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

by The Silver Gryphon [lit]

  mention the fact that he was afraid that if he didn’t try to sleep now, his

  stiffening muscles would make sleep impossible. In fact, he fully expected to

  wake up about the time she was ready to sleep. His sore legs and back would

  see to it that he didn’t oversleep.

  That was precisely what happened. By that time, she was ready for sleep,

  warm and relatively cushioned, with him curled around her. She dropped off

  almost immediately, while he concentrated on keeping his muscles relaxed so

  that they didn’t go into cramps. That was quite enough to keep him awake all

  by itself, but the position he was in did not agree with his broken wing either. It

  probably wasn’t causing any damage, but the wing twinged persistently. He

  caught himself nearly whining in pain once, reducing it to a long wheeze and

  shiver.

  So he was fully awake and wary when the usual silence descended outside

  in the canopy, signaling the arrival of the shadowy hunters.

  Of all of the nights so far, this one was perhaps the most maddening and

  the most frightening. He was essentially blind, and he and Blade were curled

  in an all-too-accessible hole in the ground. If anything found them and really

  was determined to dig them out, it could.

  But as he strained his ears, he heard nothing in the way of movement

  outside the mat of vines. He hoped that if anything heard them, their breathing

  and tiny movements might be taken for those of small animals that were too

  much effort to dig out, and which might have a rear entrance to this den

  through which they could escape.

  I wish I’d thought of that and dug one. That might have been a smarter

  thing to do than rig those traps.

  As the moments stretched out unbearably, he became acutely sensitive to

  every sound, more so than he ever remembered being before. So when he

  heard the deadfall “go,” it sounded as loud as a peal of thunder.

  And what was more, he clearly heard the very peculiar cry of pain that

  followed.

  It wasn’t a yelp, and it certainly wasn’t a shout. There were elements of

  both a hiss and a howl in it, and it was not a cry he had ever heard before in

  his life. It startled him, for he could not for a moment imagine what kind of

  animal could have made such a sound. It cut off rather quickly, so quickly that

  he wondered if he had managed to actually kill something with his trap.

  Possible, but not likely, not unless our “friend” out there was extraordinarily

  unlucky.

  Then he heard more sounds; another thud, tearing and breaking noises,

  something being dragged briefly, another hiss. Then nothing. His skin crawled

  under his feathers.

  More silence, while his beak ached from being held clamped shut so tightly

  that his jaw muscles locked, and then, when he least expected it, the canopy

  sounds returned.

  He waited, on fire with tension, as the faint light of dawn began to appear in

  the tiny gaps in their covering. When he couldn’t bear it any longer, he nudged

  Blade with his beak.

  She came awake instantly, her good hand going to her knife.

  “I heard the deadfall go,” he whispered. “I think we got something. Whether

  it was one of them, whether it’s still there—I can’t tell. If it is still there, I don’t

  think it’s still alive, though.”

  She nodded, and cocked her head to listen to the sounds of the forest. “I’d

  say we’re safe to come out,” she said. “Are you ready?”

  “As ready as I’m likely to be.” They’d discussed this last night; she was

  going to come out in a rushing attack, just in case there was something lying

  in wait for them, and he was supposed to follow. It had all seemed perfectly

  reasonable and appropriate last night. Now, with his muscles so sore, stiff,

  and cramped, he wasn’t certain he was going to be able to crawl out, much

  less rush out.

  She drew her knife and wriggled around until she was crouched in place.

  With a yell, she threw off the mat and leaped out—inadvertently kicking him in

  the stomach as she did so.

  His attack-cry was considerably spoiled by this. Instead of a fierce scream

  of defiance, all he could emit was a pitiful grunt, remarkably similar to a belch.

  But he managed to follow her out, if not in a rush, at least in a hurry.

  There wasn’t anything there, which, although an anticlimax, was also a

  relief. “Sorry,” she said, apologetically. “My foot slipped.’1

  What could he say? “It happens,” he managed, as graciously as possible—

  not very, but he doubted that she blamed him at the moment for not speaking

  with an Ambassador’s tact and dissimulation. “Let’s go check that deadfall.”

  When they got close to where the trap had been, it was quite clear that it

  was going to be empty, for the remains of the vegetation they had used to

  conceal it were scattered all over the area. The trap itself was quite empty—

  though there was a trace of blood on the bark of one of the logs.

  “We marked him,” Blade said, squatting down beside it to examine it

  further. “How badly—well, probably not too badly. Maybe a scrape, or a minor

  cut. Possibly a broken bone. But we did hurt him a little.”

  She stood up and looked toward the tree where the decoys were hidden.

  “We’d better go see how they reacted.”

  When they reached the base of the tree, they finally saw something of what

  their trackers could do, and some clues as to their nature.

