Fire Hawk

Fire Hawk

by

Justine Davis

Bell Bridge Books

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

Bell Bridge Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-657-4
Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-639-0

Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

Copyright © 1997 by Janice Davis Smith

Published in the United States of America.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

First published in 1997 by Topaz, an imprint of Dutton Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.
Visit our websites
BelleBooks.com
BellBridgeBooks.com
ImaJinnBooks.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover design: Debra Dixon
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo/Art credits:
Landscape (manipulated) © Nizhava1956 | Dreamstime.com
Man (manipulated) © Hot Damn Stock
Book (manipulated) © Andrey Frolov | Dreamstime.com

:Mhfd:01:

Dedication

Once again for Hal, whose songs are as timeless

as the place in this story—

With thanks for the wisdom, the magic . . . and the music.

Chapter 1

Before Arthur was King, in a place out of time
 . . .

SHE’D NEVER WANTED to kill before.

Jenna stared down at the freshly turned earth, watching the rain turn it to mud, wishing she could cry as the sky did so freely. But she had no tears. She had had nothing left but anger for a very long time. There had been too many burials. And too many of those had ended, like this one, with a stone set at the head of the grave that bore the symbol of the Hawk. She had never wanted to kill, but she knew now that she could learn. With pleasure.

“Jenna—”

Jenna ignored the soft voice of Evelin the healer; the woman could say nothing she had not heard before. She turned away from the freshly turned earth. Justus had been her brother, and she had loved him. Idolized him, with his gentle good humor, his quiet ways, and the quick, sharp mind that had helped her hone her own to a sharp edge.

None of it had done him any good. The very things that had made the clan prize him had been his downfall; he was a man of peace, not war. He hadn’t known how to fight any more than any of them did. And now he was as dead as if he’d been a helpless child, not the pride of his people, the heir to the golden Hawk. And she was alone. Alone with her fears. Alone with her duties. Alone with the weight of generations of responsibility on her shoulders.

Alone with her anger.

It bubbled up in her again, fierce and relentless. She was soul-deep weary of feeling so utterly helpless. The last time the yearly rains had come, she’d had a family. She’d had a mother who, despite being the hereditary head of the clan since Jenna’s father’s death shortly after she was born, had always had time for her children. She’d had a sweet, loving brother, who had born the Hawk title with a solemn sadness after the death of their mother.

And now she had no one.

No one but an entire clan, all looking to her to do . . . something. To help them. To save them. And she didn’t know how.

Neither had her mother. Or her brother, in the short time he’d lived to hold the Hawk. They knew nothing of war, and she was as ignorant as they. The closest any of them had ever come to fighting was hearing of the exploits of Kane, the mythical warrior of the mountains, stories told to entertain children.

None of them knew how to fight, yet they expected her to acquire the knowledge that would save them.

“Jenna, it is time for the ceremony.”

“My brother is barely cold,” she snapped at Evelin, even though she knew it was tradition and not the kindly healer herself who demanded it.

“Which is why it is time,” Evelin said, ever reasonable even in the face of Jenna’s temper.

Yet moments from now, Jenna mused as she shoved the long mass of her hair back from her face and reluctantly followed the elderly woman, such a show of temper from her would cause much obsequious bowing and apologizing. She would be the same woman she was now; the people would be the same. The only difference would be she would have the precious golden Hawk, the emblem of her new and unwanted rank. The emblem she had never expected or desired to hold.

She stood miserably in the rain as the ragged clan of less than one hundred, all that was left now after months of a battle that was so one-sided as to be hardly deserving of the name, gathered around her in the clearing. Evelin, as the oldest clanswoman still living, began the melodic chant. Rising and falling, an evocative mix of mourning for the fallen leader and celebration of the new one, the chant had been a part of Hawk clan tradition for generations. She’d been too young to pay attention to it when the Hawk had passed from her father to her mother upon his death. But she remembered it far too well from the ceremony that had turned it over to her brother, remembered it because it had been mere months ago. Not even five cycles of the moon had passed since Justus had stood where she was now.

