The black gryphon

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I shall try,” she promised solemnly.

  “Good.” Amberdrake tossed the cloth into a pile of things for Gesten to clean up and sort, pulled the tent flap aside, and gestured to her to walk beside him. “Care to take a stroll with me? I have time, if you do.”

  But she shook her head, “I would like this, but truly, I must go. I have a mission to fly in the morning.” She glowed with pride. “A real mission, and not make work for a misborn.”

  His heart plummeted. It had been so easy to think of those exercises of hers as mere games, and to forget that they were intended to make her fit for combat. It had been possible to pretend that she would never go where so many others had been lost. “A long one?” he asked, trying not to show his apprehension. There was no more reason to be apprehensive about her than about any other gryphon. Less so, in fact, for the makaar could not anticipate her moves as they could those of a gryphon with conventional training. Wasn’t that what made Skan so successful, that the makaar couldn’t anticipate what he would do next?

  Nevertheless, a chill he knew only too well settled over him. That is what makes Skan so much of a target as well. Eliminate him, and you strike a terrible blow at the gryphons as a whole, for it makes them more predictable.

  Once again, someone he knew and cared for would be going away, making herself into a thing the enemy could strike at and-

  And this was a war, however he might like to forget the fact. It was Zhaneel’s responsibility to obey her orders, wherever they took her, a responsibility for which she had been bred and trained.

  And she was so pleased, so happy about this assignment; so very proud that she had been entrusted with it. How could he spoil it with his own fears and nerves?

  He couldn’t, of course. So, as always, he tried to ignore the way his insides knotted up around a ball of ice in the pit of his stomach, and smiled and praised her, as he had smiled and praised every fighter he had sent out to this war. And despite the anxiety he felt, he did mean every word.

  That was his duty, his responsibility. Give them confidence; relax them. Make them forget the past if they must, and remind them of what their reasons for fighting are. Show them that they have a life beyond the fighting, a life worth saving.

  “It is a high-flight mission,” Zhaneel continued, blissfully unaware of the way his heart ached, and the pain in his soul. “The place where Skandranon found those stick-things. I am to carry the thing that Urtho made, which undoes them, and fly a pattern while I make it work; the rest of Sixth Wing East is to rain them with smoke-boxes. Then the fighters come, under cover of the smoke.”

  So she would be above the general level of the fighting, presumably out of reach of any ground weapons. But makaar?

  They’ll have to fight their way through Sixth Wing to get to her, he reminded himself. She’s carrying one of Urtho’s magic boxes, which makes her nonexpendable. They’ll protect her.

  If they can. If the makaar don’t get through. If the magic really does work on those lightning-sticks.

  If, if, if. Who commanded this mission anyway? If it was General Shaiknam-then even carrying a precious magical artifact, Zhaneel was considered expendable by virtue of the fact that she was a gryphon.

  “Urtho planned this,” Zhaneel continued, thereby easing some of his unspoken fears. “He commands the mission, and General Sulma Farle is the field commander. And I am to carry the magic thing because I have true hands to make it work. If it is triggered too far away, it will not work, Urtho says.”

  “Then fly high and well, warrior,” Amberdrake told her, patting her shoulder with expertly simulated confidence. “I shall have fresh fish waiting for your return, and a victory feast.”

  Zhaneel’s tiny ear-tufts rose at that. “Fresh fish?” she said, clicking her beak in anticipation. “Truly?” She adored fresh fish-by which she meant, still alive-and liked it better when they wiggled as she swallowed them. Where she had acquired this particular taste, Amberdrake could not imagine; most gryphons preferred raw, red meat, and none but she liked their fish still living.

  Maybe there’s some osprey in her somewhere. Or there are some eagles that have a liking for fish. Or maybe it is only because it is Zhaneel. “Truly,” he promised. “A victory feast between friends, though I shall have my fish nicely cooked.”

  Zhaneel made a little hiss of distaste to tease him, but readily agreed to the celebration.

  What Amberdrake had not told her was that it was not going to be a victory dinner for two, but for four. Zhaneel, himself, Gesten-and Skandranon. Though he would not tell Skan either. This should be very amusing, at the very least, and with luck it would come off well.

