Winds of Change (24 page)

As she and Darkwind watched the intruder from their respective hiding-places, she knew all of her guesses about it had been wrong.

She didn’t know whether to be relieved that this interloper was not their Nyara, or not. If it
had
been Falconsbane’s daughter, the situation between herself and Darkwind would have been complicated enormously. Her own instincts warred with her on the subject; she trusted Nyara to a limited extent, and she certainly felt that the Changechild had been greatly wronged and abused, but -

But Nyara was incredibly, potently, sexually attractive. She couldn’t help herself. Elspeth would have to have been blind not to see that Darkwind had wanted her as much as Skif had and that if anything had kept them from becoming intimate, it wasn’t lack of attraction. She suspected that his own innate suspicion, lack of opportunity, and perhaps something on Nyara’s part had kept him from playing the role of lover. As it was, that night before Dawnfire had returned to them, trapped in the body of her bondbird, it had been Skif, not Darkwind, who had taken that role. And, perhaps, guilt had kept Darkwind at arm’s length. Guilt, that kept him from taking a new lover when his former love was a captive, confined to a bird’s body by the temptress’ father.

But Falconsbane was dead, or the next thing to it, and Dawnfire was out of reach of any of them. That left him free. And if he encountered Nyara before Skif did, would he be able to stand against temptation
a.
second time? Especially if Nyara were to make overtures?

Knowing men, she didn’t think so.

But at the same time, discovering that this stranger was
not
Nyara was a disappointment. However brief their acquaintance had been, Elspeth
liked
Nyara, and felt a great deal of sympathy for her. And she sometimes spared a moment to worry about her, put there in the wild lands that k’Sheyna no longer held, with a mage-sword who might not even
like
her. She had few or no provisions, no shelter against the coming winter unless she had somehow found or made one. . . .

Well, this wasn’t the time to worry about their errant Changechild. Not with another standing on k’Sheyna lands, within k’Sheyna borders - and by the blood on its hands and the circle about its feet, one who was up to no good.

Elspeth had done enough hunting in her time not to be sickened by the blood of a butchered deer. What made her ill were the fact that it was a
dyheli
that had been slain, and the signs that the butchery had taken place
before
it was dead, not after.

Blood-magic. Wasn’t that what Darkwind and Quenten both mentioned, but wouldn’t talk about?

Well, here it was - a “blood-mage” - and now that she knew what to Look for, she Sensed the power that the mage had drawn into himself as a result of his work. It wasn’t power
she
could have used under any circumstances; in fact, it made her a little nauseous to brush against it just long enough to figure out what it was. But it
was
power, and she had a notion that the death of a thinking, reasoning creature like a
dyheli
would have given this mage four times the strength that a deer would have. Perhaps more, depending on how long it had suffered.

Easy power, easily obtained, from a source you can find anywhere. And if you’re sadistic by nature, a source that gives pleasure when exploited. No wonder Ancar is attracted to it.

If Nyara was feline in nature, this creature was serpentine. As he moved about, disposing of his victim, he glided rather than walked, and many of his motions had a bone-lessness to them that made her shiver in an atavistic reaction to the evocation of “snake.”

Odd. The
hertasi
don’t do that to me, and they aren‘t half as human. I wonder why this thing does?

What exposed skin she saw - mostly hands and a glimpse of cheek - gleamed in the late afternoon light, with a kind of matte reflectivity that hinted at hard, shiny scales.

He dressed for deep cold, rather than the autumnal chill of the season; heavy leather boots, thick hose, a fur-lined tunic and cloak, and a heavy velvet shirt beneath the tunic. The colors were curious; a strange, dappled golden brown shading into deep orange - colors that blended surprisingly well into the foliage. Whatever else he was, this Changechild was canny. If he lay unmoving in the heart of a thicket, no one would ever see him.

