All the rest of the day Borel loped, and just ere sunset he broke free of the forest, and across a grassy field stood a wall of twilight, where Buzzer awaited. “Here be the first of three borders of which King Arle spoke,” Borel said, and into the marge he jogged, and when he and Buzzer and Flic emerged on the far side, they came into a savanna stretching away for as far as the eye could see. In the distance a great herd of some sort of beasts were agraze on the veldt.
As darkness fell, Borel made camp within a stand of spiny acacia, the thorn-laden trees a bit of protection against wild predators, though perhaps not all.
35
Soaring
“M y love,” said Borel, “I have seen the world from above, and I would take you there.”
“Are we to go to a mountaintop?”
“Something much better, ma cherie.”
Chelle smiled. “Then let us away.”
Hand in hand they stepped through the enshadowed door and out onto a broad, windswept ledge upon a looming mountainside. Snow shone white on the crest above, wooded slopes lay darkly on the flanks below, the trees leading down to a deep forested valley, where a glint of a river hinted at its existence in the light from the waning moon, a thin crescent in the sky. To their right a torrent of meltwater thundered onto the ledge and then cascaded on downward into deep shadows ’neath.
“It is beautiful up here,” said Chelle. “But I thought you said we were not to go upon a mountain.”
“This is but temporary, Cherie,” said Borel, stepping behind her and clasping her in his arms. “Here comes our mount now.” And he pointed, and silhouetted against the starry sky came winging a Great Eagle.
“Do not be afraid,” whispered Borel.
“I’m not,” said Chelle, and she pressed Borel’s arms tighter about.
With a graceful turn the mighty bird glided down to settle upon the broad shelf, and then stepped ’round and to the verge and waited. “After you, Cherie,” said Borel, and he handed her up to sit on the eagle’s back, and he took seat behind.
“Away,” he called to the eagle, and the raptor leapt from the ledge and flew into the air.
Up they soared into the night sky and out over the forest below, the mountainside falling away as eagle wings stroked atmosphere.
“Oh, but how splendid,” cried Chelle, enraptured. “Would that we ourselves had wings.”
High over the terrain they flew, and they left the woodland behind, and far below they could see farm fields looking much as would an echiquier, squares awaiting echecsmen-spearmen, hierophants, kings, queens, towers, and chevaliers all that were lacking.
They flew over campsites, some with small fires ablaze, others with nought but ruddy coals aglow, still others dark. Over lakes they soared, some with night fishermen casting their lures. Wild horses ran across plains, and then in the sky beside them a vee of honking geese flew by heading for a place only they knew.
“Oh, my Borel, how did you ever-?”
Of a sudden the air shuddered and jolted, and Borel — woke to a thunder and rumble and a juddering of the ground.
He sat up in the dawn as hundreds of strange wild beasts like an engulfing, dark flood raced past the acacia grove, but whether running from or to, Borel could not say.
Somewhere in a distant aerie, a Great Eagle awakened disturbed.
36
Large as cattle they were, though leaner, these racing animals with oxlike heads and horns curving down and then up. And their manes and beards and long, tufted tails blew in the wind of their passage. Around each side of the grove they thundered, the thorny stand nought but an island in a sea of running darkness. Long did they hammer past, and among them ran spindly-legged calves; and dawn fled with this uncountable herd, for when the last animal pounded by, through the swirling clouds of the dust of their passage the new-risen sun could then dimly be seen standing ruddy red on the horizon.
Flic, upon the very top branch of the tallest acacia, with Buzzer just below, called out, “What were they, or, rather, what are they?”
“I don’t know,” said Borel, “I’ve never seen such before.”
“Well, they numbered in the thousands, I think,” said Flic.
“More like in the tens of thousands,” replied Borel, “if not ten times even that.”
Long did Borel watch as they receded, while the whirling motes blew away on the wind, then he turned and peered the way they had come; in the very far distance down through a shallow, league-long swale and up the gentle slope beyond, he could just make out a group of ocherous beasts crouching ’round something, as if tearing at a victim and feeding.
Borel strung his bow.
Then he sighed and turned to the camp and said, “Come, let us break our fast and then be on our way.”
All day Borel ran across the savanna, passing large herds of grazing animals: some were dark-and-light-striped, others dun and cream, or brown and white, or black and brown. Once Borel paused to watch a spotted cat of some sort run with amazing speed to haul down a small but agile deerlike creature. And then he took up the run again.
They stopped in the noontide to take a meal nigh a broad pond. And when Borel stepped down to replenish his waterskin, he did so quite warily, for opposite and watching him one of the tawny hunters lay in wait.
After the meal, Borel took up the Wolftrot again, oft passing through herds of widely scattered animals, and for the most part they seemed to pay him no heed, but he knew they were watching. Now and again one would be directly in his path, and, as Borel drew near, the animal would dash off a short way and then stop and eye him skittishly, as if wondering if he would pursue, for here it was that hunters lurked ’round the edges of the hunted, and this two-legged thing might be either. They were plains animals all, and so the veldt teemed with life and pursuit and occasional death. But Borel himself did not stop in this field of plenty to bring down any game whatsoever, for he would not spare the time.
Even so, he loped with his bow strung and an arrow always at hand, for large predators were numerous.
All day he trotted o’er the savanna, and when sunset drew nigh and they still had not come to a twilight border, Borel began looking for a place to encamp. For in this part of Faery, at the heels of sunset swiftly came night, a time when the bee would grow dormant, and Borel would lose his guide. He found another thorn grove, and worked his way within, Flic and Buzzer already therein and waiting in a tiny clearing nigh the center of the stand.
As they finished their evening meal, Flic looked up at Borel. “My lord, the Pooka said something I did not understand, and I would have it explained.”
“Say on, Flic,” said Borel, uncorking his waterskin and taking a drink, then offering the Sprite some as well.
Flic cupped his hands and drank a droplet or two, then again he looked up at Borel. “When the Pooka said that you had been as clever as any third son, just what did he mean by that?”
Borel laughed. “Ah, Flic, in many a tale told in Faery, a family has three sons: the eldest is often quite the warrior; the second son, a warrior as well, though perhaps not as puissant as the eldest; the third son is always considered the fool, and not good for much at all. In these tales, some problem besets that family.
“Usually the sire will choose one of his sons to resolve whatever ill or trouble is beleaguering the family, be it as complex as wooing a particular maiden, or as vexing as discovering a miscreant, or as simple as laying by the heels a rogue of sorts, or any number of other difficulties, setbacks, or puzzles.
“And so, the father most often sends the eldest son forth to deal with the issue, and in these stories that son utterly fails, at times merely to his embarrassment, occasionally to his complete disgrace, and still other times he falls to a deadly doom.