The black gryphon

by Mercedes Lackey

  Urtho turned away from the table. “Oh?” he said, imbuing the single syllable with a multitude of flavorings.

  Once again, Skan’s stomach and crop churned with anxiety, and his nares flushed. “I-ah-did a little exploring on that level of your Tower.”

  “And?” Urtho’s face and voice were carefully neutral.

  “I found the-the models.”

  “How did you-“ Urtho exclaimed, flushing for a moment with anger, but he quickly calmed. “Never mind. What-“

  Skan interrupted. “I met Kechara.”

  Urtho stared at him blankly for a moment, then grew just a little pale. “I believe,” he said carefully, “that I had better sit down. You must hate me.”

  Skan shook his head as Urtho lowered himself into a chair, and if he was any judge of human reactions, the Mage had been profoundly shaken. “How could I hate you? The more time I spent with her, the more I realized that you had done the best you could for her. And once I had a few days to think about it, I believe I managed to puzzle out why you had her up there, instead of down with the rest of the gryphons. It wasn’t just to protect her from being teased and getting her feelings hurt.” He took a deep breath, and ventured everything on his guess. “It was because she’s a very powerful Mindspeaker. Probably the most powerful you’ve ever seen.”

  Urtho’s eyes widened, and he caught his breath. “Did she Mindspeak at you?” he asked.

  Skan nodded, pleased that he had been clever enough to figure out the puzzle. “I realized that I had been getting a great deal more information from her than she had the words to tell me. That was when I remembered that she had hit me with a mind-blast just before she attacked me, and I figured out that she wasn’t just telling me things with her voice, but with her mind as well.”

  He told Urtho the tale from beginning to end, saving only that he had gotten into the chamber in the first place with Vikteren’s mage-keys. “That’s why she’s in the Tower, in a room with such heavy shields, and why she creates the presence of a dozen gryphons when there’s only her. And that’s why Zhaneel and I would like to have her. We’ll protect her from teasing and ridicule, and she can act as-oh-a kind of relay for groups of gryphons that may need to speak with each other. We have Mind-speakers, of course, but none as powerful as she is.”

  “I see that you put a great deal of thought into this.” Urtho mopped his forehead with a sleeve, as small beads of perspiration sprang up. “I must confess-that use for her had occurred to me. I was too softhearted to . . . well . . . misborn usually die young anyway, and I assumed that her nature would take care of the problems she represented for me. When she didn’t die, though, I had to do something about her. She’s as old as you are, Skan. She only seems younger because she’s so childlike, and because her memory for things longer ago than a year is very poor. I knew that if anyone ever discovered her and her power, she’d be a target for our enemies. In the wrong hands, she could be a terrible weapon. I was afraid that I would have to go to war just to protect her, and I couldn’t reconcile the safety and freedom of one misborn with compromising the safety of all those who depend on me. You see? That was why I hid her in the Tower and kept her existence secret. I simply could not protect her otherwise, and I would not risk a war over her.”

  “Urtho, I hate to point this out, but we are in a war, and it isn’t over Kechara,” Skan retorted, with a little more sarcasm than he intended. “No one is going to get into this camp to steal her, and there isn’t much point in keeping her mewed up anymore.”

  Skandranon sat down across from Urtho. He was rather surprised to learn that Kechara was as old as he was; as Urtho said, the misborn generally did not live past their teens, much less grow to be as old as he. It was something of a tribute to Urtho’s care that she had lived as long as she had.

  Urtho sighed. “You’re right,” he admitted reluctantly. “She deserves a little freedom anyway. But keep her here-if not in the Tower, then near it.”

  “Of course.” Skan nodded. “I should like to start moving the gryphon families out to where the other noncombatants are going, if you don’t mind. All pairs with nestlings and fledglings, and all fledged still in training. I don’t see any reason why they can’t complete their training elsewhere.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll tell them that you are concerned that with all of us consolidated here, we make a very tempting target for some terrible weapon. You want to get us spread out, so we aren’t quite so easy to get all at once.”

