Winds Of Fate

*Chapter Six DARKWIND

council meetings. Endless dithering about nothing, while we guardians dance with death out there on the border. And no help for us, either. If I could get anyone else to do this, I'd give up the Council seat in a heartbeat.

Darkwind pushed aside a tangle of vines covered with blue, trumpetshaped flowers and restrained himself from pulling the whole curtain of vegetation down in a fit of anger. It had been days-weeks-since his confrontations with his father and the Council, demanding that they do something about the situation of the Clan, of the scouts, and what had they done?

Nothing. Or rather, they had "taken it under advisement." They would "weigh all the possible options." They were "studying the problem." they're sitting on their backsides, afraid to do anything, that's what's really going on. Father won't let them act because he's afraid of what it will do to the Heartstone. And they still won't go outside k'sheyna for help.

Not that he had really expected anything else after the way Starblade had treated him- Really, when it came to anything important, especially where magic was concerned, the entire Council spoke with Starblade's I'll have to start considering those other plans of Dawnfire's, using the hertasi and some of the others. They've left us no choice; if we're going to guard them effectively, we'll have to use whatever allies we have.

And he didn't particularly care if pulling the hertasi away from their other duties left some of those jobs undone. So what if the Vale got a little more overgrown? It didn't look to him as if it would make much difference. And maybe if some of the Elders had to suffer a little, if their ekele went unrepaired and their gardens untended because the hertasi were out helping keep their Vale safer-well, maybe then they'd notice that there was something wrong with their little world. And maybe they'd decide that it might be a good idea to try and fix what was wrong.

I hope. But I'm not going to count on anything like sense out of them.

He took the shortest possible route to the pass out of the Vale, cutting down long-neglected paths until he reached the boundary and the shieldwall.

As he burst through a stand of wildly overgrown, flowering bushes, he saw Vree waiting for him in a tree growing just outside the mage-barrier.

The gyre preferred not to enter the Vale itself if he could help it; many of the other bondbirds demonstrated Vree's distaste for the Vale proper, and tried to stay outside of the shield. Darkwind wasn't sure if it was because they shared their bondmates' dislike of magic, or sensed the problems with the Heartstone. One thing was certain, he knew that aversion dated back to the disaster, and not before.

He just wished he could avoid the Vale as well.

The place made him uneasy, for all its luxury. Here, near the edge, it wasn't so bad. The flora were tropical and wildly luxuriant, but it was nothing that couldn't be found in a glassed-over hothouse. But the closer he came to the damaged Heartstone, the stranger the plants became-and the odder he felt; slightly disoriented, off-balance, lethargic. As if something was sapping his energy, clouding his thoughts.

And it's not my imagination, either, he thought stubbornly. If Vree and the other birds don't like the Vale, that should tell us all something. No matter what Father claims. What would he know, anyway? His bondbird is that damned crow-hardly bred out of the wild line, and it might as well be a metal simulacrum for all the intelligence it shows. It does what he tells it to, it doesn't talk to the other birds at all, and most of the time it sits on its perch in the corner of the ekele, like some kind of art object.

He passed through the barrier-a brief tingling on the surface of his skin-and emerged into the real world again. Already he felt lighter, freer, and it seemed to him as he walked out on the path taking deep breaths of the pine-scented air, that even his footfalls were more confident.

No cloying flower-scents, no heavy humidity-just an honest summer breeze. No one to answer to, out here. No one questioning his judgment unless it really needed to be called into question.

"Vree!" He Mindcalled the gyre, suddenly anxious to feel the bird's familiar weight on his shoulder. Vree obliged him by sweeping down out of the top of the nearest pine, landing on his leather-covered wrist with a thunder of pinions, and stepping happily from there to his favorite perch, on the padded shoulder of Darkwind's jacket.

"Don't like Vale," the falcon complained. "Too hot, too empty, feels bad.

Don't like crow, stupid crow. Don't go back." He Sent agreement tinged with regret. "I have to, featherhead. But you don't have to go in if you don't want to. And I don't have to go back for a While." The bird crooned a little, and preened a beakful of Darkwind's hair, as the scout laughed softly. Feeling considerably more cheerful now that he was outside the Vale and wouldn't have to face another Council meeting for days, Darkwind returned the bird's affectionate caress, scratching the breast and working his fingers up to the head-feathers. Vree made a happy chuckling sound, and bent to have his head scratched a little more.

