Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

To Aurian, his delight seemed out of all proportion, and the Mage’s heart sank within her. Oh no, she thought. Dear Gods, please don’t let him be another one like Raven, who needs my powers to help him! This is just too cruel!

“Wait,” she told him softly. “How much of our story has Yazour told you?”

Schiannath shook his head. “Little, in truth. He is learning my language, but as yet he lacks the words, I was hoping that you might make things clear for me. Lady.”

“Yes.” Aurian sighed. “I think I should. You have a right to know what you’re getting yourself into,” She sat down, her back propped against the warm stones of the chimney, and pulled her ragged blanket more closely around her shoulders. “Well,” she said doggedly, “this is how it goes ...”

Though the hours that stretched by until Schiannath’s return were the longest Yazour had ever spent, the Xandim’s news, on his return, more than made up for the wait. Aurian was unharmed—for the present at least—and it was plain that Schiannath had fallen under the Mage’s spell, Yazour thought wryly. The Warrior had never seen his rescuer so excited. Glad as he was, however, to hear that Aurian was safe and well, the remainder of the Xandim’s tale filled Yazour with alarm. Shia missing!. Raven a traitor! Eliizar and Bohan hurt and imprisoned! Anvar a captive of the Winged Folk! Before Schiannath had finished speaking, Yazour was looking for a way to get to his feet, and demanding his sword.

“No.” Schiannath, shaking his head, was holding him down with gentle insistence. “Aurian says we wait.”

“Wait?” Yazour was appalled. “How can I wait, when my friends are suffering! They need help! Accursed fool—you misunderstood her!” Only when he saw the blank look on Schiannath’s frowning face did the warrior realize that he had been shouting in his own language.

Schiannath’s eyes glinted. “She says we wait. When the child comes—then we fight!” His voice had taken on an edge of stone, and his fingers dug into Yazour’s shoulder with bruising force. “Before you fight, you must heal,” he added pointedly.

Reluctantly, Yazour subsided. “How will we know when the babe is born?” he asked sullenly.

“Each day I will watch. She will signal—a flame at the window. Then—we move!” His eyes were alight with excitement. Yazour sighed. More waiting! But Aurian was right. They were badly outnumbered, and if she waited for her powers to return, she would be able to fight. In the meantime, it seemed, he must school himself to patience—and try to get back on his feet as quickly as he could.

Parric was drunk again. He had reached the point in his drinking where he knew he was drunk, but didn’t care. It had been his only solace in the long, dull days that had been crawling by, since the Windeye had rescued him from the mountain. Parric, sitting on a snowy log outside the great stone spire crowned by Chiamh’s Chamber of Winds, looked over his shoulder at the looming Wyndveil and shuddered, remembering that nightmare descent. He had always thought himself tough enough to cope with any crisis, but he had never fought a mountain before. Oh Gods, that journey . . . Struggling through the endless snow, burdened by a dying old man, with the storm hunting at their heels, and his own constant fear that those monstrous cats might be tracking them . . . Fighting fatigue and frozen limbs, and the paralyzing consciousness that one false step might mean a lethal plunge over the edge of a precipice . . . “Dear Gods!” Parric muttered thickly. “Is it any wonder I’m drunk?”

For the first time in his life, the Cavalrymaster had found himself unequal to his situation, and he was taking it badly.

“What am I doing here?” he muttered, for about the hundredth time. “I’m a plain, honest fighting man, I am; give me a sword in my hand, and a good horse under me and I can handle anything! But when it comes to mountains and giant cats and half-blind spooks who talk to the wind, and then turn into bloody horses in front of your eyes . . .” He closed one eye and squinted carefully and critically at the leather flask he was holding. “Not that he’s a bad little chap, mind you—and he makes bloody good mead . . . A bit sweet for my taste, but it has a kick like a warhorse! Maya would have liked it . . .”

And there, of course, lay the true reason for his drinking. Parric was homesick for Nexis, as it once had been, and would never be again. He missed the Garrison, and his responsibilities as an officer. He missed using his skills, and teaching them to new recruits. Most of all, he missed the companionship; the rough-and-tumble of weapons practice; the comradeship of drills and patrols; the drunken nights spent in the Invisible Unicorn with Maya, Forral—and Aurian. Parric was drunk because he was angry, frustrated, and, at the moment, helpless. Though he was terrified for Aurian’s safety, and desperate to reach her, the Cavalrymaster was forced to bide his time until the dark of the moon, as the Windeye had so poetically phrased it.

“Wait,” Chiamh had counseled. “You cannot go alone, across the mountains. Only wait until the time is right, and you can go to the aid of your friend with an army of Xandim at your back. I have a plan ...”

There was nothing wrong with the plan, Parric conceded grudgingly. Well, hopefully not. The Cavalrymaster knew nothing of Xandim customs, and had been forced to take Chiamh’s words on trust—as he had been forced to trust the Windeye’s assurance, gleaned from his Vision on the winds, that Aurian would be found at the Tower of Incondor. Despite his frustration, Parric found himself grinning as he thought of Chiamh’s plan. By Chathak—the lad didn’t lack for nerve! The Cavalrymaster recalled the night when he and the young Windeye had sat discussing plans in Chiamh’s cave at the foot of the spire. (If you could call it a cave—in Parric’s experience, a cave was a hole in a cliff, or a sheltered hollow in the rocks, not a place where the furnishings—bed, benches, and table—had seemingly grown out of the living stone.) For sheer audacity, Chiamh’s scheme had taken the Cavalry-master’s breath away.

“You cannot count on aid from the Xandim,” the Windeye had said, waving the mead flask vaguely in Parric’s direction. His large, shortsighted eyes had been squinting slightly, with drunkenness. “While my folk are fierce and swift to defend themselves against the Khazalim marauders, aggression has never been part of our philosophy.” Parric fielded the flask with practiced adroitness, and took a long swig as Chiamh continued: “From my Vision of which I told you, I know that your friends the Bright Ones must be helped. There is but one way to force the Xandim to fight for you—and that is to become their leader yourself.”

“What?” Parric choked on his drink, and spluttered. Blue flames shot high, as a spray of mead hit the fire. Chiamh thumped him helpfully on the back. “When the moon is dark, you must challenge the Herdlord for leadership, according to the way of our tribe,” he said. “There may be difficulties, of course, for you are an outlander, and not as we are—but our law states that anyone may challenge, and the winner must be accepted as leader—until the next dark of the moon, at least, when he may be challenged again, by some other. Until that time, his word is law.”

“But Chiamh,” Parric had protested, “I daresay I can fight as well as the next man, but what if—”

“Yes, I know. Phalihas has the advantage of his ability to change into horse-form—but if you are a horseman, as you say”—Chiamh shuddered at the word—“then you will have an advantage over him. You see, our tradition is that the challenge must be carried out in equine shape, so if you can get onto the Herdlord’s back and best him, the leadership will be yours.”