelmed with shame and guilt, so much so that he was not certain he had spoken aloud until Snowfire shook his head.

  “Darian, you will not come into the full potential of your ability for at least another two, perhaps three years,” the Hawkbrother replied. “Maybe more. And even then, you could not use that potential without several years of training, study, and practice. Even if you had begun training seriously three years ago, you would not have been ready to help Justyn now. You would have been of no more use to him than - than if you were
going to be a fighter, and he was an older warrior. Your strength as a mage is something that you must grow into, as you would grow into your strength as a fighter. There is a perfectly good reason why armies do not field ranks full of younglings your age - and it is the same reason why you would have been of little help to Justyn even if you had been training to your utmost.”

  “Yes, but - “ Darian began, then stopped, unable to articulate why he was so certain that if he had been there helping Justyn, the old wizard would still be alive, only sure that it was so.

  “You feel differently, and I cannot convince you otherwise.” Snowfire shrugged a little. “There is no arguing with a feeling; I wish that there was. But Darian, you cannot take on guilt for every bad thing that has happened! Put the guilt where it rightly belongs, at least - for if someone had not decided that it is easier to steal from innocents instead of earning their desires, that army would not have appeared on the road to Errold’s Grove in the first place! If there is blame to be placed, then place it squarely on the back of the aggressor who is leading these fighters, whoever he is! It is he who deserves to be punished, not your people, and not you!”

  Darian was struck by the good common sense of that, and felt a little of the burden he was carrying inside ease. “I - I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I am,” Snowfire said firmly. “And I know that you are feeling very strange and worn. But now, I have something difficult that I must ask of you. Adept Starfall and I asked questions of you last night, when you were very tired, but we need to ask more of you now that you are well awake and thinking. And the sooner we can ask you these things, the fresher they will be in your mind. Do you think that you can manage such a thing for us, when you are clean and fed?”

  Darian’s heart sank. He really did not want to go over all of yesterday’s horrible events, but he knew that, he really needed to say “Yes.”

  “I - yes,” he replied, in a small voice.

  “Good, and you are being quite brave to face what you will have to remember,” Snowfire told him, so earnestly that he did not doubt that Snowfire actually meant the words, and wondered at Snowfire calling him brave. “Now, I will explain to you why we are going to need to know very many tiny details. My people are allies of your people, and we have taken on certain responsibilities. We are, all of us, mages - some with less power than you have at this moment, and some, like Starfall, with a very, very great deal more - but all of us are mages. That makes my people very different, and it makes us very desirable to other mages.” Snowfire bit his lip as he looked down at Darian for a moment, as if he were debating something, and then his expression settled, as if he had decided to let Darian hear more confidences. “There are - ways - that a mage can use another mage, even if that other is an unwilling prisoner. That is why we must be careful that we do not fall into the hands of mages who are working evil.”

  Darian shivered all over. Was that why that huge fighter who’d caught him hadn’t killed him? Vague and ill-defined pictures flitted through his mind, all of them ugly.

  “We are only a very small party of Tayledras,” Snowfire continued. “We must know as much about this enemy as possible. We need to know if we can and should attack him ourselves, if we should merely interfere with him but let your Valdemaran fighters deal with him, or if we should actually hide from him. Do you see why we must do that?”

  Perhaps one of the other boys from Errold’s Grove would not have, but Darian did. He nodded. “I can see it wouldn’t make any difference if you waited, so long as everybody got away,” he replied. “I mean, what’s the point of risking yourself for a bunch of old houses? Right? It isn’t as if the people couldn’t rebuild, or even move.” He bit his lip. “Maybe now they’ll be willing to settle somewhere else. They surely weren’t prospering there.”

  “That is correct,” Snowfire said, looking relieved. “Your Queen once said something both wise and profound when she ordered the evacuation of the Eastern Border - that it was not the land that was Valdemar, it was the people. It is not the houses that were your village, it was your people. If the people have survived, then the village has, regardless of whether or not the houses are still there.”

  Darian nodded solemnly. “They could even still call themselves ‘Errold’s Grove’ if they wanted to.” He toyed with a bit of fringe on the blanket that had covered him last night. “I would understand if you decided not to fight - them - right away. I mean, as long as everybody got away all right. And if there’s a mage with these fighters, you probably shouldn’t let him know that there are more mages here - “

  “There is certainly a mage behind them somewhere,” Snowfire interrupted. “Perhaps more than one. Those bear-men you saw could not have been made that way without a mage. And Darian, quite frankly, if there are no people who are in need of rescue, the very best thing that we can do is to stay away from those fighters.”

