Annuka threw up her hands. “By all means — since you are so much more expert at such things!”
They eyed each other with the resentment only two strong personalities looking for ascendancy could show. Before the exchange got heated, Aleksia made the transformation and flung herself into the sky.
She had chosen the Gyrfalcon this time, because among other things, she wanted to hunt. Urho was a good fellow, but there were five of them now, and he would be hard-pressed to feed them all. With the Gyrfalcon form she was able to get very high indeed, and the bird's keen sight enabled her to see things very, very far beneath her. While she could not take down a deer — well, she could, if she was very lucky and very clever, but it was unlikely — there were plenty of things she could kill.
Finally she found what she had hoped for: a flock of geese fitfully dozing on the surface of a completely frozen lake. She studied them from above. She was white, against a blue sky swirled with plumes of cloud. She was much harder to see than, say, an eagle. They were not aware of her.
This would have to be carefully done. She would have to do the work of a full cast of Falcons, but if all went well, she would be able to take down two geese at least, and possibly four. One would feed all of them dinner — except Urho, and he could and would hunt for himself.
Now one of the pastimes that she had enjoyed with the Court in the days when she was Princess Aleksia had been falconry. Well, not precisely with the Court — she had preferred to go out with the serious hunters, her father's chief falconer and his men and the few — mostly older — men and women who took the sport with great gravitas. Now everything she had learned from that good man would stand her in good stead.
But this would take care, planning and exquisite timing.
She could do this.
She set herself up carefully, choosing her first target, one of the birds with its head under its wing. This goose would have to wake up, and then get her direction, before she could even begin to try to escape. And a Falcon's attack was all about fractions of moments. If Aleksia did this right, there would be no time for the goose to do more than awaken, and her next target would still be scrambling to escape when she hit it.
When she thought she had everything thought through as perfect as could be, she took a long, deep breath, folded her wings and dove.
She had set herself up so that she dove out of the sun, taloned feet tucked tight to her body, wings clamped down hard. The geese literally did not see her until she was practically on them. Then with a chorus of panicked honks, and an explosion of pinions, they tried to make their escape. She kept her focus on the one chosen as her target. It had thrown up its head, eyes still a little sleep-dazed, and was looking for where the attacker was. She was practically atop it. At that last minute her feet shot out —
But she did not have those talons extended. Instead, they were curled into small, hard fists, and as she closed with her quarry, she lashed out with those fists. She felt the shock as her feet impacted the back of the goose's head, felt the transmitted shock in her legs as she broke its neck and shattered the back half of her quarry's head. The goose flopped to the snow; she used the momentum of the impact to bounce up, and snapped her wings open to claw for height again. The Raptor's wonderful eyes scanned the panicking geese below. More than half of them still did not know what was wrong. One simply stood there, craning his neck, still trying to see where the attacker was —
She did a wingover and dove again, aiming for that bird. There was not as much force to this blow, but it was still enough to break the second bird's neck. She bounced up again, and drove herself into the sky with the most powerful wing-beats she could manage. She needed more height. If she was about to tail-chase, she needed speed, and plenty of it.
She folded her wings and dropped again, her eyes fixed on a bird that was only now beginning the labored effort to escape. Its goal, of course, was to get enough speed to flee. Hers was to hit it before it could.
Time slowed to a crawl. She watched the wings of her target pump with agonizing slowness, watched the goose's neck stretch out, caught the frantic roll of its eye as it looked behind it and saw her coming, saw the sudden, desperate effort, the last pump of wings — And she hit it, as she had the others, sending it crashing into the ice of the lake. And ahead of her, a fourth bird was on the same path and if she tried, if she put impossible effort into it, she might be able to catch it.
She opened her wings and drove toward it. It glanced back at her and redoubled its efforts. She did the same. She was closing on it. She was nearly there. She swung her feet forward, talons extended, reaching, reaching —
The goose shuddered once, and was still as they hit the ground.
She rested there a moment, panting, fighting the Falcon instinct that screamed at her to feed even though her stomach was still comfortably full. Then she shoved herself into the air again, to make certain of the other four birds, while the rest of the flock, honking their fear and distress, arrowed away toward the south.
She had gone human and strung the geese together at the neck then changed to Bear form to come galumphing back with the geese draped over her neck and shoulders. One bird had been gutted — that had been her true breakfast, a feast for a bird of prey, and it wasn't as if the others would miss goose-innards. Her father's master falconer would have been astonished — and pleased. She had used everything she had ever learned about hunting with birds, and applied it to bring down four quarry. Four! It was unheard of for a single Falcon to do that in so short a period of time! Of course, this was a Falcon with a human's mind, but still it was unusual even for a full cast of Falcons to bring down that many quarry at once. And four geese meant that they could eat for four days without dipping into their precious stores or hoping that she and Urho would find something. Goose would be a nice change from hare and rabbit and dried meat, too.
All this was in her mind as she closed on the camp, looking forward to the astonishment and pleasure that she would see in the faces of the others at her prizes. But instead, she saw them all huddled together, and heard the sound of sobbing. She increased her trot to a gallop, and transformed from Bear to human on the run, the geese flopping awkwardly against her as she ran. Kaari was weeping, with Annukka trying to comfort her, Lemminkal standing by awkwardly and Ilmari a bit apart, looking — guilty. She flung her grotesque necklace of heavy geese aside on the sledge as she reached them, seizing Ilmari's arm and hissing, “What did you do?”
“She showed us the loving-cup,” he said, hunching his shoulders. “And I told her that since Veikko could be at no great distance, and since I had some of his things still with us, I could probably scry for him using very little power. And that would at least serve to show us if he was still well — ”
He gestured awkwardly at a tiny forge fire lying between him and Kaari, that had his forge hammer lying beside it. And there in the flames —
Was a scene that she herself had seen not all that long ago. The crude throne room. The Snow Witch on her throne. The shambling, clumsy snow-servants.
And Veikko, in a pose of great intimacy, sitting at the Snow Witch's feet and leaning against her leg.
No wonder Kaari was crying.
Aleksia was furious, both at Ilmari and herself. She should have known that something like this would happen. Someone like Ilmari could not resist someone like Kaari. Never mind that the girl was the betrothed of his brother's apprentice. The relationship of Master and apprentice had kept Lemminkal from even considering pursuing Kaari for himself — but not Ilmari.