Daine meets Rikash when he comes to retrieve his friend and charge, Maura of Dunlath.
Stormwings were landing on the ground in front of them. Three moved out of Daine's sight. Turning, she saw them settle on the road behind her, cutting off any escape. Coldly she leveled her weapon at the nearest Stormwing, a male who wore a collection of bones braided into his long blond hair.
He stared back at her, contempt in his eyes, then looked at the younger girl. "Tell her we mean no harm, Maura."
"You're on speaking terms with them?" Daine asked.
Maura shrugged. "They visit Yolane and Belden a lot. He is Lord Rikash."
"And she is a Stormwing killer," barked the snarl-haired brunette who had spoken to Tkaa the day before. "She slew one of our queens last year!"
"She tried to kill me," Daine snapped. "It was a fair fight - a lot fairer than she deserved!"
Rikash hopped around Maura and stepped near Cloud, looking her and her rider over with chilly green eyes. The mare had seen his kind before. While their scent of rotten meat and bad death hurt her nose, she had learned to stand fast when they were near. She eyed Rikash, small ears flat against her skull. Daine knew what was in the pony's mind: one more hop and he'd be in range for a bite.
Don't hit the feathers, Daine warned silently. They'll cut your mouth.
Don't teach your dam to nurse a foal, Cloud retorted.
"You are quick to judge us, Stormwing killer," Rikash snarled. "Too quick, for a human. You come from a race that spends more time murdering your own kind than do all the immortals put together, yet you insist you are better than us." He spat on the ground, and looked at Maura. "You cannot leave Dunlath, and you must not stay here. Come home. Yolane doesn't need to know you were away."
"You mean she hasn't noticed I'm gone," Maura said bitterly. "Has anyone?"
"That is unjust," the Stormwing replied, firmly and gently. "You know very well that the cook and your nurse are frantic that you've vanished."
"I left them notes. I told them not to worry."
There was something odd between these two, Daine realized. The immortal spoke to Maura with affection. That was impossible. Stormwings were cruel, heartless: she had enough experience of them to know that. Worse, Maura addressed Rikash as she might an older brother or an uncle.
Watching the immortals, Daine saw that she needed help. Starlings gathered with the coming of fall, to gossip and to migrate. Nearby she found three such flocks, each with over fifty birds, and called them to the trees and rocks around her before she looked again at Maura and Rikash. "Do you know what hissort do?" she asked the younger girl. "They befoul the dead who fall in battle. They live on human fear and anger. They're monsters!"
Maura shrugged thin shoulders. "They can't help how they're made, Daine."
"Maura" - Rikash shook his head - "you can't just run away from home. And you shouldn't encourage her," he told Daine. "You're old enough to know better."
"I already know better," retorted Maura.
Daine glared at the Stormwing. "I haven't been encouraging her. I tried to make her go back. You're the one with wings, you take her.
Maura sat on the ground, chin sticking out. "I won't go back, and you can't make me. They're traitors. I won't stay under the same roof with them. My father would haunt me all my life if I did."
"Let us talk of this out of the way of prying ears," Rikash said, an eye on Daine.
"We can speak of it now. Daine can't tell anyone. She's stuck here, too!"
"Quiet!" ordered the Stormwing. "You're a child. You do not understand what is taking place, and you must not speak of mattes you cannot comprehend."
Her sense of humor overpowering her hatred of Stormwings, Daine looked down so Rikash couldn't see her smile. Obviously he liked Maura, or he would have bullied rather than debated her. She could also see debate was useless. Maura had the bit between her teeth and would not obey orders. "Go on," she urged the fuming immortal. "Shut her up. I never thought to see you stinkers balked by anyone, let alone a ten-year-old."
Rikash turned red under his dirt, and a few of his own flock cackled. "It is hard for us to bear young," he said, a hint of gritted teeth in his voice. "That being the case, we value others' young, paticularly when they are neglected. Affection has led me to induldge Lady Maura more than is wise."
Maura sighed. "All right, Lord Rikash. I'll hush. Only, I'm not coming back with you. You don't have to tell them you saw me."
Rikash shook his head. "If you were mine, I would beat you," he said with grim resignation. He looked up at Daine, eyes sharp. "As for you-"
Daine grinned, and made a silent request of the starlings. They set up a clamor, flapping their wings and voicing painfully shrill, loud whistles. "Go on," she told Rikash, raising her voice to be heard. "Take me in. You might last two or three minutes in the air with my friends going for your eyes."
The Stormwings looked at the birds with alarm. Starlings, cowards and clowns alone or in small groups, were bullies in a flock. Their whistles alone made the immortals try unsuccessfully to cover their ears.
"The gods help you if I catch you in the open," Rikash snarled, flapping his wings. "Maura, you had better rethink your choice of friends!" The Stormwings took to the air as the starlings jeered and insulted them. Wheeling, the immortals flew straight at the barrier and passed through.
