Ascendance

AYDRIAN FOUNDMICKLIN'SVillage as the first snow descended over the frontier of Wester-Honce, and found, to his dismay, that the place was deserted. No second disaster had emptied the village, he soon discerned, for it seemed to him as if the huntsmen had, in an orderly manner, packed up and walked away.

The snow continued to fall throughout the day and the night. By morning, the young ranger found himself surrounded by more than three feet of the white stuff. He had no food, no companions, and no practical knowledge of the immediate area, but Aydrian, well-trained and in complete harmony with nature, was hardly afraid. He remained in the area for a couple of weeks, seeking any clues about the weretiger and the disaster that had begun the downfall of the village. Finding none, he turned his gaze back to the east.

Knowing full well that a mighty storm might descend upon him, but hardly fearing that prospect, the young ranger started out again, thinking to take a circuitous route back to Festertool.

A week later, he found a small village, no more than a cluster of houses, a place much like the abandoned Micklin's Village. He was greeted warmly by the three men and one woman who were in the common room, though they had never heard of Festertool, let alone any ranger named Nighthawk.

"What's bringing the ranger of Festertool out so far, then, in the blows of winter?" the woman asked him.

"Micklin's Village," Aydrian explained. When dark clouds crossed the faces of all four in the room, the young ranger's hopes brightened. He told of his findings and of the tale of Mickael that had led him there in the first place.

"Yeah, I know Mickael," one of the men answered. "Roll bones with him every market." His voice dropped to lower, grimmer tones. "Used to, anyhow."

"A terrible fate, they suffered," the woman added. "All torn up by the beast!" She shuddered.

"What more might you know of this beast?" Aydrian asked, leaning forward in his chair. "For I am sworn to slay it."

"Never heard of it before it attacked Micklin's Village," the woman answered, and two of the men nodded their agreement.

"Heared of the beast in Palmaris," the third man said, "many years ago, during the plague. Heared that Queen Jilseponie did battle with it before the gates of St. Precious and that she drove it away with her power."

"Queen Jilseponie!" another man said, lifting his mug in a toast.

"Aye, but that was a decade and more ago," the woman replied. "Are ye thinkin' it's the same beast that sacked Micklin's? Or the same that took three in Tuber's Creek?"

"Tuber's Creek?" Aydrian asked, but the others were too immersed in their own conversation even to notice.

"Aye, and the same that killed Baron Bildeborough of Palmaris," the third man was quick to respond. "Bishop Marcalo De'Unnero's the name they gave to the thing. A most wicked one was he! The same beast who killed Nightbird."

The other three villagers groaned and nodded solemnly, but Aydrian could hardly draw breath, let alone make any sound. Had this all been somehow predestined? he had to ask himself. Was fate playing a cruel trick or a kind one, allowing him the opportunity to avenge the death of his father?

Aydrian listened intently as the four chatted, speaking of Nightbird, his father, and of De'Unnero, the weretiger, speculating as to whether that creature and this one might be one and the same; and arguing whether it was really De'Unnero, or Father Abbot Markwart, who had truly killed the great ranger.

When their discussion finally began to settle, Aydrian managed to find his voice and ask again, "Tuber's Creek?"

And so began the next leg of Aydrian's hunt, a journey to the south and east, to a small village on the banks of the Tuber's Creek. He arrived a few days later, to find the place solemn and as gray of mood as was the winter sky.

The young ranger, declaring that he had come in pursuit of the beast, had no trouble in finding folk willing to talk of their loss. Theirs was a story that should have torn at Aydrian's heart, a tale of three men lost, one dragged off with no more left of him than his ragged and bloody clothing. But in truth the young ranger, as he listened to the story, was considering only his own potential gain or ultimate loss along this road he had chosen to walk.

"Oh, and the poor girl Sadye," one old woman crooned. "She was first to find the clothing of her dead man. Broke her, I say."

"First to find?" Aydrian noted. "Where might I find this Sadye, to hear her tale?"

"Palmaris, I'm thinking," one of the men remarked. "Said she'd be goin' home, and so she did. And I'm missin' her singing, I am."

