Although all of the people here had the same sort of green-and-brown clothing that Snowfire wore, no two costumes were alike, and although many had heavy leather gloves on one or both hands, none of them wore the same shoulder-to-wrist gauntlet that he did. All of the birds were enormous, and of the breeds that Darian recognized, these individuals were twice and three times bigger than the ones Darian knew. There were three people with large hawks with vivid rusty-orange and golden-yellow tails, two with thin and nervous hawks with yellow-orange eyes and pale, almost pinkish breasts, three with falcons that looked just like forestgyres, two with ones that looked like peregrines, one with a slate-gray bird with aggressive, reddish eyes that must have been a goshawk of some sort, and one with a huge, clever-looking crow. No one else had an owl of any kind. The birds all watched Darian with interest and intelligence, and Darian had the peculiar feeling that they heard and understood every word that was being said.
Another person came around a screen of vines, a most impressive and exotically-dressed man with waist-length white hair, who had a white falcon with pale brown markings perched on a pad on his shoulder. This person’s robes were so elaborately cut and layered that it was obvious he could never have gone scouting about through the forest as the others did - so this must be the Adept that Snowfire had been talking about. Something about him seemed very familiar, and as the Adept spoke quietly with Snowfire and one or two of the others, Darian finally remembered why. He’d met this man last night, and the man had questioned him with Snowfire’s assistance, because his Valdemaran hadn’t been anywhere near as good as Snowfire’s. This was Starfall, who must be a very powerful mage indeed, if the deference the other Hawkbrothers showed him was any indication.
As Darian found himself to be the focus of all those eyes, avian as well as human, he began to recall how often he managed to get himself into trouble - and that was with people he knew! How could he hope to do anything other than get himself into worse trouble with these folk? And what must they think of him for running away the way he had? Surely they must think he was a dreadful coward at best, and at worst -
At worst, they must think he was good for nothing except to get them into more trouble. His heart sank, and he began to feel utterly worthless. What good was he? What good had he ever been? Surely these people could only wish him gone out of their lives.
He began to be a little bit afraid of them, too. Oh, Snow-fire seemed approachable and normal enough, but the rest of these folk - well, they were the mysterious and dangerous guardians of the Forest. Who knew what strange customs they had? What if they decided to make him disappear? After all, if he disappeared, there would be less trouble all the way around.
Snowfire and the Adept finished their conversation and came over to Darian, and took seats beside him with him placed between the two of them. That took him aback; he’d expected to be sitting alone, surrounded by strangers, all of them interrogating him. But it seemed as if Starfall and Snowfire had made themselves his advocates, of a sort.
“We’d like to begin now, if you are ready?” Snowfire said, phrasing the words as a question.
“I guess I am,” Darian replied, a bit shaken.
“Some of our scouts do not know your tongue at all, and most do not know it as well as I do,” Snowfire told him, by way of explanation. “So. They will ask the question, and I will act as translator - or I will clarify what they are asking. I would like you to think back to just before you saw the signs of the attack. Had you seen or heard anything in the past few weeks to make you think that there might be such an attack?”
Darian shook his head. “No,” he said truthfully, then added, “but the people don’t go out of the village much, and especially not into the Forest. So they might not see anything. Justyn - “ his voice quavered, “ - Justyn wasn’t much good at ForeSight. He could see the weather all right, but never anything on the ground. That was how we got caught by a flood last fall - the rain that caused it was way up north, he didn’t ForeSee it, and of course he didn’t ForeSee the way it would make the river rise.” He shook his head. “Everybody was so afraid of the Forest that they wouldn’t stir past the fields if they could help it, and nobody was due to go over to one of the other towns for trading for a while.”
Snowfire translated, and some of the scouts discussed what he had said among themselves. “Are towns there, to your north?” called out one.
Darian had to think hard about that one - Justyn had been making him memorize maps, but he had a poor head for it. He had much better luck in remembering things by means of landmarks than by arbitrary marks on a piece of paper. “I don’t think so,” he said, trying to be honest. “That is, I think that the ones north of us are all a lot farther east as well. I think - “ He closed his eyes, and tried to visualize the map he’d been studying. “I think that the border here kind of sticks out in a bump pointing west, and we’re at the tip of the bump.”
There was more discussion, and some sketching in the sand. “Let us go forward then, to the time of the attack,” Starfall said carefully. “When did you first know that there was something wrong?”
“I was up in a tree, looking for mycofoetida fungus,” he replied. “I was pretty high, because we’d kind of harvested everything that was near the ground and near the town. So the first thing I saw was that there were big fires in town.”
One of the Hawkbrothers with a forestgyre said something to Snowfire, who relayed the question. “So the attack had already begun?”
Darian shook his head. “No - no, not yet. I didn’t know what was happening, but I knew something had to be wrong, so I left the basket and ran back to town, and what was burning, mostly, was haystacks and sheds, and just a few of them. And I saw Vere - that was one of the farmers – setting a fire himself. I guess they were burning things to keep the bad people from getting them.”
Now discussion among the scouts lasted for some time, before another called out a question that Snowfire translated. “What did the army look like? Exactly? Can you remember any numbers?”
He shuddered at that one, but he had expected that it would be coming, and he closed his eyes and tried to picture the scene at the bridge. “There was Justyn on the bridge,” he said slowly. “Then there was the big monster with the little monster riding on it. Then there were some of the bear-men - they were five across the road, and I think four lines of five - then behind them was a bunch of human people with tall spears - “ He tried so hard to visualize the scene that he began to get a headache. “I couldn’t see behind them very far, but there were a lot of them. They were lined up on the road five across, and - I remember so many spears sticking up in the air that it looked like a burned forest was on the road, for as far back as I could see.”