Mercedes Lackey - The Black Gryphon

Levas had at least admitted that his own coldness was a part of why this Winterhart was disenchanted with him. Amberdrake had the feeling that such an admission that anything was due to personal fault was a major concession.

Disenchanted . . . now there was a thought. Could this mage have worked a beglamorment on the woman? He couldn’t have used a stronger spell, since other mages would have noticed, but a beglamorment, at the right time, would have made him what she most wanted to see. She could have found her way into his bed long before she realized he wasn’t what she had thought. To have a Kaled’a’in lover was considered a coup by some mercs in Urtho’s forces; to have a Healer as a lover even more so. She might represent just another symbol of success to be acquired. And—

Why was he worrying about her! He didn’t even know her, only that her name sounded Kaled’a’in. She might not be Kaled’a’in at all; there were others who took on colorful names or were given them at birth. For that matter, why was he worrying about Conn Levas? The man had gotten good and ample service for his money. He was unlikely to return, given his uneasiness with Amberdrake’s probing questions; Amberdrake knew the merc had been disturbed by how much he had revealed. Well. The service he’d rendered was easy enough, even by kestra’chern standards. Still. . . .

If you worry about every man and woman in the army, you’ll tie yourself up in knots for no good reason, he told himself. You’re making things up out of nothing, then worrying about them. You’ve never even seen this Healer Winterhart. Why work yourself into a headache?

Oh, he knew why he was worrying about them; it was to keep from worrying about Skan.

As if he didn’t have enough to worry about already.

Skandranon was grateful to be alive, even more grateful to have gotten his mission completed successfully, and entirely grateful to have been put back together. He’d been assured—repeatedly—that he would be able to fly again. But he was in constant pain, his head pounded horribly, and on top of all of it, having to be that grateful made him want to bite.

This was very bad of him, and he knew it, which made him want to bite even more. He only liked to be bad on his own terms. If only he could have someone show up to see him who deserved a good, scathing dressing-down—the fool who had assured Urtho that Stelvi Pass had been in no danger, for instance, or the idiot who had issued the orders that grounded the gryphons between specific missions. Even the imbecile cook who had first sent him raw fish for breakfast instead of good, red meat, then had made it worse by sending yesterday’s stew instead of fresh, still bleeding meat. But the only people who came near him were those he was supposed to be grateful to—how annoying! —Gesten and Drake, Tamsin and Cinnabar, the members of his wing, and the scouts and mercs who had risked their lives to get him home. After Gesten’s lecture, he made doubly sure to convey his proper gratitude to them.

But he still wanted to bite—so he did. The camp could find another pillow somewhere.

Now if only his beak didn’t hurt; there was a persistent sting from small scratches around his nares, and an itch across his cere, and his sinuses felt like—

Like you hit something hard after a prolonged plummet, bird.

It didn’t help that he was forced to lie in a completely unnatural position, forelegs stretched in front of him, hindlegs stretched straight under him and bound by splints, unable to get comfortable. He knew Healers could fuse the bones of a mage-bred creature like himself in a single session of concentrated Healing. He also knew that there was plenty of pain on the front lines, and people in real danger of dying if they didn’t get to a Healer, and that such a session was fairly low on the list of priorities.

That didn’t help.

But much to his surprise, late in the afternoon, Tamsin and Cinnabar made an appearance at his tent—and from the implements their hertasi was carrying, this was no social call. Tamsin was in his usual simple green breeches and shirt, his short-cropped blond hair and beard in stark contrast to many of the other Healers, who usually let their hair grow long and went clean shaven. And he could not have made a better foil for the graceful and tall Lady Cinnabar; he was as stocky and muscled as a wrestler. Cinnabar, of course, was as elegant as if she had just come from holding court, her scarlet gown cut to mid-calf, showing scarlet leather boots and slender ankles, her sleeves cut tight, displaying her graceful arms without an unseemly show of flesh. Skandranon had heard that by human standards she was not beautiful, not even handsome, but her strong-nosed face, so like a proud falcon, seemed attractive enough to him. She even had a crest; her hair was cut short on the sides and top so that it stood up, and flowed in a braided tail down her back. Lovely.

Both of them looked relatively rested and full of energy. Skan’s hopes rose. Were they—?

“All right, old bird,” Tamsin said cheerfully as he held the tent flap open for the laden hertasi. “We need to do something about those legs so you can get a proper rest. Think you’re up to it?”

“Do you think I would sssay otherwisse?” Skan countered. “I would do anything!”

“Anything?” Cinnabar replied archly. Then, at Tamsin’s eloquently raised eyebrow, she added hastily, “No, don’t answer. You are the most insatiable creature I have ever met!”

Skan wanted to leer but couldn’t manage it. “Pleasssse,” he near-whimpered instead.

By near sunset, after much effort on their part and pain and cooperative effort on his, the fractured bones of his forelegs fused, and the hindlegs healed enough that the splints could come off and he could carefully walk a few steps. He could attend to his personal needs—which was just as well, since so far as he knew, no one had come up with the equivalent of a chamber pot for a gryphon. He would be able to feed himself, and since Cinnabar had blessedly done something about the headache, he was ravenous. Now he could lie back down in a much more comfortable position to listen to his bowels rumble.

Cinnabar looked as serene and composed now as when they had started; Tamsin was clearly tired, but just as cheerful. “That should do you, old bird,” he said, slapping Skan on the flank. “Dinner first, or visitor?”

“Both,” Skan replied. “If it isss sssomeone who cannot bearrr to watch a gryphon eat, let him come back laterrr. And if it iss sssomeone I do not want to sssee, he will be the dinner.”

He would not be eating little chunks of meat tonight; no, Cinnabar and Tamsin knew gryphons, and unless that idiot cook mistakenly countermanded their orders, there would be a nice fat haunch of something fresh-killed and bloody, something Skan could tear into and take out some of his frustrations on. Maybe even half a deer or ox—he was quite hungry enough to eat either.

A silver-brocaded hertasi signaled from beside the canvas doorway, and the other hertasi disappeared as if they had evaporated. A moment later, the tent flap was pushed aside, to reveal a beloved and unique personage.

“I should think I can bear to watch a gryphon eat,” said Urtho, the Mage of Silence.

He swept into the room with a single step; he said nothing more, but projected a soothing presence into the damp, warm room. It was impossible to tell Urtho’s real age; he could be sixty or six hundred. For as long as Skan had known him, Urtho had looked the same, an eternal image of genius. Tall and thin, storklike, with a waist-length fall of curly silver-gray hair, huge gray eyes, a nose as prominent as Lady Cinnabar’s and a lantern jaw kept scrupulously clean-shaven, he did not look like the finest of Adept-class mages. He did not look like any kind of mage. He looked more like a scribe, or perhaps a silversmith or retired acrobat.