For a time, they watched the Winged Folk working busily sorting, stacking, and packing the contents of the colony’s storerooms into sacks and nets for transport. Eliizar’s folk had enjoyed a good harvest this year, and Aurian and Chiamh looked wistfully at the piles of fruit, vegetables, grain, and dried meat that were all being paraded before them. Aurian sighed. “I wish it were possible to actually steal stuff in this incorporeal form.”
“Ah well,” said Chiamh, “it won’t be too much longer before we’re feasting in Aerillia.”
“I know you can fly tremendously fast in your equine form, but we can’t go as fast as when we ride the winds,” Aurian argued. “It’s bound to take more than a night to get across the desert, though. We’ll be pushing it to get there in three.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll make it,” Chiamh comforted her.
“We’d be a lot more sure to make it if we could get some food from down there, and some extra cloaks and blankets to shelter us from the glare of the desert days.”
When Aurian and the Windeye returned to the others and made their report, however, Linnet spoke up immediately. “We don’t have to go without that stuff.—I can go down and get what we need. I’ll say I’ve just been transferred from Aerillia—they’ll never know.”
The Mage found herself beginning to smile. “What—you just plan to walk in, take the food, and walk out again? As easily as that?”
“No.” Linnet shook her head. “No, I’m not quite that innocent, Lady. I doubt it will really be that simple. I think it is possible, though.”
Aurian nodded thoughtfully. “I believe you’re right.”
“Let me go too,” Wolf broke in eagerly. “No one would suspect a wolf. ...”
“You’re right, they wouldn’t,” Forral said flatly. “They’d just put an arrow through him. This isn’t Eilin’s valley now, Wolf. You’ll stay right here.”
Wolf subsided with a sulky whine.
“Don’t even think about it,” Forral told him firmly. “I’m going to be watching you like a hawk, my boy. You aren’t going anywhere.”
Later that day, after she had rested, Linnet bathed in a freezing mountain stream with the usual disregard that the Winged Folk displayed toward cold, and tried to make herself as presentable as possible. Then she set off flying toward Zithra, taking with her the hopes and good wishes of all her companions. The winged girl’s stomach was taut with a mixture of nerves and excitement. She was well aware how much he depended on her—and just how much danger was involved. She must be very careful not to let them catch her out.—As she reached the outskirts of the settlement, Linnet was hailed in midair.
“Hoi You! Where are you going? Identify yourself!”
The winged girl looked round to see two armed sentries arrowing up at her from the trees on the hillside. Wary of the crossbows that they carried, she descended at once to land in a clearing. As soon as she touched the ground, the sentinels closed in on her. “Where are you from?” one of them demanded. “I haven’t seen you before.”
“Haven’t you?” Linnet retorted pertly. “You haven’t been looking then. I’ve been up in Eyrie, clearing buildings. They sent me down here to help out.”
“Where’s your uniform?” The other guard demanded. “You look like the contents of a ragbag.”
Linnet laughed. “That’s just what I’m wearing. I had an accident yesterday when a bag of rotten fruit burst all over me. They had to kit me out from what they could find in Eyrie while my gear was cleaned—the smell was unbelievable.”
One of the sentries laughed. “I can well imagine,” he said. “All right, girl.—Off you go down to the settlement—they’ll soon find enough work for you down there. Don’t burst any more bags of fruit now, will you?” he called after her as she left.
Limp with relief, Linnet glided down to the main settlement in the valley, where she found a winged captain in charge of the foodstuffs and told her story again. The captain, busy and harassed, didn’t even bother to ask any questions—she was only too glad of an extra pair of hands. Soon the winged girl found herself in a line of workers packing food into sacks for transportation to Dhiammara.
It was a simple enough matter to appropriate two of the sacks: one of cheeses, and one of dried meat, plus a pair of large waxed skins for carrying water.—Linnet simply “lost” the bags and left them in a dark out-of-the-way corner in a lean-to porch on one of the houses. Along with a bundle of old blankets filched from one of the houses, that was all she could carry. It was more difficult to sneak away from the work team, but Linnet chose her moment.—Slipping back between the houses she returned to her precious loot, arranging her burdens as best she could about her person and slinging them in position with rope. Looking carefully around her to make sure she was not being watched, she headed off, flying low between the trees rather than taking to the open skies where she could be spotted.
It had to happen, of course, in a place where the tree cover was thin, but at least the sound of wings overhead served as a warning. Linnet looked up to see a patrol of winged warriors in the distance, heading toward her. Her heart leapt into her throat. Her pilfering had been discovered and they were coming for her! Then she realized that they were coming from Eyrie—entirely the wrong direction. “Idiot!” she told herself Nonetheless, if she couldn’t get herself under cover, there would be some very awkward questions asked. Linnet looked around wildly; then, through the trees to the right of her, she noted the glint of grey stone. A building? Here, so far beyond the settlement? Thank Yinze for a miracle!
The house was a burnt-out ruin, but plenty of hiding places could still be found among the rubble. Linnet slipped into a niche beneath a cluster of beams that had fallen like a child’s jackstraws, somehow supporting each other without falling down. Crouching there in the sooty, smoke-reeking darkness, she listened hard until the sound of wings had completely cleared from the skies.
Dusk was falling as Linnet struggled out from her cramped refuge, straightening her filthy wings with a sigh of relief.
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”
The winged girl stiffened, cursing under her breath. Not now, when she was so close . . .
“Put those bags down and step away from them!”
Suddenly it occurred to Linnet that the voice sounded terribly young. . . .—Stooping as if to slip the bags from her shoulders, she reached down swiftly and picked up a stone from the rubble, turning and throwing in one fluid motion. There was a cry of pain, a crossbow bolt whizzed harmlessly past her left ear to go clattering off a piece of broken wall—and Linnet turned fully, to see two children in the shadows.
Aurian looked at the pair of youngsters, still unable to believe that this lovely young girl was the child, she had helped Nereni conceive. “I’m amazed that you survived,” she said to Amahli “You were incredibly lucky not to suffocate in that cellar when the rest of the house burned above you.”
“It was the wine cellar,” the winged lad explained. “It was ventilated. There was air coming in from the outside all the time.”
Aurian was scarcely listening. She was remembering Tiercel’s father, Petrel, and wondering whether he had survived the attack.
“We had an awful time getting food, though,” Amahli added. “We could only go out at night and forage in the woods....”
“I’m glad you came.” Abruptly Tiercel’s cloak of assumed maturity fell away from him. “We couldn’t have stayed there forever, but I just didn’t know what else to do or where to go.”
The Mage wished that she could so easily hand on the responsibility for everyone. Sadly, that had never happened for years, and probably never would again.