The Changechild looked up at the first rustle of leaves, and froze in a combat-ready crouch. Darkwind dropped out of the branches like a great hawk coming to land, his knees flexed, and his hands in front of him, wary and ready to launch into an attack or defense as the need arose. The creature faced her fully now, and she saw that beneath the hood of his cloak, his face was curiously flat, with a thin, lipless mouth, and unblinking eyes as round as marbles. He straightened, but did not relax his wary pose.

Neither did Darkwind.

“You trespass,” the Hawkbrother said clearly and slowly, in
the most common of the trade-tongues used hereabouts. “You trespass upon the lands of the Tayledras k’Sheyna, and you pollute those lands with blood needlessly spilled.”

That thin mouth stretched in what might have passed for a smile in any other creature. He straightened with arrogant self-assurance. “Not needlessly,” he said, “and who or what are you to tell me what I may or may not do?”

“Tayledras k’Sheyna,” Darkwind replied flatly. “These are our lands. We do not permit this. You will depart, taking your filth with you.”

The mouth stretched a little more, and the creature’s hands flexed a little. “What? Run from a single foe? I think not.”

He made no gesture, but the circle he had drawn about his feet in blood flamed with sullen power -

 
- and, horribly, the disemboweled
dyheli
on the ground beside him heaved itself to its feet. It stood swaying a little, a gaping hole where its belly should have been, its eyes red with that same sullen power, and a dull glow about its hooves and horns.

“You are only one,” the Changechild said softly. “One single Hawkbrother is hardly a threat. This weak creature was not enough. I think you will do to serve me.”

Elspeth did not need Darkwind’s signal to step from concealment, with Gwena at her side. She took up her position near enough to the Hawkbrother that they could not easily be separated, but distant enough that they would not interfere with each other.

“We
are Tayledras k’Sheyna,” Darkwind said, firmly, but with no hint of anger. “And you will leave now.”

This time Hydona was not around to keep her from using the strongest source of power she could Sense, and there was a three-line node not more than a furlong from where they stood. She tapped into it, quickly; to her Othersight it glowed with healthy green fire, and touching it was a pleasant jolt, as if she took a deep draught of cold spring water on a hot day. She established her link and channeled power to herself and her shields before the stranger had a chance to respond to Darkwind’s challenge. She kept the level of her outermost shield the same so as not to warn him; at minimal strength, the kind of mage-shield a beginner would build. But, like a paper screen hiding a stone barrier, beneath the disguising energies of the first shield was a second, and it was linked to the node-power.

It was just as well that she did, because the Changechild’s reply was to attack.

He was no Falconsbane, but he was no Apprentice, either. He chose his target cleverly, launching his initial onslaught against Elspeth rather than Darkwind. Perhaps he was deceived by the rudimentary outer shield, or perhaps he was under the impression that a female would be less prepared and less aggressive than a male.

If that was the case, he judged wrongly.

She Saw his attack as he launched it; a flight of white-hot energy-daggers that he flung at her with both hands. She anticipated the direction of his attack by his eyes - and was ready in time to reflect them straight back at him, holding up mirror-shielded hands that doubled the flame-bright weapons back on themselves and sent them back on their original path.
That
must have been something of a shock to him, for he did not even deflect them properly, much less reabsorb them. They impacted on his shields, splintering silently into a thousand shard-sparks, and he flinched away.

Before he had a chance to recover from that shock, Darkwind had launched an attack of his own, but not one he likely would have expected. He attacked the mage’s shields with a needle-lance of force, not the mage himself, boring through the protections at their weakest point, where some of the energy daggers had impacted. The blue-white lance split the air between them, and Darkwind held it straight on target, despite the Changechild’s best efforts to shake it off. Elspeth readied a second attack, arrows of lightning, but did not launch it, holding it in reserve.

