'He was going to use this bird as some kind of sacrifice, wasn't he?' Elspeth said, her own voice tight with anger. She put a hand toward the hawk-eagle. 'That's not all, Darkwind, this bird is in pain. He hurt it when he caught it.' She had been quicker than he; though she could not sense the bird's thoughts, she had felt its pain. He was glad he hadn't touched the poor thing; he could only have hurt it worse, unknowingly.
First things first; destroy the mage-bindings so that the bird's mind could roam free and it could hear his Mindspeech. Until then, it would struggle against him, thinking he was an enemy, hurting itself further.
The man had been a Master, but no Adept; Darkwind snapped the shackles of magic with a single savage pull but left the physical bindings in place. With a carefully-placed dagger cut, he removed the carved bead. Beneath the bindings, the bird was in a state near to shock, but not actually suffering from that ailment. Darkwind could still touch its mind, talk to it sensibly, and know he would be heard.
He stretched out his thoughts-carefully, gently, with a sure, but light touch.
'Friend,' he said, soothingly.
The hawk-eagle tossed up its head as far as it could and struggled fruitlessly against the bindings. 'NOT!' it Screamed.
'Friend,' Darkwind repeated firmly, showing it a mental picture of its former captor lying in the stained snow. 'the Enemy is dead.' The bird struggled a moment more, then stopped. Its head came up again, but this time slowly, as fear ebbed and the bird's courage returned.
It considered his words for a moment, and the image he had Sent; considered the sound of his mind- voice.
See.' it demanded imperiously.
'I'm going to unhood him,' Darkwind warned. The hertasi backed off, but both Elspeth and her Companion stayed. 'I don't know what he might do. He's bondbird stock, and right now he's sensible, but he may go wild once he can see again.' Elspeth reached forward with gloved hands. 'You need four hands to undo those wrappings. I'll take my chances.'
'Don't say I didn't warn you.' No matter how intelligent, bondbirds were raptors, and likely to do unexpected things when injured and in pain, even one like Vree, brought up from an eyas and bonded before he was hard- penned. And this bird had never bonded to anyone. Still, she was right, and the sooner they got the bird untied, the more likely it was to listen.
The bird had been hooded with an oversize falcon's hood; a little too small; uncomfortable, certainly, and it would have been impossible for the bird to eat or cast through the hood. But Darkwind doubted that this man had made any plans to feed his catch, through the hood or otherwise. He got the end of one of the ties in his teeth, and the other in his free hand, and pulled, continuing the motion with his hand to slip the hood off the magnificent hawk-eagle's head.
It blinked for a moment, as the feathers of its crest rose to their full, aggressive height, the pupils of its golden eyes dilating to pinpoints as it got used to the light. Then it swiveled its head and saw for itself what Darkwind had shown it.
It opened its beak in a hiss of anger and satisfaction, then turned those intelligent golden eyes back to Darkwind. 'Out,' it demanded, flexing bound wings once in a way that left no room for doubt about what it meant. 'Out!' It seemed calm enough, if still in pain. 'Let me get your feet free first,' he replied. 'Then you can stand while I get the rest of this mess off of you.' Once again, the bird gave careful consideration to what he had said, weighing his reply against what it wanted. Darkwind marveled at the bird's intelligence; even Vree seldom thought about what Darkwind told him.
'Good,' the hawk-eagle said shortly, and stopped any effort to free itself. It held itself completely still, and while Elspeth held the huge creature, Darkwind picked delicately at the mess of rags and string muffling the hawk- eagle's talons, and tying them into fisted balls.
Finally he got them free, and Elspeth placed the bird on the saddlepack.
Its talons closed convulsively on the leather, and it flexed its claws once or twice to assure itself of its balance.
The hawk-eagle stood on the saddlepack and looked Darkwind straight in the eyes. 'Good,' it said. 'Out now!' It waited while they picked the wrappings from its bound wings, talons digging deeply into the leather covering of the pack. Those talons were as long as Darkwind's fingers, and the cruel, hooked bill would have had no trouble biting through the spine of a deer. Darkwind wondered at the temerity of the dead man who had caught the bird, mage though he was. Vree could kill a man, with enough precision-and had done so in the past. This bird was nearly double Vree's size, and not only could kill a man, he could do it as easily as Vree killed a rabbit.
If the hawk-eagle hadn't been of bondbird stock-and hadn't Mindspoken with such clarity and relative calm, given the situation-Darkwind would never have dared to unhood him. It would have been suicide. The bird could have seriously hurt him, even bound, with a swift stroke of that terrible hooked beak.
When the last binding had been cut, the magnificent hawk-eagle spread wide, brown-banded wings to the fullest-and winced, dropping the left one immediately. The wing continued to droop a little, after he had folded the right and tucked it up over his back.
He looked at Darkwind demandingly. 'Hurts,' he said. 'Chest hurts, wing hurts. Hurt when fell.' Darkwind ran careful hands over the bird's breast, and quickly found the problem. A cracked wishbone. There was only one cure for that injury; resting quietly, while the bone set and mended. It would take weeks to heal properly, for bone Healing did not work well on birds, and the great hawk-eagle might never fly with the same ease and freedom again. Winter would bring special problems; cold would make the old injury ache, and the stiffness in the wing would make it harder to catch swift prey.
A tragedy-if he continued to live wild. No special problem-if he lived in the Vale.
But a bondbird, when not bonded as a fledgling or even an eyas, was traditionally given a choice. Freedom, or the bond.
Darkwind explained it to the hawk-eagle in simple terms. If he would come and live in the Vale, his life would be thus. He would bond to Starblade, who was himself wounded and in need of healing...It was not his imagination; the bird's interest, dulled by the pain he was in, sharpened at that.
'Show,' he demanded. Darkwind obeyed, showing him mental images of Starblade as he was now-and one of Starblade and his cherished perlin Karry.
