Ware Hawk

11

They look cover in a fringe of trees, traveling slowly, while the falcon, in short flights, kept an eye on the party ahead. Those others continued to move in the open as if they had nothing to fear and a definite goal awaiting them.

It was the falcon, also, that brought from two of its ventures small hares, lean at this season, but still food, though they must eat the flesh raw, chewing at strips shaved from the carcasses. Tirtha, long since having learned that one could not be dainty during hard travel, accepted thankfully, even though her stomach was queasy.

They camped that night where the black-veined ledge descended into the earth. Ahead they could sight the forest, dark and threatening to the east, displaying even at this distance the thick weaving of its outer wall, a warning threat.

The party ahead did not attempt an entrance into the forest, though they had changed course to camp on land edging it. Nor did they hide their camp, for the wink of their fire was bright.

Making a last ascent into the dusk-curtained sky, the falcon circled toward it. When the bird returned, it eagerly reported to the man. He listened, though he himself was now only a blot of darkness Tirtha was hardly able to distinguish.

“One of their party is gone,” he reported, when the bird was done. “Wind Warrior believes he has entered the wood. That holds danger. Perhaps he goes to treat with what dwells there for a safe passage.”

Something which they could not do, Tirtha thought bitterly. Or else the rider had been sent to set up the ambush that she suspicioned might await them. Her shoulders drooped. There was no question that she must go on, but why must she take these two with her, to add to her trials?

It was Alon who broke the silence, following upon the Falconer’s translation of the report.

“You said”—he spoke to Tirtha—“that there were the remains of a road leading through the wood to your Hawkholme land. Then once men must have ridden it safely. Did not the Old Race have their own guards, not all of them men?”

“Guards—if those ever existed—” she answered out of a dull sense that she faced the impossible and could not hope for better, “who were of no service on the Day of the Horning. Hawkholme fell then, and that was many years ago. Any guards of my clan are dead or long since swept away.”

To her surprise the Falconer said slowly, “There is this—only the mountains’ fall brought down the Eyrie. For we in turn had safeguards that were greater than men with sword and dart. Still…” His outline moved; she thought that he was putting out his arm, and she heard a small rustle of sound. Perhaps Wind Warrior was settling on his favorite perch, that metal claw. “Some of what we had remains there. Otherwise the Brother-in-Feathers would not have come to me. His kin remembered across the years. Do not dismiss too quickly what our little brother suggests. There might yet be something that will answer to your blood even as Wind Warrior came to me.”

She gave a bitter bark of laughter. “There is nothing to aid and everything to stand against me. I say me—for I will not have the two of you on my conscience, knowing that I may lead you into what may be worse than any death by steel. Alon has already tasted of what this Gerik can turn against one. None of us has any knowledge of shield-building by ritual or appeal to Power. That forest is bad. What waits beyond is worse.”

Unseen, her fingers moved in age-old signs, warding off evil fate. Some signs she had always known, some she had learned with difficulty, but these gestures carried with them no authority at all. If she were like Yachne, perhaps, Tirtha could stand against the Dark; but she was not a Wise Woman, certainly no Witch.

“To think of defeat is to summon it.” Out of the dark Alon’s voice was that of a man’s, save for its higher pitch. “You would not have been called unless there was a chance.”

“What if,” she retorted between her teeth, “I was brought hither to satisfy some purpose of the Dark—a sacrifice? How can I swear that this is not so? There were forces in Karsten that always hated and feared my kind. In the past some of them linked with Kolder. Perhaps now they strike bargains with another power.”

Her depression was like a thick cloud. She had never so mistrusted the future. Before, the need for the quest had upborne her through much trouble, nor had she been visited by such feelings of despair and helplessness.

Fingers caught at her moving hands, wrapped about them tightly, holding with a fierce grip.

“Swordmaster”—Alon’s voice sounded as sharply us one summoning another to battle—“your sword! There is a shadow striving to engulf her.”

Tirtha struggled to free her hands from the boy’s hold. He—they must go, leave her now! There welled up inside her such a wave of darkness as she had never known. This was not the icy evil that had struck at her during that farseeing. Rather it appeared to be a part of herself, born out of her own fears and doubts, out of every disappointment, hardship, and past danger she had fought. It welled up, filled her, was sour in her mouth, invaded and routed coherent thought. She wanted nothing but to be free of it—of this other self—to find peace, peace forever and ever, all struggle gone.

She felt, through that dreadful fog, pain that was not this new and frightening pain of body and inner essence, but physical pain. Tirtha struggled to win free—to be herself.

“Hold her—the sword—take it…” A voice thin, far away, meaning nothing.

