Tremane nodded ruefully. "A good point, though it was an entertaining thought while it lasted. Well, that brings up the next decision; what shall we tell our newest Baron tomorrow about the Final Storm?"
"Hide, and finish your card games quickly?" one wag suggested. There was a general, strained laugh, and then the discussion moved into the serious channel of what to do in the immediate future. Eventually, late that night, precisely what should be told to the Baron and his entourage had been worked out; enough to make him understand the gravity of the situation, but not so much that he would panic. Panic would be bad for Peregryn and his people as well.
Over the course of the next couple of days, the Baron got his pick of surplused supplies, was given a review of troopers interested in resettling up north, and got his briefing and warnings about the Final Storm. He and his own advisers were philosophical about that last; there was nothing they could do to stop it, and they could only hope that the physical effects were limited to places with no human populations. During the first of the storms, caught both by the initial storm waves and the reflected waves from the Iftel Border, they had suffered more damage than anyone yet reporting in. "We have already had a half-dozen people unfortunate enough to be caught in one of the things we are calling 'change-circles,' and they were changed even as beasts are," Peregryn said, with a shrug of deeply felt helplessness. "The fortunate died."
"And the unfortunate lived," added one of his advisers grimly. "Though often, that was not long, when they made the mistake of approaching others for help. It wasn't always their bodies that changed, at least not outwardly."
Tremane exchanged a significant look with Darkwind. This was something he and his people had thought of at about the same time the potential for trouble occurred to the Allies. But while those in Valdemar had been concerned with prediction of where the change-circles would occur, and thus preventing people or large animals from being caught in one, the people in and around Shonar had planned on what to do when a human became a monster.
Until this moment, that had been nothing more than a possibility. Now they knew that there were transformed humans somewhere out there in the north, and it was time to put some of those plans into action in case the hapless victims trekked south. Tremane wrote something on a small slip of paper and passed it to a page to take to his clerks. The orders, already written out, would go into the troops' daily briefing. In essence, they were simple enough; Humans have been caught in the Storms and changed. If a boggle shows intelligence and no aggression, be wary—but leave it alone long enough for it to show its intentions.
There had been some debate on the subject, with a minority objecting to the mere idea of giving a boggle the chance to attack first, and a second minority wanting to make attempts to communicate with every boggle that even paused for a moment before attacking. Finally, to end the debating, Tremane had exercised his royal prerogatives and decreed the language of the order, which predictably did not entirely satisfy anyone, not even Tremane himself.
Darkwind had noticed, however, that Tremane had applied enough of the Imperial manner not to care if anyone was satisfied (including himself), so long as his decree did the job for which it was intended.
Neither of them could ever have guessed the immediate effect of that simple order.
Not more than two days after sending Baron Peregryn and his entourage and gift sledges off, during yet another ceremony of seisin—this time for the benefit of a very old Squire who had sent his informal pledge some time earlier, but who had not felt equal to taking the winter journey until now—they learned exactly why the signal-towers had said that something was coming down from Iftel.
No one there could have expected just what the somethings were.
Tremane had just added his blood to the soil that old Squire Mariwell had brought with him, when a great clamor arose up on the walls of the manor. Darkwind started and looked up automatically, although he wouldn't be able to see a thing through the stone walls and ceiling. With great presence of mind, Racky took the casket of earth from Tremane's hands, mixed the contents quickly, divided them and handed the old man his own casket back, while all about him, his elders were behaving skittishly, staring and muttering among themselves, hands on empty scabbards. Before Tremane could send to find out what the cause of all the ruckus was, and right after Racky pressed the casket of soil back into its owner's shaking hands, one of the King's bodyguards came bursting into the Great Hall, his face as white as the snow outside.
"Boggles over the castle!" he cried. "Oh, by the gods! Great, huge, flying boggles! So many they cover the sky! Oh, gods, help us..."
