Gesten had rearranged Amberdrake’s schedule to include Skan as a regular “patient” for the next several days. Amberdrake discovered the change when he checked the roster the next morning. He didn’t bother to comment on it; he knew that Gesten’s reply would be sardonic. Dear Gesten, whom he’d hired on so long ago, liked to think he fostered a heartless image, constantly spitting barbed comments and double-entendres. Even though the little hertasi failed utterly at posing as a bossy ogre, Amberdrake was not going to tell him so, directly or by implication. So often the gruffness people showed the world was a defense, meant to protect the ones they loved. That was how it was with Gesten. It was also how it was with Skandra-non, and when Amberdrake wasn’t indulging himself in self-pity, he was well aware of that.
And Skan was first on the day’s roster, with a generous amount of time allotted to him. Amberdrake could visit him, add his own touch to the Healing meld, and spend some time simply enjoying Skan’s company before returning to work at the tent.
This was interesting; his schedule was bracketed by gryphons today. The first patient was Skan, and the last a gryphon named “Zhaneel.” A female, according to the log, with a gold-square token. He’d have to make certain Gesten had the bleaches and dyes ready; she might want a feather-tip job in addition to whatever other pampering and primping she desired. Amberdrake’s other talents often obscured this one, and few knew he had ended his apprenticeship at the ancient trade of kestra’chern as a feather-painter, and still enjoyed doing it. Skan, of course, wouldn’t let him practice on his feathers, no matter how Amberdrake tried to assure him that it would be a subtle pattern, sophisticated and elegant. No, the Black Gryphon was the Black Gryphon, and black he would remain. Skan had made it clear time and time again that the only dye to touch his feathers was the stark black he himself had chosen.
But female gryphons, to whom nature and Urtho had given fairly drab coloration, tended to be very fond of painted feathers. In peacetime they had sometimes sported patterned feathers as gaudy as a Kaled’a’in weaving or a messenger-bird’s bright plumes-now they had to confine themselves to something that made them less of a target. If she’s got goshawk coloring, perhaps I can persuade her into something in blue and gray, he mused. That way she’d have the advantage of sky-camouflage when she was flying, but up close she would be dappled in fishbone patterns and ribbons.
That would be a pleasant way to end the day.
He washed and shaved, tied his hair back, then donned a plain linen tunic and breeches to stroll over to the mess tent for breakfast. He could eat in his quarters, and often did when he was pressed for time or tired, but he preferred to share at least one meal with the other kestra’chern. Experience and observation had taught him that if the top-ranked kestra’chern acted no differently than the rest, there would be less acrimony and jealousy, both of which could lead to unpleasantness and outright sabotage. He was careful to dress plainly when off duty, shared his knowledge and experience freely, and when forced to cancel appointments, did his best to see that the canceled clients had been distributed fairly among the others. Thanks to this, the rest of the kestra’chern tended to regard him as their unofficial leader and spokesperson. He had mixed feelings about that, but it was probably better that he was in that position, rather than someone else. He was the only Kaled’a’in among them; the other Kaled’a’in kestra’chern chose to work among the Healers and save their other skills for their own people. No other working kestra’chern in the camp had as much training as Amberdrake, and when the Kaled’a’in had moved to Urtho’s Tower and the question of what his job should be had come up, he had felt no hesitation. He made, at best, an ordinary Healer, and to operate under the constraints of a Healer would have made him feel as if he worked with half his fingers gone. It was best to do what he was truly good at.
Breakfast was unusually quiet; Amberdrake’s companions were tired and subdued. Like the rest of the army; after all, the kestra’chern were by no means immune to what had happened at Stelvi Pass. Even if none of them had friends or acquaintances there, the fighters themselves would, inevitably, bring their troubles to the anonymous comfort of those whose business was pleasure and support.
No one seemed in any mood for conversation on a personal level; no one looked at Amberdrake with the desperate eyes of someone who had taken on more pain than he or she could handle, nor asked Amberdrake for advice in affairs of their own hearts. At first, he simply ate his breakfast, keeping the conversation light, intending to leave with a quiet greeting for everyone.
One of the junior kestra’chern inquired about Corani, and was met with a brief, sharp glance from Amberdrake. This served as an impetus for several other kestra’chern at the table to start talking about the news from Stelvi Pass, Laisfaar, and the Tower, each adding their own slices of information. They had likely as not gleaned it from their clients as much as from camp gossip. As long as no one revealed the identities of the clients, many of them thought, putting the pieces of the puzzle together in the confidence of other kestra’chern was something of a challenge to all concerned. It was done all the time, and Amberdrake knew it, and although it was a source of some of the kestra’cherns’ hidden power, he didn’t entirely approve of this free sharing of basically private knowledge. Still, the war made its own rules, and they fought the war itself, and not the army of the enemy. Perhaps this technical transgression of kestra’chern protocol could yield valuable insights. So he told himself.
Regardless of Amberdrake’s private mullings about the talk, it went on unabated, and he found himself offering up the occasional “It may well be” and “From what I know, unlikely” comments, which helped lay in more pieces of the puzzle. When he felt it was time to go, he directed the discussion back toward client care and techniques, then slipped out unobtrusively.
When he reached the Black Gryphon’s tent, Skan was awake, and evidently in a much better mood this morning, as he looked Amberdrake up and down in mock amazement. “Tchah, the kestra’chern has lost his commission? All your fine plumage is gone, strutting-bird!”
“Heh, dressing to match the job.”
“It seems likely you turned in here mistakenly on the way to the horse-stalls, then,” Skandranon replied smoothly. Yes, he was definitely feeling better. Yesterday he would have growled.
“Has anyone looked at your wings?” Amber-drake asked.
“Not since you did,” Skan told him. His pronunciation was much improved from yesterday, too. He hissed his sibilants only a little, hardly enough to notice. “All who have come have said it was best left to the expert.”
“They’re probably right, but lacking an expert, I’ll have to do,” Amberdrake said absently, running his hand just above the surface of the splinted and bandaged right wing. He extended his awareness down into the wing itself, into the muscle, tendon, and bone. “You’re doing all right, though. Bear with me for a minute, here, I need to probe some more.”
He shifted from simple awareness into true Healing with a deft twist of his mind. Carefully, for if he sped the Healing of the bones too much, they would not Heal properly but would remain weak, as the bones of a very old person might be after setting. He sent energy to the torn muscle, to the tiny arteries and veins that had been savaged, and then, delicately, to the bones.
Finally he pulled his awareness away and came back to himself, shaking his head a little to clear it of the shared pain. “I’d leave the bandages on for now,” he continued. “It’s going to take another couple of days of work to mend those wings, and a couple of weeks to strengthen them enough that you can use them. Having them bandaged like that keeps them from being strained. I hope you have feathers saved from your last molts; we’re going to have to imp a lot of broken secondaries and primaries. That’s one thing we can’t do for you-grow new feathers.”
“You’re the Healer,” Skan replied philosophically. Then he looked sheepishly at Amberdrake out of the corner of his eye. “I have to apologize to you, Drake. Again, I mean. The apology I gave you yesterday wasn’t exactly sincere.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I treated you badly yesterday. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right. My only defense is that I was in pain, and I’m not at my best when I hurt.”
Amberdrake snorted. “Not at your best? Skan, you could give a makaar lessons in surliness!” But he smiled and scratched Skan’s ear-tufts, while the gryphon feigned indignation. “That’s all right; I’m not a good patient either, you know. It’s just a good thing I’m not hurt or sick very often, or I’d probably lose Gesten.”
“Not Gesten, he enjoys suffering. He enjoys letting you know he’s suffering even more,” Skan replied wickedly-and accurately. “What’s happening out there? Nobody tells me anything; they’re afraid I might not want to heal up.”
“Ma’ar’s forces threw back our counterattack,” Amberdrake told him, knowing that if he didn’t, Skan would find some other way of getting the information. “We’ve lost the Pass, for now at least, unless Urtho can come up with some way of dislodging them.”
Skan shook his massive head and sighed. “I can’t see how, Drake. Stelvi was built well, as impregnable as possible, with water supplies in every part of the fortress. That was part of the reason why no one took an attack there seriously.” He stared at the canvas wall of his tent, as if by sheer force of will he could see beyond it to the Pass. “So it’s to be another retreat, then. Eventually abandoning the Tower, if this goes on.”
Amberdrake nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“Damn them.” Skan glared at the tent wall until Amberdrake was afraid he might burn a hole in it. Then he shook his head, and when he turned back to Amberdrake, his eyes were clear, although wrinkles betrayed a deep and abiding anger burning at the bottom of them. “Has Ma’ar given us any new and unpleasant surprises?”
It was Amberdrake’s turn to shake his head, but this time it was with relief. “Like that mage-shot he pelted us with last month? Not that I’ve heard, and I heard most of the rumors three times over between my tent and yours.”
“Good.” Skan had been tense; now he relaxed a bit. Amberdrake would have given a month’s pay to know what had prompted that question-and knew very well that Skan would never tell him. He could surmise that there had been some kind of new weapon in use by Ma’ar’s army-and that Skan had neutralized it somehow. He could surmise it, but Skan would never reveal the truth of the matter.
“So, wicked one, what have you been up to while I have been wallowing at my ease in a nest of pillows?” Skan asked, quickly changing the subject before Amberdrake had a chance to ask him anyway. “Any new and interesting clients?”
“One new one yesterday, who I hope is never going to come back,” Amberdrake told him. “A more unpleasant man I have never met, and a mercenary mage on top of that.”
He told Skan all there was to tell about Conn Levas, without revealing the man’s name or divulging anything that might identify him-not even the fact that the man’s lover might be Kaled’a’in. He didn’t often break client confidentiality, and even then it would only be to a superior, like Artis Cam-lodon, the Chief Healer, or to Urtho himself, should he ever find himself in that exalted being’s presence. Few people overawed Amberdrake; he had seen too many of the great and powerful unclothed both physically and spiritually, but Urtho always left him feeling as if his mouth were hanging wide open. The blazing intellect, the aura of controlled and absolute power, and the overwhelming competence of the man added up to the kind of charisma that left Amberdrake weak in the knees. What he looked like didn’t matter; Amberdrake invariably saw the Mage of Silence with a kestra’-chern’s eyes-the eyes of one who saw past the surface, always.
Still, Amberdrake found himself telling Skan more than he would have told anyone else, and Skan listened with every indication of interest. It was marvelous, simply having a friend to talk to this way, and they both exulted in it behind their calm and rehearsed exteriors.
“I feel sorry for that one’s lover,” Skan said finally. “Very sorry, actually. She seems more important as a possession than as a person to him.”
“That was the conclusion I came to,” Amber-drake admitted. “What was worse, though, was that I was supposed to be dealing with my client’s problems, and I found myself wishing there was a way I could have a good long talk with his lover instead. That wasn’t very professional of me, I suppose, but then again, he wouldn’t let me help him.”
“The more fool he,” Skan said scornfully, “to pay good money and then refuse to take what it purchased.”
Trust Skan to put the situation into the simplest possible terms! Amberdrake had to smile. “Thank you, Skandranon Rashkae, you’ll make me a perchi yet. Should I simply become a baker, and save myself some worry?”
“You would find another way to take on the army’s burdens as a baker. Each little slice of bread would have a soldier’s very life and spirits slathered upon it,” Skan snorted.
Amberdrake laughed in response. It was, after all, a good return volley. “I suppose that in the grand context of an entire army, one mage’s emotional problems aren’t too high on the list of things I need to worry about.”
Skan chuckled. “That is a reasonable statement. More reasonable than the fretting. You’ve spent more time with me than you should have. Your other clients will be unhappy if they find out.”
“Then they won’t find out.” Amberdrake got up to leave. “This is going to be a very interesting day; I’m going to begin and end with a gryphon. It’s the first time something like that has ever happened.”
“I thought I was your only gryphon client,” Skan mock-chided. “I may become jealous!”
“Don’t bother, old bird,” Amberdrake told him. “This is just a once-only, a reward. I’m not sure why this gryphon chose me when she could have had the same treatment from an apprentice at a fraction of the fee, but it will be a nice change from emotionally-damaged fighters and deservedly-traumatized mages.”
Skan snorted approval at the small insult to Conn Levas. He had long maintained that Amberdrake was too gracious. “I may still be jealous.”
Amberdrake smoothed his unwrinkled tunic as a mocking gesture. “She’s a young female, I believe, and if you’re very good, I might introduce you to her after Gesten and I finish prettying her. Not that you’ll be in any shape to seduce her, but you might be able to persuade her you’ll be worth keeping in mind when you heal!”
Skan’s face wore a very peculiar expression, as if he tried to hold back something. He seethed with amusement. Amberdrake couldn’t for a moment imagine why, though; the female gryphon hadn’t been listed as being from any wing Skan had ever flown with, and was several years his junior besides. Whatever his secret was, however, he managed to keep it behind his beak. Amberdrake waited for him to betray himself, but he said only, “I should like very much to meet this young lady once you’ve been with her.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Amberdrake said. And since Skan didn’t seem disposed to reveal anything, he finally waved good-bye and went back to his scheduled work.
Very much like to see her, indeed . . . vain bird, he’s probably planning his post-mating dinner with her already.
Amberdrake was wiping thick oil from his hands with a rag when Gesten reminded him of his last client for the day. It had been a day marked by trauma and pain, from the emotional trauma of a young Healer who had seen one too many die, to the pain of a horseback skirmisher who’d had three beasts shot out from under her at the attempt to retake Stelvi Pass. She had had so many wrenched and displaced vertebrae from falls that Amberdrake almost sent her to the Healers instead, regardless of what she said she wanted. But she swore to him that she would rather have “the best kestra’chern in the world” put her spine back in place than any Healer and seemed thrilled to be with him, as if she spoke to a great dancer or singer. She’d sworn that she could bear the pain he would have to put her through to do so.
The reason? An admirable one; she’d felt that the Healers were overburdened, and that they would feel obliged to pain-block her, which would add to their burden. Yes, she’d known that the Healers would treat her for nothing, and that his services cost a high-ranking reward-chit. No, she hadn’t cared. “I’ve got a pile of these things already, so I’m saving them up for a better commission once the war’s dead,” she’d said gruffly. “Urtho’s aides brought me a new horse-Kaled’a’in-bred at that. I’ve got a new tent. I don’t crave pretties. I look like a horse myself, so fancy clothing on me would look like barding on a mule. So what else am I going to spend a chit on? Besides, this way I get an attractive man to put his hands all over me. That, I can use.”
So he manipulated her vertebrae as she stifled her gasps of pain, until her gasps turned to ones of sheer relief. He was so impressed by her courage and sense that he’d had Gesten prepare a hot soaking tub for her, with aromatic oils in it. He had her soak until her muscles completely relaxed, then he gave her the massage she had paid for, rubbing her down gently until she was just dozing. Then he did for her what he would not do for Conn Levas. They were good hours.
She left his tent smiling and exhausted. He sat back while Gesten cleaned up and prepared for the last client of the day, smiling just as widely as she had. Once in a while, he got a client who was worthy of his skills in every way-that skirmisher was just such a one, and it had been a privilege to help her. Odd; both she and Conn Levas were mercenaries, and yet they were so unlike each other. Ah, well, experience had shown that the only thing similar about most soldiers was the uniform they wore.
“That was a fine lady,” Gesten observed as he expertly put away the oils and stowed the massage table. “I think I ought to go over and suggest she spend one of those ‘useless’ chits of hers on a makeover with us. I don’t see any reason why she has to keep on looking like a wild mare. She’s lean enough to be elegant, and if she’d just let me do something with her hair . . .”
“That’s a good idea, if you want to,” Amberdrake agreed. “I’d take the exotic approach with her. You know, she could carry off some of the Kaled’a’in costumes quite impressively. Maybe with a cat-stripe paint pattern across her shoulders-“
“That’s what I like about you, Drake,” Gesten interrupted cheerfully. “You always see the potential. Think you can exercise that one more time today? That gryphon Zhaneel will be here shortly.”
“Gryphon?” Amberdrake replied, momentarily confused. Then he hit his head with the heel of his hand. “Right! I nearly forgot! My mind is still muddled from this day. I’m just tired. Did you-“
“I’ve got the oils and the satin cords and the beads and feather-paint,” Gesten said, snorting a little. “As if I’d forget! Listen, I’d like to go over and put Skan to bed if you don’t mind. Do you think you can handle this youngster alone?”
It was Amberdrake’s turn to snort. “As if I hadn’t been taking care of gryphons all by myself long before you came looking for some fool to hire you! Of course, I can.”
“All right, then, fool-who-hired-me,” Gesten replied, giving him back as good an insult as he’d gotten. “I’ll go make sure that featherhead up on the hill gets his sleep, then I’ll see to it you don’t drown yourself in the tub when I get back.”
Gesten indicated a bright but battered wheeled storage chest with a nod of his snout. “Everything you need is in there, and I replaced whatever had dried out or was too old to use. If I do say so myself, I don’t think there’s a kestra’chern in the army with a better stock of ‘gryphon pretties.’ By the time you get done, she should be stunning. Provided you can do your job.”
He whisked through the curtain before Amberdrake could make a rejoinder. Amberdrake just laughed and took his time getting out of his chair. He changed into a utilitarian pair of loose linen breeches and baggy shirt, tying a sash about the latter. He would not need any fancy robes with this client; instead, he needed clothing he could work in, clothing that could be splashed with dye and not take harm. Over that he wore his receiving robe, with its intricate designs.
Amberdrake stepped outside the tent to take in some of the camp’s relatively fresh air before the client arrived. “Small” feathers-the size of a hand-drifted by in the breeze, discards from some gryphon’s vigorous preening, no doubt. Activity in the camp had stepped up a bit from earlier that day; it seemed that the rumors had fed a packing frenzy. The children that he’d seen before were engaged in tying blankets and packs, with the help of two kyree tugging with their teeth. He saw adults mending wagon covers and double-checking the wheels of carts. Farther beyond that, a set of soldiers and an Apprentice mage-who looked to be Vikteren, one of Amberdrake’s social acquaintances-leveled and tested a hovering-sled. The large sleds floated half a man-height above the ground-although they could be raised higher-and were mainly used for troops’ supplies. A few of the kestra’chern, Amberdrake included, had bought one for use in moving their own gear, rather than relying on the army to do so for them.