  Urtho considered that as he studied the map. “What about here and here.” He pointed to two valleys, easily defended, at the farthest range for a permanent Gate. “I can set two of the Gates for those places, and move not only gryphons, but Kaled’a’in and all the nonhumans who are not combatants there. Anyone who wants to visit them, can.”

  “I have an even better idea,” Skan suggested. “Set up a secondary Gate and put the gryphons out farther. Use the excuse that we are big eaters and need the territory. Send the Kaled’a’in to this valley in the south, and convalescents and volunteers there to the north. That gets them out from underfoot, and they can train your human youngsters while they’re recovering.”

  Urtho snapped his fingers. “Of course-and what’s more, I’ll have the ambulatory and the youngsters run foraging parties! Make them as self-sufficient as possible!”

  “Have them send the surplus here,” Skan added, with growing enthusiasm. “It won’t be much, but it will make them feel as if we need to have them out there. And a little fresh game now and then-“

  His mouth tingled at the very thought. Herd beasts have no real flavor. A good raebuck, though. . . .

  “With hertasi in charge, Skan, I am not certain I would be too ready to say that they ‘won’t send back much.’ Hertasi are remarkable scavengers.” Urtho’s eyebrows quirked a little. “That’s largely why I have them in charge of supply here. They find ways to make ten loaves feed a hundred fighters.”

  But Skan noticed that Urtho was much more subdued than usual. Perhaps there is something he hasn’t told me? Are things even worse than I thought?

  A light tap at the door prevented him from asking any further questions. Cautiously, Urtho’s chief hertasi stuck his snout inside.

  “The commanders are here, Urtho,” the lizard said quietly. Urtho glanced over at Skan and shrugged.

  “Let them in, Seri,” he said. “They might as well hear it all at once.”

  The commanders filed in, General Judeth last of all, impeccable and austere in her chosen colors of black and silver. They gathered around the table, and Skan saw one or two turn a little pale when they looked over the latest conquests of Ma’ar’s forces.

  Didn’t they know? Or does this mean something I can’t guess at?

  “Gentlemen, ladies.” Urtho nodded to the group. “I brought you here for several reasons. The first-General Farle is dead. Assassinated, as far as we can tell.”

  A sharp intake of breath around the table told Skan that none of the commanders had heard the bad news yet.

  “I am afraid that under the circumstances, I must dismantle the Sixth as it has been known, and spread its nonhuman and magical resources among all of you. General Judeth.” As Urtho spoke her name, the lady sat up straighter, and lost her look of shocked dismay. “At the specific request of the new commander of all the gryphon wings, I am assigning the wings that formerly belonged to the Sixth to you. I know that you will command them well.”

  The General did not salute or snap to attention, but she gave the impression that she had. “I will do my best, sir,” she replied simply.

  “The rest of you may decide among yourselves how to apportion up the rest of the Sixth’s available manpower. General Shaiknam will command the human foot-soldiers, but all else will be available to you.” Urtho nodded, and Skan saw with satisfaction that the commanders were already getting over their shock and thinking about the situation. “I am certain that you will not allow any kind of rivalry to interfere with the best possible de
ployment of that manpower. Now-I am certain you all know Skandranon, the Black Gryphon, either on sight or by reputation.”

  Nods and some slight smiles met that, as Skan bowed his head in a brief salute to all of them, but especially to General Judeth.

  “I have appointed him to be the overall commander of the gryphon wings, in the same arrangement that I made with the mages.” Urtho paused and waited for their reaction.

  Skan saw only slight frowns, and one or two nods. General Judeth was the first to speak.

  She cleared her throat delicately, then spoke to both Urtho and to Skan. “The arrangement is working better with the mages than we had thought it would,” she admitted. “We thought it might make for problems, if not outright mutiny among the mages, but it didn’t work out that way.” Her mouth twitched a little, although she did not actually smile. “There are even some mages who have shown a remarkable increase in their abilities. Apparently, having someone to evaluate their performance who knows what they can do has made them a little more-eager-to do their best. I trust, both because Urtho has chosen you, Skandranon, and from some of your reputation, that you will act in a similar manner.”