Elspeth held up her hand to shade her eyes, and squinted up at the dark shapes hovering in the brilliant blue sky above the courtyard. It was too soon yet to say just what these "boggles" looked like, other than the fact that they were winged, but there was something about those black V shapes and the way that they swooped and soared that looked tantalizingly familiar.
They remind me of Treyvan and Hydona, but they don't fly exactly the same way. Could they be gryphons? There've been rumors of gryphons in the north for years now...
"Remember your orders, men," Tremane called to the nervous sentries on the walls and towers above. "No shooting without provocation."
Pray they don't take simple swooping as provocation!
"There're exactly twenty-one of them," Darkwind said absently from her right, as he peered upward into a sky blindingly bright. He bit his lip and she sensed that he was thinking hard for a moment, then his eyes narrowed as if he had just made a decision. He extended his gloved hand to Vree, who transferred his perch from the shoulder to the gauntlet with that intensity of gaze that told Elspeth he was getting silent instructions from his bondmate.
A heartbeat later, Darkwind flung Vree upward, and the bondbird pumped his wings skyward, heading straight for those twenty-one mysterious Vs. "I'll know in a moment just—" He began, his eyes half closed.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed, the sound echoing across the otherwise silent courtyard and making just about everyone in Tremane's escort jump and stare at him as if they suspected he had gone mad. He brushed his snow-white hair back from his forehead, and pointed up at the "boggles," then at Vree, who had reversed his climb and was making a leisurely descent.
"Tell your men to put their weapons away, King Tremane," Darkwind called, holding out his gloved fist for the returning forestgyre. Vree flared his wings, ruffling Darkwind's hair, and landed as lightly as a bit of thistledown, settling his talons gently around the leather-covered wrist. "I suspect that's your delegation from Iftel up there, and if they can see half as well as my old friends Treyvan and Hydona can, they aren't about to land until there's no chance that they'll wind up becoming feathered pincushions."
:They are gryphons, then?: Elspeth asked, feeling a strange thrill of excitement. :Could these be more of the "missing Companies" from the days of the Mage Wars?:
:Could be; even with the distortion of looking through Vree's eyes, these gryphons don't look quite like the ones we've seen. Millennia of separation from the parent stock would do that, I suspect.: Darkwind continued to peer upward as the Imperial guards reluctantly put down their weapons at Tremane's shouted orders. :It's either that, or some unbelievably clever Adept managed to duplicate the gryphons we know, and I doubt that's possible.:
Whatever was or was not possible, it was soon obvious that Darkwind was right about the gryphons' eyesight. As soon as the last spear was grounded and the last arrow put back in its quiver, the hovering specks above descended with a speed that put Vree to shame, and made Elspeth recall what her mother's falconer had once said: "If you want to know what the fastest bird in the world is, ask the falconer who's just had his prize peregrine carried off by a stooping eagle."
Not only did the gryphons descend with breathtaking speed, they did so with artistry. They dropped in a modified stoop that followed a tightly spiraling path down into the relatively small courtyard, one af
ter the other in a precise formation, like beads on a string. As the first of them backwinged hard, kicking up a wind that drove debris all over the courtyard and made those who had not been prepared for the amount of air those huge wings could push shield their faces, Elspeth wanted to applaud the theatrical entrance. The huge creature landed on the cobbles of the court as lightly as Vree on Darkwind's glove, touching down with one outstretched hind-claw first, then settling neatly an eyeblink later, posed and poised with wings folded, like a guardian statue in the middle of the expanse of stone.
The next followed a moment after, and the next, until the remaining twenty were ranged in a deliberate double half-circle behind their leader, all in the same precise, regal posture.
