Zhaneel preened a talon thoughtfully, then looked down at her hand. Hand, and not a misshapen collection of foreclaws. She was not some kind of an accident. As Amberdrake had surmised, she was the living result of something that had been planned.
“So.” She looked from the talon to Skandranon, and even though she managed to keep her expression calm and serene, her heart raced to have him here beside her, on her favorite rock overlooking the obstacle course. “I am the first of a breed, you say? And you saw evidence of that in Urtho’s Tower?”
Skan nodded; his great golden eyes fixed upon her as steadily as if he were the needle of a compass, and she were the Northern Cross. The sun shone down on his black feathers, bringing up the patterns in them that were normally concealed by the dye he used. “There seem to be about fifty different types altogether. Mostly broadwings, eagle-types. You are based on the only kind that looks really falcon-based. I don’t know what Urtho had in mind to call your type, but I’d call you a gryfalcon.”
“Gryfalcon.” She rolled the word around on her tongue. It sounded even better when Skan had said it than when Amberdrake had come up with it. “And none of this,” she spread her foreclaws wide, “is accidental. I am simply the only one of my kind.”
“Not that I saw. But, Zhaneel-“ He hesitated a long moment, and she looked at him curiously. From the tension in his body, he was trying to make up his mind about saying something more. “-Zhaneel, you aren’t precisely the only one of your type. Only the first successful gryfalcon.” He ground his beak for a moment, then clearly made up his mind to continue. “There’s-well, what we’d call a real misborn in the Tower, too. It looks as if she started out to be a gryfalcon, but something went wrong. She’s distorted, like a child in her head, I think she’s a neuter, and there are probably other things wrong with her as well.”
Zhaneel’s tiny ear-tufts rose. “In the Tower? But why-why would Urtho keep her there? I-“ But then all of the slights and insults, the teasing and the bullying of her own childhood returned to her, and she knew why. “-no. I see.” Gryphons did not cry, but sadness made their throats tighten, and triggered a need to utter a keening sound. She bowed her head and stifled the urge to keen. The poor, poor thing. Perhaps it is as well that it is like a child, for it cannot understand how cruel the world can be, and it will not mourn what it has never seen. “Does it have a name, this poor little one?”
Skan nodded. “Urtho calls her ‘Kechara,’ and she says that he visits and plays with her often. I don’t think she is in any kind of pain or want.”
“Kechara-beloved-“ She took a deep breath, and her throat opened again. “Yes, that would be like Urtho, to care for the poor thing that was not quite what he wanted, to make it as happy as he could.” She had come to understand their leader very well during the past several weeks. She wondered if Skandranon knew how often Urtho had taken the time to talk to her; Amberdrake knew, and several times, things that Amberdrake had told her made her think that Urtho had been talking with him about her. “But what does this mean for us? I think that if we can, we should find a way to free Kechara. With two of us to protect her, she will not suffer taunts as I did, do you not think? With two of us, acting as her family-? We should not have younglings just yet, I think, but Kechara will serve as practice of a kind. Now that you have made it possible for us to do so, whether or not Urtho approves.”
Shyly, she cocked her head to one side. Skan gaped at her, looking extremely silly, as the sense of what she had just suggested penetrated to him.
He looked even sillier a moment later, but it was because he was giddy with elation. But then, so was she.
She knew how exhausted he must be after the workout of this afternoon, yet from somewhere he found the strength to follow as she leapt into the air, giving him a playful, come-hither look over her shoulder. And as the moon rose, she led him on a true courtship chase, a chase that ended when they caught each other, landing in the warm grass of a hillside far above Urtho’s Tower.
As was the only way to end a courtship chase, after all.
This was the face of defeat. Chaos on the landing field; shouting and the screaming of gryphons hurt too badly to keep still. Healers and Trondi’irn from the Hill and every wing swarmed the site, somehow never getting in each others’ way. Winterhart ignored it all as she held the bleeding gryphon in life by the barest of margins, holding the mangled body together with Gift and hands both, until a more Gifted Healer could reach her. She swore at and coaxed the poor creature by turns, stopping only to breathe and to scrub tears from her eyes by rubbing her cheek against her blood-stained shoulder.
“Don’t you die on me, Feliss!” she scolded. “Not after all the work Zhaneel’s put in on you! If you die, I swear, I’m going to have Urtho catch your spirit and put it in the body of a celibate Priestess of Kylan the Chaste! That’d teach you!”
Tears rose up again to blind and choke her; she wiped them away again, and ignored the way her own energy was running out of her the way Feliss’ blood ran between her fingers. Gods, gods, it had been easier a few short weeks ago-before she had been forced to see these gryphons the way Amber-drake saw them. Before she had found herself caring for them, and about what happened to them. Before she learned to think of them as something more than a simple responsibility. . . .
Before Amberdrake made her like them, and Zhaneel made her respect them.
Tears rose again, but there was no time now to wipe them away; she held on, grief-blinded, unable to see-
Until a Gift so much greater than hers that it dazzled her touched her, and used her as the conduit to bring the Healing to Feliss that she had not been able to give. Emerald-green Healing energy poured through her, and beneath her hands the gaping wounds closed, the flesh knit up, the bleeding stopped.
Winterhart closed her eyes and concentrated only on being that conduit, on keeping Feliss’ heartbeat strong, until the energy faded, blood no longer flowed through her fingers, and the heartbeat strengthened of itself. Only then did she open her eyes again.
Lady Cinnabar removed her long, aristocratic hands from where they rested atop Winterhart’s and looked deeply into the Trondi’irn’s eyes. Winterhart was paralyzed, frozen in place like a terrified rabbit. She had been trying for weeks to avoid the Lady’s presence, ever since the moment she’d thought she’d seen a flicker of recognition in Cinnabar’s face.
Who would ever have thought that a song would give me away? She’d been humming, on her way back from a session with Amberdrake; her back felt normal for the first time in ages, Conn was still in the field and not in her bed, and she’d actually been cheerful enough to hum under her breath.
But she hadn’t thought about what she was humming, until she passed Lady Cinnabar (hurriedly, and with her face a little averted), and the Lady turned to give her a penetrating stare.
Only then did she realize that she had been humming a song that had been all the rage at High King Leodhan’s Court-for the single week just before Ma’ar had challenged the King to defend his land. Like the nobles who had fled the challenge in terror, or simply melted away in abject fear, the song had vanished into obscurity. Only someone like Lady Cinnabar, who had been at the High King’s Court at that time, would recognize it.
Only someone else who had been part of the Court for that brief period of time would have known it well enough to hum it.
Winterhart had seen Cinnabar’s eyes narrow in speculation, just before she hurried away, hoping against hope that Cinnabar would decide that she was mistaken in what she thought she had heard.
But the Lady was more persistent than that. More than once, Winterhart had caught Cinnabar studying her at a distance. And she knew, because this was the one thing she had dreaded, that Cinnabar was the kind of person who knew enough about the woman she had once been, that the Lady would uncover her secret simply by catching her in habitual things no amount of control could change or eliminate.
And now-here the Lady was, staring into Winterhart’s eyes, with the look on her face of one who has finally solved a perplexing little puzzle.
