Master of Hawks (5 page)

Derek's look became glacial. "Her." He pressed his large hands together and stared at the peeling white paint on the porch wall. "She's a strange one. She's been fighting with the resistance in Cascar and Wessex—she's a friend of Coleman S'Wessex."

Surprised at the bitterness in Derek's voice, Hawk asked jokingly, "What's the matter, wouldn't she go to bed with you?"

Derek did more than chase women, he caught them. In fact, many eagerly sought out the handsome, dashing sorcerer. He was eligible, powerful, and reputedly an excellent lover. Hawk envied his friend's power over women and wished he had one-tenth of his assurance with them. However, he didn't envy the reason for Derek's drive to conquer women or his eagerness to dismiss them once they had been won. Hawk knew that in his youth Derek had been deeply hurt by at least two of them, and he sensed that his friend now engaged in a game of revenge by dominating and using women.

Derek's reply slashed through Hawk's thoughts. "No, she wouldn't," he said with resentment rather
than disappointment. "And she won't go to bed with you either."

The remark stung Hawk, but he shrugged it off as an unintentional slight, attributing it to the fact that S'Mayler had just been in combat and was tired and irritated.

"And I'll tell you why," Derek continued. He hesitated and then spit out the words. "She likes women."

Hawk stepped back as though struck by a blow. He had not sensed anything at all like that about Roslyn.

"Why do you say that?"

"She's one of these women swordsmen—maybe she doesn't look quite as obvious as some of them, but I can tell." Derek's normally calm features contorted as he tried to control his anger.

Hawk attempted to insert some rationality into Derek's reaction. "A few of those women are man-haters, but you know better than I do that most are more than willing to lie with a man. In these times almost all girls are given several years of training with bow and knife. It's natural that some will become soldiers and fight for their land. Women soldiers are few in number, but they're no novelty. Come on, Derek, you must have slept with half the women in camp."

Derek cracked a slight smile. "More than half. But Roslyn is different." Then he paused, as if searching for something else to support his argument.

Hawk forced a laugh. "Come on, just because a woman rejects you, it doesn't mean she's . . . , " his face reddened, "a . . . ah . . . lesbian."

"At first I thought she was S'Wessex's mistress . . . " Derek looked triumphantly at Hawk, "but when I asked him about her he seemed shocked at the thought." Suddenly he turned away. "That's enough about her, you understand?"

Hawk nodded. He had wanted to talk to Derek about Roslyn's actions and possible telepathic powers; however, he had never seen Derek react to anyone like this before.

While one part of his mind wondered if Derek could be right, another suspected that perhaps Derek's irrational response had been triggered because he'd found himself strongly attracted to Roslyn. If she wouldn't play his game, perhaps Derek would try to remove her from the game entirely.

"I'm going up to bathe now," Derek said. "Afterward we'll discuss the fortifications at Buchanan."

"Fine," Hawk replied, following him. "This afternoon I'd better ride over to my place and get some replacement birds; tomorrow I can scout up the trail for Ramsey's main party."

"What about the enemy bird-telepath?"

"I've been thinking about that," Hawk replied. "I wasn't expecting to run into another telepath. Nothing we'd seen or heard indicated his presence, so I wasn't shielding my mind as I scouted. If I'm careful, I think I can scout without being detected."

"I hope so," said Derek, pressing his fingertips together. "Well, get your birds. We'll need to know if Ramsey will arrive on schedule. Then you'd better get back by eight o'clock tonight, when we'll be meeting to finalize plans for the ambush."

"Don't worry, I'll be there."

The two men stood together silently for a moment, each thoughtful. They were complementary figures, like sides of the same coin: different in stature and appearance, yet of the same mettle; alike in many
ways, and yet not alike; thinking about the same subject, but differently, and that subject was the woman not the ambush.

Together they entered the inn.

5

Later in the afternoon, as Hawk saddled his horse, he heard soft footsteps behind him. It was Roslyn. She walked down the stable's shadowed aisle into a nearby stall.

He hesitated, self-consciously rubbing his hand over his unkempt beard, and then he called out "Hello."

"Hello," she replied as she turned to saddle her chestnut gelding.

Hawk had not had much contact with women in the small farming community where he'd grown up. He' always been the "strange" one, different because o his telepathic abilities. As a result he had become loner, preferring the company of his birds to people. Now, as he looked at Roslyn, he wished he knew how to communicate with her as well as he could with birds.

He tried to think of a way to restart the conversation, but he felt foolishly tongue-tied.

Then Ro smiled at him. "We've been cooped up here for days, so I thought I'd better give my horse some exercise. Where are you off to?"

Hawk wet his lips and abruptly found the words tumbling out. "I'm going over to my place to get a couple of my trained birds. It's easier to use them rather than wild ones for scouting, and it's simpler to pick up several than to try to telepathically control a group of them to fly here. Besides, I want to get some fresh clothes and check my home."

"Your tree house," Ro said, gently rubbing her horse's forehead while the animal nuzzled contentedly against her arm. "I've heard something about it. It really sounds interesting. I'd love to
see
it sometime."

Hawk stared at the dark brown eyes of his bay. Then without thinking he heard himself say, "Would you like to ride out with me?"

He instantly regretted his impulsive words, but when she did not reply immediately, he felt a wave of conflicting emotions: He feared she would agree, yet was afraid she would not. For a moment Hawk was acutely aware of the creaking of the old boards in the walls, the sighing and breathing of the horses, and the stench of horse sweat and dung that saturated the air.

Then he heard her clear voice reply: "Fine."

So they rode together through the cool spring afternoon—the short, wiry man on his bay and the tall, beautiful girl on her chestnut.

