Owlflight

rabbit, he was quite content to stay in one place with a foot tucked up beneath his breast-feathers.

Snowfire joined the rest of the group around the small fire that Nightwind kept feeding with herbs to keep the insects away. He accepted a mug of cool water from the spring from Wintersky with a nod of thanks, and took his place in the council session that had formed.

“I’ve told the others what the boy told us,” Starfall explained, as firelight flickered and cast odd shadows on his face. “And the very first question I can think of is whether we should involve ourselves at all.”

“I don’t think we can, to tell you the truth,” replied Wintersky regretfully. “I mean, this sounds like an army! And we have how many? Not quite twenty humans, twice that in the dyheli herd, a couple of hertasi and a gryphon. We aren’t exactly equipped to be fighting battles either.”

The fire popped and hissed, blending with the sound of movement of something large, like the sussuration of canvas across canvas.

“I would sssay that one grrryphon isss worrrth an arrrmy, but I rrreluctantly concurrr,” a deep voice rumbled from the shadows behind Nightwind. “It only takesss a sssingle arrrow.”

“It isn’t just an army of men, but of Changechildren as well, and that means a mage is deep in it somewhere,” Starfall put in. “Unless what the boy saw were just costumes or disguises, and I can’t imagine why barbarians would bother wearing disguises.”

“It sounds to me as if someone managed to reconcile a great many Bearclan septs,” Snowfire mused. “Maybe - well, this is a wild surmise, but from what I know about the northern tribes, they attach heavy religious and emotional significance to their totems, and a lot of emphasis is put on taking on the attributes of those totems. Now, what would happen if a mage came along, perhaps in the guise of a shaman, who could give them physical attributes of their totems?”

“He’d own the clan to the point of being able to reconcile all the feuds between the septs,” Starfall said flatly. “And there was someone who managed that, once.”

“Yesssss.” The shadow behind Nightwind rose, and loomed up over her head. “Yessss, therrre wassss. And we all know hisss currrsssed name.” The shadow resolved itself into a shape, and the shape into a creature, a creature with the mantling wings and head of a raptor, but a raptor of enormous size, and with four limbs instead of two. “He wasss called Ma’arrrrr.”

“I don’t think we’re in any danger of seeing another Ma’ar, Kelvren,” Nightwind soothed. “It’s all right.”

But Starfall frowned. “Perhaps. And perhaps not. I can’t help but think that this is a rather nasty coincidence, these barbarians, presumably led or backed by a mage, suddenly moving into territory where no one has yet established a matrix for magic. The difference between a Ma’ar and a petty tyrant is largely a matter of power.”

“All the more reason for you to form and hold the matrix,” Snowfire replied firmly. “That will have to be our first priority, it seems to me. If the boy is correct, most - if not all - of his people escaped. Surely one will reach Lord Breon, and he can take care of the military problem from there.”

“That would be best,” Starfall replied, but with a little reluctance. “We are hardly the group best suited to taking on an army.”

“But think of what it would have meant if sssomeone had ssstopped Ma’arrr when he wasss gatherrring the trrribesss,” Kelvren urged, his eyes glinting in the firelight. “Would it not have been worrrth everrry sssacrrrificssse to do sssso?”

“We can stop any mage just as easily by holding the magic energy of this area away from him,” Snowfire replied. “I think we should concentrate on getting that done first. By then, we should know if the Valdemarans have taken care of the military situation themselves.”

“And if they have not?” Kelvren persisted.

“We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” Starfall said firmly, ending the debate.

The gryphon folded his wings, feathers making a cloth-on-cloth sound as they slid across each other intq precise order. “Verrry well. I will be - rrready. And if they do rrre-memberrr Ma’arrr and hisss waysss - “ Kelvren reached for a log of firewood and purposefully splintered it into several pieces merely by squeezing it. “ - then I will ensurrre that they rrrememberrr grrryphonsss asss well.”

Four