The black gryphon

by Mercedes Lackey

  The bird imitated the sound of a cheering crowd with uncanny accuracy, Zhaneel saying that she was fine and would take care of herself, and the voice of Winterhart countermanding that, and ordering hertasi to be in readiness for injured gryphons coming in.

  Amberdrake very nearly cheered himself; he gave the little bird his reward of fruit and sent him off to rejoin his flock with such elation that he came close to giving the bird more fruit than it could carry away. He did kiss it, an endearment which the little clown accepted with a chortle, returning the caress with its mobile tongue.

  Zhaneel would be along after she made her longer report to Urtho in person, rested, and cleaned herself up a bit. Skan was due before she arrived; Amberdrake had decided to get the Black Gryphon settled first. Skan did not know that Zhaneel was the guest of honor at this feast; he thought it was simply a whim of Amberdrake’s.

  In a short time the camp was alive with rumors, a steady hum of conversation coming from everywhere. Amberdrake knew that Skan, if he had not been at the landing field, would surely be in the thick of things and have all the news by the time he arrived.

  Gesten arrived even before Skan, pulling a laden cart. Amberdrake raised an eyebrow at that; he was not particularly concerned with the cost in tokens, but where in a war camp had the hertasi found so much in the way of treats?

  Never mind. Better not to ask. There were always those who had hoards of rarities, and were willing to part with them for a price. And tokens for the kestra’chern were prized possessions. Eventually, in an irony that Amberdrake certainly appreciated, there was no doubt that a fair number of those tokens would find their way back to his coffers, anyway.

  “Skan’s on the way,” Gesten said, as Amber-drake hurried to give him a hand. “I’ve got some real goodies in here. Hope he appreciates ‘em.”

  “Save the best for Zhaneel, she deserves it,” Amberdrake told him with amusement.

  “Huh. Got a couple things for you, too, Drake. And don’t tell me you don’t need a treat, you’ve been wearing yourself out between that Winterhart, Zhaneel, and the Black Boy.” Gesten pushed the cart to the back wall of the “public” room, and opened it up. “Look here-fresh nut-bread, good cheese, an’ not that tasteless army stuff, a nice mess of vegetables, pastry, eels for Zhaneel, an’ heart for Skan. Couldn’t ask for better.”

  “I have to agree to that,” Amberdrake replied, a little dazed. “I don’t think I want to know where you got most of that.”

  “Legally,” the hertasi said, turning up his snout saucily. “So none of your lip.”

  “What about lip?” Skan said, pushing aside the tent flap. “Is Drake trying to give you excuses about why he can’t have a proper meal for a change?”

  “Oh, you know Drake,” the hertasi replied before Amberdrake could even say a word in his own defense. “If no one else has something, he doesn’t think he should have it either. Martyr, martyr, martyr.”

  “That is not true,” Amberdrake replied, going straight over to the cart and popping a bit of pastry into his mouth to prove Gesten wrong. “It is only that I do not think that I should take advantage of my position to indulge myself alone.”

  “Oh?” Skan chuckled. “And what do you call this?”

  “Indulging a client,” Amberdrake told him promptly. “You are one of my clients, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes-“

  “And you have been undergoing a prolonged and painful convalescence, haven’t you?”

  “Well, yes-“

  “And you do deserve a bit of indulgence, don’t you?”

  Skan coughed. “Well, I happen to-“

  “There, you see?” Amberdrake turned to Gesten in triumph. “Moral indulgence!”

  “My eye,” the hertasi replied, chuckling, and began taking things out of the cart. Skan eyed the heart appreciatively and moved a little nearer.

  “Away from that, you!” Gesten slapped his beak. “That’s your dessert. And stop drooling.”

  “I wasn’t drooling!” Skan replied with indignation. “I never drool!”

  It was on the tip of Amberdrake’s tongue to say, “not even over Zhaneel?” but that would spoil the surprise. So he winked at Gesten, and gave the hertasi a hand in unloading the gloriously laden cart, while Skan stood by and made helpful comments.

  “I hope you weren’t planning on eating right away,” Amberdrake said, as Skan settled down on his pile of pillows. “This is a little early for me, and I’d rather appreciate good food with a good appetite.”

