The Silver Gryphon

and ate it that way.

“This is better. It’s almost good,” she said, around a mouthful. “Thanks, Tad.”

“My pleasure,” he replied, pleased to see her mood slowly lifting. “Shall we set the same watches as last night?” He yawned hugely. “It’s always easier for me to sleep on a full stomach.”

“It’s impossible to keep you awake when your belly’s full, you mean,” she retorted, but now she wore a ghost of a smile. “It’s the best plan we have.”

His wing did hurt less, or at least he thought it did. Gryphon bones tended to knit very quickly, like the bones of the birds that they were modeled after. Just at the moment, he was grateful that this was so; he preferred not to think about the consequences if somehow Blade had set his wing badly. Not that his days of fancy aerobatics would be over, but having his wing-bones rebroken and reset would be very unpleasant.

He peered up at the tree canopy, and as usual, saw nothing more than leaves. And rain, lots of it.

“I’m afraid we’re in for another long rain like last night,” he said ruefully. “So much for putting out snares.”

“We can’t have everything our way.” She shrugged. “So far, we’re doing all right. We could survive a week this way, with no problem—as long as nothing changes.”

As long as nothing changes. Perhaps she had meant that to sound encouraging, but as he willed himself to sleep, he couldn’t feel any encouragement. Everything changes eventually. Only a fool would think otherwise. We might think we know what we’re doing, but it only takes one serious mistake out here and we’re dead. Even a minor mistake would mean that everything changes.

The thought followed him down into his sleep, where it woke uneasy echoes among his dreams.

He slept so lightly that Blade did not need to shake him awake. He roused to the sound of water dripping steadily from the leaves above, the crackling and popping of the fire, and the calls of insects and frogs. That was all. It was very nearly silent out there, and it was a silence that was unnerving.

The forest that he knew fell silent in this way when a large and dangerous predator—such as a gryphon—was aprowl. He doubted that the denizens of this forest knew the two of them well enough to think that they were dangerous. That could only mean that something the local creatures knew was dangerous was out there.

Somewhere.

“Anything?” he whispered. She shook her head slightly without taking her eyes off the forest, and he noticed that she had banked the fire down so that it didn’t dazzle her eyes.

He strained both eyes and ears, testing the night even as she did, and found nothing.

“It isn’t that everything went quiet, it was that nothing much started making night-sounds after dark,” she whispered back. “I suppose we might have driven all the local animals off—”

“Even the things that live up in the canopy? I doubt it,” he replied. “Why would anything up there be afraid of us?”

She shrugged. “All I know is, I haven’t heard or seen anything, but I have that unsettling feeling that something is watching us. Somewhere.”

And whatever it is, the local creatures don’t like it either. He had the same feeling, a crawling sensation at the back of his neck, and an itch in his talons. There were unfriendly eyes out there in the night, and Tad and Blade were at a disadvantage. It knew where they were and what they were. They had no idea what it was.

But if it hadn’t attacked while he was asleep, hopefully it wouldn’t while Blade took her rest. “Get to sleep,” he told her. “If there’s anything out there except our imaginations, it isn’t likely to do anything now that I’m on watch. I look more formidable than you do, and I intend to reinforce that.”

Under the packs holding Blade’s clothing were his fighting-claws. He picked up her packs with his beak and fished them out. The bright steel winked cruelly in the subdued firelight, and he made a great show of fitting them on. Once Blade had fastened the straps, he settled back in, but with a more watchful stance than the previous night.

If there’s nothing out there, I’m going to feel awfully stupid in the morning, for putting on all this show.

Well, better to feel stupid than be taken unaware by an attacker. Even if it was just an animal watching them, body language was something an animal could read very well. Hopefully, in the shiny claws and the alert stance, it would read the fact that attacking them would be a big mistake.