His mistress had loosed him to forage and scout in the early hours, whispering a song of return in his ear. Over the plateau he had arced, then east over the Tears of Mishakal, gliding swiftly in a low flight before gaining altitude and sailing into the grass shy;lands, where the hunting was good and the Istarian army ranged uneasily.
The solitary man seated in the midst of the grass shy;lands was something new. For a while Lucas watched him curiously.
Not enemy. Not a soldier.
When the man took a small scrap of meat from his pocket, Lucas noticed immediately.
Noticed as well the jagged pieces of silver in his hand as they caught the sunlight.
It was something more than instinct that made the bird circle and call, made him skim the high grass and pass not five yards from the seated man, his hooked wings banking gracefully as he rose again, turning and returning, circling and calling, through all of his actions urging the man to follow.
Once in his motioning, the bird had swooped near enough for Vincus to hear the bells on its jesses. Vincus stood and followed.
The bird had surprised him with its circling and cries. South and north it sailed, south and north, shrieking as though in signal and warning.
Vincus had laughed at the thought. Too long in the wilderness, he told himself, when a bird becomes your messenger.
And yet the bird would know where to find water and game.
For a morning he followed, the hawk never lost from his sight. Turning and returning, its circles nar shy;rowing, the bird seemed attentive, almost protective. Far to the west a column of smoke hovered on the horizon-the gray shadow that Vincus had seen the day before, now obviously no mirage, but the watch-fires surrounding an armed encampment.
Istarians. Had he been slightly wiser, and hadn't needed to follow the hawk, he might have walked right into their camp. Vincus shuddered to think what might have happened.
He quickened his step, searching the sky for the hawk that had become his omen and guide.
Seated on his horse, shielding his eyes against the sunset, the sergeant watched the man trudge out of the foothills and onto the dry, waving margins of the grasslands.
A solitary wanderer. On foot.
The sergeant nodded to his three companions- troopers, skilled swordsmen, and even more skillful riders. Dressed in the light brown cotton robes and red kaffiyeh of the Istarian desert fighters, mounted on roan horses, they blended with the brown land shy;scape until, with the blinding sun around them, they were almost invisible-mirage warriors on the high ridge.
In tight formation, the four cavalrymen descended from the high ground toward the trespasser, their horses breasting the tall brown grass in long surges, overtaking him quickly when the grass gave way to rocky flatland.
The war horses' hooves clattered over the ground, kicking up stones and dust. Nearly engulfed, the traveler turned, raised his hands, began an elaborate series of gestures and signals.
Mage! the sergeant's instincts cried. Somatic prepa shy;rations! Since the strange death of his lieutenant- the one dissolved by the spells of a dark enchanter-a month ago, he was wary of encounters with solitary men in the desert.
With the quick reflexes practiced over a dozen years of horse-soldiering, the sergeant leaned back in the saddle, reined his horse to a skidding halt. One of the troopers, a young man named Parcus, weaved and nearly fell as he fumbled to draw forth his short bow.
"Move your hands no more, sir!" the sergeant shouted. "Upon your life, be still!"
Abruptly, the fellow buried his hands in the folds of his tunic. Two of the troopers dismounted and approached him.
Parcus stared at the trespasser over the shaft of a nocked arrow.
Vincus clenched his fists hard in his tunic as the Istarian troopers drew near, tightening his grip on the silver crescents hidden in his robes.
The plains were no city street. Here were no shad shy;ows, no alleys, no dark thresholds. Here in flat bare country and relentless sunlight, there was no place to hide.
He had begun to pray at the sound of hoofbeats, praying ceaselessly until the bowman menaced and the sergeant shouted his warning.
They would find the broken collar. They would….
"Who are you?" the sergeant asked coldly, stand shy;ing up in the saddle.
Vincus did not, could not answer. His great golden eyes never blinked.
"Bring him to me, Crotalus," the sergeant ordered.
The trooper dismounted and seized Vincus roughly by the shoulders.
Aloft in a swirl of wind, his sharp eye scanning the edge of the desert, Lucas saw the riders sur shy;round the man. Saw them dismount, approach him, and drag him toward the horses.
Something in the bird-an old instruction from his mistress, perhaps, or something embedded and pat shy;terned since his time in the egg-stirred him to action.
Folding his wings, the hawk plunged from the sky a hundred, two hundred, five hundred feet. The bird dove gracefully, its talons extended like deadly, curved knives, the falconer's jesses and bells trailing.
In a shimmer of ringing music, Lucas struck the sergeant in the back of the neck just as the man leaned over to question Vincus. The sergeant fell headlong, neck broken in a heap of spattered robes, his horse bolting away with a terrified whinny.
The bird jerked to free himself from the kill, the awkward jesses tangling and knotting in the fabric of the sergeant's robes.
He flies bound. Enslaved, too! Vincus thought. Somehow the thought inspired him.
With a fierce, powerful surge, he shook loose the astonished troopers. Crotalus spun about, his sword ringing as it fell to the hard ground. The other man, quicker and more resourceful, had already lifted his spear.
Rolling away from the flashing pont, Vincus drew forth the slivers of his collar, the edges forming deadly hooks on each side of each hand. They glit shy;tered in the dying sun like scimitars, like the talons of the hawk. Before the spearman could recover, the broken collar's sharp edges whipped cleanly and fatally into his throat. Vincus pushed him aside in a fierce, pantherlike rush toward Crotalus, who had managed to find and draw his crossbow from its place on the saddle of his skittish horse, just as Lucas hopped free of his tangles.
A piercing cry and the flap of wings about his head forced Crotalus's point-blank aim high, and the bolt whizzed over Vincus's shoulder, skidding long and hollowly over the cracked earth behind him. With a lunging leap, Vincus wrestled Crotalus to the ground, and the two men scuffled briefly, until the other collar half flashed high in the sunlight and plunged downward.
Moving away from Crotalus, who had breathed his last foul breath, Vincus covered his head, still expecting a rain of arrows from the last trooper's direction. But he heard the soldier cry out weakly, and looked up to see him already borne far away atop his rampaging horse, the two remaining steeds following close behind.
In high pursuit of them, Lucas swooped and glided and dodged, all the while crying shrilly until they were dwindling specks on the horizon.
Vincus stood up painfully, more bruised than he first had realized by the struggle with the outriders.
The hawk, unruffled and fresh, sailed back to him through the climbing dusk. With a cry it circled overhead, then soared toward the southwest, its flight now framed by Lunitari low in the sky.
His heart rejoicing for the bird-for its mastery and bravery-Vincus threw his hands up and fol shy;lowed eagerly. They had fought together. The hawk would not betray him.
When darkness had fallen and the stars spangled the clear sky, a comforting light seemed to rise from the looming shadows.
Vincus laughed and quickened his pace. He called to mind again the druid's patterns in the sand of the rena garden, the arranged stones, and the instructions.