"More than singing," insisted the superstitious old woman, and she made the sign of the evergreen, the Abellican symbol of life, as she spoke. "A prophet she was, by me own eyes and ears!"

"How so?" Aydrian asked.

"Singin' o' just such a beast," the old woman remarked.

"Sadye is a bard," one of the men explained. "And she came to town recounting the tales of Micklin's Village, a new song and one of her own making. Alas that the same unlikely fate should befall her own husband!"

"She had come from Micklin's Village?" Aydrian asked, more than a little intrigued. And the beast followed her here, he privately reasoned.

"Aye, she said she'd gone through that doomed place," the man answered. "And now she's out for Palmaris, and God be with her that she make it home."

A few of the others murmured their prayers for poor Sadye, but Aydrian's thinking was drifting along different lines than sympathy. "Pray tell me," he bade them all, "of the other songs of Sadye the bard."

A few curious stares came back at him, but he held his expression calm, not letting on about any of his growing suspicions - not really suspicions but, rather, a growing hunch.

The townsfolk sang to him, then, many of Sadye's songs. Old songs and new ones, lyrics that had been around for hundreds of years and her original pieces. One of the latter, in particular, caught Aydrian's attention.

The Lyrical of Marcalo De'Unnero.

It was all fitting together just a bit too neatly.

The folk offered him a house for as long as he wanted it, the same house where Sadye and her man, Callo, had lived during their short stay in Tuber's Creek. As anxious as he was to be out on the hunt, Aydrian wisely accepted their offer, and he remained in the village for more than a month. By day, he helped out wherever he could, hunting and with the chores, but he made certain that he was back in his house, alone, each night, and there, in a curtained-off area, the young ranger went to Oracle.

And learned - of Palmaris and Marcalo De'Unnero. Nothing specific came to him, just general feelings, but the greatest lesson for Aydrian those nights at Oracle was the certainty at last that the shadowy figures he could bring into the cloudy background of the mirror realm were really two distinct entities. Or one with battling emotions, he believed, for the feelings he got concerning the man he now suspected to be the weretiger were very different indeed on different days. From one figure, he felt nothing but hatred for the man, from the other, something more akin to respect.

Still, he could glean little more than that, so after a few days at his Oracle-induced contemplation, Aydrian turned his thoughts more to the present, trying to piece together clearly all that he had heard of the beast, all that he had heard of Micklin's Village and of the tragedy at Tuber's Creek. Had the two tragedies been the work of the same creature?

Aydrian believed the answer to be a resounding yes, for how many such beasts could exist? If Mickael was to be believed, Bertram Dale - or whoever this Bertram Dale might be - was the monster.

But if that Bertram Dale was the same man as Callo Crump, as Aydrian believed, then where had the grieving Sadye come from?

The question did not prevent Aydrian from thinking that Bertram and Callo were one and the same. He heard about the torn and bloody clothing of Callo Crump. But if the creature had ripped Callo's clothing so viciously, Aydrian would have expected there to have been pieces of Callo found also. Still, the villagers were convinced of Sadye's sincerity and were fretfully worried about her having headed out on the dangerous road alone.

Every night, Aydrian finished Oracle by rubbing his hands over his face. He had a nagging feeling about all this. He believed that the beast that had torn up Micklin's Village - a weretiger, surely, and no natural cat - and the one that had slaughtered the hunters from Tuber's Creek were one and the same; and, furthermore, that the beast could be traced back: to Palmaris and this strange monk named Marcalo De'Unnero.

Or perhaps it was Aydrian's hope more than his belief. For if his suspicions proved correct, how fast his legend would grow when he brought the head of the weretiger in as a trophy! Furthermore, if his suspicions concerning the origins of the beast were correct, if it was indeed the monk from Palmaris all those years ago, then it was common belief that the weretiger was somehow gemstone inspired or created.

Whenever he thought that, Aydrian dropped a hand into his pouch of gemstones and ran his fingers across their smooth surfaces. With the training Dasslerond had given him, his own inner powers, and the training he was receiving from the ghost in the mirror at Oracle, Aydrian was confident that he could win any battle involving the use of gemstone magic.

Any battle.

"It is the life of the Pryani Gypsy!" Sadye proclaimed one cold winter morning, her exuberance mocking Marcalo's typically dour mood. "We travel the world, seeing what we may."

