Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  All they saw was torn foliage, the slashed end of the rope hanging off the tree Drake had tied it to, splashes of red that weren’t likely flowers—and the empty shore. They watched, panting and slumping down against each other until the fog closed in, leaving them staring at blank whiteness.

  They were alone.

  It could not be much longer before whatever it was that had attacked them found a way to cross, unless it took a long time—to eat.

  For a moment, he felt stricken, numb, frozen with shock. But he had been in too many fights, and lost too many comrades, for this to paralyze him now.

  Mourn later, find safety now!

  Drake looked at him from beneath a mat of hair that had become a tangled, dripping mess, his clothing half torn from his body by the fight of last night, and a strange look of hope in his eyes. For one stark moment, Skan was afraid that he’d gone mad.

  “Blade—” he began hoarsely, then coughed, huge racking coughs that brought up half a lungful of river water. Skan balled his talons into fists and pounded his back until he stopped coughing and waved Skan off.

  “Blade—” he began again, his voice a ruin. He looked up and pointed north along the riverbank. “She’s that way. I can feel her. I swear it, Skan!”

  With one accord, they dragged themselves to their feet and stumbled northward over the slippery rocks and wet clay of the bank below the cliff face. North—where their children must be.

  Tad inspected the last of the traps with no real hope that he would find anything at this one that differed from all the rest. The first wyrsa they had killed had been the last; none of the traps worked a second time. In fact, the wyrsa seemed to take a fiendish delight in triggering the damned things and leaving them empty.

  So far, they had not dared the last one, another rockfall that he or Blade could trigger from inside the cave. He suspected, though, that it was only a matter of time before they did. On the other hand, they would not be able to disarm it without triggering it, so perhaps they were all even.

  As he had expected, this snare lay empty, too. He decided that the rope could be better used elsewhere, and salvaged it. It certainly would have been nice if this one had worked, though. His nerves were wearing thin, and he was afraid that the wyrsa might be able to drain mage-energy from him constantly now, since they were so close. He didn’t dare try shielding against them; shields were magical too, and they could surely be eaten like anything else magical.

  When they had first found the cave, he had thought that the noise of the river and the waterfall would cover the sounds anything approaching made, but over the past few days he had discovered to his surprise that he had been wrong. To a limited extent, he had actually gotten used to the steady roaring, and was able to pick out other noises beyond it.

  But the very last sound he had been expecting was the noise of someone — a two-legged someone — scrambling over the rocks at a speed designed to break his neck. And panting.

  Especially not coming toward him.

  Those were not wyrsa sounds, either, not unless the wyrsa had acquired a pair of hunting-boots and put them on!

  He had barely time to register and recognize the sounds before the makers of the noise burst through the fog right in his face. He hadn’t heard the second one, because he had been flying, and his wingbeats had not carried over the sound of the falls. Tadrith looked up to find his vision filled with the fierce, glorious silhouette of the Black Gryphon.

  “Father!” he, exclaimed, in mingled relief and shock. “Amberdrake — “

  “No time!” Skandranon panted, as Amberdrake scrabbled right past him without pausing. “Run! We’re being chased!”

  No need to ask what was chasing them. Skan landed heavily, then turned to stand at bay to guard Amberdrake’s retreat. Tad leaped up beside him, despite his handicap. Witjh two gryphons guarding the narrow trail, there wasn’t a chance in the world that the wyrsa would get past!

  But they certainly tried.

  The fog was as thick as curdled milk, and the wyrsa nothing more than shadows and slashing claws and fangs reaching for them through the curtain. But they couldn’t get more than two of their number up to face Skan and Tad at any one time, and without the whole pack able to attack together, their tactics were limited. They were fast, but Tad and Skan were retreating, step by careful step, and that generally got them out of range before a talon or a bite connected.

  Step by step. And watch it. Slip, and you end up under those claws. Thank Urtho for giving us four legs. They retreated all the way to the shelf of rock in front of the cave, and that was where their own reinforcements stepped in.