  “Oh, I can wait,” the Black Gryphon replied lazily. “Besides, by now everyone knows about the operation at Stelvi and I expect you want to hear how the Sixth did.”

  “I’m sure you’d tell us even if we didn’t care,” Gesten sniped. “But since we do care, you might as well give us the benefit of your superior oration.” Skandranon pretended to be offended for just a moment, then tossed a pillow at him, which Gesten ducked expertly. “You cannot spoil my mood, I am feeling far too pleased. The Sixth has retaken the Pass. The messages are in from the mages, and the town is back in our hands.” He continued at length, with as much detail as Amberdrake could have wished for, then concluded, “But I have saved the best for last.” His eyes gleamed with malicious enjoyment. “General Shaiknam and Commander Garber have been placed on ‘detached duty for medical reasons,’ and General Farle has been given the Sixth Wing as a reward for successfully commanding them in this operation-and for, I quote, ‘appropriate and strategic use of the air forces’ end quote.”

  “Meaning the gryphons,” Amberdrake said with pleasure. “Including Zhaneel.”

  It was not his imagination; Skan’s nostrils flared at the sound of her name, and his nares flushed a deep scarlet.

  He was going to probe a little further, but a shadow fell upon the closed flap of the tent. “Ah, here is our fourth guest,” he said instead, and rose and went to the door of the tent himself. “Lovely lady,” he said, bowing and gesturing for Zhaneel to come in, “you brighten our company with your presence.”

  Zhaneel was looking very lovely, if rather tired; Winterhart must have helped her with her grooming. But then, since Zhaneel had been ordered to report directly to Urtho before she came here, the Trondi’irn would have taken pains to make her look especially good, at least to human eyes.

  From the stunned expression on Skan’s face, she looked especially good to gryphon eyes as well.

  She stepped inside, and only then did she see who was waiting there. She froze in place, and Amberdrake put one hand on her shoulder to keep her from fleeing.

  “You know Gesten, of course,” he said quickly, “and this, as you know, is Skandranon-I do not believe you have actually been introduced, but as I recall, he gave you some good advice on the disposition of a valor-token.”

  Amberdrake had no difficulty in reading Skan’s eyes. I’ll get you for this one, Drake. Well, this was fair return for the false impression that Skan had given poor little Zhaneel-however well the whole affair had turned out, he owed Skan for that one.

  “I took the liberty of adding him to your victory dinner, Zhaneel,” he added. “I didn’t think you would mind.”

  “No,” she replied faintly. “Of course not.”

  But to her credit, she did not bolt, she did not become tongue-tied-in fact, she recovered her poise in a much shorter time than he would have thought. She blinked once or twice, then moved forward into the room, and took her place on the pile of pillows that Amberdrake pointed out to her.

  Skan recovered some, but by no means all, of his aplomb. As the dinner progressed, he was much quieter than usual, leaving most of the conversation to Amberdrake and Gesten. Zhaneel managed to seem friendly toward Skan, and full of admiration, but not particularly overwhelmed by him, an attitude that clearly took him rather aback.

  As darkness fell, and Gesten got up to light the lamps, she seemed to relax quite a bit. Of course, these were familiar surroundings to her by now, and perhaps that helped put her at ease.
Before the dinner was over, Skan did manage to ask if she would accept him into one of her training classes, subject, of course, to Amberdrake’s approval-

  “He’s my Healer, you know,” Skan added hastily. “Best gryphon-Healer there is.”

  He fell silent then, as Amberdrake grinned. “Why, thank you, Skan,” the kestra’chern replied. “I personally think you’re more than overdue for some retraining, if Zhaneel is willing to accept someone who’s as likely to give her arguments as not.”

  “I should be pleased,” she said with dignity, as her eyes caught the light of the lamps. “Skandranon is wise enough to know that one does not argue with the trainer on the field, I think.”

  Her nares were flushed, but in the dim light of the tent, only Amberdrake was near enough to notice. “Did you know that General Farle is being given command of the Sixth?” he asked, changing the subject. “Skan brought us the news.”

