Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon.txt
Page 38
And I never was very good at waiting!
She kept quiet, tried not to fidget, and listened for sounds up the trail.
Skan had an advantage over all of the others; he knew where each trap
was, because he felt the mage-energy. And he would know as they were
triggered, because he would sense that, too. Under any other circumstances,
the tiny bits of energy he and Tad had invested in the triggers would have
vanished in the overall flows of energies, but with nothing around to mask
them, they “glowed” to him like tiny fires in the distance.
And he tensed, as he felt the first of them “go out.”
That was the strangling-noose. . . .
He wished he had Drake’s empathic ability as well. It would be nice to know
if their trap had gotten anything.
They had been careful to set things that worked differently—though
hopefully the pups would venture over here slowly, and would be so greedy to
get at the bits of magic that none of them would realize that the magic-bits
and the traps had anything to do with each other.
The next one is the set of javelins, and if there’s a group, it should take out
several. And they’ll be cautious after they spring that one.
The javelins, hidden under brush, were far enough away from the trigger
that he was fairly certain that the pups would make no connection between
the two.
And there it goes! In his mind’s eye, another little glowing “fire” went out.
Two down, two to go.
One trap working from above, one from in front. One takes out a single
pup, one takes out several. No pattern there, and nothing in the way of a
physical trigger to spot.
The next trap would take out a single pup again; and it worked from the
ground. That would be the foot-noose. He felt his chest muscles tighten all
over as he “watched” that little spark of energy, and waited for the pups to
regain their courage. He knew that at least he and Tad were safe from
detection tonight; they’d used up all but a fraction of their personal energies
making the traps. There was nothing to distract the pups from the bait.
Time crawled by with legs of lead, and he began to wonder if he and Tad
had done their work a little too well. Had he discouraged the pups? Or would
the loss of several more goad them into enough rage to make them continue?
Only Blade and Amberdrake knew the answer to that question, and only if
they had opened themselves up empathically again.
Just when he was about to give up—when, in fact, he had started to stand,
taking himself out of hiding— the third “spark” died.
He crouched back down again, quickly.
They all heard—or rather, felt—the fourth trap go. It was the one that had
originally been set with a crude string-trigger that went into the cave. When it
went, it would not only take several wyrsa with it—hopefully—but it would
have the unfortunate side-effect of spreading rock out into the river, widening
the shelf in front of the cave. But that couldn’t be helped. . . .
The rocks under him shook as the wyrsa triggered the last trap—and he
didn’t need to be empathic to know that this final trap totally enraged them.
Unlike the cries that they had uttered until now, their ear-piercing shrieks of
pure rage as the remaining members of the pack poured over the rocks were
clearly audible over the pounding water.
More than four— But it was too late to do anything other than follow
through on their plan. With a scream of his own, he dove off the cliff, right
down on the last one’s back.
The head whipped around and the fangs sank into his shoulder, just below
where the wing joined his body. He muffled his own screech of pain by sinking
his own beak into the join of the creature’s head and neck.
The thing wouldn’t let go, but neither would he. It tried to dislodge him, but
he had all four sets of talons bound firmly into its shoulders and hindquarters.
In desperation, it writhed and rolled, and sank its fangs in up to the gumline.
He saw red in his vision again, but clamped his beak down harder, sawing at
the thing’s flesh as he did so. He jerked his head toward his own keel, digging
the hook of his powerful beak even further through hide, then muscle, then
cartilage. The spine . . . he had to sever the spine. . . .
Amberdrake stood up on his tiny shelf of rock and fired off arrow after arrow
into the one wyrsa that had been unfortunate enough to cross his blob of
foxfire. The arrows themselves had been rubbed with phosphorescent fungus,
so once the first one lodged, he had a real target. He’d throttled down any
number of emotions as the wyrsa came closer and closer, but—strangely
enough, now that he was fighting, he felt a curious, detached calm. His
concentration narrowed to the dark shape with an increasing number of
glowing sticks in it; his world constricted to placing his next arrow somewhere
near the rest of those spots of dim light. Sooner or later, he would hit
something fatal.
He knew that he had, when the shape bearing the sticks wobbled to the
edge of the water, wavered there for a moment, then tumbled in.
He chose another as it crossed a blob of foxfire, and began again.
Tad was close enough to his father that he saw the difficulties Skan was in.
At that point, it didn’t matter that it was not in the plan—he surged out of
hiding and pounced, sinking his beak into the wyrsa’s throat, and his
foreclaws into its forelimbs. A gush of something hot and foul-tasting flooded
his mouth, and the wyrsa collapsed under Skan’s weight.
