The Eagle And The Nightingales

Well, she had seen hawks in a panic; they could and did put talons right through a man's hand. T'fyrr was at least ten times the size of a hawk.

Somehow she got him into her room and shut the door; she lowered the bed and put him down on it, dimming the lights. He seemed to be in a state of shock now; he shook, every feather trembling, and he didn't seem to know she was there.

All right. I can work with that. I don't need him to notice me.

Of course not. All she needed was to touch him_and open up every shield she had on herself. But there was no choice, and no hesitation. She sat down beside him, laid one hand on his arm, and released her shielding walls.

It was worse, much worse, than she had ever dreamed.

After a time, she realized that he was speaking, brokenly. Some of it was in her tongue, some in his own, but she finally pieced together what he was saying, aided by the flood of emotions that racked him. He could not weep, of course; it seemed horribly cruel to her that he did not have that release. If ever anyone needed to be able to weep, it was T'fyrr.

He had gone to Gradford, on behalf of Harperus, and he had been captured and held as a demon by agents of the Church. They had bound him, imprisoned him in a cage so small he could not even spread his wings, which had driven him half mad.

She tried to imagine it, and failed. Take all the worst nightmares, the most terrible of fears, then make them all come true. The Haspur needed space, freedom, needed these things the way a human needed air and light. Take those away_and then take away air, and light as well_

How did he endure it? Only by descent into madness....

But that had not been enough for them. Then they had starved him_which had sent him past madness altogether, turned him from a thinking being into a being ruled only by fear, pain and instinct.

As familiar as she was with hawks, she knew only too well what they were like when they hungered. Their entire being centered on finding prey and eating it_and woe betide anything that got in the way. But T'fyrr had never been so overwhelmed by his own instincts before; he had not known such a thing could happen. He retained just enough of his reasoning ability to take advantage of an opportunity to escape provided by the Free Bards.

He did not have enough left to do more than react instinctively when one of the Church Guards tried to stop him.

He did not realize what he had done until after_after he had killed and eaten a sheep on the mountainside, and remembered, with a Haspur's extraordinary memory, what had happened as he escaped. He could not even soften the blow to himself by forgetting....

He killed. He had never killed before, other than the animals that were his food Certainly he had never even hurt another thinking being before. For all their fearsome appearance, the Haspur were surprisingly gentle, and they had not engaged in any kind of conflict for centuries. It was inconceivable for the average Haspur to take a sentient life with his own talons. Oh, there were Haspur who retained some of the savage nature of their ancestors, enough that they served as guards to warn off would-be invaders, or destroy them if they must. But the average Haspur looked on the guards the same way the average farmer looked on the professional mercenary captain; with a touch of awe, a touch of queasiness, and the surety that he could not do such a thing.

To discover that he could had undone T'fyrr.

To learn, twice now, that his battle-madness had been no momentary aberration was just as devastating.

Gradually, he allowed her to hold him, as he shook and rocked back and forth, his spirit in agony. He had come close, so close, to killing again tonight, that the experience had reopened all his soul-wounds. The man who had been nearest him had been reaching for a hand-crossbow at his belt_and that was how he had been captured the first time, with a drugged dart shot by a man who caught him on the ground. The horror of that experience was such that he would rather die_

_or kill again_

_than endure it a second time.

And with her spirit open to his, she endured all the horror of it with him, and the horror of knowing that he could and would kill as well.

His throat ached and clenched; his breath came in hard-won gasps, harsh and unmusical, and every muscle in