Next to them, the horse-skirmisher he’d cared for earlier-who was moving much more freely than before he’d begun-was keeping a number of her fellow warriors enthralled with some great tale. Or if not great, certainly one that called for a substantial amount of gesturing.
Maybe she’s talking about me. . . ? That would be good if she was. Let them know I treat the lower ranks as well as I do their commanders.
Hidden back behind the cluster of humans, though, was a mere wisp of a gryphon-a fledgling, judging by her size, or a subadult. She-yes, definitely a female-was eavesdropping on whatever it was the horse-skirmisher was saying. How strange. Normally, gryphons simply walked into conversations they wanted to be a part of, invited or not.
Then Amberdrake’s attention was taken by a flight of messenger-birds winging past, darts of living paint flittering across the sky. Their bounding flight carried them and their messages toward the Tower; with luck, they carried news that the war’s hunger was sated for a while.
Amberdrake turned back inside, and set about finger weaving feather-shaft-adornments for his next client. It would be so relaxing, for a change.
Zhaneel, when she arrived, turned out to be the little gryphon he’d seen lurking behind the warriors earlier. She was a very pretty thing, in a quiet way; lean and fit, with long wings and feathers set very close to her body. He’d walked out from the back room of the tent with a handful of finger-woven satin cords, and found her in the receiving area, hesitantly nosing around the cushions and boxes.
She’s never been to a kestra’chern before, I can tell that right now. Nervous, expectant, unsure of herself.
He cleared his throat gently, and she started. “Welcome, Zhaneel,” he said in a soft but commanding voice. “My name is Amberdrake. I am honored to serve you.” He executed the sweeping, graceful bow that customarily accompanied the greeting and ended it down on one knee, so that he would not be looming over her. His receiving robe gathered around him in glossy folds as he knelt, a shimmering contrast to the work clothes underneath it.
Her eyes darted across his entire body as he bent forward to touch one of her forelegs, as was also customary. It was in this first touch that an experienced kestra’chern could tell the way the session was going to go. Involuntary reactions mixed with postures and poses, hopeful or desperate projections, all would be caught by a sensitive kestra’chern in good form. One did not have to be an Empath to read body language; that was a skill taught to every kestra’chern during his or her apprenticeship.
In this case, the signals were decidedly odd. Zhaneel slicked her feathers down and turned her head until her delicate beak touched the wrist joint of her folded wing. A soft, sibilant voice came from that beak, in as near to a whisper as gryphons could manage.
“The Black Grrryphon sssent me to you. You are my kesssstrrra’cherrrn.” Then her head dipped and her wings fluttered near her body, spread ever so slightly.
“Yes. I am the kestra’chern that will serve you, Zhaneel, as you requested, and as your reward for bravery. I will adorn, comfort, and help you and give you the attentions you may deserve and the insight you may need.” Amberdrake raised his other hand and touched the remaining foreleg, reading her physical reactions clearly while another part of his mind reasoned out what to do about it.
She’s practically seething with sexual tension . . . definitely worked herself up into a frenzy somehow over the past candlemark. Well, I know what that usually means. Some feather-work and oils should increase this unique beauty of hers, so her lover will be especially pleased by her after our session. Still. . .
Still, this sleek little creature wasn’t coming across like the usual gryphon client to be prepared for a special tryst. There was anticipation, and an electric desire, but there didn’t seem to be any confidence in the outcome of the night, nor the sense of certainty that gryphons were so well known for.
And no gryphon went for an expensive tryst-grooming unless she was positive she had a partner waiting for her!
Suddenly, Zhaneel looked directly at him and stepped forward, causing Amberdrake to rebalance himself-and then she kept moving forward. Amberdrake fell backward as Zhaneel straddled him. Her long wings spread to either side of them, with her tail up and neck feathers roused. Her beaked face was nearly touching his nose when she asked, “You will give me pleasssurrre, Amberrrdrrrake?”
Oh, gods . . . that explains what. . .
He stared at her beak, remembered the size of gryphon talons, and felt himself blanch. “Zhaneel, no-wait-you’ll hurt me,” he begged. “Please let me up!”
Skandranon marked his page with a discarded feather and stretched, looking back to where Gesten meticulously brushed and treated his back just above his tail. Urtho had sent down a book by an explorer who had been in his employ from before the war had started, and the heavy tome was filled with small notes written in the margins, observations and anecdotes by others that the book had been loaned to. Urtho had sent it by messenger-kyree to make up for his hasty departure earlier; yet another small gesture that told the Black Gryphon of his status in Urtho’s eyes. Gesten had been there for at least two candlemarks, quietly putting all of the details right for Skandranon; cutting, sanding, and rounding partially snapped feathers, rubbing in soothing gels around strained feather-shafts. Without saying a dozen words, he’d moved Skandranon-who was twice the weight of most human men-into easier positions for tending tiny cuts the Healers hadn’t gotten. He had sanded down the chips in Skan’s beak, filling in near-invisible cracks with cement, and coping his overgrowing talons. He then moved on to a deep and thorough combing, removing all the tiny snags and remaining bits of burr and twig from Skan’s black coat.
Skan was in good shape-much better than even this morning, he mused-and in little pain, thanks to one of Lady Cinnabar’s clever abilities, a trick with shunting pain away. She was a delight to know, even peripherally, and seemed to have the sort of personality he’d like to find in a gryphon mate one day.
Skan counted himself fortunate that he’d lived this long. Ah, but taking a mate? Seriously considering the possibility of fathering young had been reduced to a worn pastime over his years of service, one that at some times felt like his only reason for persevering, and at others like an impossible fantasy from a laugh-singer’s tale. The concern was not one of merely finding sex. He had no lack of lovers; there were few gryphons who wouldn’t be ecstatic to raise their tails to him, but, still, they were at best casual friends, and none of them fertile. Mmm, but there were those that had been so sweet, so warm. . . .
He shifted the way he was lying; thinking about lovers was causing his belly to tighten with longing. He’d never been embarrassed about his virility before and felt no pangs about such now, but his healing state kept poking reminders at him about how limited his movement really was.
Gesten didn’t miss a stroke while grooming Skan’s flank and tail, although he surely noticed the outward signs of Skan’s line of thought. There seemed to be very little the little hertasi missed; but, as with other topics that came up around him daily, Gesten’s best comment was not to comment at all.
Tchah, by now little Zhaneel is settled in warm and comfortable with Amberdrake. Amberdrake knows how to make everything right. He’s such a good kestra’chern; so clever, so graceful, so intelligent. I’m proud to know him; I’m glad I sent her to him.
I’m going to kill Skandranon for this, Amberdrake fumed as he faced away from Zhaneel. Surely that mindless, oversexed, bug-bitten, arrogant mass of black feathers had given Zhaneel the impression that Amberdrake was going to make love to her somehow. This was an unforgivably cruel joke on Skan’s part! After this situation was handled, Amberdrake resolved to go over and give Skan a verbal flaying-asleep, injured, or in whatever condition he happened to be.
Zhaneel had disentangled herself from him only a moment before and was now watching his every move for some cue to resume, her head bobbing up and down and hind-claws clenching.
Amberdrake wiped a palm across his face and turned back to speak to her pointedly. “Zhaneel, I can’t be the kind of lover you want. You and I aren’t physically compatible. I just can’t-“
A moment passed.
An unmistakable, inexplicable look of horror transformed Zhaneel’s entire demeanor from one of desperate desire to one of emotional devastation. She let out a gurgling cry and suddenly bolted through the opened tent flap and into the darker and more private inner room.
Skandranon finished the annotated chapter on social organization among the southeastern tribes, and luxuriated in the attention Gesten was giving his recently-battered crest.
By now she must feel like the most beautiful and capable gryphon in the entire world! Amberdrake always knows how to say exactly the right thing to make someone feel good. He’s given me so many compliments, and he’s hardly ever wrong. Maybe once I’m recovered, he can give me a tryst-grooming, and we can talk about how much good my suggestion did Zhaneel.
The Black Gryphon sighed and settled down for a nap, smug in the knowledge that all was right with the world as far as Zhaneel and Amberdrake were concerned.
Amberdrake found Zhaneel curled into a ball in the farthest corner of the tent, shivering, her head tucked under her wings. It was a saddening, unnerving thing for Drake to see; this was the gryphon equivalent of racking sobs, as bad as any he’d seen in mourning or after nightmares. Surging, palpable waves of shame pounded at him; feelings of self-blame hissed in his mental “ears” the closer he got to her. He braced himself to receive a backlash and reached out to touch her quivering body.
Instead of the expected strike, she didn’t acknowledge his presence at all. Nothing. Yet, with the touch, a staggering rush of sickening emotions blinded Amberdrake for the span of a heartbeat.
She hates herself. She genuinely hates herself. Self-doubt, self-pity, an overwhelming sense of worthlessness, of loss. From a gryphon! This I could expect from a human, but from a gryphon? They’re all convinced that Urtho created them as an improvement on all other races! Who or whatever made her this way was long in building. If it can be stopped, it has to stop now. If I can change her-it has to start now.
He spoke quietly, soothingly. “Zhaneel?”
She whimpered, the barest whisper of sound.
“Shh, little one, I am here for you. Please listen. Please listen. I’ll make you feel better, I promise it. I am here for you.” He moved in closer and folded his robed body across hers, to comfort her as he had other distressed gryphons with the sensation of protective, caring wings wrapped over them. He could feel her underneath him, body temperature high, breathing fast, and there, yes, her eyes tightly shut. Her delicate ear-tufts folded back tight to her head. Drake stroked her neck feathers and spoke more reassuring words, keeping his voice steady and deep, speaking “into” her, and held her as her shuddering subsided.
The sexual anticipation earlier can help some, at least. . . . Amberdrake swam through Zhaneel’s nerves with his Healing powers, found her pleasure-centers, and gently stimulated them while he soothed her with his words. Gryphons’ bodies held stores of specialized fluids, elements, in various glands and repositories, and the delicate touch of an experienced Healer could release them at the right time. A careful nudge there and a feather-light stimulation so, and the “rewarding” sensation following a mating coursed through her veins; in a small amount, by no means as great as the euphoria following a real mating, but definitely there. It had the desired effect; she slowly went from quivering to a state of relaxation-physically, at least-and uncurled from her ball after what felt like a harrowing eternity. All the while, Amberdrake reassured her and spoke encouragements. It didn’t cure any of her problems, no, that could come later, but her gradual relaxation at least opened a doorway toward a cure.
A candlemark must have passed since her arrival before she spoke again. It was a time in which her kestra’chern held her and scratched her ear-tufts, all the while carefully touching her mind and soaking in the feelings she unknowingly projected into him. He could not help thinking that it was a good thing she had chosen him, rather than a kestra’chern with no Empathic or Healing abilities. Anyone else would have had to send for her Trondi’irn-and an apprentice would have been as terrified and traumatized as she.
“Zhaneel,” he said urgently, “you must tell me why I distressed you so. I had no intention of hurting you.”
She shivered all over. “You . . . kessstra’cherrrn. Think I am mmmisssborrrn, too. No desssirrre, nev-errr. . . .” She hunched her shoulders and hung her head, deep in purest misery. “Should have died,” she cried softly. “Not worth raisssing, ssshould have died. Trried.”
Amberdrake didn’t hesitate a moment; strange how, after waiting in silence for so long, a moment’s delay in a reply could cause damage. “No, lovely child, you misunderstood me entirely! You’re far from misborn, Zhaneel. You were made by Urtho as his proudest creation. And you are lovely to me.”
She uncoiled some more, and nervously looked at him with one eye. “But you sssaid-no lover. Physssically. Not even you want me-“
He rubbed his cheek against hers, as a gryphon-sib would do, and replied quickly. “Zhaneel, no, little one! I said I can not, not that I would not if I could. I am only a human. Thin skin, and smaller than you. We wouldn’t fit, you and I, our sizes and bodies are too different. And you’d tear me up trying.” He allowed a small chuckle. “Dearheart, believe me, if I were a gryphon, you and I would be in the sky together the moment after I saw you.”
She opened both eyes and blinked, twice, as if the dry observation that humans were perhaps a third the size of a gryphon-in every salient way-hadn’t even occurred to her.
Some people think a kestra’chern can do anything!
“Never learned how mating goes. Parents died. Left me, left me alone.” Zhaneel slumped down, her beak touching the floor. “Misborn, wings too long and pointy, too long for body, head too big, too round, no ear-tufts at all!” she cried out, shivering. “That’s why they left me, why they flew and died. I was misborn, and they were ashamed.”
Amberdrake scratched her head, fingers disappearing into the deep, soft down-feathers, and projected more calm into her, soothing her, lest she ball herself up again and never uncurl. “I just can’t believe that, Zhaneel. You are lovely and strong. Your parents must surely have treasured you and looked forward to seeing you fly.”
Apparently, a floodgate had been released when she had first started speaking. She continued to pour out her feelings. “Not enough talon to hurt even mites-“
Amberdrake surveyed the outstretched forefoot dubiously. The talons looked plenty long to him.
“-freakish, misborn, should have died,” she whispered hoarsely. “No one wants Zhaneel in wing. No one. No one wants Zhaneel as mate. Worthless.”
Amberdrake lifted her head up, a more difficult task than he tried to make it appear, and caressed her briefly around the nares, then held up the forgotten reward-square.
“If you’re so worthless, then how did you earn this? They don’t give these away for digging latrines, sky-lady. Only the bravest receive this kind of reward.”
His left arm was complaining bitterly about supporting the weight of her head when she finally lifted it herself and blinked. Then she looked down.
“Not brave,” she insisted faintly.
Amberdrake smiled gently. “Why don’t you tell me how you earned it, and let me be the judge of that? I would sincerely like to hear, Zhaneel. Join me. I’ll make you a fine strong tea.” He stood up creakily and gestured for her to come with him; she rose, took three hesitant steps toward his bed, and then sat beside it.
“No one would accept me into their wing. But I wanted to fly for Urtho. So I-I just moved into a wing. Kelreesha Trondaar’s wing.”
Ah. Interesting, the same wing that merc mage Conn Levas is attached to. Amberdrake prodded the coals in the ever-burning brazier, then set a copper kettle of water on it. “And then. . . ?”
“I flew patrols. The back patrols-the ones fledglings fly in relays.” Her voice broke at that. The duty she described was humiliating for an adult gryphon, usually reserved for punishment because of its length and uneventfulness, and for training fledglings in procedure. “It gave me-time away from the camp. Time to fly. Can fly the circuit faster than anyone else.”
Amberdrake dropped herb-packed cloth pouches into the kettle, and spoke gently. “Faster than any other gryphon; that is wonderful in itself. How much faster, Zhaneel?”
“A third faster. I fly the circuit alone.” Amber-drake raised an eyebrow in surprise and appreciation. “I was at fifth-cloud height,” she continued. Half again higher than other gryphons fly on patrol-even more interesting. “And I found makaar. There were three, leaving our territory. They had to be stopped somehow, they must have been spying. But I can’t Mindspeak well-I couldn’t call for help. So I dove on them and fought them. It didn’t matter if I died stopping them.”
Amberdrake’s thoughts ran quickly, despite the practiced, impassive expression on his face. She means that. She means that if she died trying, that was better than living. It’s plain why she said she wasn’t brave. She was suicidal. And she wanted her death to mean something. He took a deep breath and smoothed back his hair.
“Zhaneel, I’ve known many warriors, many shaman and priests and High Mages. So many of them have felt inadequate, and I’ve spoken to them as I am doing to you, dear sky-lady. When warriors feel afraid they lack something, it is only because they are forgetful. They have forgotten how capable they truly are.” He settled down on the bed beside her and caressed her brow as she listened. “If you were anyone besides Zhaneel-lovely, powerful, sleek Zhaneel-you would have gone for help, or flown away frightened, or attacked the makaar and failed. You succeeded wholly because of who and what you are, and by the power of your mind as well as your body. That is no small thing, given that some gryphons I know have no more brains than an ox.”
Again, he held up the token and gently touched it to her beak. “And now you have this, given by Urtho’s own hand. Do you know how rare that is?” She shook her head, humanlike, indicating she didn’t. “It’s very rare, Zhaneel, very unusual. It shows that you are exceptionally good, dear one, and not a freak. Not misborn. And far from worthless.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she croaked. “Everyone thinks I am.”
“Everyone didn’t stop three makaar, and everyone didn’t get this token.” He shook his head, certain that he had her attention now. “Sometimes ‘everyone’ can be wrong, too. Didn’t ‘everyone’ say that Stelvi Pass was impregnable?”
Her ear-tufts rose just a little, and she bobbed her beak once in cautious agreement.
He considered her; her build, her very look. “You are different, Zhaneel, just as I am different from my own people. And when I came here, I felt a little like you do-no, a lot like you do. I was scorned simply because of who I was, and what I do. The Healers wouldn’t accept me because I was kestra’chern. The kestra’chern were wary of me because I could Heal. Yet as I saw them dance away from me, I studied the moves of their dance.” Amberdrake smiled again as Zhaneel relaxed some more and gazed at him, an enraptured raptor listening to a storyteller. “They would look at me and I was a mirror. They could see parts of themselves in me, layers and shards of their own lives they’d tucked away in their sleeves. When I spoke, the Healers knew I had that kestra’chern insight and they felt threatened. And the other kestra’chern distrusted my station and Healing abilities. Yet through it all, there I was. Still myself, Zhaneel, just as you are still you. Those who push you down fear you. They are jealous of you. And you are stronger than you know.”
Zhaneel fidgeted, uneasy under his care-filled eyes. “Not strong, sir.”
