Master of Hawks (6 page)

Roslyn finished surveying the living room and then glanced into the bedroom. "Do you have a bathroom here too?"

"I fixed up one in the bedroom, complete with a crude shower."

"You've really got a nice place," said Roslyn as she turned and sat on the faded brown sofa in the middle of the room. Its thick wool cover showed the marks of talons and beaks. "But where do you keep the rest of your birds?"

"They are free—outside there." Hawk pointed into the masses of dark green leaves that blocked the sky and ground in an impenetrable curtain seemingly too thick for any birds to pass through. "I plant the suggestion in their minds that they stay near here, and they do. Then when I need one of them I can contact it readily. I'll show you."

Hawk concentrated, and suddenly a number of birds dived and hopped through the open windows, surrounding him in a frenzy of beating wings. Some settled on his outstretched arms, clinging to the dark leather sleeves of his jacket and to the thick gloves he'd put on; others circled in a bright chaos and then landed on various perches around the room.

Ro laughed in surprised delight as a sparrow settled on the arm of the sofa about a half an inch away from her hand. Hawk's deep laugh joined hers, and their shared laughter dissolved the tension between two strangers. In that moment, their relationship shifted without either being aware of it, and they became friends.

Finally Hawk mentally scooted most of the birds out the windows, keeping only those he wanted for scouting, two mueagles and two bluejays.

At Hawk's mental command the male eagle landed on his glove and gazed at him with amber eyes. Far larger than the normal golden eagle, it stood over two feet high with an enlarged head the size of a grapefruit.

As Hawk stroked its tawny feathers, he sensed the bird's thoughts. Unlike other birds, the mueagles were intelligent, sentient creatures, so that Hawk's telepathic linkage was more a simple conversation than the total submersion of a primitive mind.

The bird demanded some food for itself and its mate, the equally large female who perched on a nearby stand. While Hawk filled the feeding stand with meat he'd brought for the eagles, the male mueagle reported recent movement in the forest—sightings of osmur, deer, elk, and men.

When he finished with the bird, Hawk turned to Roslyn. "I call the male Stormrider and the female Windrifter. They are mueagles—see the enlarged craniums? They're more intelligent than other animals I know, about on the level of a five-year-old child, I guess. I found them out in the badlands southwest of York."

Then he pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his belt. "I wish I'd had them with me a few days ago when I scouted Ramsey's troops."

Ro nodded sympathetically. "I heard about that. They had a bird-telepath who killed your hawk." "His falcons will be no match for these eagles, if
they should meet—but I'm hoping to avoid any confrontation this time. If that telepath should realize I'm still around, he might wonder why, and I don't want to take any chance that he might learn of our ambush. Besides, I'd prefer not to kill any birds unless I have to, not even his."

Noticing Hawk's worried expression, Ro changed the subject. "May I see the rest of the tree? I'd like to get a good look at the forest, but from here all I can see are leaves and more leaves."

"It's a long climb up that ladder . . . "

"I don't mind heights."

So Hawk followed her up the steps, past several small storage rooms and a few man-sized knotholes leading onto branches, until they reached a limb about one hundred and thirty feet from the ground. Several of the branches formed a natural crow's nest, reinforced with oak planks. Only a few sparse branches jutted above them into the sunlight.

The skytree had been chosen with care, for its site on the hilltop gave an unsurpassed view of the Sylvan forest curving eastward through the valley. Part of the dark brown ribbon streaked with the silver of the bordering riverbed could be seen, as well as the farms and normal forest to the west and the dark band of the Buchanan Road encircling the hillside almost directly below.

"Why didn't we just ride up the hill from the road?" asked Ro, surprised to see that they were so close to it.

"A direct path from the road to this tree would be convenient, but I prefer to use the same trail the Sylvan did to enter the forest—it's less obvious and inviting."

Ro sighed as she studied the lovely panorama.

"Imagine having the power the Sylvan possess over plants to shape these giant skytrees as they wish. If only they would form an alliance with York—Coleman S'Wessex has been trying to arrange one for years. The Sylvan forests within the kingdoms the Empire has conquered would be perfect places for us to launch a counteroffensive. But the Sylvan are too mistrustful of humans to help us."

"I suppose so." Hawk noticed the elongated shadows of the trees like fingers pointing out the end of day. Reluctantly he turned away from the view. "I'd better change my clothes and get the things I need."

"Go ahead, I'll be down in a few minutes," Ro replied.

When he had gone, she leaned back against the trunk and stretched her arms over her head toward the darkening blue above, letting the backs of her fingertips brush the rough bark. There was power there. She could sense the living, growing tree, and when she closed her eyes she extended her awareness to the birds and small animals that lived in its branches.

She turned, placed her hands against the bark, and pressed her forehead to the trunk, wishing suddenly that she could draw from the tree the same strength and security that the Sylvan did. However, her psychic powers were different from those the tree people possessed. She could not shape the skytree, nurture it with her power, or draw energy from it.

She had only her own strength to depend on.

Although she'd spent months with Coleman S'Wessex and his men and had made some friends, she still felt isolated from them.

She missed Greton, but it was not the center of her loneliness. Rather it was Garth, who lay dead and buried two thousand miles across the ocean. Garth, who had been her friend and companion while they grew from teenagers into adults; Garth, who had become her lover and her husband; Garth.

She wondered for the thousandth time if she would ever be able to think of him without an awful emptiness and sadness welling up inside to gnaw at her; and worse than the sadness was the bitterness, anger, and hatred.

