Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  "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.

  Seven

  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 th
eir 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?