The Maiden and the Monster

The stones were like cold grave markers beneath Corinne's bare feet as she walked down the endless, bleak halls of her father's castle.  The torches carried by the men behind her flickered in the darkness and cast malevolent shadows of ill-shapened monsters that danced and gibbered around her. 

Not too fast, not too slow, she reminded herself.  No one would say that she had been afraid or eager for what awaited her.  If she could just concentrate on moving forward, she would not have to think about what was ahead.  Would not be tempted to turn and throw herself into Garth's kindly arms and weep out her terror. 

Corinne pulled the hood of the gray, engulfing woolen cloak more securely around her face so that no one could see the frightened feelings she could not school.  If Lord Randolph Taskin stood in one of the alcoves or smaller passages to enjoy her fear as he had enjoyed her sister Jessie's fear....   But no, this night shamed him as much as it did her.  He would not gloat the loss of her for his bed nor the chance at her father's holdings that her dower would offer her future son.

Children!  That she had not thought of.  Ill-shapened and twisted babies....

She choked back a sob and concentrated on walking and remembering a tale that oft brought her comfort and peace--"The Prince from the Sky."   She had wished herself the young princess saved from marriage with the cruel king when the handsome prince had come from the sky to wed her.  Whenever she heard the story, she prayed for such a rescue from a forced marriage with Lord Taskin who already had been the death of Jessie.  Her prayers had been answered, but her savior was a monster.

"Corrie."  Garth's voice jolted her back to the cold, dark hall, and she stopped, turning.  The two men at escort stood at rest near a large oaken door, and Garth studied her with pity in his eyes.  "This be his quarters."

Shivering, she trudged back to Garth who ordered the soldiers to retreat a distance and turn their backs.

Corinne put down her satchel of clothing by the door and smiled gratefully up at the old man who had been such a friend all her life.  It had been Garth who had taught her to ride and secretly to wield a knife and bow as the boys did.  With his usual concern, he had even chosen an escort who would not snicker at her shame nor bandy crude remarks.  Both men were older and kindly to her and her distress.

"Child," Garth murmured for her ears alone.  "Did your father relent and let your mother see you?"

"No.  He feared Mother would turn him from this.  She was locked in her quarters from us."

"Then you have never had the talk about what passes between a woman and man."  Garth's weather-beaten, homely face darkened to mahogany against his gray hair.  "It is not seemly that a roughshod Sergeant at Arms should...."

Her heart twisting at his distress, Corinne rested her hand on his arm.  "What I face a soldier understands, a mother does not.  But Jessie told me."

Garth glanced cautiously at the escort's backs.  "Good.  If the mon... yond creature hurts you more than is necessary, or...."   He pulled out his dagger from the sheathe at his hip and gave it to her.  "Use this."

Taking it, Corinne nodded then threw herself into his arms.  "I'm afraid."

"Be brave, little heart.  I'll stand here all night.  Scream, and I'll break in and kill him.  We'll flee your father's wrath together."  Garth brushed her cheek with calloused hand.  "But perhaps he'll have mercy.  I've talked to the men in your father's hunting party.  He handles himself as a brave warrior with the dignity of a high prince.  His ways are different, but he is a brave warrior."

Garth's attempted comfort in complimenting the monster's fighting did not ease her fear.  A man might respect such skills, but a woman who needed tenderness and mercy found little to favor in such praise.  Monsters had no mercy in their soulless bodies, only bestial appetites.

Brushing the tears away, she straightened, untied the cloak at her throat, and handed it to Garth who took one look at the fancy, thin nightdress she had been ordered to wear then stared at a spot on the wall above her.  "I am ready."

Garth pushed open the oaken door, and she walked through without looking back.  The huge, undecorated bedchamber was dark except for an almost gutted candle by the canopied bed which flickered in shadows on the gray stone walls.  The bed and its inhabitant were in changing darkness.

"M-m-my lord."  Her voice trembled despite her best efforts.

He must have been sleeping on his stomach because the monster spun around with his energy weapon pointed at her.  In the shifting half darkness, she caught a frightening glimpse of glowing animal eyes and difference.  She backed instinctively into the closed door seeking escape.  His voice was harsh and preternaturally deep.  "What do you want?"

"I am your life prize, my lord."

"Come out of the darkness, slowly."  He sat upright and motioned with his weapon.

Corinne tottered to the edge of the candle's light and stopped.  Afraid to meet his eyes, she blushed and stared down unseeing at the floor.  She felt his gaze touch her face, the long golden hair which cascaded down her shoulders, and her body which was visible through her mother's diaphanous gown.  One day, she would have her beautiful mother's full breasts and slender figure, but now she was all gawk and legs, and those legs shook with terror at what was to come.

"The room is chilled.  My cloak is at the end of the bed.  Cover yourself."

Unable to recognize the tone of the order, Corinne hastily picked up the black woolen cloak and wrapped it around herself.  It hung beyond her feet on the floor and smelled of wood smoke, horse, and some other animal.  Himself, she guessed.  She glanced surreptitiously toward the bed.  Her hidden hand tightened on the dagger Garth had given her. 

The monster was as frightening as she had been told.  The candle's wavering flame lit shifting angles of its face and body.  It was man and not man, bird and not bird.  Somehow, its human likeness made it more ugly because it mocked humanity with its cruel, glowing eyes and sharp features.  White feathers cascaded down its back like a long mane and feathers covered a chest which was wider than any man's.  The rest of his body, thankfully, was covered with bedding.

The gun wavered in a hand which looked human, and he lay it down within easy reach beside his thigh.  "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I am your life prize, my lord.  I am Corinne Barclay."

"Lord Barclay's daughter?”

She nodded. 

“I do not know your customs.  Explain this to me."

"You, a noble stranger, saved my father from the fang wolf at great risk.  In return, he must give you his eldest, unwed daughter and a portion of land.  Not to do so is a lack of honor on his noble lineage.  I am yours for honorable marriage or for... sport as you wish me."

"And what do you say of this?"

"Say, my lord?"

"I see.  How old are you?"

"Sixteen, my lord."

"And if I send you back now to your mother and father?"

Corinne's eyes widened at the unexpected question.  "It is not done.  It would be an insult to my father and family.  Wars have been fought for less.  I'm yours; they will not accept me back."

The monster sighed and rubbed his left shoulder as if it pained him.  "There is nothing to be done then until tomorrow."  He waved her forward.  "Corinne."

Her name sounded different from his lips; it did not seem to belong to her.  Struggling with her desire to turn and run before he touched her, she stumbled toward him until she bumped into the side of the bed.

"I am called Hawk in your language.  I will not harm you."  He pulled one of the bolster pillows from behind his shoulders and put it on the bed near her then picked up his gun and eased to the other side of the wide bed.  "There is but one bed so we must share it.  Get in."

Clutching the cloak around her, her eyes never leaving him, she eased under the covers and lay stiffly on her side.

His eyes were hooded, and his alien, demonic face was impossible to decipher as he returned her stare.  "I will not harm you, or use you for 'sport.'  You have nothing to fear.  Go to sleep, and I will speak to your father in the morning."

Not believing him, Corinne did not relax or ease her grip on the secreted dagger which she hugged to her breast.  After several moments, the monster spoke a strange word angrily as if cursing.  She cringed. 

"Do not be afraid,” he said.  “I am angry at humans in general, not you in particular.  Humans!  The more I learn of your race, the less I understand it." 

Her nerves stretching tighter and tighter as the minutes passed, Corinne clutched the dagger and waited for him to attack.

#

Early morning sun peeping through the slit window in the castle bedroom woke Hawk.  Sitting up, he gazed down at Corinne's huddled, sleeping form.  With her fair face curtained by sunlight-colored hair, she looked even younger this morning than she did last night.  She was just blossoming into womanhood and not yet ready for a mate and little ones. 

How could the humans be so casual with their children's fates?  But the humans were a growing, thriving race, not a dying one as his had been.  They could afford to be casual over females and children because there were always many more to come.  The humans as a race knew beginnings; they had not learned the hard lessons of endings that his had.

Corinne's eyes were swollen and red from crying most of the night.  Each time he had unintentionally rolled near her in his sleep, she had gasped in fear and cringed. The poor girl.  He wished that she would believe he meant no harm. 

He slipped from bed and collected his clothes, then retreated into the small empty room adjoining his bedroom and closed the dark woolen curtain between the rooms.  As he pulled his pants on, he winced with each movement. 

