The Mage Wars

by Mercedes Lackey

  Urtho turned pale, and Skan instantly regretted what he had blurted out. Urtho had never wedded, and had no children, and he considered all of his intelligent creations to be his children, but that was especially true of the gryphons.

  An awkward silence loomed between them for a moment, and Skan cursed his habit of blurting out the first thing he thought. Stupid bird; you might think before you say something, once in a while. It would be a distinct improvement.

  During the silence, the camp-sounds seemed particularly loud and intrusive: people shouting to one another, and somewhere nearby, the hammering of metal on metal. Skan continued eating, his hunger overcoming his manners, as he thought of a way to apologize.

  “I am sorry, Urtho,” he said, finally. “I am hungry, hurt, and a very irritable and stupid bird. Think of me as being in molt.”

  “You’re right, Skan,” Urtho said, finally. “You’re right. Despite what I just said, I sometimes don’t think of what Ma’ar is capable of. It stretches my imagination and willpower to think like Ma’ar, and it isn’t something I—enjoy.”

  Skandranon had no reply for that; perhaps there was no possible reply. He simply swallowed another beakful of meat.

  “Well, thanks to you, those new weapons of his will no longer threaten us,” the mage continued, changing the subject. “And what I really came here for, my friend, was to discover what you want as your reward. You more than deserve one. Offspring, perhaps? You certainly have a high potential, and any female in the wings would be happy to oblige you. I would like to see the Rashkae line continued.”

  The offer of the reward did not surprise Skan, but what Urtho had called him—“my friend”—certainly did. And yet, the simple words should not have been such a revelation. Urtho had spent many hours talking to him, not as commander to subordinate, nor as master to servant, nor even as creator to creation—but as equal to equal. Skandranon alone of the gryphons was privileged to come and go at will from Urtho’s Tower, and to interrupt the mage at any time of the day or night.

  “I will think about it,” Skan replied. “At the moment, I should be verrry glad merrrely to be healed and flying again.”

  Urtho nodded. “As you will. I’m sure you’ll think of something. Just please be mindful of our limited resources! And the impossibility of transporting massive libraries wherever you go!”

  Skan gryphon-grinned; Urtho had not forgotten his love of books. “I am sure I shall think of sssomething.”

  Urtho showed no disposition to rise and go his way, however, so Skan simply continued eating while the greatest single power in their entire army spoke of camp gossip. And it was in the midst of this that Commander Loren found them.

  No doors to knock on existed in a tent, of course, but the ostentatious clearing of a throat outside the closed flap told Skan that there was a visitor, and one whose voice he did not recognize. Skan instinctively bristled, all his reactions trying to force his body into readiness to protect Urtho, even though he was in no shape to do so.

  Urtho did recognize the voice, of course; it was one of those traits of his that Skan could only marvel at, that he knew every leader in his huge army well enough to recognize their voices. Urtho’s memory was remarkable and reputedly utterly reliable, so much so that forgetting even minor things upset him.

  “You might as well come in, Loren,” Urtho said immediately. “If it’s all that important that you tracked me down.”

  When Commander Loren pushed aside the tent-flap, Skandranon recognized the brick-like face and body, although he could not have put the proper name to the man. Loren was neither outstandingly good in deploying the gryphons assigned to him, nor outstandingly poor at it. Only one or the other would have made a gryphon take notice of him.

  So Loren’s first words made Skan raise his head from the remains of his meal in surprise.

  “I need you to reward a gryphon, Lord Urtho,” Loren said apologetically, “and I would never have troubled you when you had so obviously gone to the effort of losing your aides, except that I didn’t want this one to slip through the cracks.”

  “Obviously, this gryphon has done something exceptional…” Urtho paused significantly.

  “Very.” Loren’s beefy face reddened with pride. “She was on patrol in what was supposed to have been a safe sector, and discovered and eliminated three makaar.”

  Three makaar? Skan was impressed. “Who isss flying with herrr?” he asked. “I ssshould like to know who ssset them up for herrr.” Setting someone up for a triple kill took almost as much skill and more courage than actually making the kills.

