The black gryphon

by Mercedes Lackey

  He flung on some clothing and headed for the Healers’ tents at a dead run. There were plenty of other people boiling out of their tents wearing hastily-donned clothing; as he had surmised, he was not the only kestra’chern on the way up there. Whatever had happened, it was bad, as bad as could possibly be.

  He found out just how bad it was when he arrived at the Healers’ tents and stopped dead in his tracks, panting with effort, struck dumb by the sheer numbers of near-dead.

  The victims overflowed the tents and had been laid out in rows wherever there was space. There was blood everywhere; soaking into the ground, making spreading scarlet stains on clothing and hastily-wrapped bandages. The pain hammered at him, making him reel back for a moment with the force of it pounding against his disciplined shields. “Amberdrake!”

  He turned at the sound of his name; Vikteren grabbed his arm and steered him into a tent. “Tarnsin said to watch for you, they need you here, with the nonhumans,” he said, speaking so quickly that he ran everything together. “I know some farrier-work, I’m supposed to assist you if you want me.”

  “Yes, I want you,” Amberdrake answered quickly, squinting into the semidarkness of the tent. After the bright sunlight outside, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust.

  When they did, he could have wished they hadn’t. There were half a dozen kyree lying nearest the entrance, and they seemed to be the worst off; next to them, lying on pallets, were some tervardi and hertasi-he couldn’t tell how many-and at the back of the tent, three dyheli. There was only one division of the forces that had that many nonhumans in combat positions, and his heart sank. “Oh, gods-the Second-?”

  “All but gone,” Vikteren confirmed. “Ma’ar came in behind them, and no one knows how.”

  But there was no time for discussion. He and his self-appointed assistant took over their first patient, a kyree that had been slashed from throat to tail, and then there was no time for anything but the work at hand.

  Amberdrake worked with hands and Gift, stitching wounds and Healing them, blocking pain, setting bones, knitting up flesh. He worked until the world narrowed to his hands and the flesh beneath them. He worked until he lost all track of time or even who he was working on, trusting to training and instinct to see him through. And at last, he worked until he couldn’t even see his hands, until he was so exhausted and battered by the pain and fear of others that the world went gray, and then black, then went away altogether.

  And he found himself being supported by Vikteren, his head under the spout of a pump, the young mage frantically pumping water over him.

  He spluttered and waved at Vikteren to stop, pushed himself up to a kneeling position, and shook the cold water out of his eyes. He was barely able to do that; he had never in all of his life felt so weak.

  “You passed out,” the mage said simply. “I figured that what worked for drunks would probably work for you.”

  “Probably the best thing you could have done,” Amberdrake admitted and coughed. How many more wounded were there? His job wasn’t done yet. “I’d better get back-“

  He started to get up, but Vikteren restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t do much but let it rest there, yet that was enough to keep Amberdrake from moving.

  “There’s nothing left to go back to. You didn’t pass out till you got the last tervardi and a couple of the humans that the others hadn’t gotten to yet. The rest no one could have helped,” Vikteren told him. Amberdrake blinked at that, and then blinked again. The mage was a mess-his clothing stiff with blood, his hands bloodstained. He had blood in his hair, his eyes were reddened and swollen, and his skin was pale.

  “We’re done?” he asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

  Vikteren nodded. “Near as I can tell. They brought the last of the wounded in through the Jerlag Gate, evacuated the rearguard, and shut it down about a candlemark ago.”

  Evacuated? Shut the Gate down? Amberdrake blinked, and realized then that the light shining down on both of them was entirely artificial, one of the very brilliant mage-lights used by the Healers. Beyond the light, the sky was completely black, with a sprinkling of stars. We’ve been working all day? “Sunset was about the same time they shut the Gate down,” Vikteren told him, answering his unspoken question. “Urtho’s up at the terminus now, and-“

  A ripple in the mage-energies, and an unsettled and unsettling sensation, as if the world had just dropped suddenly out from underneath them, made them both look instinctively to the north. The Jerlag Gate was in the north, beyond those mountains in the far distance.