His borrowed ship's crash onto this dismal world had been painful if lucky.  He had been charting a path through the maze of asteroids around their solar system so the Searcher could contact the human colony on this planet.  His reflexes and flying skills had been equal to the task, but the ship’s slow responses were not, and he had cursed his own ship’s mechanical problems.

After an asteroid hit the human fighter, he expected death, but he had managed a controlled crash in the wilderness. 

The ship had been unrepairable, and the communication’s system had been destroyed, but he'd walked away with only bruises and a concussion. 

He thought he’d be stuck in the wilderness for weeks until the asteroids once again created an open path for the Searcher’s fighters, but Lord Barclay and his hunting party had seen him crash and come to his rescue.

If they had not seen the Earth insignia on his ship, they would have killed him as a monster.  One of the hunters had even called him a demon! 

This world with its asteroid belt had seen few visitors in many hundreds of years, and the colonists were now little more than primitives in technology and philosophy with customs similar to the Earth Middle Ages. 

He walked to the small window in the anteroom and gazed down at the fall landscape of coloring trees, farm houses, browning meadows, and new winter grains below the castle. 

Being so high up in the castle and so far away from the many inhabitants in this stone city was pleasing, but he knew he was not roomed so for courtesy.  Instead, he was as much guarded against as protected from the frightened humans in this isolated location.  The two almost empty, hastily cleaned rooms appeared to be long unused and were not decorated.  Perhaps his hostess was not certain he was house-trained and thought he might soil and tatter the usual guest quarters.

Hawk grinned then scowled as he remembered Corinne.  These people thought less of their innocent daughter than of their possessions. 

As he sat down on the little wooden stool to pull on his boots, he winced.  Saddle soreness, too.  He could not understand the human fondness for horses and riding.  His ride to this castle hadn’t favorably impressed him.  That and his distrust of these frightened humans had allowed him little rest or peace.

The claw and fang marks of the fang wolf stung his neck and back.  The huge creature had been formidable and almost unstoppable.  He had been fortunate to survive as well as save his host's life from the creature.  If he had known the man's daughter was to be his reward, he might have let the wolf have the man.  To give your unwilling, innocent daughter to a stranger and a demon at that!

He should have taken Corinne back to her father last night and convinced him that he had no use for a human female or for human customs.  Even if he had insulted the man, he could have gotten the poor girl back to her momma's arms and spared her a sleepless, frightened night expecting rape or worse. 

But he had been so drugged from the painkillers in his emergency kit and the first deep sleep he had allowed himself in a week that he had not thought clearly, nor had he had the energy to get up and dress. 

Well, now he must convince Barclay that Corinne was untouched and ready to be returned, no offense intended.

Trying to avoid the worst wounds on his back and shoulders, Hawk bit his lip and contorted himself into his shirt.  The wolf's marks seemed to burn hotter and deeper into his system each day.  He hoped his shipmates would find his fighter and its recorded message of his whereabouts and take him back to the Searcher and its sickbay before it was too late. 

#

In the elegant and cavernous hall of her family's castle, Corinne stared from the bird monster in black to her parents standing before him and back.  As was her place now, she stood to her new lord's left.  If he took her in honorable marriage, she would take his right side as her mother stood by his father.

Her mother's blue eyes and fair face were as ravaged by sleeplessness and tears as hers was.  Seeing Corinne whole and alive after being sent to the monster's lair, she had almost fainted.  Even now she leaned in her husband's embrace and pleaded silently for the safety of their only living child.  But her blonde handsomeness and winsome, loving manner would not change her lord's decision now as it sometimes did in small matters.

Shaking his silver blond mane in lordly refusal, her father was as stone cold in this decision as the gray in his eyes.  He played well the part of the greatest and richest lord in many holdings with his regal, embroidered blue tunic and ermine cloak, but inside the part was wrong today. 

Corinne had never known fear in her tall, majestic father before, but now he stank of it as he stood before Hawk and refused to take her back.  The great stone hall rang with silence after his no.  She could almost hear the tears falling from her mother's eyes as she stared up at her husband's betrayal.

Why was her father so afraid?  The monster had not threatened him.  Instead, the creature had given honorable speech about his gratitude for the gift of Corinne, but that he could not accept her.  He was not human; and therefore, the custom was not binding.

Hawk continued, "I have a wife, and my people mate but once.  It is not in our makeup to be promiscuous."

Lord Barclay's face tightened in disbelief.  Her father was as full-blooded as all the other men and could believe no less of a monster.

"Do your cattle mate with your horses?  I am not human.  What need have I for a human female?  And such a mating would be childless.  I am not so cruel as to deny a woman or myself children."

"Corinne is yours.  I must follow custom."  Barclay bent his handsome head with finality.

"If this must be, I accept her gratefully.  The Creator whom we call Make-Make  believes children to be a sacred gift.  I will guard her as such a gift.  By your custom and mine, I shall adopt her as my daughter."

Corinne gasped and gawked at the birdman.

Her father appeared equally surprised. 

"When my shipmates come, she will go with me to the stars.  There I shall see that she is educated, and she will live as a daughter to my wife and myself until she takes the mate of her choice."

"Do with her as you will."  As if completely confused by the alien's attitude, her father nodded brusquely and retreated out of the room.

The monster gave a half bow to her mother.  "Lady Barclay, would you please furnish the room adjoining my bed quarters with a bed and other needfuls for your daughter?"

"My lord," her mother mumbled, sniffling, and daubed her eyes with a handkerchief.

"I assure you that I shall treat your daughter with the utmost courtesy and the honor befitting a daughter of your race or my own."  He bowed again more deeply in final farewell.  "Corinne, stay with your mother as long as you please.  I shall return to my quarters."  With a whirl of white feathers and black cape, the monster pivoted and strode out of the hall.

After a confused time of hugging and murmured reassurances, Corinne and her mother talked.  It was past the noon prayers and meal when she returned to the monster's quarters.  Fully dressed, his cape a blanket over him, he lay facing the door on the unmade bed.  He opened his fiery eyes at her entrance then closed them after seeing her.

Corinne noticed the untended condition of the room, and she realized that the monster had not even been fed this day in the excitement.  Her sense of a woman's duty to her lord, even though he was but a monster, stabbed her.  "M-m-my lord.  Forgive me for tarrying so long.  I have not tended you properly."

He mumbled something and slept again.  Corinne hurried from the room to get him a meal.  She had heard that he would eat much as humans did, but she was beginning to wonder about his sleeping habits.  Could he be nocturnal as the owl?  But, no, last night he had slept.  He must be an animal like the dog, always sleeping and lazy except in hunting.

Rousing himself when she returned with the food, he sat down at the small stone table in the corner of the room where she spread out cheese, bread, fruit, and mead for him.  She stood by the table awaiting his orders.  He lifted and sniffed the goblet then sat it back down.  "Does it contain alcohol?"

"It is sweetened wine, my lord."

"My people do not drink wines or ales.  I like fruit juice, milk, and boiled and cooled water."  With a smile, he began to nibble his way delicately through a whole green tanyan fruit.

Seeing a monster smile, Corinne blinked in surprise then again at his using table manners.  "I will remember, my lord.  It is your religion?"

"Metabolism... the way my people's bodies work.  Our hearts beat much faster than a human's.  Alcohol makes us ill.  Have you not seen a bird drunken on over-ripened berries?" 

She giggled in memory.  "Yes, my lord."

"And a hangover beyond belief."  He motioned that she be seated beside him so she eased nervously down across from him, then he offered her food.

"I have eaten."  It would be impossible to share food with him. Being this close made her nauseous with fear.  His face was so strange -- human one moment then animal the next.  She would almost relax seeing his human features, then he would arch his head or study her over his nose as if she was a rabbit and he a tyg-falcon, and she would go cold inside.  What penetrating, odd-colored eyes he had.  Their brown gold depths made her shiver.  "After you have finished your meal, if I may, I shall summon servants, and we shall set up my bed and clean the room."

With a nod, Hawk lay the fruit core down.  "The rest of your belongings have arrived.  Garth and I placed them in your room.  An interesting human, Garth."

"I shall miss him."  Corinne blinked back tears.

"I ask of you several kindnesses, Corinne."

"You are my lord.  Command me."

"Is it possible to get a hot bath on this world?"

One laugh escaped her before she could stifle it.  "I shall have a tub brought and filled for you after the bed is placed."