"Until the tiger comes forth," Marcalo reminded.

"As with the gypsies," Sadye said with a laugh. "When their thefts become known, they pack their wagons and flee." As she finished, she waved her arm out toward the wagon at the side of their small encampment, box shaped and covered, a portable house. The pair had acquired it a month before, finding it abandoned in one of the many towns through which they had ventured since they'd left Tuber's Creek. It was as much their home now as any of those towns, for they did not dare remain in any one place for any length of time. They had changed their appearance again -Sadye had cut her brown hair shorter and Marcalo had shaved his head and was now sporting a thin mustache - but they knew that Marcalo might be recognized by any of the survivors of Micklin's Village, who were rumored to be wandering the lands, and that either of them would be known to any of the folk of Tuber's Creek. If they encountered any of their former neighbors, they would have a hard time explaining away the existence of Marcalo, supposedly slain by the beast.

And so they wandered, through the weeks and through the towns, whenever the paths were clear enough for the wagon. If the snows trapped them, the weretiger went hunting at night, easily bringing home some food. That beast was out regularly now, at least once or twice a week; and often it was Sadye, playing the discordant notes on her lute, who brought it forth. On several occasions, when Marcalo had assumed the tiger form, Sadye had not driven him off but had sat there with him hour after hour, all through the night, her small lute the only barrier between her very life and this menacing beast.

Now she feared the weretiger not at all, and neither did Marcalo believe that he would ever kill or even harm her.

It wasn't a happy situation for the former monk, though he loved Sadye and their time together. But Marcalo De'Unnero found release for his inner passions, both in making love to Sadye and in allowing the weretiger to come forth. Still, his frustrations about the last ten years could not be dismissed, and while Sadye might be showing him a more exciting journey, it was still a journey without a destination.

Perhaps most exciting of all to De'Unnero were the times he ran in the forest as the weretiger, issuing his great rumbling growl with full knowledge that it would carry across the miles to nearby villages. He could imagine the trembling of the townsfolk at hearing that mighty call. Perhaps some would come out to hunt him - those kills Marcalo De'Unnero could justify.

On one such night, a warm evening in the late spring of God's Year 841, the weretiger's growl carried on gentle winds to the folk of a small village, including one young visitor to the town.

Aydrian sat bolt upright at the sound, his heart pounding, his eyes wide. It took him some time to muster the nerve to collect his clothing, his gemstones, and his sword and to walk out of the barn the townsfolk had generously offered him for his temporary home.

Many of the folk were outside, gathered around the central courtyard within the cluster of houses.

"That yer cat?" one man asked as Aydrian approached.

Another roar split the night, and Aydrian watched children clutching their parents tightly in fear. That image stunned and, in a strange and profound manner, wounded him, but he told himself that such displays prevented the true growth of the warrior. Had he spent his childhood clutching his mother, or even Lady Dasslerond, he would never have been able to find the courage now to go out into that dark and forbidding forest.

"Ye'll find the tracks in the morning," another man remarked.

"I will be skinning the cat before morning," Aydrian the Nighthawk replied, and he drew out his sword, his other hand comfortably, and comfortingly, resting in his pouch of powerful gemstones. He walked off into the darkness, using every skill the elves had taught him to orient himself to his surroundings and to keep his head clear, his fighting muscles on the edge of readiness.

He found the weretiger, or the weretiger found him, on the road far outside the tiny village. The great cat came out onto the path swiftly, in a sudden charge, but as soon as Aydrian fell into a proper defensive posture and faced it head-on, it veered aside, circling him.

Aydrian knew then that, as he had suspected, this was no ordinary animal. There was an intelligence behind the cat's eyes, malevolent and certainly human. How clearly the young ranger saw that! And only after a few minutes, turning slowly to keep facing the circling tiger, did Aydrian realize that he was holding the hematite, and that, likely, he had unknowingly projected his thoughts through the gemstone to heighten his understanding of the nature of this beast.

But before he could think that notion - and any possibilities it presented - through, the tiger leaped at him.

He dove sidelong and slashed back with his sword, scoring a hit, though just a minor slap against the orange-and-black-striped flank. In return, he got raked across his forearm by a kicking rear claw.