“You are a good channel, and you worked today to better effect than I have ever seen you work before,” Cinnabar said mildly. “And your ability and encouragement kept this feathered one clinging to life. You are a better Trondi’irn and Healer than you were a few weeks ago.”
“Thank you,” Winterhart said faintly, trying to look away from Cinnabar’s strange reddish-brown eyes, and failing.
“Altogether you are much improved; get rid of that Conn Levas creature, and stand upon your own worth, and you will be outstanding.” Cinnabar’s crisp words came to Winterhart as from a great distance. “He is not worthy of you, and you do not need him, Reanna.”
And with that, she turned and moved on to the next patient, leaving Winterhart standing there, stunned. Not just by the blunt advice, but by Cinnabar’s last word.
Reanna.
Winterhart went on to her next patient in a daze; fortunately her hands knew what to do without needing any direction from her mind. Her mind ran in circles, like a mouse in a barrel.
Lady Cinnabar knew. Winterhart had been unmasked.
How long before the Lady told her kinsman Urtho that Reanna Laury-missing and presumed fled-was working in the ranks as a simple Trondi’irn? How long before everyone knew? How long before her shame was revealed to the entire army?
But before Winterhart could free herself from her paralysis, Cinnabar was back. “You and the rest can handle everything else from here on,” the Healer said quietly. “I’m needed back up on the Hill. The gryphons are not the only injured. And Reanna-“
Winterhart started at the sound of her old name.
Cinnabar laid one cool hand on Winterhart’s arm. “No one will know what I have just spoken, if you do not tell,” the Healer said quietly. “If you choose to be only Winterhart, then Winterhart is all anyone will know. But I believe you should tell Amberdrake. He has some information that you should hear.”
The Lady smiled her famous, dazzling smile.
“Sometimes being in the middle of a situation gives one a very skewed notion of what is actually going on. If I were a minnow in the middle of a school, I would not know why the school moved this way and that. I would only see that the rest of the school was in flight, and not what they fled. I would never know when they ran from a pike, or a shadow.”
And with that rather obscure bit of observation, the Lady turned and was gone.
Winterhart sat in her own austere tent, braiding and rebraiding a bit of leather; her nerves had completely eroded. In another few moments, she was scheduled for a treatment for her back-treatments she had come to look forward to. The kestra’chern Amberdrake was the easiest person to talk to that she had ever known, although the changes he had caused in her were not so easy to deal with.
But now-Cinnabar knew. And although she had said that she would not reveal Winterhart’s secret, she had also said something else.
“I believe you should tell Amberdrake.” Cinnabar’s words haunted her. Who and what was this man, that she should tell him what she had not told anyone, the secret of her past that she would rather remained buried? Why would Cinnabar say anything so outrageous?
And most of all, why did she want to follow the Lady’s advice?
Oh, gods-what am I going to do? What am I going to say?
She could say nothing, of course, but Amberdrake was skilled at reading all the nuances of the body, and he would know she was upset about something. He had a way of getting whatever he wanted to know out of a person, as easily as she could extract a thorn from the claw of one of her charges.
I could stop going to him. I could find someone else to handle the rest of the treatments.
But she was not just seeing him for her back, and she knew it. Not anymore. Amberdrake was the closest thing she had to a real friend in this place, and what was more, he was the only person she would ever consider telling her secrets to. So why not do it?
Because she didn’t want to lose that friendship. If he heard what she was, how could he have any respect for her, ever again?
Then there was the rest of what Lady Cinnabar had said. “Get rid of that Conn Lev as creature and stand on your own.” Oh, Cinnabar was right about that; she and Conn were no more suited for each other than a bird and a fish. And dealing with Conn took more out of her than anyone ever guessed.
She had always known, whether or not Conn was aware of it, that her liaison with the mage was temporary. She had thought when she first accepted his invitation to “be his woman” that it would only last until Ma’ar overran them all, and killed them. A matter of weeks, months at the most. But Urtho was a better leader than anyone had thought, and she found herself living long past the time when she had thought she would be dead.
Then she had decided that sooner or later Conn would grow tired of her, and get rid of her. But it seemed that either most women around the Sixth knew the mage for the kind of man he was-an overgrown child in many ways, with a child’s tantrums and possessiveness-or else he perversely prized her. He made no move to be rid of her, for all his complaints of her coldness.
Then again, he was a master of manipulation, and one of the people he manipulated as easily as breathing was her. She didn’t like unpleasantness; she hated a scene. She was easily embarrassed. He knew how to threaten, what to threaten her with, and when to turn from threats to charming cajolery.
On her part the relationship originally had been as cool and prearranged as any marriage of state. He supplied her with an identity, and she gave him what he wanted. They maintained their own separate gear and sleeping quarters; they shared nothing except company.
But you don’t allow someone into your bed without getting some emotional baggage out of it. She was wise enough to admit that. And even though she would have been glad enough to be rid of him, as long as he claimed he had some feelings for her, and he needed her, she knew she would stay. Not until he walked away would she feel free of him.
Amberdrake had skillfully pried that out of her already-and in so doing, had made her face squarely what she had not been willing to admit until that moment. She didn’t want Conn anymore, she heartily wished him out of her life, and the most he would ever be able to evoke in her was a mild pity. There was no passion there anymore, not even physical passion. Amberdrake gave her more pleasure than he did, without ever once venturing into the amorous or erotic. And now Cinnabar, saying she should be rid of him-
Cinnabar must think he’s a drain on me, on my resources. I suppose he is. Every time he comes back from the front lines, there’s a scene. I spend half the night trying to make him feel better, and I end up feeling worse. I find myself wishing that he would die out there, and then I’m torn up with guilt for ill-wishing him. . . .
Oh, it was all too tangled. Amberdrake could help her sort it all out-but if she kept her appointment, Amberdrake would learn her secrets.
Her stomach hurt. Her stomach always hurt when she was like this. Amberdrake knew everything that there was to know about herbal remedies, maybe he would have something for her stomach as well as her back, and if she just kept the subject on that she could avoid telling him anything important.
She put the bit of leather aside, and got up off her bedroll, pushing aside the tent flaps to emerge into the blue-gray of twilight.
Time to go. There was no place to run from it now. And no point in running.
Amberdrake knew the moment that Winterhart slipped through the tent door that there was something wrong. Even if he hadn’t been an Empath, even if he were still an apprentice in the various arts of the kestra’chern, he’d have known it. She moved stiffly, her muscles taut with tension, and the little frown-line between her brows was much deeper than usual. Her eyes looked red and irritated, and she held her shoulders as if she expected a blow to come down out of the sky at any moment.
“Is Conn Levas back yet?” he asked casually, assuming that the mage was the reason for her tension.
But the startled look of surprise, as if that was the very last thing she had expected him to say, told him that the shot had gone far wide of the mark. Whatever was troubling her, it was not her erstwhile lover.
“No,” she replied, and turned her back to him, modest as always, to disrobe so that he could work on her back. “No, the foot-troops are still out. They aren’t doing well, though. I suppose you know that Ma’ar is pushing them out of the Pass again. The Sixth got hit badly, and the Fourth and Third sent in gryphons with carry-nets to evacuate the wounded. It was bad on the landing field.”