They traveled about a quarter of a mile north on the Buchanan Road and then turned eastward along a narrow path that wound through a thick forest of oaks,
beeches, and pines. Soon small skytrees began to appear.

The path ran downhill and reached an old riverbed. The once wide stream was now a fast-flowing brook that carved its way down the middle of the dried bed. At the bottom of the hill, the ruins of an ancient bridge spanned the breadth of the old stream.

"This way," said Hawk, waving downstream as he rode toward the riverbed.

Ro followed and looked back at the crumbling bridge. She was surprised to see a dark gargoyle head jutting out from its center. The long-necked sculpture craned out over the water, its huge eyes staring at the river. The face was vaguely simian, but with a protruding jaw, two tusks, and a large mouth filled with sharklike teeth.

She recognized the face as a caricature of an osmur and shivered. She had helped kill an osmur once, long ago, and fervently hoped they weren't heading into osmur territory. Osmurs were one of the few animals she could not mind-control. However, as they rode alongside the creek, the skytrees became taller and more dominant, until Ro grew certain they were entering a skytree forest. A tingling sensation of danger began to force its way into her consciousness. Osmurs and the Sylvan lived in the gigantic skytrees.

Although there was no obvious landmark, Hawk abruptly crossed the stream and headed into the forest of skytrees. As she followed him, Ro felt her precognitive warning ebb.

The enormous branches and leaves from the skytrees cut off almost all sunlight, causing the afternoon to darken into twilight. Hawk led the horses on a winding path around the house-wide trunks that seemed like massive pillars holding up a thick green.

There were no bushes or smaller trees growing beneath the impenetrable canopy, just a deep layer of fallen leaves and branches, and moss. They rode as through a vast, darkened hall.

Gradually the trees thinned and grew smaller, until they reached the top of a hill at the edge of the immense forest. A tree house lay half-concealed among the branches of a skytree dominating its summit. Rising one hundred and fifty feet, the tree had a trunk about fourteen feet in diameter. Trees in the center of the skytree forest could be more than three times as large.

"It's an old Sylvan watchtower," said Hawk. "I added on to it—everything outside there. The watchtower itself just had one room and an observation tower. Come, I'll show you."

Ro looked over the seemingly normal trunk for the entrance. She vividly remembered her one visit to a skytree forest and the Sylvan village perched near the top of its tremendous branches. She had been a child then, accompanying her father on a diplomatic mission. Then she pushed the memories away—the past was too dangerous. Instead
she
concentrated on the tree.

Hawk had dropped his reins and walked to the trunk. Running his fingers over the rough bark, he pressed and twisted a knotty hump. Suddenly a door swung out.

"This watchtower is abandoned?" asked Roslyn. She had dismounted and now peered over his shoulder into the hollow trunk.

"Yes. A fire destroyed the Sylvan village in these woods a long time ago. In the center of the forest
there's a clearing where the great trees once stood. The remaining stumps are blackened and gutted
by
whatever fire destroyed the trees."

Ro felt a tense kn
ot in the pit of her stomach. She
could imagine the enormous trees aflame, the airy bridges and houses crumpling, falling slowly to the earth like charred leaves spit out by a campfire.

She forced herself to straighten her clenched hands and said slowly and with a trace of bitterness, "Only a sorcerer's fire could have destroyed the Sylvan."

Hawk noticed Ro's pale, taut face. "What's the matter?"

"It's just that when I think of fires, I remember . . .” Ro paused and rubbed her palms against her trousers. "I remember a fire I was in. I almost didn't get out. I've been terrified of fire ever since then." She laughed nervously. "I have to force myself to sit by a fire or even to light a match."

"That could make things difficult at times." Hawk pointed to the interior of the tree. "You go first. There's a ladder to the left. Just keep climbing until you reach the landing, then step off."

Roslyn entered the tree. The hollow area was big enough for a rather large person. As in all Sylvan trees the interior walls were covered with a dark brown moss that produced phosphorescent light. The soft white glow provided minimal but sufficient lighting to see the narrow ladder carved directly in the living wood. Permeating the air was the faint, pleasant smell of the skytree, somewhat like ground walnuts mixed with hot oil.

When she had climbed about twenty-five feet, she reached the entrance to a small room, although the ladder continued to rise. Roslyn stepped off, and a moment later Hawk joined her.

The walls of the oval room curved upward, giving it the appearance of a giant knothole, which, in effect, it was. The Sylvan, using their paranormal powers over plants, shaped the skytrees to their use.

Roslyn touched the strange dark walls, almost smooth, but with a slight texture caused by the grain. A rough bookshelf, table, and chair of pine seemed incongruous furnishings against the room's natural shape.

Then she followed Hawk through a round doorway leading outside to the tree house. It had been built onto two huge branches angling out from the trunk like normal trees from a hillside. Constructed of fitted oak logs, the house consisted of two rooms sharing a common wall and two-sided fireplace.

Hawk stalked the rooms and opened so many shuttered, glassless windows that when he finished the skeleton structure looked more like a roofed platform than a house. Numerous large bird cages hung from the beams and sat abandoned in the corners of the large living room. Most were empty, but a few contained small, injured birds.

"Who took care of these while you were gone?" asked Ro, peering at a sparrow with a splint on its leg.

"A friend of mine who lives on a farm about a mile from here. He comes and feeds them every few days if I'm away." Hawk went over to the ceramic sink and began pumping water; then he filled a pitcher and replenished the birds' dishes. "I'm sorry about the mess in here. I'm not used to visitors; in fact, I guess not more than four other people have ever been here."

"Thank you for inviting me. It's really lovely here. But it's so isolated—don't you get lonely?"

Suddenly all too aware of her presence and their seclusion, Hawk avoided her gaze. "I have my birds."