The young ranger rolled back to his feet, quickly inspecting his wound and taking comfort that it was superficial. The mere fact that he had even been hit after so perfectly executing the dive concerned him.

Aydrian set himself more determinedly, recognizing that this foe was not to be taken lightly.

The tiger landed and trotted off a few strides, then swung back and stalked straight toward Aydrian. Aydrian took a deep breath and slid one foot out to the side, but the tiger saw the movement and altered its course slightly. Still it came on confidently.

Aydrian pulled out a different gemstone, keeping it concealed within his clenched fist. He started falling into the magic just as the tiger sprang, coming forward with such brutal suddenness that it nearly got through Aydrian's defenses without getting hit. But Aydrian did score a solid stab, though the tiger hardly slowed, forepaws batting hard at the young ranger, slashing his shoulders. He tried to skitter straight back, but the powerful beast was too fast, overpowering him, bearing him to the ground.

A sharp crackle of lightning even as the claws started to find a hold at the sides of his head, even as the fanged maw managed to slip past the batting sword arm, saved Aydrian's life. The force of the jolt lifted the tiger into the air and sent it skidding down in the dirt at the side of the trail.

Aydrian rolled back to his feet, running the other way, trying to put some ground between him and the terrible beast. He realized as he glanced back that his lightning stroke hadn't really hurt the creature. He knew then that he was in serious trouble, that this monster was simply too fast and too strong for him. He launched a second lightning bolt, but the tiger leaped away, landing fully twenty feet to the side and issuing such a roar that Aydrian's ears ached.

He fell away from that sound, away from all distraction, and went back to his first stone, the hematite, diving into the swirling magic, sending forth waves of mental energy.

The tiger, starting its stalk, stopped dead in its tracks as the mental assault rolled in.

Aydrian sensed the magic of the weretiger, gemstone magic, not unlike his own! He felt the tremendous willpower of the beast, and his respect for it increased; but he trusted in his own inner strength and did not believe himself at any disadvantage.

He felt the wall of resistance, and he pushed with all his magical strength against that wall, trying to drive through the primal instincts of the beast and into the more rational side of this creature. For many minutes the two squared off in that spiritual realm, like a pair of elk, antlers locked, hooves dug in; and while the two were nowhere near each other physically, their combat was no less intense.

Aydrian did not tire, could not tire. With resolve born of a lifetime of disciplined training, born of a bloodline of strength of both parents, and born of something stronger still, the young ranger drove at the beast, hit it with bursts of confusing, scrambling mental energy, tried to will it back into the consciousness of its human host.

He might as well have been trying to put smoke back into a bottle; for that defiant wall altered, offering him holes through which his willpower could pass, but with nothing tangible in the emptiness behind those holes, with no gains to be found.

The young ranger grew afraid, and that took some of his concentration. He opened his eyes to see the tiger stalking back in, and his first instinct had him lifting his sword to a defensive posture once more.

Aydrian resisted that losing strategy. He went back into the hematite with all his strength, hit the weretiger hard with a burst of mental energy, forcing a second standoff. This time, Aydrian sought to receive, trying to gain some insight, some hint. He sensed something plausible, something that offered hope: remorse?

Now the ranger changed his tack. Instead of trying to push through the beast, he went around it, sending a wave of compassion and sympathy, not for the tiger, but for the man behind it. He coaxed and he prodded; he bade that tiny spark of humanity to join him against their common enemy, this wild primal beast.

Marcalo De'Unnero did not understand what call had awakened his human consciousness. He only knew that he was aware - was fully aware - of all that was happening around him, though he was surely physically engulfed by the weretiger, in the throes of its primal, feral urges.

But he felt this call within him, this assurance that if he joined the voice he - they - could control the weretiger. Despite De'Unnero's understanding that he was then engaged in mortal combat, it was a temptation that he could not resist, and so he listened to the soothing voice, embraced it.

He felt the first shudders of pain as the bones began to crack and change, his senses shifting from those of a cat to those of a man.

He kept his wits about him enough to leap back, to stay clear of his opponent's dangerous blade during this most vulnerable time.

