"Then they must defend themselves if the hunters come for them," Kra'heera said with a shrug. "They are outsiders, are they not? They must prove their worth, must they not? If She finds them worthy, perhaps She will aid them."
"But what of us?" Tre'valen asked. "Should we not aid them?"
"Why?" Kra'heera responded. "I see no reason to aid them. If they survive, very well. If they survive and grant us the time we need, we will aid them. If they do not?" He shrugged. "The Plains are ours to guard. She never told us that we were to take in random strangers who come looking for help from us. In fact, by allowing them to cross the Plains, we are granting them more than any other in all of our history.
It is only because they are Heralds, and because they come from our cousin, that I allow this at all." Reluctantly, Tre'valen nodded. "It is in the interest of the Clans," he admitted. "But I cannot like it."
"That which does not overcome us, strengthens us," Kra'heera replied callously. "This will be good for them. And here is what we shall do... Elspeth knew by a sudden change in the air that she was no longer alone in her little room.
Tonight she had demanded another room, separate from Skif's. She was not going to share a room, much less a bed, with him anymore. She had hoped that would make it clear to him that she was not going to put up with his nonsense any more.
Skif had protested, but she had overruled him. Now she was sorry she had.
There was an intruder in her room, and if she was very lucky, it would only prove to be a thie She risked a quick mental probe, and met a block as solid as a wall of seamless marble.
Crap. It's not a thief-She started to reach for the knife under her pillows, and started to call for Gwena-only started; no more. She was frozen in place by a sudden flare of light.
It was the candle at her bedside, lighting itself. And at the foot of her bed was a sinister shadow, arms folded.
Clad in black from head to toe, veiled-there was no mistaking that costume. Kero had described and sketched it in detail, and no one here in Kata'shin'a'in would dare counterfeit it. Not here, not on the edge of the Plains.
*Chapter Seventeen DARKWIND
As he passed beneath the trees and away from open sky, Darkwind redoubled his shielding. When he had been fourteen and had been caught up in his friends' mating-spell, it had been an accident, and one that brought all of them a great deal of chagrined amusement. But if he were to "eavesdrop" now, it would be deliberate-and since he had not been invited, he was not going to intrude on this most private of moments for them.
Or at least, he had not intended to intrude-But he was given no choice, after all.
Everything seemed quiet up by the swamp, and he didn't think there was any particular reason to double back and check the area beside the ruins; the gryphons themselves had made an aerial patrol of the forest before the flight. He doubted that anything large would have gotten in under cover of the trees.
On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt to check the trails for signs of intruders. It wouldn't take all that long.
He had just called to Vree, and was halfway through this particular patch of forest. He was heading in the direction of the path to the swamp and the hertasi, when a scream of agony cut the sky. A second scream answered the first. A heartbeat later, the world came apart for an instant.
At least that was what it felt like. He knew what it was as he slammed down another kind of shield and fought his senses clear; the resonating effect of a magic-blast, powerful, crude, and close at hand. And the tortured scream that had accompanied it, that echoed across the sky, and pierced all his mental shields, had come from Treyvan Vree was already shooting up through the treetops, s~ off m the direction of the shriek of rage and pain, screaming a battle cry of his own.
Running all out, Darkwind followed on the ground as best he could.
This was wild land, hard to cross at any speed. He ran through it without any of his usual care-breaking branches, leaving behind tracks an infant could read, crashing through the undergrowth like a clumsy young deer in a panic. But still the terrain itself held him back; brushes clutched at him, roots tripped him up, thickets too thick to be forced blocked his way. Heedless of his own risk, he opened his mind to the gryphons, but heard-nothing.
And that was even worse than the cries had been.
Rage and fear blinded him to pain; rage and fear drove him through plum thickets, across a tumble of razor-sharp stone fragments, and loaned him wind and strength. His heart pounded too loudly for him to have heard danger coming up behind him; his soul was torn with claws of agony for what that silence might mean.
Ahead!" called Vree, shooting under the tree branches like a winged arrow, turning faster than the eye could follow, and shooting away again.
"Here!.
The bird was too excited and angry to manage anything more coherent than that. Darkwind plunged after him, his lungs burning, his side pierced with a lance of pure pain. Just when he thought that he could not possibly run any farther, he literally stumbled into a tangle of broken branches, then over a fur-covered leg, and fell into a mass of broken brush before he could regain his balance.
The leg belonged to Hydona, who was sprawled in an unconscious tangle, bleeding from one torn and wounded wing.
"Come on, Treyvan," Darkwind crooned, cradling the gryphon's head in his hands, and slapping his beak lightly. "Come on, old boy. Wake up. Come on, Hydona needs your help; I can't move her without You." Treyvan lay in the middle of a half-crushed bush. It had obviously saved him worse injury when he hit the ground, but Darkwind couldn't free him from the snarl of broken branches unless he could revive the male gryphon and get some help from him.
The eyelids fluttered, the beak opened a fraction, and closed again.
The head stirred in Darkwind's hands and Treyvan protested his treatment wordlessly. "Arrwk-rrrr-Daaa-Daaarrrwk-"
"That's right, it's Darkwind. Come on." Darkwind slapped the beak a little harder, pulled at Treyvan's crest-feathers. "Come on. Say something with some sense in it. Wake up, old friend."
"Rrrrrrr." The eyelids fluttered and stayed open this time; the weight of the gryphon's head left Darkwind's hands as Treyvan raised it a trifle. "Hydona-" the gryphon croaked, whining wordlessly with pain, as he tried to turn his head. "Hydona-" t She's hurt," Darkwind told him, "but I think she'll be all right.Her wing's hurt, I don't think she's broken anything, and she's kind of half-conscious, but I can't get her out. I need to get you out of this tangle, so you can help me get her out of hers."
" Can't-move-" the gryphon said, starting to thrash weakly in alarm.
It was obvious then to Darkwind that Treyvan wasn't really hearing him-that, in fact, he was only half-conscious.
He opened his shields to the gryphon, and touched him directly, mind to mind. "Don't move till I tell you. You're caught. Hydona is all right, but she's hurt and tangled up in some brush, and I'm going to need your help to move her." He glanced back over his shoulder to the right, where the female gryphon lay, eyes half-closed, one wing folded awkwardly beneath her, the other oozing blood from a wound. Vree sat right beside her head, his eyes closed in concentration. He was in complete mental contact with her, helping to keep her calm and unmoving. He'd done this before, with wounded bondbirds, and he was remarkably good at it-in fact, if there were such a thing as a Healer among the bondbirds, Vree might well qualify. He might not have been able to hold Hydona if she had been completely awake and aware enough to fight him, or if she'd been delirious and raving, but like Treyvan, she had been-at best halfconscious when the two of them arrived.