Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

He told Urtho what the aide had told him, then traced out the planned maneuvers on the map. "You see?" he said, as Urtho's brow furrowed. "You see what that would do? Maybe we would provide a distraction for Ma'ar's troops, but there are better ways of supplying distraction than sacrificing half the Wings!"

  "I do see," Urtho replied, nodding thoughtfully. "I do see."

  "We don't want to make trouble, Urtho," Skan continued earnestly, taking a cautious step nearer, "but we don't want to be blackmailed into suicidal missions. Maybe that's not how it seemed to you, but that was how it felt to us." He raised his head a little higher. "You built our urges to reproduce as strongly as our will to eat and breathe, and used that to control us. We'd rather serve you out of loyalty than coercion."

  "I would rather have you out of loyalty," Urtho murmured, blinking rapidly once or twice. He coughed, hiding his face for just a moment, then looked up again. "And just how did you obtain this knowledge?" he asked. "I'm sure it was you—I can't think of another gryphon who would have tried, let alone succeeded."

  Skan gaped his beak wide in an insolent grin, hoping to charm Urtho into good humor. "That, Urtho, would be telling."

  Sixteen

  For one brief moment when Skandranon defied him, Urtho had been in a white-hot rage. How dared this creature, a thing that he had created, presume to dictate the terms of this war? How dared this same creature usurp the knowledge it had no right to, and was not intelligent enough to use properly?

  But that rage burned itself out as quickly as it came, for Urtho had lived too long to let his rage control his intellect. Intellect came to his rescue, with all of the answers to the questions of "how dared...." Skan dared because he was not a "creature"; he was a living, thinking, rightfully independent being, as were all the rest of the gryphons. They were precisely what he had hoped and planned for and had never thought they would become in his lifetime. They had the right to control their own destinies. Perhaps he was responsible for their form, but their spirits were their own. He was now the one who "had no right" to dictate anything to them—and in a blinding instant of insight he realized that he was incredibly lucky that they didn't harbor resentment against him for what he'd withheld from them. Instead, they were still loyal to him.

  They would have been perfectly within their rights to fly off as they threatened, he thought, as Skan laughed at the expression on his face. It's nothing short of a miracle that they didn't. Dear gods, we have been lucky....

  He didn't realize how lucky, until Skan told him just what Shaiknam had been planning. A quick survey of the topography of the area told him what it did not tell Skan; that Shaiknam had intended to launch an all-or-nothing glory-strike against the heavily-fortified valley. Such things succeeded brilliantly when they succeeded at all, but this particular battle-plan didn't have the chances of a snowflake in a frying pan of working. It was just another one of Shaiknam's insane attempts to pull off some maneuver that would have him hailed as a military genius and a hero.

  The only trouble was that military geniuses and heroes had sound reasoning behind their plans. Shaiknam, unfortunately, had only wild ideas.

  Urtho cursed the man silently as Skan pointed out all the ways that the gryphons would be cut down without being able to defend themselves. Shaiknam's father was such a brilliant strategist and commander. How had the man avoided learning even the simplest of strategies from him?

  Well, there was no hope for it; the only way to get rid of the man now would be to strip the Sixth of all nonhuman troops and mages on the excuse that all the other Commands were undermanned, and reassign the personnel elsewhere. Shaiknam could still be Commander of the Sixth, but he would only command foot-troops, all of them human. With no aerial support, and no mages, he would be forced into caution.

  That should keep him out of trouble, and his inept assistant, Garber, too.

  He growled a little when Skan refused to tell him who his co-conspirators had been, but it was a good bet that Lady Cinnabar was involved in this, right up to her aristocratic chin. And where you found Cinnabar, you found Tamsin, and probably Amberdrake. No doubt they got in when Cinnabar asked to "look at my records on the gryphons." I thought she was looking for a cure for belly ache! The kestra'chern must have gotten a client to make him a set of "keys" for mage-locks; that would account for how they'd gotten into the book.

  The wonder of it was that they had managed to penetrate past all the fireworks and folderol in order to find the real triggers for fertility.

  "How many of you know the spell?" he asked, as reluctant admiration set in.