“So I’d heard.” Skan was out there now; as the only gryphon who could keep up with Zhaneel, Urtho had assigned him to fly protective cover on her. No standard scouting raids for them; they only flew at Urtho’s express orders, usually bearing one or more of his magic weapons or protections. The Black Gryphon had already given Amberdrake a terse account of the damage, before going out on a second sortie. “After a day like today, I’m not surprised that you’re tense.”
“And my stomach’s in a knot,” she said, wrapping herself in a loose robe, before she turned back to face him. Her expression mingled wry hope with resignation, as if she hated to admit that her body had failed her. “I don’t suppose you have anything for that, do you?”
“Assuming you trust my intentions,” he countered, trying to make a joke of it. “I’d prescribe an infusion of vero-grass, alem-lily root, and mallow. All of which I do have on hand. You aren’t the only person who’s come to me today with your muscles and stomach all in knots.”
Her eyes widened a little, for all three herbs were very powerful, and had a deserved reputation for loosening the tongue and giving it free rein-and for loosening inhibitions as well. “I don’t know,” she replied hesitantly. “Then again, between the state of my back and my stomach, maybe I’d better.”
He had made the same concoction often enough for himself that he could nod sympathetically as he went to his chest of herbs. He put measured amounts of each into a cup, poured in hot water, and left the medicine to steep. “Believe me, I know how you feel. As I said, I’ve had to resort to my own herbs more than once since this war started. I’ve been with Urtho’s forces since-let me think-right after the High King collapsed, and Urtho more-or-less took over as leader.”
She accepted the cup of bitter tea carefully, made a face as she tasted it, and drank it down all at once. “That’s longer than I have,” she remarked. “If you’ve been with Urtho that long, I suppose you must have seen quite a bit of the Court, then.”
“Me? Hardly.” He laughed and could have sworn that she relaxed a little. “No, I was just one kestra’chern with the Kaled’a’in; all the Clans came as fast as they could when Urtho called us in, and he didn’t sort us out for several months after that. He just gave the Clan Chiefs his orders and let them decide how to carry them out, while he tried to organize what was left of the defenses. At that point, no one knew what ranking I was qualified for. Kestra’chern aren’t given a rank among the Clans the way they are in the outside world. My rank and all that came later, as things got organized.” She arranged herself on the massage table, facedown.
“The way that the Clans stood by him, though-you must have been disgusted by the way the nobles just panicked and deserted him.”
He paused, a bottle of warm oil in his hand, at the odd tone in her voice. She surely knew that he knew she was no Kaled’a’in, but there was something about the way she had phrased that last that was sending little half-understood signals to him. And the direction the conversation had been going in-
Go slowly, go carefully with this, he thought. There is more going on here than there appears to be. I think, if I am very careful, all my questions about her are about to be answered.
“We stood by him because we were protected and never felt the fear,” he replied, pouring a little oil in the palm of his hand and spreading it on her back. “We have our own mages, you know. Granted, we don’t go about making much of the fact, and they only serve Kaled’a’in, but between the mages and the shaman, Ma’ar couldn’t touch us-and there was no way that he could insinuate agents into our midst to bring us down. Not the way he did the High King and his Court.”
The muscles under his hand jumped. “What do you mean by that?” she demanded, her voice sharp and anxious.
He soothed her back with his hands, and deliberately injected a soothing tone into his voice. “Well, Ma’ar has always been a master of opportunity, and he’s never used a direct attack when an indirect one would work as well. Treachery, betrayal, manipulation-those are his favorite weapons. That was how he got control in his own land in the first place, and that is how he prefers to weaken other lands before he moves in to take them with his troops. He may be ruthless and heartless, but he never spends more than he has to in order to get what he wants.”
“But what does that have to do with us?” she demanded, harshly. “What does that have to do with the way those cowards simply deserted the High King, fled and left the Court and their own holdings in complete chaos?”
“Why, everything,” he told her in mild surprise. “Ma’ar had a dozen agents in the Court, didn’t you know that? Their job was to spread rumors, create dissension, make things as difficult as possible for the High King to get anything accomplished. I don’t know their names, but Cinnabar does; she was instrumental in winkling them out and dealing with them after the King collapsed. But the major thing was that once Ma’ar believed that his agents had done everything they could to get the Court just below the boiling point, he sent one of them into the Palace with a little ‘present’ for the King and his supporters.” His mouth twisted in distaste. “Treachery of the worst sort. Have you ever heard of something called a dyrstaf?”
“No,” she said, blankly.
“Skan could tell you more about it. He was there at the time, in Urtho’s Tower, and he found out about everything pretty much as it happened. For that matter, so was Lady Cinnabar, but she’s not a mage, and Skan is.” He tried to recall everything that Cinnabar and Skan had told him. “It’s a rather nasty little thing. It’s an object, usually a rod or a staff of some kind, that holds a very insidious version of a fear-spell. It looks perfectly ordinary until it’s been triggered, and even then it doesn’t show to anything but Magesight. It starts out just creating low-level anxiety, and works up to a full panic over the course of a day and a night. And since it isn’t precisely attacking anyone or anything, most protective spells won’t shield from it. And of course, since it wasn’t active when the agent brought it into the Palace, no one knew it was there, and it didn’t trip any of the protections laid around the King.”
“A fear spell?” she asked softly. “But why didn’t the Palace shields-oh. Never mind, it was inside the shields when it started to work. So of course the shields wouldn’t keep anything out.”
“And by the time anyone realized what was going on, it was too late to do anything about it,” Amberdrake replied. “In fact, it did most of its worst work after dark, at a time when people are most subject to their fears anyway. The mages always slept under all kinds of personal shielding, so of course they weren’t affected. Anyone with Healer training would also sleep under shields; remember, most Healers have some degree of Empathy, and this was an emotion. They would also have been protected against it.”
“But anyone else-“ She shuddered.
“And what most people did was simply to run away.” Amberdrake sighed. “By morning, the Palace was deserted, and it wasn’t only the nobles who ran, no matter what you might have heard to the contrary. It was everyone. Cinnabar said that the only ones left were the mages and Healers; there wasn’t a horse, donkey, or mule fit to ride left in the stables, the servants and the Palace guards had deserted their posts, and the King was in a virtual state of collapse. She and the others called Urtho from his Tower. By the time that Urtho found the dyrstaf, it was too late; the worst damage had been done.”
“But they didn’t come back.” No mistake about it; Winterhart’s tone was incredibly bitter and full of self-accusation. “They could have returned, but they didn’t. They were cowards, all of them.”
“No.” He made his voice firm, his answer unequivocal. “No, they didn’t come back, not because they were cowards, but because they were hurt. The dyrstaf inflicts a wound on the heart and soul as deep as any weapon of steel can inflict on the body; an invisible wound of terror that is all the worse because it can’t be seen and doesn’t bleed. They weren’t cowards, they were so badly wounded that most of them had gone beyond thinking of anything but their fear and their shame. Some of them, like the King, died of that wound.”
“He-died?” she faltered. “I didn’t know that.”
Amberdrake sighed. “His heart was never that strong, and he was an old man; being found by Urtho hiding in his own wardrobe shamed him past telling. It broke his spirit, and he simply faded away over the course of the next month. Since he was childless, and everyone else in direct line had fled past recalling, Urtho thought it better just to let people think he’d gone into exile.”
