Andre Norton - Ware Hawk

This Great One who might be moved to join with them or not—Tirtha’s thought went to her. It would seem that perhaps her active help was not to be counted on. Surely they had come out of the sealed room at Hawkholme with her aid, only then to fall straightway into the hands of the enemy. Or had that been all a part of a plan? Perhaps they were of no value for what they were, only for the services they rendered. Perhaps she and Alon had been deliberately given into captivity that they might be brought to this place at this hour. Tirtha was sure she could not depend on any concern for her as a person, she was but the means of controlling what was frozen into her grasp.

Controlling? Why had that particular word come into her mind? She had no control over the box or what it might contain. Hers was only the guardianship. Yet in her dreams the Lord and Lady of Hawkholme had known…

Tirtha looked to the casket. Warmth—the warmth had grown. The scroll fashioned of ancient skin hung across the lid, touched her two hands, for Crytha had left it unrolled when she had put it there. Tirtha struggled to grasp some wisp of thought hovering at the very edge of her consciousness, the importance of which—yes! It was important! Hawk was the guardian—she was Hawk!

But the Great One was not here, unless some portion of her dwelt within Crytha, now armed with the shadow sword. Certainly she was not in Tirtha. What could be done, must be done—that would be of Tirtha’s doing. She began her own moves, though her broken body lay inert. To use power only a little—that added to one’s talent. To be a guardian of Power—one did not remain unchanged! She was left only her thoughts.

She envisioned the casket as it had been in her dream, standing on the high table, open, an equal distance from both lord and lady. What lay within—what must be guarded? An open casket—perhaps now she was fatally loosing what should be bound—but she would be a part of this battle, not an inanimate prize for them to Fight over.

Two of them—lord, lady… Did it then take two, a man and woman, to complete the full pattern? Balance was ever a law of nature, perhaps of witchery also. Witchery—the Falconer had called it that, her own small dabblings in the unknown. Yet he carried now what this axe man out of Escore called a “named weapon,” one of four of power.

Two to summon—Alon?

Tirtha did not raise her eyes to the boy where he stood beside her. She tried to shut from her mind, from her , the outer world beyond. If they moved into battle, there was nothing at all she could do now to aid and... perhaps she could hinder. Therefore let her try this.

It was like feeling one’s way along a passage in deep dark, through unknown halls and runways, never sure of taking the right turning. Two and an open casket…

“Nirel…” Names, true names were of importance. He had given his into Alon’s keeping; yet she had been present when that was done. Therefore, whether he had intended it or not, it was also hers, though he might not have gifted it directly. “Nirel… Nirel…” Three times called—the power lay in such calling.

She did not look to him either. Had she even called aloud so that he could hear?

“Give me”—now she spoke deliberately, with the full power of her thought behind what she would say—“your sword hand.”

The metal claw—that was not the man. She must have flesh to flesh, even as it had been in Hawkholme with those others of whose blood she was.

Did he hear? Would he answer? Tirtha centered her thoughts, concentrated with all the force she could raise. Those dark corridors—yes! She had chosen a way that was open, though to where it might lead she did not know, and there was danger in this. But what could stand as true danger to one who was already dead-alive? Danger to him also, but at this moment they were all in peril, and who could balance one against the other as the worst?

Tirtha still watched the casket. However, she was aware of movement at her right. A shadow fell across the upper part of her body. There was the claw, wedged into it the sword, but stretching out to her breast and the casket was a true hand of browned skin, grimed with trail dust, bruised and blood-stained.

The casket—when they had tried to take the casket from her in the outer part of Hawkholme men had died. To take, yes, against her will, in opposition to the guardianship. This she invited, and she believed that she now held that right. If she were wrong, Nirel would die horribly. Yet if he had any such fear, the steadiness of his hand did not betray it.

His palm fell over her hands where she kept her locked grip. She could not feel the warmth of it against her own deadness or perhaps she could not because of the fire rising in the box.

“Raise!” Her voice rang out commandingly. “Lord of the Hawk, help me to raise!”

She saw his hand tighten over hers. A sweep of his fingers flipped away that roll of pictured skin. As if some breeze which could not be felt caught it, it fluttered up. But her inert hand so tightly clasped in his was moving—yes!

At that very moment there came a roar of sound so blasting they might have been struck deaf. Instantly, a vast wave of darkness followed, washing out from behind where Tirtha lay. Things moved in that darkness. She heard cries, saw quick flames that might have come from axe blades, from swords, even from the lashing of a cord whip.

No, this other task was for her, for Nirel. If he followed his warrior’s instinct now and arose to fight whatever had spread from the trap, they were lost! He must not!

The blue light from the sword in his claw still hung over her, joining the glow from the box. And his hand remained on hers! He was slowly raising that lid, even as she had asked of him. Still she could not see what lay within, for the box was so placed that the opening was on the other side.

The lid arose until it was straight up, and the glow from within burned bright and even. His hand remained firmly on hers, holding them so.

Now Tirtha cried aloud: “The time is served, Ninutra—Hawk bond is given.”

What loomed out of the dark before her, standing at the foot of her supine body—this was not the woman of the impressive face nor her priestess. This was another. Nor was he…

Human in his outward form, or did he wear that as he would wear clothing when he treated with her kind? He was weaponless, nor did he wear mail—rather a tight half garment, which seemed made of reptile skin clinging tightly to his lower limbs, reaching to his waist. It was black, but the edges of the scales glinted with the scarlet of new shed blood. Above it the dusky skin of his torso was smooth, his face awesomely handsome, his head capped with a tight-fitting covering of the same jet and scarlet scaled skin, enclosed at the brow edge by a broad band of scarlet gems. He raised his hands slowly, and Tirtha could see webs of skin as he spread wide his fingers.

He straightened them out flat as if waiting for something to be laid upon them. Nor needed he to voice his demand; he desired what Nirel and she together had uncovered.

“Time is served.” His lips did not move, but words rang into silence. For though that black cloud still swirled about, there was no longer any flash of weapons through it, no sound of a struggle.

“I… am… the… Hawk—” It was as if a heavy weight rested on Tirtha so that she had to force out those words with a pause for breath between each of them.

“You die—” he returned, with that same indifference she had sensed in Ninutra. “Your death can be swift and in ease. It can be otherwise…”

“I… am… Hawk. Lord and Lady—theirs the guardianship…”

“Lord?” There was mockery in that. “I see no lord, only a discredited beggar of a masterless fighting man.”