Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

“I am Alon.” He spoke clearly. “I…” The shadow was back on his face, and his hands reached for the front of Tirtha’s jerkin, clasped it so tightly that his nails cut into the soft leather.

“Where—?” He had turned his head against her, hiding his face so that his words came muffled.

Tirtha chose to ignore what might be the true meaning of that question.

“We are in the hills,” she replied calmly.

His shoulders hunched a little as he gave one convulsive sob. He held to her for a long moment and then turned to look at both of them once more.

“They are all dead.” It was no question but a statement of fact, and Tirtha found that she could answer only with truth.

“We believe so.”

“They said they came from Lord Honnor; they showed his seal rod to Lamer, and so the gate was opened. Then he laughed and…”

Again that body convulsed and Tirtha answered with a tighter grip. But it was the Falconer who leaned forward and spoke.

“Little Brother, there will come a time for blood payment. Until then, look to the days ahead, not the hours behind.” Such words he might speak to one of his own kind and his own age. Tirtha felt a rising indignation. Did he believe that a small child could be so comforted, if comfort was what he intended by that somber advice.

Only it would appear that he was right, for Alon met him eye to eye. His small face wore an intent, serious look and there was almost the same communication between the two of them as existed between bird and man—one Tirtha could not even sense.

“You are a bird man,” the boy said slowly. “And he—?”

He loosed his hold on Tirtha, raised a thin arm to point to the falcon who now looked as if it wished to sleep, its yellow eyes half closed, its wings tight held to its body.

“In his own tongue he is called Wind Warrior. He is a flock chief and…”

“One of the Learning,” Alon said softly. He spoke directly to the bird.

“Brother in Feathers, you are a great fighter.”

The falcon unlidded its eyes, gazed down, uttered a single small and very soft sound deep in its throat.

Now Alon turned his head once more to look directly up into Tirtha’s face.

“You are—are like Yachne, no?” Again a shadow frown crossed his small face. “She has the Calling in her; you—you are different. But you are of the Blood.”

Tirtha nodded. “Of the Blood, but one born in another place, kin-brother. I am from overmountain.”

He had moved, not to free himself entirely from her hold, but rather to sit higher in it. She helped him so he could be more comfortable.

“Overmountain,” he repeated. “But there is evil…” He glanced up, then stared at her. “No—the Dark ones—one can feel those. You are not of the Dark, kin-sister. Are you from the east where there is the clouding? Yachne has tried to read the throwing stones many times, but always there is the Dark between. There are the prowlers who come down from the hills, but they are not like Gerik”—his lips met tightly together for an instant—“for Gerik is a man, and he has chosen to serve the Dark of his free will!”

“Overmountain from Estcarp. There is little evil there in the way you know, kin-brother,” Tirtha answered as gravely and with the same tone the Falconer had used. “But my kin were once of this land, and now I return for a purpose.”

He nodded. His growing composure was far from childlike. She wondered if this was natural to him, or whether it had been born of the release of power that had sent him into hiding and so changed his mind, perhaps enlarging a talent. He seemed twice as old as he looked.

“There are such as Gerik patrolling.” He hitched himself even higher in her hold. “They will be watching, and they hate all of the Old Blood. We kept mine secret, yet somehow they knew.”

The Falconer resheathed his strange weapon and put on his helm.

“Then it would seem that we must find a shelter better than this.” He got to his feet, held out the wrist of his claw, and the falcon moved onto it.

Alon pushed out of Tirtha’s hold, though she kept one hand on his shoulder to steady him. It was difficult to believe that the child who had been so limp and helpless when she had borne him here could now show such vigor. He wavered for a moment, then stood as tall and straight as his small body would allow, though he did not shake off her hand as the Falconer went to bring up their mounts.

Alon looked at the Torgian round-eyed and hesitatingly lifted his right hand. The beast snorted, moved toward the boy one step at a time as if puzzled and wary, the man loosing the leading rein to let it go free. The shaggy head of the horse dipped, it sniffed at the boy’s palm, pawed at the ground, and then blew.

“He—he is different.” Alon’s gaze swung from horse to ponies, then back again.

“Yes. In Estcarp,” Tirtha answered, “his kind are horses of war, and they are highly prized.”

“He is alone.” It was almost as if Alon had either not heard her or else that what she said meant little to him. “The one whom he served is dead; since then his days have been empty. But he will take me!” There was a sharp change in the boy’s face. A smile, as bright as the sun Tirtha had imagined when she was pulling him out of his inner darkness lighted it. There was an eagerness in his voice as both his hands tugged at the flowing forelock of the horse. “He accepts me!” It was as if something near too wondrous to believe had changed his world.

For the first time since she had traveled with him, Tirtha saw the Falconer smile and gained a dim idea of how different he might appear among his own kind. He caught Alon around the waist and swung the boy up to settle him in the empty saddle of the dead man’s horse.

“Ride him well, little brother. As the Lady has said, his kind is not easily found.”

Alon leaned forward to draw his hand down the curve of the Torgian’s neck, and the horse tossed its head, whickering, taking one or two small steps sidewise as if he were very pleased with both himself and his rider.

With them all to horse and the falcon settled on saddle perch, they headed back into the foothills. Tirtha watched the boy anxiously. Though she claimed hardness of spirit for herself and even in childhood had cultivated a shell to protect both her inner self and the feeling that some important destiny lay before her, she could not believe that so young a child might so quickly lose the remembrance of the raid and of how he had escaped from it.

Perhaps her first suspicion was right—the use of his power had released within him also an ability to accept things as they were. So, as the Falconer suggested, Alon was able to look forward and not back—yet another protective measure which the talent brought to him without even his conscious willing.

They halted for nooning at a spring, for these foothills were well watered. The boy shared the last of their rations of crumbling journey cake, as they had not tried to hunt along the way. By questioning, they discovered that Alon’s knowledge of the land eastward was limited to stories that had come through infrequent contact with either a single small market town to the south or from such travelers as the master of the holding had trusted enough to shelter overnight.

There was a Lord Honnor who claimed rule over part of the land, but, by all Alon’s accounts, his hold was a precarious one, his title often in dispute, though he was a man of some honesty—for Karsten—and did his best for those loyal to him. The master of the garth had been one Parian, not of the Old Race but with a dislike for the perilous life of the more fertile plains where there was almost constant warfare. He had brought his family clan into this foothill region trying to escape the constant raiding he had encountered during the past dozen years or more.