Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

“Long awaited, come at last…” It was as if she recited part of a ritual. “Brother of the winged ones, you to whom the weapon, Basir’s Tongue, has cleaved and made choice, we give you welcome, even though it be not to your rest but perhaps your bane and ours.”

The Falconer stared at her. Now he loosed his hold upon the horse’s coarse upspringing hair, raised hand toward his head in an uncertain gesture.

“You—are—the—night—walker—” He spoke hoarsely, as if against his will. “You came to draw me back from death.”

“From death?” Crytha said, as his last pause lengthened. “No, you were not dead, Falconer. They left you for such, but while you serve the Great Ones, then death comes not so easily.”

“I serve the Lady.” There was a tightness about his mouth. Flecks of dried blood fell from his jaw as he spoke. His hair, as Tirtha could see in the ever brightening day, was matted with dust and blood along his skull over the left ear. “This lady…”

His claw pointed to Tirtha where she lay. “What would you do with her? Does your Great One claim her, too?”

“She does,” Crytha answered promptly. “And you, also, for what you carry.”

It was her turn to point, and her fingers did not indicate the sword whose light gleamed bright enough to contrast even with the day, but rather the dart-looped belt about his shoulder. He looked down, following the line of her finger. Then he reached up slowly and clasped what he had carried out of Hawkholme—that rod with its concealed roll of the unreadable.

“How…” He looked totally bemused, as if this were the last thing he expected to find.

“By the wit of your lady,” Crytha told him briskly. She crossed to stand before him, holding out her hand. He fumbled, freeing the dead man’s legacy, then gave it to her.

The younger man who had joined her had half turned his head, looked over his shoulder to where Tirtha believed might be the site of the cage from which she had been brought.

“There is a stirring…” he cautioned sharply.

He of the axe laughed, giving a small flourish of his ponderous weapon. “When is there not, Yonan? Let it stir. It must come to terms sooner or later—its or ours. And I will wager the weight of this”—again he gave a short dip and lift of his weapon—“that the result will not be altogether to the Dark’s liking, if at all.”

“He who comes is Rane.” Holding the tube of parchment, Crytha had moved back toward them.

“Meaning, Lady of the Shadow Sword, that I am too hopeful? Ah, when has it ever bettered a man to foresee an ill end? Such foreboding will sap strength before the contest even begins. And this is a foreseen meeting—what of your Great One?”

Crytha frowned. “You are bold, Uruk. One of the Four Great Weapons may be yours, but that fact does not open all gates for you.”

The man, still smiling, made her a half salute. “Lady Crytha, as a twice-living man I have seen much, heard much, done much. There is little left of any awe in me. I have been a god to the Thas, those underground dwellers of the Dark Rule, and I have twice been a war captain. We are facing now a battle, so I ask you frankly, what may we expect in the way of allies?”

It was not the priestess but Alon who answered him. The boy had advanced a little, the Torgian following him, and Nirel, one hand again on the mount’s neck for support, pacing along.

“You have us…”

Uruk turned his face toward the boy, and his smile grew the wider.

“Well said, youngling. Having seen how you broke from Rane’s cage and drew this lady with you, I give you good credit as one to stand beside in line of battle. And”—his gaze swept on to the Falconer who met it head up, back straight, with a lifted chin—“any man who carries one of the Four is a shield to the arm, a stout wall to one’s back. Welcome, you to whom Basir’s Tongue gives willing service. And”—now his eyes dropped to Tirtha—“Lady, you are of the Old Blood, and it is plain that this was a meeting planned out of the time we know and bow to. I know not what your weapon may be—is it left to you to be able to wield it?”

She looked down at the casket between her locked hands. “I do not know”—she spoke for the first time—“whether what I bear is weapon or prize. I only know that of it I am the set guardian, and this geas has not been lifted from me. I think that if you depend upon me for any weaponry you must plan again. This body is dead and I remain in it still only through a power I do not understand.”

She heard a breath quickly drawn and saw the Falconer’s claw swing forward and then back again against his body. Just the claw, she did not look higher to his face.

“Rane!” The younger man appeared to pay but little attention to the rest of them, his concentration was on what lay behind, which she could not see.

There came a crackling in the air about them, a feeling of Power gathering, sweeping. Not yet at them, rather for him, or that , which summoned. Uruk glanced once in the same direction his companion watched, and then he spoke to Crytha. His smile had vanished; there was a sharpness in his voice.

“I have asked—what of your Great One?”

“She shall do as she desires.” The girl was abrupt in her reply. She was angered, Tirtha thought, by his question or his insistence upon an answer to it.

Uruk shrugged. “It is true that the Great Ones make it a habit to conceal their plans from their servants. Well enough. If this is to be our force, then make you ready.” His sweep of eye passed over them all. “Rane, I do not know in person. In the telling any story grows the greater with each repeating of it. He is a Dark One who has his own strengths. It would appear we are about to test them.”

The short sword to which Crytha and Uruk had given a name was free in the Falconer’s hand. He stood away from the horse, came to Tirtha after the proper fashion of a shield man serving his employer. She looked up the length of his lean body. The tattered cloak had disappeared, along with his battered helm, his long sword, and dart gun. Now he worked his arm through the useless dart belt, tossing it from him. His hand showed blue as if the light of the sword pommel pierced his flesh.

Tirtha felt a new warmth. Her hands that had been so useless and dead—were they coming alive again? Between them, the casket blazed. Alon had come up on her other side. Even as the other three appeared to draw together into a unit, so were they also forming a common bond. The boy made a summoning wave with one hand. From the ground where Tirtha had not noticed it lying, there arose, swaying back and forth serpent-fashion once again, one of those coils of leather rope. The end of it swooped forward into Alon’s grasp. He twisted a goodly length of it about his bruised and blood-stained wrist as if to give it stout anchorage, and then he raised the loose-hanging portion to swing it back and forth.

Uruk’s axe was in plain sight, Yonan had drawn his sword, touched its point to earth, grasping its hilt in both hands. But Crytha seemed not to note all those battle preparations. Instead she had drawn the skin of symbols forth from its carrier, letting the rod fall free, and was studying it with care. Tirtha saw her lips move as if she shaped sounds, but there was also a frown of puzzlement between her eyes. Then, with a quick step, she was at Tirtha’s side, had stooped and laid the roll of skin on the lid of the casket. Once more back among her companions, the priestess then held out her empty hand.

Mist whirled, gathered, intensified. What she held was the Shadow Sword, save that Tirtha would now swear that blade had real substance and was of the same strong steel as she had seen in many a warrior’s scabbard. Along it runes glowed brightly, faded, then glowed again, as they might if they winked in and out of another time and space.