"Good.  I also need someone skilled in wounds and bandages.  I cannot reach those on my back, and they have not been changed."

"I will.  I apprentice with the traveling physician when he is in our holdings."

With another monster smile, he started on the chunk of bread.

#

Rebraiding her long golden hair, Corinne perched nervously on her bed as she awaited the monster's call.  She had heard nothing from him except a few sounds which were either pain or bliss since the bath had been drawn almost an hour ago and she had fled into her room while he bathed.  She had no desire to see the rest of the monster uncovered, nor did she wish to tempt him into wanting her.  Despite his protests to her father, she did not feel safe with the creature.  He was male after all and bestial.  She would keep Garth's dagger near at all times.

"Corinne."

She tied her braid with a blue ribbon and collected her woven basket of salves and bandages with a shaking hand then crept into his bedroom.  The great iron bath was empty.  The bed was not.  With his head pillowed on his arms, the naked monster lay on his stomach in it with the sheets up to his waist.  His unfeathered back was a crisscross of animal claw marks, bruises, and clay bandages.

She eased up onto the bed and knelt beside him.  He smelled of wet feathers and the distilled herbs in the bath water.

His voice was muffled by the pillow.  "How do you remove those mud bandages?  I have tried everything."

The question took away some of her horror, and she felt more like a healer and less a victim.  "It is a mixture of clays and herbs we prepare.  We have another mixture that loosens it."  Careful not to touch his alien skin which would be cold and slimy, she applied the unguent to the bandages.

She noticed a small box made of an odd material with a big red cross on it at his farther shoulder.  "What is that box, my lord?"

"A medical first-aid kit.  I took an anti-infection and pain injection before you came in... my last."

His words made no sense.  "My lord?"

"Medicine, Corinne, to stop the pain.  A human doctor made that medical kit especially for me."

"I have such here too, my lord."

While she waited for the bandages over the worst wounds to soften, she studied the less severe wounds.  Most were long claw rips in rows of three, and all appeared infected.  They would need salve; and therefore, she must touch the creature.

She poured salve into her palm and, fighting her tendency to flinch, forced her hand down.  At the first blazing contact, she yanked her hand away.  "My lord, you are fevered!"

The monster's right hand rested briefly against his shoulder.  "No.  Only a slight fever.  My body is naturally warmer than yours.  That heartbeat I spoke of."

"Animals are warmer than people."

Hawk chuckled.

When she realized she had spoken aloud, she bit her tongue , cursing her unfeminine curiosity, then forced her hand back down to his shoulder blade.  The skin was warm and of similar texture to a human's.  That fear gone, she began to apply the ointment.

Since he was not offended by her earlier statement, she spoke of her findings, "Your shoulder muscles spread differently to your arms and back, and they are thicker and wider than a person's."

"Many, many centuries ago, my people had wings and living flight. We lost our wings and now walk as men do."  A trace of something akin to grief touched in his voice. 

"I am removing your bandages now, my lord.  It will be painful."  When she cautiously nudged the largest bandage at his neck off, he cried out and his hands clinched.  Expecting him to hit her and swear at her clumsiness as her father did, she darted away, but he just lay with his head buried in the pillow and fought the pain.  She came back and removed the other bandages.

The neck wound had the unmistakable markings of the fang wolf's teeth.  Around the wound it was festered and red, and the wound stank oddly.  Her heart plunging, she bent sniffing.  "Who ministered to you after your injury?"

"Lord Randolph Taskin.  He sprinkled some yellow powder on it and applied the mud bandage."

"No liquid?"

"No.  Why?"

Corinne pondered the question.  Should she tell the monster that her enemy Lord Taskin had willfully murdered him by not applying the antidote to fang poison?  The antidote would only work soon after the poison left the fang, and never afterwards.  How would Hawk react to the news of his coming slow and tortured death?

Not knowing the answer or the words to tell him, she remained silent.

#

Divorced from his body and pain as if another being inhabited the body slumped on the bed, Hawk floated in twilight.  Corinne had given him some herbal drink which he had taken trustingly enough. The female might fight and kill like a she-wolf to protect herself, but he did not think she would calculatingly poison him.  Perhaps he had been wrong.

He remembered Garth pinning his twisting, agonized body to the bed while Corinne had scraped the rotting flesh from his neck wound, then she had poured liquid flame into the resulting crater.  The pain had been beyond what he could bear, and he had vanished, flying into nothingness.

Other memories scattered like clouds before him -- gentle Corinne, white and solemn from how she had hurt him, wandering around the room at the womanly tasks of decorating the room with her possessions, cleaning, and setting it to rights.  He remembered her shocked face when she had picked up his only shirt and discovered the unrepaired claw rips down its back and the dried blood that had not been washed out. 

Then Garth had been sitting in a nearby chair guarding him while Corinne was gone.  Hawk followed these cloud memories until he slept once more where he dreamed of Koori, her arms open and waiting for him.

The last effects of the sleep potion gone, Hawk awoke clearheaded. The pain in his shoulders and neck throbbed.  Corinne knelt beside him on the bed and applied salve and fresh bandages to his back with cool hands.  The  sweet meadow flower essence she wore floated around him.  Not moving, he let her believe him still asleep.

Finished with her healer's tasks, she remained beside him.  He could feel her eyes boring into his face.  A hand touched his head feathers then retreated.  It returned and stroked from crown to shoulders, exploring texture and softness.  He fought his smile and did not wiggle.  Humans were fascinated by his feathers, and most desired to touch them or hunt for his ears.  Only an occasional female or child dared the liberty.

He stirred as if waking, and the hand jerked away, and he gazed up at Corinne.  She wore a simple yet pretty, long hand-woven gown colored like her sky blue eyes, and her golden hair was plaited down her back as he'd seen Wilma wear hers. 

She smiled down at him, “You will be fine now,” but the pity, compassion, and grief in her eyes told him he was dying.

#

Corinne paused at the archway entrance to the sunlit courtyard where the youngest children of the castle played and searched about the bushes, bright trees, and fall flowers for her lord.  When old Nanny Wheeler had told her of his visits here most mornings, she had been frightened for the children and fascinated.  What was the monster doing here?

At present, he was on the ground, his back against an ancient tanyan tree with the five-year-old Adams twins in his lap.  The boy was scrunched up half asleep against his wide chest while the little brown-haired girl chattered up at Hawk who listened with grave attention.  Corinne edged closer. 

Becka was telling him "The Prince from the Sky."  Neither child showed the slightest fear of the monster.  Nanny Wheeler had said that few of the youngest children feared him.  To them, he was just some fabulous, kindly creature from an old tale who had come to play.

She now noticed the other children at rest around him.  There must be half a dozen. 

Her gaze returned to Hawk.  She was learning to read emotions on his alien face and had realized that his feelings were as complex as a human's.  He had an expression she had once seen on a human's face, a mixture of tenderness, longing, and despair.  It had been Toby Mason after he and his wife had discovered they could not have their longed-for children, and he had visited the children in this garden.

Was Hawk's wife barren?

Her monster was well furnished she decided with possessive pride.  No one could say her lord was shabby.  The white linen shirt she had made him was clean and unwrinkled, and his new black pants and his boots were immaculate.  He was handsome in a monsterish sort of way once one got used to his differences. 

His face was pale and thinner, and his eyes glowed with light fever, but he did not really show the ravages of the fang wolf's poison.  He appeared almost healthy, but she knew that he was experiencing one of the pauses in the high fever and weakness which would strike harder and harder at intervals until they killed him. 

Most humans would not have been so soon out of the sick bed as he, though, after being so ill for two days, but he had been up these three days since. 

Becka had finished her story and was giggling and tugging at the feathers that framed Hawk's face.  Bending, he laughed and let her stroke him.  He smiled at Corinne and winked. 

Realizing that he had been awake when she had fondled his feathers, she blushed.

The monster put both children down with kisses on their heads, gave a general farewell, and stood up wobbling.  He steadied himself with his hand against the tree then moved forward with no sign of weakness.  To only Garth and herself did he show his illness.  Picking up his cleaned cloak from a bush, he draped it around his shoulders in one graceful swing.

After greeting the children whom she had not worked with since becoming Hawk's, Corinne walked beside him down the stone corridor as he headed for his quarters.  Hawk asked, "The story the child told me.  Is it history or fairy tale?"

"I think it is true."

"I wondered why the humans... your people aided me."