He shook his head, and chuckled again. “Nah, sky-lady. Please don’t call me ‘sir,’ I am only Amberdrake-a friend. Ah.” He moved gracefully to the tea kettle and poured two cups, one large, one small, as he spoke. “If you were not strong, I would never have met you, Zhaneel. You would have been dead and forgotten, not honored by the Mage of Silence himself. And not noticed by the Black Gryphon.”
Zhaneel turned her head aside, and her nares flushed in embarrassment. Ah, so she’s as impressed with Skandranon as he is by himself. I’m still going to skin him later, but I’ll certainly use his image to Zhaneel’s advantage.
“Let me tell you of Skandranon, Zhaneel,” he began. “They make fun of Skandranon, too. He is called a glory-hound, reckless, arrogant, petulant, and some say he has the manners of a hungry fledgling. Still, he is there, doing what he is best at. They are jealous of him, too-mainly because he actually does what they only talk about doing. Actions define strength. And you, sky-lady, fly faster and farther than they do, and can strike down three makaar alone.”
She blushed again, and once more he wondered what went wrong in her childhood. Where were her teachers, her parents? The simple things he told her should have been the most basic concepts that a young gryphlet was raised on. Normally, though, was the key word. Amberdrake had seen a thousand souls laid bare, and knew well that what most called “normal” was anything but reality. He also felt the warmth in his chest and belly, and the simmering heat in his mind, that told him that the hunt was good this time-that this young Zhaneel was going to survive.
“Always, I hear how they have said this or that, and yet, I have never come face-to-face with one of them. Who are they anyway?” he asked-rhetorically, since he did not truly expect her to answer. “What gives them a monopoly on truth? Why are they any more expert than you or I?”
Another few steps, and he presented her with the larger cup. He marveled at the deftness with which she grasped the cup, with a single foreclaw-no-with a single hand. And she followed his gaze.
“No claws to speak of. Have to wear war-claws like silly kyree,” she murmured, and looked down again.
“Tchah, no. That’s no defect, sky-lady. See my arms and legs, my muscles? They match my body well, as the parts of your body match well. Now see my hands, and their proportion to my arms.” Her sight fixed on his hands.
And her eyes widened as she realized what she was seeing. “Your hands-are like mine.”
“Yes! Very similar. All the Powers made me this way.” He nodded his approval. “And Urtho created you, with exactly this shape to your foreclaws, your body, your wings. Do you believe that Urtho would be so incompetent as to create an ugly, mismatched creature?”
That went against the most basic of gryphonic tenets; even Zhaneel would not believe that. “No!”
He smiled; now he had her. “Of course, we all know that Urtho would not. He has always been thorough and detailed, with a vision unmatched by any Adept in history. No, I believe, Zhaneel, that you are something new. Sleek and small, fast-like a falcon. The others, they all have the shapes of broad-winged birds, of hawks and eagles-but you are something very different. Not a gryphon at all, but something new-gryphon and falcon. Gryfalcon.”
Her eyes sparkled with wonder, and she caught her breath, still holding the cup of steaming tea. She spoke the word that Amberdrake had just made up, testing it on her tongue as she would try a sweet apple or cold winter wine. “Gryfalcon.”
This was going so much better than a candlemark ago. Amberdrake took a sip of his cup of tea and luxuriated in the play of flavors-rich and bitter, sweet and acidic, each in turn. Complex blends that suited the mood of a complex problem.
Outside the tent, dusk had darkened to night as they talked further, and Zhaneel had told him, in words that faltered, of her parents’ fate. They had both been killed on what should have been a low-risk mission; once again, the war had hungered, and had fed as all things must feed. Zhaneel had been left alone, a fledgling cared for thereafter by a succession of foster parents and Trondi’irn who felt no particular affection for her. One by one, they changed or disappeared, and the memories of her parents became a soft-edged memory of nurturing acceptance, a memory so distant it came to seem like a dream or a tale, having nothing to do with her reality.
It was the contrast between the fledgling’s memories of loving care and the subadult’s reality of indifference that had suffocated her in the cold box of self-hate.
Conversely, however, the same thing had kept her from killing herself.
The knowledge, only half-aware, that when she was still in the downy coat of a fledgling she was loved had given her soul the broad feathers it needed. There were no specific images now, and no remembered words; there was only the sensation that, yes, with certainty, they had trilled their affection as she drowsed and taught her when she awoke. Brief as that time had been, it had given her an underlying strength, and a reason to endure.
By the time their cups were empty, most of the night had passed by, and they had wandered into mutual observations. Zhaneel asked about the life of a kestra’chern. He’d wondered aloud, once he knew the subject would not alarm her, where she had gotten her idea that Amberdrake would be her lover.
Her nares flushed. “The horse-rider was telling the others about you, and I listened. I didn’t understand some of it, but I thought it was because she was a human.” She ducked her head a little as her nares flushed deeper. “I thought, this must be what you do with all who come to you. I thought, this was why Great Skandranon had told me to come to you when I was given the reward.”
He clenched his jaw for a moment. I might have known Skan was at the bottom of this! No wonder he was acting so-so smug! But a confrontation with Skan would have to wait. Now, all unknowing, she had given him another opening to bolster her self-esteem.
“Skan sent you here?” He blinked as if he were surprised, but he continued quickly before she could burst into frantic protest that he really had, as if he might doubt her truthfulness. “Do you realize just how impressed he must have been with you, Zhaneel? Why, it was only two days ago he was brought in, injured-he is still not Healed, and he has made it very clear to me, his friend, that he does not wish to be troubled with inconsequential things. And yet he thought enough of your proper reward to send you to me! How much time did he spend with you?”
“I-do not know-half a candlemark, perhaps?” she said, doubtfully.
“Half a candlemark?” Amberdrake chuckled. “I cannot think of any other he has spent so much time with, other than his Healers. Truly, he must have found you fascinating!”
“Oh,” she replied faintly, and her nares flushed again. “Perhaps he was bored?” she suggested, just as faintly.
Amberdrake laughed at that. “If he was bored, he would have sent you elsewhere. Skan’s cures for boredom are reading, sleeping, and teasing his friends, in that order. No, I think he must have found you very interesting.”
By now, from her body-language and her voice, it was fairly obvious to him that Zhaneel had-at the very least-a substantial infatuation with the Black Gryphon.
“He doesn’t pay that kind of attention to just anyone,” he continued smoothly. “If he noticed you, it is because you are noteworthy.”
She perked up for a moment, then her ear-tufts flattened again. “If he noticed me, it wassss sssurely to sssee how freakish I am.”
“How different you are-not freakish,” he admonished. “Skandranon is not one to be afraid of what is different.”
“Am I-“ She hesitated, and he sensed that she was about to say something very daring, for her. “Am I-different enough that he might recall me? Notice me again?”
Amberdrake pretended to think. “I take it that you want him to do more than simply take notice of you?”
She ducked her head, very shyly. “Yessss-“ she breathed. “Oh, yessss-“
“Well, Zhaneel, Skan is not easily impressed. You would have to be something very special to hold his interest. You would have to do more than simply take out a couple of makaar once.” That was a daring thing to say to her, but fortunately she did not take it badly; she only looked at him eagerly, as if hoping he could give her the answers she needed. “I know him very well; if you want Skan, Zhaneel, you will have to impress him enough that he wants you-enough to make him ask you to join his wing.” Before she could lose courage, he leaned forward and said, with every bit of skill and Empathy that he possessed, “You can do this, Zhaneel. I know you can. I believe in you.”
Her eyes grew bright, and her ear-tufts perked completely up. “I could-I could entrrrap the makaar.” She paused as he shook his head slightly. “Perhaps if I made of myself a target, outflew them to ambush?” Again he shook his head. Both her ideas were far too impulsive-and suicidal.
“It will have to be something that only you can do, Zhaneel,” he suggested. “You don’t have to make a hero of yourself every day. You don’t have to have an immediate result, either. But whatever you do must be something only you can do-just as the way you killed those three makaar was done in a way only you could have performed. Perhaps something that Urtho or Skan said to you could help you think of something. . . .”
She sat, deep in thought, while Amberdrake got himself a second cup of tea. Finally she spoke.
“Urrtho asked me what training I had, and he was disappointed that no one had given me any special attentions.” She looked up at him intently, and he gave her an encouraging nod. “Skandranon also seemed surprised that I had no special training. And if I cannot fly and fight as the others do-perhaps-perhaps I should train myself?” Again she looked to him, and he nodded enthusiastically. “Perhaps I should ask for-for courses, such as they put the young humans across, only for flying.”
“That is a good plan, sky-lady,” he told her firmly. “It is one that will benefit not only you, but others who are also small and light. And as you become skilled, you will definitely attract Skan’s attention.”
But now she had turned her attention to his hands, and then to her own foreclaws.
“Amberdrrrake, I have hands, like humans-I can do human things, can I not?” She flexed her hands, first one, then the other, as if testing their mobility. “Perhaps I can use a weapon-or-perhaps I can fly to help wounded!” Her beak parted in excitement, and Amberdrake had to work to suppress his own excitement. The idea of a gryphon-Healer, even the kind of field-Healer who could only splint bones and bandage wounds-that was enough to make him want to jump up and
put the plan into motion immediately. How many fighters had bled their lives out simply because no one could reach them? The mobility of a gryphon would save so many of those otherwise lost lives.
“This is going to take time, Zhaneel,” he cautioned, repeating the words to himself as well as her. “All of it is going to take time to learn, more time to practice. But it is a wonderful idea. I will help you all I can, I swear it!”
Zhaneel listened to his cautions, then bobbed her head gravely. “One weapon,” she declared. “I ssshall learn one weapon. Crosssbow; it ssseems easy enough to massster. And I shall learn the simple healing that the green-bands know.”
By “green-bands,” she meant the squires and sergeants who wore a green armband and acted as rough field-Healers, who knew the basics. Enough to patch someone up long enough for them to get to a real Healer.
Enough to save lives.
“And I would be honored to teach you that Healing, my sky-lady,” Amberdrake said softly.
“And-“ she dropped her voice to a shy whisper. “And Skandranon will notice me?”
Amberdrake chuckled. “Oh, yes, my lady. He won’t be able to help himself. You will be one of the few things that he does notice, I think.”
She cocked her head to one side. “Few things?” she asked curiously.
He shook his head, and shrugged. “Oh, sometimes I think he is so obsessed with topping his last escapade that he does not notice much of anything, including his friends.”
She continued to stare at him quizzically and finally said, “He notices. He loves you. The whole camp knows this.”
That was not what he had expected to hear, and for once, he was taken by surprise. “He-what?”
Amberdrake replied. He thought for a moment that he had misheard her, but she repeated her statement.
“He loves you as if you were a nestmate,” she insisted. “Perhaps he does not say so, but all the camp knows that Amberdrake and Skandranon might as well have come from a single mother.”
As his mouth dropped open a little, she gurgled-a gryphon-giggle, and the first sound of happiness he had heard from her yet. “I heard this-I heard him tell some of the captains that you were a being of great integrrrity!”
“You what?” he said, trying to picture Skan doing anything of the sort.
“I heard him,” she said firmly, and with coaxing, the story emerged. She had, once again, been eavesdropping when she shouldn’t have. Some of the mercenary captains had been bandying about the names and reputations of several of the perchi and kestra’chern, and Amberdrake’s name had come up just as Skan passed by. That would have been enough to attract his attention, but one of the captains had called out to him, tauntingly, asking him to verify what they had heard “since you know him so well.”
And Skan had, indeed, defended Amberdrake’s problematical honor, at the cost of some ridicule, which Skan hated worse than cold water.
“So,” Zhaneel concluded. “You see.”
Amberdrake did see-and he was rather overwhelmed at this evidence of affection, affection that he had hoped for but had not really believed in. A kestra’chern had so few friends—so few of those more than the merest of superficial acquaintances. . . .
He blinked, finding his eyes stinging a little.
“Amberdrake,” she said into the silence. “You are a Healer.”
He blinked his eyes clear and returned her grave stare, expecting a return to the earlier topic of discussion. “Of course, sky-lady.”
But she turned the tables on him. “And when you are hurt, who heals the Healer?”
Has she suddenly turned into Gesten, or Tamsin, to sense my feelings before I know them? he thought, startled again. But he chuckled, to cover his confusion, and replied, “My lady, I am not likely to be needing the services of a Healer, after all. I do not ply my various trades on the battlefield.”
She snorted, in a way that sounded very like Skan, but she said nothing more. And just at that moment, the sentries called midnight, and they both blinked in surprise.
Half the night has gone-but why am I surprised? It almost feels like half a year.
“You should take some rest, lady,” he said, taking the half-forgotten token and putting it back in her pouch. She started to protest; he placed a hand on her beak to stop her. “It is at my discretion to determine my fee. You keep this. If you have some difficulty convincing your wingleader that you need special training and equipment, you could use that to deal with him. And when you find someone worthy of you, then come to me with it, and I shall turn you from simply lovely into the most breathtaking creature ever to fly.”
Her nares flushed again, this time with pleasure. She started to leave, then paused on the threshold.
Tugging a hand-sized covert-feather loose, she gravely handed it to him. “And when you need-anything-you bring me this. Healer.”
Then she was gone, leaving him with a slate-gray feather in his hand, and a great deal to think about. He let down the entrance flap, closing his tent against the night and any observers, and ran the feather between the fingers of his right hand.
Who heals the Healer. . . ?
“Well, great hero,” Tamsin said dryly, pushing his way through the tent flap, “I see you have a tent-mate now. Did they discover you weren’t a general, and you weren’t supposed to have private quarters?”
Skan chuckled; it was amazing how much better a tiny improvement in his condition made him feel. Not great, but less like snapping someone’s head off anyway. “No, they decided that I must be lonely, but instead of giving me a lithe young female, they sent this disgusting heap of tattered feathers. Meet Aubri. Be careful not to step in him.”
The other gryphon in the tent, swathed in bandages covering burns, raised one lazy eyebrow and snorted. “I thought I was being punished. I was put in here with you, featherhead.” He raised his head from his foreclaws and regarded Tamsin and Cinnabar with a long-suffering gaze. “I’ll have you know,” he continued, in mock aggravation, “he whistles in his sleep.”
“So do you,” Skan countered. “I dreamed I was being attacked by a giant, tone-deaf songbird, and woke up to discover it was you. Maybe it was yourself you heard, loud enough to wake yourself up!”
“I don’t think so,” Aubri countered, then put his head back down on his foreclaws and pretended to sleep.
Skan chuckled again. “I like him,” he confided to Tamsin in an easily-overheard feigned whisper, “But don’t let him know. He’ll get arrogant enough to be mistaken for me.”
A single snort of derision was all that came from the “sleeping” Aubri.
“Well, you know why we are here,” Cinnabar told him, coming up behind her lover and giving him a greeting that was more than half a caress.
“Yesss,” Skan said. “You are here to pretend to tend to my hurts, while you put your hands all over each other. Tchah! You lifebonded types! Always all over each other! Bad enough that as humans you are always in season-“
“And you are not?” Aubri rumbled from the background.
“What?” Skan asked. “Did I hear something?”
“No,” Aubri replied. “I am asleep. You heard nothing.”
“Ah, good.” Skan returned his attention to the two humans who were doing their best not to break into laughter. “As I said, bad enough that you are always in season-but you lifebonded types are always preening each other. It’s enough to give an honest gryphon sugar-sickness.”
“Then Skandranon is in no danger, for he is hardly honest,” came the rumble.
Skan shook his head, sadly. “What did I tell you? The lout not only whistles in his sleep, he mumbles nonsense as well. Perhaps most of his injuries were to his rump, since that is surely where his brain resides.”
“He’s upset I’m not succumbing to his imagined ‘charisma,’” Aubri grumbled, raising his head. “And upset I beat him in his fledgling-baiting ‘logic puzzles.’ “
“You have no logic to use. Lucky guesses, all of them. I beat Urtho with them.” Skandranon looked back to the Healers, chagrined.
Cinnabar moved to the gryphon’s left, hands moving expertly over his wing and flank. “Gesten did a fine job with you, I see-you look very fit. You’ll soon be in good enough shape to dazzle all the potential mates you like, Skan. Are you finally going to take a mate?”
Skandranon flicked his wings suddenly and stabbed a glare at her which was much harsher than he’d really intended. He felt his nares darkening. How maddening to be constantly asked that! As if they had placed bets on who and when and how!
Cinnabar bit her lip and backed off, pretending-pretense that was just a little too obvious-to search for something in her belt packs. Tamsin broke the tension by clearing his throat and pulling, Skan’s head toward him.
“Here now, Skan, let me look at your eyes.”
“He’ll just think you’re in love with him,” Aubri snickered.
Before Skan could make any retort, Tamsin clamped Skandranon’s beak closed with one hand and stabbed a Look at him. This was serious business. Gryphons could judge relative distance and speed from each eye independently, and could clearly compare minute details of objects directly ahead. The paper texture of the book Skandranon had been studying, for instance, had been in sharp relief to him, even the furrows left by the pen. Like many other parts of a gryphon’s body, though, the eyes were used to judge the health of the rest of the body. Tamsin leaned in until his face was barely inches away from the lens of Skandranon’s right eye, becoming an encompassing blur which filled most of his wide field of vision. “You’re dilating well. Not as scratchy as I’d expect. No problems with focus? Good depth perception from each eye?”
“With Aubri, theme’s little depth to ssstudy,” Skandranon said dryly. “But yes, all seems to be well enough. I want to be back in action immediately.”
“There’ll be plenty of action for you, warrior, and that surely means we’ll see you back in surgery soon enough,” Cinnabar joked. “By now, Ma’ar’s troops have stopped wagering on you. They know that sooner or later every one of them will get a chance to shoot at you.”
Skandranon stood, feeling more lively than before, and mantled in indignation. In walked an opportunity for mischief. “They haven’t killed me yet! Have they, Jewel?”
A laden and bewildered hertasi looked at Skan wide-eyed, having just come in bearing rolls of blankets for Aubri. “N . . . no?” she said, with a nervous glance at the Healers.
