Two scouts breasted a ridge and the army halted. One of the scouts stayed put, while the other galloped towards the emirs to make his report. Ibrahim listened in and told Wayland that outriders had spotted a large gathering of cranes feeding on the other side of the ridge.
They advanced. Wayland heard the cranes’ clarion calls long before he saw them, flocked in their thousands along both sides of a river flowing into Salt Lake.
It was too risky to slip at such a huge number, Ibrahim said. The falcon would be intimidated. Even if flown in a cast, the birds would lose sight of each other in the storm of wings.
‘Who takes the first flight?’
‘Temur, at his own request. The wind will soon be too strong for his sakers.’
Wayland was relieved. If the emir’s falcons failed to kill, the pressure would be off the gyrfalcon.
Half the field advanced in two files and rode a wide circle around the cranes. As the horsemen tightened the circle, some of the cranes stopped feeding and stretched their necks up. Another circuit and the flocks closest to the riders took off with clanging cries. Their alarm communicated itself to other groups. One after the other they flew off. Only about thirty cranes remained when the horsemen halted their encirclement. Ibrahim pointed at the smallest group, indicating that it was the target.
Falcon on fist, Temur cantered upwind towards the quarry. At his side rode another falconer carrying the second saker. They closed to within a furlong before the cranes rose, springing into the air as if their wings were operated by strings and levers. As the last of them cleared the ground, Temur whooped and threw off his falcon.
It flew with speed and purpose, making height to block the cranes’ escape downwind. The five birds in the group scattered, the saker staying true to the quarry she’d singled out. Sensing that they weren’t the target, the other cranes slipped downwind to safety. Only then did the emir’s falconer release the second saker.
Wayland watched fascinated as the two falcons shepherded their quarry into the wind. Temur’s bird strove to pressure the crane, while her partner flew her own course, intent on gaining height. Realising that it couldn’t get past them, the crane sought escape in the sky. It began to ring up, turning in small spirals, the sakers cutting larger circles beneath it. They rose like carousel figures, the wind drifting them south-east. Wayland urged his horse into a canter to keep up. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the difference in the size of the birds made it difficult to judge which one had the ascendancy.
The sakers were no bigger than swallows when one of them put in a jabbing stoop that made the crane sideslip. The stoop was a feint. The falcon threw up, sunlight flaring from her undersides as she rolled over for a second attack. Her partner continued to ring higher. Another sharp dive and the crane rolled and kicked out its legs. It had just recovered when the second falcon delivered a long stoop from a different direction. The tempo quickened, both falcons rising and falling like hammers, never quite making contact. Each feint drove the crane lower. Wayland no longer knew which falcon was which. One of them put in a stoop that connected, drawing a cheer from Temur’s supporters and leaving a puff of feathers drifting in the wind.
The crane decided it was beaten and plummeted with upstretched wings. Wayland had lost sight of one of the falcons. The saker that had feathered the crane poised herself above her quarry, taking aim before hurling down. This time Wayland heard the impact and saw the crane stagger. While he was still watching the saker throw up for the next attack, her partner swept down and bound to the crane’s back. Hunter and hunted fell in a wild whirligig. The second saker tore into the crane and all three birds dropped like wreckage. The horizon tilted back into Wayland’s view. Crane and falcons were spinning to earth at a speed that threatened destruction for all three. Less than fifty feet from the ground the falcons released their quarry. The crane landed with a thump and turned to face its foes with stabbing bill and flailing wings. One of the sakers grabbed it from behind, bowling it over. It lashed out with its feet and then Wayland lost sight of it as a dozen Seljuks galloped up. One of them vaulted off his horse. It was Temur himself. Squeezing through the scrum, Wayland arrived to find the crane dead and the emir with knife in hand encouraging his sakers to feed on its exposed heart. Buglers celebrated the kill. Temur looked round with a manic grin.
Wayland turned and found Vallon. He gave a rueful smile. ‘That’s going to take some beating.’
