The Black Gryphon v(mw-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  Her eyes sparkled with wonder, and she caught her breath, still holding the cup of steaming tea. She spoke the word that Amberdrake had just made up, testing it on her tongue as she would try a sweet apple or cold winter wine. “Gryfalcon.”

  This was going so much better than a candlemark ago. Amberdrake took a sip of his cup of tea and luxuriated in the play of flavors—rich and bitter, sweet and acidic, each in turn. Complex blends that suited the mood of a complex problem.

  Outside the tent, dusk had darkened to night as they talked further, and Zhaneel had told him, in words that faltered, of her parents’ fate. They had both been killed on what should have been a low-risk mission; once again, the war had hungered, and had fed as all things must feed. Zhaneel had been left alone, a fledgling cared for thereafter by a succession of foster parents and Trondi’irn who felt no particular affection for her. One by one, they changed or disappeared, and the memories of her parents became a soft-edged memory of nurturing acceptance, a memory so distant it came to seem like a dream or a tale, having nothing to do with her reality.

  It was the contrast between the fledgling’s memories of loving care and the subadult’s reality of indifference that had suffocated her in the cold box of self-hate.

  Conversely, however, the same thing had kept her from killing herself.

  The knowledge, only half-aware, that when she was still in the downy coat of a fledgling she was loved had given her soul the broad feathers it needed. There were no specific images now, and no remembered words; there was only the sensation that, yes, with certainty, they had trilled their affection as she drowsed and taught her when she awoke. Brief as that time had been, it had given her an underlying strength, and a reason to endure.

  By the time their cups were empty, most of the night had passed by, and they had wandered into mutual observations. Zhaneel asked about the life of a kestra’chern. He’d wondered aloud, once he knew the subject would not alarm her, where she had gotten her idea that Amberdrake would be her lover.

  Her nares flushed. “The horse-rider was telling the others about you, and I listened. I didn’t understand some of it, but I thought it was because she was a human.” She ducked her head a little as her nares flushed deeper. “I thought, this must be what you do with all who come to you. I thought, this was why Great Skandranon had told me to come to you when I was given the reward.”

  He clenched his jaw for a moment. I might have known Skan was at the bottom of this! No wonder he was acting so—so smug! But a confrontation with Skan would have to wait. Now, all unknowing, she had given him another opening to bolster her self-esteem.

  “Skan sent you here?” He blinked as if he were surprised, but he continued quickly before she could burst into frantic protest that he really had, as if he might doubt her truthfulness. “Do you realize just how impressed he must have been with you, Zhaneel? Why, it was only two days ago he was brought in, injured—he is still not Healed, and he has made it very clear to me, his friend, that he does not wish to be troubled with inconsequential things. And yet he thought enough of your proper reward to send you to me! How much time did he spend with you?”

  “I—do not know—half a candlemark, perhaps?” she said, doubtfully.

  “Half a candlemark?” Amberdrake chuckled. “I cannot think of any other he has spent so much time with, other than his Healers. Truly, he must have found you fascinating!”

  “Oh,” she replied faintly, and her nares flushed again. “Perhaps he was bored?” she suggested, just as faintly.

  Amberdrake laughed at that. “If he was bored, he would have sent you elsewhere. Skan’s cures for boredom are reading, sleeping, and teasing his friends, in that order. No, I think he must have found you very interesting.”

  By now, from her body-language and her voice, it was fairly obvious to him that Zhaneel had—at the very least—a substantial infatuation with the Black Gryphon.

  “He doesn’t pay that kind of attention to just anyone,” he continued smoothly. “If he noticed you, it is because you are noteworthy.”

  She perked up for a moment, then her ear-tufts flattened again. “If he noticed me, it wassss sssurely to sssee how freakish I am.”

  “How different you are—not freakish,” he admonished. “Skandranon is not one to be afraid of what is different.”

  “Am I—” She hesitated, and he sensed that she was about to say something very daring, for her. “Am I—different enough that he might recall me? Notice me again?”

  Amberdrake pretended to think. “I take it that you want him to do more than simply take notice of you?”

  She ducked her head, very shyly. “Yessss—” she breathed. “Oh, yessss—”

  “Well, Zhaneel, Skan is not easily impressed. You would have to be something very special to hold his interest. You would have to do more than simply take out a couple of makaar once.” That was a daring thing to say to her, but fortunately she did not take it badly; she only looked at him eagerly, as if hoping he could give her the answers she needed. “I know him very well; if you want Skan, Zhaneel, you will have to impress him enough that he wants you—enough to make him ask you to join his wing.” Before she could lose courage, he leaned forward and said, with every bit of skill and Empathy that he possessed, “You can do this, Zhaneel. I know you can. I believe in you.”

  Her eyes grew bright, and her ear-tufts perked completely up. “I could—I could entrrrap the makaar.” She paused as he shook his head slightly. “Perhaps if I made of myself a target, outflew them to ambush?” Again he shook his head. Both her ideas were far too impulsive—and suicidal.

