The Winged Hunter by F. T. McKinstry

Author:F. T. McKinstry [McKinstry, F. T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-10-14T23:00:00+00:00

The Albatross

The sun had set into the gray ridge of a coming storm as Eaglin and Lorth strode with heavy gaits towards the Waeltower of Muin. They had placed Aradia and Freil in the care of a healer named Geira who belonged to the Order of Wren, Keepers of the Crafts who worked their skills in service to Eyrie with root, leaf, seed and bark. Under her care, Freil was still unconscious but intact, only sleeping. Aradia, on the other hand, couldn’t be found by the arts of any healer or wizard.

Caelfar had blown into the healing chambers like a cyclone, too upset even to question them once he had learned Tansel had been taken by the sioros and Aradia now lay in the immortal’s domain. The old Raven would have returned to his tower without explaining what Freil was doing here, either, had Eaglin not demanded an answer. Upon his arrival, Freil learned from a stable hand that Tansel had escaped and, pausing only to remove his gear from his horse, went after her. But Caelfar didn’t know why the young wizard had come. He never got the chance to find out.

Exhausted, Eaglin and Lorth had slept the remainder of the day. One of Caelfar’s staff, a reserved but alert man named Sigen, had awaked Eaglin with a summons long before he had replenished his weary limbs.

As he and Lorth followed their messenger into the corridor that led to the tower, Lorth said, “Have you contacted Eyrie?”

“Freil told them we were expecting him.”

Lorth snorted. “He’d better have a good reason for doing that.”

“Don’t count on it. Whatever his reason for coming here, I doubt it’s anything he couldn’t have told us in mindspeak, or as an apparition.”

Through the opening of the tower antechamber stood a red oak door carved into intricate geometric patterns of grapes and vines humming with the energy of the Waeltower. A watch-web held the portal in an iron grip. As the men approached, it weakened and shimmered into the stones. Sigen opened the door, bowed respectfully and then hurried away as if to avoid trouble. Eaglin watched him vanish into the shadows.

“This won’t be nice,” Lorth said needlessly.

As they entered, the Raven of Muin turned, his lips set like a sealed temple and his eyes as dark as the storm gathering in the east. A female shape hovered around him, thin and misty, with tall wings of shifting light. It bore the mark of an apparition, an advanced thoughtform consciously created to do a wizard’s bidding. Oddly, Caelfar didn’t seem to be aware of it.

Eaglin dropped into Lorth’s mind. Tell me you see that.

I do indeed, came the intent reply.

Caelfar held out his hand. “Give it to me.” It could have been the sioros asking.

Lorth threw Eaglin an I-told-you-so glance as he reached into a pocket for the voidstone. “We meant to use it as leverage,” the hunter said, unfolding a rough cloth. “We didn’t know the effect it would have on us.”

The old wizard snatched the stone from his hand.

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