“What about Cinnabar?” she demanded sharply. “Why didn’t she run? Doesn’t that just prove that everyone who did really is a coward?”
“Cinnabar was already a trained Healer, dear-heart,” he said. Not like you, little one. You might have had the Gift, but your family didn’t indulge you enough to let you get it trained. “You’ve worked with her, you know how powerful she is, and her Empathy is only a little weaker than her Healing powers. She was shielded against outside emotions and didn’t even know what was going on. Then in the morning, she was able to tell that the fear was coming from outside, and she was one of the ones who got Urtho and helped him in a search for the dyrstaf. They all came in by way of Urtho’s private Gate into the throne room-all but Skan, he was too big to fit. Unfortunately, by the time Urtho and the mages found it, it was too late to do any good.”
“They always said her family was eccentric,” Winterhart said, as if to herself. “Letting the children get training, as if they were ever going to have to actually be Healers and mages and all. I envied her-“ A gasp told him she had realized too late that she had let that clue to her past slip.
“If your parents had allowed you to have Healer training, instead of forcing you to learn what you could on your own, you probably wouldn’t be here right now,” he told her quietly. “Don’t you realize that if you’d been properly trained, you’d have been standing beside Cinnabar, helping her, on that day? There is nothing more vulnerable than an untrained Empath. You were perhaps the single most vulnerable person in the entire Palace when the dyrstaf started working. Didn’t you ever realize that? If Ma’ar’s spell of fear wounded others, I am truly surprised that it didn’t strike you dead.”
Her shoulders shook with sobs. “I wish it had!” she wept into the pillow. “Oh, gods! I wish it had!”
Carefully, very carefully, he sat down on the edge of the massage table, and took her shoulders in his strong hands, helping her to sit up and turn, so that she was weeping into his shoulder instead of into a comfortless pillow. For some time, he simply held her, letting her long-pent grief wear itself out, rocking her a little, and stroking her hair and the back of her neck.
She shivered, and her skin chilled. Gesten slipped in, silent as a shadow, and laid a thick, warmed robe beside him. He thanked the hertasi with his eyes, and picked it up, wrapping it around her shoulders. She relaxed as the heat seeped into her, and gradually her sobs lost their strength.
“So that was why you chose the name ‘Winterhart,’ “ he said into the silence. “I’d wondered. It wasn’t because it was Kaled’a’in at all-it was because a hart is a hunted creature, and because you hoped that the cold of winter would close around you and keep you from ever feeling anything again.”
“I never even saw a Kaled’a’in until I came here,” came the whisper from his shoulder.
“Ah.” He massaged the back of her neck with one hand, while the other remained holding her to his chest. “So. You know, you don’t have to answer me, but who are you? If you have any relatives still alive, they would probably like to know that you are living, too.”
“How would you know?” The reply sounded harsh, but he did not react to it, he simply answered it.
“I know-partly because one of my tasks as a kestra’chera is to pass that information on to Urtho in case any of your relations have been looking for others of their blood. And I know because I lost my family when they fled without me, and I have never found them again. And there is a void there, an emptiness, and a pain that comes with not knowing, not being able to at least write ‘finished’ to the question.”
“Oh. I’m-sorry,” she said awkwardly.
“Thank you,” he replied, accepting the spirit of the apology.
He sensed that she was not finished, and waited.
Finally, she spoke again.
“Once, my name was Lady Reanna Laury. . . .”
Winterhart spoke, and Amberdrake listened, long into the night. She was his last client; he had instinctively scheduled her as the last client of any night she had an appointment, knowing that if her barriers ever broke, he would need many candlemarks to deal with the consequences. So she had all the time she needed.
He talked to her, soothed her-and did not lay a finger on her that was not strictly platonic. He knew that she half expected him to seduce her. He also knew that given any encouragement whatsoever, she would seduce him. But the situation was too complicated to allow for one more complication, and he would have been not only unprofessional but less than a friend if he permitted that complication to take place.
Much as he wanted to.
She was very sweet, very pliant, in his arms. He sensed a passionate nature in her that he doubted Conn Levas even guessed at. She was quite ready to show that nature to him.
But the essence of a kestra’chern’s talent was a finely-honed sense of timing, and he knew that this was not the time.
So he sent her back to her tent exhausted, but only emotionally and mentally-comforted, but not physically. And he flung himself into his bed in a fever, to stare at the tent roof and fantasize all the things that he wished he had done.
He had never really expected that he would find anyone he wanted to share his life with. He had always thought that he would be lucky to find a casual lover or two, outside of his profession.
He had certainly never expected to find anyone so well suited to him-little though she knew the extent of it. Right now, she only knew that he could comfort her, that he had answers for the things that had eaten away at her heart until it bled. He did not want her until she had recovered from all this-until she knew what and who she was, and wanted him as an equal, and not as a comforter and protector.
She got enough of that with Conn.
For Winterhart, whatever she had been, was now a strong, vital, and competent woman. She had a deep capacity for compassion that she had been denying, fearing to be hurt if she gave way to it.
She had overcome her fears to find some kind of training that would make her useful to Urtho’s forces, and then had returned to take her place there, when hundreds of others who had not been affected as profoundly as she had remained deserters. Granted, she had not come back as herself, but at this point, any attempt to reveal her name and nature would only disrupt some of what Urtho had accomplished. The House and forces of Laury answered now to Urtho and not to those who had once commanded them and their loyalty by right of birth. Why disturb an established arrangement? He thought he had persuaded her of that-and what was more, he thought she had figured that out for herself, but had been afraid that saying anything of the sort would only be taken for further cowardice. It wasn’t, of course. It was only good sense, which in itself was in all-too-short supply.
“It would be different,” he’d told her, “if we had a situation like Lord Cory’s. He was back on his estate, in retirement, and was left the only member of his line to command his levy. So he did, even though he is far too old for the task. He’s a fine commander, though, so Urtho isn’t going to ask him to step down-but if one of his sons or daughters ever showed up, willing to take the old man’s orders, there’d be a new field commander before you could blink.”
“But the Laury people are commanded by General Micherone,” Winterhart had observed, and sighed. “Bet Micherone is a better commander than I could ever be, and Urtho has the utmost confidence in her. I don’t see any reason to come back to life.”
“Nor do I,” Amberdrake had told her. “You might ask Lady Cinnabar, since she knows the political situation better than I, but if she says not to bother, then there is no reason why you can’t remain ‘Winterhart’ for the rest of your life.” He chuckled a little, then, and added, “And if anyone asks why you have a Kaled’a’in name, tell them it’s because you have been adopted into my sept and Clan. I’ll even arrange it, if you like.”
She’d looked up at him thoughtfully. “I would like that, please,” she had replied. “Very much.”
He wondered if she knew or guessed the significance of that. Kaled’a’in did not take in those from outside the Clans lightly or often-and it was usually someone who was about to marry into the Clans, someone who had sworn blood-brotherhood with a Kaled’a’in, or someone who had done the Clan a great service.