"But what about your friend?" Maura cried, grabbing Daine's arm. "It was him making the noise, wasn't it? They might hurt him!"
"I don't think so," said Daine, watching the barrier. There was a sound like a thunderclap. The Stormwings returned, covered with soot from claws to crown and reeking of onions. "They hate onions," Daine told Maura as they flew by, tears running down their faces as they sneezed frantically. "We found out last fall, when we helped mop up after Pirates raided Port Legann."
"Goddess bless," the younger girl breathed, watching the retreat until the Stormwings were no longer in view.
Dismounting from Cloud, Daine let the pony go ahead of them on the trail to the caverns. "I can't believe you like them," she muttered.
*sigh* I'm in love already. Oh, and is it just me, or is Daine SUCH a total BITCH in this book? Okay, the next part with Rikash is when he catches Daine, sharing the body of a squirrel named Flicker, looking through papers in the southern fort.
The girl was so absorbed in her reading that she didn't notice something had darkened the window. When a wave of stench reached Flicker's nostrils, he sneezed and turned.
Rikash had landed on the rail outside and was looking in. "Well. A tree-rat. I think it's odd, a tree-rat going through papers. It's not the kind of thing you little crawlers usually do, is it?"
Flicker's tale whipped savagely in anger and fear. Come here, he cried. I'll show you what a "crawler" can do!
Rikash slid until he could block the windown if he raised his wings. "Only magic would let a tree-rat read." He yelled, "Humans to the command post! Now, ground pounders, now!" Raising a claw, he pointed at Flicker.
The floor! Daine ordered. Flicker jumped as gold fire smacked into the spot where they had been standing.
What was that? asked the squirrel, breath coming fast.
Magic. They don't use it much, but when they do...jump!
Flicker leaped atop a cabinet as another fire bolt struck his last position. I'm getting angry, Smelly, he scolded. How would you like your nose bit off?
This is not the time to insult him, Daine warned, looking for an escape. She heard feet pounding: humans were answering Rikash's summons.
Their location had the Stormwing in a bind. His feathers got in the way as he tried to aim. What's wrong? taunted Flicker. Can't work yourself around to point? But one of you was limber enough when it came to landing on me!
Someone banged on the door. "Hello? Is anyone there?"
"Yes, you dolts!" snarled Rikash. "Get in here now!"
"It's locked!" yelled the man outside.
"Out of the way!" the immortal cried. He could point at the door, and did, to loose a bolt of fire at the lock. Flicker jumped to the door and ran ovr just as the door swung open.
Three men, two of them cooks to judge by their aprons, dashed in.
"Get that squirrel!" shrieked Rikash as Flicker bolted past.
The cooks gaped at him. "Get the what?"
The exit was open. Flicker darted through and raced for the fort's wall.
"Don't argue with me! It's getting away!" Rikash's voice was clear even through the command post wall.
The squirrel didn't even pause. By the time a search party could leave the fort, he had reached the woods and was scrambling through the trees.
Aww...my cute little idiot. During this next bit, Daine employs the services of an eagle named Huntsong.
On their way to the southern fort, they found a trio of Stormwings going from their to the castle. With a shiver, Daine saw that Rikash was one of them.
Have they ever bothered you? she asked Huntsong.
The great bird glared at the approaching immortals. Not in a general way, he replied, talons clenching. We had a few misunderstandings when they first came here, until they learned the error of their ways. His wrath faded, and he added, All the same, I shall give them a wide berth. They cut my mate to ribbons when she defended our nest.
He drifted to one side. Two Stormwings flapped past, making rude noises. Only Rikash changed course, to fly around Huntsong in a wide circle. The other two, a blond female and the K'miri male, came back and joined him.
"They soar, don't they?" Rikash asked them. "Wheeling, wheeling, always in the same place?"
"Like toy kites, and twice as wood-skulled," joked the K'mir.
"But here is one, flying in a straight line, going somewhere. You don't see pray when you go too fast, am I right?"
Get ready to drop, Daine warned Huntsong.
Rikash spat, not looking to see if anyone was below. "This valley has a disease, one where cute little animals don't act like animals. Did I tell you about the squirrel?"
"Only a million times," said the K'miri Stormwing with a groan.
Daine saw the muscles bunch in Rikash's neck. Drop! she cried. Huntsong threw up his wings and dropped, hurtling earthward at terrifying speed.
"Go, go, go!" screamed Rikash.
The female whooped, and steel-winged bodies followed Huntsong down. Grimly Daine hung on, urging him into the trees that covered the road south. The eagle shot into the clear space between road and branches, scudding down the corridor they made. There was a scream and a crash: a Stormwing had come to grief. Huntsong risked a glance back. The female, scratched and bleeding, was trying to free herself from a chestnut. Seconds later the K'mir came in view, fighting to pull out of his stoop before he slammed into the dirt. He failed.