She glanced at the gathered clan. They were all gazing respectfully at Evelin, as was expected. Only Cara, her dear friend Cara, looked at Jenna. There was such warm sympathy and understanding in the young woman’s eyes that Jenna felt the fierce anger inside her ebb ever so slightly. But still, when Evelin held the precious statue out to her, she wanted to scream her refusal, wanted to cry to the weeping heavens that this was not right. But she had no time now; grief was a luxury she could not allow herself. She had had to keep going after her mother’s death, and she had to keep going now, after Justus’s death. She had to, for the sake of the clan. She had to, and she would.

She took the heavy golden bird. A lifetime of inculcated traditions were not set aside so easily.

The chant went on, the low words in the ancient language no one spoke any longer, the words that gave to Jenna the power she’d never wanted, the power she’d thought herself saved from ever having to wield by the good fortune of having an older brother.

A movement on the edge of her vision caught her attention. She looked toward it. Cara was not the only one who was breaking with tradition and looking at Jenna rather than the healer conducting the ceremony. The old man who had come to them out of the forest, a refugee from the brutal attacks, was watching her intently. His eyes, sometimes the green of the misty wood, sometimes nearly as gold as the Hawk whose weight was already tiring her arms, were fierce with an intelligence tempered by an unerring wisdom. Despite his intimidating demeanor, Jenna had often gone to him to hear the amazing stories he could tell, of times and places never imagined, of things that could not be, yet came alive in his telling in a way that never failed to fascinate her.

And now, the old, silver-haired man with the dark brows, known only as the storyteller, sent her a look not of sympathy and understanding as Cara had, but of strength, and a support so strong it was almost tangible. So powerful was the surge of it within her that Jenna blinked, startled. As if her involuntary reaction had been a sign of a message received, the old man looked away, glancing up at the clouds that had been pelting them for nearly a full night and day.

Evelin began to walk around Jenna in the traditional way, tossing handfuls of her precious herbs down onto the muddy earth, herbs mixed in a way known only to the clan’s healer, and handed down by each healer to the next.

As if responding to the ancient invocation, the rain began to slow. Jenna saw the people glancing skyward, much as the storyteller had, as the ominously dark gray skies began to lighten.

Evelin drew out the traditional dagger, with its hilt carved in a replica of the Hawk, at last beginning the final chorus of the chant, the words meant to call blessings down on the new Hawk, the holder of the golden symbol of the rank of leader of the clan. The rank had been in Jenna’s family for generations, since the only reason for change was misuse of the power it bestowed.

She wondered idly if not using the power at all fell under that dictum.

Evelin’s last words echoed, and silence fell upon the group. From the corner of her eye, Jenna saw the storyteller nod sharply, as if in approval of Evelin’s performance.
You’d think the old man wrote the chant himself,
she thought,
as pleased as he’s looking.
A gust of wind blew rain into her eyes, and her vision blurred for a moment. When she blinked them clear again, the rain had stopped and the old man was gone. Another one of his eerie disappearances that brought on the rumors among the children that the man was a warlock, or worse.

Evelin reached out and slid the ceremonial dagger into the sheath at Jenna’s waist. Then the healer turned to the gathered clan. “I give you the new Hawk.”

A cheer arose, with more enthusiasm that Jenna ever would have expected; she didn’t think they had that much left in them. She wondered what it was for, that enthusiasm. She wondered what difference they thought a new Hawk would make. She wondered what lies they were telling themselves.

She wondered what in the name of the heavens they expected her to do.

“I’VE BEEN expecting you.”

Jenna’s breath caught as the low voice came out of the shadows. She should be used to it by now, she thought; no one ever surprised the storyteller.

Involuntarily Jenna shivered. The fire in the center of the small hut had gone out, and she wondered that the old man’s bones could tolerate the damp and cold.

“Sit down, Jenna.”

She saw only the swirl of his robe in the dim light as he stepped forward. And then she saw his face, wide jaw, dark, heavy brows beneath silver hair, and always those eyes, fierce, penetrating, the fire from within burning as brightly as the fire reflected in them—

Fire?

