threatening appeared than a crow scolding them for being in his part of the forest. this is the most relaxed I've been since I got here, she thought. Perhaps It was because the waiting was finally over. She'd had the feeling all along that the mages of k'sheyna would never be able to solve the problem by themselves. Darkwind felt the same, she knew, but he never discussed it. He was relieved, too-but too conscientious to feel pleased with the failure of his Clan's mages, even though it proved that he was right. He wasn't a shallow man.
The ruins were cloaked in snow, which gave some portions an air of utter desolation, and others an uncanny resemblance to complete buildings.
Passage of the gryphons in and around their territory kept the pathways they used relatively free of snow. It was easier to move here, but with the last of the trees out of sight, the place felt like a desert.
Vree was on his best behavior, it seemed, for when they approached the gryphons' lair, they found him up on the 'rafters' of the nest, pulling bits from a fresh-killed quail with great gusto.
He didn't have time to do more than call a greeting to Darkwind. though. The gryphlets tumbled out of the nest and overran all three of them, knocking Darkwind off his feet and rolling him in the snow, wrestling with him as if they were kittens and he was a kind of superior cattoy.
Elspeth laughed until her sides hurt; every time he started to get up, one of the youngsters knocked him over again. He was matted with snow; he looked like an animated snowman, and was laughing so hard she wondered how he caught his breath.
Gwena watched the melee wistfully, obviously wishing she could join in.
Elspeth decided that Darkwind could use a rescue. She waded in and started pulling tails, which turned the gryphlets on her. Within a heartbeat, she found herself going rump-over-tail into a snowdrift, with a squealing jerven on top of her, flailing with his short, stubby wings and kicking up clouds of the soft snow in all directions.
That was when Gwena joined the fun; making short charges and shouldering the youngsters aside so that she tumbled them into the snow the way they had knocked Darkwind and Elspeth over. The gryphlets loved that; Gwena was big enough to hold her own with them, and provided they kept their foreclaws fisted, they didn't have to hold back with her in a rough-and-tumble.
In a few moments, their parents appeared, and rather than calling a halt to the game, they joined it. Now the odds were clearly against the gryphlets, and first Darkwind, then Elspeth switched sides, coming to the youngsters' defense while Gwena sided with the parents. In moments, snow flew everywhere. It looked like a blizzard from the ground up.
The best strategy seemed to be seizing the tail of an adult, hampering movement, while the young one batted away at the front end with blows of their wings and with their claws held tightly into a fist to avoid injury.
That wouldn't work for long, however. just as Elspeth was getting winded, Hydona turned the tables on them.
The gryphon whirled, dragging Elspeth along with her and bringing her into the range of the huge wings. Suddenly she went tumbling, buffeted into another snowbank by a carefully controlled sweep of a wing; landing right beside jerven who had gotten the same treatment. Before either of them could scramble to their feet, Hydona was upon them, pinning each of them down with a foreclaw.
'Trrruce?' the gryphon asked, her head cocked to one side, her beak slightly open as she panted. Steam rose in puffs from her half-open beak.
Elspeth sensed the controlled power in the claw pinning her carefully into the drift, and marveled at it, even as she signaled her defeat laughingly.
Hydona let both of them up, extending the claw again to help Elspeth to her feet.
'Thanks,' she said, looking for Gwena, and finding that Darkwind and Lytha had taken Gwena hostage, holding her against Treyvan's continued good behavior. The Companion's blue eyes sparkled like sapphires, and her ears were up and tail flagged-In short, they only thought they had her.
Elspeth kept her mouth shut, waiting for Gwena to make her move.
Treyvan feinted, and Darkwind turned just a little too far to block him. For one moment, he took his eyes off the Companion.
That was when Gwena grabbed his collar in her teeth, and, whipping her head around on her long, graceful neck, jerked him off his feet and flung him sideways into Lytha.
Darkwind whuffed with surprise; Lytha squealed. They both went down in a tangle of legs and wings.
Elspeth giggled uncontrollably, then took a huge double handful of snow, packed it tight, and lobbed it at Gwena. It impacted against Gwena's rump, and she whirled to glare at her Chosen indignantly.
Darkwind howled with laughter, and the gryphlets joined in.
'I was afraid you were going to break the game up,' Elspeth told the female gryphon, as Darkwind and his partner surrendered to her mate.
Hydona shook her head to rid it of snow. 'No,' she replied. 'The little onesss werrre resstlessss. Now they will sssettle, and let usss worrk in peace.' Elspeth stretched and began beating the snow out of her cloak, feeling vertebrae pop as her muscles loosened. 'I feel like I've worked off a bit of nerves, too,' she began, when another creature popped its head out of the gryphon's lair, ears pricked forward and eyes wide with interest.
'Is the battle over?' the kyree asked. 'Or is this a temporary truce?'
'I think we've been defeated too soundly to make another attempt,' Darkwind said cheerfully. 'Despite Gwena's indignation. Am I right, my shieldbrother?' he asked, turning to Lytha.
The gryphlet nodded vigorously, and sneezed a clump of melting snow from her cere and crown. 'Wet,' she complained. 'Got sssnow in my featherssss.'
'If you fight in sssnow, you mussst expect sssome in your feathersss,' Hydona told her, with a twinkle.
'My famous cousin Warrl used to say, 'You cannot have a battle without getting your fur in a mess. ': The kyree scratched meditatively at one ear.
