Owlflight

brrringing the ssstakesss the herrrtasssI have made. They arrre behind the rrred blouderrr.”

Darian nodded self-consciously. “I heard. I mean, one of the hertasi told me that’s where they were - I didn’t know you’d brought them, though. I hope there’s enough of them.”

Kelvren’s eyes sparkled and a moment later he wryly said, “I think therrre will be - enough.” Then he raised his head, flicking a tufted ear, and blinked a few times before opening his beak. Kelvren paused, roused his feathers, and bluntly asked Darian, “What trrroublesss you?”

Darian frowned. “Was it obvious?”

Kelvren clucked. “If you werrre not trrroubled, I would sssussspect you of not being human. But you arrre trrroubled, ssso, Changechild you arrre not. Ssspeak.”

“All right. Do - you have parents?” Darian asked the gryphon.

“Chah!” Kelvren barked. “No, I wasss borrrn ssspon-taneousssly of an arrrtissst’sss drrream and a villain’sss nightmarrre.”

Darian blushed. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid question. Of course you had parents.”

Kelvren raised his beak up to point at the sky, then looked back to Darian. “If you mean, do I know my parrrentsss and rrressspect them? Yesss. Verrry much ssso. And do I misss them now? Yesss. Verrry much ssso.” He took a step toward the red boulder, and Darian followed. “One doesss not out-grrrow the feelingsss of fledging, jussst the intensssity of the feelingsss. It isss the way of thingsss.”

Darian was incredulous, and stopped in his tracks. “You? You miss your - mama and papa?”

The gryphon walked on without pause and rumbled only, “Don’t you?”

Darian caught up. “Well, yes, but you’re a gryphon - “

“And you arrre a human, and we werrre crrreated by humansss, and live with humansss, and learrrn frrrom hu-mansss, and we arrre farrr morrre like you than you know. Why ssshould humansss have exsssclusssive rightsss to any anxsssiety?”

Darian had to laugh at that. “I guess you’re right. You probably share your gryphon anxieties with us humans, too!”

The gryphon nodded firmly and winked, stopped a few steps after reaching the boulder. “It isss only fairrr, afterrr all.” He pointed his beak, ana Darian was astonished at what he saw.

Stacked in bound bundles of twenty or more were sharpened stakes, in different thicknesses, piled as high as he was tall. There must have been hundreds of them, if not thousands.

Maybe this plan would work after all.

Snowfire had always considered himself to be in fine shape, but the need to favor his wounded arm was throwing everything off a little, including his balance, and as a result, he ached with unaccustomed strain. A full day of work on man-traps had been more than enough to show him that he probably ought to be in better condition than he was. He was stretching and twisting his good arm as he approached Starfall’s clearing and ekele, hoping to ease some of the aches.

Hweel was already ahead of him, waiting on a spare perch beside Starfall’s cooperi hawk. Snowfire carried a rough meal of cold sliced meat, flatbread, and wild berries wrapped in a napkin. Ayshen was not cooking today, for he was needed to help set the traps, and although he would not have complained had he been asked to cook a supper as well, no one wanted to place that double burden on his too-willing shoulders.

Nevertheless, they all had to eat; it would be cold meat, greens, and flatbread for as long as those lasted, and after that, each of them would be in charge of his own food. That was not exactly a hardship for a Hawkbrother; rabbits and tree-hares were plentiful and the birds more than willing to share a catch with a bondmate. Snowfire had already decided that he would see that Starfall ate and drank; if Starfall’s young bird failed to make a kill out of inexperience, Hweel was such a fine hunter that he could have supplied the needs of six people, not just three.

He found Starfall sitting cross-legged in the center of a containment shield in the clearing beneath the willow branches. The Adept’s eyes were closed, but he sensed Snowfire’s presence as soon as the scout arrived, for he motioned to his visitor to sit and wait without ever taking his attention off what occupied him. Obediently, Snowfire did just that, taking weary pleasure in watching the way the light filtering down through the branches changed from pure gold, to reddish gold, to dark red, and finally to the blue of dusk. The clearing could have been in the heart of the deep Forest, it was so quiet and peaceful here, and Snowfire was content merely to rest both mind and body while he waited for the Adept to complete his current task.

He did not even conjure a mage-light; he didn’t want to disturb either Starfall’s concentration or the delicate balances of power within the containment shield. So the ball of blue light that appeared above his head was the Adept’s, not his, and was Starfall’s way of telling him that the work was over for now. There was no outward change to the figure within the shield, but a few moments later the shield dropped away and Starfall stood up,