Owlflight v(dt-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  “What about the stuff you’re wearing?” asked a woman, shrilly, and only then did Darian look up to see that Lilly was bedecked with several heavy gold bracelets, chains, and odd-looking pendants.

  Lilly flushed, but looked angry. “This is mine,” she replied fiercely. “I earned every bit of it!”

  “Oh, earned it, did you?” the woman snarled. “At your ease, in comfort, while the rest of us sweated out in the fields? Earned it, did you?”

  For once, Lilly stood up for herself, pulling herself up tall and staring the woman down. “Yes, earned it! Earned it by waiting on Shkar day and night, doing things I don’t even like to think about, keeping him and his bullies looking at me and thinking about me instead of you, making sure that every time their eyes started wandering toward your pretty little daughter, Stella Harthon, that they got pulled back toward me. How did you think it happened? By magic? I fought for all our sakes with the only weapon that I knew would work against them! And now I’m keeping what I earned from them, I’m taking it, and I’m going to go and buy a real inn someplace else where nobody is going to look down her long petty nose at me again!”

  Darian flushed with anger as he saw sour and angry faces among the women still, in spite of the fact that the pile of loot in the coverlet was vastly more valuable than what Lilly wore. How greedy can they be? he wondered.

  But Lutter coughed, and said to Lilly, red-faced, “You’re right, girl. You’ve earned it. And you’ve earned the right to take it and yourself someplace else if you want to. But if we’re going to get the dye-trade going again, we’re going to need a real inn - “

  Lilly interrupted him, shaking her head, though her demeanor softened. “No. If I go elsewhere, I’ll be Lilly, the respectable innkeeper. I can never be that if I stay here. I’m leaving. Besides,” she chuckled weakly, “when I leave, it’ll give your wives a bad example to show their girl-children.”

  “I would like to ask you some questions about your time among those men,” Lord Breon said with delicate tact. “You knew the name of one of the leaders, for instance.”

  “Shkar,” she said, and shrugged. “I didn’t learn much of their tongue. They didn’t need me for language lessons, and what they wanted they could get by pointing.”

  “Nevertheless, you may know more than you think you do,” Lord Breon persisted. “If you’d care to come back with me, after I’ve learned what I can from you, I’ll gladly provide an escort to wherever you choose.”-

  “That suits me.” She turned abruptly arid went to stand among Lord Breon’s men, who, after a stern look from Lord Breon, did not leer or make suggestive comments but simply made a place for her.

  “In the meantime, the woman is right,” the Lord continued, surveying the pile. “Between the loot there, and the horses, you will have more than enough to rebuild what was lost. I’ll trade ten cattle or twenty adult hogs for each warhorse this minute, sight unseen, for instance. Or you can take them to the horsemarket and try your luck there.” He raked his eyes over the crowd. “You’ll have to agree on equal shares, as you all suffered equally, so far as I can see. It will take a great deal of work, but in the end, Errold’s Grove will be as prosperous as it was before.”

  There was some muttering, especially among those who had been the most well-off before the invasion, but finally everyone agreed.

  “Now, as for Darian,” Lord Breon began.

  Snowfire interrupted him this time. “With all respect, we have already taken him into our clan,” the Tayledras said, and Darian’s heart leaped. “We do not consider him a burden.”

  But evidently some word of what Darian had done had gotten to the villagers, for there was an immediate protest. “But he’s our mage! We are going to need a mage!” exclaimed Lutter in dismay. “What if someone like these barbarians comes back?”

  “You need a trained mage, which Dar’ian is not,” Snowfire replied sternly. “He must be trained, and you have no adequate teachers. Nor are you likely to get any, considering how long it took to get you the first one.”

  “But he can heal - “

  “As I believe some of you once pointed out, any of your young people could learn to do, apprenticing for six months with a Healer.” Snowfire’s mouth twitched at the dismay on certain faces; Darian had to hide his face lest his own expression give him away. “I suggest you do that. Perhaps, if at some time, a generous offer is made, you may tempt another mage to come and take residence here. Until that time, I fear you shall have to learn to watch your own borders and defend yourselves.”

  But Darian felt a twinge of guilt as he looked at the real fear in the eyes of some of them. Terrible things had happened here, things that people would never speak of, but which would shadow their dreams for the rest of their lives. They would never feel truly secure again.

  “What is it, lad?” Lord Breon asked, seeing the doubt in his own eyes. “What is it to be? Do you go with the Hawkbrothers, or do you remain here?”