  “No!” she exclaimed, with delight and pleasure. “But that is excellent! Most excellent indeed! He is a good commander; most went according to plan, there were no missed commands, and when things happened outside of the plan, General Farle had an answer for them.”

  “That leaves Shaiknam and Garber at loose ends, though,” Gesten put in, his voice full of concern. “I don’t know, I just don’t like thinking of those two with nothing to do but think about how they’ve been wronged.”

  “But they haven’t been,” Skandranon protested. “They retain their rank, they retain all their privileges; they simply do not have a command anymore.”

  “Which means they have no power,” Gesten countered. “They have no prestige. They messed up, and everyone knows it. They’ve been shamed, they’ve lost face. That’s a dangerous mood for a man like Shaiknam to be in.”

  Amberdrake only shrugged. “Dangerous if he still had any power, or any kind of following-but he doesn’t, and thinking of him is spoiling my appetite. General Shaiknam will descend to his deserved obscurity with or without us, so let’s forget him.”

  “I second that motion,” Skan rumbled, and applied himself to his coveted heart, as Zhaneel ate her eels.

  And yet, somehow, despite his own words, Amberdrake could not forget the General-

  or his well-deserved reputation for vindictiveness.

  Skandranon ached in every muscle, and he needed more than a bath, he needed a soak to get the mud and muck out of his feathers. But that was not why he came looking for Amberdrake, hoping that his friend was between appointments. Drake wasn’t in the “public” portion of his tent, but the disheveled state of the place told Skan that the kestra’chern had been there so short a time ago that Gesten hadn’t had time to tidy up.

  As it happened, luck was with him; Drake was lying on a heap of pillows in his own quarters, looking about the same way that Skan felt, when the gryphon poked his nose through the slit in the partition.

  “Thunderheads!” Skan exclaimed. “Who’ve you been wrestling with? Or should I ask ‘what’ rather than ‘who’? You look like you’ve been fighting the war by yourself!”

  “Don’t ask,” Amberdrake sighed, levering himself up off the bed. “It isn’t what you think. You don’t look much better.” The kestra’chern pulled sweaty hair out of his eyes, and regarded Skan with a certain weary amusement. “Zhaneel, I trust?”

  Skan flung himself down on the rug right where he stood. “Yes,” he replied, “But it isn’t what you think. Unfortunately. It was a lesson.” He groaned, as his weary muscles complained about just how weary they were. “I thought I might impress her. It was a bad idea. She decided that if I was that much better than the rest of the class, I could run her course along with her.”

  Amberdrake passed a hand over his mouth. Skan glowered. “You’d better not be laughing,” he said accusingly.

  Amberdrake gave him a look full of limpid innocence. “Now why would I be laughing?” he asked guilelessly. “You look all in; you’ve obviously been pushing yourself just as hard as you could. Why would I laugh at that?”

  Skan only glowered more. He couldn’t put it into words, but he had the distinct feeling that Drake was behind all of this, somehow. Zhaneel, the lessons, the private lesson-all of it. “I have been pushing, and pushed, and I am exhausted. I need to borrow Gesten, Drake, or I’m never going to get the mud out of my coat and feathers. And I wish you’d let me steal your magic fingers for a bit. And-“ he sighed, finally admitting his downfall, “-and I need to talk to you.”

  Amberdrake nodded, as if he had expected as much. Which, if he really is behind all this, shouldn’t surprise me.

  “In private, I take it?” the kestra’chern asked.

  As if he didn’t know.

  “Very private,” Skan confirmed, and flattened his ear-tufts to his skull in real misery. “Drake, it’s Zhaneel. She’s the one-the one. And I’m nothing more to her than one of her students.”

  “And just how do you figure that?” Amberdrake asked casually.

  “Because she-I just don’t impress her, no matter what I do!” Skan exclaimed in desperation. “It’s driving me insane! I don’t know what to do!”

  “Let me see if I understand what you’re saying correctly,” Amberdrake replied, leaning back on one elbow. “You have decided that Zhaneel is your ideal mate, and you are upset because she isn’t following you and draping herself all over you like every other gryphon you’ve wanted. Then, when you strut and puff and act in general like a peacock, she still isn’t impressed. Is that it?”