"Sybarite," Darkwind said, laughing.

"Feels good," the bird agreed. "Scratch"

"Report, featherhead," he told the gyre, "Or no more scratches." Vree actually heaved a sigh, and reluctantly complied. The bondbirds had some limited abilities at relaying and reporting messages; while Darkwind was in the Vale, he depended on Vree to keep in contact with the rest of the scouts under his command. Vree had messages from most of the scouts; all those who had not reported in person before Darkwind went to the Council meeting this afternoon.

Most of the messages were simple enough, even by Vree's standards"

"Nothing to report,"

"All quiet,"

"All is well." A normal enough day; he'd been half expecting that something disastrous would happen while he was out of touch, but it seemed that all the scouts had things well in hand.

All except for the handful of scouts who shared the southern boundary with him.

Those sent back messages that there were problems. Three of them said that they had turned their watch over to the night-scouts and would meet him at his ekele, to make their reports in person. Vree could not imitate the emotional overtones of those Mind-sent messages, relayed through their birds to Vree, but the terse quality did not auger well.

He swore silently to himself; the last time he'd had to take reports in person, he and the rest of the scouts had faced a week-long incursion of magically-twisted creatures that ultimately cost them two scouts and the only mage who had deigned to work with them.

That had been shortly after he'd joined the scouts, and before they made him their spokesperson. He could only hope that if this was the situation they faced again, they were sufficiently aware of the problems now to deal with it without more losses.

"Home?" Vree asked hopefully when he'd finished listening to the last of those messages.

Yes," he confirmed, to the bird's delight. "Meet me there." He let Vree hop back down to his wrist and tossed the heavy gyre into the air; Vree pushed off and flapped upward, driving himself up through the branches with thunderous wing-claps. Darkwind waited until he had disappeared, then started off through the forest at a trot-not on one of the usual paths, but on a game-trail-heading for his ekele.

He never took the same route twice; he never approached his ekele the same way. While he ran, as silently as only a Tayledras scout could, he kept his mind as well as his other senses open, constantly on the alert for traces of thought that were out of the ordinary, for the scent of something odd, for a color or texture where it didn't belong, or movement, or the sound of a footfall in the forest beyond him.

Other scouts had not been that cautious. Rainwind hadn't; he'd been ambushed halfway between the Vale and his ekele after a long soak in one of the springs. He'd been lucky; his bondbird had spotted one of the ambushers first, so he had only had to deal with one enemy. The creatures had not sported the kind of poisoned fangs and claws so many others had and he'd escaped with only a permanent limp from a lacerated thigh.

Others had not been so fortunate; they had been just as careless, and had paid for it with limbs or lives.

That was the cost of living outside the Vale. No single Tayledras could hope to shield more than his ekele, even if he were an Adept-class mage.

Since most of the scouts weren't, they paid the price of freedom in personal safety.

But anyone who lived out here felt it was worth that cost.

There were too many other things that were bad about living in the Vale these days; it was good to have a little distance from the Heartstone, and space between themselves and the mages.

The run stirred up his blood, and made him feel a little readier to face whatever trouble was coming. He Felt the presence of the other scouts long before they knew he was there. Out of courtesy, they had not climbed to his ekele while he was not in it; instead, they waited below, patiently, while Vree perched above, impatiently.

"Hungry," Vree complained, as soon as his keen eyes spotted Darkwind approaching. The three scouts waiting caught the edge of the Mind-sent plaint, and he Felt their attention turning toward him, little brushes of thought, as they each tested for him and found him with their individual Gifts.

They waited until he came into view, though, before tendering some very subdued greetings. And not the usual "zhaihelleva," either; Winterlight and Stormcloud only raised their hands in a kind of sketchy salute, and Dawnfire tendered him a feather-light mental caress, a promise of things to come, but also carrying overtones of deep concern.

This did not indicate good news at all.

He signaled to Vree, who swooped down and landed on one of the lower branches. Although he could not see the bird, hidden as he was by growth, he knew what Vree was up to. The gyre sidled along the branch to the trunk, and pulled a strap on the hook holding his rope ladder out of reach. The ladder dropped down to the ground with a clattering of wooden rungs; Darkwind motioned the others to precede him, and followed after with the strap that was attached to the end of the ladder tucked into his belt.

