Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon.txt

by The Silver Gryphon [lit]

  down. Twenty, maybe thirty leagues at most. We can go back in the direction

  of our previous campsite. That was defensible; remember, there was a cliff

  nearby? And remember the river that ran alongside it?”

  Nervously, Tad flexed his talons into the loam. New scents rose to his

  nostrils, of earth and old leaves, dampness and the sharp aroma of a torn

  fungus. “You have a point.” He thought about her suggestion, mentally trying

  to figure out how long it would take two injured people to walk the distance

  that two uninjured people had flown. It isn‘t so much the distance, as what we

  have to cross to get there. “It might take us as much as four days,” he pointed

  out. “We don’t have any real way of getting good directions other than the

  north-needle, and we’re going to be crawling through leagues of this—” He

  waved his claw at the tangled undergrowth. “We’re going to be carrying

  packs, we’ll have to guard our backtrail and watch ahead for ambushes, and

  we’re both injured. All of that will delay us; in fact, we probably ought to

  assume that we’re going to be creeping through the forest, not hiking through

  it.”

  If we’re going to do this, I want to creep. I want to go from bit of cover to bit

  of cover; I want to walk so that we leave no sign and little scent. I want to

  leave traps behind.

  “But when we get there—we’ll be at a cliff face, Tad. That means caves,

  probably at least one waterfall; even if we don’t find the river at first, we can

  work our way along the cliff until we do find the river. We’ll at least have

  someting we can put our backs against!” She looked unbelievably tense, and

  Tad didn’t blame her. Of the two of them, she was the most vulnerable,

  physically, and the least able to defend herself, knife skill or not.

  Not that either of us will be particularly good at it. In terrain like this, I’m at a

  distinct disadvantage. If anything gets in front of me, I can probably shred it,

  but at my sides and rear I’m badly vulnerable at close quarters.

  If they left this camp, their choice of how to proceed was simple; pack out

  what they could, or try to live off the land with very little to aid them. Take the

  chance that they could improvise, or—

  Or find out that we can’t. We’re hurt; we are going to need every edge we

  can get. That means tools, weapons, food, protection.

  “The one advantage that we have is that whatever these creatures are,

  they don’t know us, so they can’t predict us,” she persisted. “If we move now,

  we may confuse them. They may linger to look over what we left. We aren’t

  going to lose them unless they lose interest in us, but we may leave them far

  enough behind that it will take them a while to catch up.”

  If only they had some idea of what kind of creature they were up against!

  The very fact that they would be trying to slip quietly through the forest rather

  than running might confuse their foes.

  Or it might tempt them into an attack. They might read that as an admission

  of weakness. There was just no way of knowing.

  He nodded, grinding his beak a bit. “Meanwhile, if we stay, they can study

  us at their leisure,” he admitted. “And that makes us easy targets.”

  Go or stay? Remain where they were or try to find some place easier to

  defend?

  Either way, they were targets. The only question was whether they made

  themselves moving targets or entrenched targets.

  Aubri and Father always agreed on that; it’s better to be a moving target

  than a stationary one. “All right, I agree,” he conceded. “Let’s make up two

  packs and get out of here. You might as well load me down; it isn’t going to

  make a great deal of difference since I can’t fly anyway.”

  She nodded, and wordlessly turned to rummage through the supplies

  cached in the tent. In a few moments, she handed him a pack to fill.

  He joined her in picking through all the supplies they had salvaged. It was

  obvious what they were going to leave behind; just about everything they had

  saved. They would have to abandon everything that wasn’t absolutely

  essential.

  Their discards went everywhere, now that there was no point in sheltering

  them. If their foes did come to rummage through what they left behind, the

  confusion of belongings might gain them a little more time.

  Clothing, personal items, those joined the rejected items; it was easier to

  decide what to leave than what to take. The piles of discards grew larger, with

  very few items making it into the packs. The medicine kit had to come along;

  so did the weapons, even though the pouches of lead shot were heavy. So

  far, there hadn’t been anything around that Blade could use in the sling

  instead of lead shot. This was the wrong time of the year for fallen nuts; the

  soil here wasn’t particularly rocky, and they couldn’t count on a cairn of

  pebbles turning up at a convenient moment.

  The only distance-weapon she could use one-handed was the sling, so the

  shot had to come, too.

  The food had to come with them, and some of the tools, and just enough

  bedding and canvas to keep them warm and dry at night. All of that cloth was

  bulky and heavy, but if they got soaked, they could easily die of cold-shock,

  even with a fire to keep them warm and dry them out. Then again—if they got

  soaked in another long rainstorm and they were caught without shelter, there

  would be no way to build a fire to warm them. No, the canvas half-shelter and

  a blanket apiece had to come along.

