“Skandranon is fretting, but not to pieces, I think,” Zhaneel said, after a long pause during which she gazed out seaward. She might have been watching the fishing fleet; her eyes were certainly sharp enough to make out details in things that were only moving dots to Winterhart. “I hope that as he realizes the children are capable, he will fret less. Part of it is inaction. Part of it is that he wishes to do everything, and even when he was young, he could not do half of what he would like to do now.”
That observation surprised a faint chuckle out of Winterhart. “It is odd how our youthful abilities grow larger as we age, isn’t it?” she replied. “I am absolutely sure that I remember being able to work for two days and nights without a rest, and that I could ride like a Kaled’a’in and shoot like a highly-paid mercenary, as well as perform all my duties as a trondi’irn. I couldn’t, of course, but I remember doing so.”
“Even so,” Zhaneel agreed. “It will not be so bad with Skandranon as with Amberdrake; our children are male, and one is still left to us. Your little falcon was the only chick in the nest, and female. Men wish to protect their females; it is bred in the blood.”
“And as much as Amberdrake would deny it, he is more worried because Blade is female, you are right.” Winterhart stared out to sea, wondering how she could ever convince her spouse that their “delicate little girl” was as fragile as tempered steel. “Perhaps if I keep comparing her to Judeth?” she wondered aloud. “I don’t think Blade is doing it consciously, but I can see that she has been copying Judeth’s manner and mannerisms.”
“He admires and respects Judeth, and what is more, he has seen her in action; he knows that Judeth took special care in training your Blade, and perhaps he will take comfort from that,” Zhaneel observed, then tossed her head in a gryphonic shrug. “I can think of nothing else you could do. Now, what am I to do with Skan? Concentrate on Keenath, perhaps?”
“Could we get him involved in Keeth’s physical training?” Winterhart asked her. “I’m a bit out of my depth there—and you and Skan did invent obstacle-course training. I’ve started all the trondi’irn on working-under-fire training, but the Silvers’ gryphon-course is set up for combat, not field-treatment. It isn’t really appropriate, and I’m not sure how to adapt it.”
“Ye-esss. I believe that might do. It will give him action, and something to think about. Or at least more action besides climbing my back to give him exercise.” Zhaneel cocked her head to one side. “Now, what of Winterhart? And what of Zhaneel? What do we do to take our minds from our absent children?”
Winterhart shook her head. “You have me at a loss. I honestly don’t know. And I’ll probably wake up with nightmares every few days for the next six months. I suppose we should concentrate on our mates’ worries instead?”
“That will certainly give us something to do, and give them the job of dealing with how we comfort them.”
Zhaneel nodded, then turned, and reached out to touch Winterhart’s shoulder with a gentle talon. She smiled, and her eyes grew softer as she met Winterhart’s gaze. “And perhaps we can give each other the comfort of a sympathetic ear, now and again, sister-in-spirit.”
One small problem with finally being on duty. Rising at unholy hours. Tadrith sighed, but in-audibly; his partner sometimes seemed to have ears as sharp as a gryphon’s. As usual on this journey, Blade was up at the first hint of light. Tad heard her stirring around outside the tent they shared; building up the fire, puttering with breakfast, fetching water. She was delightfully fastidious about her person, bathing at night before she went to bed, and washing again in the morning. It would have been distinctly unpleasant to share a tent with anyone whose hygiene was faulty, especially now that they were away from the coast and into the wet forest. It was very humid here, and occasionally oppressively hot. Blade was not just being carried like living baggage; the basket shifted in every change of wind, and she had to shift her weight with it to keep it from throwing him off. This was work, hard work, and she was usually damp with sweat; by the time he landed for a rest, she was usually ready for one, too.