Corinne's lips tightened.  She was uncertain whether to be insulted or not.  Remembering Taskin and his actions, she chose not to be offended.  "When the alien ship crashed hundreds of years ago, and we turned our backs on their wounded.... That castle and its people deserved to be blasted from the sky by the alien's mothership.  Except for the girl who saved the prince, all died because of that castle's cruel neglect."

Hawk rubbed his neck.  "My shipmates would not take it kindly if I died from neglect.  My shield brother Buck Rogers would avenge me."

At his use of the term for warrior brotherhood and his mention of humans, Corinne glanced toward Hawk.  Was her monster then friends with a human?

Her mind turning back to her own questions, she asked hesitantly, "You like children, my lord?"

"They are delicious." 

Gasping with horror, she pulled away.

"That was meant as a joke.  I do not totally understand human humor."  He paused, then said seriously, "I am the last of my people.  Children are very, very precious to me."

She tried to imagine what being the last would feel like, but she could only feel the hollowness she felt when she thought of leaving this world and all she cared for.  "But your wife?"

"My mate is dead.  She was killed a year ago in a ship crash.  I am alone."

"But you said...."

"Nothing that is not true.  Is she any less my wife because she is dead?  Do I love her any less?"

"I had a sister. Jessica. She died.”  Corinne blinked back tears.  “I understand."

His cloak sheltering her like a comforting wing, Hawk wrapped his arm around her shoulder and squeezed.  He dropped his arm suddenly and moved away.  There were several soldiers and some other men in the hall ahead. 

Corinne tensed, waiting for the crude remarks and the hen cackling she'd grown to expect since she'd been given to Hawk, but the men remained silent when Hawk kept himself protectively between them and her and stared at them with his cold, alien eyes.  The men backed away.  Everyone was afraid of the monster and his fighting skills.  Few survived a fang wolf and even fewer had the courage to face one to save someone else.

They reached their quarters unmolested, and Hawk took off his cloak and stretched out wearily on his bed.  He patted the edge of the bed beside him, and Corinne sat down nervously facing him. 

"Speak to me of your sister and Taskin.  I need to know the truth."

Corinne stared at her favorite unicorn tapestry above the bed.  "Jessie was almost two years older than I. We were the only two surviving children.  My big brother died five years ago.  Lord Randolph asked for her hand."

"He is a neighboring, ambitious lord.  Your father fears him for his cleverness and ruthlessness.  He wants your father's holdings but does not have the soldiers to take it and to fight against all the other neighboring lords who are banded in friendly treaty against outsiders and bandits."  He grinned.  "Garth is informative."

"Aye, my lord.  Father gave Jessie to Taskin when she was but fifteen.  The doctor warned Taskin that she was too frail, but he forced a baby on her to gain inheritance of this holding through a son.  She died... horribly."  Corinne fought tears.  "He wants me now.  He demanded my hand before you came.  Father was willing although the neighboring lords were against appeasing Taskin."

"Your father will feed the fang wolf until he has no more daughters."  Hawk's face hardened.  "I came and saved your father's life.  To thwart Taskin, those against him made your father give you to me."

Corinne's eyes widened.  He missed little.

"Taskin would not be an honorable or suitable mate for you.  I must urge your father to have the adoption ceremony.  If I claim you by the laws of this land, Barclay cannot reclaim you and give you to Taskin when I am dead.  They must abide by my dying wishes."

"My lord!" 

Hawk clasped her hand in his.  "The pity in your eyes told me, and then I spoke to Garth.  It will not be a pleasant ending, but I do not fear it.  How could I fear that which will return me to my mate and my people?"

Sobbing, Corinne bent her head in a grief that surprised her.   She had grown to care for this strange creature.

"Do not cry.  I could never bear a female's tears."  His voice was husky with control.  "We have much to discuss.  I have something for you."  He motioned toward the table, and Corinne slipped away and collected the papers lying there.  Fighting her tears, she studied its writing.

"It is a will of a kind.  When my friend Buck comes for me, give him this.  It tells him what has happened to me and about you.  He will carry you back to the Searcher.  Then Buck will return and avenge me."

"My lord, the children and my mother!"

"The Searcher would not destroy this castle.  Buck will kill Taskin for murdering me.  I would do it myself now, but I dare not risk myself with your fate at stake."

Corinne was stunned.  She did not think her father would relinquish personal honor and revenge for her or her mother's sake.  Her monster was a strange, wonderful being indeed.

                                                            #

Late that night, Corinne awoke hearing an odd, deep chanting/singing in the next room.  It sounded like her monster's voice.  What was he doing?

She slipped from her bed and crept to the curtained door between their rooms and peered out.  If he observed some religious moment, she did not wish to intrude. 

The night sky and the lighted candle Hawk always left by his bed shone dimly, but she could see him lying sprawled in bed on his back as if asleep.  He spoke again, tossing restlessly to his side, and clawed the covers from his feathered chest.  Something about his actions told her that he suffered from more than a bad dream.  She tiptoed into the room.

Hawk chanted and sang a cadence of notes, sounds, and pauses. 

He was talking!  She smiled to herself.  What else would an intelligent bird's language be but bird song and word sounds combined.  It was beautiful just to hear him in what must be ordinary conversation.  She wished the song master could hear him.  What beauty their songs and poems must have!

Hawk moaned, and she forgot enchantment and remembered the reality of death.  She went to the edge of the bed and gazed down at him.  His face was wet with sweat, and the feathers lining his features were drenched.  A laboring hasp touched his breathing.

"My lord?"  She spoke it again more loudly.

Rolling over to his back, Hawk cried out to someone in his language then lay still.  She rested her hand against his throat.  His skin was like flame it burned so hotly with fever.

"My lord," she mourned and retreated.  She lit the lamps about the room and collected her basket of herbal remedies.  First, she must lower his fever, or the poison would burn until his body could bear it no more, and he would die.

Lost in the world of fever, he did not know or respond to her, but she crooked his head in her arm and coaxed an herbal drink which was excellent for dehydration and fever into him, then some more.  When he could take no more, she paused uncertainly. 

What next?  The traveling doctor had spoken of bathing the body in alcohol and special herbs.  She had such a mixture that she had prepared for this moment in Hawk's illness, but its application required more intimacy than she wished with the creature.

He called out her name. 

"I am here, my lord.  Rest easy.  I will help you."  Guilt-stricken that she would hesitate a moment in helping her dear, kind monster, she poured the mixture into a bowl, picked up the soft cloth, and saturated it with the cooling liquid.  She daubed it again and again on his face, throat, shoulders, and the pulse points on his arms before she resolutely the covers back completely.

A nervous laugh of relief rippled through her.  He could be human except for the down and the absence of body hair.  The leg muscles were a bit different which probably gave him the lithe grace and strength which made men look clumsy and plodding, but he could almost be human.

She applied the unguent on both legs and to the feet.  As she worked, she remembered the nightmares which had plagued her about Hawk's feet being talons that ripped and shredded her.  She had wakened crying from these dreams of the monstrous, hidden truth of his nature.  Comparing nightmare to reality, she decided he had the most beautiful feet she had ever seen.

Hawk's toes then foot twitched in her hand when she massaged the liquid.  She studied the foot.  It twitched again as she neared the arch.  He was ticklish!  The last of her foolish fears of his being a demon evaporating, she laughed a moment then began to sob.

#

Dawn touched the blackness of the sky with subtle grays, giving the castle bedroom a somber hue.  Wall stones blended with sky creating an illusion of depth and distance that the wall hangings belied suspended in seeming near space.

Sitting on the bed by Hawk's huddled form, Corinne rubbed at her eyes in weariness.  Her night vigil had been punctuated by Hawk's thrashing and her own attempts at halting the fever.  Now he faced a second crisis. 

The burning had gone, and in its place, he hunched shivering with inner cold.  She tucked a fourth blanket around him, and he still trembled violently.  If the chill did not soon depart, he would leave her.

She had done everything the doctor had taught her, but the fang wolf poison had defeated her.  Hawk's pallor grew worse, and his skin that felt hot in health was cold to her touch.  His body trembled, too, with fever cold.  The heated herbal remedies had availed her nothing. 

Racking her brains for anything that would be of help, she recalled a tale of a woman who had held her ailing, fevered child in her arms and shared body heat when it had been near to death.  The child had lived.  Corrine could think of no other alternative.

