This story began a long time ago, when Larenn was chief. Seventeen chiefs have ruled and died since his time. My mother, Selaree the Eldest, who has lived long indeed and served six of them, and now serves Hawkheart, would know this story as it ought to be told, with the names of everyone who came with Larenn to Mountain Eyrie, and she would tell you the very number of turns of the seasons since the Hawkriders began. I am no storyteller, but I'll tell you what I can.
The tribe numbered eight and three eights and two when they lived in their old home. It was a valley in the middle of mighty mountains. Then the tall people found them. They wanted the valley for themselves, so they attacked my people. Chief Adel led the warriors against the tall people. Eight and seven elves died, and at least three times as many tall people. The tall people were barbarians wielding stone weapons, mighty brutes clad in skins and with painted faces and chests. The description fits no humans I have ever seen, but this happened eighteen chiefs ago. That is a long time, and humans may have changed since then.
While Adel and the warriors fought the tall people, her son Larenn obeyed her order and led the rest of the tribe away. Later the surviving warriors joined them. Adel was gravely wounded and the healer could not help her. She died in her son's arms. Larenn became chief and led the tribe to exile. They travelled on foot across a barren plain. Larenn, who was a shapechanger, often took the shape of a giant hawk to hunt for his people and to scout ahead. The tribe, who had called themselves the Shadow Children, after their home the Shadow Valley, now started to call themselves the Hawk Tribe. But they were all pureblood back then. They wandered on the plain for eight and three years. During that time three more died, but seven were born.
So the tribe numbered eight and one eights and six when they crossed a wide expanse of water over ice in the season of white cold and came to a new land, where snow-covered mountain peaks rose sharp into the sky. A land where no tall people had ever set foot. A land ruled by mighty birds, the ancestors of our hawks. The Hawk Tribe considered them a good omen. Larenn considered them friends. Somehow he made a truce with them so they would not touch his people. The rockshapers built a cave home for the tribe where Mountain Eyrie now stands. In those days the home was different, for there were only four gliders among them, the rest were flightless.
The long journey had changed the once peaceful Hawk People. They had learned to appreciate hunters above farmers. The magic-users had had to learn new cruel uses for their skills to defend the weaker ones. Rock and plant, water and weather, bone and flesh – everything can become a weapon in the hands of a shaper.
Larenn began to spend more and more time among the hawks. He learned from them and shared his learning with his tribe. Then, one spring, he was not seen in elf form at all. When he returned he announced a new era would begin. He had mated with a hawk, and she had laid four eggs. He was not sure what kind of life was growing inside those eggs, if any, but he was very hopeful. Larenn spent most of his time in hawk form, feeding his mate. The eggs hatched much later than normal hawk eggs. Only three of them hatched. The life inside the fourth had ended before it even began. Larenn carried the egg to the healer and he confirmed his suspicion that what was inside it was not alive anymore. One of the rockshapers had made a beautiful crystal chamber, and now the egg that never hatched was set on a pedestal there and completely covered with thick amethyst crystals by the rockshaper, so that it would never break. The unborn, unnamed child was the first spirit to dwell in what would became the Cave of Dreams, home to all hawkblood spirits in death. Soon afterwards, Larenn introduced his three children to the tribe. One was a girl with golden-brown wings instead of hands, and shining white hair. She was born a floater and later learned to truly fly. Her name was Akaiya. Another was a boy whose body was covered in soft brown feathers all over, and whose beaked face resembled hawk more than elf. He never learned to speak but was a very powerful sender. He, too, was a glider. His name was Ralayan. But the eldest child, the one who was to be chief after Larenn, was a puzzle. She seemed to be all hawk. Yet Larenn said her soul had an elf's name – Laralee. Akaiya and Ralayan were raised by the tribe, but Laralee spent her first six years with her mother.
Then one day a naked elf-child with feathers on her head instead of hair came to the tribe.
Father! she sent until Larenn woke and came to her.