The others were far above him on the ladder; he had to go slowly, as he was bringing the end of it up with him. They were already hidden in the branches when he was only halfway up. His ekele, like those of the other scouts, was actually more elaborate than any of those inside the Vale. It had to be; it had to withstand winter winds and summer downpours, snow and hail, and the occasional "visit" from some of the distinctly hostile creatures from the Outlands.

At last, after penetrating the growth of the first boughs, he reached the place where the ladder-release was fastened to the bark of the trunk.

He hooked the end of the ladder back in place, and followed his guests up through the trapdoor in the floor of the first chamber of the ekele.

The tree holding his home was an amazing forest giant, but it was nothing like the trees that supported a half-dozen ekele apiece, back in the Vale. Like them, though, it was a huge conifer, with a girth more than ten men could span with outstretched arms, and an arrow-straight trunk that towered without a single branching up for several man-heights above the forest floor. The first branches concealed his ladder; his ekele began, well sheltered, another man-height above that.

He pulled himself up onto the floor, closed and locked the trapdoor, then went to the glazed window of the first chamber, unlocked the latch at the side, and held it open for Vree. The forestgyre dove through it in a rush, landing on his outstretched arm, then hopped to his shoulder.

Darkwind shut the window and relatched it, then turned to climb the stairs to join his guests.

The entire ekele was built of light, strong wood, stained on the outside to resemble the bark of the tree, but polished to a warm gold within.

The first chamber was nothing more than a single, barren room, meant to buffer the effects of the wind coming up from below; there were allweather coats hung on pegs on the wall, some climbing-tools and weapons, but that was all. The other scouts had already gone ahead of him, following a staircase built into the side of the trunk, a stair that spiraled up to the next chamber.

Each chamber was built upon the one below it, in a snailshellspiral pattern, using the huge branches as supports for the floor. The next chamber was one commonly used for the gathering of friends; it was considerably larger than the entrance chamber, and covered an arc fully one-third of the circumference of the trunk. Heated in winter by a clever ceramic stove that he also used for cooking, it supplied warm air to the two chambers above it. One of those was a sleeping room, the other, a storeroom and study. To bathe, he had to descend to the ground.

As soon as his head and shoulders had cleared the doorsill-if one could rightly call an entrance that was placed in the floor a "door"-Vree hopped off his shoulder and bounced sideways toward his perch, in the ungainly sidling motion of any raptor on the ground. The floor and wallmounted perch was a permanent fixture of the room, placed in the corner, where it could be braced against two of the walls, and near one of the windows. Vree leapt up onto it, roused his feathers, and yawned, waiting for his dinner.

Aside from the perch and the stove, the only other permanent features of the room were the low platforms affixed to the floor. Those platforms, upholstered in flat cushions, now hosted the three scouts: Winterlight, Stormcloud, and Dawnfire. three of the best. If they have problem, it's not from incompetence.

Winterlight was the oldest of all of them; he had held the position of Council-speaker and Elder but had given it to Darkwind with grateful relief when the others suggested him.

Now I know why he gave it up. I'd gladly give it back.

He seldom dyed his hair; longer than his waist, he generally kept the snow-white fall in a single braid as thick as his own wrist. Winterlight was actually Starblade's elder by several years but was of such a solitary nature that he had lived outside the Vale for most of his life. He was also unusual in that he flew two bondbirds; a snow-eagle, Lyer, by day; a tuft-eared owl, Huur, by night. Both birds had mated, and although the mates had not bonded to the scout, they provided extra security for Winterlight's ekele, nesting near each other in a rare show of interspecies tolerance, for given the chance, owls and eagles would readily hunt and even kill one another. Huur and Lyer's offspring had been in high demand as bondbirds.

Had been-but the reduced population and the absolute dearth of children meant that this year's crop of nestlings would probably go unbonded, and fly off to some other Clan to seek mates. Unless one of the scouts chose to bond to a second bird, or lost his bird before the eyases fledged and became passagers. Darkwind had briefly toyed with the notion of bonding to an owlet, but Vree had displayed a great deal of jealousy at the idea, and he had discarded it, albeit regretfully. stormcloud might have been a mage, but as a child his Gift was not deemed "enough" by Starblade and the other Adepts, and now he refused to enter training at all. His argument, using their own words against them in a direct quote, was "It's better to have a first-quality scout than a second-class mage." And I don't blame you, old friend. No matter what Father says about "ingratitude and insolence." I'd have said and done the same as you.

