Mercedes Lackey - Winds Of Fury

"There've always been stories that some of the Vkandis priests could control supernatural night-creatures," the Herald replied. The priest followed the words closely, nodding vigorously from time to time when the Herald hit precisely on the facts. "They're supposed to be unstoppable - they keep whole villages indoors at night for fear of them, and they are said to be able to take individuals right out of their beds in locked homes, with no one the wiser. What these things are, I don't know - though from what you and Jonaton there have taught me so far, my guess is they're from the Abyssal Plane, which would mean they aren't real bright. Basically, you haul them out, give them a target or an area to patrol, turn them loose - and try to stay out of their way."

The priest was nodding so hard now that Treyvan was afraid his head would come off. "Yes, yes," he said. "Yes, and terrible, terrible."

Treyvan's own magic was of the direct sort; he had little experience in using or summoning creatures of any of the Planes. The closest he had ever come was in calling an elemental or two, like a vrondi. This sort of thing was usually undertaken by a mage with little mind-magic and a fairly weak Mage-Gift, but with a great deal of trained will. A focused and trained will could accomplish a great deal, even when the sorcerer's own powers were slight, provided the sorcerer had a known source of energy. Unfortunately, when a mage's own abilities were poor, the most certain source of energy was that of pain and death. Which was why most of the mages summoning other-Planar creatures were blood-path mages.

This priest seemed to be the exception to that rule; he was somewhere on the border between Journeyman and Master, and he certainly didn't need demons to help him. He seemed very sincere, and very anxious that they know both that he could call demons, and that they were pretty dreadful creatures.

"Terrible, terrible," the priest repeated. "But Ancar terrible is. Yes?"

Ah, so what he was saying was that the demons were a dreadful weapon, but they were a weapon Ancar might deserve to get in his teeth.

Now here was a dilemma, if ever there was one. A terrifying weapon, an evil enemy. Did the one deserve the other?

Treyvan ground his beak, frustrated. He had flown out to the front lines once, and it was a damned mess. It had Falconsbane written all over it; there was that kind of callous disregard for life. The carnage could not have been described. Ancar was driving his troops over ground so thick with the bodies of the dead that there wasn't a handspan of dirt or grass visible anywhere. If a soldier lost a limb, he could bend over and pick up a new one.

To use the weapon, or not?

"Could Ancarrr take yourrr demonsss, once you loosssed them?" he asked the priest urgently. "Could he ussse them?"

The man looked very startled, as if he had not considered that question. Then, after a moment of thought, he nodded slowly.

Treyvan let out a growling breath he did not realize he had been holding in. So much for the moral question. You do not fling a weapon at your enemy that he may then pick up and use.

Or, as the Shin'a'in said, "Never throw your best knife at your foe."

"No demonsss," he said firmly. "We do not give Ancarrr demonsss he can ssssend back." The priest looked relieved. The Herald and old Jonaton definitely looked relieved.

"Now," he continued, "Let usss once again trrry thisss messshing of sssshieldsss...."

The gryphlets and the two royal twins were playing a game of tag. Of all of them, Hydona reflected, it was the children who were affected the least. For as long as Lyra and Kris had been alive, there had been war with Ancar and danger in Valdemar. For as long as Lytha and Jerven had been alive, they had nested in a perilous world. For both sets of twins, the danger was only a matter of degree. And the tension their parents were under was offset by the joy of having a new set of playmates.

For the two human children, having the fascinating Rris as a new teacher and nurse only made things better. And as for the gryphlets, they now had a brand new playground, and an entire new set of toys and lessons. For the four of them, life was very good.

The youngsters all lived together during the day in the salle. Lessons at the Collegium had been canceled for the duration, and the trainees set to running errands - or, if they were about to graduate, were thrown into Whites and put under the direct tutelage of an experienced Herald. The salle had only one entrance, and that could be easily guarded - and was, not only by armed Guardsmen but by every unpartnered Companion at the Collegium, in teams of four pairs. Inside, ropes could be strung from the ceiling for young gryphlets to climb, practice dummies set up for them to wrestle, and a marvelous maze of things to climb on, slide down, and crawl about in could be constructed for both species. All of these things were done. They caused twice the noise of a war themselves when they were in full swing.

When the children tired, there was always Rris or the two human nurses - a pair of retired Heralds - who were ready to tell stories or teach reading and writing - well, reading, anyway. The gryphlets' talons were not made for holding human-sized pens. The nurses also instructed the youngsters in the rudiments of any of the four languages now being spoken on the Palace grounds.

Already it was a race to see if the human children picked up more Kaled'a'in, or the gryphlets more Valdemaran, just from playing with each other.

Hydona sighed, thinking wistfully how much she wished she could join the little ones, if only for an hour. But at least she had them when the day was done...and Rris was the best teacher anyone could ever have asked for. It was a truism that those who provided support were greater heroes than the ones who fought the wars, so Rris was as much a hero as his "Famous Cousin Warrl."

She knew that Selenay felt the same, but Selenay spent far more time away from her little ones than Hydona did, for Selenay's day did not end when she and a set of pupils were exhausted. The Queen and Kerowyn coordinated everything from the War Room in the Palace.

And it could not be done, save for the Mindspeaker among the Heralds.

Valdemar's greatest advantage remained its communications. Tactics could be put hand in hand with strategy from the Palace, thanks to Mindspoken dispatches, read in condensed battle-code, from field scoutings. Valdemar's second advantage was knowledge of the land; Heralds on circuit for so many generations had kept precise maps. Whether the land was high or low, wet or dry, resources could be moved rapidly with a minimum of waste.

Ancar had taken a bite from the side of Valdemar; Selenay and Kerowyn were ensuring that he did not find it an easy bite to digest. Treyvan's mages harried his mages, concentrating all their power on simply disrupting whatever spells had been set, by targeting the mages for specific, personalized nuisance attacks as well as attempting to break the spells themselves. This, evidently, was a strategy no one had used here. Ancar had not anticipated that FarSeers could identify his mages at a distance, and pass that information to mages who could then tailor their spells to suit. It did seem to be helping. And the Guard and Skybolts ran constant hit-then-run-away attacks against his lines, never letting Ancar's troops rest quietly, and doing their best to disrupt the supply lines.

The good news was that the civilian evacuation was working. There were a minimum of civilian casualties, those mostly too stupid or stubborn to leave when they were told to. This was something Hydona could not understand. How could humans be so attached to things and property that they would lose their lives simply to stay with those things? Nesting for the deranged.