Again the soothing vibration spread out, and she knew her own talent, laran or whatever they called it, enhanced by the already-powerful gift of the young Hastur child. As it died into silence, Alaric said, his hand on his dagger, “I have hunted banshees before this, vai dom, and slain them too.”
“I doubt not your courage, man,” said Carlo, “but your wit, if you think we can face two banshees in a narrow pass, without losing man or horse. We have no deaf-hounds, nor nets and ropes. Perhaps, if we keep between the horses and chervines, we may manage to escape with a horse for each, but then would we be afoot in the worst country in the Hellers! And if we stand here, we will be taken in the jaws of the trap.”
“Better the beak of the banshee than the tender mercies of Lyondri’s men,” said one of the riders, edging uneasily away from his place at the head of the little cavalcade. “I’ll face what you face, my lord.”
“Too bad your skill with birds extends not to such creatures as those” said Orain, looking at Romilly with a wry grin, “Could you but calm those birds as you worked with hawk and sentry-bird, then should we be as well off as any Hastur-lord with his pet leronis!”
Romilly shuddered at the thought … to enter into the minds of those cruel carnivores, prowling the heights? She said weakly “I hope you are joking, vai dom.”
“Why should that laran not be as workable against banshee as against sentry-bird, or for that matter, barnyard fowl?” asked Caryl, sitting upright on the saddle, “They are all creatures of Nature, and if Rom – Rumal’s Gift can quiet the sentry-birds, with my own laran to help, why, perhaps we can reach the banshees too, and perhaps convince them that we are not destined for their breakfast.”
Romilly felt again a perceptible shudder run through her. But before young Caryl’s eager eyes, she was ashamed to confess her fear.
Carlo said quietly, “I am reluctant to leave our safety in the hands of two children, when grown men are helpless. Yet if you can help us – there seems no other way, and if we delay here, we are dead men, all of us. Your father would not harm you, my young Carolin, but I fear the rest of us would die, and not too quickly or easily.”
Caryl was blinking hard. He said, “I do not want any harm to come to you, sir. I do not think my father understands that you are a good man; perhaps Dom Rakhal has poisoned his mind against you. If I can do anything to help, so that he may have time to think more sensibly about all this quarrel, I will be very glad to do what I can.” But Romilly noticed that he too looked a little frightened. And as they moved slowly forward he whispered, “I am afraid, Rumal – they look so fierce it is hard to remember that they too are the creations of God. But I will try to remember that the blessed Valentine-of-the-Snows had a pact of friendship with them and called them little brothers.”
I do not think I truly wish to be brother to the banshee, Romilly thought, urging her horse forward with a little cluck and the pressure of her knee, trying to throw out soothing thoughts to calm the animal’s fear. But she must not think that way. She must remember that the same Force which created the dogs and horses she loved, and the beloved hawks, had created the banshee for its own purposes, even if she did not know what they were. And the sentry-birds, who looked so fierce, were gentle and loving as cagebirds, when she had gotten to know them; she truly loved Prudence, and even for Temperance and Diligence she felt a genuine affection.
If the banshee is my brother . . . and for a moment she felt an amusement bubbling up that she recognized as all but hysterical. Her gentle brother Ruyven, timid Darren, dear little Rael, in the same breath with the screaming horrors on the crag?