“Only if you take the one on the right!” Skan called back, and launched himself at his next target.
Tad followed in the same instant, as if they had rehearsed the maneuver a thousand times together.
Blade’s weapon was not as suited to rapid firing as her father’s, and she had to choose her targets more carefully than he. He had a great many arrows; she had a handful of spears, and not all of them flew cleanly.
But when she did connect, her weapon was highly effective. She sent three wyrsa tumbling into the river, and wounded two more, making them easier targets for Skan and Tad.
Just as she ran out of short spears, she saw—and sensed—the moment that they had all been waiting for. The bitch-wvrsa was herding her remaining pups before her into the cave the two humans and two gryphons had abandoned. She obviously intended to reverse the situation on her attackers, by going to ground in what should have been their bolt-hole.
“She’s going in!” Blade shouted. She seized the longer of her two spears and jumped down to the ground. A moment later, her father joined her, and with Tad and Skan they formed a half-circle that cut off the wyrsa from escape.
The pups had clearly had enough; now that they were all in the cave, they were silhouetted clearly against the fire at the rear. The pups, about three of them, milled about their mother. They didn’t like the fire, but they didn’t want to face the humans and gryphons either.
The wyrsa-bitch, however, was not ready to quit yet. She surged from side to side in the cave, never presenting a clear target, and snarled at her pups. It looked to Blade as if she were trying to herd them into something. She and Amberdrake edged up farther into the cave, following the plan. In theory, with the two weakest members of the party in plain sight, the bitch should do what they wanted her to.
“She’s trying to goad them into a charge!” Amberdrake shouted. “Get ready!”
Blade grounded the butt of her spear against the rock, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t have to use it—
“Now!” Drake shouted, as the bitch herded her pups up onto the brush and rock barrier.
And at that signal, Skan and Tad used the last of their mage-energy, and ignited the oil-soaked wood of the barricade with a simple, small fire-spell.
With the fire already going at the back of the cave, there was a good draft going up the chimney. The flames swept back, and merged with the second fire at the rear. The cave was an oven, and the wyrsa were trapped inside.
The wyrsa-bitch turned and heaved herself at the barricade nearest Blade. Her dead-white eyes blazed rage as she stared at the human, and Blade felt her hatred burning, even without being open empathically.
Amberdrake dropped his spear; it clattered to the ground as he seized his head in both hands. His knees buckled and he fell in a convulsing heap.
Without hesitation, Blade picked up her own spear, aimed, and threw.
The bitch-wyrsa took it full in the chest and continued forward, screaming defiance. She heaved up into the air, towering above all of them for a moment—and Blade was certain she was going to come over the barricade anyway. Blade’s heart pounded in her ears—only that sound, and the sound of the wyrsa ‘s scream, louder than anything she had felt before.
The wyrsa fell forward, but didn’t leap. The spear jutted from her chest, only a quarter of its length in. She stumbled forward in shock. Her forelegs crumpled—and the butt of the crude spear struck the ground and drove itself in deeper.
Blade fell into a crouch without hesitation and groped for her fighting-knife, but she could not take her eyes off the vision of the black wyrsa pitching backwards, to be consumed in flame.
“We won,” Tad said, for the hundredth time. As the rain washed wyrsa blood from the rocks, he locked his talons into another body and dragged it to the river, to roll it in. Blade hoped that something in there would eat wyrsa, and that the blasted things wouldn’t poison the fish.
After the flames had died down, they had all moved back into the cave to see what was left. Not much was recognizable compared to the bodies out- side the cave, but the skulls of the charred wyrsa were easily broken off for later cleaning. The families of those people the creatures had killed were entitled to them, perhaps for a revenge ceremony during mourning, so the grisly task was done with solemn efficiency. Inside, the rock was nicely warmed, and the two exhausted fathers had a good, comfortable place to lie down and get some rest.
Meanwhile she and Tad dragged their own weary bodies out into the rain again, to clean up the mess.
“This is the last one, thank the gods,” Blade said, as she hauled the last of the beheaded bodies to the river’s edge. Together, she and Tad shoved it in, and together they turned and walked back to the cave.
