Synry
Episode Thirteen
I wait until it's dark, even though I don't see as good then. I come in low and quiet, barely using my wings at all. I mapped the way in my head when it was light, so that I could glide almost the whole way, and just use my wings to stop at the end. He feels me coming, of course, even though he's still unconscious.
I settle down on the pine needles in behind him, and start pecking at the ropes with my beak. They aren't leather, so all I have to do is get through all the tiny little fibers, instead of the one big one. That should be easy, right? When I'm about halfway through, I start pecking on his fingers, trying to wake him up. I can get him free, but there's no way I can carry him. I need him awake before we can get out of here.
There's no response from pecking his fingers, so I guess that the ropes have made his hands numb. I switch to pecking at his arms, on the tender bit up above the elbow on the inside. I feel him come awake after a few sharp pinches, although he doesn't move or call out. He's smart enough to stay quiet.
Told you to get away.
Aye. But I couldn't leave you here.
Not safe for you, Bran. If they catch you, they'll kill you.
Firrim's over on t'other side of the fire, near the big one. He's asleep. Fella on watch has your crossbow. Closest weapon is the axe in the woodpile over to your left. Your pack with the spellbook is in the stack of loot off on the right.
I mean it, Bran. Get gone. I'm done for, but you got a chance.
I ignore him and go back to work on his hands. Sometimes, you just have to let him work it out for himself. Sometimes, he even does. He's not good with figuring out how people feel, although he seems to have a good handle on what people will do. It's a strange sort of gap in his thinking, one that he doesn't even see, but that he knows must be there because he doesn't understand why people do what they do.
The last strands of rope part.
Start moving your hands around. Get the blood back into them. I'll work on the legs.
Why?
So you can walk.
Why won't you go?
We get out of this together, or we go down together. We're a team. You forget that?
These're goblins. They'll eat us both.
Not if we're gone and away. And they're dead. Not then.
Bran...
Look. Would you want to go back to Gwillem's farm? Be the farmboy again? Sleep in the stable, and work till you can"t stand up every day? Give up the magic?
Nay, but...
That's what you're telling me to do when you send me away. I like the thinking and the talking and the magic and being part of a team and having you around to talk to. I don't want to go back to being a dumb bird. That's what would happen if I left. I wouldn't be Bran any more. Just like you wouldn't be Synry if you went back to the farm.
Sometimes, he doesn't have a chance of working it out himself. If the reasons depend on him being valuable to someone else, beyond an expendable worker, he just won't make the leap. Telling him that I need him confuses him, and embarrasses me. I have to explain it in terms that he can understand. Now he knows that he has to get us both out of here, and that means he'll find a way. He never gives up if there's someone else depending on him to succeed.
I let him think about things as I go to work on the ropes around his ankles. He's wiggling his fingers around, trying to get the feeling back into them, and that's good. It means that he's resigned himself to fighting his way free. I thought he was getting too tired to keep fighting: everywhere we go we seem to have to fight just to pass through. I"m getting sick of it, and I know that he's been doing this a lot longer than me. I just want somewhere we can rest for a while.
Now that the decision's been made, we fall back into our pattern. I get his legs free, and he starts wiggling his toes and tensing his calves and thighs, making sure that when he comes up to his feet, he doesn't go straight down again. I hop up into a tree, keeping an eye on things. I'm watching the one that I can see, looking for his eyes to turn away from Synry.
Now!
Synry's on his feet in a second, and he's got the axe from the woodpile almost instantly. He's going to take on the one by the fire. My job is to find the one on watch, and make sure he doesn't shoot the boy in the back. Not easy, because the goblins can see in the dark but I can't. I have to watch for movement, and then I can't hesitate. I also can't keep an eye on how things are going with Synry.
When the movement comes, I strike. I aim for just above the rustling bush, and have to pull up sharply when a slight glitter shows me that the thing's eyes are up higher than I had guessed. I hit him, claws first, in the upper chest, and immediately start flapping in his face and pecking at the glittery bits that are his eyes. He drops the crossbow and flails at me, so I launch away again, up into a tree. When he bends to pick up the crossbow again, I drop on him, and repeat the performance. I figure that he"s going to learn eventually.
He doesn't get the chance. Synry's got his firrim back, and comes running out of the firelight to finish this one. We don't talk much as he gathers up his gear, although I do suggest that he check the goblins for coin. We wind up a few gold richer for the night, enough to buy a new horse at the next village, as long as we don't want anything extravagant. Synry says nothing until we're well away from the goblin camp.
Going north now, Bran.
Why?
Them goblins was wearing livery. One o' the Barons is using goblin troops. Time to get out of this madhouse, find a quiet place for a bit.
What's north?
Well, we skirt around the Hornsaw and get over the mountains, there's human cities built on older places, where they got a lot of magical learning. Figure that's where we can settle for a while, get the hang of wizarding, maybe make some money.
North it is, then.
Aye.
