Falcons of Narabedla by Marion Zimmer Bradley

screeing. These were not the soul-falcons, belled and elaborately endowed with the intelligence and cunning of their launcher. These were—machines. Alive, yes, but not a life we knew. Only the nightmare freak of a science gone mad could produce—or control—these hateful things that were filling the clean air, groping for us with needle beaks and talons and wild wings. Only Evarin—
    I fumbled blindly for the mirror, clumsily stripping the silks. A needle-talon raked at my wrist, and by sheerest instinct I struck upward, turning the face of the mirror toward the bird.
    The bird reeled in mid-air—flapped—fell. A tingling shock rattled through my arm. I dropped the mirror—leaped to catch it. The thing was a perfect conductor. It—drained energy. I knew now why Evarin had been so anxious to have me—or Adric—look into its depths. It could have touched the energy waves of my brain through my eyes. The birds were brainless; all energy. I grabbed the mirror and held it upright; I caught a half-glimpse, from the tail of my eye, of the weird lightnings coiled inside it, but even that glimpse coiled my stomach in nervous knots. Shielding my face, I held it upward. The birds flew toward it like a moth to the candle. Shock after shock flowed along my arm. Three more of the horrible falcons fell limp, lifeless—drained.
    A strange exhilaration began to buoy me up. The force from the birds was not electricity but a kindred force, which my nerves drank greedily. I thrust the mirror out; was rewarded again by the surge of power, and again the birds, this time by dozens, flapped and fell.
    Then, as if whatever had loosed the army of falcons had realized their uselessness, the whole remaining force of the birds wheeled and fled, winging swiftly over the land to the distant donjon that rose high and far into the black midnight.
    Recalled—to the Dreamer’s Keep!

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    The Last Sacrifice
    The flow of strength had renewed me; I felt that I could face whatever came. I thrust Evarin’s mirror into my pocket; flung a word to Narayan and we were riding again, Gamine racing behind us. The blue shroudings had been torn to ribbons by the snappings of falcon-claws; I could see the pallid gleam of naked flesh through the torn veils. The noise of battle behind us grew more distinct; I could make out the explosions and the distant flashes of colored flame. I shuddered; even now that frightful army of falcons might be winging to join Adric and Evarin. The rebels could kill some of them, but for every falcon dead there would be twenty more slaves for Narabedla! What could Narayan’s men with their scythes and pitchforks and rude rusty guns do against the incredible science of a Toymaker? Narayan’s strained face was ghastly in the moonlight; I needed no telepathy to read his thoughts. Slaughter for his men—what for his sister? Our horses seemed to lag, to drag through a mire of motionless, yet they were at the full gallop of their endurance. The sound of fighting grew closer. Everything in me cried out that I was an utter fool, riding full tilt into a battle in which I had no stake. Yet something else told me, coldly and with a grim truth, that all I possessed was what I might win today, for this was the only world I would ever know; that I would never see my own world again.
    Never! And Adric should rot in a hell of his own choosing for that!
    The sounds of fighting seemed very close. Narayan pulled up his horse so quickly that it nearly sent Gamine plunging into his back. He said in a low, concentrated voice “Adric isn’t at the battle! This way—quick!” He whirled the horse and dashed down a side road at right angles to the way we had been riding. If we had raced before, now our horses seemed to fly. The battle raged behind us; I heard dim screams, the neighing of wounded horses, the muffled sound of earth flying upward, exploded in fire. But it had a