Mercedes Lackey - The Silver Gryphon

Regin nodded with satisfaction at his volunteers. “Right. Close up the watch right around the camp; there’s no point in guarding a big perimeter tonight. If you get a clear shot, take it; maybe if we make things unpleasant enough for whatever is out there, it’ll get discouraged and leave us alone.”

And maybe you’ll provoke them into an attack! Skan reminded himself that he was not the leader and kept his beak clamped tightly shut on his own objections. But he resolved to sleep with himself between Drake and the tent wall, and to do so lightly.

Somehow he managed to invoke most of the old battle reflexes, get himself charged up to the point where nerves would do instead of sleep, and laid himself warily down to rest with one eye and ear open. In his opinion, Regin was taking this all far too casually, and was far too certain that they were “only” dealing with a peculiar form of wild animal. And he was so smug about the fact that he had brought nonmagical backups to virtually every magical piece of equipment except the teleson that Skan wanted to smack him into good sense again.

Bringing backups isn‘t the point! he seethed, as he positioned himself to best protect Drake in an attack. The fact that there is something out here that can eat magic and is clearly hostile —that’s the point! What good are our backups going to do if these things decide that they want more than just a taste of us from a distance?

The rains slowed, then stopped. The fire died, leaving them with nothing but glowing coals for a source of light. Just as the camp quieted down for the night, the “wild animals” proved that they were not intimidated by a party of eight.

Skan came awake all at once with the sound of someone falling to the ground, followed by cursing and a bowstring snapping practically in his ear. But it wasn’t Filix taking the shot—the mage was lying on the ground, just outside the canvas wall nearest Skan, gasping for breath.

The other three humans not on watch scrambled up, but Skan was already on his feet, ready for trouble. A moment later, Regin hauled the half-conscious mage into the tent. “What happened?” Skan asked harshly, as the other two fighters scrambled outside, leaving -himself, Regin, and Drake alone with the disabled mage. Amberdrake went to the young mage’s side immediately and began examining him.

The leader shook his head. “I don’t know,” the young man admitted, looking pale and confused in the light from the single lamp that Drake had lit. “He saw something out there, and I think he was going to work some magic on it—he muttered something about his shields—and then he just fell over. I took a shot at something moving, but I don’t think I hit it.”

“He’s been drained,” Amberdrake said flatly, looking up, with his hand still on Filix’s forehead. “I saw this once or twice in the war, when mages overextended themselves.”

I remember that; it was on the orders of an incompetent commander.

“The only difference is that this time, Filix didn’t overextend himself, he was drained to nothing by means of the spell he cast,” Drake continued. “My guess is that those creatures out there were able to use his previous magic to get into his shield-castings, and then just pulled everything he had out of him, the way they pulled the mage-energy out of the teleson. And probably Tadrith and Silverblade’s basket as well.”

“Stupid son of—” Regin bit off what he was going to say. “Is he going to be all right?”

“Maybe. Probably. As long as he doesn’t give whatever is out there another chance to drain him.” Drake looked angry and a little disgusted, and Skan didn’t blame him. “I’ll do what I can for him, but you should be aware that it isn’t much. Lady Cinnabar herself couldn’t do much for something like this. What he needs is rest, rest, and more rest. We’re going to have to carry him for the next few days. He probably won’t even regain consciousness until tomorrow, and his head will hurt worse than it ever has in his life for several days.”

“Well, we’ll go short one this shift.” Regin shook his head again. “Stupid—” He glanced at Skan, who drew himself up with dignity.

“ I know better than to try anything magical,” he retorted to the unspoken rebuke. “I’ll use a more direct method of defending this camp, if I have to use anything.”

Stupid fool thought that if he cast shields, he’d be safe against this, Skan fumed. Never bothered to remember that magical shields are themselves magical, did he? And since shields are spun out from your own power, they are traceable directly back into your own mage-energies. He probably didn’t think it was necessary to cast anything more complicated, and figured his shields would block anything coming in. . . .

The result had clearly been immediate, and had certainly been predictable.

He pulled Drake back into the tent they had been trying to sleep in. “We’ll stay here,” he told Amberdrake. “Leave him in the other tent with Regin.”

“With just one man to watch him?” Amberdrake asked. Skan shook his head.

“Does it matter?” he replied. “There’s nothing you can do for him, and if something comes charging in here, we’re going to have more important things to think about than defending an unconscious mage.”

There it was; hard, cruel, war-truths. This was a war, whether or not Regin realized it yet.

Evidently Drake did; he grimaced, but didn’t protest any further. He remembered. He knew that the two of them must make their priority that of finding the children. And he knew all about cutting losses.

Which was just as well, because a few moments later, the second attack came.

There was no warning. They hadn’t even blown out the lantern or tried to lie down again. The rain must have covered any sounds of approach, for there certainly was nothing outside the tent walls to indicate anything was wrong. All that Skan knew was that Bern shouted, then screamed, and something dark came ripping through the canvas of the tent, knocking over the lantern in the process, plunging them into darkness until the spilled oil flared up. He knocked Drake to the ground and stood over him, slashing at whatever came near in the darkness.

He ignored anything outside the tent to the point where it simply didn’t exist for him, concentrating fiercely on tiny currents of air, sounds, movement, and what little he could see reflecting from the burning spilled oil. His talons connected several times with something that felt like snakeskin, tearing through it to the flesh beneath, and he clenched any time he was able to, so that he might rend away a chunk of meat. But his opponents uttered nothing more than a hiss, and they dashed away through the double rents in the tent canvas as if his fierce opposition surprised them. The fight couldn’t have lasted for very long, for not only was he not tired, he hadn’t even warmed up to full fighting speed when the attacks ceased, and the attackers vanished, silent shadows sliding between the raindrops.

He stood over Drake a while longer; the kes’tra’chern had the good sense to stay put and not move the entire time. When Amberdrake finally moved, it was to pat the flame out with the edge of a bedroll and then right the lantern.

“Are they gone?” came the voice from between his feet.

“I think so,” Skan replied, shaking his head to refocus himself. Only then did he hear the moans of wounded, and the sound of Bern calling his name.

“We’re here!” Drake answered for him as he relit the lantern with a smoldering corner of the bedroll. “We’re all right, I think.”

“That’s more than the rest of us can say,” the scout replied grimly, wheezing and coughing. “Can you get out here and help me? If I let go of this rag around my leg, I’m going to bleed myself out.”