  Now let her only survive this, he thought, as he saw her off to her roost for the night. Let her only survive this. . . .

  Zhaneel held the precious box between her fore-claws, although it was quite securely fastened to her elaborate harness by clips and straps so that it did not interfere with her flying in any way. Her orders from Urtho had been quite detailed and just as specific. She must come in very high, far above the rest of the Sixth Wing; she must then dive as steeply as she could, then level off at about treetop height, making a fast pass above the heads of Ma’ar’s troopers, and press the catch that opened the bottom of the box as she did so.

  A spy had confirmed that lightning-sticks had been distributed to the fighters. Urtho had told her before she left-Urtho himself!-that the thing in the box was something like a lantern, and its “light” would make the lightning-sticks useless as its rays fell on them. She would have to make several passes in order to be certain of getting most of the lightning-sticks, and each time he wanted her to come in from high above at great speed-hopefully so great that no one could train his weapons on her in time, and no makaar would be swift enough to follow. Like a peregrine falcon on a flock of ducks-or a merlin harassing pigeons.

  It would take several passes to be certain of most of the lightning-sticks, for the box was useless past a certain range. And even Urtho was not sure how many passes it would take to neutralize the bulk of them. It depended on how closely the troops had been packed together, and whether Ma’ar’s mages had put shielding on the sticks themselves, or those who carried them.

  It would likely be on the stick. Ma’ar would not care if the man survived, so long as the stick did.

  The box would work through a shield, Urtho was confident of that. He’d warned her not to use any spells if she had them, saying the box was simply a thing that negated the controlling force on magic. It would negate the shield as well as the stick’s power pent within. The trick was, he couldn’t anticipate the effect of two spells being negated at the same time. He had used the only example of the stick that they had in making certain the box worked at a reasonable distance. Zhaneel had seen the effect of that-not much. A little light, and that was all.

  But there were easily twenty types of shields, Urtho had said, and the troops could possibly be protected by a barrier-shield, a force deflector, a pain-bringer, or a concussion field-the complex interaction of three spells could not be anticipated without knowing what kind of shield Ma’ar would use.

  Whatever it is, I do not think it will affect us. Unless it unleashes winds. That could happen. I must anticipate that. Or great light that might blind us; I must think of that as well.

  They neared the target; Zhaneel signaled her flight and took herself high up above the clouds, so high that the other gryphons of her wing were scarcely more than ranks of dots below her, even to her keen eyes. Wisps of clouds passed between her and them. The sun overhead scorched her outstretched wings and back, but the wind bit bitterly against her nares, her underbelly, and her foreclaws.

  The precious box protected her chest from the wind, but the icy currents chilled her throat and her breath only warmed when it reached her lungs. Was she high enough? The air was very thin up here, and her lungs and wings burned with the effort of staying aloft.

  Soon enough, though, she would be a spear from th
e heavens. They neared their objective, Laisfaar at the Pass of Stelvi. Zhaneel had never seen the town when it had been in Urtho’s hands, but she had been told that the invaders had wrought terrible changes there.

  They bring terrible change wherever they go; why should here be any different?

  There had been gryphons here. Well, she knew well enough what Ma’ar’s forces did to gryphons. They had assuredly done such terrible things to her own parents. . . .

  Reason enough to hate the creatures below. Reason enough to wish that what she carried might do terrible things to them.

  It was time; she swept her wings back slowly.

  There! There was the Pass, and below it, Ma’ar’s troops, a moving blotch upon the land below her fellows of the wing. Black makaar labored up from their perches on the heights, a swarm of evil. They rose like biting flies to attack the oncoming forces, to pull the gryphons to the ground where the men there could capture them in cruel wire nets, and stab them with terrible, biting spears.

  The men below. Who have the lightning-sticks.

  She folded her wings, and dropped like a stone from heaven, foreclaws clutched around the precious weapon the Mage of Silence had entrusted to her.

  Faster, faster; the wind of her dive pressed against her as the earth rose up in her eyes, and it seemed as if the earth was trying to pull her down and swallow her. She narrowed her eyes and kept her wings pulled in tightly against her body, guiding herself with a tiny flick of a primary, a movement of the tail, even a single claw outstretched for a fraction of a heartbeat. The other gryphons could not spare an eye for her; she must watch out for them. She must avoid them as she lanced through the center of their formation; this would take timing of the most delicate kind, and the control of the best.

