That meant that the gryphons' attacker had no mental abilities of his own. And might not have had any magical ones, either.
Darkwind made certain that Hydona was balanced well, before leaving her side and walking over to what was left of the human who had attacked them.
He bent over the remains and poked at them with the tip of his dagger where he saw a glint of metal. Sure enough, there was a tarnished amulet of some sort about the neck, and the remains were as much blackened and burned as they were clawed.
He checked back over his shoulder; Hydona seemed to be doing better by the moment, so he spent some little time investigating the state of the corpse. When he stood up and returned to the gryphons, Hydona was standing on her own, and Vree had taken a perch in the tree above them, showing not the slightest interest in Treyvan's crest-feathers.
Well, it looks like I can piece together what happened,' Darkwind said, as he reached out for the leading edge of Hydona's injured wing.
'At least I think I can.
'I wisssssh I could,' Treyvan fretted. 'I do not like thisss, not rrrememberrring.'
Treyvan... you may never get the memory back,' Darkwind told him, fighting off his own guilty feelings. I should have stayed nearby. I should have guarded them. It wouldn't have taken that long, just to wait around until they were through and on the ground again. 'Here's what I think happened. This fellow was watching you, and when Hydona got within range, he shot, wounding her. Treyvan, when you dove at him, he hadn't yet had time to reload the crossbow-I think he was counting on you to be very slow, since you're very large. I think your speed took him by surprise. He has an amulet around his neck, the kind that can be used to store very basic magic. When you dove at him, he blasted you with it as kind of a reflex action.'
'But-we have defensssessss,' Treyvan said in surprise. 'Magic defensssessss.'
True-but they were partially down because of your mating. I remember noticing that as you took off, then thinking it wouldn't matter.' Now I wish I'd said something.
Treyvan hissed. 'Trrrue. It isss neccesssary. I had forgotten that. Not fully down, but-reduced' He nodded. 'Anyway, they were down enough that the blast knocked you unconscious, but up enough that you reflected part of it back to him. Since he didn't have any defenses at all, you got him with the backblast.
I don't know if you killed him, but in the end it didn't matter. If he wasn't, Hydona, you definitely killed him when he fell and was within your reach. See?' He pointed to her foreclaws. 'There's blood on your talons, and he's fairly well shredded.'
'But why don't I remember?' she asked unhappily.
'Because you weren't more than half-conscious at the time,' he told her. 'It was mostly reflex on your part.'
' Ah.' She accepted that, carefully putting one foot before the other, while Darkwind walked beside her, holding up the drooping wing so
that it wouldn't drag on the ground.
'I... will have an aching head for a while, then,' Treyvan said ruefully. 'And I did not even rescue my mate-'
'oh, you did, it was just rather indirect,' Darkwind soothed him.
'I wouldn't worry about the headache; I'm going to get the hertasi to send over their Healer as soon as I leave you. She'll put you both right.' He was making light of the incident-because he was afraid it might mean more than a simple trophy-hunter, trying to shoot down the gryphons.
How had he found out about them, whoever he was? How had he traced them here? Where had he gotten a protective amulet powerful enough to have knocked Treyvan out of the sky? Why did he use the crossbow instead of magic, if he'd had access to magic that formidable?
And why had he gone after them in the first place?
There were more questions. What were those faint traces Darkwind had seen, before he had gotten the two gryphons to their feet-traces of a second person who had been moving about the two of them?
He'd been forced to destroy those traces, much against his will; there was no way to get to the gryphons without doing so. Getting in to disentangle their limbs and move brush away was the only way to help Treyvan and Hydona up and get them moving. He hadn't seen the scuffs and prints anywhere else, not even entering the area- and they had been quite clear around Treyvan's body, which meant, whoever it had been, the print-maker had not been the same person as the archer. The archer had been stone cold by the time the unknown had meddled with Treyvan's unconscious body.
