Hawk Quest (74 page)

They ate biscuits and cold meat, then Wayland drew a blanket
over them and clutched Syth close for warmth. She shivered in his arms.

‘She’s gone, isn’t she?’

‘Yes. Gone for good.’

‘What will we do?’

Wayland trembled with anger. ‘I’ll kill Drogo.’

Syth gripped tight. ‘Let Vallon deal with him.’ She hesitated. ‘I meant what will happen to us if we don’t deliver four falcons.’

Wayland had never let himself imagine that prospect. ‘I don’t know.’

Syth began to weep. ‘It’s not fair. After all our hard work, all we’ve been through … it’s not fair.’

Wayland held her close. ‘Hush.’ He kissed her brow. ‘We’ve still got each other.’

Long after Syth had fallen asleep, Wayland lay agonising over the haggard’s loss, wondering where she was, worrying about whether she’d eaten. He imagined her flying back to the arctic, winging north above the clouds, steering by the stars.

In the night the wind dropped and the clouds slid away, uncovering a sky frigid with stars. Wayland rose while it was still dark and climbed the ridge. The fire still burned to the west. He made his way back to Syth and shook her. ‘Wake up. We have to leave.’

She sat up in his arms, limber as a sleepy child. ‘Why the hurry?’

‘We’re at least twenty miles from the river. If we don’t start now, we won’t reach it until gone midday.’

Wayland took his bearings from the stars. Greying sky ahead showed that he was travelling in roughly the right direction. The horizon bled and the sun rose on the frozen steppe, each grass stem glazed with ice crystals that collapsed into powder at a touch. Wayland searched the sky and every so often he glanced behind.

The sun was well up, the river not yet in sight, when a gamebird erupted under his horse’s feet with a startled cry. He struggled to control his mount. The bird rose on rattling wings, its panicked take-off a signal for a hundred others to flush. They were larger than grouse, with longer wings that drove them through the air arrow fast, their pinions producing an extraordinary whistling sound. Wayland watched the flock stream away and lifted his gaze in slim hope. If the
haggard was aloft, she would have seen the game rise from miles away and might fly over to investigate. He marked the path they took and saw them set their wings and glide to earth beyond a distant ridge.

Syth rode up. ‘What were they?’

‘Some kind of bustard.’

He waited. The sky remained empty. He shook his head and rode on.

He’d almost reached the ridge when high in the heavens he saw a point of light – gone at first blink. He kept his eye on the spot and had almost given up when it appeared again. A tiny flicker brighter than the glacial blue, at an eye-straining distance.

‘What are you looking at?’

Wayland dismounted carefully and pointed. ‘There’s a bird up there, miles away and very high. It’s circling and only shows at a certain point in its … ’ He stopped, concentrating on the intermittent flicker.

‘Can you see it yet? It’s heading towards us.’

Syth stared blindly into the blue. ‘Do you think it’s her?’

‘It’s a bird of prey, but the chances of it being the haggard …’

The bird was still circling, each circuit bringing it closer. Its path carried it close to the sun and Wayland blinked, lost sight of it and couldn’t pick it up again.

‘It’s gone.’ He thumped his thigh in frustration.

Syth pointed. ‘There!’

The bird was sweeping towards them in a fast glide. Wayland took in the anchor profile, the silvery sheen. ‘It’s her! Fetch the pigeons. Hurry!’

Syth scrabbled to untie the basket. Wayland kept his eyes on the falcon. She came overhead at an immense height and he cried out and swung the lure. She didn’t know what it was and didn’t slow or alter her course. She skated past and was almost out of sight when she checked and swung around.

Wayland shot an impatient glance at Syth. ‘What’s taking you so long?’

‘Here,’ she panted, passing him one of the pigeons.

Wayland seized it without taking his eyes off the falcon. She was dawdling about half a mile to the west, probably two thousand feet high.

‘Do you think she knows it’s us?’ Syth asked.

Wayland vented his tension with a laugh. ‘Oh, yes. She knows.’ With shaking fingers he felt in his hawking bag and took out a length of light cord with two loops at one end. ‘Secure this to the other pigeon’s legs.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’ll throw out one of the pigeons when she’s still too far away to catch it. That should attract her attention and bring her over us. Then I’ll toss out the tethered pigeon.’

