Sentry-birds; spy-birds. Like all of us I am a tool for Carolin’s army to strike. How angry her father would be! Not only the runaway son he had disowned, but the daughter he had thought compensation for one runaway son and one worthless bookish one . . . how was Darren managing, she wondered, had he resigned himself to handling hawks and horses now?
She had lost track of the bird, and a sharp sense of question from Ruyven recalled her to the flying in the rain, chilled and battered by the icy gusts of sleet which buffeted her … or Diligence? She must risk flying lower, for they could see nothing through the thick curtain of wet They were linked three ways, and now she set herself to follow Temperance, flying ahead strongly toward a break in the clouds. Below them the land lay deserted, but low on the horizon she could see smoke which she knew to be Rakhal’s army where it waited out the rain. Behind her she could actually feel the displacement in the air where Prudence flew at her tail. At the same time a part of her was Romilly, balanced carefully in her saddle, and a part of her still Carolin, waiting for intelligence through the minds of bird-handlers and birds.
A speck against her sight, swiftly growing larger and larger … of course, she should have known that they too would have had spy-birds out in this weather! She – or was it Diligence? – shifted course ever so slightly, hoping to miss unseen the oncoming bird. Was it Rakhal himself, or one of his advisers, behind the hovering wings of that bird, poised to intercept. …
Would it come to a fight? She could not hope to control the bird if raw instinct took over; there was not much difficulty in controlling the mind of the bird if all was well, but in danger instinct would override the shared consciousness. Temperance was still flying well ahead, and through the link with Ruyven’s mind she too could see the outskirts of the enemy camp, and a wagon about which something black and sinister was hovering . . . she was not sure she saw it with her eyes; was she perceiving something through Ruyven’s mind or the bird’s? Birds – Maura’s phrase, echoing in her mind, neither memory nor imagination – could only see with their physical sight, and could not interpret what they saw unless it concerned them directly, as food or threat.
It was taking all of her strength to hold Diligence on course. The wagon was there, and a curious, acrid smell which seemed to sting her, whether her own nose or the bird’s she was not sure; but the blackness was something she must be perceiving through one of the minds linked in rapport with the sentry-birds spying. She was vaguely curious, but so sunk in the bird’s consciousness that she was content to leave it to Carolin to interpret.
Something was in the air now . , . danger, danger … as if a red-hot wire had seared her brain, she swerved, shrieking and then there was a slicing pain in her heart and Romilly came with a cry out of the rapport, fighting to hold to it… pain . . . fear . . somewhere, she knew, Diligence was falling like a stone, dizzy, consciousness fading out, dying. . . . Romilly, seated on her horse, physically clutched at her breast as if the arrow which had slain the sentry-bird had penetrated her body as well. The pain was nightmarish, terrifying, and she stared wildly around her in anguished disorientation. Then she knew what must have happened.
Diligence! She had flown her bird deliberately into the danger of those arrows, over-riding the bird’s own sense of caution, its instinct to fly high and away from danger. Guilt and grief fought within her for dominance.
Someone very far away seemed to be calling her name . . . she came up out of grey fog to see Ranald looking at her, with deep trouble in his face. She said, strangled, “Prudence .. Temperance … get them back …”
He drew a long breath. “They are away from the soldiers; I sent them high up, out of range … I am sorry, Romy; you loved her.”