This, of course, was a favorite trick of the Black Gryphon’s-getting people involved in his arguments, whether they liked it or not or whether they had any knowledge of the subject at hand. Always fun! Especially when the topic of discussion was him, and it had turned unflattering. “There, you see? Jewel knows. This was just a temporary setback, and I’ll be back to save Urtho’s army in no time at all.” He puffed up his chest feathers and struck an heroic pose.
“Oh, save me from him!” came Aubri’s plaintive cry. Tamsin and Cinnabar broke up in laughter, while Jewel scurried about positioning the rolls of blankets for Aubri’s comfort, still bewildered by the whole scene. Skan, of course, continued to play to his audience.
“He’s unaccustomed to being near greatness.”
Skan gave Aubri a lofty and condescending sidelong glance.
“I’m unaccustomed to drowning in such sketil. I can’t stand him asleep or awake!” Aubri moaned. “Healers, could you please either still his tongue or eliminate my hearing? Something? Anything?”
“Tchah! Blind fledgling,” Skandranon retorted. “I am forced to take up company with the unappreciative. It’s worse than physical wounds, I tell you honestly.”
Jewel paused for a heartbeat, took in the tableau of laughing and posturing, and evidently decided that folding fresh bandages for Aubri was the right thing to do. She fell into doing so with religious fervor on the far side of the tent. Lady Cinnabar recovered from her laughter and flashed her wide grin at Skandranon as Tamsin tweaked Skan’s tail. Tamsin then wiped his hands as if he’d just finished a day’s work and shot a satisfied look at his lover.
“I’d say our labor is done here, Lady. He’s as good as he’ll ever be.”
“What a sad thought,” Aubri muttered.
“Oh, please,” Skan countered. “I have capacities I’ve . . .”
“Boasted about for years,” Aubri inserted quickly. “And never fulfilled.”
Skan decided that a quick change of subject was in order. “Are you two keeping an eye on our Lord and Master?” he asked. “When Urtho visited me, I thought he looked underfed.”
“It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve been making certain he gets at least a bite or two out of every meal brought him,” Cinnabar replied with a sigh. “And his hertasi have been bringing him meals every two candlemarks or so. Still-no sooner does he settle down to eat than more bad news comes from the front lines, and off he goes again, food forgotten.”
“He’s giving more than he can afford to,” Skan told her, sitting down and becoming serious for a moment. “He never wanted to be a warlord. He isn’t suited to it.”
“He’s doing well enough. We’re all still alive,” Cinnabar offered. “The only reason he’s in charge is because the King folded up. And all the King’s men, the gutless lot.”
Aubri’s eyes twinkled. “She only says that because it’s true.”
But Skan stuck his tongue out in distaste. “She’s being charitable, Aubri. When Ma’ar first swept down, the border lands burned up like kindling. All the Barons were terrified, and the King’s best efforts couldn’t hold them together. It all fell apart, and we had only Urtho to turn to. No one else had any knowledge of what we faced. Cinnabar’s family and a few others stood against the Kingdom’s dissolution; the rest fled like frightened hens, and were just about as witless.”
“We remembered that we serve our subjects. The ones who ran served themselves and left their people crying in their wake,” Cinnabar added. “We don’t know what happened to most of them. Some had their faces changed. Some went mad or died. Most are still in hiding. Urtho doesn’t blame them even now. He told the King that Ma’ar sent a spell of fear into them. However,” she said while re-braiding a lock of hair, “it seems not all of us were affected.”
A shadow fell across the threshold and was followed a second later by a severe-looking, impeccably uniformed woman. Her brown hair was shortcut but for three thin braids trailing down her back, each as long as a human’s forearm, all placed in mathematical precision along her smooth neck. As she stepped in, her hazel eyes flicked from human to gryphon to hertasi in that order; she then flowed like icy water toward Aubri. Or rather, she would have flowed, had she not been trying to cover a limp. Skan stared at her; to intrude uninvited into a tent was not only rude, it was dangerous when the tent contained injured gryphons. Yet Aubri did not look surprised or even affronted; only resigned.
“May we help you?” Tamsin asked, openly astonished that the woman had not offered so much as a common greeting.
The woman did not even look at him. “No, thank you, Healer. I am here to tend to this gryphon.”
“And you arrre. . . ?” Skandranon rumbled, his tone dangerous. Either she did not catch the nuance, or she ignored it.
“His Trondi’irn, Winterhart, of Sixth Wing East,” she replied crisply-not to Skan, but to Tamsin as if Skan did not matter. “His name is Aubri, and he has suffered burns from an enemy attack,” she supplied.
Oh, how nice of her. She’s provided us with details of the obvious, as if we had no minds of our own or eyes to see with. How she honors us! Except that she was paying no attention to the nonhumans, only the humans, Tamsin and Cinnabar. What does this arrogant wench think she is? Urtho’s chosen bride?
But the woman was not finished. “I’ve also come to reassign you, hertasi Jewel. Your services are required in food preparation with Sixth Wing East. Report there immediately.” Jewel gulped and blinked, then nodded.
Winterhart drew a short but obviously sharp silver blade from her glossy belt and cut one of Aubri’s bandages free, looking over the blistered skin underneath.
“I don’t think-“ Tamsin began. The woman cut him off as Jewel scurried out of the tent.
“Aubri doesn’t require her any longer,” she said curtly, “and the Sixth is shorthanded.”
Skan ignored the rudeness this time, for Winterhart had caught his attention. “Sssixth Wing-that of Zhaneel?” he asked.
The woman looked at him as if affronted that he had spoken to her, but she answered anyway. “Yes. That is an extraordinary case, though. She surprised us all by somehow distinguishing herself.” Win-terhart’s shrug dismissed Zhaneel and her accomplishments as trivial. “Rather odd. We’ve never had a cull in our ranks before.”
Skandranon’s eyes blazed and he found himself lunging toward the woman. “Cull?”
Tamsin and Cinnabar held onto both of Skandranon’s wings. He repeated his incredulous question. “Cull?”
Winterhart ignored both his obvious anger and his question. Instead, she rebandaged Aubri and held her hands over his burns.
Even Skan knew better than to interrupt a Healing trance, but it took him several long moments to get his anger back under control. “Cull, indeed!” he snorted to Tamsin, indignantly. “Young Zhaneel is no more a cull than I am! These idiots in Sixth Wing don’t know how to train anyone who isn’t a musclebound broadwing, that’s their problem! Cull!”
Tamsin made soothing noises, which Skan ignored. Instead, he watched Winterhart closely. The fact that this cold-hearted thing was Zhaneel’s Trondi’irn explained a great deal about why no one had tended to the youngster’s obvious emotional trauma and low level of self-esteem. Winterhart simply did not care about emotional trauma or self-esteem. She treated her gryphon-charges like so many catapults; seeing that they were war-ready and properly repaired, and ignoring anything that was not purely physical. Zhaneel needed someone like Cinnabar, or like Amberdrake, not like this-walking icicle.
But she was giving Aubri the full measure of her Healing powers; at least she was not stingy in that respect. And she was good, very good, provided that the patient didn’t give a hung-claw about bedside manner or empathy. Aubri was clearly used to treatment like this; he simply absorbed the Healing quietly and made neither comment nor complaint when she had finished.
But for the rest of her duties-those, she scanted on. She did not see that Aubri was comfortable. She did not inquire as to any other injuries he might have, other than the obvious. She did not ask him if there was anything he needed. She sinmply gave Tamsin and Cinnabar another curt nod, ignored Skan altogether, and left.
No one said a word.
“Well!” Cinnabar said into the silence. “If that is the quality of Healers these days, I should have Urtho look into where that-woman-got her training!” Tamsin nodded gravely, but Cinnabar’s expression suddenly turned thoughtful.
“Odd,” she muttered. “I could have sworn I’d seen her before, but where?”
But a moment later, she shook her head, and turned to Aubri and said, “I’ll have one of my personal hertasi come see to your needs until we can get Jewel back for you. Is there anything I can do for you now?”
Aubri’s ear-tufts pricked up in surprise. “Ah-no, thank you, my lady,” he replied, struggling to hide his amazement. “I’m really quite comfortable, actually.”
“Well, if there is, make sure someone sends me word.” Having disposed of the problem, Cinnabar turned back to Skan. “Do you think you can keep your temper in check when that one comes back?” she asked. “If you can’t, I’ll have Aubri moved so you won’t have to encounter her again.”
“I won’t promissssse,” Skan rumbled, “but I will trrrry.” It was a measure of his anger that he was hissing his sibilants and rolling his r’s again.
“I won’t ask more of you than that,” Cinnabar replied, her eyes bright with anger as she glanced at the still-waving tent flap. “It is all I could expect from myself.”
Tamsin mumbled something; perhaps he had forgotten that a gryphon’s hearing was as acute as his eyesight. It would have been inaudible to a human, but Skan heard him quite distinctly.
“I must speak with Amberdrake about that one. . . .”
Tamsin chewed his lower lip for a moment, his brow wrinkled a little with worry, and then sighed. “Well, greatest of the sky-warriors,” he said lightly, with a teasing glance to the side, “I think you won’t have any real need for us in the next few hours, so we’ll go tend to those with greater hurts and smaller egos.”
Skan pretended to be offended, and Aubri snorted his amusement; Cinnabar lost some of her anger as her lover took her hand and led her out.
Aubri settled back down, wincing a little as burns rubbed against bandages. Skan arranged himself in his own nest of cushions with a care to his healing bones and watched his tent-mate with anticipation, hoping for another battle of wits. But the Healing had tired Aubri considerably, and the easing of some of his pain had only left an opening for his exhaustion to move in, assassinlike, to strike him down. Before either of them had a chance to think of anything to say, Aubri’s eyes had closed, and he was whistling.
Skan snorted. “Told you,” he whispered to the sleeping gryphon.
At least the poor thing was finally getting some sleep. Skan was only too well aware that Aubri’s sleep had been scant last night and punctuated by long intervals of wakeful, pain-filled restlessness. Skan had wondered then why his tent-mate’s Trondi’irn hadn’t come to ensure that the gryphon at least got some sleep. Well, now he knew why.
Because this “Winterhart” doesn’t care for us. We’re just weapons to her; weapons that have the convenient feature of being able to find their own targets. All she cares for is how quickly she can get us repaired and back on the front line again. She might as well be fletching arrows.
Winterhart wasn’t the only person in Urtho’s forces to think that way; unfortunately, two of Urtho’s commanders, General Shaiknam of the Sixth and his next-in-command, Commander Garber, had the same attitude. Urtho’s most marvelous creations meant the same as a horse or a hawk or a hound to them. If a gryphon didn’t do precisely as ordered, no matter if the orders flew in the face of good sense, there was hell to pay. Obviously, Shaiknam picked underlings who had that same humanocentric attitude.
Skan put his chin down on his foreclaws and brooded. It wasn’t often he had his beak so thoroughly rubbed in the fact that he was incredibly lucky to have Amberdrake as his Trondi’irn and Tamsin and Cinnabar as his assigned Healers-of-choice.
And if anything ever happened to Amberdrake?
I could end up with another cold, unfeeling rock like Winterhart. And I would have no say in the matter . . . just as I have no say in when I may sire young, which commander I must serve, nor any way to change battle-plans if the commander does not wish a gryphon’s viewpoint.
The gryphons found themselves treated, as often as not, as exactly what Shaiknam and his ilk thought them to be; stupid animals, deployable decoys, with no will, intelligence, or souls of their own.
The more he brooded, the more bitter his thoughts became. Thanks to Amberdrake, he had led a relatively indulged life, insofar as it was possible for any of Urtho’s combatants to be sheltered. But Zhaneel was an example of how a perfectly good gryphon could be turned into a self-deprecating mess, simply by neglect.
Because too many of Urtho’s folk-and sometimes even Urtho!-treat us as if we aren’t intelligent beings, we’re things. We have no autonomy.
From where he lay, he had no trouble reading the titles on the spines of the books Urtho had loaned to him. Biographies and diaries, mostly-all humans, of course-and all great leaders, or leaders Skan considered to be great. Did Urtho have any notion how Skan studied those books, those men and women, and what they did to inspire those who followed them? How he searched for the spark, the secret, the words that turned mere followers into devotees? Or did he think that Skan read them as pure entertainment?
Make your motivations secret to the enemy, fool them into false planning, use their force against them, lead them onto harsh ground, hold true to the beliefs of your followers, and show them the ways they may become like you. Lead by example. Those weren’t fictions on a page, they were a way of life for those who had become legends in the past. Urtho knew half of these writers. A quarter of them worked for him when he created us. One he served.
Urtho had learned from all of them, and now so did Skandranon. So why must things remain the same?
Amberdrake came awake to the smell of simmering bitteralm-and-cream. Gesten bustled about with fluid efficiency as the kestra’chern awoke, whistling jaunty hertasi tunes while he folded towels and polished brass, pausing only to check the bitteralm pot on the brazier between tasks. Amberdrake couldn’t help thinking of morning-wrens greeting the dawn, like the hertasi tale of how the sun had to be coaxed from slumber each day with music.
Amberdrake rolled over and slid sideways, stretching his legs underneath the glossy red and silver satin cover that Urtho had sent to him when he had joined Urtho’s forces as a kestra’chern. He curled up around a body-pillow and hoped that Gesten wouldn’t realize he was awake, but it was too late. The hertasi pulled back a corner of the blanket and offered a cup.
“Morning and daylight, kestra’chern. Much to be done, as always.”
Amberdrake blinked and mumbled something that could have been interpreted as rude, if it had been intelligible. Gesten was as unimpressed by it as he’d been the last hundred times and proceeded to prop up pillows behind the Healer’s head. “There’s hot bread and sliced kilsie waiting outside. We have three clients today. Losita has pulled muscles and can’t take her usual clients, so I accepted one of hers for us. Should not take long. And before you ask, nothing has gone wrong with Skandranon. He is fine and sends his best regards.”
Amberdrake took a sip of the hot, frothy bitteralm-and-cream and smiled at Gesten. What would any kestra’chern do without hertasi, and what would he do without Gesten? “So things are back to normal.”
“As normal as ever in a war. Tchah,” the hertasi spat, and flicked his tail. “New orders are down from Shaiknam and his second, Garber. ‘All hertasi of convalescing personnel are to be reassigned to more important tasks, according to the judgment of the ranking human officer.’ “ He thumped his tail against the bedframe. “I don’t think Urtho knows. It’s the most stupid thing I’ve heard in years-we aren’t tools to be traded around! Hertasi know their charges. It takes time to learn someone! And to send off a hertasi when their charge is in pain-it’s unthinkable. Worse-it’s rude.”
Amberdrake finished his cupful and thought for a moment. Gesten apparently expected him to do something about this-an assumption that was confirmed when Gesten produced Amberdrake’s full wardrobe for the day, laid out his sandals, and stood with his arms crossed, impatiently tapping his foot.
“So, just how did you manage to get yourself bunged up?” Skandranon asked his erstwhile companion when they had both finished the hearty breakfast that Gesten brought them at dawn. Somehow-possibly from Cinnabar, or one of Cinnabar’s hertasi-the little fellow had learned that Aubri was without an attendant and had simply added one more gryphon to his roster of duties. Hence, the double breakfast; a lovely fat sheep shared out between them. With the head, which Skan had courteously offered to Aubri, and which Aubri had accepted and had Gesten deftly split, so that each of them could share the dainty.
Aubri had been profuse with his thanks, and Skan had thoughtfully kept his requests to an absolute minimum so that Gesten could concentrate on Aubri. By the time Gesten left, Aubri was cradled in a soft nest of featherbeds that put no pressure on his burns, and the telltale signs of a gryphon in pain were all but gone.
“How was I hurt?” Aubri asked. “Huh. Partly stupidity. We were flying scout for Shaiknam’s grunts; we had one report of fire-throwers coming up from behind the enemy lines, but only one. And you know Shaiknam.”
Skan snorted derision. “Indeed. One report is not enough for him.”
“Especially when it comes from a nonhuman.” Aubri growled. “Needless to say, one report was certainly enough for us, but he ignored it. He didn’t even bother to send out a second scout for a follow-up on the report.”
The broadwing grunted a little and flexed his talons, as if he’d like to set them into the hide of a certain commander. Skan didn’t blame him.
“Anyway,” Aubri continued after a moment, “I was just in from my last flight and officially off-duty, so he couldn’t order me on one of his fool’s errands, and I figured I was fresh enough to go have a look-see for myself. And I found the fire-throwers, all right.”
“With your tail, I see,” Skan said dryly.
Aubri snorted laughter as Tamsin arrived with Cinnabar and two of the Lady’s personal hertasi. “At least Shaiknam believed the evidence of his eyes and nose, when I came in smoking and practically crushed him!” Aubri chuckled. “You should have seen his face! I set fire to his tent when I landed, and I only wish I could have seen how much of it burned.”
“Not as much as you or I would like, Aubri,” Tamsin said. “By the way, flaming hero, we’ve had you reassigned for the duration of this injury, anyway. You’re our patient now, and if Her Royalness Winterhart comes giving you orders, you tell her to report to me first.”
Skan blinked in surprise; it wasn’t often that Tamsin made room in his overcrowded schedule for a patient from another wing and another commander. Winterhart must have truly angered him yesterday!
“Tchah, Shaiknam should be set down to scrub pots a while,” Cinnabar added, wrinkling her elegant nose in distaste. “My family has known his since our grandfathers were children, and it is a pity that anyone ever gave the cream-faced goose any vestige of authority. The only thing he truly has a talent for is losing interest in one project after another.”
“And spending someone else’s money,” Tamsin reminded her.