Still, he did not regret making the offer, and he would gladly see that the matter was taken care of. Because if things fell out the way he hoped-
Not now, he told himself. Take one day at a time. First she will have to deal with Conn Levas. Only then should you make overtures. Otherwise she will be certain that she betrayed him, somehow, and she has had more than enough of thinking she was a traitor.
All it would take was patience. Every Kaled’a’in was familiar with patience. It took patience to train a hawk or a horse-patience to perform the delicate manipulations that would bring the lines of bondbirds and warsteeds to their fulfillment. It took patience to learn everything needed to become a shaman, or a Healer, or a kestra’chern.
But, oh, I have had enough of patience to last me the rest of my life! I should like some immediate return for my efforts for a change!
He would like it, but he knew better than to expect or even hope for it. It was enough that in the midst of all this pain and death, there was a little life and warmth, and that he was sharing in it.
And it was with that thought uppermost in his mind that he finally fell asleep.
A bird-scream woke Amberdrake out of a sound and dreamless sleep. He knew those screams; high-pitched, and sounding exactly as if a child were shrieking. He sat straight up in bed, blinking fog out of his eyes.
What-a messenger, at this hour? It was morning! What could-
But if someone had sent a messenger-bird to screech at the entrance to his tent, there was grave trouble. Anything less and there would have been time to send a hertasi rather than a bird. Before Gesten could get to the door flap, he had rolled out of bed and flung open the flap to let the bird in. It whirred up from the ground and hit his shoulder, muttered in agitation for a moment, then spoke in Tamsin’s voice.
“Drake, we need you on the Hill-now.”
That was all there was to the message, and normally the last person that Tamsin would ask for help on the Hill was Amberdrake, despite his early training. Amberdrake knew that Tamsin was only too well aware of his limitations-how his Empathic Gift tended to get right out of control even now. He was much better suited to the profession he had chosen, and they both knew it. But if Tamsin had sent a bird for him, then the situation up on the Hill was out of hand, and the Healers were dragging in every horse doctor and herb collector within running distance-and every other kestra’chern who knew anything of Healing or could hold a wound for stitching or soothe pain.
He flung on some clothing and headed for the Healers’ tents at a dead run. There were plenty of other people boiling out of their tents wearing hastily-donned clothing; as he had surmised, he was not the only kestra’chern on the way up there. Whatever had happened, it was bad, as bad as could possibly be.
He found out just how bad it was when he arrived at the Healers’ tents and stopped dead in his tracks, panting with effort, struck dumb by the sheer numbers of near-dead.
The victims overflowed the tents and had been laid out in rows wherever there was space. There was blood everywhere; soaking into the ground, making spreading scarlet stains on clothing and hastily-wrapped bandages. The pain hammered at him, making him reel back for a moment with the force of it pounding against his disciplined shields. “Amberdrake!”
He turned at the sound of his name; Vikteren grabbed his arm and steered him into a tent. “Tarnsin said to watch for you, they need you here, with the nonhumans,” he said, speaking so quickly that he ran everything together. “I know some farrier-work, I’m supposed to assist you if you want me.”
“Yes, I want you,” Amberdrake answered quickly, squinting into the semidarkness of the tent. After the bright sunlight outside, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust.
When they did, he could have wished they hadn’t. There were half a dozen kyree lying nearest the entrance, and they seemed to be the worst off; next to them, lying on pallets, were some tervardi and hertasi-he couldn’t tell how many-and at the back of the tent, three dyheli. There was only one division of the forces that had that many nonhumans in combat positions, and his heart sank. “Oh, gods-the Second-?”
“All but gone,” Vikteren confirmed. “Ma’ar came in behind them, and no one knows how.”
But there was no time for discussion. He and his self-appointed assistant took over their first patient, a kyree that had been slashed from throat to tail, and then there was no time for anything but the work at hand.
Amberdrake worked with hands and Gift, stitching wounds and Healing them, blocking pain, setting bones, knitting up flesh. He worked until the world narrowed to his hands and the flesh beneath them. He worked until he lost all track of time or even who he was working on, trusting to training and instinct to see him through. And at last, he worked until he couldn’t even see his hands, until he was so exhausted and battered by the pain and fear of others that the world went gray, and then black, then went away altogether.
And he found himself being supported by Vikteren, his head under the spout of a pump, the young mage frantically pumping water over him.
He spluttered and waved at Vikteren to stop, pushed himself up to a kneeling position, and shook the cold water out of his eyes. He was barely able to do that; he had never in all of his life felt so weak.
“You passed out,” the mage said simply. “I figured that what worked for drunks would probably work for you.”
“Probably the best thing you could have done,” Amberdrake admitted and coughed. How many more wounded were there? His job wasn’t done yet. “I’d better get back-“
He started to get up, but Vikteren restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t do much but let it rest there, yet that was enough to keep Amberdrake from moving.
“There’s nothing left to go back to. You didn’t pass out till you got the last tervardi and a couple of the humans that the others hadn’t gotten to yet. The rest no one could have helped,” Vikteren told him. Amberdrake blinked at that, and then blinked again. The mage was a mess-his clothing stiff with blood, his hands bloodstained. He had blood in his hair, his eyes were reddened and swollen, and his skin was pale.
“We’re done?” he asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.
Vikteren nodded. “Near as I can tell. They brought the last of the wounded in through the Jerlag Gate, evacuated the rearguard, and shut it down about a candlemark ago.”
Evacuated? Shut the Gate down? Amberdrake blinked, and realized then that the light shining down on both of them was entirely artificial, one of the very brilliant mage-lights used by the Healers. Beyond the light, the sky was completely black, with a sprinkling of stars. We’ve been working all day? “Sunset was about the same time they shut the Gate down,” Vikteren told him, answering his unspoken question. “Urtho’s up at the terminus now, and-“
A ripple in the mage-energies, and an unsettled and unsettling sensation, as if the world had just dropped suddenly out from underneath them, made them both look instinctively to the north. The Jerlag Gate was in the north, beyond those mountains in the far distance.
Far, far off on the horizon, behind the mountains, there was a brilliant flash of light. It covered the entire northern horizon, so bright that Vikteren cursed and Amberdrake blinked away tears of pain and had false-lights dancing before his eyes for several moments.
It took much longer than that before either of them could speak.
Vikteren said carefully, “So much for the Jerlag Gate.”
“Did he-“ Amberdrake could hardly believe it, but Vikteren was a mage, and he would recognize what Urtho had done better than any kestra’chern.
Vikteren nodded. “Fed it back on itself. Ma’ar may have taken Jerlag, but it’s cost him a hell of a lot more than he thought it would. That’s the first time Urtho’s ever imploded one of his permanent Gates.”
The thought hung between them, ominous and unspoken. And it probably won’t be the last.
Amberdrake swallowed; he could not begin to imagine the forces let loose in the implosion of a fixed Gate. Vikteren could, though, and the young mage squinted off at the horizon.
“Probably a hole about as big as this camp, and as deep as the Tower there now,” he said absently.
And then it was Amberdrake’s turn to grab for his arm and steady him, as he trembled, lost his balance, and started to fall. He was heavier than Amberdrake could support in his own weakened condition; he lowered the mage down to the muddy ground in a kind of controlled fall, and leaned against him. Vikteren blinked at him with glazed eyes.
