granite, slate and shale. In the winter, thick sheepskins and wool rugs would
cover that cold white floor, and the doors and windows would be shut tight
against the gales, but in the summer all those coverings were whisked away
into storage so that an overheated gryphon could lie belly-down on the cool
rock floor and dump some of that body heat quickly. And, in fact, Keenath was
doing just that, spread out on the floor, with wings fanned, panting slightly.
“I was just thinking about dinner,” his twin greeted him. “I might have known
that thoughts of food would bring you home.”
Tadrith snorted. “Just because you’re obsessed with eating it doesn’t follow
that I am! I’ll have you know that I only just now escaped from yet another
yawnsome Section meeting. Food was the very last thing on my mind, and
escaping Aubri was the first!”
Keenath laughed silently, beak parted, as his tongue flicked in and out
while his sides heaved. “That must have been a first, then,” he bantered. “So
who was she? The pretty young thing that your mind was really on, I mean.
Kylleen, perhaps?”
Tadrith was not going to get caught in that trap. “I haven’t made up my
mind,” he said loftily. “I have so many to choose from, after all, it hardly seems
reasonable to narrow the field this early in the race. It wouldn’t be fair to the
ladies, either, to deny my company to any of them. It is only polite to distribute
my attentions over as wide a selection as possible.”
Keenath reached out a claw and snagged a pillow, spun it twice as he
raised up, and expertly hurled it at his brother’s head. Tadrith ducked, and it
shot across the room to thud against the wall on the other side.
“You should be careful doing that,” he warned, flopping down on the cool
stone himself. “We’ve lost too many pillows over the cliff that way. So what
were you studying that has you panting so hard?”
“Field treatment and rescues under combat conditions, and specifically,
blood stanching and wound binding,” Keenath replied. “Why? Don’t ask me;
we haven’t seen a state of combat since before you and I were born.
Winterhart’s idea. Probably because I take after Mother.”
Tadrith nodded; Keenath was very similar in size and build to their mother,
Zhaneel. Like her, he was technically a gryfalcon rather than a gryphon. He
was small and light, most of his musculature in his chest and shoulders. His
coloring and body type were that of a peregrine, his wings long and narrow,
but most importantly, he had inherited Zhaneel’s stub-taloned, dexterous
claw-hands.
This was important, for Keenath was learning the craft of the trondi’irn from
Winterhart herself, and he needed “hands” as clever as a human’s. Before his
apprenticeship was complete, he would be able to do anything a Healer with
no Gift could do. The difference between him and an herb-, fire-, or knife-
Healer was that, like all trondi’irn, his training was tailored to the needs and
physiology of gryphons and other nonhumans.
Zhaneel had been trained as a fighter—and others had come to the
realization that her small size and lack of fighting talons could be put to other
uses too late for her to learn a new trade. At that point, she had opted to
adapt her style of fighting to her body type rather than try to fit the accepted
mold, and with Skandranon’s help she had made the best of her situation with
brilliant results. But when Keenath had shown early signs that he would
resemble her physically, he was encouraged to think of a career in something
other than the Silvers.
Nevertheless, it had surprised everyone when he had declared he wanted
to train as a trondi’irn. Up until now, that had been an occupation reserved for
humans and hertasi.
Tadrith stretched and yawned, turning his head so that the breeze coming
in from the open door could ruffle his crest-feathers. “At least you were doing
something!” he complained. “I sat there until I thought my hindquarters were
going to turn to stone, and if any part of me is going to grow stiff on a day like
this, that is not my primary choice. I couldn’t even take a nap; as usual, old
Aubri had me conspicuously up front. Have to maintain the tradition of the
Black Gryphon, of course; have to pretend every Section meeting is as
important as a wartime conference. Have to act as if every detail could mean
life or death.” He stretched again, enjoying the fact that he could always vent
his frustration to his twin. “You should be glad you look the way you do,
Keeth. It’s bad enough being Skandranon’s son, but the fact that I look like
him doesn’t even remotely help! You try living up to the legend, sometime! It’s
enough to make anyone want to bite something!”
And to display the strength of his own frustration, he snagged the poor,
mistreated pillow Keenath had lately lobbed at him, and bit at it savagely. It
was a good thing they had the cushions covered in tough linen-canvas, for the
pillows had to take a great deal of punishment.
“Well, if you think it’s hard living up to the legend, just try breaking away
from it!” Keenath retorted, as he always did. Tadrith’s twin groaned as he
followed Tadrith’s example, stretching. “Half the time I’m left wondering if
Winterhart isn’t pushing me so hard expecting me to fail, and half the time I
think she’s doing it because everyone knows Skandranon never failed at
anything he tried.”
