Storm Breaking

shrug of deeply felt helplessness. 'The fortunate died.'

'And the unfortunate lived,' added one of his advisers grimly. 'Though often, that was not long, when they made the mistake of approaching others for help. It wasn't always their bodies that changed, at least not outwardly.'

Tremane exchanged a significant look with Darkwind. This was something he and his people had thought of at about the same time the potential for trouble occurred to the Allies. But while those in Valdemar had been concerned with prediction of where the change-circles would occur, and thus preventing people or large animals from being caught in one, the people in and around Shonar had planned on what to do when a human became a monster.

Until this moment, that had been nothing more than a possibility. Now they knew that there were transformed humans somewhere out there in the north, and it was time to put some of those plans into action in case the hapless victims trekked south. Tremane wrote something on a small slip of paper and passed it to a page to take to his clerks. The orders, already written out, would go into the troops' daily briefing. In essence, they were simple enough; Humans have been caught in the Storms and changed. If a boggle shows intelligence and no aggression, be wary—but leave it alone long enough for it to show its intentions.

There had been some debate on the subject, with a minority objecting to the mere idea of giving a boggle the chance to attack first, and a second minority wanting to make attempts to communicate with every boggle that even paused for a moment before attacking. Finally, to end the debating, Tremane had exercised his royal prerogatives and decreed the language of the order, which predictably did not entirely satisfy anyone, not even Tremane himself.

Darkwind had noticed, however, that Tremane had applied enough of the Imperial manner not to care if anyone was satisfied (including himself), so long as his decree did the job for which it was intended.

Neither of them could ever have guessed the immediate effect of that simple order.

Not more than two days after sending Baron Peregryn and his entourage and gift sledges off, during yet another ceremony of seisin—this time for the benefit of a very old Squire who had sent his informal pledge some time earlier, but who had not felt equal to taking the winter journey until now—they learned exactly why the signal- towers had said that something was coming down from Iftel.

No one there could have expected just what the somethings were.

Tremane had just added his blood to the soil that old Squire Mariwell had brought with him, when a great clamor arose up on the walls of the manor. Darkwind started and looked up automatically, although he wouldn't be able to see a thing through the stone walls and ceiling. With great presence of mind, Racky took the casket of earth from Tremane's hands, mixed the contents quickly, divided them and handed the old man his own casket back, while all about him, his elders were behaving skittishly, staring and muttering among themselves, hands on empty scabbards. Before Tremane could send to find out what the cause of all the ruckus was, and right after Racky pressed the casket of soil back into its owner's shaking hands, one of the King's bodyguards came bursting into the Great Hall, his face as white as the snow outside.

'Boggles over the castle!' he cried. 'Oh, by the gods! Great, huge, flying boggles! So many they cover the sky! Oh, gods, help us...'

Elspeth held up her hand to shade her eyes, and squinted up at the dark shapes hovering in the brilliant blue sky above the courtyard. It was too soon yet to say just what these 'boggles' looked like, other than the fact that they were winged, but there was something about those black V shapes and the way that they swooped and soared that looked tantalizingly familiar.

They remind me of Treyvan and Hydona, but they don't fly exactly the same way. Could they be gryphons? There've been rumors of gryphons in the north for years now...

'Remember your orders, men,' Tremane called to the nervous sentries on the walls and towers above. 'No shooting without provocation.'

Pray they don't take simple swooping as provocation!

'There're exactly twenty-one of them,' Darkwind said absently from her right, as he peered upward into a sky blindingly bright. He bit his lip and she sensed that he was thinking hard for a moment, then his eyes narrowed as if he had just made a decision. He extended his gloved hand to Vree, who transferred his perch from the shoulder to the gauntlet with that intensity of gaze that told Elspeth he was getting silent instructions from his bondmate.

A heartbeat later, Darkwind flung Vree upward, and the bondbird pumped his wings skyward, heading straight for those twenty-one mysterious Vs. 'I'll know in a moment just—' He began, his eyes half closed.

Then, unexpectedly, he laughed, the sound echoing across the otherwise silent courtyard and making just about everyone in Tremane's escort jump and stare at him as if they suspected he had gone mad. He brushed his snow-white hair back from his forehead, and pointed up at the 'boggles,' then at Vree, who had reversed his climb and was making a leisurely descent.

'Tell your men to put their weapons away, King Tremane,' Darkwind called, holding out his gloved fist for the returning forestgyre. Vree flared his wings, ruffling Darkwind's hair, and landed as lightly as a bit of thistledown, settling his talons gently around the leather-covered wrist. 'I suspect that's your delegation from Iftel up there, and