Some of the Seljuks had ridden after the main flock of cranes and marked down a dozen birds in a small marsh close to Salt Lake. Wayland waited at the southern edge while a hundred mounted beaters combed the reed beds. The wind was blowing hard enough to raise licks of snow from the ground. Ibrahim kept repeating instructions that Wayland couldn’t understand. All he could gather was that he mustn’t make any move without the Emir’s command. Suleyman and his senior officers had stationed themselves about forty yards away. The Emir pointed his mace at Wayland, reinforcing Ibrahim’s warning.
The gyrfalcon’s keenness made her difficult to manage. Every movement on Wayland’s part she interpreted as the prelude to flight, making her lunge and paddle at the air. He’d removed the swivel and looped the leash through the slits in her jesses. Remembering the difficulty he’d experienced when casting her off at the disabled crane, he slackened her hood so that he could whip it off at a moment’s notice.
He concentrated on the Seljuks working their way through the marsh. It was a good set-up. Salt Lake lay more than a mile upwind, its swamps the obvious sanctuary for any crane flushed ahead of him. None had showed itself yet, and the beaters had already combed half the marsh. Fear of committing the falcon to flight began to give way to anxiety that he wouldn’t get a flight at all.
Four ducks sprang quacking from the marsh and cut upwind. At the furthest point of their outrun, they seemed to tread air and then hurtled back as though pulled by cords. The falcon heard them arrow past and bated blind at them. Wayland’s horse shied. He tried to gather it, while struggling to swing the falcon back onto his fist. She’d tangled her leash around the jesses and in her struggles she dislodged the hood. It was the stuff of nightmare — a skittish horse and an unruly falcon, the possibility of game rising at any moment. One of the underfalconers grabbed the horse’s bridle. Wayland slid off and looked for the hood. The horse had trampled it. Ibrahim shoved a spare into his hand and he crammed it on.
Someone shouted and pointed south. Three hundred feet above the plateau and half a mile downwind, a solitary crane was making a leisurely passage towards Salt Lake. Wayland finished unravelling the falcon’s leash. She was panting, but the crane had a lot of air to cover and the haggard would have regained her composure by the time the quarry got upwind.
Ibrahim’s shout jarred him out of his calculations. Wayland looked to see the Emir lashing down with his mace, giving the order to release the falcon.
Wayland couldn’t believe it. ‘That’s crazy! The crane will turn tail before the falcon gets anywhere near it.’
‘Do what you’re told,’ Vallon yelled.
Wayland rode up to Ibrahim. ‘Tell the Emir to wait until the crane passes over our heads.’
Suleyman was riding towards him. Ibrahim headed him off. They shouted at each other, the hawkmaster pointing first at the crane and then at the lake, Suleyman staring at Wayland with an expression that would have made most men fall to their knees and beg mercy. The Emir swept out a hand in fury. With one last glare at Wayland, he pulled his horse round and rode off fifty yards.
Wayland tried to put it out of mind. The crane drew on, gaining height. She must have been at more than five hundred feet when she passed overhead. Wayland drew the leash from the jesses. He watched the Emir, waiting for the order to slip. Suleyman glowered ahead as if he’d lost interest in the proceedings. The crane had worked two hundred yards into the wind. Wayland waited, throwing increasingly anxious glances at the Emir. The crane was now four hundred yards upwind and the Emir hadn’t glanced up.
‘What’s keeping him?’ he asked Ibrahim. ‘If he waits any longer, the crane will have too big a lead.’
Suleyman turned and flicked his mace.
Wayland reached for the falcon’s hood.
Ibrahim lunged for his hand. ‘No!’
‘I don’t understand.’
Faruq shouted something. ‘The Emir’s ordering you not to fly,’ Hero called. ‘He says the crane’s too high.’
Wayland exploded with frustration. ‘He knows nothing. No wonder Temur always beats him.’
Vallon galloped over. ‘Don’t make matters any worse for yourself.’
Wayland glared at Suleyman, then he looked at the crane and with no further thought he struck the falcon’s