And then it was finished, and Marcalo De'Unnero stood beside a tree, staring back across the way at this strange, and strangely familiar- looking young man. From the cocky smile the young man wore, De'Unnero had no doubt that this one had been the escort through his transformation, that this surprising youngster, who did not look like any Abellican monk -and indeed, seemed too young even to have entered the Order! - held some great power with the sacred gemstones.

"Who are you?" De'Unnero asked, truly intrigued.

Aydrian's smile was genuine. He had understood and accepted that he was overmatched by the weretiger, that the great cat held too many weapons, and too much sheer bulk and strength for him, particularly as he wielded this unbalanced and hardly adequate sword. And so he had done it, had forced the creature away; and now nothing more than a naked older man stood before him, leaning on a tree as if he needed it for support.

"I had hoped to return to the villagers with the head of a great cat," Aydrian said coldly, "but your own head will do." He brandished his sword and advanced.

"Who are you?" De'Unnero asked again, retreating around the tree to buy himself some time.

"I am Tai'maqwilloq, " the young ranger replied, "a name you will remember and mark well for the rest of your miserable life, though that hardly guarantees me longevity of reputation!" He stalked in as he finished, moving around the tree, then cutting back out in front of it, thinking to catch the man in fast retreat.

To his surprise, though, the naked man had merely walked out from the protection and into the open, and stood there staring at him. "Tai'maqwilloq?" De'Unnero echoed, intrigued, obviously, by the foreign ring of the words, the elvish ring of the name. Tai'maqwilloq reminding him keenly of another name, one held by his greatest rival.

Aydrian walked close and extended his sword De'Unnero's way.

"Yield," he demanded. "If you choose to seek the mercy of the villagers, I will allow it. Else I will kill you, here and now."

"I do not think that I would seek anything from the pitiful townsfolk," De'Unnero calmly answered. "Nor, I fear, do I hold any desire to die here."

"Then you are out of choices," Aydrian said.

"So kill me, boy," De'Unnero replied with a bit of a smirk.

Aydrian didn't pause long enough to consider that smirk, and any possible reasons for the obvious confidence behind it. All of the tales that he had heard, even those indicating some link between this weretiger and a former bishop named De'Unnero, a man other tales named as the killer of Aydrian's father, spoke highly of the fighting prowess of the human form of this creature.

More than willing to mete out death, Aydrian skittered forward and thrust hard - or started to. But even as his sword started moving forward, a bare foot flew up and slapped against the side of the blade, driving it away. Aydrian retreated in perfect balance and with tremendous speed, but on came De'Unnero, arms working in smooth circular motions before him. His foot came up fast to kick at Aydrian's face. When that fell short, he drove out again and again, clipping the young man's arm and nearly taking his sword from his grasp. Still De'Unnero came on, hands like striking snakes, feet swishing dangerously.

Aydrian brought his blade sweeping in hard, but De'Unnero arched back out of range and leaped up, his left foot going around Aydrian's right arm, tucking toes against the young man's elbow, even as his right foot came in like the second blade of a pair of scissors. De'Unnero's left foot shoved, and his right kicked hard against Aydrian's forearm, a maneuver that would have shattered the elbow of a lesser opponent. But the young ranger, very well trained, turned his blade and bent his arm. He rolled his shoulder and flipped his sword to his left hand, leading with a vicious backhand as he came around, a deft strike that would have disemboweled any other opponent.

But De'Unnero saw it coming. As he missed with his crunching double- kick, he landed on his left foot and kicked even higher with his right, boosting his up-and-backward momentum as he leaped away. After a somersault, he came up square to the now-charging Aydrian and launched a flurry of sidelong hand slashes that parried and slapped against the flat of Aydrian's blade and forced him to fast retract his thrust or else risk having his opponent hand-walk right up the blade and right up his arm, getting in too close.

De'Unnero was gone from his sight, then, so fast that the movement hardly registered. Only instinct had Aydrian skipping high as the dropping monk executed a beautiful leg sweep. Aydrian got clipped on one foot but landed securely on the other, turning and bending forward.

