Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

“You found the way?” Before she could speak, Alon’s question came.

“I found the way.”

“Then we can go.” He glanced over his shoulder as if he were ready to saddle and ride at once.

“Not ‘we’.” Tirtha had herself in hand now. “This is my quest only.” She looked directly to the Falconer. “I release you—take Alon. There are those over-mountain who will give him shelter—the Tregarths—for they know that power does not always run in the same channels. From here I ride alone.”

He regarded her with that same level and angry glance he had worn before when she would have broken their bond in full ceremony.

“There are twenty days—no less.”

Tirtha sat upright, and he moved away from her quietly. The falcon gave one of its soft cries and fluttered to his claw wrist.

“I lead no one into that—” she declared sharply in return, determined this time to have her will in the matter.

Yet strong as she thought herself to be, Tirtha did not have her way. The Falconer was stubborn, determined to fulfill his bargain. Though she ordered him twice to use that sense of duty by taking Alon over-mountain, swearing that she would be satisfied, that this would set the balance straight between them, he refused. Tirtha wondered if she must slip away from her companions, only she could not be sure whether the stubborn man would not attempt to track her. It was Alon who confirmed that suspicion when they were alone the next morning, the Falconer having taken the water bottles down to the stream.

“He is single-minded and that rides hard with him,” Alon observed. “These bird men are trained to what they believe is their duty. Thus he would pursue it and you to the end. You cannot shake us off. Lady.” He smiled and gave a small laugh.

Tirtha was not to be beguiled from her own sense of right. “There is danger waiting at Hawkholme. Did that not already strike at me?”

“And did you not then beat it?” he interrupted. “Yes, it waits, but you do not draw back because of it. Neither shall this Swordmaster allow any foreboding to lessen his intent. Nor”—he paused for a second or two before he continued—“shall I. There is in me”—his hands went to heart level at his breast, touching the wrinkled smock Tirtha had washed in a stream—“that I must learn to master and live with. Yachne would not teach me. Did she,” his face screwed up into a frown, “ fear me?” He asked that not of Tirtha but of himself, as the girl was well aware. “Yet there was much of the power in her—one could feel it always. And I am not Wise. I am not—what then am I?” Again he spoke to Tirtha. “Have you seen my like before? They tell me many tales of Estcarp—that the old knowledge was treasured there, not lost, forgotten by the Old Race as it was here.”

Tirtha made fast the latching of her saddlebag. “I have not seen any male before who has commanded the Power. The Witches who rule in the north say such a thing is unnatural, and therefore perhaps of the Dark.”

Alon was on his feet in one supple movement, to stand staring at her, wide-eyed.

“I am not…” His protest came sharp and quick.

“Do you think that I do not know that? The Dark Ones cannot hide what they are to any of our blood. Also there is one man, Simon Tregarth, who has something of the talent. However, he is not of our blood, hut an outlander who came through one of the Gates. It is also true that his two sons command strange forces, and they carried them and their Witch sister westward into Escore so that they broke the old curse to open that land to all of our race again.

“Though perhaps to no peaceful purpose, for there were many evils loose there, and now they war. Those of the Old Race, who followed the Tregarth calling to the east, fight against many Dark perils. There have been scores of stories during the past few years, perhaps twisted in the telling as such often are. Still we hear of battles won and lost, a country rent by the will of things unlike human kind. It could be that Escore blood has ventured westward here.” She sat with her hands clasped together studying Alon measuringly.

“You said that you were son to one this Parian knew,” she continued.

“I said”—he was quick to correct her—“that that was what was told me. The truth is that Yachne brought me to Parian’s clan and told such a tale. So I was accepted, for the man she named as my father was blood-brother by sword oath to Parian—and it was true he was dead, his lady having vanished also after the battle, and was thought to be slain during the retreat that followed. That was Yachne’s story, but”—he drew a deep, long breath—“can one believe it? There are the Gates. Those I have heard of—even of Tregarth’s coming—and of that which the Kolders used when they entered this world and strove to make it theirs. Could it be that I am also such an outlander?”

His eyes were large, wide open, and there was that same eagerness in his face which he had shown the night before when she had asked of them their aid in farseeing.

“You have the look of the Old Race outwardly,” Tirtha observed. “Yet you have also power—and the measurement of how much is something I cannot make. I have only a scrap of the talent. I can heal a little; I can farsee when entranced; and I can dream. I am not your Yachne. Also perhaps I am now one who is walking straight into such danger as cannot be reckoned.”

“Still you must go to the Hawkholme,” he said slowly, and she did not need the ability to read minds to guess that he longed to ask her the reason for this journey.

Odder still was the feeling within her that, for the first time, she wished to share her secret. As if this small boy, with his oddly mature speech and apparent understanding, had a full right to know what had driven her for so long. However, there was no time for such a sharing, even if she had been willing to break the cautious silence of years, for the Falconer returned at a pace quick enough to set the bottles he carried swinging from his claw, his hand on the butt of his dart gun.

“We ride.” He swung past them to where the ponies and the Torgian were picketed, making it plain that he meant a hasty departure. Tirtha and Alon asked no questions, rather hastened to saddle their mounts. When the Falconer took the lead, he swung north, leaving the stream, holding his pony to a trot that was the best pace for such rough country.

Tirtha pulled level with him. “What have you seen?”

“We may have escaped notice.” He had resumed his helm and now the falcon took wing, ascending into the sky in ever widening circles. “But there were fresh tracks on the other side of the stream.”

She thought furiously. What she had done the night before, drawing the other two into it also? If there were any hereabouts with the faintest trace of talent, they would have been alerted as quickly as if she had purposefully marked a plain back trail or set a signal fire. Perhaps her action had been foolhardy, wildly reckless.

“Outlaws?” she asked. Most drifting through this country would certainly be men from the plains, not those generally receptive to whispers of the Power. Their passing would be by chance only.

He shrugged. “What can one read from tracks in the mud? There were two shod horses of a larger breed—the rest were ponies. A party of six I would say. They headed south and east.”

South and east—that was the direction they themselves must take. Tirtha had sensed in her trance journey that what she sought was not too far distant. Perhaps that ridge with its black veining might be only a day’s journey on. However, if they had to detour, it would add to the leagues of travel while their supplies were very low, and they might not have time to hunt or garner any fresh spring plants.