  Skan felt his nares flushing hotly. “I wouldn’t put it that way!” he protested.

  “I would,” Gesten said, from behind him. The hertasi pushed his way in through the curtains past Skan. “Feh,” he added, “You look like a used mop. If I were a female, I wouldn’t have you either.”

  “Drake!” Skan cried.

  “Gesten, that’s enough,” Amberdrake admonished. “Skan, has it ever once occurred to you to go and talk with the lady? Just talk? Not to try to impress her, but to find out what she’s like, what she thinks is important, what kind of a person she is? Find out about her instead of talking about yourself?”

  “Ah-“ the gryphon stammered.

  “Try it some time,” Amberdrake said, leaning back into his pillows. “You might be surprised by the results. Gesten, this used mop would like to know if you’re willing to help him look more like a gryphon. I can go get a bath in the shower tent for once; I look worse than I feel.”

  “If you want,” Gesten said dubiously. “I think you sprained something.”

  “Then I can get Cinnabar to unsprain it for me,” Amberdrake said to the roof of the tent. “Go on, Skan needs your help more than I do at the moment, and we are supposed to be sharing your very excellent services.”

  “All right,” the hertasi said with resignation. “Come on, Black Boy. But you’ll have to put up with my massaging; Drake is definitely not going to be up to it.”

  Skan climbed to his feet with more groans. “Right now, I’d accept a massage from a makaar,” he replied. “And I’d court the damned thing, if it would get the muck off me.”

  Gesten looked back over his shoulder and batted his eyes at Skan in a clever imitation of a flirtatious human. “Why, Skan, I never guessed! Harboring an unfulfilled passion for little me?”

  Skan only snorted and followed the hertasi into the sunlight behind the tent. Gesten opened up a box built into the side of the wagon that carried Amberdrake and all his gear when the entire army was on the move, and got out the brushes and special combs needed for grooming gryphons. “You really ought to go find a vacant tub and have a bath,” the hertasi said, looking him over. “You’re mage enough to heat the water so your muscles don’t stiffen up in the cold.”

  “Once you brush me out, please,” Skan pleaded. “If I go in like this, it’ll be a mud bath.”

  “You have a point.” The hertasi picked up one of the brushes and set to work with a will. Bits of dried, caked mud flew everywhere with the force of Gesten’s vigorous
strokes. “So besides you being infatuated with Zhaneel, and her having the good sense to see through you, what else is new out there?”

  Skan ignored the first part of the question to answer the second. “What’s new is that we may have the Pass, but Ma’ar isn’t budging another toe-length.” He shook his head, and leaned into Gesten’s brush. “I don’t know, Gesten. I can’t tell if things look good for us, or bad.”

  “Neither can anyone else.” Gesten put the brush down and picked up one with finer bristles. “Urtho doesn’t know what to do, I hear. Ma’ar won’t leave us be, and Urtho won’t spend troops like Ma’ar does to get rid of him. That’s the problem with an ethical commander; the leader who doesn’t care how many of his men he kills has an edge.”

  Skan shook his head. “Too much for me, at least right now.”

  The hertasi snickered. “Yah. I know what’s on your mind-what there is of it. Don’t know how Drake thinks you’re going to impress Zhaneel with it, since I haven’t seen much evidence of a mind in you since I met you.”

  Skan did not rise to his teasing this time. “Gesten,” he said hesitantly, “do you really think she’d ever pay any attention to me if I did what Drake said? Nothing I’ve done has worked.”

  “So try it. Who knows?” Gesten slapped him on the shoulder, raising a cloud of dust. “The man’s job is the heart, you know. I figure he probably knows what he’s talking about.”

  Skan considered that. Gesten was right. And besides, I have to tell her what she is, what I learned in the Tower. Might as well kill two birds with the same stone, as they say.

  “But first, Skan,” Gesten cautioned, “there’s something that’s really important you need to do.”

  Skan craned his neck around to look at him, the hertasi sounded so serious. “What is it?” he asked anxiously.

  Gesten fixed him with a sobering gaze for a long moment, then said with deadpan seriousness, “Skan-get a bath.”