Owlflight

:Are you certain you wish to do this afoot?: the stag asked, flicking his ears with aloof interest.

:No point in making it obvious that I’m not of k’Valdemar,: he replied, stringing his bow with a little effort. :Besides, if these ruffians see you, they’II probably shoot you for meat.:

The stag snorted with affront and disgust. :Barbarians, then, and ignorant,: the stag replied. :I will tell the others.: And with that, the stag leaped easily and gracefully away, heading unerringly for the encampment. He made scarcely a sound as he ran; the dyheli were masters of their environment, the deep Forest.

Snowfire followed Hweel, nocking an arrow to his bow, making even less sound than the stag. Like the dyheli, the Tayledras were masters of the Forest.

The others were expecting him to return to their base camp with game soon; dealing with this situation would probably not take long to resolve. But having sent the dyheli Sifyra back with word of what he was doing, if he did not return within a reasonable time, some of the others would come after him, and Sifyra could lead them to the right place.

Half of being clever is making certain you are not being stupid. That was a Shin’a’in proverb, and one of his favorites. He might not be one for swift thinking, but he seldom put a foot wrong. Perhaps Nightwind, his lady love, preferred Most battle plans do not survive the initial encounter with the enemy, but she had associated with the gryphons for too long for some of their cavalier and devil- may-care attitude not to have rubbed off.

Snowfire kept every sense alert, now that he was afoot and alone on the ground. He noted every deeper shadow beneath the canopy of the enormous trees here, notedathe tenor of birdsong up in the canopy itself, drank in the scents of forest litter, searching for the aroma of newly-bruised greenery. Hweel did not see everything; it was perfectly possible that there was an ambush waiting here somewhere.

Hweel flew silently up through the lower branches of the canopy; Hweel could fly silently, because he, unlike every other bondbird in the ye’dorkandan k’shulah was a short-eared eagle-owl. Owls flew with no betraying sound at all unless very close, thanks to their soft-edged feathers. And unlike most owls, the eagle-owls were equally adept at day or night flying, making them ideal bondbirds for a scout or hunter who might find himself moving by day or night. Yet there were few of them among the Tayledras of k’Vala, for there were only four breeding pairs in the entire Vale at the moment. Snowfire considered himself incredibly fortunate that Hweel had chosen him as his bondmate.

In such a circumstance as this, he felt even greater gratitude. No one would see Hweel unless Hweel chose it to be so - and that would be a bad thing for the one making the sighting, as it would probably be the last thing he saw. The talons of a Tayledras-bred eagle-owl could pierce the skull of a goat, so great was the pressure behind them, and what they could do to a goat, could easily be done to a man. Unlike his lesser kindred, Hweel was intelligent enough to pick distinct targets for his talons - such as vulnerable eye sockets. Although Snowfire had not yet needed to put such killing power to the test against a man, Hweel had already proven himself valiant and valuable against the Changebeasts loosed by the mage-storms.

:Hurry!: Hweel Sent urgently, and filled Snowfire’s mind with the image of a brute of a man pursuing the boy across a pile of rocks, laughing. The man was afoot now, having left his horse at the edge of the rockfield.

Snowfire broke into a swift but cautious run. He did not want to betray his presence by either noise or movement, so he dashed from the cover of one giant tree trunk to the next, keeping himself well out of sight.

He reached the edge of the clearing just in time to see the man in question catch the boy and haul him up by the collar. Howling with laughter, he held the boy limply from his hand; he was big enough that the boy’s feet dangled some distance off the ground. The boy was as pale as ice, clearly terror-stricken. There were two other men very nearby, mounted on horses, also laughing. Even from here, Snowfire caught an unpleasant scent of rancid grease and stale sweat.

Snowfire eased into the cover of a brush-covered boulder held in place by the massive roots of a nearby tree. Between the mottled shadows at the edge of the clearing and the camouflaging effect of his scout gear, that was quite enough cover to keep him invisible.

One of the mounted men called to the one with the boy; they did not speak Valdemaran, but one of the mountain dialects of the north.

“You caught your rabbit, Cor, now what are you going to do with him?” called the first one.

Snowfire held down his anger; the boy wasn’t hurt yet, although he clearly expected something terrible to happen to him. A mountain barbarian doesn’t normally kill an unarmed captive; they do take slaves, though.

“He’s too small for a work-slave, but he’s pretty enough,” said the other mounted man. “You gonna keep him for a body-slave?”

A body-slave? Do they mean what I think they mean?

“Maybe, if there ain’t enough women to go around - “ the one holding the boy called back, laughing even harder.