Free Winged Magic by Mary H. Herbert

storm cell moved in harness with the wind and was gone as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind the steady rain and slowly dropping temperatures.
    The thunder had faded and the lightning passed to the south when Gabria rose from her blankets beside Athlone and quietly stirred the embers in her small brazier back to life.
    Kelene, wakeful beside Rafnir, saw the dim light beyond the sleeping curtain in the tent they shared with her parents, and she slipped out to join Gabria. The older sorceress silently brought out a second glazed mug, poured water for two into her pan, and spooned several heaps of her favourite tea into a teapot.
    They huddled together around the small warmth of the brazier while the tent around them heaved in the blustery wind and the rain beat on the waterproofed fabric. They said nothing until the water boiled and Gabria poured it into the pot to steep.
    Kelene saw with alarm that her mother’s hands were trembling. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, conscious of the men sleeping behind the curtains.
    Gabria’s eyes were huge in the dim light and rimmed with shadows. She shakily set her pot down and pulled her arms tight about her. She nodded gratefully when Kelene brought her gold cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders.
    “Something has happened,” she said in a soft tone that was terribly certain.
    “What?”
    “I don’t know. I had a dream as dark and foreboding as this night, but nothing was clear.”
    A dream, Kelene thought, feeling the first stirrings of dread. Gabria’s talent for magic sometimes manifested itself in prophetic dreams and visions. The problem was the dreams were not always clear enough to understand until it was too late. She thought about her mother’s words and asked, “You said has happened. It cannot be stopped?”
    “I fear not. I sense the Harbingers are near,” Gabria replied in a hollow voice.
    Kelene’s heart turned cold. The Harbingers were the messengers of Lord Sorh, god and ruler of the Realm of the Dead. If the Harbingers had entered the mortal world, someone or several someones had died.
    Already forewarned, neither she nor Gabria were surprised when a distant horn suddenly sang in the storm-wracked night. Somehow they had been expecting it.
    It blared again, insistent and furious, until it was joined by others that blasted their warnings into the dark.
    Gabria heaved a deep sigh and stood, ready to face what would come. The horns were Turic, and in her deepest sense of the unseen world she knew the Harbingers had arrived.
    Behind her, Athlone and Rafnir sprang from their pallets, pulled on their boots, and reached for their swords. There was some advantage to sleeping in one’s clothes, for the two men were racing for the tent flap before the horn blasts had ended.
    “Wait,’“ Gabria called. She and Kelene hurried into their boots and joined their husbands, cloaked and ready to go. Just outside under a canopy their four Hunnuli stood ready. The horses tossed their heads in agitation, and their star-bright eyes rolled in anger. Their breath steamed in the cold air.
    Someone has used magic across the river, Eurus’s deep masculine thoughts reached the four people.
    “Oh, gods,” groaned Athlone.
    The Hunnuli carried their riders at a canter through the rain-soaked darkness to the river. Activity already stirred the clan camp, but Lord Athlone refused to wait. He urged Eurus on across the Altai. Water fountained beneath the Hunnuli’s hooves as they charged through the ford to the opposite bank. Abruptly they came face-to-face with a solid phalanx of Turic guardsmen.
    The guards lowered their spears to face the magic-wielders, forming a deadly barrier across the road. Their actions were swift and angry, and their faces were cast in rage. Behind them, the Turic camp was an uproar of shouting voices and running men. Torches flickered everywhere in the rain, and armed guards rushed to defend the perimeters.
    “Stop there, infidels!” a