  “That’s just it, Black Gryphon,” Loren said, face practically glowing. “She did it by herself. Alone. It was supposed to be a safe area; as thin as my patrols are spread, we thought it was reasonable to fly safe areas in singles instead of pairs, to give the younger or smaller gryphons experience without risking them too much. Her name is Zhaneel.”

  To destroy three makaar was remarkable; to destroy three at once was uncommon even among experienced frontliners. Who is this “Zhaneel?” he thought, beak agape with surprise. And why have I never heard of her before this?

  Urtho’s surprise was just as great as Skan’s, from the dumbfounded look on his face, and that was astonishing in itself. The gryphons were his favorite creations, and he knew and kept track of every promising youngster. Yet he did not appear to know of this one.

  “You mussst bring herrr herrre,” Skan said imperiously, before Urtho could speak.

  Loren looked to Urtho for permission first. When the mage nodded, he pushed back the tent-flap and stalked out into the sunset-reddened dust and activity of the camp.

  He returned much more quickly than Skan would have expected, though not too soon for the gryphon’s impatient nature. He had bolted the last of his meal and called the hertasi to come take the remains away and light the lamps before they arrived, partially to be able to devote all of his attention to the visitors, and partially out of a wish to be seen at his best, limited though that “best” might be at the moment. He hardly presented a gallant sight, swathed still in bandages, propped up by pillows, and without having had a proper bath in days. Still, Gesten had groomed him as best he could manage, and it did not do to be presented to a brave lady with the leavings of a greedy meal in front of him.

  You just want to look good for the lady, vain bird. As if you want to be sure that you could add her to your harem if you wanted, like a collector of figurines lusting after yet another little statue.

  Still, he didn’t want her to think that he was some kind of ragged-tailed hooligan. The gods only knew what she’d heard about him; Drake and Gesten wouldn’t repeat half of the stories they said they’d heard about him. But then again, he had only their word for the fact that they’d heard these stories at all…

  It was a good thing that this was a relatively large tent, made for two gryphons as patients and only holding Skan at the moment; once Commander Loren brought his young gryphon in, things became just a little crowded.

  “This is Zhaneel, my lords,” Loren said formally. “Lord Urtho, Skandranon, this is young Zhaneel, who today disposed of three makaar single-handedly.”

  While Urtho made the usual congratulatory speech, Skandranon kept very quiet and examined Zhaneel. She was small, and lightly built, with a deep keelbone but narrow chest. Her ear-tufts were compact and dainty, her feathers very smooth, and she had no neck-ruff at all. In color she was a light brown with a dusty-gold edge to her primaries; like most gryphons except the unassigned, her primary feathers had been bleached, then dipped in the colors of her wing—in this case, red and gold. On her head and face, she had malar-stripes of a slightly darker brown, and eye-markings flowing down her cheeks, like soft-edged tear-tracks.

  While Loren and Urtho spoke, she kept her head down and turned to the side, as if she was shy or embarrassed—the gryphonic equivalent of blushing. Was she simply shy, or was she truly uncomfortable in their presence? Most of the gryphons that Skan kn
ew might have been subdued in the presence of their overlord and creator, but they wouldn’t have acted like this.

  When Loren finally coaxed her to speak, her voice was low and soft, and she spoke in simple sentences with a great deal of hissing and trilling—and yet it was not because she was stupid. A stupid gryphon would not have been able to do what she had done. It was as if she simply could not get the words past her shyness.

  “It wasss nothing,” she insisted. “I only fly high, verrry high. Sssaferrr it isss. Makaarrr cannot fly ssso high. I sssee them, thrrree, below me.”

  Skan could readily picture it in his mind’s eye; especially if she was flying as high as he thought she was. Those tapering wings—surely with wings like those the aspect ratio would be remarkable, and the narrow leading edge would complement the long primaries. The makaar would have been halfway between her and the earth; she would have been invisible to them.

  “Too farrr to rrreturrrn to rrreport, it wasss,” she continued. “They would be gone when warrriorrrsss came. They mussst have been looking for sssomething. Sssent. They would have found it, and gone.”