She shook her head and brushed her hair back over her shoulders. “That was for peacetime,” she corrected him. “Now he simply trades upon his father’s reputation, rather than spending his father’s gold on one incomplete project after another.” She began telling off some of them on graceful fingers, as Skan and Aubri listened with pricked-up ears. “There was the theater company he abandoned, with the play into rehearsals, the scenery half-built, and the costumes half-made. They struggled on to produce the play, no thanks to him, but since it was written by one of his friends with more hair than wit, it did not fare well and the company disbanded quickly. Then he set himself up as a publisher, but once again, when the tasks proved to entail more than an hour or so of work at a time, he lost interest and left half a dozen writers wondering what would ever become of their works. Then there was the pleasure garden he planned-oh, Amberdrake knows the tale of that better than I-but it was the same old story. The garden languishes weed-filled and half-finished, and a number of talented folk who had turned down other offers of employment to take up with him ended up scrabbling after work and taking second and third place to those with less talent but more perception when it came to dealing with Shaiknam and his enthusiasms.”
“His father was Urtho’s first and greatest general,” Tamsin told the two fascinated gryphons, “and with my own ears I have heard the man say that he is certain he is heir to all of his father’s genius. As if wisdom and experience could be inherited!”
Skan laughed aloud at that. “I would say that Shaiknam is living proof that intelligence can skip entire generations.”
Cinnabar’s lips twitched, and her eyes gleamed with amusement. “Well, as proof that the so-observant Skandranon is right, this is the latest of Shaiknam’s orders-that ‘hertasi of convalescing personnel are to be immediately reassigned to tasks of more immediate importance.’ That is why I brought Calla and Rio; right, little friends?”
She looked down fondly on the two hertasi, who gave her toothy grins. “Let some fool from Sixth Wing East come in here and try ordering us about,” said Rio who, like his fellow, was clearly clad in the personal colors of Lady Cinnabar’s retinue. “We’ll send him out of here with boxed ears.”
“You’ll have to share us, though,” added Calla. “The Lady is seeing how many injured there are from Shaiknam’s command, and we’re to tend them all if we can. You don’t mind?”
“Mind?” Aubri replied, clearly surprised, pleased, and a little embarrassed. “How could I mind? I didn’t expect any help! I can only thank you, and know that thanks are inadequate-“
But both Lady Cinnabar and Rio waved away any thanks. “My friends have been itching to do something besides tend to my nonexistent needs,” she replied. “If my family had not insisted that I take a retinue due my rank, they would not be here at all.”
“For which we are grateful,” Rio butted in. “And grateful to be able to do something useful. So we will return when we know how many patients there are and see what it is you will be needing from us. Eh?”
Aubri nodded, speechless for once.
“It isn’t surprising that Shaiknam would have someone like that Winterhart woman as a Trondi’irn,” Tamsin observed, checking Skan’s healing bones, as Cinnabar and her two helpers rebandaged Aubri’s burns with soothing creams and paddings.
Aubri let out his breath in a hiss of pain but replied, “It’s typical of him. She won’t stand up to him at all; that’s why he picked her. Honestly, I don’t think there’s a Trondi’irn in the army that would put up with his sketi, other than her. But she’s just like him; thinks we’re nothing more than self-reproducing field-pieces. We’re like fire-throwers, only better, because we repair ourselves if you leave us alone long enough. Very efficient, is Winterhart.”
“Efficient enough to requisition Jewel as soon as she knew you were down,” Skan observed.
Aubri snorted. “Surprised she left Jewel with me as long as she did. Maybe she just didn’t notice I was gone. She’s been quite efficient about that new order.”
“Who actually issued that particular chunk of offal?” Tamsin demanded in disgust.
“Garber. Shaiknam’s second. In case you don’t know him, he’s by-the-book, and every inch an officer.” Aubri’s tone made it very clear what he thought of officers like Garber.
“So in the meantime, those who have been injured in the front line-where presumably, Shaiknam and Garber never go-are supposed to do without those who might serve as their hands and make their recovery more comfortable,” Lady Cinnabar’s cold voice told Skan that there was a great deal of heat within. The angrier she became, the chillier her voice. “We’ll just see about that.”
Skan quickly bent his head to keep from betraying his glee. Lady Cinnabar rarely used that rank of hers-she was one of Urtho’s most trusted advisors when she chose to give that advice-but when she did, mountains moved, oceans parted, and strong men trembled until she was safely satisfied. If it had only been a case of one-on-one combat, Urtho could have sent the Lady in against Ma’ar and been secure in the knowledge that Cinnabar would return from the combat with not a single hair disarranged and Ma’ar would be on all fours, following at her heels, begging for her mercy.
But she never, ever, forgot courtesy, even when most angry. She bade Aubri and Skan a polite farewell, instructed Calla and Rio to stay with Tamsin to review the rest of the patients from Shaiknam’s command, and only then stalked off.
Tamsin chuckled; Skan joined him. Aubri stared at the two of them in wonder.
“What has gotten into you two?” he asked, finally, eaten up with curiosity.
Skan exchanged a knowing look with Tamsin, a look which sent him into further convulsions of laughter. Skan answered for the both of them.
“Lady Cinnabar has Urtho’s ear in a way that no one else does,” he explained. “I think she’s a combination of younger sister and respected teacher. And when she’s angry-aiee, she can melt glass! She won’t be satisfied with simply talking with Urtho and getting a change in those orders, she’ll insist on seeing Garber and Shaiknam and delivering a choice lecture in person. By the time she is done, you won’t be the only one nursing a scorched tail!”
Since Gesten was obviously not going to be satisfied until after he had done something about the situation with Shaiknam, Amberdrake put off his own breakfast until after he had a chance to schedule a conference with Urtho. He had hoped to simply slip in and have a quiet chat with the Wizard, but that was not in the stars; Urtho was chin-deep in advisors long before Amberdrake arrived at his Tower, and it was evident that there were other matters far more pressing-or disastrous-than the assignment of a handful of hertasi.
The situation would probably be taken care of, at least in the short-term, as soon as senior Healers Lady Cinnabar and Tamsin got wind of it. It could easily be dealt with permanently later, when Urtho had a moment of leisure to spare and Amberdrake could have that quiet word with him. Provided, of course, that Lady Cinnabar herself did not save Amberdrake the effort and broach the subject to her kinsman. That was only reasonable. But Gesten was not noted for taking a reasonable view when it came to things he considered important, so Amberdrake avoided a confrontation by avoiding him. Instead of returning to his tent for a solitary breakfast, he went to the mess tent shared by all the kestra’chern. The food would be exactly the same there as he always had when he was alone; Gesten generally fetched it directly from the mess cooks.
And even though he enjoyed the peace of a meal by himself, it was part of his duty as the highest-ranking kestra’chern to spend as much time in casual company with the others as possible. While the kestra’chern had nothing like a regular organization, it fell upon Amberdrake to see that no one was overburdened, that those who needed help got it, and to keep this corps of “support troops” functioning as smoothly as the rest of the army. They were all Healers, after all, and not just “of a sort.” They had a real impact on the combat troops.
A delicate undertaking, being “leader” of a group with no leaders-and not a position he would have chosen if it had not been forced upon him.
Whatever was going on that had Urtho up to his eyebrows in work hadn’t yet worked its way down to the underlings, it seemed. The tent hadn’t more than half a dozen kestra’chern seated at their makeshift tables of scrap wood, sipping bitteralm and conversing over bread and porridge. That wasn’t unusual; kestra’chern were not early risers, given that they generally worked late into the night. No one seemed overly tense or upset. They all greeted Amberdrake with varying degrees of respect and warmth, then went back to their conversations. Amberdrake got himself another cup of bitteralm and a slice of bread and a hard boiled egg, and took a seat near enough to all of them that he could listen in without being obtrusive.
Two of the women had been having a particularly intense conversation; soon after Amberdrake seated himself, it grew increasingly heated. He knew both of them, and neither was Kaled’a’in; one was a robust redhead called, incongruously enough, Lily. The other, named Jaseen, was a thin, ethereal, fragile-looking blonde who could probably have taken any man in the infantry and broken him in half without working up a sweat.
It was Jaseen who was the angrier, it seemed, and all over a client who had been reassigned to Lily. Amberdrake bent his head over his cup and listened, as her voice rose from a whisper to something a great deal more public.
“I don’t care where he’s been assigned or who did it!” she hissed. “You don’t have the background to handle him, and I do.”
“You don’t have the skill!” Lily interrupted rudely. “And I do! That was why he was reassigned to me.”
“Oh, really?” Jaseen replied, her voice dripping with sweet acidity. “I suppose the ability to drive a man into exhausted collapse is called a skill and counts more than experience!”
Lily sprang to her feet, both hands clenched into fists, and her face flushed. “Superior skill in anything is nothing to be ashamed of!” she cried.
“Tell her, Lily,” urged one of the bystanders, as another rose from his seat and moved to Jaseen’s side.
They’re taking sides. It’s time for me to stop this! Amberdrake got up quickly.
And just in time; Lily pulled her arm back to deliver a slap to Jaseen’s cheek. Amberdrake moved as quickly as a striking snake and grabbed her wrist before she could complete the blow.
“What are the two of you doing?” he not-quite-shouted, bringing the argument to a sudden halt. All parties involved stared at him in shock; they had clearly forgotten that he was there.
He let go of Lily’s wrist; her cheeks were scarlet with shame, and she hid both hands behind her back. He looked from her to Jaseen and back again, making no secret of his disapproval.
“I know that the tension has gotten to everyone, but this is no way to handle it! You two are acting precisely as our critics expect us to act!” he accused.
“Don’t you think that you’re both being utterly childish? Bad enough that the two of you started this-but in public, in a common mess tent! The Healers use this tent, and what would one of them have thought if he had come in here to find you two brawling over a client like a pair of-of-“ He shook his head, unable to force himself to say the word.
Now it wasn’t only Lily who was flushing; Jaseen and the two who had taken sides in the argument had turned scarlet with humiliation as well.
Now that he had their attention, he would need to engage in a verbal dance as intricate as anything woven by a priest or a seasoned diplomat. Somehow he must chide both of them without touching on the tragedies that had made them kestra’chern in the first place.
‘Wo one knows hurt and heartache like a kestra’chern,” his teachers had said, “because no one feels more pain than their own. Not so with us.” There were tragic stories behind every pair of doe-soft eyes and tears behind all the comely smiles in this camp, and no one knew that better than Amberdrake.
“Neither of you has ever lacked for clients,” he scolded. “It is not as if you are not well-sought-after! And if you hear anyone rating you like athletes, I want to hear about it! You both have the same rank; you differ only in your strongest characteristics. This client you argued about-he has specific needs. Jaseen, what comes first-your own pride, or the client’s well-being?”
At all costs he must never say the word “poison” around Jaseen-she had spent three years imprisoned for poisoning her lover, only to be freed when his brother confessed that he had done it. By then, the “tender” ministrations of the guards had left her a changed woman.
She hid behind the curtain of her hair, but her blushes were still clearly visible. “The client,” she replied, her voice choked with shame.
“Exactly,” he said sternly. “That is what we are all here for. And what is the second rule, Lily?”
Lily had trained as a fighter and had served in Urtho’s army. Injured and left for dead, the experience had shattered her nerves and the injuries themselves left her unfit to face combat again. Lily had been treated as a hopeless cripple, destroyed in both nerve and body, until she fought her way back to what she was now. She looked him in the eyes, but her face was so scarlet that it matched her hair. “The client receives what he needs, not what he wants.”
“And you may-if, in your sacred judgment, and not merely your opinion-deliver what he wants after he gets what he needs,” Amberdrake told them both.
Jaseen sniffed a little and looked up at him to see if she’d had any effect on him with that sniffle of self-pity. Amberdrake’s expression must have told her that she wasn’t winning any points, for she slowly raised her head and brushed her hair back although her red face was a match for Lily’s.
“Jaseen. Just now it was my judgment, as it was the judgment of your old client’s Healer that he needed a little less cosseting and a little more spine.” He leveled his gaze right into her eyes so that she could not look away. “You are quite good at sympathy, but your chief failing is that you don’t know when to stop giving it. Sympathy can be addictive and can kill strong men as surely as a diet of nothing but sugar.”
She whispered something inaudible, but he was good enough at lip-reading to know she had said only, “Yes, Amberdrake.” He turned to Lily.
“It was your job to challenge him. I hope that you did-I will only know after his Healer talks to me. And by ‘challenging’ him, I don’t necessarily mean physically. You could even have challenged him by making him earn what he got from you.” The fact that she avoided his gaze told him she hadn’t exactly done that. “We aren’t even primarily bedmates,” he reminded both of them sternly. “That’s what makes us something more than-what our critics claim we are.”
Both these women had mended from their past shatterings; he knew that, every kestra’chern in this encampment knew that. If they hadn’t, they simply wouldn’t be here. They’d been given guidance in reassembling themselves from the splintered pasts fate had left them, and were obligated by that training to help others as much as they had helped themselves. Amberdrake would not permit incompetence-and although he was not officially a “leader,” he had that much power among the kestra’chern without needing the title. In his experience, true leaders seldom had or needed flamboyant titles.
Jaseen and Lily bowed their heads, their blushes fading. “Yes, Amberdrake,” Lily murmured. “You are right, of course. But it’s easy to forget, sometimes, with the way we’re treated.”
“People treat you as what they wish you were, and that is not always what you are,” he said gently, reminding them both of their pasts. “You must always remember what you are. Always. And always believe in each other.”
Jaseen nodded wordlessly.
He raised his voice slightly so the rest of the observers could hear better. “Whatever the kestra’chern have been in the past, we are now something very important to these warriors. The war may turn upon what we do. We are the rest after the battle, and the blanket to warm them when they shiver. We are comfort in the darkness when death has become far too personal; we are the listeners who hear without judgment. We are priest and lover, companion and stranger. We are all the family many of them have, and something so foreign they can say anything to us. They need us, as they need their rations, their weapons, their Healers. Keep that always in mind, no matter how you are treated.”
Both of them stood taller and straighter, and looked him right in the eyes. Several of the others nodded in agreement with his words, he noted with satisfaction.
“Now, let’s get back to the business of living,” he told them. “You are both too sensible to quarrel over this.” He summoned an infectious grin for the two recent quarrelers and the others, and it caught all around. “We could be spending our time complaining about the seasons. Or the weather. Something productive, something useful.”
With that he turned back to his own neglected breakfast, to leave the two of them to patch things up on their own. Or not-but they were both responsible adults, and he was fairly certain they would behave sensibly.
They whispered tensely for a few moments, then took themselves elsewhere. Well, that was fine, and even if they were foolish enough to continue the quarrel, so long as they did so privately, Amberdrake didn’t care. . . .
I’m slipping, he thought as he held out his cup for a hertasi to refill, rewarding the little lizard with a weak smile. I would have cared, a while ago. I would have stayed with those two until I was certain they had reconciled their argument. Now I’m too tired to make all the world happy.
Too tired, or perhaps, just too practical. He used to think that everyone could be friends with everyone else, if only people took the time to talk about their differences. Now it was enough for him if they kept their differences out of the working relationships, and got the job done.
I’m settling for less these days, I suppose. I just pray there isn’t less out there to settle for. Right now he couldn’t have said if this lack of energy was a good thing, or a bad one. It just was, and he harbored his resources for those times when they were really needed. For his clients, for Urtho, for Skan-if he spent every last bit of energy he had, he’d wind up clumsy at the wrong time, or weak when the next emergency arose. That-
“Are you Amberdrake?”
The harsh query snapped him out of his reverie, and he looked up, a little startled. A young man stood over him, a Healer by his green robes, and a new one, by the pristine condition of the fabric. The scowl he wore did nothing to improve his face-a most unlikely Healer, who stood awkwardly, held himself in clumsy tension, whose big, blunt-fingered hands would have been more at home wrapped around the handle of an ax or guiding a plow. His carrot-colored hair was cut to a short fuzz, and his blocky face, well-sprinkled with freckles, was clean-shaven, but sunburned. Not the sort one thought of as a Healer.
Well, then, but neither was I. . . .
“Are you Amberdrake?” the youngster demanded again, those heavy hands clenched into fists. “They said you were.”
Amberdrake didn’t bother to ask who “they” were; he saw no reason to deny his own identity. “I am, sir,” he said instead, with careful courtesy. “What may I do for you? I must warn you my client list is fairly long, and if you had hoped to make an appointment-“
“Make an appointment?” the boy exploded. “Not a chance! I want you to take my patient off that so-called ‘client list’ of yours! What in the name of all that’s holy did you think you were doing, taking a man that’s just out of his bed and-“
The young Healer continued on in the same vein for some time; Amberdrake simply waited for him to run out of breath as his own anger smoldered dangerously. The fool was obviously harboring the usual misconceptions of what a kestra’chern was, and compounding that error by thinking it was Amberdrake who had solicited his patient for some exotic amorous activity.
All without ever asking anyone about Amberdrake, his clients, or how he got them. One word in the Healers’ compound would have gotten him all the right answers, Amberdrake thought, clenching his jaw so hard his teeth hurt. One word, and he’d have known clients come to me, not the other way around . . . and that “his” patient has been sent to me for therapeutic massage by a senior Healer. But no-no, he’d much rather nurse his own homegrown prejudices than go looking for the truth!
When the boy finally stopped shouting, Amberdrake stood. His eyes were on a level with the Healer’s, but the outrage in them made the boy take an involuntary step backward.
Amberdrake only smiled-a smile that Gesten and Tamsin would have recognized. Then they would have gleefully begun taking bets on how few words it would take Amberdrake to verbally flay the poor fool.
“You’re new to Urtho’s camp, aren’t you?” he asked softly, a sentence that had come to represent a subtle insult among Urtho’s troops. It implied every pejorative ever invented to describe someone who was hopelessly ignorant, impossibly inexperienced-dry-seed, greenie, wet-behind-the-ears, clod-hopper, milk-fed, dunce, country-cousin-and was generally used to begin a dressing-down of one kind or another.
The boy had been with the troops long enough to recognize the phrase when he heard it. He flushed and opened his mouth, but Amberdrake cut him off before he could begin.