He, of course, was not burdened by the need to wash in order to get clean, and most humans expressed pleasure in a gryphon’s naturally spicy musky scent. He couldn’t fly with wet wings, and there usually wasn’t time to bathe before night fell when they stopped. He had decided to forgo anything but dust-baths until they arrived at their outpost. So he felt perfectly justified in lying in warm and sheltered comfort while she went through her bathing ritual and tended to the camp chores.
There wasn’t anything he could do to help her anyway. He couldn’t fetch water; raptoral beaks were not well suited to carrying bucket handles. He shouldn’t have anything to do with the campfire; gryphons were feathered and feathers were flammable.
He had done the larger share of work last night, when it came to chores. He had brought up enough wood to feed the fire until this morning, and provided part of his kill to feed them both at breakfast. He would take the tent down, just as he had put it up; the fast way of erecting it required magic, and although he was no match for his father in that area, he was a minor mage in simple object-moving spells. So he had done his share of the camp chores; this was not lazing about, it was the just reward of hard work.
He closed his eyes, and listened to water splashing and Blade swearing at how cold it was, and smiled. All was well.
Because they were already working so hard, he was bending a personal rule and using magic to hunt with. He used it to find a suitable animal, and to hold that animal in place once he found it. They couldn’t afford energy wasted in prolonged hunting, not now; he had to have the tent up, the wood in camp, and his kill made before dark. Back at White Gryphon, he could afford to be a “sportsman”; there were plenty of herd beasts and fish to feed the gryphons, and wild game was rightfully considered a delicacy. Once he arrived at Outpost Five, there would be time enough on each scouting patrol to hunt “properly.” But he would consume more food than they could carry on this trip, and that meant hunting with absolute efficiency, using every trick at his disposal.
Finally, the sounds of fat sizzling into the fire made him open his eyes and bestir himself again. That was breakfast, and although he personally preferred his meat raw, there were other things to eat besides meat. Though primarily carnivores, gryphons did enjoy other delicacies, and Blade had found some marvelous shelf-fungi last night when he had been bringing in wood. A quick test had proven them to be nonpoisonous, and a quick taste showed that they were delicious. They had saved half for breakfast, still attached to its log just in case detaching it might make it decay.
Fresh venison and fresh mushrooms. A good night’s sleep and a fine day of flying ahead of us. Life is good.
“If you don’t come out of there, sluggard,” Blade’s voice warned from beyond the canvas, “I’m going to have all of this for myself.”
“I was simply granting you privacy for your bath,” he replied with dignity, standing up and poking his beak out of the tent flap. “Unlike some other people I could mention, I am a gentleman, and a gentleman always allows a lady her privacy.”
Perhaps it was technically morning, but out there under the trees it was gloomy as deepest twilight. Blade was slicing bits of fungus into a pan greased with fat; he saw that she had already set aside half of the remainder for him. It sat on top of his deer-quarter, from which she had sliced her breakfast steak.
She had dressed for the heat and humidity, in a sleeveless tunic and trews of Haighlei weave— though not of Haighlei colors. The Haighlei were quick to exploit the new market that White Gryphon provided, weaving their cool, absorbent fabrics in beiges, grays, and lighter colors, as well as black and white. The people of k’Leshya could then ornament these fabrics to suit their own cultural preferences. The results varied as much as the root-culture of the wearer. Those of Kaled’a’in descent embroidered, belled, and beaded their garments in a riot of shades; those who had been adopted into the clan, those outsider
s who had ended up with k’Leshya and the gryphons, were usually more restrained in their garments. Blade, consciously or unconsciously, had chosen garments cut in the style of the Kaled’a’in, but in the colors of her mother’s people. In this case, she wore a subdued beige, with woven borders in cream and pale brown. As always, even though there was no one to see it, the Silver Gryphon badge glinted on her tunic.