  Now Skan nodded. “True,” he rumbled, and Zhaneel started at the sound of his voice. “Quite true. Your duty was to try to stop them.”

  Her hissing had made him conscious of his own speech; normally he only hissed and trilled when he was under stress or very, very relaxed, among friends. When he chose, he could speak as well as any human, and he chose to do so now. Perhaps it would comfort her.

  “But how did you kill them?” Urtho persisted.

  She ducked her head. “I wasss high. They could not sssee me. I ssstooped on them; hit the leader. Like thisss…”

  She held up one foreclaw, fisted.

  “I ssstruck hisss head; he fell from the sssky, and died.”

  No doubt; coming from the height Zhaneel had been at, she must have broken the leader’s neck on impact, and the ground finished him.

  “I followed him down; the othersss pursssued, but I climbed again, too fassst for them to follow.” She pantomimed with her foreclaw, and Skan saw then what he had not noticed before—a reason she may not have struck to slash, or bind to her quarry as he would have. Her talons were actually very short; her “toes” long and flexible, very like stubby human fingers. A slash would only have angered the makaar unless she had managed against all odds to slash the major artery in the neck.

  “I go high again, verrry high; the two follow, but cannot go ssso high. I turrrn, dive, hit the lead asss he fliesss to meet me.” She sat back on her hindquarters and mimed that meeting with both of her odd foreclaws; how the makaar struggled to gain height, how she had come at him head-on, angling her dive at the last possible moment to strike the top of his head with her closed fists.

  “He wasss ssstunned; he fell, brrroke hisss neck when he hit. I follow him down, to be sssure, then turrrn dive into climb again.” She would not look at any of the three of them, keeping her eyes fixed on some invisible point on the ground. “The thirrrd one, he isss afrraid now, he trrries to rrrun. I go high again, asss high asss I can, and dive. He isss fassst, but my dive isss fassster. I hit him. He fallsss.” She ducked her head. “It isss overrr. It isss nothing ssspecial.”

  Nothing special—except that these were tactics few, if any, gryphons had tried before. Spectacularly successful tactics, too, if Zhaneel’s experience was anything to go by. Most gryphons, when they fought makaar, closed for the kill, binding to the prey’s back and bringing it down, or slashing with talons in passing strikes. Hawk and eagle tactics, not falcon. Zhaneel had fought as would a very hungry—or very brave—falcon, when taking a goose or very large duck, prey that would outweigh her twofold or more: knocking the prey out of the sky, and not using her talons.

  “Zhaneel, your act of courage has probably saved any number of our people, and no few of your own kind,” Urtho said, as these thoughts passed through Skan’s mind. “I am quite impressed, and quite pleased that Commander Loren thought to bring you to my attention personally. At the very least, my dear child, I am going to present you with the reward you richly deserve.”

  With that, he reached into a pocket and pulled out one of the reward-tokens he used instead of medals or decorations. Urtho felt medals were fairly useless; he rewarded bravery directly.

  This particular token was the highest possible: a square of gold with a sword stamped on one side and a many-rayed sun-in-glory on the other. He slipped this into the tiny pouch Zhaneel wore around her neck, an accessory that most gryphons not on duty wore. She could trade that particular token for virtually anything in the camp, from a fine tent to the exclusive services for a month of her very own hertasi. Or she could save it and add it to others, to obtain other luxuries. Skan simply kept a running account with Gesten, whose services he shared with Amberdrake. Before he had left on this last mission, he had been quite a few months ahead, and Gesten would be a very wealthy hertasi when the war was over.

  “But child, I am curious,” Urtho continued, his eyes fixed on her, as Loren beamed his approval and the young gryphon stammered her thanks. “Who are your parents? Who trained you besides them?”

  “My parentsss arrre no morrre,” she replied. “They died when I wasss jussst fledged and I have no sssiblingsss.”

  Urtho’s disappointment was clear even to Skan; there would be no more like Zhaneel unless she mated. But before he could persist in finding out how she had been trained, since her parents had obviously been unable to give her that training, one of his aides burst into the tent without so much as an “excuse me.”