The Changechild sent his unliving creature to attack them; the shambling, bloody thing charged with a speed quite out of keeping with the condition it was in. It was halfway to them before Elspeth realized that it
was
an attack, but Gwena intercepted it, like a trained war-horse, as if she had dealt with such things all her life. She sidestepped the wicked horns neatly, and twisted sideways to launch a cruel double-hooved kick with her hind legs as the thing passed, that sundered its hips with a meaty
thunk
and a wet
crack.

The dead thing staggered and went down again, and tried to heave itself erect. But it could not struggle upright again, for its hip and one of its hind legs were broken and would no longer bear its weight.

At that same instant, Darkwind penetrated the Changechild’s shields, and Elspeth launched the lightning-arrows she had been readying, targeting them at the hole Darkwind had bored and was even now spreading open. The first one missed slightly, impacting just to one side of the hole, splintering as had the mage’s own energy-daggers.

The second did not miss, nor did Darkwind’s fireball that followed in the arrow’s wake.

Within the enemy’s shields and contained by them, a storm of utterly silent fireworks erupted. The Changechild stood frozen for a moment, a dark silhouette against a background of coruscating energies -

Then he collapsed to the ground as his shields collapsed around him, and, like the
dyheli
that had been his victim, did not move again.

They patrolled the border until nightfall and the arrival of Summersky, the scout that was to relieve them, but there wasn’t so much as a leaf out of place. As they headed homeward toward the Vale, Elspeth found herself very glad that she was riding. Although Hydona had warned her that a mage-duel would take
far
more out of her than she would ever believe, she hadn’t really understood what the gryphon meant. Now though - now she knew Hydona was not only right, she had understated the case. Mostly all that she wanted right now was a soak in one of the hot springs, a meal, and her bed.

But besides being weary, she was very confused; a poor combination, all things considered. She was dissatisfied with her first foray on k’Sheyna’s border. Certainly there were questions that had not been answered adequately.

And as she followed in Darkwind’s wake, watching him stride tirelessly along with one hand on Treyvan’s shoulder and folded wing, and Vree perched on a padded perch on his shoulder, she tried to reconcile her mixed emotions. It didn’t help matters any that from this angle she had such a good view of his tight, muscular. . . .

Hydona trilled to herself, apparently amused by a private joke. The female gryphon walked beside her as her mate strode beside Darkwind, all of them following a dry stream-bed back to the Vale. Hydona’s head was easily level with Elspeth’s, which was a little unsettling, since it underscored how very large the gryphon was. It was easy to forget that, when one often saw them lounging about like overgrown house cats.

“And what arrre you thinking?” Hydona asked, as if she were following Elspeth’s thoughts.

“I’m not sure,” she said, frowning, trying to put her emotional reactions into words. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been in combat - it isn’t even the first time I’ve been in magical combat. I think we did all right - ”

“You did,” Hydona confirmed. “Verrry well, essspe-cially forr a beginerrr. But asss you pointed out, you have had combat experrrience, and I expected nothing lesss than competence.” She cocked her head at Elspeth. “How do you feel you will manage againssst that enemy of yourrrsss?”

She thought for a moment, weighing what she could do now with what she knew Ancar could produce. “Well, providing Ancar hasn’t acquired an army of mages, I should be able to do something about him, if I can keep progressing at this rate. I mean, it isn’t easy, but so far I haven’t lost any body parts. Provided I don’t reach an upper limit to my powers in the near future, and Ancar hasn’t learned to tap nodes. I know he should be a Master-class mage by now at the very least.”

“One should neverrr trrusst an enemy to be placssid. What about yourrr perrrforrrmance?” Hydona asked shrewdly. “How would you rrrate yourssself?”

“Darkwind and I worked together as a team
quite
well, I think. At least we did once he got around to
doing
something.” There it was; that was what she had been trying to pinpoint as the root of her discontent. “But that was the problem; he gave that damned thing a warning even after we knew it had worked blood-magic!”

She couldn’t keep indignation from creeping into her voice, and didn’t try. Kero would have cut the interloper down where he stood; filled him full of so many arrows that he would have looked like a hedgehog.