  Skan’s nares flushed, for there was no doubt just what the General meant by “some of your reputation,” but he answered her steadily enough.

  “I can promise you that no gryphon will balk at anything he is asked to do without a reason for objecting,” Skan replied gravely. “We all understand that this is a war, and in war there is the risk of death. We only ask that we not be sent into a certainty of death. I can also promise you that if there are objections to what we are asked to do, it will be because the loss will outweigh the gain for all concerned. The gryphons will defend all the races.”

  The General nodded at that, and turned her attention back to the table.

  “I see that you are all concerned by the amount of territory that Ma’ar has taken,” Urtho continued. “You should be; I have only just updated the map, and a great deal of that gain has been within the last month. You all knew you’d lost ground, but none of you has seen the real scope of the loss until now. We are in trouble, and I will not hide that fact from you. In fact, we have lost so much, that Ma’ar himself has moved into the Palace and made it his headquarters.”

  They took all that without flinching, although Skan was incensed at the idea that Ma’ar would have taken the Palace for his own. The idea of that-that beast, that tyrant, soiling the halls that great leaders had called home, soiling them with his bloody boots-

  “It would be rather difficult to hide that we are in trouble, with this spread out before us,” General Movat said dryly. “The question is, what are your plans to deal with it?”

  Urtho considered the map, as heavy silence reigned. “The first thing I intend to do is to begin a quiet evacuation of the noncombatants from around the Tower,” he replied. “Some preliminary work has been done in that direction, but now I want it to become a priority. I want to move them into the West. I’m going to take six of the permanent Gates here on the Tower grounds and activate them, targeting them to six points on the western border. That’s mostly wilderness area, mountains and forested valleys, too steep to farm and not really suited for grazing. My very first Tower was there,” he added wistfully, “and I rather liked keeping it wilderness.”

  “Yes, well, now it’s a good thing it is wilderness,” General Korad said briskly. “Ma’ar won’t consider that you might have sent people into it.”

  “My idea precisely.” Urtho tapped the map, pointing to the six places where the Gates would have their other ends. “If we have to abandon the Tower, we’ll have most of the people who would be trouble already out of the way. They, in turn, will have advance camps ready for us. If we inform our people that we are doing this only to spread out our resources and make one spot less of a target, I believe we can keep them from panicking.”

  The Generals contemplated the plan quietly for some time, each one studying the map and making mental calculations. Urtho watched their faces; Skan watched Urtho.

  He looks satisfied; well, if they have simply accepted the plan, that must mean it’s strategically sound. So that’s how he does it! He puts out a plan, waits to see what they think of it, and changes it with their suggestions and objections! I wondered how a mage had become such a good strategist!

  General Judeth broke the silence first. “I’d like to have one strong mage with each group,” she said. “Adept-class. Perhaps this would be a good place to send those who are frail, or those who have moral objections to combative magics, and those who simply do not have skill at combative magics. This way, if further Gates need to be built, there will be someone at hand, rested, and prepared to build those Gates.”

  Urtho nodded. “My Kaled’a’in will be here-“ he pointed. “They will have mages enough in their ranks to cover that point. If any of you can think of particular mages who would be suitable, please let me know, especially if they are familiar with this kind of terrain.”

  If they can deal with primitive conditions, he means. Some of his older mages-well, they ought to go with the Kaled’a’in. The Clans can make a home anywhere, if they have to, and the horse-nomads are already set up for wandering.

  There was more discussion, and they put together a tacit agreement. Skan was impressed. He hadn’t known that there were humans anywhere who could agree to so much with so few wasted words.

  “But this is secondary,” General Korad said at last. “The real question is-how in the name of all the gods are we going to defend the Tower?”

  Urtho hesitated, then asked humbly, “Are you certain that we should?”

