“Have you done this?”
“Do I look like a fool?”
Of course, Whill thought. A warrior would be a fool not to do such a thing. “So…where is yours?”
Zerafin only smiled. “When you have practiced mind-sight a bit more, you will be able to find it yourself. For now I would like you to try something else.” He looked around the garden for a moment as if seeking something he had lost. “Ah, this will do.” He picked up a rock that was about the size of a child’s fist and set it between him and Whill.
“You have exhibited a vast amount of abilities and powers that most elves do not begin to acquire until they have practiced the ways of Orna Catorna for years, sometimes decades,” Zerafin said. “Now I would like you to try something else that I do not doubt you have the ability to do. I want you to move this stone without touching it.”
Whill awaited further instruction but none came. He shook his head. “But how do I…?”
“How did you heal Tarren? How did you heal the infant? Tell me, how did you use the energy within your father’s blade?”
Whill thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I just…wanted things to happen. I wanted Tarren to be alive, I wanted the child to live, I…I wanted the Draggard to die.”
“Well, then, there you have it. You must want to move the rock.”
Whill focused on the rock and envisioned it moving. Nothing happened. He asked it to lift. Nothing happened. He tried to rock it back and forth. Nothing, Zerafin only gave him a blank stare and lowered his gaze to the stone.
For more than twenty minutes Whill tried to move the stone, but to no avail. Finally, with a frustrated sigh, he gave up. “I can’t do it. I-”
“Stop right there, before you say something foolish and ridiculous. You can do anything you believe you can. That is not some inspirational babble meant to give you confidence, it is the absolute truth. You, me, we-all beings possess the ability to do incredible things, but not many have the belief that allows it to happen. You humans are taught at a very young age by your elders the so-called laws of nature. All you have learned is what they have been able to do or not do. The possibilities are never practiced because a wall of doubt lies before your imagination. But what does it take for a possibility to become a reality? It takes one person doing it-and then, then, my friend, it is a law. It is real.”
Zerafin focused on the stone and instantly it rose into the air. It hovered above their heads, less than four feet off the ground, then slowly floated above Whill.
“Look at me, Whill.” As Whill did so, the rock fell and hit him on top of the head.
“Ow!” Whill protested as he rubbed the bump.
Zerafin laughed. “Now you know it is possible, else your head would not hurt.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The following day the sound of trumpets assaulted the morning tranquility of the courtyard. Whill arose to discover what the noise was about. From his window he could see that someone had just arrived, someone of great importance.
“Tarren, come quickly, you must see this!”
The lad hurried to the window. “Is it the king of Shierdon? Has he arrived for the meeting?”
“I believe so.”
A small army of soldiers entered the castle gates, marching in a line five abreast and ten deep. They wore full armor, silver with a flowing purple cape that stopped at the knee. At each man’s side hung a great sword, with a purple-fabric-laced hilt and a purple gem set at the base. At the head of the troop walked two soldiers carrying the flag of Shierdon. The flag was also purple with a silver hawk at the center. The hawk, Whill remembered, was a beloved pet of the Shierdonians. They had taken the creatures as pets and hunting companions over six hundred years before. The hawks were used to send correspondence in times of war and peace. They could deliver a message in one quarter the time a horseman could; they could silently find prey miles away, and catch a fish twice its size at their master’s command. The great hawks could go unseen in the daytime as well as at night, for their feathers changed color to match their surroundings, much like a chameleon. They were named silver hawks because of all the colors, silver was the one they donned naturally when not trying to hide. One of Shierdon’s greatest strengths was its command of these great birds, which had been bred to reach the size of ponies, with wingspans of over ten feet.
The people of Shierdon had even trained a great number of these birds to carry the smallest of men, who were called the Hawk Knights of Shierdon. They were an elite army of specially trained soldiers, small but very strong and fiercely quick. In combat they carried a crossbow and a pair of long, thin daggers. Their armor was thick leather, three layers thick, with mail between each. Every inch of the knight’s armor was adorned with hawk feathers, and in this way the rider would change color along with his hawk, if the hawk permitted it. The knights were sometimes called the ghost assassins because of their ability to drop down on their enemies unnoticed and strike them dead in an instant. They could infiltrate enemy camps without so much as a sound. In battle they could rain hell from above.
The Shierdonians had such control over the great hawks because they had control over that which the hawks craved most, hawksbane. A purple flower that grows only in the northernmost regions of Shierdon, hawksbane is the favored treat of the great silver hawk. For that reason it had been made illegal many centuries past to export even the smallest amount of the plant to any other country. With an abundance of hawksbane, the Shierdonians had trained the birds to do a great many things. The most impressive by far was the ability of the master trainers and hawk knights to communicate with the birds through an intricate form of code tapped out on wooden blocks, the human with the knuckle, the birds its beak. A trainer needed hawksbane at his disposal to tame the beasts, but over time, once the bird learned the code and could virtually speak to its master, a great bond was forged, and the Hawk served out of love and loyalty rather than simply for the flower it so desired.
Whill saw, as if out of thin air, and as silent as a mute’s cry, five Hawk Knights swoop down to the courtyard. He stared in awe at the legendary sight and was not at all disappointed. They had arrived virtually unseen because they had been as blue as the sky, hawk and rider. Four of the birds had landed on the grass and instantly changed to dark green, as did their riders. The other bird had landed on the cobblestone path, however, and had turned many shades of grey and brown. Being done with the mission, they now all in turn changed to their natural color, a most brilliant silver. Their feathers shone in the morning sun with the brilliance of a cloud’s lining. The great hawks folded their wings and settled to the ground as their riders dismounted.
Most of the hundreds of Eldalonian soldiers lining the courtyard took up clapping and cheering, only to receive a stern look from their respective generals.
Next in the entourage came a man on a brown steed, unmistakably adorned. This rider, at seventy-nine one of the oldest of his stature in the kingdoms, but riding like a man half his age, came King Ainamaf of Shierdon. Behind him followed his first general, three advisors, and fifty more soldiers.
“What’s all the ruckus about, anyway?” came a familiar voice from the guest room door. Roakore strode towards Whill and Tarren with all seriousness. But as he reached the window and his eyes caught the shining hawks of Shierdon, his voice failed him.