The name sentry-birds suddenly made sense to her, she had never really thought about it before. She took Prudence from the block, loosing with one hand the knots which secured her jesses, and lifted her free; watched her soar high into the sky. She arranged her body carefully in the saddle, leaving a part of her consciousness … a very small part … to make certain she did not fall from the saddle, and then….
. . . high into the sky, on long, strong winds, rising higher and higher. …
All of the land lay spread out below her, like a map. She could see the curve of water below, and was dimly aware of a presence within her mind, seeing what she saw through her link with the bird. Through this mind, which she recognized as Carolin’s, she began to make sense out of what she saw, although this was very distant and almost unconscious . . . most of her was soaring with the bird, seeing with keen sharpness everything which lay below.
. . . There the shores of Mirin Lake, and beyond that, Neskaya to the north, at the edge of the Kilghard Hills. And there . . . ah, Gods, another circle of blackness, not the scar of forest-fire, but where Rakhal’s men have rained clingfire from the sky from their infernal flying machines! My people and they burn and die beneath Rakha’s fires when it was given to me and I swore with my hand in the fires of Hali that I would protect them against all pillage and rapine while they were loyal to me, and for that loyalty they burn …
. . . Rakhal, as Aldones lives, I shall burn that hand from you with which you have sown disaster and death on my people . . . and Lyondri I shall hang like a common criminal for he has forfeited the right to a noble death; the life he now lives as Rakha’s sower of death and suffering is more ignoble than death at the hands of the common hangman….
Over the Kilghard Hills now, where the hills lie green with summer, and the resin-trees blaze in the sun … there again a Tower rises . . . quickly, fly to the North, little bird, away from the spying eyes of Lyondri’s own forsworn laranzu’in..
And there they lie, Rakhal’s armies, where I can march to the East and take them unawares, unless they can spy with eyes like mine . . . and I think there are no sentry-birds now except in the far Hellers. . . .
Romilly heard the shrill crying of the bird as if from her own throat; the contact melted and for a moment she sat on her horse again, Carolin gone from her mind, Ranald Ridenow suddenly jolted out of contact, staring at her. She lurched in the saddle, swayed, and Maura said quietly, “Enough. Ruyven, your turn, I think. . . .”
Romilly had not noticed; Ruyven had loosed Temperance at the same time as Prudence. Diligence, too, was gone from Maura’s saddle. She saw Ruyven slump . . . as she had done? .. . and for an instant she was part of Ruyven/Ranald/Carolin flying in rapport with the bird, swooping low over the armies, something inside her counting . . .
Horsemen and foot soldiers, so many . . . wagons of supplies, and archers, and . . . ah Gods . . . Evanda guard us, that smell I know, somewhere within their ranks they are again making clingfire . . .
By sheer force of will Romilly tore herself, exhausted, from the rapport. She was not interested in the details of Rakhal’s armies. She would rather not know; the horror she had felt in Ruyven’s mind, or was it Carolin’s, made her feel dizzy and sick. Spent, she collapsed in her saddle, almost asleep where she sat, weak, light-headed. She noticed at the edge of her consciousness that the sun was substantially lowered, almost at the edge of the horizon, and the light was dimming enough so that the great violet disk of Liriel could be seen rising from the eastern horizon, a few nights before its full. Her mouth was dry, and her head ached and throbbed as if a dozen tiny smiths were beating on their forge-anvils inside it.