  They were leaving a great deal for their opponents to look over, and Tad

  hoped that it would keep them very, very busy. And if only I knew something,

  anything about “them,” I’d be able to think of a way to keep them even busier.’

  Part of their training included this sort of selection process, and they had

  learned just what was truly essential to survive. It didn’t take long before they

  had two packs put together, one large, and one small. Blade would carry two

  spears and use them as walking sticks; that way she would have both aid and

  weapon in one. It had taken some ingenuity to rig her pack so that it would

  stay on with a minimum of pain—there couldn’t have been a worse injury than

  a broken collarbone when it came to carrying a pack. Much of the weight was

  going to fall on her hips, now, and would probably cause bruises and

  abrasions. Both Tad and Blade had come to accept that pain was going to be

  an omnipresent part of their immediate future, and their concern regarding it

  was more a case of figuring out ways to lessen its immediate impact, since

  eliminating it was impossible, “endure now, heal later” was the philosophy that

  would serve them best.

  The morning fog was just beginning to lift when they took a bearing with the

  north-needle and headed into the west. Blade led in more open areas. She

  was small—they both had the feeling that if an attack came, it would come

  from the rear. He was better suited to bearing the brunt of an attack from the

  front than she, and in open areas he could turn around quickly to help Blade.

  In close quarters, he led, with Blade guarding his
tail. They were still

  vulnerable from the sides, but it was better than a completely unguarded rear.

  They had discussed booby-trapping the camp, but decided against it. If their

  foes were kept nicely busy with what remained, that was good, but if one of

  their number was hurt or killed by a booby-trap, it might make them angry and

  send them hot on the trail, after revenge. Also, discovery of one trap might

  make whatever it was give up on a search of the camp entirely and go straight

  into tracking them, which would lose them valuable distance.

  As they left the area, Tad paused once for a look back at the camp,

  wondering if they were making a dreadful mistake. They were leaving so

  much behind, so much that they might need desperately in the next few days!

  But their pathetic little shelter looked even more vulnerable now, and

  rationally, he knew that it couldn’t withstand a single determined blow, much

  less a coordinated attack by several creatures at once. In fact, with its canvas-

  over-wicker construction, it could become a trap for both of them. It wouldn’t

  take much to drive the supporting saplings through the wicker-work. . . .

  A shiver ran along his spine at that thought, for it was all too easy to picture

  something slamming the cup of wicker down on top of them, trapping them

  inside, where they would be helpless to defend themselves. . . .

  With a shudder, he turned away, and followed after Blade as she picked

  her way through the tangled growth of the forest floor.

  There was still fog in the treetops, just high enough that there was no real

  way for them to tell precisely where the sun was. In a little while, the last of

  the fog would burn off completely, and then they might be able to cross-check

  their bearings with the angle of the sun—although so far, they hadn’t been

  able to manage that yet.

  We’ll know where we are exactly, but only if we can find a hole big enough

  to see the sun through. And then it will only be possible if the sun is high

  enough to shine down through the hole at the time we find it.

  Living in this forest was like living inside an enormous, thick-aired cave.

  How could anything that lived here know where it was? It was very

  disorienting for Tad not to be able to see the sky, and somewhat

  claustrophobic; he wondered if Blade felt the same as he.

  She seemed determined to concentrate on the forest ahead, slipping

  carefully through the underbrush in such a way that she disturbed as little as

  possible. The kind of leaf litter that served as the forest floor didn’t hold tracks

  very well, and if their enemies could just hold off following until the afternoon

  rains started, it wouldn’t hold a scent very well either. If she found their

  surroundings claustrophobic, she wasn’t letting the feeling interfere with what

  she was doing.

  But he kept swiveling his head in all directions every time they paused to

  pick a good route. Those frequent pauses as she pondered her route to the

  next bit of cover gave him ample opportunity to feel the forest closing in on

  him. His nerves were afire with tension; he couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t

  feel the same.

  But maybe she doesn‘t; maybe this doesn‘t bother her. Maybe she doesn’t

  even need to feel sky and wind. He had always known that humans weren’t

  like gryphons, and that thought made her seem positively alien for a moment.

  But, then again, she lived in a veritable burrow back in White Gryphon, so

  maybe this landscape felt cozy to her, rather than constricting. But oh, how he

  longed for enough room to spread his wings wide, even if that longing

  reminded him pointedly that he couldn’t spread them at the moment!

  As Blade eeled her way between two bushes that were barely far enough

  apart to let him through, he realized something else that was very strange.

  There weren’t any game trails here.

