Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

On the afternoon of the fourth day after they had ridden out of the protected valley, the vegetation grew sparser, their path once more led into a barren country as it climbed. Just before nightfall they sighted a fall of stone. The Falconer halted, staring ahead—not as one who faced some to-be-expected barrier, but rather in bemusement, which showed openly on his usually expressionless face, for that day he had ridden bareheaded—a strange choice for one who had always kept to his mask.

Tirtha could see no reason for this sudden halt, but here the path was so narrow that she could not push ahead, but must wait on him to move. When he did not, she broke what had nearly been a full day of silence.

“There is no way beyond?”

For a long moment she believed that he was so lost in what thoughts filled his mind that he had not even heard her. Then, haltingly, his claw swung out, gestured at the river of broken stone.

“The Eyrie…”

Some trick of his voice, its pitch, awoke an echo from the rocks around them.

Eyrie. That was like the wail of a mourner at a Sulcar burn burial.

Tirtha stared. There was certainly little to show that this had been the site of the centuries’ old dwelling place of his race—at least nothing she could distinguish. She had heard that the Eyrie had been so well designed that it had the appearance of a hollowed-out mountain, and that very few, if any, outsiders (and those only the Borderers and males) had ever crossed its one-time drawbridge.

Here was nothing but river stone resembling any other slide they had skirted or crossed during their travels. Her companion held his head well back on his shoulders, gazing up the line of that heap of rocks, as if he hunted desperately for something that should still exist. In turn, she imagined a mist out of the past come to cloak that slide, to show for a heartbeat or two the fortress that had been. Yet she could truly not trace anything at all.

He called, the words she did not know spiraling up, then running into a single sound that might be the scream of a hawk. Three times he uttered that cry. Then he was answered!

Tirtha clutched her reins tighter, her mount shifted foot to send some small stones rattling. The answer was thin, not full-throated—yet she could not deny that she had heard it. Ghosts—the vanished dead who should be peacefully at rest—was she not yet done with them? Had his kin a call for blood vengeance and was that demand strong enough that it could manifest itself in the full light of day? The Falconers had been well warned; surely they had taken refuge down in Estcarp before the churning of the heights. Certainly also her companion could not be old enough in years to have been sword-oathed to one who had lived here before the end of the Eyrie.

The Falconer shouted—for a ringing shout was what he uttered this time, echoing and reechoing—something in the pitch of sound making the ponies snort, the Torgian whinny, and her own ears hurt.

Once more an answer. Then she caught sight of a speck in the sky overhead. Down it struck, as if it would bear with it from the air some intruding prey. She watched with some awe the swiftness of that descent out of the heavens. The flyer passed from sunlight into the more shadowed air of the half-choked cleft into which they had headed.

Now the strike eased, wings flapped, a black body circled, and circling, came closer and closer until it passed above them. A falcon settled on an edge of rock, its wings still a little spread, as if it would take to the heavens again once its curiosity was satisfied.

Black of feather, with the white V marking on the breast, a falcon of the Eyrie—or else the descendant of such a one—wildliving, for it did not wear the scarlet jesses that marked the partnership between man and bird. Bright eyes regarded the unhelmed man. From his lips came a series of birdlike notes, scaling up and down. The falcon answered with a scream, mantling, appearing ready to lift again, be away from this creature of another species who strove to communicate with it.

Still the Falconer forced out sounds, which Tirtha would not have believed any human throat or lips could have shaped. He made no move toward the uneasy bird, simply spoke to it, Tirtha was now convinced, in its own language.

There was no scream; rather the sound the bird uttered in return was not far different from those made by the man. Its head was slightly to one side. Tirtha could believe that it was considering some proposal or striving to come to a decision of its own.

Then, with one more cry, it took to the air. Not to approach the waiting man but to rise steadily with all the force of its wings into the heights from which it had come. There was no disappointment on the weathered features of the man, he simply sat and watched it go.

It was only when it winged to the west and was fully gone from their sight that he seemed to remember he was not alone and looked back at Tirtha.

“This is no road, not now.” His voice was steady, as cool as it had always been. “We must go back and take a northward turning, and that before the dark closes in.”

Tirtha asked no questions, for there was that about him which said he was entirely certain of what he was about, and she had learned to trust his sense of mountain ways. Turn north they did, and in the end found a basin that was clearly the work of men, into which ran a runnel of water, falling out of a pipe made to handle thrice the amount that now trickled through. There was forage of a sort—tough clumps of grass growing along the overflow from the basin—at least enough graze for overnight.

They had no fire. Though there were sticks enough among the stones of the stream’s banks for the feeding of one, the Falconer shook his head when Tirtha would have gathered them.

“This is a place of watchers.”

“Falcons?” she asked. “But fire would not rouse them.”

He shook his head again emphatically. “Others have come into this country.”

His exchange of sounds with that bird—what had he so learned? She felt she had a right to demand such information, when he continued: “Such are not outlaws—nor those from Karsten. They are others from the east.”

From the east! That snout-nosed monster out of the dark! Things on the move from Escore over-mountain! With that in mind Tirtha glanced quickly about their camp. It was as well protected by its situation as any place she might have picked, she thought. As soon as the mounts had had some grazing, before the dark closed in, they could bring them up here and tether them, satisfy them with handfuls of the grain together with a strewing of salt across the gritty stuff. To reach here any attacker would have to approach along a very narrow way that either one of them could defend alone. It was not the stoutest fortress in the world, but it would have to serve tonight.

They ate sparingly, then brought in the ponies and the Torgian. It was Tirtha’s turn for the first rest period of the night, but she was not ready yet to try for sleep. Instead she found herself casting out thought loops, as a cattle herder of the plains might spin his catch rope, striving to pick up any trace of a Dark mind which might be lurking even now to spy upon them.

Dead by tooth and claw—that was what he had said of the stranger. Perhaps that unfortunate invader of these haunted hills had been trailed, preyed upon, by just such a night-running creature as they had faced with greater fortune. Tirtha searched in her pouch for the small packet of herb dust that had served so well during the attack, bringing it out to hand. Twilight was already gray within their refuge. The ponies stamped and whickered, straining a little at their halters, so now she went to share out the handsful of grain with the trace of salt to keep them quiet.