Mercedes Lackey - Winds Of Fury

She watched the youngsters a moment more, her heart aching with the need to cuddle them, human and gryphlet alike. But they had not noticed her, and she would not disturb their moment of joy for the world. Too often, the appearance of a parent meant the bad news that the parent would be away for a while. And while the younglings were amazingly resilient and seemed able to play no matter what, there were dark fears lurking beneath their carefree exteriors. When Mummy or Daddy came to say they would be "away," there was always that fear that "away" would mean far away, like Teren and Jeri, and Darkwind and Elspeth - and they might not come back again....

Hydona slipped out again, with a nod of thanks to the Guard and a feather touch for three of the Companions. Her pupils were ready for the front lines; soon all of the mages would be with the troops, and it would be time for that dreaded "going away." Treyvan and Hydona would have to leave the little ones, to take personal command of the mage-troops.

But as she neared the Palace, she saw a horse being led? to the stables, and took a second, sharper look at it.

Rough gray coat; dense muscles; huge, ugly head -

It was! It was a Shin'a'in battle mare!

She spread her wings and bounded a few steps, taking to the air to fly the rest of the distance to the Palace. As she neared, she saw someone - one of the gray-clad trainees - waving frantically to her.

She backwinged to a landing, trying not to knock the poor child off her feet, as the girl braced herself against the wash from her wings.

"There's some 'un t' see ye, Lady," the girl said. "What I mean is, she's seen th' Queen, now she wants t' see one o' ye gryphons."

"Do I go to herrr, orrr doesss ssshe come to me?" Hydona asked logically.

"I come to you, Lady," replied the black-clad Shin'a'in Swordsworn, who emerged from the door behind the trainee. To Hydona's amazement she used Kaled'a'in, not Shin'a'in or Valdemaran.

This plethora of tongues could get to be very confusing, she thought fleetingly as the Shin'a'in sketched a salute.

"It would, of course, be far too difficult for you to enter this door," the woman continued. "I bring greetings Lady, from your kin - "

Then before Hydona could say or do anything, the woman closed her eyes in concentration and began to rattle off a long series of personal messages, messages that were, unmistakably, from Hydona's kin and friends still in the Kaled'a'in Vale. There were something like twenty of them, and the poor trainee simply stood there in bafflement while the Swordsworn recited.

Hydona simply absorbed it all, lost in admiration. "Rrremarkable. How did you do that?" she asked when the Shin'a'in was done.

The woman smiled. "I was shaman-trained before the Star-Eyed called me to this," she said simply. Hydona nodded. Since half of the shamanic training required memorization of verbal histories, twenty messages would be no great burden.

Then Hydona noticed something else. The woman was not black-clad, as she had thought, but was garbed in very deep blue.

Well, at least she is not here on blood-feud! That would have been a complication no one needed right now.

"I am here," the woman said, answering Hydona's unspoken question, "for the same reason that you are here. I am the emissary from my people to k'Valdemar, and in token of that, I brought the Queen a true alliance gift. And I see no reason why you should not know it, since shortly all will." She smiled widely. "It is good news, I think, in a time of bad. Tayledras, Kaled'a'in, and Shin'a'in have united, and are holding open safe exit routes upon the Valdemar border to the west and south. Those places will stay in safe hands. Should all fail, the people of k'Valdemar can do as they did in their past - retreat, and find safe-havens. We, our warriors and yours, shall stay and survive, and work to set all aright."

Hydona felt limp with relief. That had been her unvoiced, worst fear - that somehow Falconsbane would raise the western border against Valdemar, and trap everyone between an army of his creatures and Ancar's forces.

And - k'Valdemar? So, the Kingdom of Valdemar was being counted as one great Clan. And by all the Clans...?

Shin'a'in, Tayledras, and Kaled'a'in...Hydona could guess at only one thing that could have pried the Shin'a'in out of their Plains, or the Tayledras from their forests -

She sent a glance of inquiry at the woman, who nodded significantly and cast her eyes briefly upward.

So. She had sent forth an edict, had She? Interesting. Very interesting. It made sense, as much as anything did these days - and after all, Treyvan and Hydona had been part of bringing it all about. Of course, it was also entirely possible that the Star-Eyed was being opportunistic.

She could be claiming responsibility for events that simply happened, as if it were part of a great Cosmic Plan. Most of this uniting of the Clans and People could have been dumb luck. Still, for whatever reason it happened, there it was, and it was a relief indeed.

This Shin'a'in must have ridden day and night to get here as fast as she did, even with Tayledras Gating to get her to the Vale nearest the Valdemar border!

"Yourrr parrrdon," Hydona said, as she read the signs of bone-deep, profound fatigue that the woman's control had hidden with fair success. "I am keeping you frrrom a rrressst that isss sssurely well-earrrned."

"And I will accept your pardon and take that rest," the woman said, with a quick smile of gratitude. "And when you meet me later - I am called Querna, of Tale'sedrin." Then she turned to the poor, baffled trainee, who could not have been much older than twelve or thirteen, and spoke in careful Valdemaran. "My thanks, child. I have discharged the last of my immediate duties, and I will now gladly take your guidance to the room you spoke of."

"Thank you, warrriorrr! Rrressst well!" Hydona called after her. How many languages did these people know? Hydona felt a moment of embarrassment at her growling accent. Ah, but accents were unimportant as long as words were understood. And those words! Treyvan would be so pleased!

She hurried to find her mate, to give him the good news, with a lightness of step she hadn't felt in a long time.

Now, if their tactics of mistake and harassment would hold, if the innocents could escape, if they could only hold Hardorn's forces long enough for their real weapon to find its mark, then they could celebrate. All the People and their friends together, and the children....

Firesong rode in front of Skif and Elspeth, telling himself that there was no reason to give in to depression. Things were no different now than they had been when this journey began, but giving himself encouraging lectures did not really help. For the past several days he had hidden his growing and profound unhappiness, feigning a careless enjoyment of his role. There was no point in inflicting any further strain on the others, who had their own worries and stresses.

But this land was appalling. The farther into it they came, the worse it got, as if the closer they went to Ancar's "lair," the worse his depredations on his land and people.

Firesong had grown up around the gray and brown of lightbark and willow, sighing-leaf, loversroot and sweet-briar, but the overcast and mud of Hardorn were different, even if the colors were the same as those Vale plants and trees. The grays and browns of Hardorn were those of life departed, not the colors of the life itself. The colors of his robes that had seemed so outrageously bright in Valdemar were sullen and sad. It felt like life had seeped away into the ever-present mud, and he had faded like the colors.

Intellectually, he knew that he had not been prepared for the experience of so many people living together in their cities and towns, and for the problems that caused. Tayledras simply did not live like that, giving each person in a Vale a reasonable amount of space and privacy - and outside their Vales, the land was always wild and untamed in every sense. However, he fancied he had come to grips with the way folk lived here, and certainly he had even come to appreciate some of the advantages.