He was Darkwind's oldest and best friend, their friendship dating back to when they were both barely able to walk. His features differed from the aquiline Tayledras norm considerably, with a round chin and a snubbed nose. He alone among k'sheyna cut his hair short, with a stiff, jaylike crest. He flew a white raven, Krawn, that was as loquacious as Starblade's crow was silent. Krawn was easily the brightest of all the corbies flown in k'sheyna, and very fond of practical jokes, as was Stormcloud. It was a measure of how serious the situation among the scouts was that neither Krawn nor his bondmate had played any of their famous jokes for months.

Dawnfire flew a red-shouldered hawk, Kyrr, a bird as graceful-and as sought-after for mating-as her bondmate. Dawnfire cast Darkwind a look full of promise as he entered the room, and he marveled that he, of all the scouts had captured her fancy. She typified the opposite end of the extreme from Stormcloud; in her the aquiline Tayledras features had been refined to the point that she resembled the elfin tervardi, the lovely flightless bird-people she often worked with. That was her strongest gift; she Mindspoke the nonhuman races with an ease the others could only envy, and communicated equally well with animals of all sorts. Her hair, now bound tightly into three braids, was as long as Winterlight's when she let it down. An errant beam of light reflected from the snow-goose lanterns touched her head, giving her an air of the unearthly as Darkwind watched her.

That light was provided during the day by four windows, all of which could be opened, that were glazed with a flexible substance as clear as the finest glass, but nearly impossible to break. Tayledras artisans created it; how, Darkwind had no idea, but it was as impervious to wind and weather as it was to breakage. By night, the light came from Darkwind's single concession to magic; mage-lights captured in the lanterns, that began glowing as dusk fell, and increased their Pure light as the external sunlight faded.

Darkwind dug into his game-pouch as soon as his feet touched the floor of the room; Vree had waited long enough. He came up with a half rabbit; a light meal by Vree's standards, but enough to hold him until the discussion was over. Vree looked up at him with an expression of inquiry when presented with the rabbit. the bird said, reminding Darkwind of his hunger.

"More, later," he Promised the bird. "I have a duck waiting for you." Vree chirped a happy acknowledgment, and began tearing the meat from the bones, gulping it down as fast as he could. One thing the bondbirds were not, and that was dainty eaters.

"So," he said, leaving Vree to his snack, and sitting cross-legged on one of the couches. "What's the problem?"

"The barrier-zone," said Winterlight succinctly, his hands resting palm-down on his knees, a deceptively tranquil pose. "We've got some real problems on the south. Things moving in, things and people, and we don't like the look of either. They're coming in from that bad patch of Outland, and it looks like they're settling. They're making dens, lairs, and fortified homes. I don't like it, Darkwind; it's got a bad feel to it, these creatures aren't overtly evil, but they make the back of my neck crawl. They're inside the old k'sheyna boundaries now, and not just in the old 'barren' zone. You know how one bird will 'crowd' another, getting closer and closer until the other one either has to peck back or be forced off a perch? That's what it feels like they're doing to us."

"I've got the same," stormcloud told him, wearing a slight frown.

"And I've got enough Mage-Gift to read some other things as well.

There's a new node that's being established just off my area, and a lot of ley-lines have been diverted to feed it. There's a new line going off that node, too-and it's feeding straight into Outland territory, into one of the places we know that Adept has made his own. It's bad, Darkwind, it's feeding him a lot of power, and anyone that can divert lines is damned good. He's pulled some of the lines away from us completely. And I've caught him trying to read the Vale for power, too. I think he might be planning to use one of the lines to tap into the Vale itself." Darkwind frowned. "This is a new tactic for him, isn't it? He's never stolen power before that I can recall."

"Exactly," Stormcloud said, and bit his lip. "I don't like it, Darkwind.