  “Duck!” came the familiar order, and this time when he and his father dropped to the ground, not only did rocks hurl over their heads, but a pair of daggers hummed past Tad’s ear like angry wasps. They both connected, too, and one was fatal. The wyrsa nearest the water got it in the throat, made a gurgle, and fell over, to be swept away by the rushing torrent. The second was lucky; he was only hit in the shoulder, but gave that familiar hiss-yelp, and vanished into the fog. Skan and Tad took advantage of the respite to turn their backs in turn and scramble into the cave itself.

  There they turned again, prepared for another onslaught, but the wyrsa had evidently had enough for one day.

  Tad sat down right where he was, breathing heavily, heart pounding; his father was less graceful and more tired than that, and dropped down into the sand as if he’d been shot himself, panting with his beak wide open.

  “I always knew those throwing-knives were going to come in handy some day,” Amberdrake observed.

  He looked nothing like the Amberdrake that Tad had known all his life. His long hair was a draggling, tangled, water-soaked mess; his clothing stained, torn, muddy, and also sodden. He wore a pack that was just as much of a mess, at least externally. At his waist was a belt holding one long knife, a pouch, and an odd sheath that held many smaller, flat knives, exactly of the kind that had just whizzed over Tad’s head.

  “Yes, but—you had to—learn how—to throw them—first,” Skan replied, panting. “You and your— bargains!”

  “They were a bargain!” Amberdrake said indignantly. “A dozen of them for the price of that one single fighting-knife that you wanted me to get!”

  “But you—knew how to—use the—fighting-knife!”

  Blade brought her father and Skan a skin of water each, and they drank thirstily. She looked from one to the other of them, and carefully assessed their condition. “I don’t think I’m going to ask where the rest of your group is,” she said quietly. “I’m pretty certain I already know.”

  A tiny oil lamp cast warm light down on Amberdrake and his patient. Blade sat at her father’s feet while he examined her shoulder, as Skan and Tad kept watch at the mouth of the cave. “You did a fine job on Tadrith’s wing,” Amberdrake murmured. “I only wish he had done as good a job on your shoulderblade.”

  Well, that certainly explained why it wouldn’t stop hurting. “You’re not going to have to rebreak it, are you?” she asked, trying not to wince. He patted her unhurt shoulder comfortingly, and it was amazing just how good that simple gesture felt.

  “Not hardly, since it was never set in the first place. Immobilized, yes, but not set. I’m astonished that you’ve managed as much as you have.” He placed the tips of his fingers delicately over the offending bone. “It’s possible that it was only cracked at first, and not broken, and that somewhere along the line you simply completed the break. Hold very still for a moment, and this will hurt.”

  She tried not to brace herself, since that would only make things worse. She felt his fingers tighten, sensed a snap, and literally saw stars for a moment, it hurt so much.

  When she could see again, she was still sitting upright, and he still had his hands on her shoulders, so she must have managed not to move. She sagged gratefully against the rock he was sitting on, and wiped tears from her eyes, weakly.

  “Now, stay still a moment more,�
� he urged. “I haven’t done this for a long time, and I’m rather out of practice.”

  She obeyed, and a moment later, felt the area above the break warming. The pain there vanished, all but a faint throbbing in time with her pulse.

  I’d forgotten he still has some Healing ability . . . not enough that he ever acts as a Healer anymore, but enough that he could in the war. In fact, he was first sent by his family off to train as a Healer, but his Empathic senses got in the way. In the war he was supposed to have been very good, even on gryphons.

  Amberdrake finally lifted his hands from her shoulder and sighed. “I’m sorry, dearheart, I can’t do as much as I’d like.”

  It was far more than she’d had any hope of before they arrived!

  “You did a great deal, Father, believe me. I hope you saved plenty of yourself for Tad,” she said. “Especially since you did specialize in gryphon-trauma during the war!”