  "All," Skan said, without so much as blinking an eye. "And it's not exactly a flashy spell, Urtho. It was simply good design. There was no point in holding the information back. Every gryphon outside this Tower knows the secret."

  He couldn't help it; he had to shake his head with pure admiration. "And you've kept this whole thing from me all this time! Unbelievable."

  "We had reason to keep it among ourselves," Skan replied. "Good reason. We didn't know how you would feel or act, and we didn't want you finding out before the time was right for me to tell you."

  "So you were the sacrificial goat, hmm?" Urtho eyed Skan dubiously. "I don't know; a sacrifice is supposed to be savory, not scrawny."

  Skan drew himself up in an exaggerated pose. "A sacrifice is supposed to be the best of the best. I believe I fill that description."

  His eyes twinkled as he watched Urtho from beneath his heavy lids, and his beak gaped in a broad grin when Urtho laughed aloud.

  "I submit to the inevitable, my friend," Urtho said, still laughing, as he slapped Skan on the shoulder. "I suppose I must consider this as your test of adulthood, as the Kaled'a'in give their youngsters. You gryphons are certainly not my children any longer—not anyone's children."

  Then he sobered. "I am glad that this has happened now, Skan. And I am glad that you are here. I need to pass along some grave news of my own, and this will probably be the best opportunity to do so."

  He called in the hertasi, who waited discreetly just on the other side of the door, and gave him swift instructions. "I wish you to summon General Shaiknam and take him to the Marble Office; once you have left him there, summon the commanders of the other forces to the Strategy Room."

  He turned back to Skan. "I am splitting the non-human manpower of the Sixth among all the other commanders—I have reason enough since all of them have been complaining that they are short-handed. That will leave Shaiknam in command of nothing but humans. Is there any commander that you think the gryphons of the Sixth would prefer to serve?"

  For once, he had caught the Black Gryphon by surprise; Skan's grin-gape turned into a jaw-dropped gape of surprise, and his eyes went blank for a moment. "Ah—ah—Judeth of the Fifth, I think."

  Urtho nodded, pleased with his choice. "Excellent. And she has had no real gryphon wings assigned to her forces until now, only those on loan from the Sixth or the Fourth. Consider it done." Urtho regarded Skan measuringly. "Still, the gryphons should have their own collective voice, even as the mages do. There are things that you know about yourselves that no human could. There should be one gryphon assigned to speak for all gryphons, so that things will not come to the pass they have with Shaiknam before I come to hear about it." He stabbed out a finger. "You. You, Skan. I hereby assign you to be the overall commander of all the gryphon wings and to speak for them directly to me."

  Skan's surprise turned to stupefaction. His head came up as if someone had poked him in the rear. "Me?" he squeaked—yes, squeaked, he sounded like a mouse. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Me? Why me? I am honored, Urtho, but—"

  Urtho waved his objections aside. "You've obviously thought about becoming the leader of the gryphons, or why else would you have read all my history books about the great leaders of the past? The others clearly think that you should have that position, or why else would they have sent you here to confront me over Shaiknam?"

  Is it unusually warm in here? S
kan felt his nares flushing, and he hung his head. "They didn't exactly pick me," he admitted. "They couldn't seem to do much besides panic and complain, so I... I took over. Nobody seemed to mind."

  "All the more reason to place you in charge, if you were the only one to take charge," Urtho said implacably. "How do you think I wound up in charge of this so-called army?"

  Skan ducked his head between his shoulder blades, his nares positively burning. "I'm not sure that's a fit comparison—"

  "Now, I have a few things to tell you," Urtho continued. "I don't know if you've been aware of it, but I've been sending groups of families and noncombatants into the west ever since we first thought we'd have to abandon the Tower." He turned back to the map and stood over it, brooding. "I didn't like having such a great concentration of folk here in the first place, and when I realized what chaos an evacuation would be, I liked it even less."

  Skan nodded with admiration. He hadn't realized that Urtho was moving people out in a systematic way. That in itself spoke for how cleverly the mage had arranged it all.