And I like it even less that our own mages haven't sensed him doing anything. Unless that was what this meeting you had to attend was all about-?" Darkwind shook his head. "No. At least, that wasn't on the agenda. So unless they're keeping it from me-and they could be, I'll admit-they haven't noticed either the new node or the diversion of the ley-lines." Winterlight snorted his contempt. "You could probably start a magewar out here and they'd never notice inside the Vale. They're lost in their own little dream of what-was-once. Even if they were alert, the Heartstone just blanks out everything that's not in there with them." Darkwind's frown deepened a trifle; that was not the way it was supposed to be. The Heartstone was supposed to sensitize the mages to what was going on with energies outside the Vale, not destroy or bury their sensitivity. But he realized that Winterlight was right; that was another of the side effects he disliked about being inside the Vale. When he was within the shield-area, it was as if he had been cut off from the energy-flows outside.

No one had said anything about that, not even right after the Heartstone shattered-which meant either that the effect was new, another developing side effect of living next to the broken stone or it's been that way since the disaster, and nobody noticed. which is worse.

Dawnfire had been silent up until now; he turned toward her and raised an eyebrow.

"Well," she said, with a frown that matched his own, "Stormcloud is the one who knows energies, and winterlight's Huur is absolutely the best at spying. so I'll just say that I think the same things have been happening in my area, but I'd like someone to check to be sure. What I have that they don't is a network of allied species acting as my informants-hertasi, dyheli, tervardi, and a few humans who aren't fond of civilization. Most of the humans are a little crazy, but they're sharp enough when it comes to noticing what's going on around them." Darkwind nodded; Dawnfire was the one who had suggested taking volunteers among the nonhumans in the first place, and she had proved the idea was viable by establishing a network outside the k'sheyna

boundaries.

"Well, some of my informants are missing," she said, some of her distress coming through despite her best efforts to control it. "And when I sent someone to try and find them, there was nothing. They haven't just disappeared, they've gone without a trace. That wouldn't be too hard to do with dyheli, but hertasi have real homes-they actually build furnishings for their caves and hollow trees-and tervardi build ekele, and even those are gone. It's as if they never existed at all."

"gone? ' Darkwind repeated. "How could anyone make a tree vanish?

Dawnfire shook her head. "I don't know-though the trees themselves don't vanish, just the hollows and ekele. But the caves do vanish; there's solid earth and rock where the cave used to be. At least, that's what my bird tells me." Winterlight frowned. "Could that be illusion?"

"It could," she acknowledged with a nod. "Kyrr can't tell illusion from the real thing, and she's not particularly sensitive to magic. I wasn't about to ask her to test it. But my tervardi and hertasi aren't mages, either, so they wouldn't have used illusion to conceal their homes. Something took them, then covered its tracks by making it look as if there had never been anything living there."

"Who, why, and how?" Stormcloud asked succinctly. "There is an Adept out there-"

"But again, this isn't like anything he's ever done before," said Winterlight.

That we know of," Darkwind added. "He might have decided to change his tactics. And it might not be him-or her-at all. It might be another Adept entirely."Why' is another good question; why take them at all, and why try to make it look as if they never existed?"

"To confuse us?" Stormcloud asked facetiously. "And make us think we're crazy?"

"Why not?" was Dawnfire's unexpected reply as she sat straight up, with a look of keen speculation on her face. "He has to know how badly the Heartstone has been affecting us. If we were only in sporadic contact with those particular creatures, erasing their very existence might make us uneasy about our own sanity." Winterlight nodded, slowly, as if what she had said had struck a note with him, too. "A good point. But the question is, what are we going to do about it?"

"About losing neutral territory-there's not much we can do," Darkwind sighed. "We could make it uncomfortable for the things moving in, I suppose; uncomfortable enough that they might move back without our having to force a confrontation we haven't the manpower to meet."

"Like some really nasty practical jokes?" For the first time in the meeting, Stormcloud's eyes lit up." Krawn and I could take care of that.

Now that it's summer, there are a lot of things we can do to make them miserable, as long as we have your permission." He grinned evilly. "I know where there are some lovely fire-wasp nests. And Krawn can bring in absolute swarms of other corbies. They aren't going to be able to leave anything outside without having it stolen or fouled."

"Do it," Darkwind told him. "And don't stretch yourself too thin, but if you can extend your reach into Dawnfire's and Winterlight's areas, do so."

"I can," Stormcloud replied, with barely concealed glee. "The thing about tricks is that they're more effective if they're sporadic and unpredictable.