Careful not to let the cold morning air in, she slipped under the covers and eased near Hawk who seemed beyond knowing or caring what she did for him.  On his side, he faced her and was curled up in a ball for warmth.  She paused when she was almost against him.  How should she go about this?  He was so much bigger than she.  How could she hold him?

She pressed her upper body against his, rested her head on his feathered chest, and wrapped her arm around his ribs.  Her legs she wedged against his.  He smelled of the herbal alcohol baths and his own alien sweat.  The musky smell and the feel of his feathers against her cheek and body was pleasing.

After several minutes, he shifted as if aware of her and straightened.  His powerful, corded arms encircled her, pulling her snugly against him, and her body draped against his side with her head under his chin and her upper arm on his waist.

Corinne wriggled, making herself comfortable, then tried to pour her body heat into his cold skin. 

Although she had tended him all night and knew every inch of him, being held like this was different.  She was very aware of his breathing, the lean firmness of his body, and his sheer size and strength, but she was not frightened.  She felt... safe.

"Corrie?"

"I am here," she paused and added shyly, "Hawk." She had never called him thus before.

He mumbled a few words in his own language.  "Corrie."

Frightened for his life, she did not reply but snuggled against him more tightly.  He was lost in his fever world again. 

His hand that rested against her thigh began a caressing journey up and down her frame, and his lips and feathers brushed and teased her face and shoulders.

Corinne shivered, not from fear or cold but from something she could not explain, and relaxed trustingly under his hand.

#

Hawk awoke.  The candle was out, and the room was dark.  If he squinted, he could see the vague outlines of his bedroom.

Inside he felt hollow as if the fever and pain had burnt its way through him leaving a husk.  Death from the fang wolf had nearly taken him again, but Corinne had saved him. 

In the sky of nothingness from this night's memory, he could remember her touch as she tended him and her voice and face filled with concern and love. 

The warm softness and weight against his side registered on his dazed mind, and he explored.  The meadow flower scent had already told him it was Corinne who curled like a sleeping kitten by him.  He ran his hand down her night-braided hair and the flannel nightdress which was ruched up so that her bare legs entwined with his. 

What was she doing here?  Certainly he had not been that fevered... and often after a winter night's sleep, Koori's gown had been thus when they had not....

He began to untangle himself and back away before Corinne awoke.  His actions caused what he would have prevented.  Corinne's hand went automatically to his throat as she'd checked him many times, and she stiffened in surprise.

Her voice was happy and tearful.  "The fever is gone.  You are better!  Oh, Hawk!"  She threw herself against him and covered his face with kisses.  "I thought I had lost you."

When she stilled her affectionate assault, he said, "Thank you, Corinne."

Her arms tightened, and she snuggled against him.  "Call me as you did last night, my lord.  In your own language.  Call me Koori."

Hawk winced.  Coming from a biologically monogamous society, he was beyond his depths.  If he had seduced the innocent child....  "Do you know what mating is?"

Corinne nodded against his chest.  Her voice was embarrassed but obedient like a school child's.  "That's when a man beats you and mauls you for his pleasure then forces himself into your private place and makes you scream from the pain."

"I did that to you?"

"No!"

"What passed between us then?"

 "I lay down beside you to share body heat.  You were chilled.  You held me and caressed me thus."  Capturing his hand in hers, she brought it from her thigh and up to her shoulder and back.  "And you kissed my face and shoulders as you whispered in your language... such lovely words.  I wish I knew their meaning.  Then you fell asleep again."

A few intimate caresses could be forgiven, he decided.  "If in fever, I try such or more again, do not allow it.  It is wrong that I touch you in that manner."

"But.... It was nice."

"With the husband of your heart's choosing, it will be better than 'nice.'"

"That wasn't hurting and...."

His heart wrenched with pain at her vision of what mating was.  "Who told you that?"

"Jessie."

"Taskin will deserve his death.  I thank my god and yours that I saved you from that sick, perverted human.   He has defiled what is beautiful and caring between mates.  What Jessie told you is not of true mating."  He added, unable to explain properly or decently to the innocent girl, "Speak to your mother of this.  In her eyes I saw love for your father.  She will know how to tell you."

"I wondered how she and the other women could bear for..., and still love their men."

"What Koori and I shared was beautiful.  I hope you find that, Corinne."

"Koori was your wife?"  Her voice sounded deeply hurt.

"Yes.  What is wrong?"

Corinne sniffed back tears and pulled away.  "My lord, I should dress and get you breakfast.  The sun is almost centered in the sky."

Hawk brought his hand to his eyes.  The room was in midnight darkness.  Garth had said that one side effect of the fever was sometimes blindness.  Never to see the sky or Corinne's eyes again....

If Taskin learned of his blindness, he would lose his fear of Hawk's fighting skill and kill him in duel, then take Corinne for his perversions.  Taskin must grow tired of waiting for his death by poison. 

Suddenly, the bitterness of darkness before his coming death meant little in comparison to what Corinne would face with Taskin.  What could he do to save her?

#

"Open."  Corinne propelled a spoonful of breakfast mash into Hawk's mouth, and he chewed it obediently.  Fear filled her as she studied him. 

Since waking and discovering his blindness an hour since, Hawk had not left the bed nor attempted much speech.  He just sat propped up in bed with a blank expression as if his mind and emotions were elsewhere.  She would have screamed, or cried, or something if she had been blinded, but he acted as if he did not care. 

After Hawk had finished his meal and lay down and she had set aside the dishes, Corinne smoothed the ruffled white plumage that covered his broad chest and felt the muscles beneath the softness.  The act brought vivid memories of being held the night before. 

Because of the odd, happy feelings that Hawk and his touch had brought, she could believe there was pleasure in mating with a special, good man.  She wished her beloved monster could be that loving man, but that was impossible.  He was neither man nor loving, and his avian heart was with his dead wife.  He could only be her dear friend and her lord. 

Impulsively, she bent and brushed her lips against his.  He started but accepted the chaste kiss.  The kiss did not change him.  He was a bird prince, not a frog prince; he remained Hawk. 

When he did not protest these intimacies, she lay down as she had the night before on the covers and wrapped her arm around him. She loved this creature with his gentle ways and his caring. He gave as she'd always wanted her father to give, and now he was dying.  “Don't leave me, Hawk."

He kissed the top of her head much as he had the children's and stroked her braided blonde hair.  "Have you watched birds fly, Corinne?"

"Aye, my lord."

"Have you seen how a flock will fly wing to wing, and change and shift direction as if they are but one bird and one mind?"

"Aye."

"Have you ever wondered at that symmetry of thought and action?"

"No," Corinne admitted.

Hawk chuckled.  "My people were telepaths.  We could fly in that manner when we had wings and after we used crafts.  It is limited, low level telepathy.  In a way we could be of one mind.  We could not share complex thought, but we could see and sense as one on an instinctive level."  He paused.  "My human friend Buck and I have had such a sharing in battle.  It came naturally and unsought because of our deep bond."

"My lord?"  Corinne could not understand what he tried to tell her.

Hawk's long fingers caressed her temple. "If we had such a sharing... if my mind could join yours, I could 'see' through your eyes.  It would not be like my own eyes, but I could sense objects and people with some accuracy.  With care, no one would know I am blind."

"Our minds touching?"  Something deep and intrinsically human and private inside Corinne cringed, and she fought panic.  Such a joining would be a violation comparable to Taskin's!  "No!  I could not!"

#

The late afternoon smelled of conifers, fall, and the ending of things.  In the distance, Corinne could hear a creek rushing swiftly downward. It sounded cold.

She turned in her saddle and gazed back at the black gelding she led.  The old war horse followed placidly enough on the narrow, untended forest trail.  Long experienced in the ways of war, the horse seemed to sense that its rider was wounded and that each jolt was agony for it chose its way with care over the rocks, gullies, and broken branches. 

With his head drooping, Hawk hunched forward in his saddle.  In his great black cloak and hood, he reminded her of a new-caught tyg-falcon of her father's who had willed itself to death rather than face captivity.  Already he seemed more and more lost in the past as the old did before death.  It was as if he were preparing himself to meet again his wife and his people who had gone before him.

Corinne's heart lurched at that thought.  This situation was not the same as the tyg-falcon she reassured herself.  Hawk would not have endured these three grueling days in the saddle if he had sought death.  His was a courage greater than needed in facing an opponent for he bore the terrible pain that movement and the poison caused.  He willed himself to live for her sake.  If he did not have her to consider, he would have killed Taskin and then given up as that tyg-falcon had. 