  "I've been posting the groups at the farthest edges of the territory we still hold, near enough to the permanent Gates there that they can still keep in touch with everyone here as if nothing had changed, but far enough so that if anything happens—" Urtho did not complete the sentence.

  "If anything happens, we have advance groups already in place," Skan said quickly. "An evacuation will be much easier that way. Faster, too. And if the fighters know their families are already safe, their minds will be on defense and retreat, rather than on worrying."

  "I don't want another Laisfaar," Urtho said, his head bent over the table, so that his face was hidden. "I don't want another Stelvi Pass."

  Skan had his own reasons to second that. The lost gryphons there sometimes visited him in dreams, haunting him....

  ... fly again, as Urtho wills....

  "Who will you pick for your second, Skan?" Urtho asked after a long silence, briskly changing the subject. "I assume it's going to be one of the experienced fighters. And—" he cast a quick glance out of the corner of his eye at Skan, who caught a sly twinkle there. "—I count Zhaneel as an experienced fighter."

  Skan coughed. "Well, it will be Zhaneel, of course, but because she has the respect of the others. Even gryphons who haven't trained on her course know how hard it is, and they admire her for all she's accomplished. But there's something else I'd like to ask you for as well."

  Urtho turned away from the table. "Oh?" he said, imbuing the single syllable with a multitude of flavorings.

  Once again, Skan's stomach and crop churned with anxiety, and his nares flushed. "I—ah—did a little exploring on that level of your Tower."

  "And?" Urtho's face and voice were carefully neutral.

  "I found the—the models."

  "How did you—" Urtho exclaimed, flushing for a moment with anger, but he quickly calmed. "Never mind. What—"

  Skan interrupted. "I met Kechara."

  Urtho stared at him blankly for a moment, then grew just a little pale. "I believe," he said carefully, "that I had better sit down. You must hate me."

  Skan shook his head as Urtho lowered himself into a chair, and if he was any judge of human reactions, the Mage had been profoundly shaken. "How could I hate you? The more time I spent with her, the more I realized that you had done the best you could for her. And once I had a few days to think about it, I believe I managed to puzzle out why you had her up there, instead of down with the rest of the gryphons. It wasn't just to protect her from being teased and getting her feelings hurt." He took a deep breath, and ventured everything on his guess. "It was because she's a very powerful Mindspeaker. Probably the most powerful you've ever seen."

  Urtho's eyes widened, and he caught his breath. "Did she Mindspeak at you?" he asked.

  Skan nodded, pleased that he had been clever enough to figure out the puzzle. "I realized that I had been getting a great deal more information from her than she had the words to tell me. That was when I remembered that she had hit me with a mind-blast just before she attacked me, and I figured out that she wasn't just telling me things with her voice, but with her mind as well."

  He told Urtho the tale from beginning to end, saving only that he had gotten into the chamber in the first place with Vikteren's mage-keys. "That's why she's in the Tower, in a room with such heavy shields, and why she creates the presence of a dozen gryphons when there's only her. And that's why Zhaneel and I would like to have her. We'll protect her from teasing and ridicule, and she can act as—oh—a kind of relay for groups of gryphons that may need to speak with each other. We have Mind-speakers, of course, but none as powerful as she is."

  "I see that you put a great deal of thought into this." Urtho mopped his forehead with a sleeve, as small beads of perspiration sprang up. "I must confess—that use for her had occurred to me. I was too softhearted to... well... misborn usually die young anyway, and I assumed that her nature would take care of the problems she represented for me. When she didn't die, though, I had to do something about her. She's as old as you are, Skan. She only seems younger because she's so childlike, and because her memory for things longer ago than a year is very poor. I knew that if anyone ever discovered her and her power, she'd be a target for our enemies. In the wrong hands, she could be a terrible weapon. I was afraid that I would have to go to war just to protect her, and I couldn't reconcile the safety and freedom of one misborn with compromising the safety of all those who depend on me. You see? That was why I hid her in the Tower and kept her existence secret. I simply could not protect her otherwise, and I would not risk a war over her."