Tadrith snorted and mock-scraped his hindfeet, as if burying something
particularly noxious from a previous meal. “He never let it be known how often
he failed, which is the same thing to legend-builders.”
His brother snorted right back and continued. “And if it isn’t Winterhart, it’s
everyone else, watching, waiting to see if the old Black Gryphon magic is
strong enough in Keenath to enable the youngling to pull off another miracle.”
He parted his beak in a sardonic grin. “At least you have a path to follow—I’m
going through new skies in the fog, and I have no idea if I’m going to run up
against a cliff-face.”
Naturally, Tadrith had his own set of retorts, already primed, proving how
much more difficult it was to have to follow in the wake of the Black Gryphon.
It was an old set of complaints, worn familiar by much handling, and much
enjoyed by both of them.
Who can I complain to, if not to my twin? For all that they were unalike in
form and temper, they were bound by the twin-bond, and knew each other
with the twin’s intimacy. There were other twins among the gryphons, and one
or two sets among the humans, and all the twin-sets agreed; there was a
bond between them that was unlike any other sibling tie. Tadrith often thought
that he’d never have been able to cope with the pressure if Keenath hadn’t
been around, and Keenath had said the same thing about his sibling.
Finally the litany of complaints wound to its inevitable conclusion—which
was, of course, that there was no conclusion possible. They ran through the
sequence at least once every day, having long ago decided that if they
could
not change their circumstances, at least they could enjoy complaining about
them.
“So what has your tail in a knot this time?” Keenath asked. “It wasn’t just
the meeting.”
Tadrith rolled over on his back to let the breeze cool his belly. “Sometimes I
think I’m going to do something drastic if Blade and I don’t get assigned
soon!” he replied, discontentedly. “What are they waiting for? We’ve earned
our freedom by now!”
“They could be waiting for you to finally demonstrate a little patience,
featherhead,” Keenath said, and had to duck as the pillow made a return trip
in his direction.
There might have been more pillows than just the one flying, if Silverblade
herself, Tadrith’s partner, hadn’t chosen that moment to walk in their open
door.
She stood in the doorway, posing unconsciously, with the sun making a
dark silhouette of her against the brilliant sky. Tadrith knew it was not a
conscious pose; it was totally out of her nature to do anything to draw
attention to herself unless it was necessary. Blade was the name the
gryphons knew her by, though her childhood name hadn’t been the use-name
she wore now; it had been “Windsong,” so dubbed by her fond parents in the
hopes, no doubt, that she would grow up to resemble one or the other of
them. “Windsong” was a perfectly good name for a trondi’irn or even a
kestra’chern or a Kaled’a’in Healer or mage. But “Windsong” hadn’t had the
inclination for any of those things.
The young woman who broke her pose and strode into the aerie with the
soundless tread of a hunter was small by Kaled’a’in standards, although there
was no mistaking her lineage. Her short black hair, cut in a way that
suggested an aggressive bird of prey, framed a face that could only have
graced the head of one of the Clan k’Leshya, and her beak of a nose
continued the impression of a hunting hawk. Her golden skin proclaimed the
lineage further, as did her brilliantly blue eyes. There was nothing of her
mother about her—and very little of her father.
She fit in very well with those members of Clan k’Leshya descended from
warrior stock, however. Despite her small size, she was definitely molded in
their image. There was nothing to suggest softness or yielding; she was hard,
lithe, and every bit a warrior, all muscle and whipcord.
Tadrith well recalled the first time he had seen her stand that way. The day
she showed her real personality, one month after her twelfth birthday, a month
during which she had suddenly turned overnight from a lively if
undistinguished child to a rough and unpolished version of what she now was.
Amberdrake had been holding a gathering of some sort, which had included
the children, and of course Tadrith and Keenath had been in attendance.
Winterhart had addressed her daughter as “Windsong” during the course of
the meal, and the little girl had unexpectedly stood up and announced to the
room in a firm and penetrating voice that she was not to be called by that
name anymore.
“I am going to be a Silver,” she had said, loudly and with total conviction. “I
want to be called Silverblade from now on.”
Silverblade had then sat down, flushed but proud, amidst gasps and
murmurs. It was a rather dramatic move even for someone with an outgoing
personality like Tadrith; for one as self-effacing as Blade, it must have taken
an enormous effort of will—or assertion of the truth, as the k’Leshya believed.
The willpower to do anything would come, the songs and writings said, if the
motive was pure.
Nothing her parents could say or do would persuade her otherwise—not
that Amberdrake and Winterhart had been so selfish as to attempt to thwart
her in what she so clearly wanted. From that day on, she would respond to no
other name than Silverblade, or “Blade” for short, and now even both her
parents referred to her by that name.
