Those who had hated and hunted her people professed to believe that any such contact was evil, that they might be blasted out of life by it. They had done all they could to stamp out any contact with it. All with talent had been slain—or else, as in the case of witches, rendered helpless. Witches did not lie with men, but if a man took one by force, then her talent was drained and lost.
Tirtha drew back her fingers. “It is alive—there is Power,” she agreed. “But from Karsten? There was no denying that what they had come on must have aided the destruction of the invading force. Who among them would have dared carry a weapon charged with Power into a country where that force ruled?
“From Karsten…” He spoke musingly, glancing around at the tumble of stones that must hide many dead. “Yes—who and why?”
“And how did the falcon know?” Tirtha dared then to ask.
“The feathered brothers have their own ways,” he answered almost absently. “This would attract such a one.”
He drew the long hunting knife out of his belt sheath, leaned over to slip it into the top of his riding boot. Then he slid his find into its place. It seemed to go easily, though a part of it projected above the edge of the sheath.
“A thing of Power…” Tirtha repeated his words. She had no desire to handle it. The energy that had reached her even though her flesh had not touched it was enough to warn her off. Yet if the Falconer had felt that same surge, it did not appear to turn him against a thing that his own people had feared as much as those newcomers in Karsten who were not to the Elder Race.
“It came to me.” He said that evenly, and Tirtha remembered another tale—that story of the Axe of Volt and how it had come into the hands of Koris of Gorm, from the hold of Volt himself, long dead and entombed. Volt’s Axe had chosen. Was this once more a case whereby a weapon charged with unknown life had chosen to fit into the hand of a new owner?
“Volt’s Axe,” she blurted out, caught in amazement that such a thing might happen a second time. Yet this blade had no such history, no name, and he who had taken it was of a race without the talent.
His head in the bird helm moved as if he had taken a blow.
“It came to me,” he said slowly again. “There will be a cause and that shall also be revealed in time.”
Then he swung upon the pony and pulled at the reins, bringing the mount around so that once again they retraced a way, out of that rubble- and death-choked valley into the second passage. Tirtha found her attention turning often to the blue knob of gemstone where it rode at his belt, shifting a fraction now and then, since it did not fit the sheath. She could not believe that chance had led him to it. Now she, too, moved uneasily on her riding pad from time to time, discovering a desire to watch their back trail or the walls of the mountains about them. Still her companion displayed no uneasiness, nor had he appeared to question the fact that the falcon now occupied what had been the empty perch on his saddle. It was as if he accepted all that had happened as a necessary part of what was meant to be.
That night they advanced into a more open section of a valley that sloped upwards at the far end in the direction of what Tirtha believed must be a pass. The jagged peaks guarding either side looked as if sections of the earth had been slashed out by sword strokes, turned edge upward against the sky. There was a brutal savagery about this entrance to the land ahead that posted a warning against further advance. She fought down such thoughts with a firm hand. Perhaps it was the ravaged look of this country that added strength to her feeling that they were always under observation.
Twice more during that day they passed evidences of the slaughter that had ended the army of Pagar and pushed the southern land back into barbarism. There was rusted metal, once the pole of a standard, planted upright among stones, the width of its banner now only a few threads wind whipped and knotted about the pole. There were bleached bones. They were well content to skirt such traces of the carnage that must have filled these ways.
However, they could not attempt the pass until morning, so they made a dry camp beneath heights where the wind howled and whistled until one could almost believe that it echoed cries of the dead. Their supply of water was so limited that they wiped out the mouths of their mounts with wet cloths and allowed each only a small cupping of water in one of the eating bowls from Tirtha’s saddlebags. They scanted themselves even more, and it was very hard to choke down the now crumbling journey cakes which stuck in the throat.
The falcon had taken to the air as they had come to camp and perhaps found some forage in the heights above. It did not return until the dusk neared night, and then it communicated again with the man it had chosen to accompany in the same series of notes they had used at their first meeting.
As the bird settled down on its saddle perch the Falconer spoke, “We are within perhaps a day’s journey of the foothills. I have served more than a quarter of my oathed time. What would you have of me when we are down from the heights?”
It was a fair question. She had set his service as twenty days simply because she had wanted to make sure of his guidance and company through the mountains. Did she now want him to accompany her further? Tirtha was faced at last with a decision that she must make, and then abide by the results of the making.
Hawkholme lay to the east. She had—her hand went into the front of her jerkin seeking to finger the money belt. In one compartment of it she had a map, the only one she had kept, though it could hardly be an accurate one, drawn as it was from bits and pieces of information she had managed to assemble.
Her simple plan as far as she had made it, not knowing the country except by repute, had been to angle along the foothills themselves, not venturing far down into the open country, until she believed she could strike fairly straight across to the hold, or what remained of it. It was certainly not a plan that carried any certainty. Now she was silent a long moment.
Well, she had very little to lose, she decided. Perhaps she had answered the question without being conscious of having done so during these days of journeying. The Falconer would be no more welcome in Karsten than she herself, having harried the borders with his own kind.
To whom could he betray her? And what did he have to betray, save that one of the Old Race sought to return to the land that had once been held by those of her blood? She herself could not tell him exactly what she sought there, or why she was driven into that seeking. Let her tell him what was most of the truth, then let the decision be his whether he asked oath release or not.
It was dark in the valley, and they had lit no fire. He was only a blacker dot of shadow against the wall of rock behind him. It made little difference as even in the light of day she was not able to read anything from his expression. Let him use his voice to answer her aye or nay.
“I seek Hawkholme,” she began. “It is the land anciently bound to my blood, and I have waited for long to go there. I have thought to travel east through the foothills and then strike over land.”
“You know the road you must go?” he asked, as she paused.
Tirtha closed her eyes. In a way, yes, she knew—or felt within her that she would know when the time came. The dream—whatever had sent that—it would guide her. How could she speak of dreams to this one? Or—she considered that point. Since his finding and taking of the odd sword-knife, she had somewhat revised her first opinion of the Falconer. Reputed as he and his kind were to be bitter enemies of all her own people prized and revered, why then had he put that weapon in his belt? He should by rights have hurled it from him, if he set hand to it at all!
“I know it,” she returned now firmly. There was, she decided, no reason for her to explain how tenuous was her foundation for that assertion. “But I do not know the length of such a journey. It may run far longer than your bind-oath. I asked for guidance through the mountains. When we reach the foothills, you will have fulfilled your part of that bargain. If the days are not accomplished, the purpose is.”