The haggard held position, cutting lazy circles, occasionally hanging stationary in a breeze unfelt on the ground. Wayland called, held up the pigeon and let it flutter its wings. The falcon drew closer.

Wayland found it hard to measure how far off she was. He lowered his gaze to get a sense of scale, took deep breaths before looking skyward again.

Timing was critical. Release the pigeon too soon and the falcon would ignore it as uncatchable. Release too late and she might take it and carry it off.

She drew on, maintaining her pitch. She was about a quarter of a mile off when he flung the pigeon in the opposite direction. He glimpsed it flying away strong and true and saw the haggard shoot forward in a pumping stoop. Wayland thought he’d waited too long. Wings flashing, she passed overhead and he had to shield his eyes against the sun to keep her in sight. Half a mile away she set her wings and curved up into the sky, hanging like a daytime star.

Wayland groped out with his hand. ‘Quick! Give me the other pigeon!’

‘I’m trying. I can’t get the loops … ’ Syth broke off with a cry. Wayland heard a flutter and spun in horror to see the pigeon flying off untethered. A glance upwards revealed that the haggard hadn’t even noticed the bait.

Syth turned to him, appalled. ‘Don’t be angry. My hands were cold and the pigeon struggled and … Oh, Wayland, I’m sorry!’

Wayland was too stunned by the enormity of her blunder to be angry. Through dazed eyes he saw the haggard work her way back and hold station overhead, waiting to be served. The perfect position. Wayland’s gaze darted towards the east.

‘We still have a chance,’ he shouted, and ran towards his horse.

‘How?’ Syth cried.

He leaped into the saddle. ‘The bustards. Follow me.’

He galloped towards the ridge the bustards had crossed. The trouble was that in this wilderness of endless receding planes, no landmarks stood out with precision. Turn a few degrees either way and the spot you’d marked so carefully would have merged into the landscape when you turned back.

He rode with one eye on the haggard. She seemed to be following, but it was hard to be sure. When he reached the ridge, he jumped off his horse and handed the reins to Syth. ‘Keep watch on the falcon. Don’t lose sight of her. Let me know if she drifts away.’

He studied the terrain ahead and his heart sank. Flat steppe with knee-high grass for as far as the eye could encompass. He’d been right in the middle of the flock of bustards when they’d flushed and if his horse hadn’t almost stepped on one he would have passed through with no idea they were there.

He waded through the grass. Last seen the bustards had set their wings to put in, but gamebirds usually landed further away than expected and then ran on to deceive any watching predator. He checked the sky. The haggard turned small and attentive circles overhead. Her menacing profile would keep the bustards clamped to the ground. He stalked through the grass, his eyes raking in all directions. If only he’d had the dog with him.

He broke into a run, quartering the area in the hope of flushing the bustards. At first he covered the ground methodically, but as time passed his movements grew random and desperate. Syth called out and he saw that the falcon had gained height and was beginning to drift out of position. Sobbing with frustration, he dropped to his knees and surveyed the grass at eye level. With every upward glance, the falcon was higher and further away, barely visible.

Something flicked into sight. Over to the left. He trained his gaze on the spot. There it showed again – a bustard craning up its head. He must be right in the middle of the flock.

He looked skyward and couldn’t see the falcon. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t make her out. He turned towards Syth, spread his arms, pointed into the sky. She spread her arms, too, signalling that the falcon had gone.

Wayland clutched his forehead in despair and lurched a foot to his left, almost treading on a bustard crouching invisible in the grass. It flushed and again the huge flock sprang up into noisy flight. He watched them grow small in the distance and groaned.

A faint disturbance in the air made his nape tingle. The sound grew, a long yearning sigh that gathered into a ripping tear so fierce it sounded like the canopy of the universe was being torn apart. Wayland’s gaze shot up in time to see the white haggard stooping like an ice comet, descending at a speed that annihilated distance. She flattened out directly above him, adjusting her teardrop profile to correct her line of attack. One moment the bustards were quarter of a mile ahead of her, the next she was cutting through them, the tailenders spilling away from her path. She ignored them. She’d singled out her target the instant it rose and nothing could deflect her.

Wayland was too far away to hear the impact as she struck her quarry. It shot forward and tumbled to the ground trailing a coil of entrails. The falcon rebounded more than a hundred feet before winnowing down to her kill.

