homes of the tervardi. How defensible they were could be demonstrated by the ekeles built outside the Vale; once the ladder to the ground had been pulled up, there was virtually no way to reach them. They were warded against fire, even, by set-spells and a transparent resin painted around the tree trunks well past two man-heights.
Even the ekele here could be made quite defensible simply by destroying the rope-and-truss suspended staircases, making them an excellent place to retreat if the Vale defenses were ever breached.
Gwena must have found her hertasi right away, for there was a tray of food waiting for her, and the herb tea in the pot was still hot and steeping. She helped herself to bread and meat, and collapsed onto her pillow-strewn pallet.
My people build walls. The Tayledras put themselves up in the trees. Differences in philosophy, really. More like the Heralds than like the ordinary folk of Valdemar. they think in terms of evasion, the way we do, rather than the stand-and-fight of the Guard.
She finished as much of her meal as she wanted at the moment, and stripped off her filthy, blood-speckled clothing. Dyheli blood, of course, and not of herself or Darkwind, but it was still going to be a major task to get it out. She could bleach it with magic of course, and she probably would, but that was a waste of mage-power.
Maybe she'd just shift over to scout clothing. It was more practical for all this woods running, anyway.
She wrapped a huge towel around herself and descended the staircase, heading for the spring. Occupied or no, she was going to use it. After all, she deserved a good soak as much as her visitors did; she'd just spent her day doing the same things they had done. She had earned a little luxury.
They all had.
*Chapter Nine - Kethra and Rris
Vree stayed calm on Darkwind's shoulder after they passed the protections at the entrance to the Vale, even though until recently the bondbird had not wanted to enter the Vale itself. The rogue energies of the Heartstone had disturbed Vree badly, and the bondbirds of every other scout as well, but the additional shielding on the Stone seemed to be having some beneficial effect.u 'Are you all right?' he asked Vree, just to be sure. 'We can turn around and leave if you want; I can hold the scouts' meeting at the ekele just as well as here. The mages will just have to climb a rope ladder instead of a staircase, and they'll all have to squeeze into my rooms. I think it would bear their weight.' Vree ducked his head a little, and yawned. 'Fine. Happy,' he replied sleepily. Then, anxiously, 'Food soon?'
'Soon,' he assured the bird. 'Quite soon. As soon as we get to the meeting.' The other scouts would have hungry birds as well; the hertast would have provided a selection of whole game birds and small mammals for the raptors, along with some kind of meal for the birds' bondmates.
For the first time in a very long time, this would be a meeting of daywatch scouts and scout-mages. Stormcloud would hold a similar meeting for those on night-watch. Yesterday Darkwind had asked them to gather because there was something important to be addressed. He hadn't specified what that was.
He had been the scouts' representative to the k'sheyna Council during the most divisive period in their history-the period when Starblade, as directed by Mornelithe Falconsbane, was creating rifts between mages and nonmages, to weaken the Clan and make it easier for Falconsbane to destroy them. Darkwind had been willing to serve then, knowing that no one else had the edge he did, having his own father as chief of the Council. It was a bitter truth that his advantage then was not in currying favor, but knowing the other's weaknesses. He had sometimes been able to manipulate his father. Equally painful to recall was the fact that Starblade had done the same to him.
But now that he was devoting more time to mage-craft, he had less time to spend elsewhere. The scouts were his friends and charges, and with his attentions divided so, they could conceivably suffer for it.
It was time for a change. Now the question was whether or not he could get the others to agree with him. In general the kind of person who became a successful scout was not the kind who enjoyed being in a position of authority, or who relished dealing with those who were.
The best place for the gathering was the central clearing that had been used for the celebration, but that was closer to the Heartstone than Darkwind liked, shielding or no shielding. So he had asked them all to gather in the smaller clearing beneath the tallest tree in the Vale; the one that the scouts had used for dancing.
When he arrived, he found a near replication of the celebration, except that there was no music or dancing, the clothing was more subdued, and the conversation level was considerably quieter. Birds stood on portable perches, the exposed roots of trees, or in the branches, most of them with talons firmly in their dinner, the rest eyeing the mound of fur and feathers with a view to selecting something choice. Brighter mage-lights than those conjured for the celebration hung up in the branches, illuminating everything below with a clear yellow light, sunlike but for its intensity. Tayledras sprawled all over the clearing, eating, talking, or both. Darkwind did a quick mental tally and came up a few names short, as Vree yearned toward the heap of 'dinner,' making little plaintive chirping noises in the back of his throat.
'Hungry!' he urged his bondmate, as Darkwind tried not to laugh at the ridiculous sounds he made. The uninitiated were often very surprised at the calls of raptorial birds; most of them, other than the defiant screams of battle and challenge, were very unimpressive chirps, clucks, and squeals. One species, the Harshawk, even croaked, sounding very like a duck with a throat condition. And owls hissed; not the kinds of things one expected to hear from the fierce hunters of the sky.
But silly sounds notwithstanding, Vree's hunger was very real and quite intense, and the bondbird had more than earned his dinner. Darkwind took him on the gauntlet and tossed him into the air, to give him a little height. Vree gave two great beats of his wings, reaching the lowest of the branches, then dove straight down at the pile, shouldering aside lesser and less-famished birds to get at a fat, choice duck. One of the Harshawks quacked indignantly as the tasty morsel was snatched right from under his talons, and two of the owls hissed angrily at being shouldered aside, but Vree ignored them all. The gyre heaved himself and his prize up into the air, and lumbered off to a nearby branch, where he mantled both wings over it and tore into it with his sharp, fiercely hooked beak.
'Here-' Shadowstar shoved sliced meat and bread at Darkwind, and snatched back her fingers, laughing, when he grabbed for it as if he were a hungry forestgyre himself. 'Heyla! Sharpset, are we? In yarak?'
'Something like,' he admitted, 'It's been a long day, with a mageduel at the end of it.' He took a healthy bite of the food, and bolted it, suddenly realizing just how hungry he was. 'Where are Summerstar and Lightwing? And- ah-' it took him a moment to remember the names of the mages that had been assigned to help the two scouts.
