The Silver Gryphon

“There’s too many of us for it to want to contend with—” Regin pointed out with confidence, “And we aren’t hurt. I don’t care if it paces us, as long as it doesn’t come after us, and it won’t. I’m sure of it.”

Amberdrake got his breath again, and shrugged. “You’re the leader,” he said, keeping his uncertainty to himself.

Regin grinned, as if to say, “That’s right, I am,” but wisely kept his response to a grin and waved them on again.

Drake continued to feel the eyes on his back, and kept thinking about beings the size of a horse with talons to match—the kinds of claws that had torn up the earth to the depth of his hand. Would a party of seven humans and one gryphon look all that formidable to something like that? And what if there was more than one of those things out there? The way the ground had been dug up certainly suggested that there were several.

“You won’t like this,” Skan gryphon-whispered, which was as subtle and quiet as a human’s normal speaking voice. The gryphon glanced from side to side apprehensively. “Drake, I think we’ve been surrounded.”

All the muscles in Amberdrake’s neck went tight, and he shivered reflexively. He no longer trusted Regin’s self-confidence in the least.

At just that moment, Regin signaled another halt, and Bern took him aside to whisper something into his ear.

The leader looked straight at Skan. “Bern says we’re surrounded. Are we?”

“I think so,” Skan said flatly. “And I don’t think whatever it is out there is just curious. I also don’t think it’s going to let us get much farther without a fight.”

Regin’s face darkened, as if Skan had challenged him, but he turned his eyes to the shrouding fog before replying. “The General always says the best defense is a good offense,” he replied in a growl. “But there’s no point in lobbing arrows against things we can’t see. We’ll lose ammunition without impressing them.”

“The rains are going to begin as soon as the fog lifts, sir,” Bern pointed out. “We still won’t be able to see what’s out there, and you can’t shoot with a wet bowstring.”

Regin leveled his gaze on Filix next. “Is there something you can do to find out what’s following us? Maybe scare it away? I don’t want to waste time better spent looking for Silverblade and Tadrith.”

The mage shrugged. “Maybe. I can try. The best thing would be to try to stun one so that we can see what it looks like. I don’t have to see something to stun it, I just have to know in general where it is.”

The leader spread his hands, indicating his full permission. “You’re the mage. Try it, see what happens.”

Amberdrake opened his mouth to object, but closed it again; after all, what did he know? Nothing about hunting, predators, or being stalked. If their stalkers were only curious after all, stunning one wouldn’t hurt them; if they were thinking about making a meal of the rescuers, well, having one of their lot fall over without a mark on him should make them back off for a while. At least, it certainly seemed to him that it should work out that way. And by the time the hunters regained their courage, the rescue party would probably be long gone.

Skan opened his beak, and Amberdrake thought he was going to object as well, but it was too late. Filix had already spotted something, or thought he had, and had unleashed the spell.

The result was not what any of them had expected.

A dark shadow in the fog glowed suddenly— Amberdrake got an odd, unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach—and Filix and Skan cursed together with heartfelt fluency.

“What?” Regin snapped, looking from one to the other. “What?”

“It ate my spell—” Filix began, but Skan interrupted him, waving the teleson he’d been carrying around his neck.

“It ate the teleson!” the gryphon roared. “Damn! Whatever’s out there is what pulled Blade and Tad down, and you just fed it everything it wanted!”

Skan was just glad that they had alerted the other parties that they had finally found signs of the missing children before the teleson became a pretty piece of junk. By the time they camped that night, it was evident that, not only had the creatures out there “eaten” the teleson—or rather, drained away all of its mage-energy—but they’d “eaten” the energy from every other magical device the party had.

Why they’d waited so long to do so was a matter of conjecture at this point. Maybe they’d been screwing up their courage to do so; maybe they had just been biding their time until they had a certain number of their lot in place. Maybe the things were staying in hiding until something was thrown at them, as a form of cover.