Around them, but mostly above them, the birds and animals of this forest foraged for their own breakfasts. After three days of travel, they were finally into the territory that the Haighlei called a “rain forest,” and it was vastly different from any place he had ever visited before. The trees were huge, incredibly tall, rising like the bare columns of a sylvan temple for what seemed like hundreds of lengths until they finally spread their branches out to compete with each other for sun. And compete they did; the foliage was so thick and dense that the forest floor was perpetually shrouded in mysterious shadow. When they plunged down out of the sunlight and into the cover of the trees, it took some time for their eyes to adjust.
Despite that lack of direct sunlight, the undergrowth was surprisingly thick. As was to be expected, all kinds of fungi thrived, but there were bushes and even smaller plants growing in the thick leaf litter, and ropelike vines that wreathed the trees and climbed up into the light. Anywhere that a tree had fallen or the course of a stream cut a path through the trees, the undergrowth ran riot, with competition for the light so fierce that Blade swore she could actually see the plants growing larger as she watched them.
She was the team “expert” on plants, and half of the ones she had examined at their campsites were new to her. And they hadn’t even done any exploring; the only plants she saw were the ones she found in the course of setting up camp! Tad couldn’t even begin to imagine what she’d find when she began looking in earnest—and he began taking her up into the canopy.
He couldn’t identify half of the calls they heard from above them. He couldn’t even have told her if those hoots and whistles were coming from the throats of furred animals, birds, or reptiles. It was all just a further reminder of how little had been explored here. Now he understood why the Haighlei were so careful about what they did here; not only were there scores of completely unknown hazards in this forest, but careless handling of the woodlands could destroy a priceless medicinal herb or some other resource without ever knowing that it was there.
That’s all very well, he reminded himself, as he eased himself out of the tent and ambled over to fall on his breakfast with famished pleasure. But it is difficult to be philosophical on an empty stomach. Later, perhaps. . . . He devoted himself single-mindedly to his meal. This would be the light one; he would eat heavily when they camped and he could digest while resting. A full gryphon could not fly very well.
A hungry gryphon did not take long to finish a meal, and Tad was famished. He polished off the last of his kill in short order, saving the tasty fungus for last. While he ate, Blade put out the fire, buried their trash in the wet ashes so that it would decay properly, and packed up the gear they had taken out as well as everything inside the tent. Tadrith would leave the bones of his meal for the forest scavengers, who would no doubt be glad of the windfall. When they took off, the only signs that they had been here would be ephemeral; the firepit, the bones, and the pressed-down foliage where they had walked and set the tent. In two days, three at the most, the forest would begin to reclaim the site. In a month, it would be gone. Not even the bones would remain.
No vultures, not in a place like this. Probably rodents, or perhaps some type of swine or canine. He preened his talons fastidiously, and stropped his beak on the log that had played host to their fungi. Well, I believe it is time to do my part again.
He strode over to the tent, concentrated for a moment, then extended his power with a deft touch. He let the mage-energy reach for the trigger point of the tent-spell where it lay just under the center of the canvas roof. Obediently, the canvas tent folded in on itself, starting from the top. The sturdy, flexible poles, once holding the canvas rigidly in place, now became the slightly stiffened ropes they really were. Without a hand to aid it, the tent folded, and refolded, as if it was a living creature. Within a few moments, where the tent had been, a boxy package of canvas sat ready to be put in the basket.
Now, as it happened, in accordance with Aubri’s advice, the tent could be erected without magic, although new poles would have to be cut for it, since the rope supports obviously required magic to become “poles.” Clearly, this was a great deal easier, however. Once the spell was triggered, the supports, which were nothing more than magically-bespelled pieces of thick rope sewn into special channels along the seams of the tent, stiffened in a particular order, unfolding the tent and setting it up at the same time. Since the shape of the supports was dictated by the shape of the channel, it was possible to have a tent that did not require a center-pole or guy-ropes, and only needed to be staked down in seven places to keep it from blowing away in a wind.
Of course, if there had been no mage about to trigger the spell, the tent would have required a center-pole as well as corner-poles, and guy-ropes at each corner.