She wondered again if she'd done the right thing in leaving Greton. It had seemed simple then to get away; to return to the Eastern Kingdoms; to turn her bitterness and anger at Garth's loss toward something she could do something about, toward those that had destroyed her family and her kingdom; to settle the wrongs of the past in order to forget the pain of the present.

But death and destruction were a poor substitute for what she had lost. Although her decision to fight for the freedom of the Eastern Kingdoms was irrevocable, her reasons for doing so had gradually altered. She no longer sought vengeance for herself; now it was for her people. She fought for the victory that would restore all that had been lost, including the most precious thing—peace. And in doing so she hoped she would find some measure of peace for herself.

Her thoughts suddenly shifted away from Garth and the past as Derek S'Mayler's handsome face came unbidden into her mind.
Why does he hate me so?
she wondered.
No. I can't let myself think
about him.
Determinedly she pushed the memory away.

Then she hugged the trunk, although it was too large to embrace fully. She pressed herself against its comforting bulk. After a time her thoughts returned to the calm and resolute state she tried to maintain. She looked over the beautiful view once more and descended into the tree.

Hawk had changed his dirty clothes, taken a quick shower, and trimmed his beard. He hoped that it now looked reasonably neat. When he finally returned to the living room, he found Roslyn quietly stroking Windrifter's head.

"Hey, that can be dangerous!"

"You're forgetting that I can control birds too," Ro replied, continuing to stroke the brown feathers.

"That's right. I'd like to see what sort of contact you do have with that bird. Do the best you can, and I'll mind-link with you and Windrifter."

"All right."

Hawk meshed easily with the bird's mind. He expected to sense a strong link from Ro but was surprised to feel her presence as a tenuous touch, totally different from his normal telepathic contact. He felt her command the bird to lift its wings, and the eagle did —its large, beautiful wings arching and then settling in a wave of motion that always seemed quite majestic to Hawk. He sent a thought at the girl: "Are you really concentrating?" But it was like sending an arrow through smoke, so he spoke aloud. "Did you get my message?"

"No, nothing. I sensed that something was different about the eagle, that there was a stronger mind there, but that is about all."

"I asked you if you were really concentrating. I could hardly sense your presence, and I couldn't seem to penetrate through to your mind."

"That's the strongest link I have with animals."

Hawk concentrated on the bird again, but he couldn't bring his thoughts into any closer contact with Ro.

"You seem to have only a weak telepathic bond or a very strong shield. I gather you've never had any training, but even without training you should do better than that. I'm surprised you were able to control the bird at all."

Ro patted the bird's head once more. "You are right about the training—I never had any. Also, I spent the first thirteen years of my life under the Triad, and that may have affected my paranormal Towers."

Hawk nodded. "That's possible."

The Triad powerstones had not only protected most of the Eastern Kingdoms from sorcery attacks, but had also prevented the use of sorcery within their sphere of influence. After Taral destroyed the Triad, some of those inside the area developed their psychic talents, but probably not to the extent that they would have if they'd been born outside its influence.

"Fortunately I grew up on a farm near Threeforks, outside the Triad," he continued. "The stones cast a
field along the seacoast northward from Richmond; through Westvirn, Cumberland, and Cascar, each of which contained one of the boulder-sized spellstones; up to about the bottom third of York."

Ro nodded, remembering lessons drilled into her long ago about the Triad—the positions of the stones, the strength and extent of the field, the supposedly impenetrable defense. She said nothing, afraid to reveal her knowledge of the subject. She wished that just once she could be herself, but for the moment it seemed best to follow Coleman S'Wessex's advice and conceal her true identity, even from her friends.

"Of course, I might have been born under the Triad, I don't know," Hawk continued. He turned and stared out into the forest.

"I'm an orphan—some York farmers found me when I was just an infant. One of them adopted me. He told me that I was the only survivor of a party of N'Omb pilgrims who evidently had been attacked by highwaymen on the road to the Shrine of the Three Miracles in Kellerton."

He gazed at the wall of green outside, tracing the patterns of leaves, while his mind pictured the delicate jade leaf pin that had been his mother's. He touched his shirt to confirm that the pin lay beneath it, still chained around his neck. It was the sole clue to his origin, for only she had broken the pilgrim's vow of anonymity to carry a personal possession, the pin, on that journey to death.

He wished that he could remember his mother, but he'd been only a baby when the farmers had found him. Still, sometimes he could almost imagine her.

She bent over to kiss him goodnight, and the jade leaf pin glittered at her throat. She was warm and beautiful, but he could not really remember her features.

The image of the pin spun through his thoughts—a wheel of seven leaves, tips outward--rolling on a road that led nowhere.

"You don't know who your real parents were?" asked Roslyn.

"No. My foster parents were never able to track down their identities. So they could have come from
the Triad area." Hawk smiled. "I can remember how my foster mother always wanted us to move south
when I was a child—into the area protected by the Triad. Like many of the folk around here, she distrusted sorcerers and their magic. She didn't like living under their rule. My father felt pretty much the same, only he wasn't willing to give up his land, not
even if it meant living in an area free from sorcery. Of course, when the Empire destroyed the Triad stones they were certainly glad they had never moved, and they were suddenly grateful that York had its own sorcerers who could protect the land against invasion. I sometimes wonder if it's wise for anyone to control such awesome power; although they have great potential for good, the stones have generally brought more war than peace."

Roslyn nodded. "I know what you mean. And sometimes even my own abilities frighten me—like the hunches I get. They happen so randomly, I can't control them, and I don't know how or why they happen." "It's no wonder the common people are suspicious A magic," said Hawk, "when not even sorcerers know how their spellstones work, and the rest of us with paranormal powers, such as telepathy or precognition, don't have the vaguest idea how we do what we do."