It certainly fits her better than “Windsong.” She can’t carry a tune any better
than I could carry a boulder!
“Keeth! I hear you didn’t kill too many patients today, congratulations!” she
said as she invited herself into the room and sat down on one of the
remaining cushions.
“Thank you,” Keenath said dryly. “And do come in, won’t you?”
She ignored his attempt at sarcasm. “I’ve got some good news, bird,” she
said, turning to Tadrith and grinning broadly as he rolled over. “I didn’t think it
could wait, and besides, I wanted to be the one to break it to you.”
“News?” Tadrith sat up. “What kind of news?” There was only one piece of
news that he really cared about—and only one he thought Blade would want
to deliver to him herself.
Her grin broadened. “You should have stayed after the meeting; there was
a reason why Aubri wanted you up front. If you were half as diligent as you
pretend to be, you’d know for yourself by now.” She eyed him teasingly. “I’m
tempted to string this out, just to make you squirm.”
“What?” he burst out, leaping to his feet. “Tell me! Tell me this instant! Or—
I’ll—” He gave up, unable to think of a threat she couldn’t counter, and just
ground his beak loudly.
Now she laughed, seeing that she had gotten him aroused. “Well, since it
looks as if you might burst if I don’t—it’s what we’ve been hoping for. We’ve
gotten our first unsupervised assignment, and it’s a good one.”
Only the low ceiling prevented him from leaping into the air in excitement,
although he did spring up high enough to brush his crest-feathers and
wingtips against the ceiling. “When? Where? How long till we can get in
action?” He shuffled his taloned feet, his tail lashing with exuberance, all but
dancing in place.
She laughed at his reaction, and gestured to him to sit down. “Just as
quickly as you and I would like, bird. We leave in six days, and we’ll be gone
for six moons. We’re going to take charge of Outpost Five.”
Now his joy knew no bounds. “Five? Truly?” he squealed, sounding like a
fledgling and not caring. “Five?”
Outpost Five was the most remote outpost in all of the territory jointly
claimed by White Gryphon and their Haighlei allies. When this particular band
of refugees had fled here, as they escaped the final Cataclysm of the Mage of
Silence’s war with Ma’ar the would-be conqueror of the continent, they had
been unaware that the land they took for a new home was already claimed.
They’d had no idea that it was part of the land ruled by one of the Haighlei
Emperors (whom the Kaled’a’in knew as the Black Kings), King Shalaman. A
clash with them had been narrowly averted, thanks to the work of Amberdrake
and Skandranon, Blade’s father and Tadrith’s. Now White Gryphon jointly held
these lands in trust with the Emperor, and its citizens were charged with the
responsibility of guarding the border in return for King Shalaman’s grant of the
White Gryphon lands.
It was a border of hundreds of leagues of wilderness, and the Emperor
himself had not been able to “guard” it; he had relied on the wilderness itself
to do the guarding. This was not as insurmountable a task as it might have
seemed; with gryphons to fly patrol, it was possible to cover vast stretches of
countryside with minimal effort. Outpost Five was the most remote and
isolated of all of the border posts. Because of that, it was hardly the most
desirable position so far as the Silvers were concerned.
For most Silvers, perhaps, but not for Blade and Tadrith. This meant three
whole months in a place so far away from White Gryphon that not even a hint
of what transpired there would reach the city unless he or Blade sent it by
teleson. There would be no watching eyes, waiting to see if he could replicate
his legendary father. There would be no tongues wagging about his exploits,
imagined or real.
Of course, there would also be no delicious gryphon ladies for three
months, but that was a small price to pay. Three months of chastity would be
good for him; it would give him a rest. He would be able to use the leisure
time to invent new and clever things to do and say to impress them. He would
have all that time to perfect his panache. By the time he returned, as a
veteran of the border, he should be able to charm any lady he chose.
Outpost duty was a long assignment, in no small part because it was so
difficult to get people to the outposts. Even though magic was now working
reliably, and had been for several years, no one really wanted to trust his
body to a Gate just yet. Too many things could go wrong with a Gate at the
best of times, and at the moment the only purpose anyone was willing to put
them to was to transport unliving supplies. The consumables and their mail
and special requests would be supplied to their outpost that way; a mage at
White Gryphon who was familiar with the place would set up a Gate to the
outpost. Workers would then pitch bundles through, and the mage would drop
the Gate as soon as he could.
No one wants to leave a Gate up very long either. You never know what
might go wrong, or what might stroll through it while it’s up.
“You know, of course, that there’s a great deal of uninhabited and poorly-
surveyed territory in between Five and home,” Blade went on with relish.
“We’re going to be completely on our own from the time we leave to the time
Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon.txt Page 2