As Darkwind had indicated, they did not look quite like the gryphons of k'Leshya. These creatures were heavier of beak, neck, and chest; like eagles, rather than stocky and broadwinged like hawks, or lean, large-eyed, and long-winged like falcons. In color they were quite unlike the gryphons of k'Leshya, who were as varied in color as the creatures they had been modeled after. These gryphons were a uniform dark brown from beak to tail, a color with some patterned shading in a lighter brown, but nothing nearly like the malar-stripes or masks of the falconiform gryphons, or the variegations of the hawk-gryphons, with their bright yellow beaks and claws. The effect was very impressive to someone who had never seen any two gryphons who looked precisely alike; as if someone had deliberately made up a wing of gryphons that matched in every way, like a matched set of horses in a parade group. They looked every bit as intelligent as Treyvan and Hydona, and their yellow eyes watched every move made by the humans before them with calculation and speculation. The heavier beaks made their faces look oddly proportioned, at least at first, but Elspeth found herself swiftly growing used to the new variation.
Each of them wore a harness and pack very similar to the ones the Kaled'a'in gryphons often wore, made of highly polished leather of a rich reddish brown, with polished brass fittings. The apparent leader also wore a neck-collar and chestpiece that looked as if it had been derived from armor some time in the far distant past. Now it served only to bear a device of three swords, hilts down, points up, with a single heraldic sun above the middle. Elspeth glanced at Darkwind, who shook his head slightly; whatever it signified, he didn't recognize the symbology.
The gryphons waited, motionless except for the rising and falling of their chests, watching for someone among the humans to make the first move. The Imperials and Hardornens, one and all, stared back at them, faces pale and limbs rooted to the spot. Elspeth thought of her first sight of gryphons, and couldn't blame them for not moving. Here were creatures, twenty-one of them, with sickles on their front and hind claws, and meat hooks twice the size of a man's head in the middle of their faces—she wouldn't have been eager to rush up and embrace them in the name of brotherhood either.
"I suppose it's up to us," Darkwind said, a touch of amusement in his voice. He stepped forward, Elspeth a scant pace behind him, Gwena following at Elspeth's side, until he stood in comfortable speaking range of the leader, who regarded him with the unwavering, scarcely blinking gaze of the raptor.
"Welcome to Shonar, capital of Leader Tremane of Hardorn, in the name of the Alliance," he said in careful Kaled'a'in. "I am Darkwind k'Sheyna, representative of the Clans of the Tayledras of the Pelagirs, the Shin'a'in of the Dhorisha Plains, and the Kaled'a'in of k'Leshya Vale and White Gryphon. This is Elspeth, daughter of Selenay, ruler of Valdemar, and Companion Gwena, representatives of the peoples of Valdemar, Rethwellan, and Karse. Behind me are Leader Tremane, of Hardorn, and his officials and advisers."
Elspeth knew only enough Kaled'a'in to follow what Darkwind was saying, she could not have hoped to make the same speech herself. Kaled'a'in was handicapped by not having a word for "king;" the closest was "leader" or "ruler," and it gave no sense of the size of what was ruled. Darkwind's three peoples freely borrowed whatever local term applied, but she suspected that he was afraid that the gryphons before him would have no idea what the Hardornen titles meant. The chief gryphon listened attentively and with great concentration, and waited for a moment after Darkwind had finished to see if he would add anything. When Darkwind said nothing more, but made a slight bow, the gryphon opened his beak. He replied in a clear enough voice, but his words were in a form of Kaled'a'in so drastically different from anything she knew that she could only recognize the origin and not what the envoy said. Now it was Darkwind's turn to listen, closely, and with immense concentration, brows knitted into an unconscious frown as he followed the carefully enunciated words. She did not venture to break his concentration by Mindspeaking to him.
:I don't suppose you're picking up anything from them, are you?: she asked Gwena, as Darkwind made a reply of which she only understood half the words, none of them in sequence. She guessed that he was elaborating on who was what, and to whom the gryphon needed to apply for reception of his delegation.
:Not a thing, they're shielded, and shielded hard,: came the helpful reply. :It would be useful to have an Empath with us at the moment, but I don't think there's anything other than a fairly reasonable level of anxiety in them at this point.:
In the gryphon's reply, Elspeth caught the word, "Hardorn," and Darkwind's face cleared. "It would be a great deal easier if you could speak in the language of Hardorn, sir," he replied in that tongue. "I fear that time has changed the language you speak from the one taught to me."
