Mercedes Lackey: The Silver Gryphon

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.