  But not for nothing had she danced her dance of speed and skill against the imaginary enemies of her obstacle course. Even as the makaar closed with the leaders, she shot arrow-swift straight past makaar and gryphon alike, unstoppable.

  The ground rushed at her.

  Now!

  Zhaneel arched her neck and fanned her wings open, feeling them vibrate as if the mountains themselves pushed her toward the ground as she strained. By treetop height she had changed her angle just enough to pull out of the dive, but she was still streaking almost as rapidly as her initial stooping dive. And her foreclaws tightened, opening the shutter on Urtho’s magic box, as she skimmed over the heads of the fighters-who were nothing but so many uptilted heads, and round, open mouths to her, passing below in a blur.

  Her course took her straight for the cliff, and she headed for it unswervingly. These fighters did not seem to have the magic sticks, but the ones between this lot and the cliff could-

  An explosion of-not light, but actual fire!-flashed up at her from below, startling her, causing her to veer and slow a trifle. What was that? Did Ma’ar have some new weapon to use against her?

  Taking no chances, she aborted the run, closing the shutter and shooting skyward again, opening her wings as she pumped furiously, laboring back up above the clouds to her position of superiority.

  Only then did she look down, to focus on the place where the fire had come from.

  The ground there was littered with blackened bodies, most of them still afire, and they did not move-while the troops around that area tried to flee.

  Slowly, the answer came to her. Ma’ar shielded these new weapons of his, just as we thought he might. And Urtho said he could not tell what canceling two such spells would do . . . perhaps the shield holds just enough that it contains the force of the lightning-stick and turns it into a fireball.

  Savage joy filled her heart as she realized the havoc she could wreak among her enemies, and she folded her wings again.

  This time they saw her coming; pointing, running, they tried to evade her. She knew what was in their minds. They thought that it was the box she carried that was the source of the attack on them, and not the properties of one of the weapons they themselves carried. Zhaneel quickly learned the range of the “light” as she purposefully pursued the fleeing men, rising into the sky only to descend again, leaving fire, death, and terror in her wake.

  Her heart pounded with lust and excitement; the blood sang in her veins. Makaar tried to stop her, but she was too swift for them. Either they fell by the wayside, or they got too close to her, and she sent them tumbling injured out of the sky, slashed by one of her wicked hindfeet, to be finished off by one of the other gryphons. When they tried to set an ambush for her, the others broke it up. When makaar tried to get above her, the cold and thin air drove them back down, gasping for breath.

  Again and again, she made her runs, as flashes of orange and blossoming flames traced her path on the ground, and her fellow gryphons pursued the makaar pursuing her. But finally, there were no more of those explosions, and the makaar turned tail and ran, their numbers depleted to less than half of those that had risen to fight off the gryphons.

  Zhaneel’s instincts screamed at her to pursue the makaar, but she remembered her orders, and fought the impulse, taking herself and her burden up into the clouds again, where the makaar could not go. Now was her moment of retreat, and the Sixth Wing’s moment of glory. It was time for the other gryphons to detach the canisters on the harnesses around their shoulders and drop them, creating a pall of choking smoke to confuse the enemy. The few mages below would be trying to negate the “magical attack” of Urtho’s box, not knowing it would simply negate any spell they threw at her. They would assume that the smoke was magical in nature as well, and waste precious time trying to destroy an “illusion” or cancel out a smoke-spell. By the time they realized that it was real smoke and called up winds to disperse it, it would be too late.

  She would not be there to see the result. Urtho’s orders were specific. When there are no more fighters carrying lightning-sticks, return home.

  Perhaps Skandranon might have ignored those orders to fight makaar, but as Zhaneel reached her altitude again, the elation and battle-lust drained away, leaving her only weary and ready to drop and perch at the first possible moment. Her wings ached; holding them tight and steady against her dives, over and over again, had taken a toll of her muscles that not even preparation and strengthening on the obstacle course had prepared her for. Her neck and back felt strained, and she longed for a high peak, where she could rest for just a moment. . . .

