Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  “And build a beacon.” She squinted past the canvas up through the treetops, at the tiny patches of sky visible, now and again, winking through the greenery like bright white eyes. “A very smoky beacon. It’s going to take a lot of smoke to trickle up through that cover.”

  “It’s going to take two or three days before they know we’re missing,” he said aloud, just to make certain he had all of his reasoning straight. “We have a shelter, and we can make it better and stronger, just by using available wood and leaves. I saw what you did with that windbreak, and we could certainly add layers of ‘wall’ that way over the canvas and wicker. If you look at the fallen leaves, you’ll see that the ones you used dry up a lot like light leather; they’ll hold up as shelter material.”

  She nodded, although she made a face. “It won’t be easy, one-handed,” she warned. “And I’m still the only decent knot tier in this team. You can bite holes, I can tie cord through them, but it is still tedious.”

  “So we take it slowly. I can do quite a bit, I just have to be careful.” He paused for a moment, and went on. “We’re injured, but I’m still a full-grown gryphon, and there aren’t too many things that care to take on something my size, hurt or not.”

  “In that two or three days, whatever brought us down can find us, study us, and make its own plans,” she countered, falling easily into the role of opposition—just as he would, when she proposed a plan. “We have to assume we were attacked and plan accordingly to defend ourselves. This place isn’t exactly defensible.”

  He nodded; that was obvious enough. There was cover on all sides, and they didn’t have the means to clear it all away, not even by burning it down.

  Assuming they could. He wasn’t willing to place bets on anything. Chances were, if they tried, nothing would happen; after all, they had no way to take down trees with trunks big enough for two and three men to put their arms around. But there was always the chance that they would succeed “better” than they anticipated—and set fire to the whole forest, trapping themselves in an inferno. He had not forgotten that the green wood around the fire last night had certainly burned more efficiently than he had anticipated. No, setting fire to this place to get a defensible clearing was not a good idea.

  “We ought to be someplace where our beacon has a chance of being seen at night,” she went on. “I don’t think we made that big a hole in the tree cover when we went through it.”

  “We didn’t; I checked.” Too bad, but she was right. Half the use of the beacon was at night, but there wasn’t a chance that a night flyer would see a fire on the ground unless it was much larger than one that two people could build and tend alone.

  “The last problem is that there’s no source of water here,” she concluded, and held up her good hand. “I know we’ve had plenty of rain every afternoon ever since we entered this area, but we don’t dare count on that. So—we’re in an undistinguished spot with no landmarks, under the tree canopy, with nothing to put our backs against, and no source of water.”

  He grimaced. “When you put it that way, staying here doesn’t seem like much of an option.”

  “We only have to go far enough to find a stream or a pond,” she pointed out. “With luck, that might not be too far away. We’ll get our break in the cover, and our water source, and we can worry about making it defensible when we see what kind of territory we’re dealing with. But I think we ought to at least consider moving.”

  “Maybe,” he said, doubtfully, “but—”

  What he was going to reply was lost in the rumble of thunder overhead—and the spatter of rain on leaves.

  “—not today,” he breathed, as the rain came down again, as torrential as yesterday, but much earlier in the day.

  Blade swore and stuck her head out to get a good look at the rain—a little too far, as she managed to jiggle the canvas and wicker of their roof just enough to send a cascade of cold water down the back of her neck. She jerked back, and turned white with pain.

  The stream of oaths she uttered would have done a hardened trooper proud, but Tad didn’t say anything. The cold water was insult enough, but when she lurched back, she must have really jarred her bad shoulder.

  “I’ll get wood,” he offered hastily, and crawled slowly out of the shelter, trying not to disturb it any more.

  Getting soaked was infinitely preferable to staying beside Blade when several things had gone wrong at once. She was his partner and his best friend—but he knew her and her temper very, very well.

  And given the choice—I’d rather take a thunderstorm.

  Five

  “Wet gryphon,” Blade announced, wrinkling her nose, “is definitely not in the same aromatic category as a bouquet of lilies.”

  “Neither is medicine-slathered human,” Tad pointed out mildly. “I’ll dry—but in the morning, you’ll still be covered with that smelly soup.”

  Since he had just finished helping her wrap her limbs and torso in wet, brown bandages, he thought he had as much right to his observation as she had to hers.

  In fact, he had shaken as much off his feathers as he could before he got into the tent, and he was not wet anymore, just damp. “And it could be worse. You could be sharing this shelter with a wet kyree,” he added.

  She made a face. “I’ve been stuck in a small space with a wet kyree before, and you are a bundle of fragrant herbs, if not a bouquet of lilies, compared to that experience.”

  Supper for her had been one of the pieces of travel-bread, which she had gnawed on rather like a kyree with a bone. They had been unbelievably lucky; Blade had spotted a curious climbing beast venturing down out of the canopy to look them over, and she had gotten it with her sling. It made a respectable meal, especially since Tad hadn’t done much to exert himself and burn off breakfast.

  He had gone out to get more wood, searching for windfall and dragging it back to the camp. Then he had done the reverse, taking what wreckage they were both certain was utterly useless and dropping it on the other side of their brush-palisade where they wouldn’t always be falling over it.

