Owlflight

signal, he launched himself skyward, followed a moment later by Hweel. Snowfire’s little group of Sifyra and two mares followed at a careful trot. Dyheli had much better night-vision than horses, but the dark shadows beneath the trees could easily hold unpleasant surprises; there was no point in risking broken legs or ankles.

There was another reason for a more leisurely pace - Snowfire rode bareback. Since Sifyra and the mares would pretend to be a set of wild grazers, it would not do to have something as obviously unnatural as a saddlepad strapped to his back. Not for the first time, Snowfire wished silently that dyheli could manage the same smooth gaits as Companions allegedly could. Like all dyheli, Sifyra had a prominent spine, and Snowfire expected to know the position and size of every vertebra in intimate detail before the ride was over. One of his fellow scouts had once described the dyheli as “backbones covered with hair, balanced on four springs,” which was about as succinct a description as Snowfire had ever heard.

If they’d been able to travel at a walk instead of a trot, and if they hadn’t been going into dangerous territory, the ride would have been stunningly beautiful. As impressive as these woods were by day, at night they were far lovelier, at least in Snowfire’s opinion. Of course, he could have been biased in that direction by flying an owl.

The moon was at its full and well up, so soft, silvery shafts of light pierced the canopy and illuminated patches of ground all around him. The night was anything but still; insects and frogs called or sang, and an occasional bird pierced the forest with its call, harsh or sweet. Other birds high overhead called complainingly as their sleep was disturbed, and bats flitted like bits of the darkness itself in and out of the shafts of moonlight, chasing the moths drawn to dance there.

Snowfire was also aware of two other minds linked with his own - the ever-present dignity of Hweel, and the unfamiliar exuberance of Kel.

:We’re waiting for you at the clearing,: Kel Sent back, and Snowfire sensed that he and Hweel were perched side by side in the concealing boughs of a great tree on the farther side. :There’s no sign of any trouble, or any guards.:

Hweel confirmed Kel’s observation without words, turning his head and peering through the darkness so that Snowfire could see for himself. It was very strange to look through the owl’s eyes; from Hweel’s point of view the place was as brightly-lit as daylight, although the colors were very faded. The bondbird’s eyes were so much keener than a human’s that Hweel had no trouble focusing on tiny details far below him on the ground. The barbarians had packed up their two dead and left no real traces of the fight behind, except for a bit of disturbed rock and scuffed earth.

Hweel’s keen sight and hearing alerted him to the smallest movements and faintest of sounds, even so small as a rat or a mouse would make, so if there had been anyone left as a sentry out here, Hweel would have spotted him without any trouble. So, the barbarians had not posted watchers out this far from the village. Did that mean they had simply looted it and left?

I don’t think so; there wasn‘t enough there to loot. I think they had some other purpose in coming there, and that Starfall is right about what that purpose is. They‘re here for power, and perhaps to establish a stronghold here on the border of Valdemar.

Motive was irrelevant right now, though; he was out here to learn facts, not speculate on motive. :Go farther in,: he told Hweel. :Go in until you’ve spotted a sentry, then come back.: Here was another advantage of flying an owl; sentries would neither hear nor see him, and that meant Hweel was never a target in night-stalks. That gave him a degree of security that those who flew other birds didn’t have.

Hweel took off obediently. Snowfire stopped Kel before he could follow :Wait for Hweel to come back; I want to get as near as I safely can before I take to the trees. It might be easy for you two to flit about, but I’m going to have to work to get in as far as the first sentry.:

Hweel returned in fairly short order, and as Sifyra paced swiftly through the trees, Snowfire let the dyheli set their own path as he concentrated on what Hweel had seen.

He directed Hweel and Kel to move nearer to the village, and gave Sifyra the landmarks to look for just as they came to the edge of the rock-strewn clearing. It seemed to his impatient soul to take forever to reach the tree where Hweel and Kel waited, and he knew it seemed like twice that to them. They were ready to go, and Kel probably felt that they hardly needed him.

Well, that’s where those who are inexperienced differ from old hands. I’m Kel’s backup, whether or not he thinks he needs one.

He pulled out his climbing staff as Sifyra approached the giant trunk, and swung the bark-hook at the body of the trunk with his left hand as Sifyra actually came alongside. The hook bit solidly into the bark of the trunk, and he pulled himself up and off Sifyra’s back and onto the rough bark of the tree with his one good arm. As his feet cleared Sifyra’s back, he sank his right palm-cleat into the bark and used the rough soles of his climbing boots to further brace himself in place. As soon as he had a palm grip and secure footing, he swung the bark-hook up for his next step, and worked his way up the trunk like a tree-hare, and nearly as fast. Because he had chosen a tree with rough bark, he was able to keep most of his weight on his legs rather than his arms, but by the time he got to where the others were perched, his hair was damp with sweat and his muscles burning with fatigue.

Kel and Hweel were a pair of oddly-shaped shadows crouched together amid the warm semidarkness here in the boughs. The other two were not too impatient when he reached their bough, a branch as broad as a highway and as easy to walk on. By that time, Sifyra and the mares had found a patch of grass and were pretending to graze on it, with one wary eye out for hunters. “Take me to where the first sentry is, and I’ll stop there,” he told the other two. “Then you can go on; if something goes wrong for you and you can’t fly, I can take out the sentry before he knows there’s anything going on, and leave a hole in the line.”