“I’ll make allowances for a new recruit,” he said acidly. “But I suggest that you never address another kestra’chern in the tones you just used with me-not if you want to avoid getting yourself a lecture from your senior Healer and possibly find yourself beaten well enough your own skills wouldn’t help you. Did you even bother to ask why ‘your’ patient was sent to me? For your information, ‘your’ patient was assigned to me by Senior Healer M’laud for therapeutic massage, and I had to seriously juggle my overcrowded schedule to fit him in. I am doing you a favor; the man needs treatments that you have not been trained to give. If you had tried, you probably would have injured him. If you had bothered to ask your Senior Healer why he had scheduled this patient for other treatments, instead of barging in here to insult and embarrass me, you would have been told exactly that.”
The boy’s mouth hung open, and his ears reddened. His eyes were flat and expressionless, he had been taken so much by surprise.
“Furthermore,” Amberdrake continued, warming to his subject, “If you had taken the time to ask your Senior Healer why anyone would send a patient down the hill here to the kestra’chern for treatment, you would have learned that we are considered by all the Senior Healers to be Healers with skills on a par with their own-and that there are some things that you, with all your training, will never be able to supply that a kestra’chern can. Our preliminary training is identical to yours-with the exception that most kestra’chern don’t have the luxury of Healing Gifts to rely on. We have to do our job with patience, words, and physical effort. Healing means more than mending the body, young man-it means mending the heart, the mind, and the spirit as well, or the body is useless. That doesn’t make us better or worse than you. Just different. Just as there are times when you heal what we cannot, so there are times when we can mend what you cannot. You would do well to learn that, and quickly. Inexperience can be overcome, ignorance be enlightened, but prejudice will destroy you.” He allowed his anger to show now, a little. “This war is not forgiving of fools.”
The Healer took another involuntary step back, his eyes wide and blind with confusion.
Amberdrake nodded, stiffly. “I will see your former patient at the arranged time, and if you wish to overrule it, I will speak with Urtho personally about the matter. The word of Healer M’laud should take precedence over your objections.”
And with that, he turned and left the tent, too angry to wait and see if the boy managed to stammer out an apology, and in no mood to accept it if he did.
He returned to his tent, knowing that it would be empty while Gesten made his own rounds up on Healer’s Hill. That was good; he didn’t really want anyone around at the moment. He needed to cool down; to temper his own reaction with reason.
He shoved the tent flap aside and tied it closed; clear warning to anyone looking for him that he did not want to be disturbed. Once inside, he took several deep breaths, and considered his next action for a moment, letting the faintly-perfumed “twilight” within the tent walls soothe him.
There were things he could do while he thought; plenty of things he normally left to Gesten. Mending, for one. Gesten would be only too pleased to discover that chore no longer waiting his attention.
Fine. He passed into the inner chamber of the tent where no client ever came, to his own bed and the minor chaos that Gesten had not been able to clean up yet. Clothing needing mending is in the sage hamper. He gathered up a number of articles with popped seams and trim that had parted company with the main body of the garment; fetched the supply of needles and thread out from its hiding place. He settled himself on a pile of cushions where the light was good, and began replacing a sleeve with fine, precise stitches.
The chirurgeons that had been his teachers had admired those stitches, once upon a time.
No one knows hurt and heartache like a kestra’chern, because no one has felt it like a kestra’chern. If he had told the boy that, would the young idiot have believed it?
What if I had told him a story-“Once on a time, there was a Kaled’a’in family, living far from the camps of their kin-“
His family, who, with several others, had accepted the burden of living far from the Clans, in the land once named Tantara and a city called Therium. They had accepted the burden of living so far away, so that the Kaled’a’in would have agents there. His family had become accustomed to the ways of cities after living there for several generations, and had adopted many of the habits and thoughts of those dwelling within them. They became a Kaled’a’in family who had taken on so many of those characteristics that it would have been difficult to tell them from the natives except for their coloring-unmistakably Kaled’a’in, with black hair, deep amber skin, and blue, blue eyes.
Once upon a time, this was a family who had seen the potential for great Empathic and Healing power in one of their youngest sons. And rather than sending him back to the Clans to learn the “old-fashioned” ways of the Kaled’a’in Healers, had instead sent him farther away, to the capital of the neighboring country of Predain, to learn “modern medicine.”
He took a sudden sharp breath at the renewed pain of that long-ago separation. It never went away; it simply became duller, a bit easier to endure with passing time.
They thought they were doing the right thing. Everyone told me how important it was to learn the most modern methods.
Everyone told me how important it was to use the Gifts that I had been bom with. I was only thirteen, I had to believe them. The only problem was that the College of Chirurgeons was so “modern” it didn’t believe in Empathy, Healing, or any other Gift. The chirurgeons only believed in what they could see, weigh, and measure; in what anyone with training could do, and “not just those with some so-called mystical Gifts.”
The Predain College of Chirurgeons did provide a good, solid grounding in the kinds of Healing that were performed without any arcane Gifts at all. Amberdrake was taught surgical techniques, the compounding of medicines from herbs and minerals, bone-setting, diagnoses, and more. And if he had been living at home, he might even have come to enjoy it.
But he was not at home. Surrounded by the sick and injured, sent far away from anyone who understood him-in his first year he was the butt of unkind jokes and tricks from his fellow classmates, who called him “barbarian,” and he was constantly falling ill. The Gift of Empathy was no Gift at all when there were too many sick and dying people to shut out. And the chirurgeons that were his teachers only made him sicker, misdiagnosing him and dosing him for illnesses he didn’t even have.
And on top of it all, he was lonely, with no more than a handful of people his own age willing even to be decent to him. Sick at heart and sick in spirit, little wonder he was sick in body as well.
He had been so sick that he didn’t even realize how things had changed outside the College-had no inkling of how a mage named Ma’ar had raised an army of followers and supporters in his quest for mundane, rather than arcane, power. He heard of Ma’ar only in the context of “Ma’ar says” when one of his less-friendly classmates found some way to persecute him and felt the need to justify that persecution.
From those chance-fallen quotes, he knew only that Ma’ar was a would-be warrior and philosopher who had united dozens of warring tribes under his fist, making them part of his “Superior Breed.” Proponents of superior-breed theories had come and gone before, attracted a few fanatics, then faded away after breaking a few windows. All the teachers said so when he asked them.
I saw no reason to disbelieve them. Amberdrake took his tiny, careful stitches, concentrating his will on them, as if by mending up his sleeve he could mend up his past.
He had paid no real attention to things happening outside the College. He didn’t realize that Ma’ar had been made Prime Minister to the King of Predain. He was too sunk in depression to pay much attention when the King died without an heir, leaving Ma’ar the titular ruler of Predain. King Ma’ar, the warrior-king.
But he certainly noticed the changes that followed.
Kaled’a’in and other “foreigners” throughout Predain were suddenly subject to more and more restrictions: where they could go, what they could do, even what they were permitted to wear. Inside the College or out of it, wherever he went he was the subject of taunts, and once or twice, even physical attacks.
By then, the teachers at the College were apologetic, even fearful of what was going on in the greater world; they protected him in their own way, but the best they could do was to confine him to the College and its grounds. And they were bewildered; they had paid no attention to “Ma’ar and his ruffians” and now it was too late to do anything about them. Intellectual problems they understood, but a problem requiring direct action left them baffled and helpless.
And in that, how unlike Urtho they were!
The restrictions from outside continued, turning him into a prisoner within the walls of the College. He stopped getting letters from his family. He was no longer allowed to send letters to them.
I was only fifteen! How could I know what to do?
Then he heard the rumors from the town, overheard from other students frightened for themselves. Ma’ar’s men were “deporting” the “foreigners” and taking them away, and no one knew where. Ill, terrified, and in a panic, he had done the only thing he could think of when the rumors said Ma’ar’s men were coming to the College to sift through the ranks of students and teachers alike for more “decadent foreigners.”
He ran away that very night with only the clothes on his back, the little money he had with him, and the food he could steal from the College kitchen. In the dead of winter, he fled across country, hiding by day, traveling by night, stealing to eat, all the way back to Therium. He spent almost a week in a fevered delirium, acting more like a crazed animal than the moody but bright young Healer-student he was. He was captured by town police twice, and escaped from them the first time by violence, the second time by trickery.
Before he was halfway home, his shoes, made for town streets, had split apart, leaving his feet frozen and numb while he slogged across the barren countryside. He had stolen new shoes from farmhouse steps, hearing more of the rumors himself as he eavesdropped on conversations in taverns and kitchens. Then, from many of his hiding places, he saw the reality. Ma’ar was eliminating anyone who opposed his rule-and anyone who might oppose war with the neighboring lands. He had mastered the army, and augmented it with officers chosen from the ranks of his followers. Ma’ar intended to strike before his neighbors had any warning of his intentions.
Ma’ar was making himself an emperor.
And at home, indeed, as the students had said-all the “foreigners” were being rounded up and taken away. Sick with fear and guilt, Amberdrake hid in the daylight hours in an abandoned house with a broken-down door. Ma’ar’s troopers had been there first, and when night came, he took whatever food he found there and continued his flight.
Looting the bones of the lost. May they forgive me.
It would have been a difficult journey for an adult with money and some resources, with experience. It was a nightmare for Amberdrake. The bulk of his journey lay across farmlands, forests, grazing lands. Most of the time, he went hungry and slept in ditches and under piles of brush. Small wonder that when he stumbled at last into Therium, he burned with fever again and was weak and nauseous with starvation.
I came home. And I found an empty house, in a city that was in a panic. Ma’ar’s troops were a day behind me.
No one knew what had become of his family. No one cared what became of him.
He found the neighbors preparing to evacuate, piling their wagon high with their possessions. They had no time for him, these folk who had called themselves “friends,” and who had known him all his life.
I begged them to tell me where my family was. I went to my knees and begged with tears pouring down my face. I knelt there in the mud and horse dung and falling snow and pleaded with them. They called me vile names-and when I got to my feet-
Old sorrow, bitter sorrow, choked him again, blinded his eyes until he had to stop taking his tiny stitches and wait for the tears to clear.
I never knew till then what “alone” truly meant. Father, Mother, Firemare, Starsinger, little Zephyr-gone, all gone-Uncle Silverhorn, Star gem, Windsteed, Brightbird-
He had flung himself at the false neighbors, and they had shoved him away, and then raised the horse whip to him. One blow was all it took, and the world and sky disappeared for Amberdrake. He awoke bleeding, at least a candlemark later, with a welt across his chest as thick as his hand. Half-mad with terror and grief, he staggered on into the snow.
He fell against the side of another wagon full of escapees.
The wagon belonging to the kestra’chern Silver Veil, and her household and apprentices.
He forced his hands to remain steady. This is the past. I cannot change it. I did what I could, I tried my best, and how was I to know what Ma’ar would do when older and wiser folk than I did not?
Silver Veil did not send her servants to drive him away; although by now he hardly knew what was happening to him. In pain, freezing and burning by turns, he barely recalled being taken up into the moving wagon, falling into soft darkness.
In that darkness he had remained for a very long time. . . .
His hands shook, and he put the mending down, closed his eyes, and performed a breathing exercise to calm himself-one that Silver Veil herself had taught him, in fact.
He had heard of her, in rude whispers, before he had been sent away. As little boys on the verge of puberty always did, his gang of friends spoke about her and boasted how they would seek her out when they were older and had money. She was as beautiful as a statue carved by a master sculptor, slim as a boy, graceful as a gazelle. She took her name from her hair, a platinum fall of silk that she had never cut, that trailed on the ground behind her when she let it fall loose. He had always thought she was simply a courtesan, more exotic and expensive than most, but only that.
It took living within her household to learn differently.
She tended him through his illness, she and her household. He posed as one of her apprentices as they made their way to some place safer-and then, after a time, it was no longer a pose.
Silver Veil did her best to shelter her own from the horrors of that flight, but there was no way to shelter them from all of it. She had no Gifts, but she had an uncanny sense for finding safe routes. Unfortunately, many of those lay through places Ma’ar’s troops had lately passed.
Ma’ar’s forces were not kind to the defeated; they were even less kind to those who had resisted them. Amberdrake still woke in the night, sometimes, shaking and drenched with sweat, from terrible dreams of seeing whole families impaled on stakes to die. Nearly as terrible was the one time they had been forced to hide while Ma’ar’s picked men-and his makaar-force marched a seemingly endless column of captives past them. Amberdrake had watched in shock from fear and dread, searching each haggard face for signs of his own kin.
Was it a blessing he had not seen anyone he knew, or a curse?
Silver Veil plied her trade as they fled-sometimes for a fee but just as often for nothing, for the sake of those who needed her. And sometimes, as a bribe, to get her household through one of Ma’ar’s checkpoints. The apprentices, Amberdrake among them, tried, to spare her that as much as possible, offering themselves in her place. Often as not, the offer was accepted, for there was something about Silver Veil that intimidated many of Ma’ar’s officers. She was too serene, too intelligent, too sophisticated for them. It was by no means unusual to find that the man they needed to bribe preferred something less-refined-than anything Silver Veil offered.
And finally, as spring crept cautiously out of hiding, they came out into lands that were in friendly hands. But when Silver Veil reviewed her options, she learned that they were fewer than she had hoped. Soon she knew that she must seek a road that would take her away from the likeliest direction his family had taken-back to Ka’venusho, the land of the Kaled’a’in.
And once again, she provided for young Amberdrake, she found another kestra’chern to take him as an apprentice and be his protector, one who would be willing to go with him to Ka’venusho. This time, the kestra’chern was old, mostly retired-and unlike Silver Veil, Lorshallen shared with Amberdrake the Gifts of Healing and Empathy. Silver Veil took a tear-filled leave of him and his new mentor, and she and her household fled on into the south. One of the apprentices claimed that she had a place waiting for her in the train of one of the Shaman-Kings there, in a land where winter never came. Amberdrake hoped so; he had never heard anything more of her.
The war encroached, as Silver Veil had known it would, and Amberdrake and his new mentor Lorshallen fled before it.
Lorshallen taught him everything he knew about his ancient art; Amberdrake learned it all with a fierce desire to master each and every discipline. All the things that the chirurgeons had not believed in, he mastered under Lorshallen’s hands. And he, in his turn, taught Lorshallen the things that they had known. Silver Veil had completed his erotic education and had done her best to heal his body; Lorshallen completed his education as a Healer and had done his best to heal Amberdrake’s mind and heart.
Eventually, they came to the Clans, and Amberdrake briefly took his place among his own people, an honored place, for the Kaled’a’in knew the value of a kestra’chern, particularly one as highly trained as Amberdrake, and they respected the pain he had gone through. The Kaled’a’in had a deep belief that no pain was meaningless; something always came of it. He knew that tales of what he had gone through were whispered around cook-fires, although such a thing was never even hinted at to him. Those in pain could look for strength to someone who had suffered more than they.
Always, he searched for word of his family. His people understood, for to a Kaled’a’in, the Clan is all. The Clan he settled among, k’Leshya, did their best, sending out messages to all the rest, looking into every rumor of refugees, searching always for word of Kestra’chern Amberdrake’s lost family.
And they never found it. In a nation of close-knit families, I remain alone, always alone. . . . There will be no brother to share man-talk with, no sister to comfort for her first broken heart. No father to nod . with pride at my accomplishment, no mother to come to for advice. No cousins to ask me to stand as kin-next at a naming ceremony for a child. And when I die, it will be to go alone into that last great darkness-
I have lost so much that sometimes I think I am nothing inside but one hollow husk, an emptiness that nothing will ever fill. Still, I try to bail in more and more hope, in hope that the sorrow will seep out.
When the call came for volunteers from the Mage of Silence, Amberdrake answered at once. At least he would no longer be surrounded by Clans and families to which he would never belong, but by others torn from their homes and roots. And he would fight Ma’ar, in his own way, with his own skills.
Eventually, all of the Clans came to settle at the base of Urtho’s Tower, but by then, he had already carved his place among the kestra’chern.
He shook his head and bit his lip. Gesten might think he was blind to the workings of his own mind, but he knew why he felt the way he did about Skan. The Black Gryphon and Gesten had become the closest thing he had to a family, now.
And the closest thing I am ever likely to have.
When-best say, if-a kestra’chern ever found a mate, it was nearly always someone from within the ranks of the kestra’chern. No one else would understand; no one else would ever be able to tolerate sharing a mate with others. But for such a pairing to work, it had to be between equals. The altercation between Jaseen and Lily had only shown how easily quarrels could spring up over a client. And if one kestra’chern in a pairing was of a higher rank than another, such quarrels and, even deadlier, jealousy were more than likely, they were inevitable. Beneath the surface of every kestra’chern Amberdrake had ever met was a lurking fear of inadequacy. So unless both in a pairing were equal-
The lesser would eventually come to envy and fear the greater. And fear that his or her own skills would not be enough to hold the partner.
Amberdrake was the equal of no kestra’chern here; that was an established fact. And it meant even temporary liaisons must be approached with great caution.
Which left him even more alone.
Even more alone-no. This is ridiculous. If I were a client, I’d be told to stop feeling sorry for myself and concentrate on something that would make me feel good. Or at least stop me from being engulfed by the past.
The sleeve was done; he picked up a second garment and began sewing a fringe of tiny beads back in place. Thousands of tiny beads had been strung into a heavy, glittering fall of color, in luxurious imitation of a Kaled’a’in dancing costume where the fringe would be made of dyed leather. It was a task exacting enough to require quite a bit of concentration, and with gratitude, he lost himself in it.
Until someone scratched at the tied flap of the tent door, and he looked up in startlement. The silhouetted shadow on the beige of the canvas was human, not that of a hertasi.
Now what? he wondered, but put his mending down and rose to answer it.
He was a little disconcerted to find yet another young Healer-another stranger, and another newcomer-waiting uneasily for him to answer the summons. “Are you-ah-Amberdrake?” the youngster asked, blushing furiously. “The-ah-kes-kes-kes-“
“Yes, I am Kestra’chern Amberdrake,” he replied, with a sigh. “How may I help you?”
The youngster-barely out of a scrawny, gawky adolescence, and not yet grown into the slender and graceful adult Amberdrake saw signs he would become-stared down at his shoes. “I-ah-have a patient, and my Senior Healer said my patient needs to see you and if I wanted to know why-I, ah, should ask you myself.”