Relieved, Huntsong looked forward. Rikash awaited them ahead, where the trees fell briefly away from the road. Land, Daine urged.
I look stupid when I walk, complained the eagle as he obeyed. Hopping like a sparrow is not eagle's work.
If you think you look stupid, imagine how stupid he will look, Daine consoled him.
Rikash cursed and darted forward, flying low, trying to keep his great metal wings from clipping the earth or trees. Called from their nests, the squirrels leaped on him, biting with very sharp teeth. Rikash screeched, tried to cover his eyes with his wings, and slammed into an elm. Now run, Daine told the squirrels; they obeyed. Huntsong liked that advice, too. He took off, flapping lazily past the spot where Rikash fought the elm's entangling branches. The air filled with the Stormwing's curses as Huntsong broke free of the trees.
MY POOR BABY! Heheh. I have to admit he deserved that. This next bit is after Daine and Co. have basically beaten Yolane and Tristan.
"C'mon, Kit," Daine said, backing towards the wall. "I don't think he wants help." She swore as she sensed the approach of more immortals - Stormwings, this time. Rikash and his flock were coming in fast.
Ignoring stiff and bruised muscles, the girl raced for the stair that led onto the wall, ignoring an explosion in the courtyard. Kitten, who had climbed enough for one day, stayed to watch the mages with fascination.
A fresh explosion from below made Daine stumble and nearly fall on the open stair. She caught herself and forced her aching legs on. When she reached the parapet, the Stormwings were almost directly overhead, twenty yards up.
From below came a howling screech, Tristan's furious "You can't beat me, Arram! You never had the belly for combat magic!
Daine glanced at her friend. Numair stood on a rock spire; except for that, the earth around him was a giant crater. A line of blood ran from his mouth, and he was coated in dust, but he seemed well. Tristen battled the tendrils of a clump of roses that twined around him. Between the crows and those thorns, the mage's elegant clothes and skin were in tatters. His look of amused good nature was gone, replaced by a fury that twisted his handsome face into a mastk.
The Stormwings could throw the contest Tristan's way, if she allowed them to interfere. Daine swung her crossbow up and sighted on their chieftain. "Lord Rikash!" she cried in her best parade ground voice.
He hovered, waiting. The others also hovered, watching him. Several had arrows in their living flesh. Others bore wounds from swords, claws, and teeth. All were streaked with smoke and soot.
I should have seen it would come to this," Rikash said. "What do you want?"
She blinked. What did she want? Once she had wanted to kill ever Stormwing she found, but was that still true? It seemed as if, ever since she had come here, someone was telling her that because she didn't like a creature's looks, it didn't mean that creature was bad. She still didn't like Stormwing looks, but Rikash seemed almost - decent. And how could she tell Maura that she had killed her friend?
"I'd like to end this bloodshed, I think," she replied. Her voice squeaked a little with embarrassment and nerves. She cleared her throat. "You'n me have no quarrel here - not really. We don't like each other, but you can't go killing everyone you don't like. Isn't that so?"
"Your rustic philosiphy amuses me," drawled Rikash. "Go on."
"Kill the ground-pounding bitch!" gasped the brunette female who one had told Maura that Daine was a Stormwing killer.
"Silence!" Rikash snarled at her.
Daine waited for them to be quiet. "Maybe you've heard of my aim. I don't miss often. I put out Queen Zhaneh Bitterclaws's eye, in case you hadn't heard. That was before she pushed me into killing her."
"But that shot was made with a longbow," the Stormwing lord pointed out.
"I'm as good with a crossbow. At this range it's like shooting fish in a barrel. I'm willing to negotiate, though. Since you're a friend of Maura's."
"You boast!" barked a male Stormwing. "Crossbows have no range, fifty feet at best. Don't they?" he asked Rikash.
The Stormwing lord looked at Daine and shrugged. "He's new from the Divine Realms. He thinks humans run screaming at the sight of us."
Daine sighted, loosed, and swung the bow down to redraw the string and load, all before the newcomer had registered the fact that the crossbow bolt had tapped his wing. A single feather dropped away and plummeted into the lake. By the time it struck the water, the bow was back on her shoulder and she was ready to fire again. "I've got a two-hundred-yard range on this," she called. "Care to try me?"
Rikash watched her for a long time, metal wings fanning the air. Daine waited him out. When he spoke at last, his voice was quiet. "I am not as old as Zhaneh Bitterclaws was - not as crafty or as powerful. But I believe I may be wiser." To his flock he said, "Let's go, my friends. We must tell the emperor to expect no more Dunlath opals." He looked at Daine and shoook his head. "I suppose we're both losing our minds. Please tell Maura I said good-bye and good luck." Gliding to the lake's surface, he banked and turned south.
That's all for Book Two...here's the "bits" from Emperor Mage.