  “It will have to be something that only you can do, Zhaneel,” he suggested. “You don’t have to make a hero of yourself every day. You don’t have to have an immediate result, either. But whatever you do must be something only you can do—just as the way you killed those three makaar was done in a way only you could have performed. Perhaps something that Urtho or Skan said to you could help you think of something. . . .”

  She sat, deep in thought, while Amberdrake got himself a second cup of tea. Finally she spoke.

  “Urrtho asked me what training I had, and he was disappointed that no one had given me any special attentions.” She looked up at him intently, and he gave her an encouraging nod. “Skandranon also seemed surprised that I had no special training. And if I cannot fly and fight as the others do—perhaps—perhaps I should train myself?” Again she looked to him, and he nodded enthusiastically. “Perhaps I should ask for—for courses, such as they put the young humans across, only for flying.”

  “That is a good plan, sky-lady,” he told her firmly. “It is one that will benefit not only you, but others who are also small and light. And as you become skilled, you will definitely attract Skan’s attention.”

  But now she had turned her attention to his hands, and then to her own foreclaws.

  “Amberdrrrake, I have hands, like humans—I can do human things, can I not?” She flexed her hands, first one, then the other, as if testing their mobility. “Perhaps I can use a weapon—or—perhaps I can fly to help wounded!” Her beak parted in excitement, and Amberdrake had to work to suppress his own excitement. The idea of a gryphon-Healer, even the kind of field-Healer who could only splint bones and bandage wounds—that was enough to make him want to jump up and

  put the plan into motion immediately. How many fighters had bled their lives out simply because no one could reach them? The mobility of a gryphon would save so many of those otherwise lost lives.

  “This is going to take time, Zhaneel,” he cautioned, repeating the words to himself as well as her. “All of it is going to take time to learn, more time to practice. But it is a wonderful idea. I will help you all I can, I swear it!”

  Zhaneel listened to his cautions, then bobbed her head gravely. “One weapon,” she declared. “I ssshall learn one weapon. Crosssbow; it ssseems easy enough to massster. And I shall learn the simple healing that the green-bands know.”

  B
y “green-bands,” she meant the squires and sergeants who wore a green armband and acted as rough field-Healers, who knew the basics. Enough to patch someone up long enough for them to get to a real Healer.

  Enough to save lives.

  “And I would be honored to teach you that Healing, my sky-lady,” Amberdrake said softly.

  “And—” she dropped her voice to a shy whisper. “And Skandranon will notice me?”

  Amberdrake chuckled. “Oh, yes, my lady. He won’t be able to help himself. You will be one of the few things that he does notice, I think.”

  She cocked her head to one side. “Few things?” she asked curiously.

  He shook his head, and shrugged. “Oh, sometimes I think he is so obsessed with topping his last escapade that he does not notice much of anything, including his friends.”

  She continued to stare at him quizzically and finally said, “He notices. He loves you. The whole camp knows this.”

  That was not what he had expected to hear, and for once, he was taken by surprise. “He—what?”

  Amberdrake replied. He thought for a moment that he had misheard her, but she repeated her statement.

  “He loves you as if you were a nestmate,” she insisted. “Perhaps he does not say so, but all the camp knows that Amberdrake and Skandranon might as well have come from a single mother.”

  As his mouth dropped open a little, she gurgled—a gryphon-giggle, and the first sound of happiness he had heard from her yet. “I heard this—I heard him tell some of the captains that you were a being of great integrrrity!”

  “You what?” he said, trying to picture Skan doing anything of the sort.

  “I heard him,” she said firmly, and with coaxing, the story emerged. She had, once again, been eavesdropping when she shouldn’t have. Some of the mercenary captains had been bandying about the names and reputations of several of the perchi and kestra’chern, and Amberdrake’s name had come up just as Skan passed by. That would have been enough to attract his attention, but one of the captains had called out to him, tauntingly, asking him to verify what they had heard “since you know him so well.”

  And Skan had, indeed, defended Amberdrake’s problematical honor, at the cost of some ridicule, which Skan hated worse than cold water.

  “So,” Zhaneel concluded. “You see.”

  Amberdrake did see—and he was rather overwhelmed at this evidence of affection, affection that he had hoped for but had not really believed in. A kestra’chern had so few friends-—so few of those more than the merest of superficial acquaintances. . . .

  He blinked, finding his eyes stinging a little.

  “Amberdrake,” she said into the silence. “You are a Healer.”

  He blinked his eyes clear and returned her grave stare, expecting a return to the earlier topic of discussion. “Of course, sky-lady.”

  But she turned the tables on him. “And when you are hurt, who heals the Healer?”

  Has she suddenly turned into Gesten, or Tamsin, to sense my feelings before I know them? he thought, startled again. But he chuckled, to cover his confusion, and replied, “My lady, I am not likely to be needing the services of a Healer, after all. I do not ply my various trades on the battlefield.”

  She snorted, in a way that sounded very like Skan, but she said nothing more. And just at that moment, the sentries called midnight, and they both blinked in surprise.

  Half the night has gone—but why am I surprised? It almost feels like half a year.