  Far, far off on the horizon, behind the mountains, there was a brilliant flash of light. It covered the entire northern horizon, so bright that Vikteren cursed and Amberdrake blinked away tears of pain and had false-lights dancing before his eyes for several moments.

  It took much longer than that before either of them could speak.

  Vikteren said carefully, “So much for the Jerlag Gate.”

  “Did he-“ Amberdrake could hardly believe it, but Vikteren was a mage, and he would recognize what Urtho had done better than any kestra’chern.

  Vikteren nodded. “Fed it back on itself. Ma’ar may have taken Jerlag, but it’s cost him a hell of a lot more than he thought it would. That’s the first time Urtho’s ever imploded one of his permanent Gates.”

  The thought hung between them, ominous and unspoken. And it probably won’t be the last.

  Amberdrake swallowed; he could not begin to imagine the forces let loose in the implosion of a fixed Gate. Vikteren could, though, and the young mage squinted off at the horizon.

  “Probably a hole about as big as this camp, and as deep as the Tower there now,” he said absently.

  And then it was Amberdrake’s turn to grab for his arm and steady him, as he trembled, lost his balance, and started to fall. He was heavier than Amberdrake could support in his own weakened condition; he lowered the mage down to the muddy ground in a kind of controlled fall, and leaned against him. Vikteren blinked at him with glazed eyes.

  “You collapsed,” Amberdrake told him gently. “You aren’t in much better shape than I am.”

  “You can say that again, Drake.” Gesten padded up into the circle of light cast by the mage-light overhead, with Aubri and two of Lady Cinnabar’s hertasi with him. “The Lady told me where you were. She and Tamsin and Skan are worried sick.

  I’m supposed to have Dierne and Lysle help Vikteren back to his tent and get some food in him, while Aubri helps me get you back to yours.” The hertasi patted the young mage on the shoulder. “Good work, boy. Tamsin says you two basically took care of every badly injured nonhuman that came in. Real good work. If I had a steak, I’d cook it up for you myself.”

  “Right now a couple of boiled eggs and some cheese sounds fine,” Vikteren croaked, his face gone ashen. “I’d rather not look at meat just now-could look like someone I knew. . . .”

  Gesten gestured to the other two hertasi who levered Vikteren back up to a standing position and supported him on his feet. “Get some food, get some rest. And drink what these two give you. It’ll keep you from having dreams.”

  “Nightmares, you mean,” Amberdrake murmured, as the hertasi helped the mage down the hill, step by wavering step. “I remember my first war-wounded.”

  “As do we all,” Aubri rumbled. “Gesten, if you can get him standing-Amberdrake, you lean on my back-“

  As he got to his feet, he began to black out again, and Gesten tsked at him as he sat abruptly back down. “I thought as much,” the hertasi said. “You’ve drained yourself. You’re going to be a right mess in the morning.”

  “I’m a right mess now.” Amberdrake put his head down between his knees until the world stopped spinning around him. “I hope you have a solution for this. I’d hate to spend the rest of the night sleeping in the mud.”

  “That’s why I brought Aubri. Just give us a moment.” The hertasi hustled into one of the supply tents, and came back out again with a nu
mber of restraining straps and a two-man litter. While Aubri muttered instructions, Gesten rigged a harness over Aubri’s hindquarters, and stuck one set of the litter handles through loops in the harness. “Get yourself on that, Drake,” the hertasi ordered. “I’ve got this inclined so Aubri takes most of your weight.”

  Amberdrake did manage to crawl onto the litter, but he was so dizzy that it took much longer than he thought it would, and his head pounded in time with his pulse until he wanted nothing more than to have someone knock him out. He knew what it was; he’d overextended himself, drained himself down to nothing. He was paying the price of over-extending, and he wouldn’t be the only Healer who’d done that today.

  He closed his eyes for the journey back to his tent; when he opened his eyes again, he was being lifted into his bed. But the moment he tried to move, his head exploded with pain, so he closed his eyes again and passively let them do whatever Gesten told them to. He wound up in a half-sitting position, propped in place by pillows.