“You collapsed,” Amberdrake told him gently. “You aren’t in much better shape than I am.”
“You can say that again, Drake.” Gesten padded up into the circle of light cast by the mage-light overhead, with Aubri and two of Lady Cinnabar’s hertasi with him. “The Lady told me where you were. She and Tamsin and Skan are worried sick.
I’m supposed to have Dierne and Lysle help Vikteren back to his tent and get some food in him, while Aubri helps me get you back to yours.” The hertasi patted the young mage on the shoulder. “Good work, boy. Tamsin says you two basically took care of every badly injured nonhuman that came in. Real good work. If I had a steak, I’d cook it up for you myself.”
“Right now a couple of boiled eggs and some cheese sounds fine,” Vikteren croaked, his face gone ashen. “I’d rather not look at meat just now-could look like someone I knew. . . .”
Gesten gestured to the other two hertasi who levered Vikteren back up to a standing position and supported him on his feet. “Get some food, get some rest. And drink what these two give you. It’ll keep you from having dreams.”
“Nightmares, you mean,” Amberdrake murmured, as the hertasi helped the mage down the hill, step by wavering step. “I remember my first war-wounded.”
“As do we all,” Aubri rumbled. “Gesten, if you can get him standing-Amberdrake, you lean on my back-“
As he got to his feet, he began to black out again, and Gesten tsked at him as he sat abruptly back down. “I thought as much,” the hertasi said. “You’ve drained yourself. You’re going to be a right mess in the morning.”
“I’m a right mess now.” Amberdrake put his head down between his knees until the world stopped spinning around him. “I hope you have a solution for this. I’d hate to spend the rest of the night sleeping in the mud.”
“That’s why I brought Aubri. Just give us a moment.” The hertasi hustled into one of the supply tents, and came back out again with a number of restraining straps and a two-man litter. While Aubri muttered instructions, Gesten rigged a harness over Aubri’s hindquarters, and stuck one set of the litter handles through loops in the harness. “Get yourself on that, Drake,” the hertasi ordered. “I’ve got this inclined so Aubri takes most of your weight.”
Amberdrake did manage to crawl onto the litter, but he was so dizzy that it took much longer than he thought it would, and his head pounded in time with his pulse until he wanted nothing more than to have someone knock him out. He knew what it was; he’d overextended himself, drained himself down to nothing. He was paying the price of over-extending, and he wouldn’t be the only Healer who’d done that today.
He closed his eyes for the journey back to his tent; when he opened his eyes again, he was being lifted into his bed. But the moment he tried to move, his head exploded with pain, so he closed his eyes again and passively let them do whatever Gesten told them to. He wound up in a half-sitting position, propped in place by pillows.
When he opened his eyes again, the tent was silent, lit only by a single, heavily-shaded lantern, and Gesten was still there, although Aubri and the rest of the hertasi’s recruits were long gone. Gesten turned with a cup in his foreclaw, and pushed it at him.
“Here,” he said brusquely. “Drink this, you know what it is.”
Indeed he did; a compound of herbs for his head and to make him sleep, so thick with honey he was surprised the spoon didn’t stand in it. At this point, he was too spent to protest, and too dizzy to care. Obediently, he let the too-sweet, sticky liquid ooze down his throat.
Then he closed his eyes, waiting for the moment when the herbs would take effect. And when they did, he slid into the dark waters of sleep without a single ripple-for a while.
Winterhart had never wanted quite so much to crawl away into a hole and sleep for a hundred years. Instead, she dragged herself back to her tent and collapsed on her bedroll. She curled into a fetal position, and waited for her muscles to stop twitching with fatigue, too tired even to undress.
Urtho was losing. That was the general consensus. The only question was if their side would continue to lose ground, or if Urtho would come up with something that would hold Ma’ar off for a little longer.
We’re being eroded by bits and pieces, instead of being overrun the way I thought we’d go. Even that stark certainty failed to bring her a shiver of fear. She was just too tired.
It wasn’t just tending her own charges now, it was being called up the Hill at a moment’s notice whenever too many wounded came in. And it wasn’t just her-it was everyone, anyone who even knew how to wrap a bandage. She’d seen Amberdrake working so long and so hard today that he’d become a casualty himself, and he wasn’t the only one, either. The rest of the kestra’chern worked just as hard, and even the perchi came in to mix herbal potions and change bandages. For now, all the little feuds and personality conflicts were set aside.
Unfortunately, Shaiknam and Garber have their commands again. Although General Shaiknam no longer had nonhumans or mages under his command, he was still managing to account for far too many casualties. When he succeeded, he did so in grand style, but it was always at a high cost in terms of fighters.
I wish that Urtho would just put him in charge of siege engines and catapults. They don’t die.
Well, she no longer had to parrot Garber’s stupid orders, or try to make excuses for him. And the Sixth was holding its own at the moment. Perhaps they would continue to hold, and Ma’ar would give up for a while, let things stand at stalemate, and give them all time to breathe.
Footsteps outside the tent warned her in time to roll over to face the back of the tent and feign sleep. It was Conn, of course, and wanting the usual; she could not imagine where he got any energy to spare when everyone else was exhausted.
He shoved the tent flap open roughly, and stood beside her bedroll, waiting for her to wake up. Except that she wasn’t going to “wake up.”
I’m tired of you, Conn. I’m tired of your so-called “temperament.” I’m tired of acting like your mother as well as your lover. I’m very tired of being your lover; you have no couth and no consideration.
It occurred to her then that he had so little consideration for her that he might well try to shake her awake. Then she would have no choice but to give up the ruse.
But I’m damned if I’ll perform for you, Conn. You’ll get me the way I feel-too tired to move a muscle, with nothing left over for anything or anyone, not even myself.
He stood there a moment longer, and experimentally prodded her with his toe once or twice.
Very romantic, Conn.
But she had seen people fallen so deeply asleep that nothing short of an earthquake would wake them. She knew how to simulate the same thing. She remained absolutely limp, neither resisting the push from his toe, nor reacting to it. Finally he muttered something uncomplimentary and left the tent.
She stayed in the same position in a kind of wary stupor; there was no telling how Conn would react to having his wishes flaunted. He might just linger outside the tent, waiting to see if she moved or even came out. He might even come back with a bucket of cold water-
No, he won’t do that. He wouldn’t want to use the bedroll if it had been soaked.
But he might find some other way of waking her up and return with it.
It’s a good thing he won’t be able to find a messenger-bird now that it’s past sunset. He’d probably bring one back here and have it shriek in my ear. The little beggars love dramatics; he wouldn’t have any trouble getting one to cooperate.
But nothing happened, and when her arm fell asleep, she finally turned over, keeping her eyes cracked to mere slits.
There was a light right outside her tent, and if there had been anyone lurking out there he’d have shown up as a silhouette against the canvas. There wasn’t a sign of Conn, and as her arm came back to life and she sat up, swearing softly, he didn’t come bursting into the tent.
She sighed and massaged her left hand with her right, cursing as it tingled and burned. Her eyes felt dry, and gritty, as if she’d been caught in a sandstorm. She left off massaging her hand and rubbed them; it didn’t stop the itching, but at least they didn’t feel quite so dry anymore.