Krawn is going to love this."

"What about the power-theft?" asked Winterlight anxiously. "We can't do anything about that-as well try to bail water with a basket-but surely someone should."

"I'll tell the mages," Darkwind said, "But I can't promise anything.

They might seal off the leaks, they might not. There's no predicting them these days."

"And my missing creatures?" Dawnfire was giving him that look of pleading he found so hard to resist, but there wasn't anything he could do that would satisfy her.

"They'll have to stay missing," he said, and held up his hand to forestall a protest. "I know, I know, it's not right, but we haven't enough guardians to spare to send even one into the neutral territory to find out what happened to them and protect the rest."

"If your gryphon friends were the ones missing," she said, her eyes sparking with momentary anger, "would you still be saying that?" yes, I would," he replied. "If they had nested outside our boundaries, And even then, well, anything Treyvan and Hydona couldn't take care of themselves, I rather doubt we could handle. But I promise this much; if you and Kyrr can catch our predator in the act, we'll see what can be done to save whoever he's after. And if we can catch him in the act, we may have a chance at figuring out a defense for the rest of your friends." Dawnfire obviously didn't like the answer, but she knew as well as he did that it was the only one he could give her.

"Anything else?" he asked, stifling a yawn, and casting a look at the windows. The sky beyond the branches was a glorious scarlet; they had spoken until sunset, and if the others were to get back to their ekele before dark, they'd have to leave soon. "I'm going to have to get out On patrol before dawn to make up for stealing a couple of hours of Amberwing's time so I could go to the blamed meeting. So I've got a short night ahead of me."

"I think we've covered everything," Winterlight said, after a moment of silence. "I'll catch up with the others, and let them know what we've decided." He got up from the couch, and started down the stairs. Stormcloud followed him, then paused at the top of the stairs just long enough for a slow wink.

Dawnfire glanced at the windows, at the heavy branches standing out blackly against the fire of the sunset. "Are you really that tired?" she asked. She didn't get up from the couch.

"Not if you're going to stay a while," he replied, with a slow smile.

"You haven't taken back your feather," she said, somehow gliding into his arms before he was aware she had moved. "And I certainly don't want mine back. Of course I'll stay a while."

The scent of her, overlaid with the musky trace of her bird, was as intoxicating as tran-dust, and the soft lips she offered to him made his blood heat to near-boiling. He lost himself in her, their two minds meeting and melding, adding to the sensuality of the embrace. Her hands caressed the small of his back and slid down over his hips; his right was buried in her hair at the nape of her neck, his left crushed her to him.

He had just enough wit to remember he still had to pull up his ladder.

So did she, fortunately. "Go secure the door. The sunset, if I recall correctly, is incredible from upstairs." She pushed him away; he moved down the stairs in a dream. The trapdoor was still unlatched; he brought the ladder up, rung by rung, and rehung it, latched down the trapdoor, and keyed the mage-light to a dim blue.

Then he ran up the two flights of stairs to the sleeping room.

She was waiting, clothed only in her loosened hair, curled like a white vixen on the dark furs of his bedspread, her hair flowing free and trailing behind her like a frozen waterfall.

She turned a little at his footfall, and smiled at him, holding out her hand-and they didn't see a great deal of the sunset.

"Brother comes, fast," said Vree. Then, with an overtone of surprise,

"Very fast." Vree's alert interrupted what had been an otherwise completely dull and uneventful patrol along the dry streambed that formed part of the k'sheyna border. It hadn't always been dry-in fact, a week ago, there had been a stream here. Evidently not only ley-lines were being diverted.

Darkwind had not been overly worried when he discovered the condition of the stream; the diversion could easily have had perfectly natural causes. It could have gone dry for a dozen reasons, including the "helpful" work of beavers. But it was one more thing to investigate... That was when Vree's call alerted him. Before Darkwind had a chance to wonder just what that "fast" meant, he heard the pounding of hooves from up-trail. A moment later, a dyheli stag plunged over the embankment above him, coming to a halt in a clatter of cleft hooves, and a shower of sand and gravel. The graceful, antelope-like creature was panting, his flanks covered with sweat, his mane sodden with it. As Dawnfire slid from his back, he tossed his golden head with its three spiraling horns and Mindspoke Darkwind directly.