“And who is your Senior Healer?” Amberdrake asked, a little more sharply than he had intended.
“M’laud,” came the barely audible reply.
At that, Amberdrake came very near to destroying the poor lad with a bray of laughter. After having sent one of M’laud’s juniors up the hill with his tail on fire, the Senior Healer had evidently decided to teach his juniors about kestra’chern directly.
But he kept control of himself, and when the lad looked up, it was to see a very serene countenance, a mask that would have done Silver Veil herself proud.
“Come in, please,” Amberdrake said, calmly. “I think you are probably laboring under a great many misconceptions, and I would be most happy to dispel those for you.”
When he held the tent flap wide and gestured, the boy had no choice but to come inside. Amberdrake noted with amusement how the youngster stared around him, while trying not to look as if he was doing so.
What does he expect to see? Never mind, I think I can guess.
“Take a seat, please,” he said, gesturing to a hassock at a comfortable distance from the cushion he took for himself. “I take it that you are afraid that I am going to hurt your patient, is that true?” At the boy’s stiff nod, he smiled. “I take it also that you have never had the services of a kestra’chern yourself?”
“Of course not!” the young Healer blurted with indignation, then realized how rude that was and winced. But Amberdrake only chuckled.
“Young man-what is your name, anyway?”
“Lanz,” came the gurgled reply.
“Well, Lanz-by now, I should think that M’laud has made you aware that the preliminary training for Healers and kestra’chern is practically identical. And I know. I began my training as a Healer.” Amberdrake raised his eyebrow at the boy, who gaped at him.
“But why didn’t you-I mean-why a kestra’chern?” Lanz blurted again.
“You sound as if you were saying, ‘why a chunk of dung?’ Do you realize that?” Amberdrake countered. “When you consider that the Kaled’a’in rank the kestra’chern with shaman, that’s not only rude, that’s likely to get you attacked, at least by anyone in the Clans!”
Lanz hung his head and said something too smothered to hear, but his ears and neck turned as scarlet as Amberdrake’s favorite robe.
I seem to be making a great many people blush today. Another Gift? “Lanz, most of the reasons I became a kestra’chern are too complicated to go into for the most part, but I can tell you the only simple one. I am also Empathic, too strong an Empath to be of any use as a conventional Healer.” Amberdrake nodded as Lanz looked up cautiously from beneath a fringe of dark hair. “That doesn’t mean I became this because I am afflicted by some horrible mental curse-but as a kestra’chern-well, I never see those who are so badly injured that their physical pain overwhelms everything else. But I can use my Gifts and my training to Heal the deeper, and more subtle pains, injuries of mind, body, and heart they may not even be aware they have.”
“But not all kestra’chern are Healers,” Lanz said doubtfully. “Or Empaths.”
Amberdrake smiled. “That is true. Most of them are not. And those who have no Gifts must work the harder to learn how to read the languages of body and tone; to see the subtle signals of things that the Gifted can read directly.” As Lanz’s blushes faded, he allowed himself a chuckle. “My friend, there is one thing that the kestra’chern have learned over the centuries; people who believe they are coming to someone only for an hour or two of pleasure are far more likely to unburden themselves than people who are confronted with a Healer or other figure of authority. If we honey-coat the Healing with a bit of enjoyment, of physical pleasure, where’s the harm? Now-is your patient the last one on my roster tonight?”
“I think so.” Lanz sat up a little straighter now, and he had lost some of the tension in his body that had told Amberdrake that the boy was afraid of him.
“M’laud sent me a briefing on her. The reason she is coming to me is that she is under some kind of great inner tension that M’laud has been unable to release, as well as some severe battlefield trauma, and that is making it impossible for her damaged body to heal.” Lanz’s face lit up, and Amberdrake decided that he must have thought her failure to heal was his fault. “M’laud suspects that she suffered some kind of abuse in her childhood, which is the real root of her problems. Essentially, she is unconsciously punishing herself for being such a bad person that she deserved abuse.” He sighed and shook his head. “I know that this makes no sense, but this is something that kestra’chern in particular see and hear all the time. And it is not something you have any chance of dealing with, for I greatly doubt you would ever get her to trust you enough. Not because you are not trustworthy, but simply because of her own problems. You have other responsibilities to take your time, and you are less experienced with this kind of problem than I. I am a stranger, and it is often easier to say terrible things to a stranger than it is to someone who has known you, for the stranger will not prejudge. I will not be anywhere near the front lines, ever, and thus she will know that I have no chance of being cut down by the enemy. I become safe to think of as a friend because she knows she will not lose me.”
Lanz shifted a little in his seat, looking rather doubtful, and Amberdrake decided to overwhelm him, just a little. “Here-I’ll prove it to you,” he said, in an authoritative voice.
And he recited the litany of all the formal training he’d had, first with the chirurgeons, then Silver Veil, and finally Lorshallen. It took rather a long time, and before he was finished, Lanz’s eyes had glazed over and it looked to Amberdrake as if the poor boy’s head was in quite a spin.
“You see?” he finished. “If you’ve had half that training, I’d call you a good Healer.”
“I never knew,” the youngster said in a daze, “and when Karly came up the Hill from talking to you-“
“Karly? The redhead?” Amberdrake threw back his head and laughed.
Shyly, Lanz joined in the laughter. “I heard that one of the other Senior Healers said, ‘I hope he has a regular bedmate, because after talking to Amberdrake the way he did, there isn’t a kestra’chern in all of the camp who’ll take him for any price!’ I suppose he was awfully rude to you.”
“Rude?” Amberdrake replied. “That doesn’t begin to describe him! Still, Karly needn’t worry. We’re obligated to take those in need, and I can’t imagine anyone more in need of-our services-than he is!”
Lanz smiled shyly. “And Karly’s rather thick,” he offered. “After talking to you-you being so kind and all-well, if you take any of my patients, I think I’m going to be awfully grateful, and kind of flattered.”
This time Amberdrake’s smile was as much full of surprise as pleasure. “Thank you, Lanz. I will take that as a very high compliment. Can I offer you anything?”
The boy blinked shyly. “I don’t suppose a cup of bitteralm would delay me much-and could you tell me a little more about some of the others down here?”
Amberdrake rose, and Lanz rose with him. “Why not come with me to the mess tent and see for yourself?” he asked.
“I think-I will!” Lanz replied, as if he was surprised by his own response.
By such little victories are wars and hearts won, Amberdrake thought with a wry pleasure, as he led the way.
Zhaneel flexed her talons, digging them into the wood of her enormous block-perch. She checked over her harness again-wire-scissors, bolts, spikes, rope-knife, preknotted ties, all sized for her large, stubby “hands”-and stared out over the obstacle course she herself had set up. The course covered several acres by now, built mainly in erosion trenches and brook-cut hollows that were of little value to anyone in Urtho’s camp, dotted with fallen trees and sandstone boulders. To get from here to the end of it, she would have to fly, dodge, crawl, and even swim. There were water hazards, fire hazards, missiles lobbed by catapult-
And now, magic.
She had already gotten the help of Amberdrake’s hertasi, Gesten, in this endeavor. He’d been there from the very beginning; somehow he had known, perhaps through Amberdrake, what she was going to attempt. He had never asked her why. He simply showed up unasked, acted as her hands, then found three others to aid him in setting up the course and in triggering the hazards. At first, no one had paid any attention to what she was doing, but gradually her runs attracted a small audience. At first, this had bothered her, until the day when, after several unsuccessful tries at passing a hazard of simulated crossbow bolts, she made it through untouched and the tiny group applauded wildly.
That was when she realized that they were not there to make fun of her, but to cheer her on.
She had honestly not known what to make of that; it bewildered her. Why should anyone take an interest in her?
Then again, she had never been able to effectively figure out why hertasi and humans did most things. . . .
But today, she had a larger audience than ever before, and she knew precisely why this time. Word had spread that her obstacle course included magic.
She hadn’t planned on including magical traps; those took effort and much energy, and she had never for a moment believed that there was any mage in the entire camp willing to devote so much as a candlemark of practice time to helping her. Or so she had thought, until a few days ago.
A young mage, a Journeyman named Vikteren, approached her for help. He needed spell-components. Still-living spell-components, which were not at all interested in becoming components of anything.
Zhaneel’s speed and agility were what caught his attention; speed and agility were precisely what he lacked in going after starlings, rabbits, and other small, swift creatures. So they struck a bargain; she would hunt for him, and he would provide her with magical obstacles.
He had been doing so for several days now, and he had told her yesterday, grinning, that he was very impressed. Actually, what he had said was, “You’re good, gryphon! Very damned good!”
So, much to her shock and amazement, had the gryphons’ trainer, Taran Shire. The day after Vikteren began helping her, Taran showed up on the sidelines. Now, along with the young Journeyman, the seasoned trainer joined her every day, working with her on his own time.
She tried to put her audience out of her mind, although that was far from easy: her own kind were out there, other gryphons, those from other wings as well as her own. And what was more, some of those same gryphons had taken to training on the course, and leaving her tokens of appreciation.
Every time she made a pass on the course, people cheered her efforts, from hertasi to humans, from gryphons to a lone kyree who seemed to find her fascinating. Now, they waited for her to start yet again.
A white and red striped flag midway down the course went up and waved twice, and she launched from the block. This was a rescue mission to free a captured gryphon. The details had been kept secret, at her request, so she had only a general idea what to expect. One thing she knew for certain-Vikteren and the hertasi planned to make her work harder than ever before.
The first danger came only twelve wingstrokes after starting-a sudden gust of wind from her right. It hit her hard and pushed her toward a downed tree’s spidery limbs, an easy place to lose feathers and find lacerations. She reacted by rolling in midair and grounding, folding her wings in tightly while she clutched at stones and brush. The wind gusts ceased, and Zhaneel leapt over a ravine, to the cheers of the audience.
She crept into the next erosion channel, popping her head up every few seconds to look for danger. A quick bolt of fire shot toward the ravine from behind a boulder and was followed by a huge fireball that roared like a sustained lightning strike. It burned slowly through the ravine, catching the underbrush afire. She heard the audience gasp even over the roar, as Zhaneel scrambled out of their line of sight, disappearing from their view. She knew what was in their minds. Had the game gone too far?
But she couldn’t worry about them. They’d see her soon enough-
She popped up again at the far end of the adjoining erosion cut. She leapt to the sandstone boulder with a growl, and drew her rope-knife on the surprised mage hiding behind it. Hah! Hello Vikteren.
“You die!” she sang out, and Vikteren grinned and fell backward.
“I’m dead here,” he reminded her as he stood up and brushed off his robes. “See you further on, maybe.”
“You might not see me at all, dead body!” she laughed, then sheathed the knife. There was a mission to accomplish, a gryphon to rescue, and the adventure had barely begun.
Amberdrake felt like a proud and anxious father as he watched the young gryphon waiting on her block-perch. Every line and quivering muscle betrayed her tension and her concentration. He had arrived after she took her position, but still managed to commandeer a place in the front beside Skan. The Black Gryphon had recovered nicely from his injuries although, on the orders of Lady Cinnabar, he was still officially convalescing. He was keeping an uncharacteristically low profile, however-as if he were afraid his presence would distract the young female at some crucial moment.
Well, it might. The youngster had been patently overawed by the Black Gryphon; if she knew he was watching, she might well lose her concentration.
Skan’s tail twitched impatiently, but as Amberdrake put a comradely hand on his shoulder he gave Amberdrake a sideways gryph—grin before riveting his attention on the distant gray and buff figure of Zhaneel.
At the end of the course, a flag dropped. Zhaneel left the block with a leap, followed by an audible snap of wings opening.
Amberdrake had never seen a gryphon run an obstacle course before, though he’d heard from Gesten that Skan had been out here to watch for the past three days in a row. He hadn’t been able to imagine what kinds of obstacles could be put in front of a gryphon, whose aerial nature made ordinary obstacles ridiculous. He was impressed, both with Zhaneel’s ability to create the course, and her ability to run it.
More to the point, so was Skan.
He gasped with the others, when it appeared, briefly, that a rolling fireball had accidentally engulfed her; he hadn’t realized that there would be some hazards on this course that were real, and not just illusions. He sighed with relief when she reappeared, and cheered when she “killed” someone, a Journeyman mage by his clothing.
Skan remained absolutely motionless, except for the very end of his tail, which flopped and twitched like a fish on land. Like a cat, the end of his tail betrayed his mental state.
Well, every other gryphon in the audience was watching her closely, too; gryphons were by nature impressed with any kind of fancy flying. It was part of courtship and mating, after all. But none of the others had quite the same rapt intensity in their gaze as Skan did.
In point of fact, he looked as much stunned as enraptured, rather as if he’d been hit in the back of the head with a club.
Amberdrake smothered a chuckle when he realized that Skan’s eyes had glazed over. Poor Black Gryphon! He was used to impressing, not being impressed!
Zhaneel neatly dodged a set of ambushes; crossbow bolts, dropping nets, and an illusion of fighters. “She’s good, isn’t she,” he said, feeling incredibly proud of her. She wasn’t just good, she was smooth. She integrated her movements, flowing from flight to ground and back again seamlessly.
“She’s beautiful,” Skan rumbled absently. “Just-beautiful. . . .”
His beak gaped a little, and Amberdrake had to choke back another laugh. So the great Black Gryphon was a little bit more than simply impressed, was he? Well, fancy flying was the gryphon equivalent of erotic dance.
“Skan,” he muttered under his breath, “you’re going to embarrass both of us. That tongue looks really stupid sticking out of the corner of your beak.”
Skandranon hadn’t realized that he was making his interest in Zhaneel quite so obvious.
“Pull it in, Skan,” Amberdrake muttered insistently. And annoyingly, but that was the privilege of an old friend. Better him than anyone else, though. There were plenty of other folk who enjoyed a chance to get a jab in; why give them more fuel for their fires?
More to the point, such teasing might be turned against Zhaneel, and he already knew that her fragile self-esteem would not survive it. He wasn’t even certain she’d recognize teasing if she encountered it.
One of the Second Wing West gryphons, a female named Lyosha, sidled up beside him, and preened his neck-ruff briefly. It was a common enough sort of greeting between gryphons, one which could lead to further intimacies or simply be accepted as a greeting and nothing more. He and Lyosha had flown spirals together before, and she was obviously hoping the greeting would lead to the former, but he was not interested this time. Not with Zhaneel dancing her pattern “with danger before his eyes.
“Lyosha,” he said simply, acknowledging her presence in a friendly manner, but offering nothing more. “This is fascinating.”
Lyosha gave his feathers one last nibble, then subsided with a sigh. “True enough,” she replied with resignation. “I’m tempted to start running this course myself. It’s enough to set a gryphon’s tail afire!”
He ignored the hint and coughed politely. “Well,” he said, his eyes never leaving Zhaneel, “if she’s not careful, the tail that’s afire may be hers.”
And let Lyosha make of that what she will. . . .
Zhaneel slunk over a decaying tree trunk toward four upright sacks of hay. The sacks had been clustered around a burning campfire and wore discarded uniforms. A sign next to them read, “Off duty. Talking. Eating.” Next to them was a midsized tent and pickets for four horses, but no horses were there.
Tent is big enough to hold ten. Four here, four horses gone, may mean eight. Four still out or on mission. Ma’ar’s squads are eight and one officer, but officers get separate tents. Where is the officer, then, and the others?
Zhaneel drew her hand-crossbow. A tug with her beak, and it was cocked for a bolt to be laid in the track. She pulled one from her harness and laid it in, ready to fire.
Use the cover you have available. Steady with solid object.
She lowered herself behind the trunk, braced the hand-crossbow on the crumbling bark-and fired. The shaft hit the sack on the far left, and she hastily drew a second bolt while reading the weapon with her beak. The second shot hit the next sack dead center and pitched it forward into the fire. She then snapped the hand-crossbow onto its tension-buckle and leapt over the tree trunk to maul the remaining two sacks of hay.
That was when the barrage began.
The tree-line to her left erupted with slung stones as the hidden miniature siege engines on the right shredded their foliage. Zhaneel power-stroked high into the air and avoided major damage, although some of the stones’ stung her on the feet and flank. That put her in the open for the fan of firebolts from the hillside, where she saw her objective-a gryphon. A real gryphon, under a wire net, staked out in a very unflattering position.
Oh, no! I hadn’t asked for that!
So Vikteren’s promised surprise was that she wouldn’t be rescuing a bundle of cloth called a “gryphon”-she would have to deal with an actual one! But if Vikteren had gotten the cooperation of a gryphon as a prisoner, then what else could he have-
A whistling flash from the sky was her only warning. Two broadwings-from Fourth Wing West, by their wingtip markings-stooped down on her. They trailed white ribbons from their hind legs-sparring markers. Simulated makaar!
So be it!
Amberdrake’s hand tightened on Skan’s shoulder, and he felt Skan’s muscles tense up underneath his fingers. The two “makaar” swooped down on Zhaneel from above, and he could not see any way that she could escape them.
He couldn’t, but she most clearly did!
She ducked-and rolled, so that the “makaar” missed her by a scant talon-length; as they shot past her, she leapt up into the air behind them. By luck or incredible timing, she snagged the trailing white streamer of one, and ripped it off.
The “dead makaar” spat out a good-natured curse and a laugh, then obligingly kited out of the way of combat. It was a good thing he did so because Zhaneel had shot skyward, gaining altitude and speed, and was just about to turn to make a second attack run. The second broadwing had tried to pursue her, but his heavy body was just not capable of keeping up with her. If her objective had simply been to survive this course, she would already have won.
But it wasn’t, of course. She still had to “free the trapped gryphon,” and get both of them off the course “alive.” The trapped one was Skan’s old tent-mate Aubri, whose injuries still had him on the “recovering” list, and who would not be able to move very quickly. Again, that was a reflection of reality; any gryphon held captive would be injured, perhaps seriously, and his speed and movement would be severely limited.