  When he opened his eyes again, the tent was silent, lit only by a single, heavily-shaded lantern, and Gesten was still there, although Aubri and the rest of the hertasi’s recruits were long gone. Gesten turned with a cup in his foreclaw, and pushed it at him.

  “Here,” he said brusquely. “Drink this, you know what it is.”

  Indeed he did; a compound of herbs for his head and to make him sleep, so thick with honey he was surprised the spoon didn’t stand in it. At this point, he was too spent to protest, and too dizzy to care. Obediently, he let the too-sweet, sticky liquid ooze down his throat.

  Then he closed his eyes, waiting for the moment when the herbs would take effect. And when they did, he slid into the dark waters of sleep without a single ripple-for a while.

  Winterhart had never wanted quite so much to crawl away into a hole and sleep for a hundred years. Instead, she dragged herself back to her tent and collapsed on her bedroll. She curled into a fetal position, and waited for her muscles to stop twitching with fatigue, too tired even to undress.

  Urtho was losing. That was the general consensus. The only question was if their side would continue to lose ground, or if Urtho would come up with something that would hold Ma’ar off for a little longer.

  We’re being eroded by bits and pieces, instead of being overrun the way I thought we’d go. Even that stark certainty failed to bring her a shiver of fear. She was just too tired.

  It wasn’t just tending her own charges now, it was being called up the Hill at a moment’s notice whenever too many wounded came in. And it wasn’t just her-it was everyone, anyone who even knew how to wrap a bandage. She’d seen Amberdrake working so long and so hard today that he’d become a casualty himself, and he wasn’t the only one, either. The rest of the kestra’chern worked just as hard, and even the perchi came in to mix herbal potions and change bandages. For now, all the little feuds and personality conflicts were set aside.

  Unfortunately, Shaiknam and Garber have their commands again. Although General Shaiknam no longer had nonhumans or mages under his command, he was still managing to account for far too many casualties. When he succeeded, he did so in grand style, but it was always at a high cost in terms of fighters.

  I wish that Urtho would just put him in charge of siege engines and catapults. They don’t die.

  Well, she no longer had to parrot Garber’s stupid orders, or try to make excuses for him. And the Sixth was holding its own at the moment. Perhaps they would continue to hold, and Ma’ar would give up for a while, let things stand at stalemate, and give them all time to breathe.

  Footsteps outside the tent warned her in time to roll over to face the back of the tent and feign sleep. It was Conn, of course, and wanting the usual; she could not imagine where he got any energy to spare when everyone else was exhausted.

  He shoved the tent flap open roughly, and stood beside her bedroll, waiting for her to wake up. Except that she wasn’t going to “wake up.”

  I’m tired of you, Conn. I’m tired of your so-called “temperament.” I’m tired of acting like your mother as well as your lover. I’m very tired of being your lover; you have no couth and no consideration.

  It occurred to her then that he had so little consideration for her that he might well try to shake her awake. Then she would have no choice but to give up the ruse.

  But I’m damned if I’ll perform for you, Conn. You’ll get me the way I feel-too tired to move a muscle, with nothing left over for anything or anyone, not even myself.

  He stood there a moment longer, and experimentally prodded her with his toe once or twice.

  Very romantic, Conn.

  But she had seen people fallen so deeply asleep that nothing short of an earthquake would wake them. She knew how to simulate the same thing. She remained absolutely limp, neither resisting the push from his toe, nor reacting to it. Finally he muttered something uncomplimentary and left the tent.

  She stayed in the same position in a kind of wary stupor; there was no telling how Conn would react to having his wishes flaunted. He might just linger outside the tent, waiting to see if she moved or even came out. He might even come back with a bucket of cold water-

  No, he won’t do that. He wouldn’t want to use the bedroll if it had been soaked.

  But he might find some other way of waking her up and return with it.

  It’s a good thing he won’t be able to find a messenger-bird now that it’s past sunset. He’d probably bring one back here and have it shriek in my ear. The little beggars love dramatics; he wouldn’t have any trouble getting one to cooperate.

