Hawkmistress! A DARKOVER NOVEL by Marion Zimmer Bradley

She was flying, hovering over the field . . . and not far away, she heard the thunder of charging horses, as Rakhal’s army swept down over the brow of the hill and the troops charged toward one another. There was a tremendous shock, and Romilly saw through the bird’s eyes….

Horses, down and screaming, sliced open by swords and spears . . . men lying on the ground, dying . . . she could not tell whether Carolin’s men or Rakhal’s, and it did not matter…. A picked group of men swept down toward where the blue fir-tree banner flew over Carolin’s guard … Sunstar! Carry my king to safety . .. and a part of her rode with the great black stallion, thundering away with the king, to form a compact group, awaiting the charge again.

Flames seemed to seat the air; it was filled with the acrid smell of burning flesh, men and horses shrieking, and death, death everywhere….

Yet through it all Romilly kept still, hovering over the field, bringing the bird’s-eye pictures of the battle to Carolin’s eyes so that he could direct his men where they were most needed. Hours, it seemed, dragged by while she swept over the field, sated with horrors, sickened with the smell of burning flesh….

And then Rakhal’s men were gone, leaving only the dead and dying on the field, and Romilly, who had been in rapport with the remaining sentry-bird (she knew now that it was Ruyven who had siezed her bridle and led her horse to safety atop a little hill overlooking the field, while she was entranced in rapport with the bird) returned to her own awareness, sick and shocked.

Dying horses. Seven of them she had trained with her own hands in the hostel . . . dead or dying, and Clea, merry Clea who had talked so lightly of death, lying all but dead on the field, her blood invisible on the crimson tunic of the Swordswoman. . . . Clea, dying in Jandria’s arms, and an empty place, a vast silence where once had been a living, breathing, human being, beloved and real….

There was no rejoicing on this battlefield; Carolin had felt too many deaths that day. Soberly, men went to bury the dead, to give the last few dying horses the mercy-stroke, Ruyven went with the healers to bind up the wounds of those who had been struck down. Romilly, shocked beyond speech, set up the tent aided only by Ruyven’s young apprentice, who had a great burn on his arm from the clingfire that had rained down on the army. Three perches were with the baggage, but only one bird perched alone, and Romilly felt sick as she fed her … the carrion smell was now all around them. She could not bring herself to sleep in the little tent she had shared with Lady Maura; she searched through the camp at the edge of the battlefield till she found the rest of the Sisterhood, and silently crept in among them. So many dead. Horses, and birds, who had been part of her life, into whom she had put so much time and strength and love in their training . . . the Sisterhood had set her to training these horses, not that they might live and serve, but that they might die in this senseless slaughter. And Clea, whom Jandria had carried dead off the field. Two of the Sisterhood called to Romilly.

“Sister, are you wounded?”

“No,” Romilly said numbly. She hardly knew; her body was so battered with the many deaths which had swept over her wide-open mind, which she had felt in her very flesh; but now she realized that she was not hurt at all, that there was not a mark anywhere on her flesh.

“Have you healing skills?” And when Romilly said no, they told her to come and help in the digging of a grave for Clea.

“A Swordswoman cannot lie among the soldiers. As she was in life, so in death she must be buried apart.”

Romilly wondered, with a dull pain in her head, what it would matter now to Clea where she lay? She had defended herself well, she had taught so many of her sisters to defend themselves, but the final ravishment of death had caught her unaware, and she lay cold and stiff, looking very surprised, without a mark on her face. Romilly could hardly believe that she would not laugh and jump up, catching them off guard as she had done so many times before. She took the shovel one of the Swordswomen thrust into her hand. The hard physical labor of digging the grave was welcome; otherwise she caught too much pain, too many wounded men, screaming, suffering, in silence or great moans, their pain racking her. She tried to shut it all out, as Ranald had taught her, but there was too much, too much….