  “Why?” Darian asked, a little surprised at his vehemence.

  “Do you recall what I told you about what the Tayledras are doing in your land? How we are making the channels for magic to flow in?” Snowfire waited expectantly, his head tilted a little to one side.

  Darian closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded as memory-fog cleared. “And . . . you said that you were doing that so that a bad mage couldn’t get the magic locked away from everybody else and. . . .” He suddenly felt a number of things fall into place in his mind. “Oh! Since there’s a mage there, he might try and lock the magic away!”

  “I am almost positive that is exactly why he is here,” Snowfire said grimly. “I frankly cannot imagine why the enemy would attack your little village except for that purpose; if a special place for gathering magic is nearby, he would have a ready-built headquarters from which to work, and a food supply already gathered. And that is why it is our first and best duty to prevent him from accomplishing that task.”

  Darian sighed. He could certainly see Snowfire’s point, and as long as everyone was safe, what would the Hawkbrothers accomplish by fighting? Hadn’t he just been thinking that there wasn’t anything worth bothering about in Errold’s Grove? Hadn’t he just told Snowfire that it might even be better if the people went somewhere better to resettle?

  Still, the idea of a bunch of fur-covered bullies just coming in and taking everything and not being made to pay for it made him angry. And after what Justyn did -

  No, Justyn couldn‘t have thought he was saving the village, just the people. He must have known that there wasn‘t a chance of saving anything else. So I shouldn‘t get all worked up over them taking the village.

  “Darian, are you ready to help us?” Snowfire asked, interrupting him midway through his attempt to sort out his feelings.

  “I guess so,” he began vaguely, and before he could have second thoughts, Snowfire had gotten him out of the hut, through a little maze of vine-covered barriers, and he was suddenly confronting, not one or two, but ten or twelve of the Hawkbrothers, each of them with his or her own bird perched on a shoulder or arm. They sat together in a sunny, circular clearing with a tiny stream running along one side. They’d taken their seats either on the ground, or on natural objects such as boulders or pieces of log. All of them were clearly waiting for him, and as Snowfire sat him down in the middle of this half-circle of people, and stood discreetly aside, Darian felt himself to be the uncomfortable focus of their interest.

  Although all of the people here had the same sort of green-and-brown clothing that Snowfire wore, no two costumes were alike, and although many had heavy leather gloves on one or both hands, none of them wore the same shoulder-to-wrist gauntlet that he did. All of the birds were enormous, and of the breeds that Darian recognized, these individuals were twice and three times bigger than the ones Darian knew. There were three people with large hawks with vivid rusty-orange and golden-yellow tails, two with thin and nervous hawks with yellow-orange eyes and pale, almost pinkish breasts, three with falcons that looked just like forestgyres, two with ones that look
ed like peregrines, one with a slate-gray bird with aggressive, reddish eyes that must have been a goshawk of some sort, and one with a huge, clever-looking crow. No one else had an owl of any kind. The birds all watched Darian with interest and intelligence, and Darian had the peculiar feeling that they heard and understood every word that was being said.

  Another person came around a screen of vines, a most impressive and exotically-dressed man with waist-length white hair, who had a white falcon with pale brown markings perched on a pad on his shoulder. This person’s robes were so elaborately cut and layered that it was obvious he could never have gone scouting about through the forest as the others did - so this must be the Adept that Snowfire had been talking about. Something about him seemed very familiar, and as the Adept spoke quietly with Snowfire and one or two of the others, Darian finally remembered why. He’d met this man last night, and the man had questioned him with Snowfire’s assistance, because his Valdemaran hadn’t been anywhere near as good as Snowfire’s. This was Starfall, who must be a very powerful mage indeed, if the deference the other Hawkbrothers showed him was any indication.

  As Darian found himself to be the focus of all those eyes, avian as well as human, he began to recall how often he managed to get himself into trouble - and that was with people he knew! How could he hope to do anything other than get himself into worse trouble with these folk? And what must they think of him for running away the way he had? Surely they must think he was a dreadful coward at best, and at worst -