  “You should take some rest, lady,” he said, taking the half-forgotten token and putting it back in her pouch. She started to protest; he placed a hand on her beak to stop her. “It is at my discretion to determine my fee. You keep this. If you have some difficulty convincing your wingleader that you need special training and equipment, you could use that to deal with him. And when you find someone worthy of you, then come to me with it, and I shall turn you from simply lovely into the most breathtaking creature ever to fly.”

  Her nares flushed again, this time with pleasure. She started to leave, then paused on the threshold.

  Tugging a hand-sized covert-feather loose, she gravely handed it to him. “And when you need—anything—you bring me this. Healer.”

  Then she was gone, leaving him with a slate-gray feather in his hand, and a great deal to think about. He let down the entrance flap, closing his tent against the night and any observers, and ran the feather between the fingers of his right hand.

  Who heals the Healer. . . ?

  Five

  “Well, great hero,” Tamsin said dryly, pushing his way through the tent flap, “I see you have a tent-mate now. Did they discover you weren’t a general, and you weren’t supposed to have private quarters?”

  Skan chuckled; it was amazing how much better a tiny improvement in his condition made him feel. Not great, but less like snapping someone’s head off anyway. “No, they decided that I must be lonely, but instead of giving me a lithe young female, they sent this disgusting heap of tattered feathers. Meet Aubri. Be careful not to step in him.”

  The other gryphon in the tent, swathed in bandages covering burns, raised one lazy eyebrow and snorted. “I thought I was being punished. I was put in here with you, featherhead.” He raised his head from his foreclaws and regarded Tamsin and Cinnabar with a long-suffering gaze. “I’ll have you know,” he continued, in mock aggravation, “he whistles in his sleep.”

  “So do you,” Skan countered. “I dreamed I was being attacked by a giant, tone-deaf songbird, and woke up to discover it was you. Maybe it was yourself you heard, loud enough to wake yourself up!”

  “I don’t think so,” Aubri countered, then put his head back down on his foreclaws and pretended to sleep.

  Skan chuckled again. “I like him,” he confided to Tamsin in an easily-overheard feigned whisper, “But don’t let him know. He’ll get arrogant enough to be mistaken for me.”

  A single snort of derision was all that came from the “sleeping” Aubri.

  “Well, you know why we are here,” Cinnabar told him, coming up behind her lover and giving him a greeting that was more than half a caress.

  “Yesss,” Skan said. “You are here to pretend to tend to my hurts, while you put your hands all over each other. Tchah! You lifebonded types! Always all over each other! Bad enough that as humans you are always in season—”

  “And you are not?” Aubri rumbled from the background.

  “What?” Skan asked. “Did I hear something?”

  “No,” Aubri replied. “I am asleep. You heard nothing.”

  “Ah, good.” Skan returned his attention to the two humans who were doing their best not to break into laughter. “As I said, bad enough that you are always in season—but you lifebonded types are always preening each other. It’s enough to give an honest gryphon sugar-sickness.”

  “Then Skandranon is in no danger, for he is hardly honest,” came the rumble.

  Skan shook his head, sadly. “What did I tell you? The lout not only whistles in his sleep, he mumbles nonsense as well. Perhaps most of his injuries were to his rump, since that is surely where his brain resides.”

  “He’s upset I’m not succumbing to his imagined ‘charisma,’” Aubri grumbled, raising his head. “And upset I beat him in his fledgling-baiting ‘logic puzzles.’ “

  “You have no logic to use. Lucky guesses, all of them. I beat Urtho with them.” Skandranon looked back to the Healers, chagrined.

  Cinnabar moved to the gryphon’s left, hands moving expertly over his wing and flank. “Gesten did a fine job with you, I see—you look very fit. You’ll soon be in good enough shape to dazzle all the potential mates you like, Skan. Are you finally going to take a mate?”

  Skandranon flicked his wings suddenly and stabbed a glare at her which was much harsher than he’d really intended. He felt his nares darkening. How maddening to be constantly asked that! As if they had placed bets on who and when and how!

  Cinnabar bit her lip and backed off, pretendin
g—pretense that was just a little too obvious—to search for something in her belt packs. Tamsin broke the tension by clearing his throat and pulling, Skan’s head toward him.

  “Here now, Skan, let me look at your eyes.”

  “He’ll just think you’re in love with him,” Aubri snickered.

  Before Skan could make any retort, Tamsin clamped Skandranon’s beak closed with one hand and stabbed a Look at him. This was serious business. Gryphons could judge relative distance and speed from each eye independently, and could clearly compare minute details of objects directly ahead. The paper texture of the book Skandranon had been studying, for instance, had been in sharp relief to him, even the furrows left by the pen. Like many other parts of a gryphon’s body, though, the eyes were used to judge the health of the rest of the body. Tamsin leaned in until his face was barely inches away from the lens of Skandranon’s right eye, becoming an encompassing blur which filled most of his wide field of vision. “You’re dilating well. Not as scratchy as I’d expect. No problems with focus? Good depth perception from each eye?”