father had sown several such around the town and castle in his youth, and Elosa preferred not to be reminded. None of them resembled him as Tuy Rorin did, fortunately. A cook's son...half brother? Ugh!
ThunderClaw was a perfect choice for Elosa's purposes, though: very old. No match for IceFire.
'Where are you headed, my lady?' Vonimor asked. The duke had strict rules. In these wild hills, all fliers must report plans and destination before departing.
'Going to meet her princey,' a voice muttered, and there were snickers. Elosa swung around furiously, but she could not tell who had spoken--and she got grinned at.
'To Koll Bleek,' she snapped. She developed a convenient cough from the dust and beat a retreat to windward. The perching wall there was empty, so she went out and leaned on it, staring up at the Rose Mountains glimmering against black sky, half-concealed in equally ruddy clouds. Clouds and ice and no air, or not enough for humans. The birds could fly there, it was said, although why they should want to she could not guess. There was certainly nothing to eat on the High Rand.
Koll Bleek was rightward. She would head that way, lose Rorin, and double back alone. He would have to report her missing. The search would keep her father occupied. Dangerous, true. Not very kind, true; but she would not be a very convincing messenger if her father turned up a few hours later with the same message.
Or a different message? There was an interesting thought!
Then Tuy Rorin was back, wearing a battered old flying suit with more patches than IceFire had feathers. He was setting to work with a hooding pole. She marched back into the melee to watch. 'Never trust a groom unless your eye is on him.' So her father had told her a hundred times. One loose girth is enough.
Rorin, though, knew what he was doing. IceFire and ThunderClaw happened to be neighbors, so he need hood only them and the two on either side, dropping the big bags on them from a safe distance. The birds turned their heads and glared angrily when the hoods appeared, but they froze like mountains as soon as the bags were on--only then could they be safely approached. He clipped a safety belt to the bars, scrambled nimbly onto the wall, and reached under the hoods to strap on the helmets. Her father said it was even safe to touch the great raptor beaks under the hood, as a hooded bird would not move. She did not intend to try, ever.
At first Tuy could not find Elosa's own saddle and offered her another, which she declined. She would be sore enough after a trip to Vinok and back.
When he had the birds saddled and unhooded, Rorin fetched two bows and quivers, grinning impudently. Her archery was notorious.
'Ready, my lady.'
'Thank you, boy,' she said graciously. The birds were blinkered and safe to approach. He gave her a hand to scramble onto the wall and then up into the saddle and stirrups--a hand too helpful to be respectful. Impertinent wretch! She heard the leashes clatter loose, and he swung up easily onto ThunderClaw at her side, ignoring the envious jeers from his dust-smeared comrades left behind. The bird settled slightly on her haunches under his weight. Elosa, stretched up as far as she could, was just able to reach IceFire's comb. She stroked it and felt the bird rumble with pleasure. She was suddenly very nervous at the start of this adventure, but Tuy was waiting, eyeing her expectantly.
'Ready!' She pulled back on the reins, and the blinkers flipped open. As always, IceFire instantly swung her head around to the left--it was an annoying trick of hers. Perhaps she merely wished to see who had mounted her. Perhaps her intent was more sinister, for a bird could easily bend its head far enough to bite its rider. Whatever IceFire's motive, it was always balked, for the left rein went slack at once and the blinker sprang back over the huge golden eye.
IceFire straightened and then launched, and Elosa felt once more the vast surge of excitement and dread as she fell into the void, the rush of cool air, the secret fear that perhaps this time the wings would not open--it was simultaneous terror and exhilaration, the sensation that made flying the greatest thing in the world. If love was greater, then she had yet to find out and would be much surprised at the discovery. With her free hand she signaled for wings and got them; a slight easing of the right rein swung her mount toward the left updraft. Rorin had expected the other and was already turning. He shouted angrily and corrected. She'd show him!
She streaked down over a great darkness and felt the surge of cold wind, as familiar and constant as the castle corridors. She banked IceFire, glided across into the warm thermal, and began to circle. Where was Rorin? She looked around, puzzled, and saw that he had taken her air, was already above her, and close enough that she could see the grin under his goggles. That was his post, of course, but she was annoyed that he had managed to get there so easily.
In graceful stillness, the eagles soared upward above town and castle. The sun stood clear on the skyline now, a bloated red egg blotched with magenta dust clouds--if that was an eagle her mother had seen in it, then it was seriously diseased.
Elosa swooped without warning to catch the stronger thermal from Grassy Ridge. Rorin held formation as though he were tethered. ThunderClaw might be old, but she was experienced, and Rorin had inherited his real father's skill at flying. Even an old bird like ThunderClaw could fly all day if need be. The birds' wings never seemed to tire, unless they had to beat them, and that was a sign of very bad guidance.
They rose higher and higher yet. Ninar Foan was a tiny scab of buildings on its spur, and even the spur was dwarfed now by the jagged hills around. The sun was clear of the horizon, almost white, smaller and much too bright to look at.
'That's high enough, my lady!' Rorin shouted. He was getting nervous, and truly the air was thin. Her chest was heaving with the strain. Obviously she would not be able to elude Rorin. So a future queen of Rantorra would have to meet her prince in the company of a cook's bantling. That thought burned.
They were almost into the cloud cap, and her head was about to burst. She crested IceFire and dived.
In a moment, the air felt better and her eyes cleared. She twisted around and saw that ThunderClaw was still in position. Damned good flying, she admitted grudgingly.
At this height the sun was fierce in a blue sky, the horizon below it blazing white beyond the shadowed edge of the Great Salt Plain which ran all the way to the hot pole. Ahead and below her lay the giant's jumble of jagged blocks and mountains that formed the Rand--browns and reds mostly, speckled here and there with welcome patches of green near springs and at the base of ice falls, tumbled down in divine chaos from High Rand to Salt Plain, a giant's staircase, the shadowed sides featureless pits of sterile blackness.
To her left the Rose Mountains glowed pink beyond the terminator, tips of ranges buried in the great petrified ocean that covered Darkside. Darkness and vacuum on one side, deadly heat and thick red air on the other, and the barely habitable harshness of the Rand between. Yet it was only the coincidence of middle elevations and terminator that made even Rantorra habitable at all.
Could she reach Split Rocks? She wasn't certain. If she fell short, then she would have to swing over to Gimaral, and that would be a wide detour. She toyed with the idea of asking Tuy's advice and rejected it. Go for it! She held her course, stretched prone along IceFire's back, glorying in the cool caress of the wind, watching the jagged peaks rising on her left and seeming to creep closer.
This was living.
Even the greatest thrill in the world can pall after many hours, and Elosa was truly grateful to see Vinok ahead. She had made good time, only once falling short of the thermal she was aiming at, having to glide sunward and find another and then backtrack. But she was stiff and cold and very thirsty, her canteen long emptied. Rorin was puzzled by the unexpectedly long journey. At first he had brought ThunderClaw in close and tried to make conversation, but she had deliberately refused to explain.
Always the great slope of the Rand lay ahead, climbing higher to bright peaks against dark vacuum on her left, falling away on her right into black velvet, adorned by the silver horizon under the sun. From time to time she passed over areas with springs, green blessings in a rock desert, most marked by solitary cottages of the herdsmen who guarded livestock from the wilds. She saw some of them at their lonely work; it took much meat to feed the duke's eagles.
Then she saw Vinok, a minute tower, square and pointed, standing on the lip of a cliff with a good thermal. Behind it rose a long, barren, rubbly slope leading up to yet another great cliff. There was no sign of the prince's party, and the tower was deserted, one tiny work of mankind in a vast wilderness. A narrow green gully nearby told of a small spring.