What is it, Laralee? Only then did the others realize who she was.
Mother dead. Swordfeet. Her sending was more images than words, really. The first one ever to hawk-send was only half hawk.
Larenn led the warriors and magic-users of the tribe to fight the giant lizards and banished them. That was the first but far from the last Battle-Hunt.
Laralee came to dwell among the tribe and learn to speak and to elf-send. Her learning was slow, but eventually she gained control of words and her shapechanging magic, though she never learned any other shapes than feather-haired elf and a pale grey hawk.
The Swordfeet came again when the Eggborn were three eights and six turns old. Akaiya took part in the battle and died. She had already Recognized three times and given birth to four children, all of them gliders. Akaiya's twin firstborns were the first to bond with hawks and ride them - the first Hawkriders. She is remembered now as Short Life Brightly Burning.
Eight and four turns later Larenn relinquished chieftainship to Laralee. He flew away and was never again seen. When Laralee's grandson Silverquill was chief, a bone-shaper found Larenn's bones on the plain. Laralee Recognized four times, the last three with the same male. Her first son was stillborn, the second, flightless, died very young killed by a bear. A glider daughter lived to Recognize but died giving birth. So Laralee's heir as chief was the fourth child, a son called Windsong. A glider. Half the children born to the purebloods in those days were gliders.
It was during the time of Laralee's chieftainship that the trolls came to the mountains and abducted the only rockshaper. Laralee started a war to get him back, but the trolls killed him, and many others. Among the fallen was Ralayan. Laralee and her brother had been very close, and after the battle she declared:
"I have too many to mourn now. The lives of my parents and my children and my sister have been a burden, and when Ralayan is added to it, it becomes too heavy. Windsong, I cannot be chief anymore. You are chief now. You remember my teachings, the wisdom you have named the High Wind. Listen to the song of your blood. Follow it and change it as needed. Your descendants will hold the chieftainship – but only if they are strong enough to hold it. Take my sword, but remember – anyone who can wield a sword can challenge you." And Laralee gave him one of the blades won from the trolls. The sword was named Talonsharp. The chief of my people no longer wields that ancient blade, for better ones have been won since that day, but the chieftain's sword always has been named Talonsharp. Windsong made himself a crown of eagle feathers that resembled Laralee's head.
Laralee took her hawk-shape. She joined her mother's kin and mated with them to mingle elf blood with theirs. It is thought that the echo of her shapechanging magic was what made it possible for the hawks to grow bigger generation by generation, until they reached their current size. Then one day Laralee was not seen anymore, and when the children of the Eggborn began to die of old age, for their blood was mortal, it was supposed that Laralee must be dead too, although her bones were never found.
But much later - when my mother was young, when five chiefs of Windsong's line had ruled and died, the last in a Duel losing the chieftainship to Claw and his line, and when Greyhawk, fifth and last of that line, had just lost the feather-crown to Brook, who would be remembered in lore as Redbrook; not for her hair, for that was silver as a mountain stream, but for a stream far underground that flowed red with the blood of her enemies – Laralee returned.
She spoke of an ancient magic that had captured her for all those ages. For a short time she became my mother's mentor. She refused to challenge Brook for chieftainship, saying that what was once given away should not be claimed again by force. And once more Laralee Recognized. Her mate was a pureblood, Davek the Eldest, and their daughter was called Clearsky. Laralee died in the battle where Brook won her new name. By then she had begun to show signs of her great age, and her mortality. In time, Clearsky Recognized Jadyn and gave birth to Bowstring. My father. And he Recognized my mother when Whiteraven was chief. And so I was born, and that is why I have more hawkblood in my veins than anyone. And why I most likely will never live to be as old as my mother is. Whiteraven, too, was killed by trolls and her daughter Hawkheart is chief now, and my mother is second chief for Hawkheart has no children. The Bone-Shaper was third but she used to brag so much about it, I got bored listening and challenged her. So technically I'm third chief but that doesn't mean much, especially now that I'm away.