She glanced downward, only now realizing that the fire she’d thought lacking even any lingering embers was burning steadily, providing the light she’d needed to see him, and warmth enough to take away the chill of the damp air.

“Or perhaps I’m being too familiar? You are, after all, the Hawk now.”

Jenna wrinkled her nose. “Mercy, not you, too.”

The man’s mouth quirked upward at one corner. “Had enough of it so soon? Most would enjoy the fealty of an entire clan.”

“The fealty is fine,” Jenna said wryly. “ ’Tis the expectations I find difficult.”

The storyteller chuckled. Jenna smiled despite her worries; she alone had always managed to make the mysterious man smile. He had come to them weighed down by a darkness she sensed was deep and long-standing, and it had given her a special sort of pleasure to be the one who could brighten it for him. And it seemed a small price to pay for the wondrous tales he spun, holding adults and children alike enthralled.

But it was not stories she’d come for now. She wasn’t certain why she had come, really. Perhaps she had some crazy idea that because the man sometimes told tales of faraway battles he at least knew
something
about fighting. More than she did, in any case.

She took the seat he indicated, a low stool that bore the marks of Latham, the clan’s woodworker. The storyteller dropped to sit cross-legged on the ground before the fire, his only cushion the bear pelt that passed from storyteller to storyteller. It had lain unused, this hut unoccupied, since Gillan had died in one of the first attacks.

Jenna noticed, not for the first time, that the storyteller moved with a limberness that belied the gray of his hair. It was odd, she thought, also not for the first time, that no one had ever discovered much about the man’s past; the clan was generally a curious lot when it came to newcomers. Odder still that she, the most curious of them all, hadn’t tried to pry his own story out of him, hadn’t even charmed his proper name out of him. But he had come here and taken Gillan’s place almost without question; his skill at storytelling had rendered questions seemingly needless. And no one had really felt up to the task of asking, not when it meant looking into those fiercely intelligent eyes.

“Why did you expect me?” she asked.

“Because it is time.”

Jenna sighed. “Must you always be so mysterious?”

A delighted expression crossed his face. “Have I succeeded, then? Good.”

Jenna found herself smiling despite her worries; it was difficult not to when that rare grin lit up the storyteller’s expression. For an instant she thought she saw something change in his eyes, some flicker of a reality hidden behind a mask, but it was gone so swiftly she could not be sure.

“That’s what I was hoping to see,” he said. “You smile too little of late.”

“There is little to smile about,” she retorted. “You know that better than anyone. You must know that I—”

She broke off. Did she dare confide her fears, even to him? Did she dare admit how frightened she was, how helpless she felt, how terrified she was that she would not be able to save the people who depended on her?

“You will not let them down, Jenna.”

The uncanny accuracy of his guess, and the unshakable certainty in his voice, sent a shiver down her spine. Who
was
this man?

Her fears, pressing now, churning, overcame her doubts, and the words came from her in a rush. “How can you say that? We’ve had no fighting here for generations. How can I help? How can I save my people, when I know no more than they do?”

“You will find the way.” His eyes had gone distant, unfocused. His voice had changed, taken on the softly compelling note it held when he was telling one of his wondrous tales. “You will go far from here, from your home. Face dark trials. The serpent’s tongue, the lion’s roar . . .”

Jenna stared, holding her breath as his voice trailed off. The silence spun out, as taut as the strings of Cara’s harp. The storyteller continued to stare, as if at something only he could see. Finally the strain was too much for Jenna, and she had to break the stillness.

“But why? Where am I to go? What am I to do? I know nothing of war!”

He sucked in a short breath, and that quickly was back with her, his eyes again focused and intent.

“Then you must find someone who does.”

Her mouth twisted at one corner, and she looked at him pointedly; despite the oddness of his ways and the fact that many of the clan were intimidated by him, Jenna was not.

“I did. I came to you.”

The storyteller blinked. “Me?”

It was the first time she’d ever seen him startled, but she couldn’t spare time to dwell on her small victory. “You at least speak of battles. It is more than anyone else.”

He smiled, but shook his head. “You flatter me, child. They are only stories.”

“But the battles were real, were they not?”

“Yes. But still—”