  “Lord Urtho! The counter-attack at Stelvi Pass—”

  That was all the boy needed to say; Urtho was off, following him at an undignified run that belied his silver hair, out into the lamplight, and from then into the darkness.

  This was not the first time Urtho had left Skan holding the line, and it probably would not be the last. Skandranon knew what to do, and summoning as much dignity and aplomb as his injuries permitted, he proceeded to deal with the situation.

  “Lord Commander, thank you for bringing Zhaneel here,” he said, raising his head and then bowing it slightly to Loren. “Once again, you have gone beyond mere duty, and if Urtho had not been forced to leave, he would have told you so himself.”

  He hoped that Loren would take that as a hint, and so he did. “Thank you, Black Gryphon,” he replied, then continued, with an honesty that was not necessarily common among the commanders, “It has taken me a while to learn the best way to employ fighters other than human, but I hope that Zhaneel’s success is a harbinger of more such victories to come. Now, if you will excuse me, news from Stelvi Pass is going to affect all of us, and I must go at once.”

  He turned to Zhaneel. “Scout Zhaneel, you are officially on reward-leave for the next two days. I will inform your wing-leader, and I hope you can enjoy your well-earned rest.”

  Loren turned and pushed aside the tent-flap, following Urtho into the night, though at a more dignified fast walk.

  Skan had hoped that the departure of the humans would relax the youngster, but she was clearly still terrified. It was a bit disconcerting. No one had ever been terrified of him before, not among those on Urtho’s side, least of all one of his own kind, and an attractive lady at that. He would have expected flirtatiousness, not fear.

  He fluffed his feathers and let his eyelids droop a little, hoping his posture of relaxation would make her relax in turn. A good theory, but unfortunately, it didn’t work.

  “Since Urtho has been called away, I must ask the rest of the questions he wanted to ask you,” Skan told her, in a very low, coaxing voice. “Believe me, it is not that we wish to make you uncomfortable, but we need to know these things to improve the training of the next batch of fledglings.”

  She bobbed her head stiffly, but gave no indication of relaxing. “It wasss no grrreat deed,” she insisted. “I did not clossse and fight prrroperly. No one can learrrn prrroperrr fighting frrrom thisss.”

&nb
sp; Skan had heard any number of “modest” protestations in his time, and had made a few of them himself, but this didn’t seem to be the kind of modesty that covered the very opposite. On the contrary, Zhaneel apparently believed what she was saying: that she had done nothing of note.

  “Not all gryphons are large and powerful enough to close with makaar,” he reminded her gently. “And for even those, it is not always wise to try, particularly when there is more than one of them. Who trained you to strike like a falcon?”

  “N-n-no one,” she stammered. “I did thisss becaussse I cannot fight like a prrroperrr grrryphon, becaussse I am too sssmall and weak to be a prrroperrr grrryphon.”

  Small, perhaps, but she was certainly not weak, and Skan would far rather have brains on his side than brawn. He’d seen too many muscle-bound specimens close with makaar, believing themselves invincible, and had to go to their rescue when they found out otherwise. Whoever, whatever her trainer was, Skan was just about ready to put the being on report. This little female had emerged from training that should have given her confidence in her own abilities, with a load of self-doubt. She would have been useless except for her own courage, determination, and sense of responsibility. It was also fairly obvious that this self-doubt carried right on down to how she felt about her physical appearance. She held herself as if she was certain there was nothing attractive about her—in fact, as if she thought she was a horrid freak.

  Didn’t he recall some of the fledglings in training baiting a smaller one a while ago, about a year or two? It could have been…

  Yes, he remembered now, as Zhaneel continued to protest that what she had done was less than nothing, unworthy of reward. Three or four, all nest-brothers by the look of them, surrounded the smaller one and had been name-calling and insulting the little one. The object of their taunting could have been Zhaneel; he only remembered that he had broken it up when the trainer did not appear to intervene, and that the youngster was small, awkward, adolescent. Considering the way she was trying to disappear into the tent-canvas now, it would not be surprising that—if it had been her—he did not remember her.