The first day of his blindness, Hawk and Garth had decided to secretly flee her father's castle before anyone discovered Hawk's blindness and told Taskin.  Even though Hawk could barely stand and had to be helped onto his horse, they had left late the same night and had begun their journey to Hawk's downed ship.  Hawk wished to wait there for Buck, his shield brother, and give her into his protection. 

She had her own reasons for coming.  If Hawk was lost in dreams of the past, she must look to the future.  He may have given up hope or desire for his life since the maiming blindness, but she could not.  He had told her of the medical wonders aboard the Searcher. 

Certainly they could cure where she could not.  She felt that Hawk's medicines from the red-crossed box had kept him alive rather than her herbs.  If his medicines were not gone, he would not fare as poorly as he did now. 

She had asked Hawk of their medical methods and had learned enough to save samples of the poison and diseased blood for them.  A doctor of great knowledge could save him and bring light back into those beautiful alien eyes of his.

Garth rode toward them from his reconnaissance of the trail ahead.  He pulled up his huge bay mare beside her.  She stopped.  He looked more at home here in the primal woods than in the castle where he had been relegated since he had become "too old" for warfare and hunting.  His craggy face and weather-burned skin blended with the leather jerkin and pants he now wore.

He spoke for her ears only although he need not have bothered.  Hawk had not changed position; he did not seem to be aware that his mount had stopped.  "There be a clearing ahead.  Sun will set in an hour, and yond beastie must rest."

Corinne was not offended at Garth's calling of Hawk.  He and her lord were fast friends, brought together by their mutual care and protection of her.  The old sergeant at arms had an enormous respect too for Hawk's courage and his princely dignity and manners.

With a nod at Garth's suggestion, she urged her horse and Hawk's forward.

#

The campfire burned so brightly that Corinne could barely see the roving stars in the night sky.  Kneeling beside Hawk's recumbent form, she brushed back her escaping hair from her face and gazed up.  The stars -- some fast, some slow, some huge, some as tiny as fireflies, danced above her.  They were like shimmers of light on moving water. 

Hawk had told her that those stars were really asteroids, not true stars, and that they circled her solar system and kept other people away.  The asteroids were so bright that she could not see the true stars which moved in seasonal and night patterns and seemed never to move when watched.  It was a strange feeling to learn you have wished upon an asteroid and not a star.

Hawk lay tucked in his bedding near the fire with his back propped up by his saddle.  The firelight played upon his features, making him look fierce, barbarian, and untouchable, but his hands entwined with hers told her he was her Hawk.

A night bird called, the flame crackled, and the wind blew with the noisy insistence of fall.  Hawk listened with his whole body.  She had described the natural clearing in the hardwoods to him earlier, trying to paint a vivid picture of autumn on her world.  It had always been her favorite season, a time when she, Jessie, and Robert had stomped fallen, crunchy leaves and had helped gather nuts. 

She did not feel she had done it justice and wished she knew the words in his language to express what she saw.  Man's words were always of changing and shaping the world, not of accepting the universe as it was.  Hawk accepted as the animals did, but his perception held an intelligence as great as hers.

As usual after the day's journey, medicine, several hours of sleep, and a hot meal had revitalized Hawk enough so that he began to talk to her.  Corinne thought he conversed for her sake and not for his.  He wanted to reassure her that he was more than the husk which rode behind her each day; otherwise, she did not think he would bother to leave the past he entered to escape the pain and exhaustion of staying on his horse.

During his talks to her, he was charming, funny, and gallant, and when he listened, his warm smiles and those attentive twists of his head made it hard to believe he was blind and ill. 

His words were always of her future, of the world she would enter aboard the Searcher, and of his friends who would be her protectors.  She felt as if she knew each one already after his perceptive, insightful anecdotes.  He understood humans far better than he thought he did. 

He also understood that she entered a world as alien to her past as he had when he had joined the humans.  In some things they were much alike, she and her monster.  Both were shocked that a woman could hold power and be a warrior as Wilma Deering did. 

Corinne was beginning to consider a life in which she could be more than a wife.  Right now she wished for healer's knowledge above all else.  She could be a doctor and not just a helpless nursemaid watching Hawk die slowly before her.

After an hour of chatting, Hawk's mask of humor and gallantry left him.  "Corinne, I must speak truly.  We are but half a day's travel from my ship, but I do not think I will survive for the journey.  I feel the poison burning in my blood and nerves again.  Tonight or tomorrow, the high fever will come again, and neither my will nor your tenderness and care will save me."

"No!  I won't let you die."  All the frail hopes she had held inside her for miracles crumbled, and she began to sob hysterically as the pain of his leaving shot through her.

He pulled her to him and held her as he crooned soft comfort and rocked her back and forth until she quieted from exhaustion.  Lost in grief, she lay spent in his arms and finally slipped into a light sleep.

"Hawk."  Garth's urgent voice woke her.  She sat up and away from Hawk and blinked at the old soldier who squatted beside them in the darkness.

"Taskin is here?"  Hawk was calm and certain.

"Aye, my lord, with a band of six of the local young lordlings and some soldiers.  They're almost on us."

"Take Corinne and run."  Hawk sat up.  "I will slow them down."

"No!" Corinne protested.  "I stay with you."

"There's no time," Garth admitted.

"Then I must face him.  He is arrogant and sure of himself now. My flight has told him that the poison worked, and he will accept combat with me."

"Aye, he will.  He'll want to shame ye before those lordlings before he kills you and takes Corrie."

Hawk held out a hand, and Garth helped him to his feet.

Corinne gawked as Hawk seemed to come alive before her eyes.  Sloughing off the dying, weak husk he had been, Hawk straightened and lifted his head with his old pride.  He was so noble and handsome in the white shirt and black pants she had made for him. 

Once more he had become the brave warrior whom her father and Taskin feared and who had faced the fang wolf.  He must have been conserving his energy knowing that Taskin would come and he must face him in combat for her, but now Hawk was blind and weak.

"May I borrow that dagger you were once so fond of?" Hawk teased lightly.

Blushing, Corinne scrambled up.  She had never realized that Hawk had even suspected the protection she had kept against him.  "Aye."  She bent, pulled her riding skirt up, and drew the dagger from the calf sheathe in her boot then placed the hilt into his open right palm.  His hand closed and dropped to his side.

Certain now, Corinne placed her fingers at Hawk's temples.  She loved him too much to let him be slaughtered by Taskin.  Whatever it meant to her secret self, she must trust in him.  "Take my eyes too.  I'm not afraid any more."

Her calm voice must have answered his questions for Hawk's free hand came caressingly to her face. She had thought she would be fearful or cringe, but all she felt was safe, as safe as when Hawk had held her in his arms.  The universe shifted dizzily for a moment, then all was normal.

Hawk grinned down at her.  "If we survive this night, we must change our names.  I will be Bat, and you must be Radar."

"My lord?"

"Blind as a.... It does not matter.  Buck must explain human jokes again.  I still do not understand."  Hawk turned to Garth as the seeing did. "You will keep the audience honest?"

"Aye, that I will."  Garth unholstered Hawk's energy weapon from his hip.  "You can see?"

"After a fashion.  I stand some chance now."

"Taskin's fast and ruthless with a hand weapon.  He'll use no honor if he can hide it from the audience."

Hawk nodded.

"Take care."  Corinne stood on her toes and kissed his lips.

For the first time, Hawk kissed back; his lips pressed against hers, and he embraced her.  "Have a long and happy life, Corinne."

Blinking back tears, she hugged him.

"They're almost on us," Garth warned.

"Stand away," Hawk ordered her, "and do not hide your eyes."

Corinne did not know if he was joking, but she decided she wouldn't take her eyes from Taskin or even blink over much.  "Aye, my lord." 

She retreated to Hawk's rear and to his right as befitted her status as Hawk's ward, then faced the trail to home.  These men would not say she was nothing but a slave in her lord's heart nor he an owner in hers.  Garth blended into the outlying shadows of the woods away from the campfire and the night light of the clearing.

They rode in slowly, Taskin first.  He stopped his mount about three horse lengths from Hawk, then the six young nobles fanned around behind him like fang wolves in a pack.  The soldiers sat at the rear.  Taskin must be certain of himself and Hawk's illness to take the front so.