He let go, spitting to rid himself of the taste of the wyrsa’s blood, as Skan
shook himself free of the creature’s head and staggered off to one side. Tad
guarded him as he collected himself, keeping the other wyrsa at bay with
slashing talons.
Then he wasn’t alone anymore; his father was fighting beside him. “Good
job,” Skan called. “I owe you one.”
“Then take the one on the left!” Tad called back, feeling a surge of pleasure
that brought new energy with it.
“Only if you take the one on the right!” Skan called back, and launched
himself at his next target.
Tad followed in the same instant, as if they had rehearsed the maneuver a
thousand times together.
Blade’s weapon was not as suited to rapid firing as her father’s, and she
had to choose her targets more carefully than he. He had a great many
arrows; she had a handful of spears, and not all of them flew cleanly.
But when she did connect, her weapon was highly effective. She sent three
wyrsa tumbling into the river, and wounded two more, making them easier
targets for Skan and Tad.
Just as she ran out of short spears, she saw—and sensed—the moment
that they had all been waiting for. The bitch-wvrsa was herding her remaining
pups before her into the cave the two humans and two gryphons had
abandoned. She obviously intended to reverse the situation on her attackers,
by going to ground in what should have been their bolt-hole.
“She’s going in!” Blade shouted. She seized the longer of her two spears
<
br /> and jumped down to the ground. A moment later, her father joined her, and
with Tad and Skan they formed a half-circle that cut off the wyrsa from
escape.
The pups had clearly had enough; now that they were all in the cave, they
were silhouetted clearly against the fire at the rear. The pups, about three of
them, milled about their mother. They didn’t like the fire, but they didn’t want
to face the humans and gryphons either.
The wyrsa-bitch, however, was not ready to quit yet. She surged from side
to side in the cave, never presenting a clear target, and snarled at her pups. It
looked to Blade as if she were trying to herd them into something. She and
Amberdrake edged up farther into the cave, following the plan. In theory, with
the two weakest members of the party in plain sight, the bitch should do what
they wanted her to.
“She’s trying to goad them into a charge!” Amberdrake shouted. “Get
ready!”
Blade grounded the butt of her spear against the rock, hoping against hope
that she wouldn’t have to use it—
“Now!” Drake shouted, as the bitch herded her pups up onto the brush and
rock barrier.
And at that signal, Skan and Tad used the last of their mage-energy, and
ignited the oil-soaked wood of the barricade with a simple, small fire-spell.
With the fire already going at the back of the cave, there was a good draft
going up the chimney. The flames swept back, and merged with the second
fire at the rear. The cave was an oven, and the wyrsa were trapped inside.
The wyrsa-bitch turned and heaved herself at the barricade nearest Blade.
Her dead-white eyes blazed rage as she stared at the human, and Blade felt
her hatred burning, even without being open empathically.
Amberdrake dropped his spear; it clattered to the ground as he seized his
head in both hands. His knees buckled and he fell in a convulsing heap.
Without hesitation, Blade picked up her own spear, aimed, and threw.
The bitch-wyrsa took it full in the chest and continued forward, screaming
defiance. She heaved up into the air, towering above all of them for a
moment—and Blade was certain she was going to come over the barricade
anyway. Blade’s heart pounded in her ears—only that sound, and the sound
of the wyrsa ‘s scream, louder than anything she had felt before.
The wyrsa fell forward, but didn’t leap. The spear jutted from her chest, only
a quarter of its length in. She stumbled forward in shock. Her forelegs
crumpled—and the butt of the crude spear struck the ground and drove itself
in deeper.
Blade fell into a crouch without hesitation and groped for her fighting-knife,
but she could not take her eyes off the vision of the black wyrsa pitching
backwards, to be consumed in flame.
“We won,” Tad said, for the hundredth time. As the rain washed wyrsa
blood from the rocks, he locked his talons into another body and dragged it to
the river, to roll it in. Blade hoped that something in there would eat wyrsa,
and that the blasted things wouldn’t poison the fish.
After the flames had died down, they had all moved back into the cave to
see what was left. Not much was recognizable compared to the bodies out-
side the cave, but the skulls of the charred wyrsa were easily broken off for
later cleaning. The families of those people the creatures had killed were
entitled to them, perhaps for a revenge ceremony during mourning, so the
grisly task was done with solemn efficiency. Inside, the rock was nicely
warmed, and the two exhausted fathers had a good, comfortable place to lie
down and get some rest.