This end of camp was silent-frighteningly silent. Anyone not on duty was sleeping, wasting not a single moment in any other pursuits. As she listened, she heard the deliberate pacing of a sentry up and down the rows of tents, and the rustle of flags in the breeze, the creaking of guy ropes and the flapping of loose canvas. And something muttered just overhead.
She peered up, where the tent supports met in a cross. There was a tiny creature up there, perched on the poles.
She got to her feet, somehow, and reached up to it without thinking. Only as her hand touched it and she felt feathers did it occur to her that it could have been anything-a rat, a bat, some nasty little mage-accident.
But it wasn’t; it was only a messenger-bird. She slipped her fingers under its breast-feathers as it woke and muttered sleepily, and it transferred its hold on the pole to a perch on her hand.
She brought it down carefully. While they were very tame, they were also known to nip when they were startled. She scratched it with one finger around its neck-ruff while it slowly woke, grumbled to itself, and then, finally, pulled away and fluffed itself up.
It tilted its head and looked up at her; obligingly, she got into the light from outside so that it could see her face and identify her. It snapped its beak meditatively once or twice, then roused all its feathers again and spoke.
Canceling your appointment tonight, it said in Amberdrake’s voice, and it was uncanny the way the tiny bird was able to imitate sheer exhaustion overlaying the words and making him slur his sentences. Too tired. Tomorrow, if we can. I’m sorry.
She sat back down again, obscurely disappointed. Not that she was up to so much as a walk to the mess tent, much less halfway across camp! And he certainly wasn’t up to giving her any kind of a massage, not after the way she’d seen him slaving today.
But we could have talked, she thought wistfully. We could have cried on each other’s shoulders . . . comforted each other.
Suddenly she realized that she no longer thought of him as “the kestra’chern Amberdrake”-not even as her Healer. She wanted to tell him every grisly detail-the men that had died under her hands, the fighters who were never going to see, or walk, or use a weapon again. She wanted to weep on his shoulder, and then offer him that same comfort back again. She needed it, and she guessed that he did, too. His friends were as mind-sick and exhausted as he was, and would be in no position to console him.
Or else they have others they would rather turn to.
If only he hadn’t canceled the appointment! If only she could go to him-
Well, why not? came the unbidden thought. Friends don’t need appointments to see each other.
That was true enough, but-
Dear gods, it was a long walk! She held the little bird in her cupped hand, petting its back and head absently as it chuckled in content. Just the bare thought of that walk was enough to make her weep. He might have exhausted his Healing powers, but she had been lifting and reaching, pulling and hauling, all day. Small wonder her muscles burned with fatigue, and felt about as strong as a glass of water.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel of the path between the rows of tents, drawing nearer, but they were too light to be Conn’s, so she dismissed them as she tried to muster the strength just to stand. II I can get to my feet, maybe I can get as far as the mess tent. If I can get as far as the mess tent, maybe I can get to the bath house. If I can get that far-
The footsteps paused just outside her door flap, and the silhouette against the canvas was not at all familiar. Until the man turned sideways, as if to go back the way he came.
“Amberdrake?” she said aloud, incredulously. The man outside paused in midstep, and turned back to the doorflap. “Winterhart?” Amberdrake said cautiously. “I thought you were probably asleep.”
“I-I’m too tired to sleep, if that makes any sense,” she replied, so grateful that he was here that she couldn’t think of anything else. “Oh, please, come in! I was just trying to get up the energy to come visit you!”
He pushed open the tent flap and looked down at her, sitting on her bedroll, little messenger-bird in her hands. “You got my message-“ he said hesitantly.
“Since when do friends need an appointment to talk?” she retorted, and was rewarded with his slow, grateful smile. “I had the feeling we both needed someone to talk to tonight.”
“You’ll never know how much,” he sighed, collapsing on the bedroll beside her.
As she looked at him, sitting there in the shadows of the tent, and wanting nothing more than to talk, a warmth started somewhere inside her and began to spread, as if a cold place within had thawed at long last, and the warmth was reaching every part of her.
“Would you like to start first, or may I?” he asked, courteous as always.
He needed her! He needed her, and not the other way around! She sensed the pain inside him, an ache that was so seldom eased that he no longer expected to find relief for it. How long had he been carrying this burden of grief? Certainly longer than just today.
“You first,” she said, acting on generous impulse. “I think you must need to talk more than I do. After all, you were the one who made the long walk here.”
It was too dark to see his face, but she sensed that he was startled. “Perhaps I do. . . .” he said, slowly.
She put the bird on the dressing stand, and reached out and took one of his hands. It was cold; she cupped it in both of hers to warm it.
Sharing the warmth; sometimes that’s all that’s needed, I think. . . .
Skan wheeled sideways and left an opening for Zhaneel to stoop on the pursuing makaar. The one behind him, intent upon making the Black Gryphon into shredded flesh, was a nasty, mottled deep blue, with freshly-broken horns still bleeding from colliding with another of his misshapen brethren. Skandranon acted as the lure for Zhaneel’s stoops, flying against the thin clouds to show up better from the ground. The gryfalcon, high above, saw through the wispy clouds easily, and it was simplicity to time when she would fall upon the pursuing makaar.
On time, a cracking sound followed by a descending scream marked Zhaneel’s arrival behind him, and she shot past and under him at well over three times his speed. Skandranon’s eyes blazed with approval, as they did every time Zhaneel fought beside him. He went into his follow-up while she arced upward to retake her position of superior altitude, higher than any makaar could fly.
Beautiful! And it’s working. She’s unstoppable when she is in her element, and the new makaar are more fragile than the last breed. Two breeds since Kili . . . wonder if he’s still alive? Tchah, next group-
While the battle raged behind and below them, they managed to keep most of the makaar occupied so they wouldn’t harry the retreat. Retreat! Another one! And I warned Urtho to fortify and trap the valley to at least slow Ma’ar’s advance, but we ran too thin on time and resources. Now our troops are beating their way back from the latest rout, and the best the gryphons can do is keep the makaar busy dying. Granted, it’s fun, but all in all I’d rather be fat and happy in a warm tent, feeding Zhaneel tidbits of rabbit.
In broad daylight, the Black Gryphon wasn’t the most effective at stealthiness, so he and Zhaneel had worked out this particular style of combat on the way. It had turned into a predictable pattern by now, and the new makaar had apparently figured out that it took Zhaneel a certain amount of time to regain her aerial advantage. It was no longer quite so easy to kill makaar, but at least the makaar at this battle were down to manageable numbers. There couldn’t be more than thirty.
Another flight of makaar-four, this time, in a height-staggered diamond-closed on Skandranon sooner than the previous flights had. They were going to clash with him behind Zhaneel’s upward flight path, too soon for her to strike at them, but too close for Skan to make an effective stoop of his own. The result-they could chase Skan and exhaust him at their leisure, unless he slowed and fell to strike at them.
Either result reduces my chances of survival significantly, and I am not interested in that at all. Isn’t there something better you could be doing, stupid gryphon? Maybe eating. Or dancing. Dancing-
Ah! Now that is something the makaar wouldn’t expect. They’re counting on me speeding past them, or slowing-but if I pull up and stop, that might just break up their formation. Makaar without a formation are also known as scattered bodies. This may be fun again after all!