  Persistent. And . . . possibly angry. But not foolishly persistent.

  There were scratches, deep ones, in the bark of the tree, about twice as

  high up on the trunk as Blade was tall. So the decoys had worked, at least for

  a while, and the hunters had been unable to resist trying to get at the quarry

  when it was openly in sight.

  Or else they were so angry when one of their number got caught in the

  deadfall that they tried to get to us no matter how difficult it was going to be.

  Now they knew this much: the hunters could leap respectable distances,

  but they couldn’t climb the tree trunk, which at least meant that they were not

  great cats. The ground at the foot of the tree was torn by claws, either as the

  hunters tore at the ground in frustration, or when they tried to leap up to drag

  their prey down out of the tree.

  On the other hand, there wasn’t a lot of damage to the tree trunk itself; the

  hunters had made several attempts, but it didn’t look as if they had tried

  mindlessly, over and over, until they were exhausted.

  That meant that they were intelligent enough to know when their task was

  impossible.

  Or intelligent enough to recognize that the decoys were just that. In that

  case, they might well have reasoned that we would have to come back to get

  the packs before we left, no matter where we hid ourselves overnight.

  And if it had been anger that motivated their attack, their anger did not

  overcome them for long.

  Blade looked around, shivering, as if some of the same thoughts had

  occurred to her. “Let’s get the packs and get out of here,” she urged. “Fast.

  They haven’t shown themselves by day before, but that doesn’t mean they />
  won’t now. We might have given them a reason to.”

  He swarmed up the tree far more quickly than he had thought possible a

  few moments before, and this time he didn’t notice his sore muscles. There

  was no need to concern himself with ropes on the way up, which made things

  simpler. He untied the packs when he got there, and dropped them and the

  rope that held them in place down to the ground, leaving the decoys stuck in

  the forks of the branches. If the shadow-lurkers were still deceived by the

  decoys, they might linger, giving him and Blade that much more of a head

  start.

  He went down the tree twice as fast as he had gone up. Every nerve in his

  body jumped whenever an unexpected sound occurred, and the quicker they

  left, the happier he would be. There was just a moment more of delay during

  which they stowed the rope and donned the packs, and then they were on

  their way without even a pause for a meal.

  He wasn’t hungry, and he suspected that Blade wasn’t either. His insides

  were all knotted up with tension, and he kept hearing old gryphon proverbs in

  the back of his mind, about well-fed gryphons and the inability to fly out of

  danger.

  Not that I can fly out of danger now—but it’s better to run or fight on an

  empty stomach than a full one!

  It was barely dawn by the light, and the morning fog had not yet lifted. The

  entire world was painted in dim grays and blues, vague gray shapes and

  columns appearing and vanishing in white mist. In a way, that was all to the

  good, for rather than using the trees as cover, they counted on the fog itself

  for primary concealment. They were able to make much better time that way,

  and since they were taking their bearings from the north-needle rather than

  the sun, it didn’t matter that everything was obscured and enshrouded.

  The fog itself had an odd, bitter aftertaste to it, nothing at all like the sea

  mists Tad was used to. The air felt heavier and thicker, although that was

  probably his imagination. The fog condensed on his feathers, and he kept

  shaking himself so that it didn’t soak in. Poor Blade had no such ability; her

  hair was damp, and she would probably be shivering if they weren’t trotting

  along fast enough to stay warm from exertion.

  He found himself trying to think what kind of creature the hunters could be.

  Those stories about Ma‘ar and all the creatures he made—what sort of things

  did he do? Father said that most of what he did was to make copies of the

  creatures that Urtho developed. . . .

  The makaar had been analogs of gryphons; had there been analogs of

  hertasi and kyree? The tervardi and dyheli were natural creatures, surely

  Ma’ar had not bothered to make analogous creatures to them; why would he?

  But then again, why not? Ma’ar had never hesitated to do or try anything he

  considered might give him an edge.

  He made cold-drakes and basilisks, but those weren‘t analogs of anything

  Urtho made, so there goes Father’s theory. There were smaller creatures, but

  I can’t remember anything that might correspond in size to the hunters. Did he

  do flightless makaar? But why would he, when a makaar on the ground would

  be more helpless than I am? The shadow-hunters can’t be analogs of hertasi,

  because I’m certain that what we’ve been seeing is four-footed, not two-

  footed.

  Had anyone else involved in the Mage Wars made a four-footed hunter the

  size of a horse?

  I just can’t remember anyone ever going into a lot of detail about the mage-

  made creatures. Maybe Snowstar would know, but he’s rather effectively out

  of reach at the moment.

  He kept his ears trained on the trail behind them, and his eyes on Blade’s

  back. She was a ghost in the fog, and it was up to him to keep track of her

  and not lose her. Her pale beige clothing blended in beautifully with the fog—

  but so would his own gray plumage. For once, it would probably be harder for

  the hunters to see them than vice versa.