Wayland signalled at Syth to stay back. Even now the odds of recovering the falcon were against him. He guessed that her prey weighed no more than two pounds – light enough for her to carry with ease.

He ran in until he judged he was close to the kill site, then slowed to a cautious stalk, mouthing fatuous reassurances. In the long grass he didn’t see the haggard until he was within fifteen yards of her. She looked up from plucking her prey and stopped him with a stare.

One clumsy move and she’d be off, and once spooked, she’d be almost unapproachable. He sank to his haunches and waited, pretending to look at anything but her. The longer she remained on her prey, the better his chances. He waited until the grass around her was strewn with her victim’s feathers and then he lay on his side and dragged himself towards her. She continued pluming, casting the occasional dark glance at him. He was beginning to think the impossible was almost in his grasp when she left off plucking and fixed her gaze on something behind him. He turned and couldn’t believe it. Syth was leading her horse towards him. ‘Get back!’ he mouthed.

She sank down and mouthed a warning of her own, stabbing one hand in the direction of the ridge. Wayland’s blood ran cold. There
was only one thing that could mean. Syth had spotted nomads, and if she’d seen them, they’d seen her.

No time now for caution. The haggard had finished plucking and was beginning to break into the bustard’s breast. As smoothly as he could, he wriggled towards her. He was within arm’s reach when she uttered a cry of alarm and leaned back. He grabbed the bustard. She struggled to carry it away, lost her grip and retreated a couple of feet. He waggled the prey. ‘Come on,’ he pleaded.

She eyed him with wild suspicion. Syth cried out, flapping her arms in terror.

Heart pounding, Wayland wriggled forward, pushing the bustard towards the haggard. She ignored it. Syth cried out in desperate appeal. Last chance. He moved the bustard closer to the haggard. Eyes fixed on his face, she shot out one foot and gripped her prey. One of her jesses had flicked within reach. Wayland closed fingers around the strap, grasped it and hoisted falcon and quarry off the ground.

She hung screaming and flapping from his fist. Syth had seen him secure her and was galloping towards him.

‘Give me her cage!’

She pushed it at him and he bundled the haggard into her wicker prison. He flung himself on to his horse.

‘How many?’

‘Three.’

‘Close?’

Syth nodded violently.

Wayland smacked her horse’s rump and pointed. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

He slung the cage from his saddle. Wailing protests from within. After such rough treatment, she might never trust him again. He kicked his horse into a gallop, the wind stinging his face. He’d covered less than half a mile when the nomads rose up on the ridgeline behind him.

He whipped his mount to draw level with Syth. ‘How far to the river?’ she called.

‘I don’t know. Too far.’ Even if they reached it ahead of the nomads, their course had been so erratic that they’d strike it miles from the camp. Each time he looked back, the nomads were closer. At this rate they’d overtake within a mile. They were better riders on faster horses
and if half the stories about their bowmanship were true, there was no chance of fighting them off at full gallop.

‘We have to make a stand.’

‘Where?’

He saw over to their right a low mound, a tumulus crowned with patchy scrub. ‘There.’

They reached the hummock with the cries of their hunters shrilling behind them. Wayland threw himself off his horse and hitched its reins to a bush. Syth did the same. He unshouldered his bow and pulled a fistful of arrows from his quiver. Syth fumbled with her own bow, the nomads little more than a furlong distant.

He pulled her down. ‘Lie flat.’

The nomads spread out, one to the left, one to the right and the third charging head on. Two were young men, about the same age as Wayland or a little older. The third was only a lad. Their double-curved bows must have been two feet shorter than his own weapon, designed to be shot from horseback. He knelt to the rear of his horse, grabbing great breaths. The headlong attacker held his bow and reins in one hand, the arrow loosely fitted. Wayland ignored the other nomads and bent his bow. His target pounded closer and now he could see his eyes, his wind-glazed cheeks. He aimed for the midriff.

The nomad dropped his reins and snatched into a draw with his bow held above his head. He lowered it and released as his horse rose with all four hooves off the ground. Wayland loosed almost in the same instant. He heard an arrow fizz and strike and his horse screamed and bucked beside him. He thought he’d missed, then the nomad lurched left and clasped his bow arm. Another arrow lashed past Wayland’s head and he saw the rider to his left already stringing another dart.