“Drake is burning some fish for you, Blade,” Skan greeted them as they climbed over the rock barricade. “Zhaneel would not approve. By the way, both the other rescue-parties are near enough for Mind-speech with me, so we won’t have to eat fish much longer.”
Blade’s heart surged with joy—and then her throat tightened, as she realized just how close the others must have been last night.
They could have walked right into the same kind of trap that my father did, she thought soberly. She had been wondering ever since yesterday evening if they were doing the right thing by trying an all-or-nothing last-stand. Now she knew they had been.
“When will they get here?” Tad asked eagerly, as Blade accepted fish from her father with a smile of thanks.
“Tomorrow, probably. Your mother is thrilled, Blade. Tad, your mother and brother would be flying in here now if it weren’t raining.” Skan gryph-grinned at all of them. “I promised them that we would do our best not to melt before they got here.”
“That was probably safe,” Blade agreed. “Did you tell them anything other than that we were all safe?”
Skan ground his beak and dropped his head. “I confess; I told them everything while they were still far enough away that your mothers couldn’t flay us alive for risking all our necks last night.” He coughed. “I know my Zhaneel, and I suspect Winterhart will react the same. Weary by the time they reach us, they will be so grateful that we are all right that they will probably have forgotten that we took on all those wyrsa by ourselves.”
Amberdrake winced. “Maybe Zhaneel will—but Winterhart won’t,” he said guiltily. “And she’ll never forgive me for acting like a hotheaded young fighter and standing on a ledge in the dark, firing arrows into the damned things! And if I actually admit that I—well—I was good at it—”
Blade patted his knee, and smiled as a rush of love filled her heart.
“Don’t worry, Father,” she said fondly. “I’ll protect you.”
For the first time in days, if not weeks, Tad lay on a ledge in the open, sunning himself. Finally, finally, the rains had lessened last night, and although the fog had appeared on schedule, the rain had not chased it away. It looked as if the weather was getting back to “normal.”
Tad whooped, and leaped off his ledge to gallop toward his brother. Keeth arrowed in for a landing down on the recently-added stretch of rock-and-gravel beach in front of the cave. A moment later, as Tad and his brother closed on each other for the gryphonic equivalent of a back-slapping reunion, the “mothers’ party” appeared around the curve of the trail.
Now it was Blade’s turn to launch herself off her ledge and run straight into the arms of her mother, while Amberdrake brought up the rear. Tad grinned to his twin as they watched his Silver partner hugging her mother and even shedding a few tears. She was acting just as any normal human would in the same situation, and about time, too!
Things settled down a little, and Winterhart paused to wipe a couple of happy tears, as the second party rounded the bend. With a gasp, Blade broke off her conversation with her mother to run straight for the leader of the party.
Ikala looked surprised, but extremely pleased, when she threw her arms around him—and it would have taken an expert to determine if
she kissed him first, or he kissed her.
Tad took a quick look at Amberdrake and Winterhart; they looked stunned, but gradually the surprise was being replaced by—glee?
Probably. Now they’re finally going to get their wish, after all!
“What is that all about?” Keeth gurgled. “She’s never done that before!”
Tad laughed. “Oh, it has been a complicated mess, but I think I can explain it. Drake sees her as a real person now—not just as his daughter, his child. They’ve fought alongside each other. Now she’s—well, now she knows who she is; that she’s not a reflection of Drake or her mother, and that she doesn’t have to work so hard at being their opposite. It’s—well, she’s free, free to be herself.”
“And you?” Keeth asked shrewdly.
Tad laughed. “After seeing Father in action, I can’t say I mind being the son of the Black Gryphon anymore. And now he has fought beside me, and he knows there is more to me than obstacle courses and fatherly pride. Word will get around, and then he will have to cope with being referred to as ‘the father of that brave Silver.’ I guess that’s justice.”
Keeth grinned and leaned against his brother. “That should give us all some rest and freedom.”
Freedom, he thought with content. That’s what it is all right. Freedom.
FB2 document info
Document ID: afcf7ee8-38d4-4cd7-a4df-5c3e7931fc9b
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 04.03.2011
Created using: htmlDocs2fb2 software
Document authors :
Milhent
Document history:
1.0 – создание FB2 из rtf-файла; вычитка и форматирование (Milhent)
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
The Silver Gryphon v(mw-3 Page 35