Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

Sun banners overspread the east when they left the wood. The Falconer halted behind a last screen of brush between them and open lands stretching to Hawkholme. The hold stood as Tirtha had visioned, stark amid desolate fields from which there had been no harvest for many years, though there was a straggle of blighted greenery rising raggedly now to greet the spring. No breaks showed in the walls of the hold, though the moat drawbridge had been destroyed.

The Falconer dismounted at the same moment his feathered scout winged out into the morning, rising so high that its black body was but a dot against the heavens.

“We are here. Lady. Is this not your Hawkholme?”

“It is the place of my vision, of the dreams.” For the first time she mentioned them. Since he had chosen to ride the full way, then perhaps the time had come to be frank with him. She nodded toward the distant hold which had the appearance of a grim fortress. Those who had built it must have had good reason to believe that a time of trial would come.

“Within that lies what I must claim. I do not know why, but it is set upon me to do this.”

His eyes, through the slits of his mask helm, were full upon her, measuring. However, it was Alon who spoke.

“There is that which waits.” The boy shivered as his face turned toward the fortress.

Instantly, he gained the Falconer’s attention.

“Gerik?” the man demanded, as if he believed that Alon’s sight was as keen as that of his questing bird, could even pierce those fire-stained walls.

Again Alon shuddered. That horror and terror, which had before thrust him into deep inner hiding, might once more have reached out to touch him.

“Him, and the other, the Dark One. They wait. Also, they have that…” He shook his head from side to side, raised one hand to his forehead. “I cannot see…” There was a touch of fear in his voice. “Do not ask me.”

“Close your mind!” Tirtha ordered. Here was the same problem that had existed in the night-haunted wood. Any use of a talent might well draw upon them attention they did not want. She turned to the Falconer.

“If there is an ambush within…” She need not carry that further; he nodded in turn.

“Yes.” His head swung from right to left, as he surveyed the land before them for possible concealment. Then he gestured to the left and, remounting, led off, still within a fringe of wood, keeping it between them and the open. Tirtha had already sighted what must be his goal. The river, which watered the land before them and which, in part, had been diverted to fill the moat as one of the defenses of Hawkholme, had been bridged not too far from where they had emerged from the forest. A small ruined building stood on their side of that now-broken span. Tirtha was reminded that in Estcarp’s far past shrines to unknown and long-forgotten powers had been so erected.

Certainly the tumbled walls of the small building gave forth no warning of any evil. Its stones were not of that loathsome gray-white such as stood in the wood. She longed to test by thought-probe, but knew she dared not. The Falconer held the point of his sword-dagger toward that possible shelter, and his attention swung between the stone rubble and the hilt of his weapon. He must have come to depend upon its efficiency for ferreting out traces of evil. However, the pommel remained opaque and lifeless.

They were favored in that the river here made a northern curve so that the ruined shrine stood not too far from their present screen. A river running from the east—Tirtha considered that. Where lay its source? There was the dim line of bluish heights across the eastern sky, the sun now above them. Beyond that barrier—Escore. A river born in those heights or even running through them from beyond—what might it carry out of that wild and Power-ridden land?

Why had her kin settled so close in the early days? Had their ties with the east been stronger than those generally nursed by others come to settle in the west, those who deliberately willed out of memory all thought of Escore? She knew the formal history of Karsten well enough—that the Old Race had settled the land, living quietly and without incident until the coming from the south of the invaders, those of a younger race with whom their predecessors had no ties, and from whose company they had withdrawn, farther back into the interior of the duchy. There had followed no intermingling of blood with the newcomers. And as their own numbers had never been many and they had kept aloof, they had gone without strife until Yvian and the Kolder had turned the country blood-mad against them. Was Hawkholme one of the very earliest holds in Karsten? Had its lords kept alive ties with Escore, the ancient homeland?

Tirtha was startled out of her musing when Alon pushed the mare to a quicker trot, sidled past the Falconer, and reaching the edge of brush, slipped from the pony, to drop to hands and knees in last year’s brittle weeds. Then he went belly-flat, crawling so into the open, heading for the pile of rocks that marked the end of the broken bridge. A moment later she understood.

To ride into the open would certainly be to court notice from Hawkholme. They could not believe it was without sentries on watch. Wind Warrior was aloft, but who knew what eyes those inside might possess, just as keen and farsighted.

They could tether their animals here; there was rough grazing to keep them satisfied. Tirtha dismounted, stripped the Torgian of his gear, looping the straps of her nearly flat saddle bags over one shoulder, seeing that the Falconer was doing the same.

Once they had the three beasts on lines—the fastening of which the Falconer tested well—they, too, crawled to where Alon squatted behind a breastwork of fallen rocks, staring at the fortress. The protection was not much; the roof of the small building had vanished, but at least they had the best cover possible hereabouts.

Though Tirtha studied the distant ruin of the holding with strict attention, she caught no sign of movement there. She had half expected to experience again the cold attack that had struck at her in vision. Perhaps it attacked only in vision, and the next assault would come in bodily form. She knew so little, could only guess at what might lie ahead.

Alon did not move or look around as they joined him. He was as frozen in his place as he had been enwrapped in the catatonic state in which they had first found him. Except that he had not retreated into invisibility. Now Tirtha crept up cautiously, dared to put an arm about his thin shoulders. His utterly silent watchfulness she found disturbing.

“What do you see?” she asked, determined to break through this abnormal absorption.

“I see…” He shook his head. “It is not see, Lady, it is feel—here!” He raised a small, grubby hand to plant its thumb between his eyes. “There is trouble, anger, someone is very angry. That is the one who, if he were not so angry, would be searching for us. But now he thinks only of this thing which feeds his rage. He…” That long set stare with which he regarded the fortress ahead broke as he turned his head a fraction to glance at Tirtha. “He causes pain to another, seeking to learn a secret, one that other does not know. Aieee—Suddenly the boy clapped both hands to his ears as if shutting out dire sounds neither of his companions could hear. His face screwed into a mask of mingled fear and pain. “It is evil what he does—evil!”

The Falconer reached out his single hand, and with a gesture Tirtha would not have believed his breed capable of showing, he touched Alon very gently at the nape of his small thin neck, rubbing the flesh almost caressingly, as one might soothe a small trembling animal. The boy turned, drew out of Tirtha’s loose hold, to fling himself into the man’s arms, hiding his face against the tattered cloak across the Falconer’s mailed breast.