Mercedes Lackey - Owlflight

“I couldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for Huur,” Darian said hastily. “She is all right, isn’t she?”

“One broken feather, and a ruffled temper, which she has flown off to cool,” Snowfire assured him, and looked around at the wide-eyed group of villagers surrounding them. He switched to stilted Valdemaran.

“I believe we hold Errold’s Grove, and need not fear the return of the barbarians tonight,” he said, raising his voice. “I believe it is safe enough to stay and sleep, and in the morning, begin to rebuild. If you will go to your houses, we allies of Valdemar will secure the place against intruders.”

Still shocked and bewildered, ready to listen to anyone who offered a voice of authority, they trailed back to their houses by twos and threes. Snowfire divided the Hawkbrothers into three groups of five, leaving out the two worst wounded, to take night-watches. “Is there anyplace you can go to rest?” he asked Darian, with a hand resting lightly on his shoulder. “Would anyone give you bed space? You have done more than enough for one night!”

Darian felt each and every separate bruise aching, thought longingly of Justyn’s little cottage, once despised, and nodded.

“Go then,” Snowfire said, giving him a gentle shove. “I will see that you are awakened in the morning.”

Already those not on the first watch were putting out the fire in the blazing stable; soon concealing darkness hid the signs of battle, leaving only the acrid scent of smoke in the air. Darian trudged toward Justyn’s cottage, wondering what he would find there.

What he found in the light of a single lantern was signs of recent occupation; the furniture was gone, probably broken up for firewood. The contents of the shelves lay piled in a corner, discarded as worthless, including all the bad paintings of famous mages, and there were bedrolls spread across every available bit of floor. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of sweat, burned food, and unwashed bedding; he took the time to throw all the bedrolls out the door and open the windows. The fireplace hadn’t been swept in ages, and it seemed that when the barbarians finished eating, they tended to pitch what was left into the fire, for it was littered with bones and burned crusts - hence the odor of burned food. Darian climbed the ladder to his loft bed, and discovered it was the one corner of the house that hadn’t been touched, probably because his little bed was too short for any of the barbarians.

With a weary sigh, he tumbled into bed, leaving the lantern to burn itself out.

It was the sound of horses and men’s voices that woke him in the gray light of dawn, and before he was even properly awake, he tumbled down out of the loft and emerged from the cottage with a poker in one hand, ready to do battle all over again.

But it wasn’t the barbarians who had returned; the noise was the arrival of a rescue expedition. Men on horses milled around the square, all of them wearing Lord Breon’s colors and badge; more men afoot were rounding up loose livestock and confining it in hastily-built corrals. Darian put down his poker and scratched his head, watching all the activity with a sense of bleary bemusement.

After another moment, he quietly got himself a bucket of water and used it to clean himself up, wincing as he scrubbed a body that was black and blue from neck to knee. Once clean and marginally presentable, he went back out and joined the milling people, picking up what had happened this morning by listening to fragments of conversation.

Lord Breon had gotten Starfall’s message and had gathered his men to respond to it - but on the way, he had encountered the thoroughly demoralized barbarian foot soldiers, and had fought an unequal battle with them. Then, having defeated the barbarians, he had been stopped by the rockfall, and had been forced to find a place to ford the river to get to the road on the other side. By this time, of course, they were certain that they would find Errold’s Grove occupied by a hostile force, and had only hoped to catch the remaining barbarians by surprise. Ready for battle, they had clattered over the bridge a little before dawn only to encounter the sentries; after learning that the town was in friendly hands, they had made enough noise to wake up most of those who were sleeping.

When Darian wandered in, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, Lord Breon himself was in earnest consultation with Snowfire, with townsfolk standing awkwardly about, still looking dazed and bewildered, though most of them had cleaned themselves up and found more presentable clothing. They formed a sad contrast with their once-respectable selves, however, and looked rather as if they had grabbed whatever would fit with little regard for the sex or size their garments were originally intended for.

Snowfire spotted him and hailed him with relief. “Here! Little brother! Your command of the tongue is better than mine, come and help me with this!”

Not at all reluctant, Darian ignored his bruises and aching bones, and trotted to Snowfire’s side, feeling flushed,with pride. When Snowfire was at a loss for words, he translated. Lord Breon, a neat and handsome gentleman of middling age and height, clothed in a businesslike suit of riveted armor, brown of hair and eyes and beard, took the Hawkbrothers completely in stride. But Darian’s fellow villagers started every time any one of them moved suddenly, and kept circling warily around the birds. To Darian’s relief, he caught sight of Huur, Hweel, and an awkward-looking youngster dozing on the rooftree nearest Snowfire, where they had evidently been most of the night, with Daystorm’s bondbird corbies keeping the natives at a respectful distance.

“My Lord Snowfire,” Lord Breon said when they were finished, a look of profound respect in his eyes, “you have certainly kept things well in hand here. I am sure that the Queen herself will want to thank you eventually.”

Snowfire shrugged. “We are allies, are we not?” he pointed out. “And if you had not intercepted the foot troops before they returned, we should probably have been forced to defend ourselves from them as we marched these folk toward your holding and safety. Now they need no longer seek shelter among your people.”

“Beggin’ your pardon!” Lutter spoke up, interrupting him. “But we need to know what we’re to do now.”

The man was a far cry from his former, prosperous self. He had changed his clothing, but it hung on him loosely, and his middle-aged face bore signs of both fresh and not-so-recent bruises in purple, black, green, and yellow.

“What are you to do?” Lord Breon looked at him askance. “Why, pick up your lives, man, what else?”

“Pick up our lives?” he replied, aghast. “What are you talking about? How can we pick up our lives? There’s nothing left here! The barbarians took it all - what they didn’t eat, they destroyed! We’ve no crops, no food, no herds or flocks, how are we to get through the winter?”

Dorian snorted with contempt, and all eyes turned toward him. Snowfire looked at him curiously, Lord Breon with surprise, and Lutter with astonishment turning to anger at having been interrupted by the village scapegrace.

“I’ll tell you what you’ve got!” Darian said hotly, amazed at their stupidity. “You’ve got your homes back, you’ve got a pile of weapons and armor that ought to be worth something. You’ve got a dozen or more real warhorses that are each worth the price of a good house, and you’ve got a whole lot more regular horses, too! You’ve got mules and two wagons, whatever was in those wagons, and you’ve got the whole Peligiris Forest to hunt dye-fungus in. You can buy food again, you don’t have to grow it! What are you complaining about?”