With a feigned indifference I thrust it back into the pocket. It did not matter. One way or another, Narayan would lose. For Evarin and Karamy rode a-hunting today—and I knew what their game would be!
Falcons of Evarin
I pulled my cloak closer about me, prickling with excitement, as I knelt between Raif and Kerrel in the tree-platform. Just beneath me, Narayan clung to a lower branch. My ears picked up the ring of distant hooves on frozen ground, and I smiled; I knew every nuance of this hunt, and Evarin might find his deadly birds not so obedient to his call today. Not a scrap of me remembered another world where a dazed and bewildered man had flown at a living bird with his pocketknife.
Coldly I found myself considering possibilities. A snare there must be; but who: Narayan himself? No; he was my only protection until I got clear of this riffraff. Besides, if he ever unsheathed his power, unguarded like this, he could drain me as a spider sucks a trapped fly. No; it would have to be Raif. I had a grudge against the fat man, anyway. I pulled at his sleeve. “Wait here for me,” I said cunningly, and made as if to leave the platform. Raif walked smiling into the trap. “Here, Adric! Narayan gave orders you weren’t to run into any danger!”
Good, good! I didn’t even have to order the man to his death; he volunteered. “Well,” I protested, “We want a scout out, to carry word when they come.” As if we wouldn’t know!
“I’ll go,” Raif said laconically, and leaned past me, touching Narayan’s shoulder. He explained in a whisper—we were all whispering, although there was no reason for it—and Narayan nodded. “Good idea. Don’t show yourself.”
I held back laughter. As if that would matter!
The man swung down into the road. I heard his footsteps ring on the rock; heard them diminish, die in distance. Then—
A clamoring, bestial cry ripped the air; a cry that seemed to ring and echo up out of hell, a cry no human throat could compass—but I knew who had screamed. That settled the fat man. Narayan jerked around, his blonde face whiter. “Raif!” The word was a prayer.
We half-scrambled, half-leaped into the road. Side by side, we ran down the road together.
The screaming of a bird warned me. I looked up—dodged quickly—over my head a huge scarlet falcon, wide-winged, wheeled and darted in at me. Narayan’s yell cut the air and I ducked, flinging a fold of cloak over my head. I ripped a knife from my belt; slashed upward, ducking my head, keeping one arm before my eyes. The bird wavered away, hung in the air, watching me with live green eyes that shifted with my every movement. The falcon’s trappings were green, bright against the scarlet wings.
I knew who had flown this bird.
The falcon wheeled, banking like a plane, and rushed in again. No egg had hatched these birds! I knew who had shaped these slapping pinions! Over one corner of my cloak I saw Narayan pull his pistol-like electro-rod, and screamed warning. “Drop it—quick!” The birds could turn gunfire as easily as could Evarin himself, and if the falcon drew one drop of my blood, then I was lost forever, slave to whoever had flown the bird. I thrust upward with the knife, dodging between the bird’s wings. Men leaped toward us, knives out and ready. The bird screamed wildly, flew upward a little ways, and hung watching us with those curiously intelligent eyes. Another falcon and another winged across the road, and a thin, uncanny screeching echoed in the icy air. I heard the jingle of little bells. Three birds, golden-trapped and green-trapped and harnessed in royal purple, swung above us; three pairs of unwinking jewel-eyes hung motionless in a row. Beyond them the darkening red sun made a line of blackening trees and silhouetted three figures, ahorse, motionless against the background of red sky. Evarin—Idris—and Karamy, intent on the falcon-play, three traitors baiting the one who had escaped their hands.
The falcons poised—swept inward in massed attack. They darted between my knife and Narayan’s. Behind me a bestial scream rang out and I knew one of the falcons, at least, had drawn blood—that one of the men behind us was not—ours! Turning and stumbling, the stricken man ran blindly through the clearing, down the road—halfway to those silhouetted figures he reeled, tripping across the body of a man who lay beneath his feet. Narayan gave a gasping, retching sound, and I whirled in time to see him jerk out his electro-rod, spasmodically, and fire shot after wild shot at the stumbling figure that had been our man. “Fire—” he panted to me, “Don’t let him—he wouldn’t want to get to—them—”
I struck the weapon down. “Idiot!” I said savagely, “Some hunting they must have!” Narayan began protesting, and I wrenched the rod from his hand. The man was far beyond firing range now. At Narayan’s convulsed face I nearly swore aloud. This weak fool would ruin everything! I said hastily “Don’t waste your fire! We can take care of them later—” I waved a quick hand at the three on the ridge. “There is no help for those caught by Evarin’s birds.”
Narayan breathed hard, bracing himself in the road. I beckoned the others close. “Don’t fire on the birds,” I cautioned, tensely; “It only energizes them; they drain the energy from your fire! Use knives; cut their wings—look out!” The falcons, like chain-lightning, traced thin orbits down in a slapping confusion of wings and darting beaks. I backed away from the purple-harnessed birds, flicking up my cloak, beating at the flapping wings. Our men, standing in a closed circle back to back, fought them off with knives and with the ends of their cloaks thrown up, swatting them off; and three times I heard the inhuman scream, three times I heard the lurching footsteps as a man—not human any more—broke from us and ran blindly to the distant ridge. I heard Narayan shouting, whirled swiftly to face him—he ran to me, beating back the green-trapped bird that darted in and out on swift agile wings. The screeing of the falcons, the flapping of cloaks, the panting of men hard-pressed, gave the whole scene a nightmare unrealness in which the only real thing was Narayan, fighting at my side. His gasp of inhuman effort made me whirl, by instinct, flinging up my cloak to protect my back, my knife thrust out to cover his throat. He raked a long gash across the down-turned head of the falcon, was rewarded with an unbirdlike scream of agony and the spasmodic open-and-shut of the razor talons. They raked out—clawing. They furrowed a slash in the Dreamer’s arm. The razor beak darted in, ready to cut. I threw myself forward, unprotected, off balance, ready to strike.
At the last minute talons and beak turned aside—drew back—darted swiftly, straight at me. And my knife was turned aside, guarding Narayan!
But Narayan jerked aside. His knife fell in the road, and his arm shot out— grabbed the bird behind the head, twisting convulsively so the stabbing needle of a beak could not reach him. The darting head lunged, pecking at the cloak that wrapped his forearm; thrown forward, I stumbled against Narayan, carried by my own momentum, and we fell in a tangle of cloaks and knives and thrashing legs and wings, asprawl in the road. The deadly talons raked my face and his, but Narayan hung on grimly, holding the deadly beak away. I thrust with the knife again and again; thin yellow blood spurted in great gushes, splattering us both with burning venom; I snatched the wounded bird from the Dreamer’s weakening hands twisted till I heard the lithe neck snap in my fingers. The bird slumped, whatever had given it life—gone!
And high on the ridge the dwarfed figure of Idris threw up his hands—fell— collapsed across the pommel of his saddle!
Narayan’s breath went out limply in a long sigh as we untangled our twisted bodies. Our eyes met as we mopped away the blood. We grinned spontaneously. I liked this man! Almost I wished I need not send him back to tranced dream—what a waste!
He said, quietly “There is a life between us now.”
I twisted my face into a smile matching his. “That’s only one,” I said. “The rest—” I turned, watching for a moment as the falcons tore at the ring of men. “Come on,” Narayan shouted, and we flung ourselves into the breach. I flung down my knife, snatched a sword from someone and swung it in great arcs which seemed somehow right and natural to me. The men scattered before the sword like scared chickens, and I went mad with hate, sweeping the sword in vicious semicircles against the lashing birds ... the sword cut empty