  A chorus of objections met that statement, but it seemed to Skan that most of them boiled down to-“of course we should, it’s your Tower.”

  Urtho waved them to silence. “There is a great deal in the Tower that can’t be moved and shouldn’t be allowed to fall into Ma’ar’s hands. But things can be destroyed. The knowledge that made those things possible is as portable as the minds and the books that hold it. This place may be my home, and it is true that I have invested a great deal of my life in it, but that is no reason to remain here when the situation becomes untenable. Others have lost their homes; it would be arrogant of me to think mine was any more sacred than theirs. I would be as foolish as my critics have claimed if I clung to this Tower when every wise person would have fled.”

  He pondered the map. “If Ma’ar breaches our defenses here and here, he can spread out his troops along this line. He has manpower far exceeding ours. If he does that, he can force us to try to counter him until we are spread so thin we can’t defend ourselves. From here, on the Plain, he has a clear run to the Tower itself. We cannot hold a line against him, unless we can suddenly multiply our own troops by a factor of ten.”

  The Generals studied the map with varying expressions of gloom.

  “You’re right,” Korad said, with no emphasis. “Damn, but I hate to admit it. If he can get that far, he’s got us.”

  “If we remain at the Tower,” Urtho reminded them all. “If we retreat, we can pick our place to make a stand, or make no stand at all, simply keep retreating, making him string out his supply lines and his forces. Eventually, even Ma’ar must become sated with conquest! We can go west, then retreat to the farthest south, in the lands that the Haighlei Emperors hold.”

  “The Black Kings?” said Judeth. Skan knew that referred not to their predilections, but their skin, which was supposedly as dark as a moonless, starless sky. “Would they help us?”

  Urtho shrugged. “I don’t know. I do know they would shelter us against a conqueror and despot like Ma’ar, and their magic is so different from ours that I think even Ma’ar would hesitate before he attacked them. It’s not wise to attack an unknown.”

  Judeth bit her lip, then nodded, slowly and grudgingly. “It’s our best hope, if Ma’ar gets that far. I am going to see that he doesn’t, if it takes every drop of blood in my body to stop him.” She sounded
and looked grim, and Skan shivered in a sudden chill, as ice threaded down his spine as if a cold wind had just ruffled his feathers.

  “How are you going to explain-everything-to Shaiknam?” Korad wanted to know, after an uncomfortable silence.

  Urtho shrugged. “I’ll tell him that I’ve seen he is best with ground maneuvers, and I’m giving him the chance to concentrate on them without the distractions and annoyances of a mixed force. Then I’ll show him what I’ve shown you, and we’ll all meet tonight to plan the overall strategy to hold Ma’ar. Right now, I want you all to go to your people and get those who are not essential ready to evacuate. I’d like to start moving people out steadily starting tomorrow.”

  That sounded like a dismissal to Skan, and so the other commanders took it. They saluted and filed out, with only General Judeth pausing long enough to have a brief word with the Black Gryphon.

  “As soon as you’ve seen to your new command, come see me with the old Sixth Wingleaders,” she said. “And best of luck, Skandranon. I think Urtho’s chosen wisely.”

  She turned smartly and left, leaving Skan to gape at her back as the door closed behind her. He turned to look at Urtho.

  The mage smiled wearily. “I think I’ve chosen wisely, too, Skan,” he said. “Now-go deal with your people, while I see to mine. We both have a great deal to do, and only the Kaled’a’in Lady knows if we will be given the time to get it all done.”

  Skan bowed, deeply and profoundly, but he hesitated at the door. Urtho had turned back to the map, staring at it blankly.

  “Urtho-“ Skan said. The mage started, turned to face him, and stared at him as if he had not expected his new commander to still be in the room.

  “I want you to know something. We never really considered flying off and abandoning you. We are not only loyal to you-we love you. That is why we are loyal to you. Love is harder to earn than loyalty, and you are more than my friend. You are my beloved Father.”