There before him sprawled his opponent, vulnerable, helpless even -Aydrian knew that the man was helpless, not from any warrior insight or understanding of the nearly prone man's position as much as from the sudden burst of music that he heard, a rousing, cheering song that told him without doubt that the time of victory was at hand. He let himself fall into his turn then, using his forward momentum to loose the killing thrust.

To any wayward observer, Marcalo De'Unnero surely looked defeated and helpless, with his left leg bent under him and his right, having executed the less-than-successful trip, straight out wide.

But De'Unnero had spent a lifetime training his body to move in ways that seemed impossible, had earned his reputation as the greatest warrior ever to march through the gates of glorious St.-Mere-Abelle long before the weretiger had inhabited his body and soul. That left leg, seemingly so trapped, used the resistance to heighten the speed of its upward kick, catching Aydrian, who was practically diving at the prone monk, in his extended sword arm, pushing him up and away. Every muscle working in harmony and to the limit of its strength, De'Unnero went right up to his shoulder blades, fully extending to lift Aydrian higher.

In came the warrior monk's right leg, snapping under Aydrian, then flashing back to crash against the side of the surprised young man's knee. Pushing back with that right leg, kicking out even harder with the left, De'Unnero had Aydrian flying to the side and flipping over backward.

To his credit, the amazing young ranger landed with enough of a roll to absorb some of the breath-stealing crash. He kept rolling right over his head, pushing as he went around to regain his footing.

But there was Marcalo De'Unnero, in close, clasping Aydrian's sword wrist with his left hand, cupping the right over the back of Aydrian's hand and bending it hard over the wrist, easily taking away the blade.

Aydrian punched him hard with his free left hand, and the former monk staggered back a step.

But he smiled and threw the sword into the brush at the side.

In he came, and Aydrian charged with a roar, thinking to tackle the man.

He was flying again suddenly, as De'Unnero ducked low to clip him across the thighs. He landed harder this time, but fought back to his feet and turned just in time to see the sole of the leaping De'Unnero's flying foot, the instant before it crashed into his face, laying him low.

"A pity to kill one so handsome," came Sadye's voice from the side. "He fought well."

"Too well." De'Unnero was bent over and breathing hard, with more than one bruise and cut for his efforts. "And with a fighting style I have seen before, a style unfamiliar to the King's soldiers and the Abellican monks."

He looked up at Sadye and saw that he had piqued her curiosity.

"You aided me in the battle," De'Unnero remarked. "You sent your music to him to bolster his confidence, to make him err with thoughts of victory."

"I did not - " the woman started to answer apologetically, but De'Unnero cut her short with an upraised hand.

"I would have expected that I would need no help to easily defeat any man in all the world, whether in tiger form or not," the former monk continued. "Nor would I have ever expected to need any help against one so young. But his fighting style . . . the same style that Nightbird used, the same style that Jilseponie used . . ." He shook his head and gave a little laugh. "He called himself Tai'maqwilloq," he remarked. "Elvish words, by the sound. I know of only one other who took such a title. Tai'marawee, Nightbird. Coincidence?"

"Ask him," Sadye replied, slinging her lute over her shoulder and motioning toward Aydrian, as a groan told De'Unnero that his young opponent was waking up.

De'Unnero took Sadye's belt and rushed to Aydrian, propping and securing him in place against a tree.

"He frightens me," Sadye admitted to De'Unnero, who seemed surprised to hear those words coming from the mouth of the woman who had so many times toyed with the weretiger.

"He is just a boy," De'Unnero replied.

"A boy who is alive now because he was powerful enough with the gemstones to control the weretiger," Sadye reminded him.

"Not so," the former monk was quick to respond. "He only aided me in my own concentration to control the beast."

"During the fight?" Sadye asked doubtfully.

"I knew that I could beat him as a man," De'Unnero growled back at her.

"However he does it, he does it," said Sadye. "And you may call him a boy or call him Tai'maqwilloq - either title does not change the fact that he is strong with the gemstones and skilled with the blade."

"Elven-trained with the blade," De'Unnero explained. "The same sword style favored by Elbryan Wyndon. And strong in the gemstones as is Jilseponie." He shook his head. "It cannot be coincidence."

"I know nothing about that," she replied. She looked over at Aydrian, who was now fully awake and sitting stoically against the tree, his arms lashed behind him around the thick trunk.