He studied Hawk as if he would like to ride forward and lop off his head with his drawn long sword, but he held his place.  He would torment for his pleasure before he killed.  Tall, muscular, dark, and not yet of middle age, Lord Randolph Taskin was considered strikingly handsome by most women with his chiseled features and easy smile.  Most men respected his skill with the sword, and the wise feared his cold, ruthless cunning laced with charm.

Hawk stared at him and the others with his fierce alien eyes.  All but Taskin looked away and shifted nervously.  Corinne could see the lordlings' faces.  She knew each one of these sons of the neighboring lords.  Most had been her brother Robert's cronies before he died. They were a dissipate lot, but none of them was evil like Taskin,  just stupid and manipulatable.

Taskin drawled, "We've caught ye, monster, before you've murdered Corinne.  You may have fooled the girl's father, but you couldn't fool us.  You've come out here to savage her."

Several of the lordlings edged forward as if seeking a way around Hawk to Corinne.  Apparently they believed Taskin's lies. 

Before she could retort, Garth laughed, and the others noticed him in the shadows for the first time.  "If he'd wanted to hurt the child, he chose the wrong companion.  You young pups know me.  I've served Corinne's father and his father before him.  No one will hurt a Barclay while Garth is about.  I gave little Corrie her first horse ride and many after.  I'd not share shield with anyone who'd hurt her as I've ridden with Hawk.  Yond creature is a true and noble lord even if he does look... different."

Corinne could tell that Garth's words had shaken the young lordlings.  Garth was a respected fighter and campaigner who had taught many of them fighting skills.  For Garth to declare Hawk a shield brother, a title which he honored very few with, had told against Taskin's lies.

Garth pointed Hawk's weapon and vaporized a tree beyond the party.  Horses reared and screamed, and a few bolted away with their riders.  "If he'd of meant harm, he'd not of loaned me his weapon."

Aware of the questioning eyes of his pack, Taskin must have felt his control of the situation slipping away.  He rode several steps toward Hawk, then halted as Garth pointed his weapon toward him.

Hawk spoke quietly, "Will you face me honorably, Lord Taskin?  The lies you tell others do not fool me.  You want Corinne, and you have come to take her for your sickness.  She is but a pawn that you will use to gain her father's land, then you will toss her aside."

"Fight you?  Why should I soil my sword on a monster?"  Taskin smiled arrogantly.

"I asked myself the same question, but I decided to kill you anyway."

Garth and some of the soldiers snickered.

Taskin flushed.  "How dare...."

"Come face me.  Do you only know how to fight against one with an army at your back?  Can you only prove your maleness by beating and raping a young girl who was given to you in lawful marriage?"

Taskin slipped off his horse in one graceful movement, tossed his cloak off, and advanced toward Hawk with his sword drawn. 

Fortunately with his arrogant certainty of Hawk's weakness, he had not donned leather armor over his leather forest clothing.

Hawk showed his dagger and that he had no sword.  With a glance at his audience, Taskin dropped his sword and belt, and drew his own dagger.  He advanced within an arm’s length of Hawk and tensed into a fighting stance.

Rushing forward, he slashed backhanded at Hawk who barely dodged his obvious ploy.  Hawk blocked his opponent's knife arm and jabbed with his own weapon. Taskin retreated then began to circle and dart forward again and again, but Hawk parried each attempt.

Taskin reminded Corinne of a snake, all stillness and sudden strikes.  Her lord seemed to just hold his own against such a technique which would exhaust him quickly.  Despite Hawk's show of strength, she knew just how weak he was, and Taskin must have guessed for he worried his superior foe and waited for the illness to destroy him.

After five minutes, Hawk's parry slowed, and Taskin raked him across the left upper arm then pulled away.  Blood dripped down Hawk's sleeve.

The lordlings howled approval.  Off their mounts, they waited like scavengers for him to fall.

Hawk flexed his left hand, and Corinne's heart started again.  Nothing vital had been severed.

Circling, Taskin tried to repeat the same blow but could not so he eased away, edging slowly away from the campfire light.  Corinne followed them and scrutinized Taskin's every move.  He obviously grew tired of risking himself with a stronger opponent than he'd expected; he would try something dishonest away from his audience.

The growing darkness around them made it difficult for their enemy and Corinne, but Hawk was now in his element.  He had grown used to the dark in the last four days.  She could almost see him feeling and hearing.  He attacked, and in the blur of shapes, Taskin cried out, once in pain and then in triumph.  Hawk fell.

Taskin retreated with a bloody gash across his chest.

Hawk staggered up and limped a few steps toward his opponent.  No blood or cuts were on his left leg.  Taskin must have kicked him.

Angry now, he enjoyed hurting, not being hurt, Taskin leaped forward and attacked the avian. 

Hawk  fought with cold calculation.  With each failed attempt, Taskin grew angrier and more careless of his own safety, but Hawk fought weariness so they were evenly matched.

In the dance of shadows and flickering campfire, the two fighters were like shape-shifting demons as they circled and struck at each other. 

They struggled seemingly forever with strategies and techniques that Corinne did not understand but dared not take her eyes from, then Taskin gasped and backed away from Hawk toward his men.  As he reached them, he collapsed, clutching his bleeding left shoulder.

When he did not get up, Corinne decided it was not a trick so she turned, ran and retrieved her medicines then rushed to Hawk who had not moved.  She caught him about the waist and helped him sink to his knees.  Kneeling, she asked, "Where do you hurt?"

Swaying, Hawk motioned toward his cut arm.  Corinne took out the salve from her saddle bag then ripped open the linen shirt she had taken so long to make.

Taskin's personal soldier bolted toward them.  She grabbed the bloody dagger Hawk had dropped and eyed the man who ignored them, grabbed some of her medicines and bandages, and left as quickly.

"He is not dead.  A pity," Hawk slurred.  His face was white and wet with sweat; the illness had taken him again.  Now that he had stopped fighting, he could not start again.  If Taskin got up, they were finished. 

Corinne cleaned the cut and rubbed salve into it, then wrapped up the arm before she bothered to see how Taskin fared.  He lay on the ground.  His personal soldier was pouring liquid from a black bottle onto Taskin's bare wounded shoulder.  Taskin cursed bitterly at the pain and cuffed the man.

She opened her mouth to call out a warning, but it was too late so she returned her attention to Hawk, who crumpled unconscious against her.  Propping him up with her body, she embraced him. 

"Kill him," Taskin screamed at the lordlings who huddled around him.  "Kill that murdering monster, and take Corinne."  A few looked at her and saw that Hawk was helpless.

Corinne stared about for Garth, but she could not see him.  One of Taskin's soldiers must have gotten him during the excitement.  She eased Hawk to the ground, stepped between him and the others then stood in an attack stance with the knife clutched her hand.  The only way they would take her away from Hawk would be to kill her.

Four came and stopped just beyond her knife’s reach.  Lord Jamie Morgan, who had known her since she was five, cajoled, "Come on, Corrie.  We won't hurt you.  We'll just take you home safe and sound to your parents."

Corinne believed him.  She did not fear rape from these pups; they had some honor in them. "And Hawk?"

Jamie shrugged indifferently.

"Kill the monster," Taskin screamed.

Corinne's eyes narrowed.  She was sick of that term.  If nothing else before she died, she would speak some truth to these fools.  "Monster, who is he to call someone monster?  Let me tell you about monsters." 

With her knife, she motioned toward Taskin who sat propped up by his man.  "This one you follow so keenly, he married my sister to get a child to take my father's holdings.  She was thirteen, but he did not care that the doctor said that she would die bearing a child.  He would have a child.  Nor was he content to cherish her as an innocent bride.  That brave man only enjoys a woman if he beats her almost senseless then rapes her."  Corinne's free hand clinched.  "Rapes again and again and again.  When Jessie died, I was there alone to tend her.  Her body was black with bruises, and huge with child.  He is indeed a noble lord.

"And now he wants me for his bed, and when he has killed me and taken my father's land, he will seek some other child bride to rape and beat to death. Perhaps your little sister, Jaime, or yours, Adam, or yours, Benjamin."

Jamie looked ill, and a few turned away.

"And my brother Robert, your good friend.  Have you not wondered at his strange death?"  Taskin gave a guilty start.  She had guessed rightly about that. “Robert conveniently died before Taskin sought out Jessie to take our holdings through a child.  I am certain his next bride’s brothers will not live to see her wed to him.