  Whatever is behind us is clever, very clever. They weren‘t deceived by my

  false trails, and they either gave up on the decoys or recognized them as

  false, and if they gave up temporarily, there’s no guarantee that they won’t

  realize what’s going on when they come back. They didn’t find us, but they

  might not have bothered to look. Or they might have needed to hunt and feed,

  and they couldn’t take the extra time to figure out where we were. Why should

  they? They knew we’d come out in the morning, and all they have to do is wait

  for us to come out and get on our way and they could trail us again. They

  could even be hoping we will stay put in that campsite, since it has been

  proven to protect us once.

  He wanted rock walls around him; a secure place that these shadow-

  hunters couldn’t dig into. He wanted a steady food source that the shadows

  couldn’t frighten away. Once they had both, they could figure out ways to

  signal the help that must be coming.

  And he wanted to see them. He wanted to know exactly what was hunting

  them. Traps might give him more of a chance to see one, provided that any

  injured or dead hunters remained in the trap. And there was no guarantee of

  that, either.

  They freed the injured one from the deadfall. That was what I heard last

  night; they were freeing him.

  That meant cooperation, which meant more intelligence. Wolves might sniff

  around a trapped fellow, might even try to help him gnaw himself loose, but

  they would not have been able to remove parts of a deadfall trap except by

  purest accident, and then only after a great deal of trial and error effort.

  He had heard them last night. It had not taken them long at all to free the

  trapped one. And they had done so without too many missteps, if there were

  any at all.

  The snare—they didn‘t just chew the leg or head off the rabbit it caught and

  then eat the rest. The noose of the snare was opened. They killed the rabbit,

  pulled the snare open and removed it, then pulled up the snare and looked it

  over.

  That was evidence of more intelligence, and certainly the ability to

  manipulate objects. What that evidence meant to their survival, he couldn’t yet

  tell.

  But he had his fears, and plenty of them. He could only wonder right now if

  Blade shared those fears. Maybe it was time to stop trying to shelter her and

  start discussing things. Maybe it had been time to do that a couple of days

  ago.

  Blade stopped in the shelter of a vine-covered bush.

  Is that what I think it is?

  She frowned with concentration, and motioned to Tad to remain where he

  was so she could hear without distraction. There was something in the

  distance, underneath the chatter of the four-legged canopy creatures, and the

  steady patter of debris from a tree where some of the birds were eating green

  fruit—a sound—

  Tad shifted his weight impatiently. “Shouldn’t we—” he began.

  “Hush a moment,” she interrupted, and closed her eyes to concentrate

  better. Was that really what she thought it was? She began to isolate it

 
mentally from the rain of bits of leaf, twig, and half-eaten fruit.

  “I think I hear running water,” she said at last. “Come on!”

  She abandoned all attempts at secrecy, trotting as quickly as she could

  through the tangle of underbrush, with Tad hot on her heels. If that was the

  long-sought river she heard, then their safety lay more surely in reaching it

  than in trying to hide themselves or their trail. Above them, a few canopy

  creatures barked or chattered a warning, but most of them seemed to regard

  her and Tad as harmless.

  Well, they would. Now we’re running openly, not stalking. We can’t be

  hunting, so we’re not a danger to them directly. The sounds above kept on,

  and the fruit eaters didn’t even pause in their gluttony. That was comforting; it

  meant there was nothing else around that aroused the tree dwellers’ alarm. If

  there had been something trailing them closely, when they broke cover, it

  would have had to do the same to a certain extent, just to keep up with them.

  And if that had happened, the treetops should have erupted with alarm or

  once again gone silent, or both.

  There was sunlight pouring down through a huge gap in the trees, off in the

  distance; it shone green-gold through the leaves, white between the trunks of

  the trees. The closer they got, the clearer the sound of water running rapidly

  over rocks became.

  They literally burst through the luxuriant curtain of brush at the river’s edge,

  teetering on the rocks lining the banks. She wanted to cheer, but confined

  herself to pounding on Tad’s shoulder enthusiastically.

  The river at their feet was wide, but so far as she could tell, it was deep

  only in the middle. More to the point, across the river lay the cliff they had

  been looking for, with a wide beach made of rocks and mud lying between the

  rock cliff face and the river.

  Caves, waterfalls—even a crevice that we can fortify. Any of those will do

  very nicely just now!

  “Let’s get across,” Tad urged. “If they’re following us, we’ll be able to see

  them, and there’s going to be water between them and us.”

  Water between them and us. Right now, that was the best protection she

  could imagine. Tad was right; with an open space of water between their

  enemy and themselves, they would certainly be able to see the mysterious