This was standard issue among the Silvers now. Tad could never have set the spell himself; that required the hand of a Master. But even an Apprentice could trigger it, so any expedition coming out of White Gryphon that would be camping always had at least one mage along.
The spell that made the tent collapse and fold itself up was a more complicated one, but again, it only needed an Apprentice to trigger and feed it. Tad could handle that sort of spell easily, and enjoyed doing so. Perhaps it was analogous to the way that a human felt when whittling or chip-carving wood. There was an odd, suffused warmth of satisfaction at having created something by use of a tool, which was a different sensation from the visceral feelings of hunting by claw or flying by wings. Perhaps it was the ability to affect things outside one’s own momentary grasp that made one feel civilized?
Tad picked up the neat bundle of canvas and rope and deposited it in the carry-basket. Blade was already stretching out and untangling the ropes of his harness. No matter how carefully they stowed the ropes the night before, in the morning they always seemed to have gotten tangled. How that could be was another of those mysteries he was certain he would never be able to solve. There were times when he suspected a supernatural explanation.
The harness had to be stowed out of reach of rodents or other creatures that might like to gnaw on leather—and it had to go somewhere where dampness would not get into it. There was only one place that answered that description, and that was the tent itself, so although the ceiling of their temporary dwelling was fairly high, enough of it was taken up with the harness resting in a net suspended from the corners of the roof that Blade could barely stand upright inside.
But if that minor discomfort meant that they could trust the harness not to have suffered damage in the night, it was a small price to pay. Both of them were agreed on that. “I’ll share my bed with it if necessary,” Blade had said firmly.
“I thought that sort of thing was your father’s specialty,” he’d jibed back, only to be flattened by a swung harness-girth. Apparently Blade was not amused!
Blade finally got the ropes sorted out; now she stood dangling the harness from one hand, beckoning with the other. It was time for Tadrith to go to work.
The harness took some time to get into, and Blade made certain that it was comfortable for him. This was not the token harness of soft deerskin every gryphon in the Silvers wore, displaying his or her badge, and carrying the pouch in which they kept small necessities. Every strap must fit snugly, but without chafing. Large feathers must be moved so that they lay on top of the leather, or they would be broken off. Tadrith could do none of this for himself; instead, he must stand as patiently as a donkey while Blade rigged him up.
The air warmed marginally, and now the usual morning fog began to wreathe among the trees. First, a few wisps for
med and wafted through the forest of columns, disappearing and reforming again, like the ghosts of floating snakes. Then the ropes and swaths of fog thickened and joined together, until Tad and Blade were surrounded on all sides by it. Then, lastly, it began to thicken, until they could not see the trunks of trees more than two or three gryphon-lengths away.
Up above, the sounds of birds, animals, and insects continued unabated. Down below, under the cover of the fog, animal sounds increased. Perhaps, now that they are concealed, they feel bold enough to call, Tad thought. Or perhaps they are calling to one another because they cannot see each other. It is an interesting question.
Neither the fog nor the heavy overcast that had shadowed them for the past two days had given them any great amount of trouble, but Tad felt a difference in the air today. Gryphons were supremely sensitive to changes in the weather, and he knew by the feeling behind his nares and the way his feathers felt against his skin that they were going to have a real storm today. Storms around here seemed to stretch for leagues, so there would be no moving out of its path unless they were very lucky. If he had been alone, he might have taken a chance and tried to climb above the clouds—but he dared not with the basket in tow. Unpredictable winds could catch it and send it and him tumbling; lightning could incinerate either him or Blade, or both, in a heartbeat.
No, if the storm threatened, they would have to go to ground quickly, before deadly updrafts or wind-shear caught them unaware. Then they would have to make a quick camp and get shelter before they were drenched. If the storm was over quickly and he was still dry, they could take to the air again to make a little more distance before nightfall; but if he was drenched, he would have to wait until his wings were dry, which would probably take all night.
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