Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [14]
After a moment's search, he located the spider that had tickled his foot and killed it with a quick squeeze of his fingers. Placing it delicately between his lips, he leaned toward the nest. He let one of the nestlings pluck a.portion of the spider from his lips, then repeated the process with the second bird.
The mother thrush seemed unsatisfied, however. She continued to flutter around Leifander's head a moment more, as if recognizing in him a crow that might rob her nest of its young. With an indignant flick of her tail, she flew away.
Leifander resumed his survey of the road below. The caravan had not yet appeared, but it would not be long now. He needed to…
Leifander felt the scratch of tiny claws against his fingers. Looking down, he saw that the larger of the two nestlings had clambered out of the nest and was climbing onto his hand. It perched there, flapping its wings for balance. It seemed poised to burst into flight at any moment.
"Are you ready to leave the nest, little one?" Leifander asked it in a soft voice as he lifted it to eye level. "What is so important, that you must be about it at once?"
The nestling tilted its head, regarding Leifander with glossy black eyes. Wind rustled through the trees, fluttering what leaves remained. The shifting branches dappled the bird with flashes of sunlight and shadow, causing the nestling's feathers to change from amber-brown to black-brown and back again in rapid succession.
For several heartbeats, Leifander held his breath, convinced that something much greater than the nestling was regarding him through its eyes. Then the breeze stilled and the feathers, pooled in leaf-shade, returned to a solid, dull brown.
Chuckling at his own conceit-surely the Winged Mother had better things to do than look down upon one of her fledgling priests-Leifander bobbed his hand up and down. The nestling responded with a flutter of wings.
"Go on then-try out those wings of yours," he said, casting the young bird into the air.
He winced as the bird faltered, remembering his own first flight, not so very long ago. Given his youth, he was fortunate to already be an accomplished skinwalker- most elves did not master it until they had reached their first half-century and were well into adolescence. Leifander, however, had matured more quickly than his peers and had been rewarded when Doriantha had chosen him as a scout for this patrol.
Watching the nestling, Leifander smiled as it at last found its wings, flapping its way back up from a plunge that had carried it nearly to the ground. Seeking a clear space in which to fly, the bird winged its way along the road.
Returning to his survey of the road to the south, Leifander saw that the human caravan had drawn into sight. He cawed once to alert those below to its progress, then sought out the nestling again, enjoying its first flight.
The bird swooped low over the ground-too low-and a section of the buried choke creeper lashed out from under the soil. Beating its wings furiously, the nesthng rose into the air, barely avoiding the vine's leafy grip. As the bird fluttered gamely on up the road, toward a thicker patch of morning mist, the choke creeper followed it, uncoiling from the soil like an awakening snake.
Leifander cursed silently. Much of the choke creeper now lay visible on the road, twining sinuously as it quested for its prey.
He glanced in Doriantha's direction, but it seemed that she had not yet noticed the hole that had suddenly been torn in her plan. Even though the caravan would not arrive for a few moments yet, the elves could not simply rake soil over the vine again-not now that the sun was up. The ambush was ruined-and all because of Leifander. He glared down at the nestling, wishing he had never launched it into flight.
Something was wrong. The young thrush was no longer winging its way steadily through the air-as soon as it had entered the thicker patch of mist, it seemed to forget how to fly. Peeping shrilly, it beat its wings in a frenzy, at the same time spiraling off to the side. Its wings stopped