Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  Judeth’s idea, but it took some very clever stonecrafters to put her idea into solid form.

  At the edge were large constructions of wooden frames and pulleys that could lower huge amounts of material down to the first level of the city; that was how food was brought down from the farms up here. Those could be dismantled or destroyed in mere moments by a very few people. Nothing that was up here would be left to be used by an enemy if there ever was an attack.

  The farmers used to live in White Gryphon and travel up each day to tend their flocks and fields; now they didn’t bother with the trip. There was a second village up here on the rim, a village of farmhouses and barns, a few warehouses and workshops, and the pens where herds were brought during the few days of each year that the weather was too bad to keep the herds in the fields. If severe winter storms came from the sea instead of the landward side, the herds could be driven into the shelter of the forest, and those who were not sent to watch over them could take shelter within the rock walls of White Gryphon.

  The stockade and supply warehouse of the Silvers was up here as well. Space was too precious in the city for any to be wasted on bulk stores except in an emergency. And as for the stockade, most punishment involved physical labor in the fields with the proceeds going to pay back those who had been wronged. Since most crime in the city involved theft or minor damage, that was usually acceptable to the victims. There had been those—a few—who were more dangerous. Those were either imprisoned up here, under bindings, or—dealt with, out of the sight of the city. After Hadanelith, no one was ever exiled again. The possibility that another dangerous criminal might survive exile was too great to risk.

  Just outside the stockade was a landing platform. Sitting squarely in the middle of it was what appeared to be a large basket, about the size of a six-person expedition-tent. There was a complicated webbing of ropes attached to it, and standing nearby was Tadrith, with a hertasi helping him into a heavy leather harness. As usual, he was carrying on a running dialogue with his helper, trying to get his harness adjusted perfectly. She knew better than to interrupt; her life would depend on that harness and whether or not he was comfortable in it.

  This was the carry-basket that would take her and all their supplies to the Outpost. It looked far, far too heavy for Tadrith to fly with, and it was. Even the strongest of gryphons would not have been able to lift her alone in it unaided.

  But magic was working reliably enough these days, and there would be a mage somewhere around who had made certain that the basket and anything that might be in it would “weigh” nothing, with a reserve for changes in momentum and speed. He would essentially have made the basket into a variant of one of the Kaled’a’in floating-barges. Tadrith would not be “lifting” the basket, only guiding it.

  The spell was a complicated one that Blade couldn’t even begin to understand. Anything inside the basket—like herself—would still have its apparent weight. If that wasn’t the case, everything not tied down would be in danger of drifting off on a stiff breeze. But to Tad, although the basket had no up-and-down weight, it would still have a certain amount of side-to-side mass and momentum. He would not be lifting it, but he would have to exert some strength in pulling it, just as teams of dyheli and horses pulled the floating barges.

  Blade hurried up to check the supplies lashed down inside the basket. As Aubri had promised, the supply sergeant had taken care of everything she and Tad would need except for their own personal gear. Most of the supplies they had requisitioned—the ones for after they reached the outpost—had already been sent on via Gate. So only what they would need for the trip, what there had not been time to send by the Gate, and what she had brought with her would actually travel with them.

  That’s certainly going to relieve Tad.

  It had also relieved Tad when she told him that she was nothing like her father when it came to wardrobe. She could manage very simply, actually; but Aubri had once described Amberdrake’s floating-barge and if gryphons could have blanched, Tad would have, at the thought of having to help move all that mass of clothing, gear, and furniture.

  She tossed her two bags into the basket, and waited quietly beside the platform for the last of the adjustments to be made. The hertasi in charge was Gesten’s daughter Ghana; as thorough and meticulous as her father, she would not leave Tadrith’s side until they were both satisfied with the fit of every strap. Blade knew that every buckle would be checked and rechecked, every rivet and every ring subjected to the most exacting scrutiny. Ghana would leave nothing to chance, and there was no possible compromise with safety in her view.

