The Black Gryphon

“If you want,” Gesten said dubiously. “I think you sprained something.”

“Then I can get Cinnabar to unsprain it for me,” Amberdrake said to the roof of the tent. “Go on, Skan needs your help more than I do at the moment, and we are supposed to be sharing your very excellent services.”

“All right,” the hertasi said with resignation. “Come on, Black Boy. But you’ll have to put up with my massaging; Drake is definitely not going to be up to it.”

Skan climbed to his feet with more groans. “Right now, I’d accept a massage from a makaar,” he replied. “And I’d court the damned thing, if it would get the muck off me.”

Gesten looked back over his shoulder and batted his eyes at Skan in a clever imitation of a flirtatious human. “Why, Skan, I never guessed! Harboring an unfulfilled passion for little me?”

Skan only snorted and followed the hertasi into the sunlight behind the tent. Gesten opened up a box built into the side of the wagon that carried Amberdrake and all his gear when the entire army was on the move, and got out the brushes and special combs needed for grooming gryphons. “You really ought to go find a vacant tub and have a bath,” the hertasi said, looking him over. “You’re mage enough to heat the water so your muscles don’t stiffen up in the cold.”

“Once you brush me out, please,” Skan pleaded. “If I go in like this, it’ll be a mud bath.”

“You have a point.” The hertasi picked up one of the brushes and set to work with a will. Bits of dried, caked mud flew everywhere with the force of Gesten’s vigorous strokes. “So besides you being infatuated with Zhaneel, and her having the good sense to see through you, what else is new out there?”

Skan ignored the first part of the question to answer the second. “What’s new is that we may have the Pass, but Ma’ar isn’t budging another toe-length.” He shook his head, and leaned into Gesten’s brush. “I don’t know, Gesten. I can’t tell if things look good for us, or bad.”

“Neither can anyone else.” Gesten put the brush down and picked up one with finer bristles. “Urtho doesn’t know what to do, I hear. Ma’ar won’t leave us be, and Urtho won’t spend troops like Ma’ar does to get rid of him. That’s the problem with an ethical commander; the leader who doesn’t care how many of his men he kills has an edge.”

Skan shook his head. “Too much for me, at least right now.”

The hertasi snickered. “Yah. I know what’s on your mind—what there is of it. Don’t know how Drake thinks you’re going to impress Zhaneel with it, since I haven’t seen much evidence of a mind in you since I met you.”

Skan did not rise to his teasing this time. “Gesten,” he said hesitantly, “do you really think she’d ever pay any attention to me if I did what Drake said? Nothing I’ve done has worked.”

“So try it. Who knows?” Gesten slapped him on the shoulder, raising a cloud of dust. “The man’s job is the heart, you know. I figure he probably knows what he’s talking about.”

Skan considered that. Gesten was right. And besides, I have to tell her what she is, what I learned in the Tower. Might as well kill two birds with the same stone, as they say.

“But first, Skan,” Gesten cautioned, “there’s something that’s really important you need to do.”

Skan craned his neck around to look at him, the hertasi sounded so serious. “What is it?” he asked anxiously.

Gesten fixed him with a sobering gaze for a long moment, then said with deadpan seriousness, “Skan—get a bath.”

The hertasi made it all the way to the tent flap before the flung brush caught up with him.

Thirteen

Zhaneel preened a talon thoughtfully, then looked down at her hand. Hand, and not a misshapen collection of foreclaws. She was not some kind of an accident. As Amberdrake had surmised, she was the living result of something that had been planned.

“So.” She looked from the talon to Skandranon, and even though she managed to keep her expression calm and serene, her heart raced to have him here beside her, on her favorite rock overlooking the obstacle course. “I am the first of a breed, you say? And you saw evidence of that in Urtho’s Tower?”