  “I did,” he replied as she twisted around to look up at him. He combed his hair out of his eyes with one hand, and grimaced. “I’ll keep working on you two as I recuperate, too. But I never was as competent at Healing as I’d like, and accelerating bone growth—well, it’s hard, and I never did learn to do it well. Maybe if I’d gotten the right training when I was younger. . . .”

  “Then you’d have been a Healer, Lady Cinnabar would have been your lady and apprentice instead of Tamsin’s, and I wouldn’t be here,” she interrupted. “I love you just the way you are, Father. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  And suddenly she realized that she meant exactly that, probably for the first time since she had been a small child.

  She knew that he had needed to extend his empathic sense in order to Heal, and he still hadn’t barricaded himself; he felt that, and his eyes filled with tears.

  He wanted to hear that from me as much as I wanted his approval! she thought with astonishment.

  How could I have been so blind all this time? Thinking only the child could want approval from the parent—how stupid of me—the parent wants approval from the child just as much.

  “Blade—” he said. She didn’t let him finish. She reached up for him as he reached down for her, and they held each other while his tears fell on her cheeks and mingled with hers.

  It was he who pulled away first, not she; rubbing his nose inelegantly on the back of his hand as he sniffed, and managing a weak smile for her. “Well, aren’t we a pair of sentimental idiots,” he began.

  “No, you’re a pair of sensible idiots, if that isn’t contradictory,” Skandranon interrupted. “You two were overdue for that, if you ask me. And, if you don’t ask me, I’ll tell you anyway, and I am right, as usual. Drake, what can she do now, if anything?”

  “I’ve strengthened and knitted the bone a bit,” Amberdrake replied, looking at her although he answered Skan. “And I’ve done something about the pain. I wouldn’t engage in hand-to-hand, but you can certainly throw a spear, use a sling, or do some very limited swordplay. No shields, sorry; it won’t take that kind of strain.”

  “We don’t have any shields with us, so that hardly matters,” she replied dryly. “Nor bows, either; we had to concentrate on bringing things we could use.”

  “Well . . . I know how to make a throwing-stick and the spears to go with it, if you know how to use one,” Amberdrake admitted. “That should increase your range. There ought to be some wood in here straight enough for spears.”

  He knows how to make a weapon? She throttled down her surprise, and just nodded. “Yes to both—now let me go replace Tad at the front and you can work your will on him.”

  She almost said magic, but stopped herself just in time. Since the wyrsa hadn’t come calling when her father began his Healing, evidently they did not eat Healing-energy. Which was just as well, under the circumstances. Perhaps it was too localized, or too finely-tuned to be sucked in from afar.

  She stood up, hefted a spear in both hands, marveling at her new freedom from pain, and smiled with grim pleasure at the feel of a good weapon. Tad retreated to the back of the cave, and she took her place beside his father.

  “So, what exactly are those nightmares?” Skan asked. “Have you any idea?”

  She stared out into the rain — the rain had begun early, which meant that the fog had lifted early. That was to their advantage; with four enemies in the cave, she didn’t think that the wyrsa would venture an attack in broad daylight.

  “Tad thinks they’re some kind of wyrsa, maybe changed by the mage-storms,” she told him. “They’re about the size of a horse, and they’re black, and I suppose you already know that they eat magic.”

  “Only too well,” Skan groaned.

  “Well, to counter that advantage, they seem to have lost their poison fangs and claws,” she said. “I don’t think they’re going to try entrancing us again after the first time, but if they start weaving in and around each other, they can hypnotize you if you aren’t careful.”

  “The wyrsa I used to hunt were better at it than that,” Skan observed, watching the bushes across the river tremble. “So they’ve lost a couple of attributes and gained one. Could be worse. One touch of those claws, and you were in poor shape, and that was with the hound-sized ones. A horse-sized one would probably kill you just by scratching you lightly.”