"Cannot run more-help my brothers-" Then he plunged back into the brush, staggering a little from exhaustion, as Darkwind turned toward his rider.

"What-"

"There's a dyheli bachelor herd just outside the boundaries," she said, her words tumbling over each other with her urgency. "They're trapped in a pocket valley, one they can't climb out of. I don't know what chased them in there, or even if they just went in there last night figuring it was a good place to defend in the dark-but they've been trapped, and they're going mad with fear-"

"Whoa." He stopped the torrent of speech by placing his hand over her lips for a moment. "Take it slowly. What's holding them there?"

"It's-it's like a fog bank, and it fills the outer end of the valley," she replied, her voice strained, "Only it's bluish, and all that goes into it doesn't come out alive. Darkwind, we have to get them out of there!"

"You say they're outside the borders?" he persisted.

She nodded, her enormous, pale-silver eyes fixed on his.

I-" he hesitated, presented with the pleading in her expression. I shouldn't. It's outside, it could be a diversion to get several of us out there-it could be an attempt to ambush us-But her eyes persuaded him against his better judgment. "I-all right, ashke. I'll come look at the situation. But I can't promise anything."

It took them a while to reach the spot, even with the assistance of two more dyheli from a breeding herd inside k'sheyna borders. By the time they reached the valley, the situation had worsened. The fog had crowded all the young dyheli bucks into the back of the valley, and they milled around the tiny space in a state of complete, unthinking panic. Trampling everything beneath their churning hooves, with horns tossing, their squeals of desperation reached to Darkwind's perch on the hill above them.

He studied the situation, his heart sinking. The sides of the valleyit was really a steep cup among the hills, with a spring at the bottom-were rocky, and far too steep to bring the dyheli up, even if they'd been calm. In their current state of panic, it was impossible.

The fog was mage-born, that much he could tell, easily. But the mage himself was not here. There was no one to attack, and no way to counter such a nebulous menace. Even calling up a wind-if he could have done so-would not have dispersed the evil cloud.

It roiled beneath him, a leprous blue-white, thick and oily, too murky to see into. Twice now, he'd seen young bucks overcome with fear and madness, try to break through into the clear air beyond. They had never come out on the other side.

"We have to do something!" Dawnfire pleaded. He hesitated a moment, then gave her the bad news.

"There isn't anything we can do," he said, closing his mental shields against the tide of fear and despair from below. The dyheli were so panicked now that they weren't even capable of thinking. "Maybe the rain tonight will disperse it in time to save them." '*No!" she shouted, careless of what might overhear her. "No, we can't leave them! I'm a guardian, they're my responsibility, I won't leave them!"

"Dawnfire-" he took her shoulders and shook them. "There isn't anything we can do, don't you understand that? They're too panicked to get harnesses on and haul them up-even if we had enough people here to try!

And I won't call in all the scouts from their patrols. It's bad enough that I left mine! don't you see, this could still be a diversion, to clear the way for something else to come in over the border while it's unguarded!" She stared at him, aghast, for a long moment. Then, "You coward!" she spat. "You won't even try! You don't care if they die, you don't care what happens to anyone or anything, all you care about is yourself,.

You won't even use your magic to save them!" As the envenomed words flew, Darkwind kept a tenuous grip on his temper by reminding himself of how young Dawnfire was. She's only seventeen, he told himself. She lives and breathes being a guardian, and she doesn't understand how to lose. She was barely assigned her duties when the Heartstone blew. She doesn't mean what she's saying...But as her words grew more and more hurtful and heated in response to his cool silence, he finally had enough. His temper snapped like a dry twig, and he stopped the torrent of abuse with a mental "slap." And as she stood, silent and stunned, he folded his arms across his chest and stared at her until she dropped her eyes.

"You say you are a guardian. Well, you pledged an oath to obey me, your commander, and abide by my decisions. Have you suddenly turned into a little child, regressed to the age of ten, when sworn oaths mean only 'until I'm tired of playing'? No?" He studied her a moment more, as she went from red to white and back again. "In that case, I suggest you calm yourself and return to your assigned patrol. If you comport yourself well and if you can keep yourself under control, I will consider leaving you there, rather than nm~ you elsewhere. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Elder," she replied, in a voice that sounded stifled.

"Very well," he said. "Go, then."