Meanwhile she and Tad dragged their own weary bodies out into the rain
again, to clean up the mess.
“This is the last one, thank the gods,” Blade said, as she hauled the last of
the beheaded bodies to the river’s edge. Together, she and Tad shoved it in,
and together they turned and walked back to the cave.
“Drake is burning some fish for you, Blade,” Skan greeted them as they
climbed over the rock barricade. “Zhaneel would not approve. By the way,
both the other rescue-parties are near enough for Mind-speech with me, so
we won’t have to eat fish much longer.”
Blade’s heart surged with joy—and then her throat tightened, as she
realized just how close the others must have been last night.
They could have walked right into the same kind of trap that my father did,
she thought soberly. She had been wondering ever since yesterday evening if
they were doing the right thing by trying an all-or-nothing last-stand. Now she
knew they had been.
“When will they get here?” Tad asked eagerly, as Blade accepted fish from
her father with a smile of thanks.
“Tomorrow, probably. Your mother is thrilled, Blade. Tad, your mother and
brother would be flying in here now if it weren’t raining.” Skan gryph-grinned at
all of them. “I promised them that we would do our best not to melt before they
got here.”
“That was probably safe,” Blade agreed. “Did you tell them anything other
than that we were all safe?”
Skan ground his beak and dropped his head. “I confess; I told them
everything while they were still far enough away that your mothers couldn’t
flay us alive for risking all our necks last night.” He coughed. “I know my
Zhaneel, and I suspect Winterhart will react the same. Weary by the time they
reach us, they will be so grateful that we are all right that they will probably
have forgotten that we took on all those wyrsa by ourselves.”
Amberdrake winced. “Maybe Zhaneel will—but Winterhart won’t,” he said
guiltily. “And she’ll never forgive me for acting like a hotheaded young fighter
and standing on a ledge in the dark, firing arrows into the damned things! And
if I actually admit that I—well—I was good at it—”
Blade patted his knee, and smiled as a rush of love filled her heart.
“Don’t worry, Father,” she said fondly. “I’ll protect you.”
For the first time in days, if not weeks, Tad lay on a ledge in the open,
sunning himself. Finally, finally, the rains had lessened last night, and
although the fog had appeared on schedule, the rain had not chased it away.
It looked as if the weather was getting back to “normal.”
Tad whooped, and leaped off his ledge to gallop toward his brother. Keeth
arrowed in for a landing down on the recently-added stretch of rock-and-
gravel beach in front of the cave. A moment later, as Tad and his brother
closed on each other for the gryphonic equivalent of a back-slapping reunion,
the “mothers’ party” appeared around the curve of the trail.
Now it was Blade’s turn to launch herself off her ledge and run straight into
the arms of her mother, while Amberdrake brought up the rear. Tad grinned to
his twin as they watched his Silver partner hugging her mother and even
shedding a few tears. She was acting just as any normal human would in the
same situation, and about time, too!
Things settled down a little, and Winterhart paused to wipe a couple of
happy tears, as the second party rounded the bend.
With a gasp, Blade broke
off her conversation with her mother to run straight for the leader of the party.
Ikala looked surprised, but extremely pleased, when she threw her arms
around him—and it would have taken an expert to determine if she kissed him
first, or he kissed her.
Tad took a quick look at Amberdrake and Winterhart; they looked stunned,
but gradually the surprise was being replaced by—glee?
Probably. Now they’re finally going to get their wish, after all!
“What is that all about?” Keeth gurgled. “She’s never done that before!”
Tad laughed. “Oh, it has been a complicated mess, but I think I can explain
it. Drake sees her as a real person now—not just as his daughter, his child.
They’ve fought alongside each other. Now she’s—well, now she knows who
she is; that she’s not a reflection of Drake or her mother, and that she doesn’t
have to work so hard at being their opposite. It’s—well, she’s free, free to be
herself.”
“And you?” Keeth asked shrewdly.
Tad laughed. “After seeing Father in action, I can’t say I mind being the son
of the Black Gryphon anymore. And now he has fought beside me, and he
knows there is more to me than obstacle courses and fatherly pride. Word will
get around, and then he will have to cope with being referred to as ‘the father
of that brave Silver.’ I guess that’s justice.”
Keeth grinned and leaned against his brother. “That should give us all
some rest and freedom.”
Freedom, he thought with content. That’s what it is all right. Freedom.