  “I suppose that counts as good news, then.” She sighed. “I think this is a pack of youngsters led by one older female, probably their mother. We don’t know how many there are; two less than when they started, though. I don’t know if you saw it, but Father got one; Tad got one a couple of days ago, with a rockfall. The problem is, no trap works twice on them.”

  “Wyrsa, the size of a horse,” Skan muttered, and shook his head. “Terrible. I’d rather have makaar. I wonder what other pleasant surprises the mage-storms left out here for us to find?”

  She shrugged. “Right now, this is the only one that matters. It’s pretty obvious that the things breed, and breed true, so if we don’t get rid of them, one of these days they’ll come looking for more magic-meals closer to our home.” She turned her gaze on Skandranon for a moment. “And what did happen to your party, other than what I can guess?”

  Skandranon told her, as tersely as she could have wished. She hadn’t known any of the Silvers well, except Bern, who had been her tracking teacher, but it struck her that they had all acted with enormous stupidity and arrogance. Was it only because when they didn’t meet with any immediate trouble that they assumed there wasn’t anything to worry about?

  “Between you and me, my dear,” Skandranon said in an undertone, “I’m afraid the late Regin was an idiot. I suspect that he assumed that since you were a green graduate, probably hurt, and female to boot, you got into difficulties with what to him would have been minor opponents. He was wary at first, but when no armies and no renegade mages appeared, he started acting as if this was a training exercise.”

  She tried not to think too uncharitably of the dead Silver. “Well, we don’t have much experience, and it would be reasonable to think that we might have panicked and overreacted,” she said judiciously. “Still. I’d have thumped that Filix over the head and tied him up once I found the wreck and knew there was something that ate magic about. Why attract attention to yourself?”

  “Good question,” Skan replied. “I wish now I’d done just that.” His mournful expression filled in the rest; she could read his thoughts in his eyes. Or was that her empathic sense operating? If I had, they might still be alive. I should have pulled rank on them.

  She turned her attention back to the outside, for she felt distinctly uneasy having the Black Gryphon confess weakness, even tacitly, to her. And yet, she felt oddly proud. He would not have let her see that, if he were not treating her as an adult and an equal.

  “Well, what it all comes down to is this,” she said grimly. “No one is going to get us out of this except ourselves. We have no way to warn anyone, and what happened to you is entirely likely to happen to them, unless they’re smarter t
han Regin was.”

  “Oh, that goes without saying—the closest team to us is led by Ikala,” Skan said—rather slyly, she thought.

  And she clutched her hands on the shaft of the spear as her heart raced a little. Ikala—if I was going to be rescued by anyone. . . .

  She shook her head; this was not some fanciful Haighlei romance tale. “They’re still in danger, and we can’t warn them,” she repeated. “Remember, these damned things get smarter every time we do something! I think they may even get smarter every time they eat more magic. I doubt that they’re native, so Ikala won’t know about them. The best chance we all have to survive is if we four can eliminate these creatures before anyone else runs afoul of them. If they do get nastier every time they eat something, everyone out there could become victims. For all we know—if they share intelligence as Aubri said—they may share their power among each other as they die off. The fewer there are, the more powerful the individuals might become.”

  She was afraid that Skan might think she was an idiot for even thinking the four of them could take on the wyrsa pack, as ill-equipped as they were, but he nodded. “Are you listening to this, Drake?” he called back into the cave.

  “To every word, and I agree,” came the reply. “It’s insane, of course, to think that we can do that, but we’re used to handling insanely risky business, aren’t we, old bird?”

  “We are!” Skan had actually mustered up a grin.

  But Amberdrake wasn’t finished yet. “And what’s more, I’m afraid that trait runs in both families. Right, Tad?”

  A gusty sigh answered his question. “I’m afraid so,” the young gryphon replied with resignation. “Like father, like son.”

  Skan winked at her. “The basic point is, we have four excellent minds and four bodies to work on this. Well, between your broken bones and our aching ones, we probably have the equivalent of two healthy bodies, rather than four, but that’s not so bad! It could be worse!”