  Finally, she stepped back. “It’ll do,” she said, in her hissing hertasi voice. “Try to bring the rig back in one piece.”

  Blade suppressed a laugh, for the remark was so like Gesten that it could have been he who was standing there. Like her father, Ghana would never admit to concern for the trainees she served, only to concern that the equipment return intact. But of course, it went without saying that if the equipment came back to the warehouse in pristine condition, the trainee would certainly have arrived at the landing platform in like shape.

  Tad waved her over, as Ghana began hooking up his harness to the basket itself. “We’re waiting for the parents, I presume?” he said casually.

  She sighed. “Much as I would like to simply slip away, if we leave without allowing them their fanfare, they may not let us come back.”

  “Or we may not want to,” he groaned, and flexed his claws restlessly. “Because when we did, they’d make our lives sheer misery with guilt.”

  She laughed, and patted him on the shoulder. “Parents always know how to pull your strings,” she advised him. “After all, they attached those strings in the first place.”

  “Do I hear someone borrowing my words?” The newcomer to the conversation was as elegant as Amberdrake in dress and demeanor, though far less flamboyant. Blade knew him too well to blush.

  “Of course, Uncle Snowstar,” she retorted. “You weren’t using them, so why shouldn’t I?”

  He chuckled at her impertinence; next to Skandranon, she was the only person likely to take that tone with him. It was not wise to risk the anger of an Adept-level mage as powerful as Snowstar, as others, even his own underlings, had found out to their sorrow.

  “I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with the basket-spells, Tadrith,” he said, turning to the young gryphon. “They are as tight as any I’ve ever set.”

  Blade had assumed her “adoptive uncle” had come to see them off, along with her parents; she was astonished to hear him say that he himself had placed the magics on their carry-basket that would make it possible to fly with it. “You set them, uncle?” she said, making no secret of her surprise. “Isn’t that—well—?”

  “Rather beneath me?” He laughed. “First of all, it is always a good idea for a mage to keep in practice on anything he might be asked to do, and secondly, if something were to fail, magically, on your basket—” He shrugged suggestively. “Suffice it to say, it was easier and safer to do the work myself, than have to explain to your parents why I let some ‘inferior mage’ do it.”

  Blade nodded ruefully. “Only too true,” she told him. She would have said more, but at that moment she caught the sound of familiar voices from below the edge of the cliff.

  At nearly the same moment, Tad pointed warningly with his beak at a trio of rapidly approaching gryphons, who could only be his parents and sibling.

  “All we need now are Judeth and Aubri to make this show complete,” Blade groaned, resigning herself to a long and complicated farewell that would shave precious time off the amount of daylight they could have used for traveling.

  “Is that a complaint or a request?”

  Commander Judeth stalked out of the door to the Silvers’ clifftop headquarters, but she was smiling rather than frowning. She was not Kaled’a’in; her hair, before it turned to snowy white, had been a dark blonde, and her eyes a clear gray-green. Neverthele
ss she had been one of Urtho’s generals who understood the value of her nonhuman troops and deployed them with care and consideration, and no one had been unhappy to find her among the k’Leshya when the last Gate came down. She had proved her worth over and over, both during their retreat from lands racked by mage-storms and at White Gryphon. With her partner Aubri, she had organized the first beginnings of the Silvers, and the Silvers in their turn bore the stamp of her personality. She alone of all of them wore anything like a uniform; a black tunic and trews modeled from the tattered originals of her old dress uniforms. The gryphon-badge stood out proudly against such an elegant background.

  She stopped just short of the platform and looked sardonically from Tad to Blade and back again. “Can I take it from that remark that you think I might be a hindrance to a timely departure?” she continued.

  Blade flushed, and the old woman allowed a hint of a smile to steal across her lips.

  “I assure you, Aubri and I came here solely to make certain that your loving relatives did not do any such thing,” she said crisply, and cleared her throat.