  He looked from Snowfire’s calm eyes, to Lord Breon’s worried ones, and back again. “I - I have to be trained, first,” he said, echoing Snowfire’s words. “And I’d rather it was with my friends than anyone else. But - “ He shook his head, and tried to put into words the idea he’d had. “But - this place is right on the border, right on the edge of Hawkbrother lands and Valdemar, right? Shouldn’t there be someone who was as much a Hawkbrother as a Valdemaran, right here all the time, to make sure that there are never any misunderstandings?”

  Lord Breon looked astounded, and Snowfire impressed and pleased. He hurried on. “And Lutter is right. Errold’s Grove is going to need a real mage, sooner or later. The Peligirs haven’t gotten less strange, even after the Storms; if there was a mage here, he could look at stuff that was brought out and tell if it was good for anything besides dyeing. Other things, too. So - couldn’t I do both?” He turned pleading eyes to Snowfire. “Couldn’t I go with you, learn to be a mage and one of the Clan, then come back here and maybe make a little Vale where Tayledras would always be able to come?”

  “It would be a hard life, and often lonely, being neither of this world nor that,” Snowfire said softly in the Hawkbrother tongue. “But you are correct, that there is a need for such a person. Especially here, where there is - scope for a great deal of misunderstanding.”

  “Then that’s what I’d like,” he sighed. Then he laughed a little and shook his head. “Hellfires, I never could take the easy way with anything!”

  “I am glad that you made that choice, little brother,” the scout replied, and switched to Valdemaran. “That is a good plan, and a generous one. You shall come with us and be trained, and when you are ready, you shall return here and be a living example of the Alliance. You shall make for us a haven for our kind, and a place where those of Valdemar will find help when it is needed.”

  Sighs and smiles all around, but Snowfire wasn’t finished yet. “And since it is a plan that shows wisdom beyond your years, I shall do as Hweel and Huur asked me, though you are not quite yet of an age for such a joy and a responsibility.” He smiled. “After all, usually in matters of this sort, our winged ones are far too wise to be bound by convention.”

  He whistled and held up his gauntleted arm - but instead of Hweel coming in to land on it, the youngster woke up, hooted loudly, and blundered in to his fist. Before Darian had a moment to think, Wintersky grabbed his left hand and slipped a shoulder-length glove over it, then held it up. The youngster made a clumsy hop from Snowfire’s fist to Darian’s, and looked deeply into Darian’s dazzled eyes as Snowfire laughed with delight at his expression.

  “H-hello,” Darian stammered, beside himself with so much joy and excitement that he shook. “What’s your name?”

  :Kuari,: the bird said solemnly in his mind. :l am Ktiari. I like you. We’ll be bondmates. Yes? They want it, too: The owl didn’t move his head, but Darian knew that they meant Hweel and Huur, sitting side-by-side up on the rooftree. :I like mice. I want to hunt mice. Bring you some, t
oo?:

  “I have the feeling that Hweel and Huur have decided that this will ensure your place within the clan, little brother,” Snowfire said in Tayledras, with suppressed laughter in his voice.

  Darian didn’t care; the trust he sensed in Kuan’s “voice” won his heart as nothing else could have. With gentle care, he reached up and scratched the youngster’s head at the eartufts, as he had seen Snowfire do for Hweel.

  :Oh, I like that. I like that better than mice. Do that a lot.:

  Kuari closed his eyes in ecstasy, all but melting under the caress, and butted his head into Darian’s hand.

  “I told you,” Daystorm muttered to Snowfire, in a whisper Darian probably wasn’t supposed to overhear. “The boy’s a natural with the birds. He’ll be fine.”

  Yes, I will be fine, he thought, his heart so brimming with joy and contentment that there was no room in it anymore for anger, resentment, or grief. Yes, I will. I’ve got a family, adventure, a worthy goal. I’m home. I’m finally making my own home.

  Darian looked up, and out at the villagers, who were conspicuously silent. “One last thing,” he said boldly. “I won’t even consider returning until there is a portrait of the great mage Justyn displayed in a place of honor in Errold’s Grove.”

  He paused a moment, then added, just to make sure, “A good portrait.”

  Then Darian, Hawkbrother of Valdemar, turned his full attention to his new bondmate’s soft feathers, and the shared bliss that came from being with each other.

  Maybe the young owl’s flight was not all that graceful at the moment, but in time, with support and guidance, he would be a master at whatever he tried. In time, so too would Darian, and he would be at home wherever he went.

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