  No rest, not now. No telling who is watching, and one gryphon with a magic box is no match for Ma’ar or another Great Mage! And he will want you, little gryphon, for spoiling his lovely lightning-sticks and hurting his fighters. Fly fast, Zhaneel! If you are lucky, he will not track you!

  Now fear, which battle-heat had kept away for so long, set hard, cold claws into her, and gave her wings new strength. How far could Ma’ar scry? Would he know to look for one particular gryphon? Would he look high, or among the others? Would he look for one lone gryphon, retreating?

  No way to tell, Zhaneel. The only escape is to fly, fly, fly away, back to Urtho and his shields, his mages!

  Her wings pumped, her lungs labored, and she cast a look behind her.

  Smoke rose above the battlefield, thick and white, obscuring everything to the rear. Under the cover of that smoke, Urtho’s ground-fighters Gated in to retake Stelvi Pass.

  And behind her, below her, just above the level of the smoke, were little dots of brown and gold, blue-gray and white, moving in her direction. The gryphons of Sixth Wing, properly deployed, turning to follow her home, their job done as well.

  Ma’ar had more things to think about than one little gray gryphon, swiftly winging her way back to his enemy’s home. Urtho had sent enough troops to take Stelvi Pass without the devastating effect of the explosions Zhaneel had inadvertently set off. Now, the fighters of the Sixth would be encountering a demoralized and frightened enemy, as well as one confused by the smoke.

  Her fear ebbed, and she slowed to let her fellows catch up with her. Yes, Ma’ar had more than enough on his ha
nds at the moment; he would not waste scrying on her. Her task was over, but the reclaiming of Laisfaar had only begun. She and the others would learn the end of it with everyone else, and not until it was long over. But their chances were good, and the odds were with them to win this one.

  And at the moment, that is enough.

  Twelve

  Winterhart paused at the threshold of Amberdrake’s tent, squinting out into the sunlight. Amberdrake dropped his hand down onto her shoulder, in a gesture meant to convey comfort and support.

  “Remember,” he said. “Right now nothing that you or I will do can change the outcome of what’s happening with the Sixth. If you did everything in your power to get each and every gryphon ready for this, then you have contributed enough. And if you have prepared for the worst case you can imagine, then you are ready for their return. No one could expect any more than that; only the gods have the ability to do more.”

  “I know, I mean, my head knows, but-“ Winterhart began.

  “Then listen to your head, and stop thinking you have to be superhuman.” He patted her shoulder once, and then gave her a little nudge in the direction of the path to the gryphons’ landing field. “They’ll be coming back soon, I think.”

  “Right. And-thank you, Amberdrake. For the advice as well as the massage.” Winterhart smiled wanly, but it was a real smile, and one of the few he had seen on her face. It was a start, at any rate.

  She took herself off, and Amberdrake dropped the tent flap as soon as Winterhart was out of sight, sighed, and retreated to the comforting surroundings of his private quarters. Once there, he flung himself down on his bed, and performed the little mental exercises that allowed him to relax each and every muscle in his back and neck without benefit of a massage.

  Not that I wouldn’t love one, but I don’t have time to call in any favors right now. Not and still get my little “victory feast” together.

  He still had his share to do, though the bulk of that preparation had fallen, as always, on the capable shoulders of Gesten. They had raided Amberdrake’s hoard of tokens to prepare for this, but it had been Gesten who had done the truly impossible when it came to the feast itself. He had found a party of convalescing fighters willing and able to go hunting and fishing in exchange for those tokens, and now there was a prime raebuck waiting for Skan, a tub full of moon-trout for Zhaneel, and, most precious of all, a covey of fat young quail as appetizers before the main course. Amberdrake could not recall the last time he had seen a quail in the camp, and he had purloined one of them for his meal without a blush. And for Gesten, the hunters had picked a basket full of the succulent sponge-mushrooms that the hertasi prized so much. It would, indeed, be a feast, and a welcome change for all of them from camp-rations. Skan had assured him any number of times that different creatures tasted differently, even to a carnivore that did not cook or season its meals, and that he and every other gryphon grew as tired of the taste of herd beasts as any soldier grew of field rations.