  “All right, troops!” she called out in a voice that had once commanded thousands, just as Amberdrake and Winterhart appeared at the end of the trail. “Let’s get up here and get your good-byes said and over with! This isn’t a holiday trip, this is a military departure! Move your rumps!”

  “Thank the gods,” Blade breathed, as her parents and Tad’s scrambled to obey. “We just might actually get out of here before noon!”

  “In a quarter-mark,” Judeth replied sternly. “Or every one of you will be on obstacle-course runs before midmorning.”

  Blade chuckled; not because Judeth wouldn’t make good on that promise—but because she would.

  What had promised to be a difficult departure was already looking better, even with emotionally-charged families approaching. After this, things could only start looking up.

  Three

  Skandranon continued to peer off into the blue, cloudless sky for a long time after Tadrith and Silverblade were out of even his extraordinary range of vision. Even after fooling himself several times that some speck or other was them, he gazed on, feeling his eyes gradually go out of focus as his thoughts wandered.

  He was torn now between pride and anxiety. Their takeoff had been a very good one by anyone’s standards; stylish, crisp, and professional. There had been no exhibitions of fancy flying, but not a single mistake in maneuvering either. With so many people watching, he would have been tempted to indulge in some theatrics, when he was Tad’s age.

  And the odds were fairly good that I could have pulled them off, too. But on the other hand, I did have my share of foul ups. With the rising sun in his eyes, though, it didn’t make any sense to keep staring off after them. He suppressed a sigh, and told his knotting stomach to behave itself; a gryphon’s bowels were irritable enough without encouraging cramps through worry.

  Well, they’re gone. My nestling really has fledged, gone past the brancher stage, and now—well, now he’s on his way to have his own adventures. Real adventures, not just high scores on the obstacle course. He’ll be making a name for himself now, just like I did.

  He dropped his eyes to meet Zhaneel’s, and saw the same pride and worry in her gaze that he felt. She wouldn’t show it in front of the boy and, in fact, had kept up a brave and cheerful front, but he knew this sudden departure had her upset.

  He tried to look completely confident for her, but it was a struggle that he wasn’t certain he had won. Adventures. Huh. Now that he wasn’t the one having the “adventures,” he wasn’t so sure whether or not looking for adventures was such a good idea. Was Tad ready? With the war, there had been no choice but to go and face the dangers—whether one was ready or not—but this wasn’t war, and it seemed to him that they could all afford to be more careful of their young.

  His wings twitched a little as the temptation to follow them rose before him. I could use some exercise. Lady Cinnabar is always telling me to get more flying time in. And if I happened to parallel their course—

  “You promised not to fly as the children’s wingman all the way to the outpost,” Zhaneel whispered, quietly enough that no one else could have overheard her. “Remember. You did promise.”

  Drat. He had. And she could read him like a child’s primer. He twitched his wings again, ostentatiously settling them. “I’m glad I’m not making that trip,” he said, not precisely as a reply, but to reassure her and to show her that he had heard her and he remembered his promise. Granted, she had caught him in a moment of extreme weakness and vulnerability last night when she extracted that promise, but that did not negate the fact that he had made the promise in the first place. If the Black Gryphon’s word to his mate wasn’t good, how could anyone trust him?

  Aubri sniffed derisively. “You couldn’t make that trip, old bird,” he retorted. “They’re a lot younger than you, and in better shape on top of that.”

  Skan bristled and started to retort, but paused for a moment to rethink his position. Aubri was not going to get him going this time. “Oh, in theory I could,” he replied, as mild as a well-bred matron. “You did, and I’m in better shape than you—what’s more, Tad’s towing that carry-basket, and that will slow him down to a pace even you could hold. But what would the point be? What would I have to prove? That I’m stupid enough to make a pointless journey to show I’m still the equal of a youngster? It would be a complete waste of time, and I don’t have enough time to waste.”