  Blade had gone out in the late afternoon to chop some of the wood Tad had found, and bathe herself all over in the rain. He had been a gentleman and kept his eyes averted, even though she wasn’t his species. She was unusually body-shy for a Kaled’a’in—or perhaps it was simply that she guarded every bit of her privacy that she had any control over.

  At any rate, she had gathered up her courage and taken a cold rain bath, dashing back in under the shelter to huddle in a blanket afterward. She claimed that she felt much better, but he wondered how much of that was bravado, or wishful thinking. She was a human and not built for forceful—or bad—landings. Although the basket had given her some protection, he had no real idea how badly hurt she was in comparison with him. Nor was she likely to tell him if she was hurt deeper than the skin-obvious. To his growing worry, he suspected that her silence might hide her emotional wounds as well.

  After she was dry, she had asked his help with her bruise-medicines. There was no doubt of how effective they were; after the treatment yesterday, the bruises were fading, going from purple, dark blue, and black, to yellow, green and purple. While this was not the most attractive color-combination, it did indicate that she was healing faster than she would have without the treatments.

  He finished the last scrap of meat, and offered her the bones. “You could put these in the fire and roast them,” he said, as she hesitated. “Then you could eat the marrow. Marrow is rich in a lot of good things. This beast wasn’t bad; the marrow has to have more taste than that chunk of bread you’ve been chewing.”

  “Straw would have more taste,” she replied, and accepted the larger bones.

  “I can bite the bones open later, if they don’t split, and you can carve out the cooked marrow. We can use the long bone splinters as stakes. They might be useful,” Tad offered.

  Blade nodded, while trying unsuccessfully to stretch her arms. “You try and crunch up as much of t
hose smaller bones as you can; they’ll help your wing heal.” She buried the bones in the ashes and watched them carefully as he obeyed her instructions and snapped off bits of the smaller bones to swallow. She was right; every gryphon knew that it took bone to build bone.

  When one of the roasting bones split with an audible crack, she fished it quickly out of the fire. Scraping the soft, roasted marrow out of the bones with the tip of her knife, she spread it on her bread and ate it that way.

  “This is better. It’s almost good,” she said, around a mouthful. “Thanks, Tad.”

  “My pleasure,” he replied, pleased to see her mood slowly lifting. “Shall we set the same watches as last night?” He yawned hugely. “It’s always easier for me to sleep on a full stomach.”

  “It’s impossible to keep you awake when your belly’s full, you mean,” she retorted, but now she wore a ghost of a smile. “It’s the best plan we have.”

  His wing did hurt less, or at least he thought it did. Gryphon bones tended to knit very quickly, like the bones of the birds that they were modeled after. Just at the moment, he was grateful that this was so; he preferred not to think about the consequences if somehow Blade had set his wing badly. Not that his days of fancy aerobatics would be over, but having his wing-bones rebroken and reset would be very unpleasant.

  He peered up at the tree canopy, and as usual, saw nothing more than leaves. And rain, lots of it.

  “I’m afraid we’re in for another long rain like last night,” he said ruefully. “So much for putting out snares.”

  “We can’t have everything our way.” She shrugged. “So far, we’re doing all right. We could survive a week this way, with no problem—as long as nothing changes.”

  As long as nothing changes. Perhaps she had meant that to sound encouraging, but as he willed himself to sleep, he couldn’t feel any encouragement. Everything changes eventually. Only a fool would think otherwise. We might think we know what we’re doing, but it only takes one serious mistake out here and we’re dead. Even a minor mistake would mean that everything changes.

  The thought followed him down into his sleep, where it woke uneasy echoes among his dreams.

  He slept so lightly that Blade did not need to shake him awake. He roused to the sound of water dripping steadily from the leaves above, the crackling and popping of the fire, and the calls of insects and frogs. That was all. It was very nearly silent out there, and it was a silence that was unnerving.

  The forest that he knew fell silent in this way when a large and dangerous predator—such as a gryphon—was aprowl. He doubted that the denizens of this forest knew the two of them well enough to think that they were dangerous. That could only mean that something the local creatures knew was dangerous was out there.

  Somewhere.

  “Anything?” he whispered. She shook her head slightly without taking her eyes off the forest, and he noticed that she had banked the fire down so that it didn’t dazzle her eyes.

  He strained both eyes and ears, testing the night even as she did, and found nothing.

  “It isn’t that everything went quiet, it was that nothing much started making night-sounds after dark,” she whispered back. “I suppose we might have driven all the local animals off—”

  “Even the things that live up in the canopy? I doubt it,” he replied. “Why would anything up there be afraid of us?”

  She shrugged. “All I know is, I haven’t heard or seen anything, but I have that unsettling feeling that something is watching us. Somewhere.”

  And whatever it is, the local creatures don’t like it either. He had the same feeling, a crawling sensation at the back of his neck, and an itch in his talons. There were unfriendly eyes out there in the night, and Tad and Blade were at a disadvantage. It knew where they were and what they were. They had no idea what it was.

