Owlflight

He stammered his thanks, and helped Nightwind pack up the grooming utensils, aware in a dazzled fashion that he had gone in the past few days from having no choice in his future life to having a bewildering array of choices.

He did not remain dazzled for long. First we have to get through this. Then I have to make sure that no one in Errold’s Grove thinks he still has any claims on me. Then - then I have to learn how to be a mage and a Hawkbrother. The enormity of the tasks still ahead of him sobered him quickly.

He glanced up at the sun, and judged that someone would probably come looking for him shortly. “I ought to go find Snowfire,” he began,

“Snowfire has already found you,” Nightwind chuckled, and pointed over his shoulder. He turned and saw the senior scout coming out into the sunlight by the side of the pool.

The Hawkbrother eyes widened in surprise at the sight of Kel and Nightwind, though his lips curved in a slow smile. “Welladay!” he said, with appreciation in his voice. “I find all three of the folk I needed to gather, and all in one spot. Very efficient.”

“Pure coincidence,” Nightwind pointed out. “But as you can see, we are ready to take our posts.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Snowfire told her, with a little salute. “Unless you can think of anything you need to know, I’ll leave you to handle the business of guarding Starfall as you see fit.”

Darian had the feeling that Snowfire had intended to give Kel and Nightwind some careful instructions, and on being confronted by a pair of properly equipped professionals, had quickly revised his plans.

“Thank you for your confidence, Snowfire,” Nightwind said, without a hint of her usual irony. “I hope we will prove worthy of it. Now, I take it that you have come to fetch’ your guide?”

“I have,” he said, and turned his attention to Darian. “I hope you are ready, little brother, because we need to set off soon if we are to be in place after dark.”

Darian nodded, unable to trust his voice, for he knew that the fear rising within him would make it shake. Even if he wasn’t brave, he didn’t want Snowfire to guess. I have to go through with this. I let Justyn down; I’m not going to do that to Snowfire.

“Come, then,” the Hawkbrother said. “Nightwind, Kelvren, wind to thy wings.”

“Good hunting,” Kel said, as Nightwind sketched a salute to both of them, with a sly wink to Darian. That made him feel a little better; he managed to get out a proper farewell and followed in Snowfire’s wake to where the rest of the Hawkbrothers were gathered. His heart was in his mouth, and he felt queasy, but what needed to be done would be done.

For the most part, the journey was a blur to Darian; the Hawkbrothers set a pace he would never have been able to match if he had not been riding the horse stolen from the barbarians. He could not for a moment imagine how they managed to keep up that steady lope for furlong after furlong. With Hweel and Huur providing “eyes ahead,” they kept up the grueling trek long after sunset, and finally came to a halt somewhere in the deep woods after full darkness fell.

“Dar’ian, you must get off the horse now,” whispered Wintersky, who had been holding the beast by a lead rope to prevent it from bolting off the way it had the last time. “We will turn the beast loose here, for we are now going down to the river.”

Darian dismounted stiffly; the horse’s trot had not been a comfortable gait, especially not for someone who never had been much of a rider. Wintersky untied the rope from the horse’s bridle, and used it to flick the beast on the flank. With an indignant squeal, it trotted off into the darkness, leaving them all standing beside one of the enormous trees. Beneath the whisper of wind in the leaves above, Darian heard the sound of the river; it couldn’t be too far off, then. They were very near their goal, the end of the aqueduct that carried water to the village.

“Come,” Snowfire whispered; somehow he had replaced Wintersky at Darian’s side. “Do not fear to keep up; we must go slowly now, avoiding the sentries.”

As gruelingly swift as the pace had been before, it was now just as agonizingly slow. The Hawkbrothers moved from cover to cover, slipping in and out of the shadows like silent shadows themselves, and far quieter than Darian was. Darian winced every time he stepped on a rock or a twig, for the sounds he made sounded as loud as shouts in the relative peace of the Forest.

But there were other things making sounds out here; he was amazed to realize how loud deer were, as they came across a pair of does and a fawn, feeding. He’d always thought that deer moved silently, but they tramped through the sparse underbrush as noisily as he.

At last they reached the river itself, with no signs of sentries that Darian could see. But then, what did he know? Hweel, Huur, and Snowfire were probably the only ones who would know where sentries were, and the point was to avoid them.

The brush along the rocky riverbank was much thicker than under the heavy shade of the great trees; they