  Aubri looked surprised and chagrined that he hadn’t managed to egg Skan on to rash words or a rasher boast.

  Zhaneel cast him a look of gratitude which promised another interesting evening, and more than made up for the faint blow to his pride administered by Aubri’s taunts.

  Judeth had listened to the conversation with a wry half-smile, and now put her own opinion. “So, now the next generation goes off hunting adventures,” she said, combing her fingers through her hair, “while we stay home and see to it that when they come back, they won’t find anything much changed. Personally, I don’t envy them in the least.”

  “Nor I,” Skan said firmly. “Adventures always seemed to involve impact with the ground at a high rate of speed, and ended in a lot of pain. Maybe my memory is faulty sometimes, but I haven’t forgotten that part.”

  Amberdrake finally came out of his own reverie and sighed. “Your memory isn’t faulty, old bird. I remember picking quite a few pieces of broken foliage and not a few rocks out of your hide, and more than once.” He patted Skan’s shoulder. “I don’t know why you couldn’t have picked a gentler way of collecting souvenirs.”

  Skan winced, and Aubri grinned at his discomfiture. From the look in his eyes, Aubri was about to make another stab at puncturing Skan’s pride.

  But Aubri had reckoned without Winterhart, who had been listening just as intently to the conversation as Judeth had.

  “And I recall that rather than collecting souvenirs of enemy territory, Aubri specialized in attracting enemy fire,” she said, with a little smirk and a wink at Judeth that was so fast Aubri didn’t catch it. “In fact, he did it so often that his wing used to refer to getting hit by flamestrike as ‘being Aubri’ed.’ As in, ‘Well, I’ve been Aubri’ed out until my primaries grow back.’ Or, ‘Well, you certainly got Aubri’ed back there!’”

  Aubri met this piece of intelligence with his beak open in a gape. “They did not!” he gasped indignantly.

  Of course they didn’t. Skan, who had known every piece of gossip there was to know back then, would have heard of this long before Winterhart ever had. In fact, Winterhart would probably not have heard any such thing, since before she was Amberdrake’s lover, she had tended to treat the gryphons of her wing as little more than intelligent animals. Such an attitude was not likely to make anyone tell her anything.

  But Aubri’s reaction was so delightful that everyone fell in with the joke. For once, someone besides Skan was going to come in for a share of abuse
.

  Is it my birthday? Or has the Kaled’a’in Lady decided to bless me, however momentarily?

  Judeth rubbed the side of her nose with her finger. “I’m afraid they did,” she confirmed impishly, and then elaborated on it. “When I deployed your wing, they always liked to fly formation with you on the end since it just about guaranteed that no one else would get hit with lightning or mage-fire. Once or twice I heard them talking about ‘Old Charcoal,’ and I think they meant you.”

  Aubri’s beak worked, but nothing came out; the muscles of his throat were moving, too, but he didn’t even utter as much as a squeak.

  “It could have been worse,” Winterhart continued, delivering the final blow. “I did succeed in discouraging the nickname of ‘Fried Chicken.’”

  Aubri’s eyes widened; his head came up and his beak continued to move, but all he could manage to say was, “Well!” over and over. Since he sounded exactly like a highly-offended old matron, he only managed to cause the entire gathering to break up into laughter. And if the laughter was somewhat nervous, well, there were four nervous parents there who drastically needed the release of laughter.

  They laughed long enough to bring tears to the eyes of the humans and make Aubri’s nares flush bright red. Before Aubri managed to have an apoplectic fit, though, Winterhart confessed that she had made it all up. “Not that you didn’t deserve the nickname, after all the times you came back singed,” she added. “But no one ever suggested pinning it on you.”

  Aubri growled, his hackles still up. “They wouldn’t have dared,” was all he said, and Judeth led him off to ease his ruffled feelings and ruffled feathers.

  “I don’t think he liked being on the receiving end of the teasing,” Amberdrake remarked mildly.