  That realization was just as disconcerting to him as not being able to see

  the sky. He knew there were some large animals that lived down here on the

  forest floor, so why didn’t they leave regular trails? There should be deer

  trails, going to and from water. Deer couldn’t collect rainwater in vessels to

  drink, obviously; they had to have a water source. He had never in all of his

  life encountered a deer herd that didn’t make paths through their territory just

  by virtue of the fact that there were a lot of them going in the same direction.

  Was there something living down here that was so dangerous that it was

  suicidal to have a regular trail, foolhardy to move in groups large enough to

  make one?

  Could that something be what had brought them down, and what had been

  examining their ruined belongings?

  That’s altogether too logical, and is not a comforting thought. I know there

  are large cats like lions here, and bears, because the Haighlei told us there

  were—yet I have never seen deer and wild pigs afraid to make game trails in

  lion or bear country. If there is something else living here that makes

  creatures who regularly face lions afraid to leave a game trail. . . .

  The answer could be that whatever this putative creature was happened to

  be so fierce, so bloodthirsty, that it wasn’t safe for herbivores to travel in

  herds. That it was the kind of creature that slaughtered everything within its

  reach, whether or not it was hungry. He swallowed, his throat feeling tight and

  dry.

  But he might be overreacting again. He didn’t like this place; perhaps his

  imagination was getting the better of him. Maybe we just are in a bad place in

  the forest. Maybe there’s nothing here worth foraging for to bring deer and

  other browsers into this area. There certainly doesn’t seem to be anything

  tasty for a plant eater to feed on; all these bushes are extraordinarily tough

  and we’ve seen precious little grass. Maybe that’s why there aren’t any trails

  through here; it simply isn’t worth a deer’s time to come here.

  And perhaps that was the reason for the unnatural silence all about them.

  There might be an even better explanation for the silence—they were

  dreadfully obvious to anything watching and listening. Despite the fact that

  they were trying very hard to be quiet, the inevitable sounds they were making

  were an unholy racket in contrast with the silence surrounding them. Try as

  they might, as they passed from one spot of cover to the next, they rattled

  vines and rustled bushes, and none of those noises sounded natural.

  And anything living up in the trees is going to have a fine view of us down

  below. I doubt that Blade looks harmless to what’s up there, and I know I

  don’t. I look like a very large, if oddly shaped, eagle.

  Tree dwellers might not recognize Blade as a predator, but they would

  certainly recognize Tad. There were eagles here, they knew that for a fact, for

  he had seen them flying below him, hunting in and above the forest canopy.

  Anything that looked like an eagle was going make a canopy dweller nervous.

  And yet. . . there hadn’t been a silence this wary and profound since they

  had felt as if they were being watched. For that matter, the tree dwellers

  hadn’t been particula
rly quiet in any of the other places that they had camped

  before they had crashed.

  This is exactly like the silence that falls when an eagle-owl is hunting, and

  everything stays absolutely quiet and motionless until the moment it makes a

  kill, hoping that whatever it is hunting, it will not find one of them.

  There weren’t even the sounds made when other animals hunted . . . but

  when a greater predator prowls, the lesser remains silent and hidden. Are we

  the greater predators, or is something else?

  Perhaps he should put his mind to thinking of ways to delay pursuit.

  If whatever-it-is does come after us, it wouldn’t matter now if I laid booby-

  traps behind us. Would it? How much worse could I make things, if I hurt

  something that was following us?

  Well, the answer to that could well be—much worse. Why anger something

  that was following only out of curiosity?

  Perhaps not booby-traps then, at least not yet. Perhaps just things to

  confuse the trail. The first thing to confuse would be scent, because that was

  of primary importance to a ground-dwelling predator in an environment like

  this one. There wasn’t much of a line-of-sight, but scent would hold and cling

  until the next rain washed it away. And by then, a trail would more than likely

  be too cold to follow anyway.

  He began watching for a vine with leaves veined with purple and red; it had

  a pungent, peppery smell. He’d noticed that they were fairly common, and

  when he finally spotted one, he hissed at Blade to stop for a moment.

  When they next moved on, it was with the thick juice from those leaves

  rubbed all over their feet and hands—and they were going to have to

  remember not to rub their eyes until they washed it off, for it burned just like

  real pepper! There were other plants, less common, that had equally

  distinctive odors, and as he came across them he intended to gather

  generous samples. Every time the current scent was about to wear off, he’d

  change it. If anything came hunting them depending on its nose, he’d have

  handed it a surprise. And maybe one of these plants would have the effect of

  numbing a sensitive nose.

  He had to hope this ploy would work, for they were certainly proceeding at

  a crawl to begin with, and their progress only slowed as the day progressed.

  His pack was awkward, heavy, and made his bad wing and all his bruises