The Black Gryphon

Amberdrake knew the moment that Winterhart slipped through the tent door that there was something wrong. Even if he hadn’t been an Empath, even if he were still an apprentice in the various arts of the kestra’chern, he’d have known it. She moved stiffly, her muscles taut with tension, and the little frown-line between her brows was much deeper than usual. Her eyes looked red and irritated, and she held her shoulders as if she expected a blow to come down out of the sky at any moment.

“Is Conn Levas back yet?” he asked casually, assuming that the mage was the reason for her tension.

But the startled look of surprise, as if that was the very last thing she had expected him to say, told him that the shot had gone far wide of the mark. Whatever was troubling her, it was not her erstwhile lover.

“No,” she replied, and turned her back to him, modest as always, to disrobe so that he could work on her back. “No, the foot-troops are still out. They aren’t doing well, though. I suppose you know that Ma’ar is pushing them out of the Pass again. The Sixth got hit badly, and the Fourth and Third sent in gryphons with carry-nets to evacuate the wounded. It was bad on the landing field.”

“So I’d heard.” Skan was out there now; as the only gryphon who could keep up with Zhaneel, Urtho had assigned him to fly protective cover on her. No standard scouting raids for them; they only flew at Urtho’s express orders, usually bearing one or more of his magic weapons or protections. The Black Gryphon had already given Amberdrake a terse account of the damage, before going out on a second sortie. “After a day like today, I’m not surprised that you’re tense.”

“And my stomach’s in a knot,” she said, wrapping herself in a loose robe, before she turned back to face him. Her expression mingled wry hope with resignation, as if she hated to admit that her body had failed her. “I don’t suppose you have anything for that, do you?”

“Assuming you trust my intentions,” he countered, trying to make a joke of it. “I’d prescribe an infusion of vero-grass, alem-lily root, and mallow. All of which I do have on hand. You aren’t the only person who’s come to me today with your muscles and stomach all in knots.”

Her eyes widened a little, for all three herbs were very powerful, and had a deserved reputation for loosening the tongue and giving it free rein—and for loosening inhibitions as well. “I don’t know,” she replied hesitantly. “Then again, between the state of my back and my stomach, maybe I’d better.”

He had made the same concoction often enough for himself that he could nod sympathetically as he went to his chest of herbs. He put measured amounts of each into a cup, poured in hot water, and left the medicine to steep. “Believe me, I know how you feel. As I said, I’ve had to resort to my own herbs more than once since this war started. I’ve been with Urtho’s forces since—let me think—right after the High King collapsed, and Urtho more-or-less took over as leader.”

She accepted the cup of bitter tea carefully, made a face as she tasted it, and drank it down all at once. “That’s longer than I have,” she remarked. “If you’ve been with Urtho that long, I suppose you must have seen quite a bit of the Court, then.”

“Me? Hardly.” He laughed and could have sworn that she relaxed a little. “No, I was just one kestra’chern with the Kaled’a’in; all the Clans came as fast as they could when Urtho called us in, and he didn’t sort us out for several months after that. He just gave the Clan Chiefs his orders and let them decide how to carry them out, while he tried to organize what was left of the defenses. At that point, no one knew what ranking I was qualified for. Kestra’chern aren’t given a rank among the Clans the way they are in the outside world. My rank and all that came later, as things got organized.” She arranged herself on the massage table, facedown.

“The way that the Clans stood by him, though—you must have been disgusted by the way the nobles just panicked and deserted him.”

He paused, a bottle of warm oil in his hand, at the odd tone in her voice. She surely knew that he knew she was no Kaled’a’in, but there was something about the way she had phrased that last that was sending little half-understood signals to him. And the direction the conversation had been going in—

Go slowly, go carefully with this, he thought. There is more going on here than there appears to be. I think, if I am very careful, all my questions about her are about to be answered.

“We stood by him because we were protected and never felt the fear,” he replied, pouring a little oil in the palm of his hand and spreading it on her back. “We have our own mages, you know. Granted, we don’t go about making much of the fact, and they only serve Kaled’a’in, but between the mages and the shaman, Ma’ar couldn’t touch us—and there was no way that he could insinuate agents into our midst to bring us down. Not the way he did the High King and his Court.”

The muscles under his hand jumped. “What do you mean by that?” she demanded, her voice sharp and anxious.

He soothed her back with his hands, and deliberately injected a soothing tone into his voice. “Well, Ma’ar has always been a master of opportunity, and he’s never used a direct attack when an indirect one would work as well. Treachery, betrayal, manipulation—those are his favorite weapons. That was how he got control in his own land in the first place, and that is how he prefers to weaken other lands before he moves in to take them with his troops. He may be ruthless and heartless, but he never spends more than he has to in order to get what he wants.”

“But what does that have to do with us?” she demanded, harshly. “What does that have to do with the way those cowards simply deserted the High King, fled and left the Court and their own