Winds of Change (26 page)

She reached the foot of the tree that held her
ekele;
muted voices and faint splashing told her that the pool was occupied. She hung her saddle and hackamore over the railing at the bottom of the stair, and took herself up the staircase.

Darkwind had pointed out something about the Vales; that anyone with sufficient magic power could create one. They weie really just very large hothouses, with a mage-barrier serving in place of glass. Nothing terribly exotic about a hothouse. She pulled aside the door to her
ekele,
and looked down over the edge of the staircase for a moment. Kerowyn’s grueling lessons in strategy and tactics caused her to realize something else as well.

The
ekeles
were not simply exotic love nests. They were based directly on the quite defensible treetop homes of the
tervardi.
How defensible they were could be demonstrated by the
ekeles
built outside the Vale; once the ladder to the ground had been pulled up, there was virtually no way to reach them. They were wanted against fire, even, by set-spells and a transparent resin painted around the tree trunks well past two man-heights.

Even the
ekele
here could be made quite defensible simply by destroying the rope-and-truss suspended staircases, making them an excellent place to retreat if the Vale defenses were ever breached.

Gwena must have found her
hertasi
right away, for there was a tray of food waiting for her, and the herb tea in the pot was still hot and steeping. She helped herself to bread and meat, and collapsed onto her pillow-strewn pallet.

My people build walls. The Tayledras put themselves up in the trees. Differences in philosophy, really. More like the Heralds than like the ordinary folk of Valdemar. They think in terms of evasion, the way we do, rather than the stand-and-fight of the Guard.

She finished as much of her meal as she wanted at the moment, and stripped off her filthy, blood-speckled clothing.
Dyheli
blood, of course, and not of herself or Darkwind, but it was still going to be a major task to get it out. She could bleach it with magic of course, and she probably would, but that was a waste of mage-power.

Maybe she’d just shift over to scout clothing. It was more practical for all this woods running, anyway.

She wrapped a huge towel around herself and descended the staircase, heading for the spring. Occupied or no, she was going to use it. After all, she deserved a good soak as much as her visitors did; she’d just spent
her
day doing the same things they had done. She had earned a little luxury.

They all had.

Vree stayed calm on Darkwind’s shoulder after they passed the protections at the entrance to the Vale, even though until recently the bondbird had not wanted to enter the Vale itself. The rogue energies of the Heartstone had disturbed Vree badly, and the bondbirds of every other scout as well, but the additional shielding on the Stone seemed to be having some beneficial effect.

:Are you all right?:
he asked Vree, just to be sure.
:We can turn around and leave if you want; I can hold the scouts’ meeting at the
ekele
just as well as here. The mages will just have to climb a rope ladder instead of a staircase, and they‘II all have to squeeze into my rooms. I
think
it would bear their weight.:

Vree ducked his head a little, and yawned.
:Fine. Happy,:
he replied sleepily. Then, anxiously,
:Food soon?:

:Soon,:
he assured the bird.
:Quite soon. As soon as we get to the meeting.:
The other scouts would have hungry birds as well; the
hertasi
would have provided a selection of whole game birds and small mammals for the raptors, along with some kind of meal for the birds’ bondmates.

For the first time in a very long time, this would be a meeting of day-watch scouts and scout-mages. Stormcloud would hold a similar meeting for those on night-watch. Yesterday Darkwind had asked them to gather because there
was
something important to be addressed. He hadn’t specified what that was.

He had been the scouts’ representative to the k’Sheyna Council during the most divisive period in their history - the period when Starblade, as directed by Momelithe Falconsbane, was creating rifts between mages and nonmages, to weaken the Clan and make it easier for Falconsbane to destroy them. Darkwind had been willing to serve then, knowing that no one else had the edge he did, having his own father as chief of the Council. It was a bitter truth that his advantage then was not in currying favor, but knowing the other’s weaknesses. He had sometimes been able to manipulate his father. Equally painful to recall was the fact that Starblade had done the same to him.

But now that he was devoting more time to mage-craft, he had less time to spend elsewhere. The scouts were his friends and charges, and with his attentions divided so, they could conceivably suffer for it.

It was time for a change. Now the question was whether or not he could get the others to agree with him. In general the kind of person who became a successful scout was
not
the kind who enjoyed being in a position of authority, or who relished dealing with those who were.

The best place for the gathering was the central clearing that had been used for the celebration, but that was closer to the Heartstone than Darkwind liked, shielding or no shielding. So he had asked them all to gather in the smaller clearing beneath the tallest tree in the Vale; the one that the scouts had used for dancing.

When he arrived, he found a near replication of the celebration, except that there was no music or dancing, the clothing was more subdued, and the conversation level was considerably quieter. Birds stood on portable perches, the exposed roots of trees, or in the branches, most of them with talons firmly in their dinner, the rest eyeing the mound of fur and feathers with a view to selecting something choice. Brighter mage-lights than those conjured for the celebration hung up in the branches, illuminating everything below with a clear yellow light, sunlike but for its intensity. Tayledras sprawled all over the clearing, eating, talking, or both. Darkwind did a quick mental tally and came up a few names short, as Vree yearned toward the heap of “dinner,” making little plaintive chirping noises in the back of his throat.

:Hungry!:
he urged his bondmate, as Darkwind tried not to laugh at the ridiculous sounds he made. The uninitiated were often very surprised at the calls of raptorial birds; most of them, other than the defiant screams of battle and challenge, were very unimpressive chirps, clucks, and squeals. One species, the Harshawk, even croaked, sounding very like a duck with a throat condition. And owls hissed; not the kinds of things one expected to hear from the fierce hunters of the sky.

