The Silver Gryphon

him for a place of her own, he would probably have given in and made it possible. But she was too shy and too proud, and now, in retrospect, Winterhart could see that requesting assignment to outpost duty had probably seemed the only way she could get that longed-for privacy.

“Skandranon is fretting, but not to pieces, I think,” Zhaneel said, after a long pause during which she gazed out seaward. She might have been watching the fishing fleet; her eyes were certainly sharp enough to make out details in things that were only moving dots to Winterhart. “I hope that as he realizes the children are capable, he will fret less. Part of it is inaction. Part of it is that he wishes to do everything, and even when he was young, he could not do half of what he would like to do now.”

That observation surprised a faint chuckle out of Winterhart. “It is odd how our youthful abilities grow larger as we age, isn’t it?” she replied. “I am absolutely sure that I remember being able to work for two days and nights without a rest, and that I could ride like a Kaled’a’in and shoot like a highly-paid mercenary, as well as perform all my duties as a trondi’irn. I couldn’t, of course, but I remember doing so.”

“Even so,” Zhaneel agreed. “It will not be so bad with Skandranon as with Amberdrake; our children are male, and one is still left to us. Your little falcon was the only chick in the nest, and female. Men wish to protect their females; it is bred in the blood.”

“And as much as Amberdrake would deny it, he is more worried because Blade is female, you are right.” Winterhart stared out to sea, wondering how she could ever convince her spouse that their “delicate little girl” was as fragile as tempered steel. “Perhaps if I keep comparing her to Judeth?” she wondered aloud. “I don’t think Blade is doing it consciously, but I can see that she has been copying Judeth’s manner and mannerisms.”

“He admires and respects Judeth, and what is more, he has seen her in action; he knows that Judeth took special care in training your Blade, and perhaps he will take comfort from that,” Zhaneel observed, then tossed her head in a gryphonic shrug. “I can think of nothing else you could do. Now, what am I to do with Skan? Concentrate on Keenath, perhaps?”

“Could we get him involved in Keeth’s physical training?” Winterhart asked her. “I’m a bit out of my depth there—and you and Skan did invent obstacle-course training. I’ve started all the trondi’irn on working-under-fire training, but the Silvers’ gryphon-course is set up for combat, not field-treatment. It isn’t really appropriate, and I’m not sure how to adapt it.”

“Ye-esss. I believe that might do. It will give him action, and something to think about. Or at least more action besides climbing my back to give him exercise.” Zhaneel cocked her head to one side. “Now, what of Winterhart? And what of Zhaneel? What do we do to take our minds from our absent children?”

Winterhart shook her head. “You have me at a loss. I honestly don’t know. And I’ll probably wake up with nightmares every few days for the next six months. I suppose we should concentrate on our mates’ worries instead?”

“That will certainly give us something to do, and give them the job of dealing with how we comfort them.”

Zhaneel nodded, then turned, and reached out to touch Winterhart’s shoulder with a gentle talon. She smiled, and her eyes grew softer as she met Winterhart’s gaze. “And perhaps we can give each other the comfort of a sympathetic ear, now and again, sister-in-spirit.”

One small problem with finally being on duty. Rising at unholy hours. Tadrith sighed, but in-audibly; his partner sometimes seemed to have ears as sharp as a gryphon’s. As usual on this journey, Blade was up at the first hint of light. Tad heard her stirring around outside the tent they shared; building up the fire, puttering with breakfast, fetching water. She was delightfully fastidious about her person, bathing at night before she went to bed, and washing again in the morning. It would have been distinctly unpleasant to share a tent with anyone whose hygiene was faulty, especially now that they were away from the coast and into the wet forest. It was very humid here, and occasionally oppressively hot. Blade was not just being carried like living baggage; the basket shifted in every change of wind, and she had to shift her weight with it to keep it from throwing him off. This was work, hard work, and she was usually damp with sweat; by the time he landed for a rest, she was usually ready for one, too.

He, of course, was not burdened by the need to wash in order to get clean, and most humans expressed pleasure in a gryphon’s naturally spicy musky scent. He couldn’t fly with wet wings, and there usually wasn’t time to bathe before night fell when they stopped. He had decided to forgo anything but dust-baths until they arrived at their outpost. So he felt perfectly justified in lying in warm and sheltered comfort while she went through her bathing ritual and tended to the camp chores.

There wasn’t anything he could do to help her anyway. He couldn’t fetch water; raptoral beaks were not well suited to carrying bucket handles. He shouldn’t have anything to do with the campfire; gryphons were feathered and feathers were flammable.

He had done the larger share of work last night, when it came to chores. He had brought up enough wood to feed the fire until this morning, and provided part of his kill to feed them both at breakfast. He would take the tent down, just as he had put it up; the fast way of erecting it required magic, and although he was no match for his father in that area, he was a minor mage in simple object-moving spells. So he had done his share of the camp chores; this was not lazing about, it was the just reward of hard work.

He closed his eyes, and listened to water splashing and Blade swearing at how cold it was, and smiled. All was well.

Because they were already working so hard, he was bending a personal rule and using magic to hunt with. He used it to find a suitable animal, and to hold that animal in place once he found it. They couldn’t afford energy wasted in prolonged hunting, not now; he had to have the tent up, the wood in camp, and his kill made before dark.