  "Urtho, I hate to point this out, but we are in a war, and it isn't over Kechara," Skan retorted, with a little more sarcasm than he intended. "No one is going to get into this camp to steal her, and there isn't much point in keeping her mewed up anymore."

  Skandranon sat down across from Urtho. He was rather surprised to learn that Kechara was as old as he was; as Urtho said, the misborn generally did not live past their teens, much less grow to be as old as he. It was something of a tribute to Urtho's care that she had lived as long as she had.

  Urtho sighed. "You're right," he admitted reluctantly. "She deserves a little freedom anyway. But keep her here—if not in the Tower, then near it."

  "Of course." Skan nodded. "I should like to start moving the gryphon families out to where the other noncombatants are going, if you don't mind. All pairs with nestlings and fledglings, and all fledged still in training. I don't see any reason why they can't complete their training elsewhere." He thought for a moment. "I'll tell them that you are concerned that with all of us consolidated here, we make a very tempting target for some terrible weapon. You want to get us spread out, so we aren't quite so easy to get all at once."

  Urtho considered that as he studied the map. "What about here and here." He pointed to two valleys, easily defended, at the farthest range for a permanent Gate. "I can set two of the Gates for those places, and move not only gryphons, but Kaled'a'in and all the nonhumans who are not combatants there. Anyone who wants to visit them, can."

  "I have an even better idea," Skan suggested. "Set up a secondary Gate and put the gryphons out farther. Use the excuse that we are big eaters and need the territory. Send the Kaled'a'in to this valley in the south, and convalescents and volunteers there to the north. That gets them out from underfoot, and they can train your human youngsters while they're recovering."

  Urtho snapped his fingers. "Of course—and what's more, I'll have the ambulatory and the youngsters run foraging parties! Make them as self-sufficient as possible!"

  "Have them send the surplus here," Skan added, with growing enthusiasm. "It won't be much, but it will make them feel as if we need to have them out there. And a little fresh game now and then—"

  His mouth tingled at the very thought. Herd beasts have no real flavor. A good raebuck, though....

  "With hertasi in charge, Skan, I am not certain I
would be too ready to say that they 'won't send back much.' Hertasi are remarkable scavengers." Urtho's eyebrows quirked a little. "That's largely why I have them in charge of supply here. They find ways to make ten loaves feed a hundred fighters."

  But Skan noticed that Urtho was much more subdued than usual. Perhaps there is something he hasn't told me? Are things even worse than I thought?

  A light tap at the door prevented him from asking any further questions. Cautiously, Urtho's chief hertasi stuck his snout inside.

  "The commanders are here, Urtho," the lizard said quietly. Urtho glanced over at Skan and shrugged.

  "Let them in, Seri," he said. "They might as well hear it all at once."

  The commanders filed in, General Judeth last of all, impeccable and austere in her chosen colors of black and silver. They gathered around the table, and Skan saw one or two turn a little pale when they looked over the latest conquests of Ma'ar's forces.

  Didn't they know? Or does this mean something I can't guess at?

  "Gentlemen, ladies." Urtho nodded to the group. "I brought you here for several reasons. The first—General Farle is dead. Assassinated, as far as we can tell."

  A sharp intake of breath around the table told Skan that none of the commanders had heard the bad news yet.

  "I am afraid that under the circumstances, I must dismantle the Sixth as it has been known, and spread its nonhuman and magical resources among all of you. General Judeth." As Urtho spoke her name, the lady sat up straighter, and lost her look of shocked dismay. "At the specific request of the new commander of all the gryphon wings, I am assigning the wings that formerly belonged to the Sixth to you. I know that you will command them well."

  The General did not salute or snap to attention, but she gave the impression that she had. "I will do my best, sir," she replied simply.

  "The rest of you may decide among yourselves how to apportion up the rest of the Sixth's available manpower. General Shaiknam will command the human foot-soldiers, but all else will be available to you." Urtho nodded, and Skan saw with satisfaction that the commanders were already getting over their shock and thinking about the situation. "I am certain that you will not allow any kind of rivalry to interfere with the best possible deployment of that manpower. Now—I am certain you all know Skandranon, the Black Gryphon, either on sight or by reputation."