So, that hertasi backspin-pointe that Poidon had shown him before the Harvest festival could finally come to some use, if his back could stand up to the deceleration. Amberdrake’s Healing, coupled with Tamsin and Cinnabar’s periodic care, should have his tendons and muscles in good enough shape to handle it. Since he was a broadwing, cupping enough air to stop should not be a problem, but the speed was going to be a critical factor.
Zhaneel was about to clear the cloud layer on her upswing, but couldn’t know what was going on behind her. She’d be expecting Skandranon to be in the next quarterspan, and he wouldn’t be there on time; she’d stay on station until she located him. If he slowed his flight too much right now, the makaar could guess his intention and swarm him. And even if. . . .
You’ll talk yourself out of doing anything at all, while those four uglies are debating what sauce to put on your bones! Honestly, gryphon, you should know better. Urtho’s given you more than wings, you know. You have a brain to think with. That brain’s learned spells, you silly side of beef, and the makaar won’t be expecting that. Makaar only act on what they expect, remember? They’re expecting you to be dead, dead, dead, not the proud father of little gryphlets.
Basic dazzling should do the job, but that took a moment of time and repose-repose? Who told you that? It takes a moment of concentration, nothing more, you worrying lump. You can’t do it while you’re flying, but you can do it while you’re falling. Falling should be in your immediate future, if you can do the backspin-pointe. You only need one calm moment.
The makaar gained and shrieked at him, Skan recognized Kili in the lead, and that immediate future became now. Skandranon pointed his beak toward the clouds, and arched his body backward. The air rushing against his throat was nearly enough to stop the blood flow to his head, despite the cushioning effects of his feathers. Slowly and deliberately, in what seemed like years of constant effort, he changed the angle of attack of his broad wings until he kited upward. His forward speed was decreasing rapidly, and in this deadly game, speed and endurance were all that kept a flier alive.
To the makaar, it must have appeared at first that he was surrendering. The old maxim of trading speed for altitude held true as long as Skandranon kept his wings at a good angle of attack. He would be higher, but eventually he’d come to a stall and stop completely. Then, as his old enemy Kili surely knew, he would fall, and four makaar were sure to slice him open as he hurtled toward the unforgiving ground.
Zhaneel, if this doesn’t work, don’t tell anyone I did something this stupid, please?
The makaar screamed their glee as he slowed in midair, his arms and wings spread. Kili started to shriek a victory cry. He straightened his body in midair with one leg pulled close, the other at pointe. The Black Gryphon hung at the apogee of his climb for a moment.
A calm moment.
Just one calm moment. . . .
Zhaneel pumped her wings furiously, still game for the hunt but growing physically weary. The air was thin above the filmy layer of clouds that she and the Black Gryphon were using for cover, and her lungs had trouble supplying her body for long up here. Her claws hurt from hammering makaar, too.
But she was making a difference. Fighting beside the Black Gryphon was everything she had dreamed it could be, and more. They worked so well together, it seemed like nothing could go wrong-but she knew better than to believe such things. Ma’ar and his commanders were cunning, and each strike the gryphon pair made could be their last. That made the elation at every success all the sweeter.
They’d been devastating on the makaar so far today, but the knowledge that it was to cover a withdrawal weighed on her mind. It was one thing to be greeted as heroes for making a glorious advance; it was quite another to dodge the enemy as you ran for home. Things looked bad enough already by the time the army came boiling out of Ma’ar’s ground-Gate, rank after rank of identically uniformed humans with pole arms and bows. Urtho’s mage apparently hadn’t arrived in time to stop Ma’ar’s mage from opening the Gate, so the two gryphons took it upon themselves to disable Ma’ar’s man. Skandranon was unable to hit him until after the majority of Ma’ar’s ground troops had come through, and then the makaar had clouded like gnats.
That had resulted in one of Zhaneel’s proudest moments; the mighty Black Gryphon had gotten his foot caught in the camouflage net the mage had been hiding behind. He was tangled and could not free himself, anchored to the ground by the body of the mage which was also trapped in the downed net, and the mage’s men were advancing on Skandranon from the escarpment below. Zhaneel streaked in and cut the net away with her shears, then pushed the broken body of the mage, net and all, down the rocky slope to slow down the troops while Skan beat his way skyward. Just the kind of rescue she’d dreamed of!
And now, her beloved Black Gryphon was down below the clouds, waiting for her to strike again at the makaar that would inevitably be pursuing him. She lined up on where he should be, readied for her stoop, and peered through the thin clouds-and Skandranon wasn’t there! Her voice caught and she felt her throat going tight. This high up, her instinct to keen could strangle her, she realized with growing horror. The air was thinner, she couldn’t let herself keen-but where was he? She couldn’t help but cry out in worry!
But sure enough, there was no broadwinged black shape moving relentlessly under the haze of cloud that she could see. He should be right therel That’s where his momentum would have him, and he wasn’t therel She folded her wings and looped in a frantic search for him-
and then there was a flash of light below her. Her eyes darted to the location of the dazzling burst, and at the center of a diamond of four stunned makaar was a falling black mass.
Skandranon!
Zhaneel fell upon the helpless makaar, as unstoppable as lightning. No damned makaar were going to harm her beloved!
Skandranon opened his eyes to find a planet spiraling closer and closer to him at high speed. Given the other things he could have been seeing at the moment-his internal organs dotting the sky, for instance, or makaar claws in his face-seeing that he was only falling was quite a welcome sight.
There were no makaar below him or to the sides, so he followed another bit of personal philosophy-never look behind you, there may be an arrow gaining-and forced himself to stay stone-still so that gravity could work its magic on him. Another few seconds, and he should be moving quickly enough that his wings would do him some good. Then he would see what shape the makaar behind him were in, and he’d try to find Zhaneel somewhere.
She must be on station by now and looking for him, and he wouldn’t be where he was supposed to be. You’ve lasted this long, sky dancer, but will you survive what she’ll do to you after the worry you’ll cause her?
Before he could formulate a rebuttal to his own question, the air around him shook from a massive displacement-and a makaar wing entered his vision only a handsbreadth from his face!
Kili’s wing!
Skan desperately twisted sideways to bring his claws to bear on the enemy that was only a heartbeat away from disemboweling him. He lashed out with both foreclaws to latch onto the wing, intent upon taking the monster down with him-
and found Zhaneel screaming past him in triumph, her shears clutched tightly in her hands. She was followed a second later by a mist of dark, cold blood, another wing, and the dying body of the now-wingless makaar flight leader. Zhaneel arced back up to come beside Skandranon and laugh along with him as he dropped the lifeless makaar wing and resumed controlled flight.
Oh, gods above, I am in love.
The other three makaar, still bedazzled by Skandranon’s spell, scattered and took their remaining brethren along with them. No more makaar harried the retreat, and Ma’ar’s troops had already halted to assess their own losses.
Safe again, and there she was, flying beside him, every bit as confident and beautiful as Skandra-non’s wildest dreams.
Yes, Zhaneel, I am definitely in love. You are worth living for, no matter what comes. You are worth anything. . . .