The Gold Falcon (Deverry: Silver Wyrm) by Kerr Katharine

Author:Kerr, Katharine [Kerr, Katharine]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2009-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

As the night wore on, Salamander found it harder and harder to stay in the air. His wings ached, and he took to gliding upon air currents whenever he could. His legs hurt as well; his talons in bird-form were at root his feet and toes, parts of the body that were normally spared such work as carrying heavy sacks. Still, he forced himself onward. He could think of two possible outcomes if the Horsekin caught him. In one, Rocca would prevail upon them to kill him quickly. In the other, the pains he was feeling at the moment would seem like pleasure compared to what they’d do to him.

Below him the scrubby tableland kept dropping down, until at last he saw only a roll of low hills and beyond, grassland. A river, silver in the gray dawn light, flowed steadily south between tree-lined banks. He circled an old, drooping willow, then flapped down through its curtain of fine twigs and leaves; he let the sack fall to the ground below and settled on a heavy branch to roost. He was greeted with a rattling call of rage from another magpie, who ducked his head low, spread his wings, and danced a threat close to the tree trunk.

“Aren’t you the hospitable sort?” Salamander’s voice came out as a croaking rasping parody of human speech.

The sound seemed to make the magpie notice just how large his sudden neighbor was. With a squawk of sheer terror, the real bird flew off screeching. Enough of Salamander’s current nature was magpie for him to be tempted to go through the other’s nest and steal whatever trinkets it had hidden there, but he put the temptation firmly out of his mind. That he’d even thought it signaled a dangerous exhaustion. With a flap of his aching wings, he settled to the ground next to the sack.

For some little while he rested among the rasping blades of marsh grass, but his wings trailed uselessly, and he needed feet more than claws. He reversed the dweomer, imaging his own body in his mind and sending the image out to apparent solidity in front of him. In spite of his ever-present fear of being trapped in bird-form, his real body built up fast, sucking the etheric substance back into it of its own will. Salamander heard a sudden click, a percussive hiss; then he was sitting dazed and naked on the hummock of grass, and there was nothing left of the magpie but claw marks in damp ground.

Just a few feet away the rising sun rippled and glinted in flecks like fire on the river. He dumped the contents of his sack, turned the sack back into brigga, and put them on before limping to the riverside on cramped feet. Now for Rocca, he thought. I’ll never forgive myself if she’s come to harm.

He knelt with a grunt of exhaustion. When he thought of Rocca, the vision built up on the sun-touched water. It seemed that he was hovering some twenty feet above the altar of the Outer Shrine.

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