Aurian threw her arms around him, her fece alight with her smile. “I love you, Forral.”
Forral felt his throat tighten. “I love you, too,” he said huskily. “Why don’t you go and fetch the book?”
She drew back and looked at him thoughtfully. “You really do want me to learn to read, donk ygu?”
He nodded. “It means a lot to me, Aurian, You can’t imagine how important it is.”
Aurian sighed, looking like a prisoner about to be dragged to the scaffold. “I suppose we’d better get started, then.”
It took the child a long time to grasp the rudiments of reading. Forral suspected that much of the feult lay with him, for Aurian was intelligent enough, and he knew that he lacked skill as a teacher. All he could do was substitute patience for skill and keep their lessons short, stopping before Aurian became too tired or despondent. Then he would read to her, hoping that she would be encouraged to want to read the stories for herself. Eventually it worked. By the end of the long winter, Aurian was reading everything she could lay her hands on, and Eilin had to make sure that Geraint’s spellbooks were well hidden.
Forral taught Aurian many other things that winter. He told her of Nexis, queen of cities, which lay to the southwest and contained the Academy of the Magefolk, where all magical lore was studied under the rule of the Archmage Miathan. He told her of the Nexis Garrison that housed the city’s crack fighting force, and was the greatest military school in the land. Aurian learned what lay beyond her Valley—the nearby northern hills, where men lived mainly by forestry, and farming cattle and sheep; the east coast, famed for fishing; the countryside south and west, where clay for pots was dug, and people grew grain, flax, and grapes for wine that was marketed by the powerful Merchants’ Guild of Nexis, who coordinated trade between farmers and fishers, and the craftsmen of villages and towns.
They spent hours by the fire, as Aurian listened, enthralled, to Forral’s stories of mercenary life in the secretive Southern Kingdoms across the sea, with their fierce, swarthy-skinned warriors. She would sit at his feet, wide-eyed and entranced, as he spoke of ships and storms, and the mighty whales who were lords of the deep. He told her bloodcurdling tales of ancient legend, about the lost Dragonfolk—powerful Mages in their own right whose eyes flashed killing fire—or of the fearsome race of winged warriors who were said to inhabit the southern mountains. Though the swordsman was no scholar, he taught her what little history he knew, including the names and natures of the Gods themselves. The Goddesses: Iriana of the Beasts, Thara of the Fields, and Melisanda of the Healing Hands. And the Gods: Chathak, God of Fire, the special deity of warriors; Yinze of the Sky; and lonor the Wise, the God of Oceans who was called the Reaper of Souls in the pantheon of the Southern Kingdoms. Aurian marveled, and learned.
Spring that year came in a single, glorious burst that quickly erased the last traces of the terrible winter.
Trees leapt into leaf and blossom, and flowers suddenly appeared everywhere. Once again the woods around the lake became alive with birdsong. Aurian and Forral took to spending much of their time outdoors in the sunshine, searching for early greens to supplement their limited winter diet, and helping Eilin with her work of planting and extending the fertile land beyond the lake.
Now that the woods were burgeoning with life, Forral began to think of hunting. They had eaten little meat over the winter—mostly the tough, salted meat of the male kids borne by Eilin’s goats the previous year. Though the Mage had tried to disguise the strong flavor in well-seasoned soups and stews, Forral was frankly sick of the stuff. Some rabbit might go down well, he thought, or perhaps a bird—anything but bloody goat\ During his mercenary career, the swordsman had learned some skill with bow and snare, and somewhat hesitantly, he broached the subject to Eilin. Since the Earth-Mage lived at one with the land and its creatures, he half expected an angry denial. He also feared that Aurian might be upset, if one of her animal friends appeared on the supper table. This being the case, Forral was staggered by the Mage’s reply to his diffident question.
“By all means, Forral. If you want to hunt, Aurian will show you how we do it in the Valley.”
On a golden evening, Aurian led Forral through the birch grove and the deeper mixed woodland beyond, until they came to a wild grassy area dotted with clusters of gorse and bramble. The spaces between their roots were laced with a multitude of runs and holes. “This is where the rabbits mostly live,” Aurian told him softly. “They’ll soon be coming out to feed.”
Forral nodded, wondering what she planned to do. Aurian had forbidden him to bring his bow and had dismissed his snares as cruel.
“Stay quiet,” the child whispered. She stepped out from the trees, wrapping a thick piece of cloth around her wrist. Lifting her arm, she shrilled a piercing whistle. For a moment, nothing happened. Then far above, a tiny dot appeared in the vault of the sky. The speck plummeted—grew—took shape. Forral heard the rushing whisper of wind through feathers and a harsh cry. A winged form swooped to Aurian’s wrist and clung there, extending its short, streamlined wings for balance as it rubbed its proud head and cruel, curved beak caressingly along her face.
Aurian glowed with delight. “This is Swiftwing,” she said, introducing the bird. ^Af least, I call him that.” The falcon gave Forral a scornful sideways glance with its great dark eye, hissed at him through open beak, and returned to nibbling at her hair. For a moment the child lingered, eye to eye in soundless communion with the fierce bird of prey; then with a swift, upward jerk of her arm, she launched him into the sky, where he climbed in spirals to hover, fluttering, above them. Aurian drew the bemused swordsman into the shelter of the trees. “Now we wait,” she murmured.
After a time, the rabbits began to emerge from the bushes to feed, venturing timidly forth with their gentle, rocking gait. Forral felt Aurian’s hand clutch his arm. “Now,” she breathed. Above them, the falcon folded his wings and dropped like a stone. It seemed that it would smash into the—
The hawk’s wings flashed open at the last second. He leveled out a bare inch from the ground, hitting the rabbit in a cloud of flying fur and bowling it over and over. Skimming over the grass at fingertip height, the hawk circled back to the limp brown form that lay motionless and stunned. Talons extended, he settled on the creature and finished it with one swift blow from his beak.
Forral blinked, and remembered to breathe. The whole episode had happened almost too quickly for his brain to register. He followed Aurian as she ran out to the hawk.
“Well done,” she told the bird. “Oh, very well done!” Swiftwing hopped off the rabbit, and settled into the grass to wait. Aurian sighed as she picked up the dead creature. “Poor little thing,” she murmured, briefly stroking its fur before she stowed it in her bag.
“Doesn’t it bother you, this killing?” the swordsman asked her curiously.
“Of course.” She turned to him, her expression serious and somehow more adult than he had seen it before. “It’s very sad, Forral, but it happens. Swiftwing needs to eat, and so do his mate and babies. Rabbits are rather big for him—that’s why he often stuns them first—but he eats them, and so do we. We only take what we need, and he kills quick and clean, not like snares.” She smiled dreamily at the falcon. “And he’s so beautiful up there . . .” For a moment she was lost for words, but Forral understood, for the swift, fearless flight of the hawk had touched his own heart. “He makes me feel as though I’m up there, flying with him,” Aurian finished softly—then shook herself, and whistled Swiftwing back to her wrist, all business once more. “We’ll need to beat the bushes to bring the rabbits out again—they’re scared now,” she said. “If you thought that was good, wait till you see him with a moving target! How many rabbits did you say you wanted, anyway?”