Aubri had volunteered for the ignominious position he was currently in partly out of boredom, partly out of a wish to help Zhaneel, and partly because it pleased him to irk their commander in every way possible. And Zhaneel’s success in these special training bouts must be irking the very devil out of their commander, who could hardly encompass the notion that a gryphon might have a mind of her own, and must be in knots over one who had ideas of her own.
Zhaneel wheeled and started her dive. The “makaar,” who had been trying vainly to pursue her, suddenly realized that although he would be more than a match for her in a straight-on combat, he was never going to be able to take her on in strike-and-run tactics.
And she was not going to let him close.
He turned, heading for a place that Amberdrake suspected held that young mage-would Zhaneel see it, too?
Or would she be so involved in the immediate enemy that she would forget there were others on this course?
Like a falcon stooping on her prey, her wings folded tightly along her back, and she held her talons up against her body-but unlike the broad-wings, who held their talons ready to strike and bind, hers were fisted. She had learned how to knock her foes out of the sky once, and now it was second nature to her-was she so caught up in the euphoria of combat that the “kill” was all she saw?
Skan held his breath as Zhaneel dropped down out of the sky. He was certain she had forgotten the Journeyman mage, but he certainly had not forgotten her-and the best place for him was somewhere near the staked-out “prisoner.” She might get her immediate foe, but Vikteren would certainly get her-
But as the broadwing pumped frantically to evade her, she shot past him completely, ignoring him!
Instead, she stooped on an insignificant-looking mound of shrubbery, leveled out into a shallow curve, and buffeted it with fists and wings until the illusion of brush dissolved and Vikteren tumbled out of the way, laughing.
“All right!” he called, scrubbing dust out of his eyes with his fists. “Holy Kreeshta, you’ve got me already! Give me a moment, will you?”
“You die twice, Mage!” she cried, as she leapt skyward again. She looked around for the second “makaar,” but the broadwing had followed the example of most makaar left to face a gryphon alone, and had fled the scene, his ribbon and his “life” intact. Of course, unlike a real makaar, he would remain unpunished for such desertion.
Skan rumbled approval deep in his chest, as she landed as close to the staked-out and netted “prisoner” as possible-which in her case, was practically on top of him. There were probably traps all around her, but she avoided setting any of them off, simply by dint of remaining within the narrow margins that humans would have used while restraining the prisoner. A broadwing couldn’t have pulled this off; nor could a broadwing have used foreclaws as cleverly as she did, snipping the wire net free with special scissors, then cutting the ropes holding Aubri down with a heavy knife she had already used once to good effect.
Oh, clever, clever, little gryphon! he applauded mentally. Now, how do you guard the back of the injured one? That will be the real test.
Zhaneel’s gaze darted all over Aubri. “Can you fly?” she asked impatiently.
“No. Can’t move any faster than a broken-legged horse, either. And my wounds are real, hey?”
Zhaneel spat a curse away from Aubri and looked around for anything she could use. Within a few winglengths there were tree limbs, and she had the lengths of rope she’d just cut, as well as the remains of the wire net. She grasped the lengths of rope readily available, coiled them up and held them to her keel.
“Two questions,” she said. “How far can you jump, and can you hold a pole steady?”
Aubri narrowed his eyes, obviously trying to second-guess what this odd rescuer had in mind. He also, just as obviously, gave up. “Could leap . . . maybe twice my length, if I had to. But I wouldn’t enjoy it. And I can hold a pole steady. I still feel strong enough to chew makaar.”
“Good. Stay here.” She parted her beak in what was meant to be a reassuring smile, then bunched her legs up and concentrated. She leapt high into the air with her burden of cord. At the zenith of her jump, she power-stroked out of Aubri’s immediate area toward the tree limbs nearby.
Conventional gryphon-traps were usually built to fire sideways across a broad area, the kind she had been stung by at the fake-soldiers’ camp. Magical ones were often designed to detect a low flyer approaching, shoot high up, blossom, and spread while falling. They could kill or maim at any point after they deployed. Since Vikteren-a mage-was involved, she had every reason to assume she would be facing both types.
So, the best way to sweep for traps is . . . to not be near them at all!
Within a few minutes, she had what she needed. A long branch, snapped off with her beak and trimmed of snags, for Aubri to hold. At its narrowest end, it forked for two clawlengths, and she had carved indentations for the two branches that were now tied across it. They were firmly in place.
Now to deliver my little nesting-gift.
A few minutes’ more work, and the long pieces of rope were one very long length of rope-inelegant, but effective. Zhaneel used four of her pre-knotted ties to bind up the foliage and small branches she had trimmed scant minutes earlier to one end of the rope. She bobbed her head, measuring the range to Aubri and the “safe” ceiling she had flown at already without triggering traps, then took wing, the loose end of the rope clutched tightly in her hind claws.
Magical gryphon-traps are triggered by something living flying over their kill range, but not always. Can sometimes be triggered by anything-have to go high!
Zhaneel circled up, straining only for altitude-and it was work, hard work because the higher she went, the heavier the burden of the rope became. Finally there was a shudder as the bundles of foliage lifted. She angled away from the still-perplexed Aubri, carrying the rope higher and higher until the bundles below were above what she had determined to be safe. Then, she turned her struggle for altitude into an exhausting dive from the far side of the clearing, toward the tied branches. She judged, hoped-and let go.
The bunches of foliage sailed down, heading directly for the hapless Aubri. Behind them, the rope coiled and twisted wildly, gaining on the clusters of branches that had more wind resistance than the rope. While Zhaneel surged back up into the sky, the green leaves and twigs struck Aubri’s wings and back. It was surely uncomfortable, but easily less painful than anything a makaar would have done to a captive gryphon. Amid indignant curses from the “captive,” the rope fell in a snaky line across the clearing. As hoped, no traps triggered immediately from the rope’s impact.
Next trick.
She landed and collected her thoughts, taking deep breaths. Aubri glared at her indignantly, but voiced no ill thoughts toward his “rescuer” for the moment. She waved a reassurance to him, looped the rope around the fork of the branch-affair she’d made earlier, and tied it off.
Several heartbeats later, she was in the air again, with two stripped branches clipped to the back of her harness. She followed the air path she knew was safe and dropped straight down to land next to Aubri.
“I assume you have a good reason for pelting me with salad?” he rumbled.
“I’m sorry. But I have a plan to get you out safely. Hold this . . .” she muttered while unclipping the branches from her back. “They scratch-! There. Now. Lie sideways and curl up. Hold these sticks up, one in hindclaws, one in foreclaws. So both are that way.” She indicated the direction the rope lay. “Be patient.”
Aubri sighed. “Where would I go? My life is yours.”
Zhaneel pulled the wire mesh until it faced as Aubri did, and used two more ties to anchor it to the two sticks. Then understanding dawned in Aubri’s eyes as she fastened the foliage bundles to the net.
“A shield.”
“Yes. Not a big one, but could help us.” She smiled and nibbled his crest reassuringly. “Now, let me down there in the hollow of your belly, where the rope goes under the net.”
Aubri complied, fascinated. After settling herself in, Zhaneel reeled the rope in claw-over-claw until the heavy branches tied to the other end ground their way toward the two gryphons.
“Searching for ground traps,” Zhaneel muttered. “If one goes, hold tight to the sticks! Let me protect your belly.” Only makes sense-he can’t fly, so I am as good as ground-bound. If I can shield him from a fatal injury by taking an injury myself, we will still both be alive to return home.
A deep thudding sounded, like a massive crossbow cord releasing, and a hail of stones showered much of the clearing. Both gryphons squinted their eyes while pebbles struck the greenery protecting them, then resumed pulling. Two ground panels lurched open and drove stakes into the ground nearby. A few minutes later, Zhaneel could reach out and grasp the quarry herself.
Last trick.
She patiently explained to Aubri what she was doing as she worked and allowed herself a moment of satisfaction when she was done. The crowd watching had approved of the way she’d triggered the ground traps. They waited, enraptured, wondering what she would do next. Zhaneel knew they saw her raise the canopy she had just finished, made of wire net, foliage and branches, above Aubri.
“You must hold this steady, understand? Must!”
Aubri nodded. “Y’got me this far, skydancer.”
Zhaneel’s nares blushed red and she leapt straight up, gaining altitude madly. When she had reached twice the height she counted as “safe,” she rolled over on her back, straightened, and folded her wings in tight, hurtling faster than any crossbow bolt. Her shadow streaked across the ground below as she flattened the dive. She felt the wind cut across her body and saw the landscape become a blur as she shot across the clearing, scant wing-lengths above the ground, following the same path in the air that her sweep earlier had done on the surface.
Behind her, she could hear fireballs erupting, and saw flashes of yellow light. Moments later, she traded speed for altitude and pulled up, to see sparks raining down on the entire clearing-and Aubri’s shield.
The improvised shield held and protected him from harm.
With the first victory cry she had ever uttered, she closed on him to lead him from his captivity.
Winterhart grimaced as the audience began cheering. Someone jostled her, jarring her back and sending a jab of pain down her right leg, further souring her mood.
Garber had ordered her to come here, orders she hadn’t much liked and wasn’t sure she agreed with. Right now, though, she wasn’t very fond of gryphons; it was a gryphon that had injured her back.
Be fair. It wasn’t her fault. She’d been having backaches and ignoring them-after all, who didn’t have a headache or a backache by day’s end around here? She had been restraining an hysterical and delirious broadwing with severe lacerations who had lashed out with both hind feet and sent Winterhart twisting and tumbling sideways. She hadn’t broken anything, but her back spasmed as soon as she got up, and it had been getting worse, not better, with time.
She was a Healer; she knew she should be seeing another Healer, or should at least stay in bed, flat, for a while. She was even fairly certain that she knew what was wrong. But there were no Healers and no time to spare, so she simply hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. She moved as little as possible, said she had “sprained” her back, and used that as an excuse not to do things that made it hurt worse. But she was in constant pain; there were only two positions she could take that allowed the pain to stop, and neither of them were appropriate for getting any work done. It was embarrassing. A Healer should be able to keep herself in one piece. This was altogether too much like a display of incompetence.
The pain wasn’t doing much for her temper, and getting jostled and making it worse didn’t help.
Damn Garber. He’s right, but for all the wrong reasons.
She’d been watching Zhaneel herself for several days, since she’d gotten wind of this “obstacle course” business, and long before dimwitted Garber had any notion tnat it was going on. Even before today she’d found herself torn between two violently conflicting opinions.
On the one hand she had to admire the little gryphon; obviously unsuited for combat, she had found ways to make herself suited to it. She had been pushing herself, finding her absolute limits, turning handicaps into benefits. The number of things she’d had to work out for herself to overcome her own deficiencies was incredible, and the ingenious ways she had done so were amazing. It was difficult to believe that this was the little runt Garber saw no use at all for.
But on the other hand, Zhaneel was exhausting herself completely with these so-called “training sessions”; no one had ever authorized her to do what she was doing, which made them quasi-legal at best. But that could be ignored. What could not be ignored was the fact that she had led other gryphons into trying her unorthodox tactics, with very mixed results.
Zhaneel herself had come out of these sessions with pulled muscles; she hadn’t come to Winterhart for any help, but that made no difference. The gryphon had been hurt, and she was the one who had invented the course and the training. Winterhart was afraid that one of the others was very likely to be seriously injured trying some of her nonsense.
Even if the other gryphons didn’t manage to hurt themselves on this course, the fact still remained that they burned off energy and resources they might need later, where it counted. Out on the front lines. The war escalated, resources diminished. Although it was not common knowledge, Urtho’s forces had lost ground, a little more every day. There was a new breed of makaar in the air now, and they took a toll on the gryphons. If the gryphons wasted their energy or strained themselves on this obstacle course of Zhaneel’s, they might not have that little extra they needed to survive an encounter with these new makaar. . Garber, of course, only knew that the gryphon cull was doing things he hadn’t ordered, not so much flouting his authority as ignoring it. No gryphon in Sixth Wing was allowed to think for itself; the very idea was preposterous. He was already aching with humiliation at the lecture the Lady Cinnabar had delivered-on Urtho’s behalf-concerning the reassignment of injured gryphons’ hertasi. Winterhart had not been present, but several who had overheard the Lady had indicated she had been less than flattering concerning Garber’s intelligence and ability to make a sound decision. Then came news of Zhaneel creating some unorthodox training program, encouraging others to join her in it, completely bypassing Garber’s authority. This could not be permitted, so he had sent the gryphon’s Trondi’irn-the lowest ranking officer in the wing, she acidly reminded herself-to dress her down for it. Never mind that it was a successful program so far. That was hardly the point.
Winterhart threaded through the crowd, more uneasy with every passing moment. She did not like confrontations. She particularly disliked them when there was a possible audience involved.
But she had direct orders. She also had an exact speech, delivered to her by Garber’s aide-de-camp, and duly memorized. Presumably the commander did not trust her to deliver a proper dressing-down . . . or perhaps he was as contemptuous of her intelligence as he was of the gryphons’.
Abruptly, she found herself in a clear space, and practically nose-to-beak with the runt.
Zhaneel blinked in surprise, and backed up a pace or so. “Winterrrharrt,” she said blankly. “What do you herrrre?”
That was all the opening that Winterhart required. “It is more to the point to ask you what you are doing here, gryphon,” she said coldly. “You are here without orders, you have commandeered equipment and personnel that you have no right to, and you have subverted other gryphons inside and outside of your wing into not only aiding you, but following in your ill-conceived plans. Your commander is highly displeased. What have you to say for yourself?”
She expected Zhaneel to behave as she always had; to cower a little, stammer an apology, and creep off to her aerie, forgetting and abandoning her ridiculous “training program.” She had readied a magnanimous acceptance of that apology before she was halfway through her speech. Something that would make her look a little less like Garber’s mouthpiece. . . .
“I?” the cull replied, and every hair and feather on her body bristled. She drew herself up to her full, if substandard, height, and looked down her beak at the Trondi’irn with eyes full of rage. “I?” she repeated, raising her voice. “How isss it that I am to blame becaussse the commanderrr of Sssixth Wing hasss no morrre imagination than a mud-turr-rtle? How isss it that it isss my fault that therrre isss only one trrraining progrrram for all, no matter the cirrrcumssstancesss, norrr if they change? What isss it that I am doing wrrrong! What isss it that I am doing that I ssshould be accusssed of doing wrrrong?” Her voice rose to full volume, and the audience, which had begun to disperse, regrouped in anticipation of another sort of spectacle. It was clear in an instant that they would not be siding with Winterhart.
“I do nothing wrrrong!” Zhaneel shouted. “I do what ssshould have been done, that no one carrred to do! And you, my Trrrondi’irrrn, you ssshould have ssseen that it needed doing!”
By now the audience had surrounded the two of them, leaving Winterhart no route of escape. She couldn’t help herself, she flushed with profound embarrassment.
“You had no orders and no permission-“ she began.
“Orrrderrrsss?” the gryphon interrupted with shrill incredulity. “I am on leave time! Thessse who help me arrre off-duty! What need have we of orrderrrsss, of perrrmissssionsss? Arrre we to requessst leave to pisssss now?”
Growls from behind her, a little laughter on all sides, and nods and angry looks on the faces she could see. Winterhart’s face burned painfully.
“We arrre off-duty,” the gryphon repeated. “When hasss Garrrberrr the might to decrrree what we do off-duty?”
“He doesn’t,” Winterhart admitted reluctantly. “But he gave me the orders. . . .”
Before she could say anything more, a huge, black-dyed gryphon with no regimental marks pushed through the crowd and faced her with challenge in every line of him. “Then why,” rumbled the infamous Skandranon, the Black Gryphon, “don’t you tell that overbearing half-fledged idiot that his orders are a pile of steaming mutes? You’re a Trondi’im, you have that right and duty for your gryphons.”
She stared at him. She had never heard the Black Gryphon speak before-at least, not more than a word or two. When he had shared a tent on Healer’s Hill with her gryphon Aubri, he had not spoken more than a word or two in her presence at most. He was either asleep or ignoring her. She had no idea he was so articulate, with so little gryphonic accent. Hearing that clear, clipped voice coming from that beak-it was such a shock, she addressed him as she would have another human.
“I couldn’t do that!” she exclaimed automatically. “He’s my superior!”
But the Black Gryphon only shrugged. “In what way? I don’t see why you shouldn’t tell him he’s being hopelessly thick,” he replied. “I tell my superiors when they’re idiots often enough. I generally tell them they couldn’t tell their crest from their tailfeathers on a daily basis. And that includes Urtho.”
Urtho? This-this creation, this construct, talked back to Urtho? She was aghast, appalled, and tried to put some of that into words, but all that came out was, “B-but that’s n-not the way things are done!” She’d stammered, which made it sound all the stupider.
Skandranon only snorted his contempt as equally contemptuous laughter erupted around the circle. “That’s not the way you do things, maybe,” the Black Gryphon replied. “It seems to me that the main problem we have is that there are too many officers thinking that books and noble birth give you all the answers you need-and too many order-takers who believe them without question.” He took a step or two closer to her, looming over her, and staring down his beak at her. “Amuse me. Bring me up on charges. You didn’t even think for yourself when Garber handed you that scoop of manure to deliver here. Didn’t it ever occur to you that the real reason you were told to lecture this young lady was not that she was doing anything wrong, but because she was doing something Garber and Shaiknam didn’t think of-or steal-first? It must gall them both that what they would call a ‘mere beast’ has been more clever than they were. Without asking for permission. Without being told, Trondi’irn.”
Winterhart opened her mouth to say something-and could not think of anything to say. Certainly, she could not refute what the gryphon had just said. Hadn’t she been thinking it herself? And she could not bring herself to defend Garber, not when his aide had been condescending to the point of insulting when he had delivered those orders. All she could do was to stand there with her mouth hanging open, looking stupid and shamed.
It was Zhaneel who salvaged what little was left of the situation. “Trrrondi’irrn,” she said crisply, “I will have worrrdsss with you. In prrivate. Now.”
Winterhart took the escape, narrow as it was, and nodded.
After all, there was nothing else she could do but follow.
But then, wasn’t she used to that by now?