good.'
'You,' he said, shaking an admonitory finger at the bird, 'are going to wind up too fat to fly.' Hyllarr bobbed his head to follow Darkwind's fingertip, then blinked in mock drowsiness. Darkwind felt his amusement. He turned his head to look at Elspeth, who was fairly bursting with laughter. 'Don't you dare give this away,' he warned. 'I don't know how Hyllarr managed to grasp it, but Father really does need him. This is going to make all the difference in his recovery, if we don't ruin everything.' She nodded. Darkwind smiled his thanks to her.
As soon as they were within sight of Starblade's ekele, he gave a silent cue to the hawk-eagle, who immediately went into full droop, complete with weak, pathetic chirps.
Weak they might have been, but Starblade heard them readily enough.
He appeared at the door of the ekele, leaning against it heavily, with Kethra supporting him from behind, his face full of concern. 'Darkwind?' he said, peering down at them in the gloom of late afternoon,
'What is wrong with-' His eyes widened. 'That is not Vree!' Darkwind gave his father a brief version of the rescue. 'Hyllarr needs quiet, and someone to care for him, Father. He's in a lot of pain. I don't have the time to coax him to eat or keep an eye on that injury-and Kethra's a Healer, I thought she might be able to help him a little.' Hyllarr chose just that moment to raise his head and look directly into the elder Hawkbrother's eyes. 'Hurts,' he said plaintively. 'oh, huuuuurts.' Darkwind suspected that he himself might have worn that stunned expression a time or two. The first time Vree spoke directly into his mind, perhaps. But it was more than he had expected to see it on Starblade's face.
It was only there for a moment; then it was replaced by concern and something else. A fierce protectiveness-and the unmistakable look of the bondmate for his bird. 'Bring him up,' Starblade ordered, turning to go back inside.
Darkwind struggled up the stairs as best he could with the weight of the bird on his shoulders, overbalancing him. He managed to make it to the door of the ekele without mishap, but he had a feeling that the next time Hyllarr went from ground to door, it would be under his own power. Starblade was not going to be up to carrying Hyllarr any time in the near future.
One of the hertasi squeezed by him as he moved inside, and Kethra met him at the door itself. He tensed himself for her disapproval, for Starblade was moving about the room, putting things aside, readying a corner of the place for the 'invalid.' But her eyes were twinkling as she asked, 'Will he let me touch him?'
'Yes, I think so,' Darkwind replied, and as Kethra placed a gentle hand on the hawk-eagle's breast-feathers, she leaned in to whisper in Darkwind's ear.
'You just gave him the best medicine he could have had,' she said softly, 'Something to think about beside himself. Something stronger and prouder than he was, that is hurt as badly and needs as much help.
Thank you.' He flushed, and was glad that it wasn't visible in the darkness of the room.
'He has a cracked keel and wishbone, kechara,' Kethra said to Starblade, who had taken spare cushions from beneath the sand pan all Tayledras kept under their birds' perches, and in the case of Starblade's ekele, for guests' bondbirds. 'He must be in tremendous pain. It will take a great deal of care for him to fly again.'
'He'll have it, never fear,' Starblade said, with some of his old strength. 'You brought him to the right place, son.' His eyes met Darkwind's and once again Darkwind flushed, but this time with pleasure. Starblade actually smiled with no signs of pain, age, or fatigue. Darkwind's heart leapt. That was his father!
Before he could say anything, the hertasi returned, with two of his fellows. Two of them bore bags of sand for the tray; the third had an enormous block-perch, as tall as the lizard, and very nearly as heavy.
The perch went into the tray, and the other two hertasi poured their bags of clean sand all around it, filling it and covering the base of the perch for added stability. Kethra stood aside and watched it all, a calculating but caring expression on her face, curling a length of hair between her fingers.
Darkwind took Hyllarr over to his new perch; the bird made a great show of stepping painfully onto it, but once there, settled in with a sigh; a sigh that Darkwind echoed, as the weight left him. He put a hand to his shoulder and massaged it as he headed toward the exit; Kethra nodded to him with approval.
Starblade took his place beside the perch. The look of rapt attention on his father's face was all Darkwind could have hoped for, and the look of bliss in the bird's eyes as Starblade gently stroked under his breastfeathers was very nearly its match.
*Chapter fifteen - Darkwind and Elsdeth
ifteen His partner and her Companion had waited below while he presented Starblade with his new partner. 'Well?' Elspeth asked as soon as he got within whispering distance, her face full of pent-up inquiry.
'It worked beautifully,' Darkwind told her. He permitted himself a moment of self-congratulation and a brief embrace, then gestured for her to follow so that there would be no chance of Starblade overhearing them. 'He's alreadyup out of bed and fussing around Hyllarr-it's a definite match. I don't think either of them have any idea how well they mesh, but I've seen a hundred bondings and this is one of the best.'
'Is Hyllarr going to heal up all right?' she asked, dubiously.
He shrugged. 'As long as he isn't in pain, it doesn't really matter how completely he heals. Even if the bird never flies again, it won't make any real difference to Father. Starblade isn't a scout; he doesn't need a particularly mobile bondbird. Hyllarr will be able to get by quite well with the kind of short flights a permanently injured bird can manage.
Elspeth considered that. Gwena nodded. 'I see. Injuries that would doom a free bird wouldn't matter to one that is never likely to leave the Vale.
It is rew of pain that matters, not mobility.' He chuckled his agreement. 'In fact, I remember one of the mages from my childhood who had a broken-winged crow that couldn't fly at all, and walked all over the Vale. If it came to it, Hyllarr could do the same. And be just as pampered.
Gwena snorted delicately. 'That makes an amusing picture; Starblade with the bird following him afoot or, more likely, carried by a hertasi. Well, Hyllarr isn't going to get fat if he finds himself walking. I doubt that anyone as frail as your father is right now could carry that great hulk.'
'I couldn't carry him for long,' Darkwind admitted. 'I have no idea how scouts bonded to hawk-eagles