  But if it hadn’t attacked while he was asleep, hopefully it wouldn’t while Blade took her rest. “Get to sleep,” he told her. “If there’s anything out there except our imaginations, it isn’t likely to do anything now that I’m on watch. I look more formidable than you do, and I intend to reinforce that.”

  Under the packs holding Blade’s clothing were his fighting-claws. He picked up her packs with his beak and fished them out. The bright steel winked cruelly in the subdued firelight, and he made a great show of fitting them on. Once Blade had fastened the straps, he settled back in, but with a more watchful stance than the previous night.

  If there’s nothing out there, I’m going to feel awfully stupid in the morning, for putting on all this show.

  Well, better to feel stupid than be taken unaware by an attacker. Even if it was just an animal watching them, body language was something an animal could read very well. Hopefully, in the shiny claws and the alert stance, it would read the fact that attacking them would be a big mistake.

  Blade pulled blankets around herself as she had the night before, but he noticed that she had a fighting-knife near at hand and her crossdraw knife under her pillow.

  I just hope she can make herself sleep, he fretted a little. She’s going to be of no use if she’s exhausted in the morning. If there was the slightest chance of convincing her to drink it, I’d offer her a sleeping tea.

  He waited all night, but nothing happened. Drops of water continued to splat down out of the trees, and frogs and insects sang, although nothing else moved or made a sound. He began to wonder, toward dawn, if perhaps they had frightened away everything but the bugs and reptiles.

  It wasn’t likely, but it was possible. . . .

  By the time the forest began to lighten with the coming of dawn, every muscle in his body ached with tension. His eyes twitched and burned with fatigue, and he could hardly wait for Blade to wake up. But he wouldn’t awaken her himself. She needed her rest as much as he needed his.

  Finally, when dawn had given way to full daylight, she stirred and came awake, all at once.

  “Nothing,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “Except that nothing larger than a gamebird made a sound all night, either, near the camp.”

  Now he moved, removing the fighting-claws, getting stiffly to his feet, and prowling out into the rising fog. He wanted to see what he could before the fog moved in and made it impossible to see again, shrouding in whiteness what the night had shrouded in black.

  He was looking for foot- or paw-prints, places where the leaves had been pressed down by a body resting there for some time.

  This was the area of which he was most proud. He wasn’t just a good tracker, he was a great one. Blade was good, but he was a magnitude better than she.

  Why a gryphon, who spent his life furlongs above the ground, should prove to be such a natural tracker was a total mystery to him. If Skandranon had boasted a similar ability, no one had ever mentioned it. He only knew that he had been the best in his group, and that he had impressed the best of the Kaled’a’in scouts. That was no small feat, since it was said of them that they could follow the track of the wind.

  He suspected he would need every bit of that skill now.

  He worked his way outward from the brush-fence, and found nothing, not the least sign that there had been anything out in the darkness last night except his imagination. He worked his way out far enough that he was certain no one and nothing could have seen a bit of the camp. By this time, he was laughing at himself.

  I should have known better. Exhaustion, pain, and too many drugs. That’s a combination guaranteed to make a person think he’s being watched when he’s alone in his own aerie.

  He debated turning and going back to the camp; the fog was thickening with every moment, and he wouldn’t be able to see much anyway. In fact, he had turned in his tracks, mentally rehearsing how he was going to make fun of himself to Blade, when he happened to glance over to the side at the spot where he had left the wreckage he had hauled out of the camp yesterday.

  He froze in place, for that spot was not as he had left it. Nor did it look as if scavengers had s
imply been rummaging through it.

  Every bit of trash had been meticulously taken apart, examined, and set aside in a series of piles. Here were the impressions he had looked for in vain, the marks of something, several somethings, that had lain in the leaf mold and pawed over every bit of useless debris.

  His intuition, and Blade’s, had been correct. It had not been weariness, pain, and the medicines. There had been something out here last night, and before it had set to watch the camp it had been right here. Some of the larger pieces of wreckage were missing, and there were no drag marks to show where they had been taken. That meant that whatever had been here had lifted the pieces and carried them off rather than dragging them.

  And except for this one place, there was no trace of whatever had been here. The creature or creatures that had done this had eeled their way through the forest leaving nothing of themselves behind.

  This couldn’t be coincidence. It had to be the work of whatever had brought them crashing down out of the sky. Now their mysterious enemies, whatever they were, had spent the night studying him, Blade, and as much of the things belonging to them as had been left within their reach. They now had the advantage, for he and Blade knew nothing of them, not even if they ran on four legs, six, eight, two, or something else. All that he knew was that the creature—or creatures—they faced were intelligent enough to examine things minutely—and cunning enough to do so without clear detection.

  He turned and ran back to the camp, despite the added pain it brought him. It was not simple fear that galvanized him, it was abject terror, for nothing can be worse to a gryphon than an opponent who is completely unknown.

  As Tad spoke, Blade shivered, although the sun was high enough now that it had driven off the fog and replaced the cool damp with the usual heat and humidity. The pain, weariness, the drugs—all of them were taking their toll on her endurance. Her hands shook; her pale face told him that it wasn’t fear that was making her shake, it was strain. This just might be the event that broke her nerve.