  But nothing happened, and when her arm fell asleep, she finally turned over, keeping her eyes cracked to mere slits.

  There was a light right outside her tent, and if there had been anyone lurking out there he’d have shown up as a silhouette against the canvas. There wasn’t a sign of Conn, and as her arm came back to life and she sat up, swearing softly, he didn’t come bursting into the tent.

  She sighed and massaged her left hand with her right, cursing as it tingled and burned. Her eyes felt dry, and gritty, as if she’d been caught in a sandstorm. She left off massaging her hand and rubbed them; it didn’t stop the itching, but at least they didn’t feel quite so dry anymore.

  This end of camp was silent-frighteningly silent. Anyone not on duty was sleeping, wasting not a single moment in any other pursuits. As she listened, she heard the deliberate pacing of a sentry up and down the rows of tents, and the rustle of flags in the breeze, the creaking of guy ropes and the flapping of loose canvas. And something muttered just overhead.

  She peered up, where the tent supports met in a cross. There was a tiny creature up there, perched on the poles.

  She got to her feet, somehow, and reached up to it without thinking. Only as her hand touched it and she felt feathers did it occur to her that it could have been anything-a rat, a bat, some nasty little mage-accident.

  But it wasn’t; it was only a messenger-bird. She slipped her fingers under its breast-feathers as it woke and muttered sleepily, and it transferred its hold on the pole to a perch on her hand.

  She brought it down carefully. While they were very tame, they were also known to nip when they were startled. She scratched it with one finger around its neck-ruff while it slowly woke, grumbled to itself, and then, finally, pulled away and fluffed itself up.

  It tilted its head and looked up at her; obligingly, she got into the light from outside so that it could see her face and identify her. It snapped its beak meditatively once or twice, then roused all its feathers again and spoke.

  Canceling your appointment tonight, it said in Amberdrake’s voice, and it was uncanny the way the tiny bird was able to imitate sheer exhaustion overlaying the words and making him slur his sentences. Too tired. Tomorrow, if we can. I’m sorry.

  She sat back down again, obscurely disappointed. Not that she was up to so much as a walk to the mess tent, much less halfway across camp! And he certainly wasn’t up to giving her a
ny kind of a massage, not after the way she’d seen him slaving today.

  But we could have talked, she thought wistfully. We could have cried on each other’s shoulders . . . comforted each other.

  Suddenly she realized that she no longer thought of him as “the kestra’chern Amberdrake”-not even as her Healer. She wanted to tell him every grisly detail-the men that had died under her hands, the fighters who were never going to see, or walk, or use a weapon again. She wanted to weep on his shoulder, and then offer him that same comfort back again. She needed it, and she guessed that he did, too. His friends were as mind-sick and exhausted as he was, and would be in no position to console him.

  Or else they have others they would rather turn to.

  If only he hadn’t canceled the appointment! If only she could go to him-

  Well, why not? came the unbidden thought. Friends don’t need appointments to see each other.

  That was true enough, but-

  Dear gods, it was a long walk! She held the little bird in her cupped hand, petting its back and head absently as it chuckled in content. Just the bare thought of that walk was enough to make her weep. He might have exhausted his Healing powers, but she had been lifting and reaching, pulling and hauling, all day. Small wonder her muscles burned with fatigue, and felt about as strong as a glass of water.

  Footsteps crunched on the gravel of the path between the rows of tents, drawing nearer, but they were too light to be Conn’s, so she dismissed them as she tried to muster the strength just to stand. II I can get to my feet, maybe I can get as far as the mess tent. If I can get as far as the mess tent, maybe I can get to the bath house. If I can get that far-

  The footsteps paused just outside her door flap, and the silhouette against the canvas was not at all familiar. Until the man turned sideways, as if to go back the way he came.

  “Amberdrake?” she said aloud, incredulously. The man outside paused in midstep, and turned back to the doorflap. “Winterhart?” Amberdrake said cautiously. “I thought you were probably asleep.”