Let her be free—at peace! She could not think; she was filled with fear and despair that clawed within her, tearing down, crushing.

“Hold her! She is invaded!” Again that voice. The words were meaningless. There was nothing left for her. Dark—into the Dark—let her go into the Dark. There lay peace, rest, a refuge.

She saw nothing but threatening shadow arising from a depth in her she had not realized existed. Therein crawled all the harshness of her life, all the self-denials that she had made. Now she was alone with the worst that dwelt within her. To face it was breaking her so that only—only death… Death—if that would come at a call! Tirtha felt an ache in her throat as if she shouted aloud to summon the end. What she was now was as monstrous as anything that could come crawling out of Escore to run through these hills. She was the monster, the evil, she polluted the world—she…

Within that shadow she writhed in a torment worse than any torment of body, for torture of one’s body could end in death. For her there would be no death, no peace, no…

“Tirtha—Tirtha!” The voice was very, very far away—so thin that she could hardly hear it. Nor did she want to. There could be no one else in this evil world she had made for herself. She had fashioned this horror, unknowingly perhaps. Still it had grown out of her—let it not engulf anyone else.

She could not drive the murk from her mind, still she was dimly aware of other warmth.

“Tirtha!” A voice not so faint, possessing more depth, stronger, even more demanding than that other one. She strove to turn, twist, to outrace the voice.

But she was held. Her body lay against another’s, immobilized. For a second or two—the length of perhaps a heartbeat—that realization pierced through the emergence of the thing to which her inner spirit had given birth.

Tirtha strangled on a cry, begging for release, lest this other presence be tainted, befouled, lest he suffer because of her.

“No.” So emphatic was the denial that it broke through to her. “No, this is not of you, you are not so…”

She thought that she whimpered as her strength fast drained away. The shadow was winning; it was possessing the last remnants of her, devouring all she had believed once that she was or could be. That belief was built on rot within her.

“Tirtha!” Again that summons.

Then like a sun rising into the cloudless sky on a fair day of spring when the renewing of life could be believed in, the heart know a stir of joy and well-being, a spark of light rayed through the fog of evil about her. Larger, stronger grew that pinpoint. She was aware of another strength that pushed into the murk of her own failure.

Slowly, steadily it pushed. There came a sharp innermost thrust that pierced directly to the heart of what she now was. Death? If so, welcome.

Once more there whirled through her mind all that she had done, all that she had made of herself until this hour. However, the light followed, fought against sick self-contempt, her deep debasement of spirit. That portion of her confidence, which had been defeated, beaten into the ground, stirred. Slowly, oh, so slowly, a part of her answered the light, was nourished by it. Her thoughts no longer drew pictures of all that had gone wrong in the past—the least of those actions weighing against the good in her.

Again Tirtha strove to ask for help as she had done once before, only this was for help against her own being, a prayer that she be strengthened to face what she was and accept all her faults. The warmth which held her fed that need for comfort and strength of will, even as did the light.

She sighed, and the shadow no longer pressed in so tightly. Yes, this she had done and that, she had been harsh and cold and wrapped within herself, but she was no longer so utterly alone. There was a presence with her lifting her up and out, and out…

Tirtha saw the blur of a face close to hers, another beyond. She lay within a firm hold, while both her hands were imprisoned in another grasp, so tightly that her flesh was pinched and cramped. There was dark about the three of them. However, not that terrible inner darkness that had captured her without warning; this was the natural dark of the night. The Falconer held her, supported her, as he had when she emerged from the trance, while Alon knelt, her hands in his.

“I…” She tried to speak, to tell them. It was the Falconer who laid his sword-calloused hand across her lips.

In his claw, as it came about her shoulder, rammed well into the grasp of that cold metal, was the weapon of power. Light shone from it—lighter in color, not blue, but a golden-white—to illuminate all their faces. He had thrown off his helm, was unmasked, and as she looked up into his face, it was no longer impassive. Tirtha could not have said what the strange expression she saw there meant, save that he was more moved by some emotion than she had ever seen him. The flames in his eyes were steady while he watched her searchingly as if she were a land—a gate—that must be defended from all comers.

His bird, which she believed would never leave him, perched on Alon’s shoulder as the boy knelt before her. The avian eyes flamed with a fierce light, and the head turned at an angle to survey her with a predator’s steady, unblinking gaze.

Alon’s small face was nearly ashen in spite of the warmth of the color from the weapon’s glow. His lips were pinched between his teeth, and there was such strain in his face as she believed he might have shown had he once more confronted Gerik’s men.

“I…” She turned her head, slipped the Falconer’s hold from off her lips. “I was…”

“In the Dark.” The man answered her somberly. “This attack…”

Alon interrupted him. “You met that which only the Full Dark can summon.”