"A grrreat deal of time, young Brrrother-To-Hawksss," the gryphon rumbled, with evident amusement. "A verrry grrreat deal of time by anyone's measurrre. I am Tashiketh pral Skylshaen, envoy from the land you know as Iftel to the court of King Tremane, who we have been told has been chosen for his office by the land, as it was in the old days." He waved a huge taloned hand in an expansive gesture at the twenty gryphons poised behind him. "This is my wing. These are the representatives of the twenty hrradurr of Iftel, courageous and worthy of their offices, who each won the right to fly in my wing in the bahathyrrr."
The hrradurr were evidently subdivisions of Iftel—though what the bahathyrrr could be, Elspeth could not even begin to guess. She made a quick hand-gesture behind her back, hoping Tremane would take the hint and come up to be presented, but he was already moving before she gestured. With quick wits, he had already anticipated what was needed the moment that the gryphon began to speak in Hardornen.
He walked forward with grace that could only be trained into someone who began learning the peculiar "dance" of court movement at a very early age. When he reached Darkwind's side, he bowed his head in a slight acknowledgment to Tashiketh. The gryphon in his turn made a deep obeisance to the King, then carefully extracted a packet of folded papers from a pouch at the side of his harness and handed them to Darkwind who in turn gave them to Tremane.
"The land of Iftel sends greetings to Hardorn's new ruler, oh, Tremane, once of the House Imperial," the gryphon said, in his strangely accented Hardornen. "We have been sent by the Assembly of Peoples and He Who Made The Barrier to bear the greetings of our Assembly and our Peoples, and to offer you our personal assistance in current and future difficulties. We are," he added, with a lift of his head, "authorized to assist you in any way."
Elspeth could guess at the thoughts running through Tremane's head at the moment, though he gave no sign of them as he gravely thanked Ambassador for his greetings and his offer.
He can't take this offer seriously. Likeliest is either that Tashiketh is not aware of what he is actually promising, or that this is a polite custom of Iftel, a standard speech, and the offer is not meant to be anything more than an expression of polite esteem.
That, of course, was only logical. As welcome as the aid of a full wing of gryphons would be, how could an ambassadorial delegation be expected to perform any services that did not directly benefit their own land? And certainly there was no reason to believe that such a blank card had been given to King Tremane to fill in as he cared to. He could, conceivably,
ask them to do something too dangerous for his own men to try. If they were harmed, he would have to face the consequences, but it made no sense to think that Iftel would be willing to put its citizens in danger.
Of course, Darkwind and I and our entourage are perfectly willing to put ourselves in danger—and do—but that's because we aren't really just envoys, we're representatives of the Alliance and we're performing as Hardorn's military allies as well as our other duties. In a sense, we're a very small military unit as well as ambassadors.
The next thing that must be running through Tremane's head as he surveyed the half-circle of twenty-one very large gryphons, was where on earth was he going to put them?
He couldn't put them in the stable nor in one of the barracks, surely he must see that. The stable simply wasn't suitable, even if her Companion and Darkwind's dyheli Brytha were willing to put up with it, and the earth-sheltered barracks buildings would probably give creatures of the air great screaming fits of claustrophobia. She considered the gryphons, their size, and their probable needs. They would all fit in the Great Hall; could that drafty barn of a room be made habitable as well as elegant? Each of the several towers of the manor would probably hold four or five gryphons in each of the topmost rooms, which were mostly used as armories and weapon storage for the sentries that were posted there; would the gryphons consent to being split up? If they would, there was at least access to the air from the trapdoors in each of the tower roofs. Fortunately, thanks to the spacious barracks now available, and the fact that a large number of staff persons (mages, Healers, and other auxiliaries) now were housed in the city rather than in the manor itself, the overcrowding that had been making life so difficult in the early days here had been overcome. There was room in the manor for the gryphons, at least on a temporary basis. But from Tashiketh's speech, this was intended to be a permanent delegation, and they would need permanent housing.
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