"And this cache of gemstones," De'Unnero went on, holding up the pouch he had taken from the fallen young ranger. "Only one outside the Abellican Church possessed such a cache, and those disappeared, mysteriously so, after the great battle in Chasewind Manor."

"So the elves stole the gemstones and gave them to this young warrior," Sadye answered, a doubtfulness evident in her tone, for she had made it clear to De'Unnero, despite his claims, that she didn't believe in elves. "A warrior they set on the road to avenge the death of Nightbird, perhaps?"

De'Unnero nodded, though he wasn't sure. His answers lay there, across the way, he knew. Pouch in hand, he went over and knelt before Aydrian.

"Where did you get these?" he asked.

Aydrian looked away - and De'Unnero promptly smacked him across the face.

"Give me a reason to let you live," De'Unnero said to him, grabbing him roughly by the face and puffing him so that he could look into his blue eyes - eyes that seemed strangely familiar. Aydrian continued to look as far away from the former monk as possible. "I do not wish to kill you."

Suddenly Aydrian did lock gazes with the man. "You could not have beaten me without her help," he said with a snarl.

De'Unnero chuckled at the youthful cockiness. He had, in truth, been impressed by the young warrior's skills, but he knew that he had underestimated the youngster at the beginning of the fight and had just begun to gain some insights into his true depth when Sadye had intervened. Still, it didn't matter to De'Unnero if the young fool believed his own boasts or not. A younger Marcalo De'Unnero would have untied him then and there, handed him a sword, and promptly defeated him. By the estimation of the man now holding the young warrior's face, that younger Marcalo De'Unnero was somewhat the fool.

"Where did you get these?" he asked, holding up the pouch. Again there came no answer.

"Why do you insist on resisting?" De'Unnero asked. "Perhaps I am no enemy, young fool, and perhaps you do not have to die."

"Did my father have to die?" Aydrian asked bluntly, his eyes boring into his captor's.

De'Unnero stammered over that one, thinking that the young warrior's father must have been one of the weretiger's victims, perhaps one of the men from Micklin's Village, or one of the bandits who had ridden with Sadye that fateful morning.

"I do not know," the former monk answered honestly. "Did he deserve to die?"

"I cannot know, since I never met him," Aydrian replied evenly and grimly.

De'Unnero chuckled again. "Your cryptic answers do amuse me," he replied, "but if you will not divulge more - "

"Nightbird," Aydrian growled at him, stopping him as surely as if he had reached over and torn the tongue from De'Unnero's mouth. "My father was Tai'marawee, the Nightbird. And you killed him."

De'Unnero spent a long while catching his breath. He had suspected as much, but to actually hear the confirmation spoken rattled him profoundly. "And you are Tai'maqwilloq," he remarked.

"Nighthawk," Aydrian confirmed.

"Who is your mother?" De'Unnero quickly asked, but Aydrian merely looked away.

Too eager to be denied, De'Unnero smacked him again and roughly pulled him about. "I did battle with your father," he admitted, "a great and mighty battle. Several times, and for reasons that are too complex to explain here and now. But I did not kill him - that claim falls to the province of another. Now tell me, who is your mother?"

"Lady Dasslerond of Caer'alfar," Aydrian answered quickly, and without much thought. "The only mother I have ever known, and not one worth knowing."

The pain was so very evident on his face as he spoke those words that De'Unnero caught it clearly, though his mind was spinning down a very different avenue. He put the boy in his midteens, and knew, too, that fifteen years before, Jilseponie had indeed been pregnant. That child had been destroyed by Markwart on the field outside Palmaris, by all reasoning, since Jilseponie had no longer been with child when she had resurfaced soon after.

But hadn't Jilseponie been rescued from Father Abbot Markwart by Lady Dasslerond on the field that day?

De'Unnero's mind was spinning. If this Nighthawk was indeed the son of Nightbird, and he sensed that he was, then surely Jilseponie was the boy's mother - and the boy, apparently, didn't even know it. And those eyes! Yes, those eyes! De'Unnero had seen them before, in close combat. They were the eyes of Jilseponie.

It was all too beautiful a victory for Marcalo De'Unnero.