Gods, it's one of the holders. She's going to lay into me for not coming sooner, he thought, squinting at her, and already wincing in anticipation of harsh words. She's going to want to know why I didn't save the old man, or come in time to save the young one. What can I tell her? How can I tell her it was because I was too scared to move until the old man threw himself at the thing?
'Ye saved us, m'lord,' she said, brown eyes wide, the awe in her voice plain even to Vanyel's exhausted ears. 'Ye came t' save us, I dunno how ye knew, but, m'lord, I bain't got no way t' thank ye.'
He stared at her in amazement. 'But - '
'Be ye with the bird-lords, m'lord? Ye bain't their look, but they be the only mages abaht that give a bent nail fer folks' good.''
'Bird-lords?' he repeated stupidly.
'Tchah, Menfree,'tis only a boy an' he's flat paid out!' The newcomer was an older woman, a bit wrinkled and weathered, but with a kindly, if careworn, face. She bunched her cloak around her arms and bent over him. 'Na, lad, ye come in, ye get warm an' less a'muddled, an' then ye tell yer tale, hrom?'
She took Vanyel's elbow, and he perforce had to get up, or else pull her down beside him. The next thing he knew, he was being guided across the ruts of the plowed field, past the carcass of the colddrake (he shuddered as he saw the size of it up close) up to the battered porch of the house and into the shadowed doorway.
He was not only confused with exhaustion, but he was feeling more than a little awkward and out of place. These were the kind of people he had most tried to avoid at home - those mysterious, inscrutable peasant-farmers, whose needs and ways he did not understand.
Surely they would turn on him in a moment for not being there when they needed help.
But they didn't.
The older woman pushed him down onto a stool beside the enormous fireplace at the heart of the kitchen, the younger took his cloak and pack, and a boy brought him hot, sweetened tea. When one of the bearded, dark- clad men started to question him, the older woman shooed him away, pulling off her own dun cloak and throwing it over a bench.
'Ye leave th' boy be fer a bit, Magnus; I seen this b'fore with one a' them bird-laddies. They does the magickin', then they's a-maundered a whiles.' She patted Vanyel on the head, in a rather proprietary sort of fashion. 'He said there ain't no more critters, so ye git on with takin' care a' poor old Kern an' Tansy's man an' let this lad get hisself sorted.'
Vanyel huddled on the stool and watched them, blinking in the half-dark of the kitchen, as they got their lives put back together with a minimum of fuss. Someone went to deal with the bodies, someone saw to the hysterical young mother, someone else planned of rites. Yes, they were mourning the deaths; simply and sincerely, without any of the kind of hysterics he'd half feared. But they were not allowing their grief to get in the way of getting on with their lives, not were they allowing it to cripple their efforts at getting their protections back in place.
Their simple courage made him, somehow feel very ashamed of himself.
It was in that introspective mood that the others found him.
* * *
' - I know it was a stupid thing to do, to run off like that, but - ' Vanyel shrugged. 'I won't make any excuses. I've been doing a lot of stupid things lately. I wasn't thinking.'
'Well, don't be too hard on yourself. Foresight dreams have a way of doing that to people,' Savil said, crossing her legs and settling back on her stool beside the hearth. 'They tend to get you on the boil and then lock up your ability to think. You wouldn't be the first to go charging off in some wild-hare direction after waking up with one, and you probably won't be the last. No, thank you, Megan,' she said to the wide-eyed child who offered her tea. 'We're fine.'
If the settlers had been awed by Vanyel, they'd been struck near speechless by the sight of the Tayledras. They didn't know a Herald from a birch tree, but they knew who and what the Hawkbrothers were, and had accorded them the deference due a crowned head.
All three of the adults were weary, and relief at finding both that Vanyel was intact and that the queen-drake was indisputably deceased had them just about ready to collapse. So they'd taken the settlers' hospitality with gratitude; settling in beside the hearth and accepting tea and shelter without demur.
Vanyel had waited just long enough for them to get settled before launching into a full confession.
'So when I finally managed to acquire some sense,' he continued, 'I figured the best way to find my way back would be to look for where all the mage-energy was. I did everything like you told me, Master Starwind, and I opened up - and the next thing I knew it was nearly noon. Somebody'd opened up a Gate - I think somewhere nearby - and it knocked me put cold.'
'Ha - I told you those things were Gated in!' Savil exclaimed. 'Sorry, lad, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Then what?'
'Well, I didn't think there was anyone around here but Tayledras, so I thought one of them had done it. I started to open up again to find the vale, and I heard a call for help. I got here, and when I saw that colddrake - kill the old man - I just - I just couldn't stand by and not do anything. I didn't even think about it. I wish I had, I think I overdid it.'
'With a colddrake, particularly a queen, better overkill,' Savil replied, exchanging a look of veiled satisfaction with Starwind. 'You may have acted a fool, but it put you in the right place at the right time, and I am not going to berate you for it.'
'Aunt Savil, I,' he flushed, and hunched himself up a little, 'I got here before the old man came out. I didn't do anything until he - I mean - I was just hiding in the bushes. I guess,' he said, in a very small voice, 'I guess Father's right. I am a coward. I could have saved him, and I didn't.'
'Did you know you could have saved him?' Moondance asked, quietly, his square face still. 'Did you know that your mage-powers would work against the drake?''