"There is an expression -- 'as cowardly as a scavenger of fang wolf prey.'  A man who will not properly tend another’s fang wolf wound, even an enemy's, is beyond contempt.  To let another die in that agony is worse than a stab in the back."

Corinne indicated Hawk.  "Taskin tended his wounds after he braved the fang wolf and saved my father.  Taskin did not even clean the wounds, let alone apply the antidote.  That is why he so 'bravely' faced my lord in combat.  Hawk is dying of his treachery.  He has been dying slowly and in great agony."

Corinne shrugged and swiped away tears.  "But it does not matter. Hawk is only a monster. 

“When I was given to him, I expected worse than what Jessie had died from, but this strange looking creature was gentle and kind.  He did not molest me or even touch me with less than all due honor.  He treated me as if I were his beloved little sister, and when he discovered what Taskin wanted to do to me, he left his sick bed and took me into the wilderness for my safety. 

“You all know what agony movement is in the last stages of the poisoning.  He faced this torture for me, an alien and a stranger, because he respects life and believes in gentleness for women and children.  He fought Taskin for me even though he has become blind from the poison. 

“He could have left me for Taskin and fled, but he did not.  Instead, he fought according to our ideals with a courage and honor that shames us all."

Corinne paused and gauged her audience, both lordlings and soldiers.  "Let me ask you this.  Who is the monster -- this creature lying here or yond man who tortures and murders women?"

All who had come with Taskin turned and left as a group.  Someone dumped Taskin onto his horse, and they rode away into the darkness.

Garth limped forward, rubbing his shoulder.  "Sorry I failed you, Corinne." 

She smiled and touched his cheek in understanding, then they carried Hawk back to his bedding, and she knelt and began to give what aid she could to the unconscious avian.

Garth watched her tend Hawk's wounds and then cover him with his bedding.  "I'd better follow them for a bit to make certain they don't double back.  Taskin may open his mouth and convince the fools to come back."

With a nod, Corinne clasped Hawk's limp hand in hers.  "Taskin will not harm another Jessie again.  His soldier accidentally poured fang wolf venom into his open wound.  He will be dead within a week."

"Child?"

"I saved some venom I scrapped from Hawk's shoulder for the doctors on the Searcher.  It can never be neutralized."

Garth chuckled.  "God works in mysterious ways.  Who'd of thought a 'monster' would come like The Prince from the Sky and save you from Taskin.  God works in mysterious ways."  Kneeling, he patted Hawk's shoulder.  "And some of God's angels look like demons."  He hugged Corinne in farewell then got up, mounted his horse, and followed after the lordlings and Taskin.

#

After several hours, Hawk appeared to be sleeping peacefully, but Corinne knew it was the calm before the final fever hit.  She had fought hard, but her lord died.  Bending, she adjusted his blankets, then got up to walk to keep herself awake.

When she was twenty paces away, someone grabbed her around the throat with their arm and yanked her backwards.  Screaming, she struggled, fighting with her nails and feet.  Her hand was captured, and she was bent where she could not fight.

Another dark figure neared Hawk.  She did not recognize him as one of Taskin's party so they must be bandits.  Concentrating, she willed Hawk to wake and use the knife she had placed under his pillow.  Certainly there was enough of a link left between them for him to see and know.

The stranger knelt and leaned toward Hawk.  In silhouette, he had the big lithe body of a fighter.  He reached for Hawk's throat.

Corinne screamed, and Hawk lunged with the knife toward his attacker.  As the knife neared his chest, the stranger hit Hawk on the chin and knocked him flat.

Shrieking again in despair, she fought her captor to get to Hawk.  "He's not a monster.  He belongs to an Earth ship.  If you kill him, the crew will tear this planet apart to find you and kill you."

The stranger muttered, "You've got that right, lady."

"How is he, Buck?"  Her captor was a woman.

"It doesn't look good.  He didn't recognize me, and he feels feverish."

Corinne relaxed.  "Let me go, Wilma Deering."  The arms released her.  "Buck Rogers, I am Lady Corinne Barclay.  Hawk's friend." 

She walked over to Hawk, knelt beside him, and stared across him at his best friend.  Even in the firelight, she could see Buck's kind and beautiful blue eyes.  He was very handsome when he smiled.  "Hawk is poisoned from an animal.  He is in the last stages of the fever.  If it is not stopped, he will die."

"Our shuttle is just over the hill.  We saw your campfire and stopped to check.  We'll get him to the Searcher."

"And your doctors," Corinne added.

Hawk's hand lifted and clung to Buck's arm.

"It's me, old buddy," Buck reassured him.

"I recognized the uppercut."  Hawk smiled sleepily.  "What took you so long?"

"The Admiral wouldn't let us risk coming in until the asteroids' orbits made a safe path in.  He jailed me for over three weeks...."  Buck stopped.  Hawk's hand had fallen, he was unconscious again.

Corinne collected her medical supplies and their personal belongings, then she scribbled a quick note for Garth and her parents, and pinned it by her saddle with the dagger Garth had loaned her.  The dagger would assure him that she was safe if the note did not. 

She was ready to leave this world and meet the future that Hawk had promised her.  It was she who had been transformed, not Hawk, by the past weeks' events.  She had been the unfeeling monster, not him, but he had taught her how to love, to share, and to sacrifice.  She hoped she would do him proud. 

If Wilma could be a warrior in this new world, she could be a former frog princess facing the future.  She spoke her feelings aloud, "I am ready to go."

Both Wilma and Buck gave her the same look.  Neither expected a passenger.  She pulled out Hawk's letter to Buck from her saddlebag and handed it to him.  Buck's eyes grew wider and wider as he read.

#

After the shuttle had woven its way through the asteroids, Buck walked toward the back where Hawk was stretched out.  Hearing his approach, Hawk smiled, cuddled Corinne's sleeping form pressed against his, and waited for his noisy friend.  "Buck?"

"Yeah.  You're looking a lot more chipper after a few doses of anti-infection."  He began to remove the safety restraints.

"I feel chirpier."  When Buck chuckled, he decided he at least understood human puns.

"A regular Prince Chirping to Lady Barclay here."

Hawk winced.  Perhaps he had been hasty about the puns.

"I'm the one who usually returns with a female in tow, but you've got yourself a pretty little seeing eye dog."

"I would hate to see you dead," Hawk said solemnly.

Confused, Buck replied, "Uh, me, too."

"Corinne is my ward.  I would hate to kill you even more."

Buck's voice was filled with outraged innocence, "Me?"

Hawk laughed joyfully.  Hope had come back into his life.  Somehow he knew that the ship's doctors would find a cure for the poison and the blindness. They were certain of success after reading the computer analysis of his blood samples and the local external antidote Corinne had brought with her.  He felt so much better from just the shots that Dr. Goodfellow had suggested from the ship's med-kit.

The bunk bent as Buck sat down at the edge. 

"Hawk.  I've been thinking about Corinne.  She can't stay on the Searcher.  She belongs with a family."

Nodding, Hawk held Corinne tighter, his hand tracing her braid and back.  "I wish I had one to give her."

"How about the Admiral's younger brother and his wife?  They lost their only child, a girl about her age, last year.  They'd love Corinne.  Their planet's kind of rural like Corinne's was, and they have an excellent education system."  Buck chuckled.  "I sound like their Chamber of Commerce.

“I met the Admiral there before I agreed to join the Searcher.  It was right after the tragedy.  They're nice people, and I liked the planet.  If I ever have kids, I'll consider it."

In his heart Hawk knew it was the perfect solution for Corinne.  This loving, giving child had only been a temporary gift from Make-make to ease the terrible loneliness... like Koori had been.  At least this time,  Corinne would be alive and happy with a beautiful future of a career, husband, and children in store. 

Yes, he could release another special gift when it came time.  Until then, he would cherish her as the daughter he and Koori had never been able to have.

“She sure is conked out,” Buck said.  "Poor thing's exhausted by all the excitement.”

"No, fear exhausted her."

"She's never even seen a ship,” Buck agreed, “let alone been in one."

"No.  It is your flying. Even on her world, they have heard about how badly you fly."

Buck groaned.  "That's a story if I ever heard one."

"No, but I will tell you one I heard on Corinne's world.  It is called 'The Prince from the Sky'. I will tell it to you as I heard it and also as I lived it.  Only the ending is different.  In my version, they lived happily, but separately ever after."

THE END