It was her turn to protest. “Not from without.” It was difficult to find the proper words. Her mind felt benumbed, beaten and sore, as might her body had she come through, survived only by inches, some battle. “It was inside—inside me.”

Alon shifted a little, settling back on his heels. “You even tried to use your sword—against yourself.” He had dropped his hold on her hands; now he motioned to what lay between them—that old, worn blade that was her talisman. “What possessed you would have made you self-slain.”

“Possessed…” Tirtha repeated his words. She had heard, had read of possession. That had been the worst and greatest weapon of the Kolder. Was this how they had possessed men’s bodies—turned them into their dead-alive servants? No, that had been done in another way—by the machines that had been destroyed in Gorm, so completely broken that no living man could hope to puzzle out their dread secrets. Yet now she said the only word that had once fitted such a state. “Kolder.”

The Falconer shook his head. The expression she had not been able to read had vanished. His features were again set in the somber mold they had always worn. “Kolder is gone. This is another matter.”

Tirtha roused herself, feeling that she must explain, must make them understand for their own sakes what she had learned within that shadow—that she carried in her the seeds of dire things, and the longer they companioned her, the more danger for them. All the truths and memories that shadow had used to weigh her down into despair still lay in her mind. This last crime she would not have added to the score to be balanced against her.

“It showed me to myself—what I have been, what I am. I beg you—go, if you have any compassion for me, you have no reason to do more than wish me well and ride. Grant me this much: that you will not be drawn into darkness because you think it your duty to follow where I must travel. Let me go alone; so take such an added burden from me.”

Alon’s lips parted as if he would speak, but it was the Falconer who answered first.

“Would you play its game then? I think, Lady, that you have too much courage to allow yourself to be so misled. Look you to what has happened. We are yet afar from Hawkholme, and yet something which has great witchery seeks to separate us. Therefore it fears. For only against what we fear, do we begin battle or launch a surprise attack. We do not know even the nature of this enemy. However, it would seem to me that when we unite, as we have done twice now, we provide it with a problem: strength it fears to face.

“In Karsten in the long ago the Kolder worked so; deep was their intriguing, their possession of Yvian and others near him, which led him to drive forth your people. And the reason for that was that Kolder could not take over one of the Old Race. The Old Race had to die because they could not be bent to another’s will. To seek to divide when there are allies united in strength is a very ancient move of strategy. If we ride hence, and you go on alone, then it has won. Do you wish such a victory. Lady? I think not, that is not in you. This enemy seeks to strike through your sense of duty, would set upon you the illusion that you already serve evil and so will lead you to open a door for it.”

Tirtha watched his face, intent upon his words, and she knew that he spoke in all sincerity. That part of her which had been awakened through his efforts, through Alon’s—the belief in herself, was now strengthened. She was as one recovering from an illness who feels the touch of returning health. There was good council in what he said. Suppose she had succeeded, and these two left her at her demand?

It might not matter that she went on to oblivion save that, though she in herself did not count, what she must do had strong reason and purpose. As Tirtha faced that thought, another clear flow of energy surged into her, bringing with it the will to banish the last of the shadow.

Also, breaking their bonds with her now might not save the Falconer and Alon. Alon was the one to point that out.

“They will search for us, even if you send us from you. Lady Tirtha. We have been one. If they take you, then maybe they can still compel us to them—or it—because of that very fact. We have made a choice…”

The girl shook her head a fraction. “I have forced one on you,” she corrected.

“Not so,” was the Falconer’s quick denial. “I have long thought that perhaps we are all under a geas—that you came to me in Romsgarth not by chance but by purpose. I was minded to ride that very morning for the coast. My comrades were dead; I felt but half a man. There was nothing to hold me to the hills. Yet against my own planning, I returned again to the market because”—for the first time real puzzlement crossed his face—“I cannot tell you why. And see, already I am more of a man, once more a warrior with a feathered brother, such as I had never hoped to be again. That, too, was not chance. Wind Warrior was waiting for one he believed would come.”

“And I would have died,” Alon said softly. “I think you yourself this night touched on the same death that would have taken me. But you and the Swordmaster and Wind Warrior, you brought me to life and awakened in me that which I had never understood, so that I had only a half life before. Can you say all of this was by chance alone?”

Tirtha moistened her lips with tongue tip, staring first at the Falconer in whose arms she still rested, then at the boy, who was certainly more than he seemed to the outer eye—at last to the bird on his shoulder. The wall she had built around her for years had cracked.

