Mercedes Lackey - Anthology by Flights of Fantasy

Author:Flights of Fantasy [Fantasy, Flights of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

ONE WING DOWN

by Susan Shwartz

Nominated five times for the Nebula Award and twice plus nominations for the Hugo, the Edgar, and the World Fantasy Awards, Susan Shwartz is a frequent contributor to anthologies. She lives in New York, which is sufficient justification for writing fantasy and horror. Her recent Star Trek novel coauthored with Jo-sepha Sherman, Vulcan's Forge, made several bestseller lists.

GAWAIN woke dizzy, swaying back and forth.

God, this was worse than when Lancelot's blow had fallen on the old bad wound, and he knew this time it would be the death of him. He'd even written that damned French renegade who'd carried off his uncle's wife and begged him to return to aid Arthur against Mordred. And he'd signed the appeal in his own heart's blood before he surrendered to the sleep he knew would last until Judgment Day.

Apparently, his judgment had been off. Not for the first time.

Now what? First things first. Where was he?

Instinct told him: he was outside. It was night.

He was near a battlefield. Judging by the stink of blood and death, he thought the battle was winding down or had just ended. He extended his senses, trying for the razor-sharp awareness that had made his brothers back in Orkney compare him to the hawk for which he had been named in the Old Language. He reeled again.

Jesus, he was blind.

He tried to raise a hand to his wound and heard the high peal of tiny bells.

He had no hands, but felt unaccustomed muscles twitch. Was he a prisoner? Was he maimed as well as blind?

Goddess. Triple Goddess, help. So his mother, his aunt, and those witches who hid beneath a veil of Christian faith had been right, and the priests with their Grails and their talk of heaven and hell had been wrong. Live your life wrong and you had to come back and do it over. Much like an armsmaster drilling boys who might grow up into warriors, assuming they lived that long.

And learned from their mistakes.

Warriors like Gawain. He tried to move again. More bells. He tossed his head and smelled leather binding him about. Not bandages, then, wound about his cracked skull, over his eyes, but a leather hood. He was no longer a man, but the raptor for which he had been named.

His Aunt Morgan, who had always been a creature more suited to the hollow hills than to court life, had a fancy name for what he had undergone. Trans-mi-gra-tion.

Now that was a tricky word, especially for the lines of Gawain. Quick with a curse, quick with a blow, even quick to forgive until Gareth died and all forgiveness along with him. Gawain had never had time for fancy words. And tricky words were for the likes of Merlin and the sly young men that the Bastard had brought in: Gawain trusted no one who talked too fast or too fancy.

Better make time to understand what's going on, he warned himself. Assuming you have it, after a battle of this size.

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