Neither was a courtship gift, as far as Pirvan knew, but each clan had its own customs.
I hope the Gryphons at least require the man to ask the woman’s father for permission to court, Pirvan thought, or Tarothin’s work may be wasted.
Then Pirvan nearly stumbled: he’d been casually contemplating the prospect of his daughter wed to a “barbarian.”
Who has also sworn oaths, he reminded himself, that will ensure his treating Eskaia decently if she wishes to have him, or his taking her refusal decently if she does not.
“Ah, Father,” Eskaia said. “I thought you had retired.”
“Oh, it’s not time for this old war-horse to be unsaddled yet,” Pirvan said.
“No, and when he is, he’ll be ridden even harder than before,” Haimya said. Eskaia and Pirvan flushed; Hawkbrother turned away to hide what Pirvan suspected was a grin.
“I wanted to ask Tarothin what he meant by leaping into the cave,” Hawkbrother said. “But Esk-your lady daughter-she persuaded me you should ask that question.”
“Why should I ask Tarothin any such thing?” Pirvan said. He was confused almost to anger. If there was sense behind this question, it escaped him, and insulting the man who had saved them all needed much reason before he would even think of it.
“He did not realize what he was doing-” Hawkbrother began.
“Are you calling him a fool?” Pirvan almost shouted.
Haimya put a hand on his arm. He shook it off before realizing that perhaps he should not wake both camps and have them listen to this conversation.
“No,” Eskaia said. “Father, could you listen to Hawkbrother?”
“I will listen to anyone who speaks sense, or even one who does not, although not for as long.”
Hawkbrother’s gift for storytelling came to the fore again. It seemed Tarothin had risked everyone’s life, beginning with his own and going on to Redthorn. Skytoucher’s binding spells were potent, her personal magic no less so, and in a rage, she had been known to unleash her powers even on friends. She had certainly been in a rage in the cave, and Redthorn had been taking his life in his hands subduing her.
Pirvan nodded slowly. “I will ask Tarothin if he knew what he faced, which I believe he did. I will also ask you to consider what might have come about had he not done as he had. I do not think even Skytoucher would have been pleased with war between the Gryphons and the knights, or her cave in ruins, or the Gryphons losing a chief and two of the chief’s sons. To think otherwise is to call her a fool.”
Hawkbrother shuddered in mock terror. “Gryphons have been staked out on anthills for lesser crimes. No, no, I will not call her a fool. Nor your friend, either. But if he knew what he faced-”
“Then great songs have been sung for lesser heroes,” Eskaia said. “Perhaps you should make one.”
“Eh,” Hawkbrother said, finally looking as bemused as Pirvan. “I am not that fine a bard.”
“I have heard some of your songs and would say otherwise,” Eskaia said. She might have gone on if Haimya had not coughed.
“I will not speak to anyone save Pirvan, and not much to him until dawn,” Haimya said. “Those who wish to chatter the night away, I leave to do so.”
She put a hand on her husband’s arm again, but with a subtle difference that made Pirvan welcome her touch, and drew him away from the younger folk.
In her festal attire, with a cloak borrowed from one of the men-at-arms, Rynthala walked the battlements of Belkuthas. The cloak was hardly large enough for her, but she had draped her own over her parents when she found them asleep in the outer ward. She had also made sure two guards watched them, and two more the outworks at all times.
She also watched over them when her rounds brought her past them. But most of the time she was staring out over the land to the east. It sloped downward, sharply at first, then more gently, before disappearing into virgin forest that stretched all the way to the plains.
Nothing was moving on the open ground save pinpoints of light and curls of smoke from the torches of farmers, foresters, and guests who lived close enough to chance the journey home at night rather than sleep on the floor in the citadel. She did not expect anything else to move. If an armed warrior did appear, she was more likely to give the alarm than to suspect him of being her future husband.
Still, the old wives would be happier if she kept the vigil, and probably her mother, as well. It was so easy to make people happy, or at least pleased and grateful; even between husband and wife. Although that was probably not true of all husbands and wives, it was true for Rynthala’s parents-extraordinary folk, even among the half-elven.
She came to the northwest corner, and looked toward the forest that way, clinging to the steeper slopes of the mountains as they rose toward the sky. Nothing there, except a glint of light that might be some gnome or dwarf doing forge work too smoky for a cave.
She stood for a while, but saw nothing else, and continued her rounds.
More eyes than two studied the land around Zephros’s camp. But they had no more luck in seeing danger than Rynthala had in seeing men.
It was not altogether their fault. Some of them were seasoned sell-swords, and one woman had the keenest night vision in the camp.
But kender are small to begin with, and deft at hiding. When they become desert-wise, it is as if they possess cloaks of invisibility.
Chapter 7
The Gryphons and Pirvan’s Solamnic band avoided warm friendships, but quickly knit all the bonds necessary for peace, and even alliance. No doubt it helped that Redthorn made it plain how his wrath would fall on any peace breakers among the Gryphons.
Redthorn was in fact so plainspoken in favor of peace, and Skytoucher and the chief’s sons along with him, that Pirvan hardly needed to speak to his own people. He had been choosing them carefully for years; anyone who thought the homeland of “barbarians” began a day’s ride from Tirabot Manor had long since departed his service.
However, for the sake of his own honor and that of the knights, he firmly addressed his company, and while so doing ignored the bored looks on a fair number of faces. Among the most bored were certain men-at-arms whom Pirvan and Haimya had seen “walking out” with warrior maidens of the Gryphons.
“It seems the fascination of the stranger afflicts both men and women,” Pirvan grumbled as he and Haimya were undressing for bed that night.
“You think of Eskaia and Hawkbrother?”
“There are whole hours of the day when I do not think of them.”
“Such moderation in a father!”
Pirvan threw a mock buffet at her head. She replied with a less mock twist of leg and ankle that brought them both down. Pirvan’s head ended between Haimya’s breasts.
“Of course, a man need not be a stranger to fascinate a woman,” she murmured, and tightened her arms around him.
Unseen save by gryphons, the scouts of half a dozen clans of Free Riders, and two kender-Zephros’s men marched across the desert toward the mountains.
They marched slowly, seldom moving beyond the next watering spot in the course of a day, and hardly ever traveling by night. This helped keep down straggling, and allowed deserters from Aurhinius’s camp and the odd sell-sword who did not care whom he followed to join them.
There were enough desert-wise fighters in Zephros’s ranks to keep most of their comrades from doing anything too stupid too often. Straggling also diminished as it became evident that someone followed the band. Stragglers who did not vanish as if into the air were most often found with their throats cut. Sometimes their deaths had been slower.
Strangest of all were those stragglers who were found alive, sun-parched to delirium, but otherwise unharmed save for being stripped of every item of usable gear.