“I do not know what must be sought at Hawkholme,” she said, “but it is of importance to more than me. I have come to believe that my clan were guardians of something of great value, which must be found. They say that very ancient powers are awake and move in Escore from which our blood first came. Did those of my House bring with them some weighty symbol of force, some treasure, which is needed now in the war that rages there between the Dark and the Light? If only I had more of the talent…” Her old regret was heavy in her voice. “Perhaps had I been trained and not had to forage for myself, garnering bits and pieces I have not the wit to use, I could foresee as well as farsee. I am not a Wise Woman.”

“You do not know yet what you are,” the Falconer interrupted her. “Make no statement that you are not this or that. But this I know.” He looked straight into her eyes. “Our bargain has changed, Lady. There are no twenty days of service. No, what lies between us now shall continue to the end, whether you will it or no. That is the way that things must be.”

He eased her with a gentleness she did not expect, had not known that one of his schooling could summon, wrapping her in her cloak, settling her with one of the limp saddlebags for a pillow. Then he held the power sword in the air. Its light had faded to the smallest glimmering, hardly more than the flash of a night-flying insect. But by it she could still see the blur of his face and believed that he was staring upon what he held.

“This came into my hand, even though those of my blood trust not in things that are of witchery. Yet it slipped into my hold as if it were made for no other man in this world. That is another sign that I am one in this quest. I, too, have a geas laid upon me to bear this where it must go, wield it as it must be used. I do not know, but perhaps he who was Nirel has died, and I am someone else. If that is so, then I must learn who. Now, Lady, I set it on you to sleep, for you have come through such a fight as would exhaust any warrior. And the feathered brother, though he hunts by day, is an excellent sentinel, so we need not keep watch and watch. Tomorrow we face perhaps other trials, but those are for the morning and one does not look ahead for the evil that may lie in wait.”

She was indeed tired. His voice had softened, lost that harsh bite it so often carried. Now it seemed a flow of reason, carrying her easily with it, sliding into rest, which was not the dark peace she had sought, the nothingness of non-being, but rather that which renewed both body and spirit.

Alon, the blanket that had been rolled behind the Torgian’s saddle wrapped around him, settled down so that she need not even reach forth a hand more than a palm’s width away to touch him. And she heard movements through the dark that told her the Falconer was also seeking rest. What had happened tonight, Tirtha still did not understand. But she was too weary to seek an answer; there would be time with morning light for that.

There was warmth on her face when she opened her eyes again; a patch of sun lay across her cheek, having found entrance between two overhead branches. It required determination and will for her to pull herself up and allow the cloak to fall away. For a single moment of surprise and confusion, she thought that for all their talk the other two had obeyed her and gone their own way, for there was no one in sight. Then the evidence of the saddles to one side, their bags lying beside them, was proof that they had not left. Near her was a broad leaf on which rested two long white roots so recently washed free of earth that stray drops of water lay upon them. Beside them a water bottle sat upright.

She recognized the roots as ones Alon dug now and then. Eaten raw, they were crisp and slightly biting to the tongue but palatable. So she ate and drank, finding that she was near famished, and then wobbled to her feet, leaning back against the trunk of the tree under which she had lain. There was a swishing in the brush as Alon pushed through, his face lighting as he saw her.

He came across the small open space into which they had edged their camp to catch one of her hands, holding it in both of his.

“Tirtha, it is well with you?” His eyes sought hers and satisfaction grew in his expression. “You slept—ah, how you slept.”

She looked at the sun and suddenly felt guilty. “How long?”

“It is midday. But it does not matter. In fact, the Swordmaster said that it was a good thing. For he thought us best here until those others are well into the wood. Wind Warrior has gone to settle on one of the trees at the edge of it and watch what they do, look for any guards that may be on the prowl there. Swordmaster is hunting—he put down snares and caught two meadow hens. Also he believes that we dare light a fire if we keep it under cover here.”

Alon made a small face. “I do not like raw hare; this is better.” He loosed his hold on her and briskly set to work with the bundle of sticks he had dropped when he first sighted her, laying them with care, choosing only the driest, those least liable to give forth smoke.

When the Falconer returned, he had two plump birds swinging from his belt. Also he told her he had found a small side dell in which the ponies and the Torgian had been put on picket lines and were grazing well.

“We are a day late,” she said, as he plucked the birds skillfully and impaled them on sticks, to be set to broil at the pocket of fire Alon tended.

“Time not wasted,” he reassured her. “It is best to have those well ahead. We shall take the trail tonight. I would not cross the open in the day. And there may be something of a storm later to give us cover.” To her eyes, he seemed his old self, impersonal and intent on what he conceived his duties. She was well content to have it so. Her own shell of independence seemed to her at this moment a cloak she did not want to discard.