Drift: River of Falcons Book 1

Red Lightning

Drift stood in the midst of the animal carcasses. She was no longer dressed in her leggings and shirt, and no onlooker would have taken her for a boy as the last of the sunlight shone through her long hair and a rising wind rippled the delicate white dress she was wearing. But she did not bother to examine herself or think about where the dress had come from. Her attention was on the animals strewn about on the ground. Spotting a fawn lying on its side, eyes closed, she knelt and felt its neck for a pulse. Not finding one, she rolled it gently over, then caught her breath when she saw the jagged gash in its belly. She stood abruptly, her face pale and her hands shaking. "How could he!" she cried aloud.

She went to a nearby doe. There was a blackened hole in its side where a bolt of lightning had struck it. She hurried to the next one. It, too, was dead. They all were dead: Deer, moose, foxes, badgers, bobcats, even rabbits. She fought back tears. "I shouldn't have started that stupid stampede!"

She spotted a boar that was still breathing. It was lying on its chest, its legs splayed out awkwardly. It had been caught by a low bolt that broke its legs. She spoke in Falconchant, calming it, then leaned down and put a hand on its back. As, eyes closed, she reached out to the Silvani, she felt a flutter of wings passing by her cheek and opened her eyes to look. It was another dark butterfly. "Who are you?" she asked as it circled her.

"Dagger-tail," an airy whisper came from the shadows of the nearby forest. "Marpesia," the whisper added. The butterfly landed on her outstretched hand.

She examined it, noting the soft, dark blue-brown wings and the way the hind-wings came to points shaped like daggers. "Salve, Marpesia," she said. "Thank you for sharing your name with me. Gratis."

The butterfly flapped over to the tip of one of the boar's long tusks.

Drift nodded, then closed her eyes and began a chant that named the boar's leg bones. When she reopened her eyes, the butterfly was gone and the boar was struggling to its feet. It snorted and she backed away. Letting out another snort, it sniffed its mate and young, then, its head low, walked slowly off toward the north. However, before it had gotten very far, it paused, sniffed, and gave a warning grunt.

"What is it?" Drift asked.

It grunted again, wheeled around, and thundered past her. She watched it crash into the bushes and disappear, then she turned slowly, hoping she was prepared for whatever had frightened it.

Vultan. Was. There. The thought came stuttering to her as she took in the enormity of it. He was standing completely still, looking directly at her, about fifty feet away on the riverbank. His face was deeply shaded by a hood, but she could see just enough to realize with a clutching of her stomach that his eyes looked quite black and strangely bottomless. He was surprisingly tall, but she was uncertain how tall because it was hard to tear her gaze away from his eyes for long enough to get a good look at the rest of him. His staff was also quite tall. He held it with long, bony fingers. His skin seemed unnaturally pale and the evening breeze brought to her a smell of long-closed cellars and musty, dead air that she assumed must be coming from him. She shivered and realized she was biting her lip.

She tried to will herself to relax. I'm ready, she told herself. I have to be! But it was hard to believe anyone could be ready to face... That.

Vultan moved. Ever so slightly, but it broke the terror of the moment. He glanced up and down her, taking in her long, white dress.

She, too, glanced down at her clothes, noting the fine linen gown that billowed gently around her body with its delicate lacework, completed with a dozen tiny white pearls sewed into the chest panel. Although the dress had somehow sprung from her imagination (how, she could not say), it looked like the result of many days of careful needlework. The sight of it gave her confidence. "If you're looking for the Princess, here she is!" she called, her hands forming fists at her sides.