But silly sounds notwithstanding, Vree’s hunger was very real and quite intense, and the bondbird had more than earned his dinner. Darkwind took him on the gauntlet and tossed him into the air, to give him a little height. Vree gave two great beats of his wings, reaching the lowest of the branches, then dove straight down at the pile, shouldering aside lesser and less-famished birds to get at a fat, choice duck. One of the Harshawks quacked indignantly as the tasty morsel was snatched right from under his talons, and two of the owls hissed angrily at being shouldered aside, but Vree ignored them all. The gyre heaved himself and his prize up into the air, and lumbered off to a nearby branch, where he mantled both wings over it and tore into it with his sharp, fiercely hooked beak.

“Here - ” Shadowstar shoved sliced meat and bread at Darkwind, and snatched back her fingers, laughing, when he grabbed for it as if he were a hungry forestgyre himself. “Heyla! Sharpset, are we? In yarak?”

“Something like,” he admitted, “It’s been a long day, with a mage-duel at the end of it.” He took a healthy bite of the food, and bolted it, suddenly realizing just how hungry
he
was. “Where are Summerstar and Lightwing? And - ah - ” it took him a moment to remember the names of the mages that had been assigned to help the two scouts.

Shadowstar beat him to it. “Songlight and Winddance. Gone to get injuries tended again; they ran into Change-wolves. Nothing serious.”

A tentative Mindtouch from an unfamiliar source reassured him.
:Songlight here. We are mostly soaking bruises, Darkwind. I will stay in Mindtouch and relay to the others, if you like.:

:Please,:
he replied, taking a seat where he could see the others.
:This shouldn’t take long.:

He took out his dagger and rapped the hilt of it on the side of the tree; it rang hollowly, and got him instant attention and instant silence.

“I hope that most of you have guessed why I asked for these meetings - ” he began.

Shadowstar stood up, interrupting him. “We pretty much figured it out,” she said dryly, as the others nodded. “We were talking it all over before you got here. And we’re all agreed that while we
don’t
want to lose you as our leader, you deserve a rest, and you aren’t going to get one at the rate you’re going.”

Nods all around confirmed her words, and Darkwind felt an irrational surge of relief - both that the scouts still wanted him as leader, and that they were willing to let him go.

“Have any of you got a candidate in mind?” he asked. Surprisingly, it was one of the mages who answered him.

“Winterlight,” the young man said promptly. “He did it before you had the position, and now that we aren’t at each others’ throats, he says he would be willing to take it again.”

Darkwind turned to his old friend, one of the oldest scouts in the Clan, raising an eyebrow inquisitively. Winterlight coughed and half-smiled. “I know the job,” he answered, confirming the mage’s words. “And since it’s no longer the trial that it was - “

Darkwind grinned openly. “Then as far as I am concerned, the position is yours, my friend - if the rest agree, that is.”

He was going to open the meeting up to discussions, but the others forestalled him with their unanimous assent. Even the bondbirds seemed pleased with the choice. It was a good one; although he was not a mage, Winterlight seldom dyed his hair, and wore it long, as a mage did. So he looked like a mage, and he was a contemporary of Starblade and Iceshadow, which made him doubly acceptable to the Elders of the Council.

“As long as the night-watch agrees, then, it’s yours,” he told Winterlight happily. “And if they come up with a different candidate, you’ll have to deal with that yourself.”

“If they come up with a different candidate, we’ll split the duties,” Winterlight replied immediately. “I’ve had my fill of dissension.”

Darkwind shrugged. “That’s fine with me,” he responded.

Winterlight smiled. “It wasn’t just a rest that the youngsters decided you need,” he said, in a confidential whisper. “I overheard one of them saying that you’ve been living like a sworn celibate and you needed to take that pretty Outlander off to a bower and - ”

The rest of Winterlight’s whispered suggestion made Darkwind flush so hard he was afraid he was glowing.

The rest of the scouts howled with laughter.

Winterlight just smiled enigmatically and asked if Darkwind needed to borrow any feathers. Darkwind deliberately turned his attention first to Vree to make sure the gyre was all right, then to his food, both to cover his confusion. When he looked beside him again, Winterlight was gone -

 
- but the Shin’a’in shaman Kethra had taken his place.

Oh, my. I wonder what I owe
this
pleasure to.

He brushed invisible crumbs from his tunic, selfconsciously. Kethra was another source of confusion entirely for him, and not just because she was his father’s lover.

Although that was a part of it -

“Is Father well?” he asked her, quickly.

She nodded, her bright green eyes as cool and unreadable as a falcon’s, and smoothed her long black hair in back of her ears. She wore a birdfetish necklace that sparkled in the magelight, and a braided length of cord adorned with feathers hung from her left temple.

“He is relatively well,” she told him, as the assembled scouts collected their birds as if at an unspoken signal, and drifted not-too-casually off, back to their respective
ekeles.
There wasn’t any people-food left, and the few carcasses that remained were taken by those who lived outside the Vale.

Kethra, however, was not leaving. “There are some things I need to discuss with you before I proceed to the next steps with him. They concern you, and your relationship to him.”

“What about it?” he asked, more brusquely than he intended. Suddenly it seemed as if everyone in k’Sheyna was interested in his private life!
Am I to be allowed no thoughts to myself?
He glanced around the clearing, hoping for a distraction, but all of the scouts who had thronged the area had evaporated like snow in the summer sun, as if there was some kind of conspiracy between them and the Shin’a’in. She only pursed her lips and shook her head at him, allowing him no evasions.

“I need to know what you think of him now - and what you think of me.” She fixed him with an unflinching gaze. “You know I am Starblade’s lover.”

He flushed, painfully embarrassed. “Yes,” he said shortly. “And Iceshadow told me why - why it was necessary.”