The Silver Gryphon

were able to make much better time that way, and since they were taking their bearings from the north-needle rather than the sun, it didn’t matter that everything was obscured and enshrouded.

The fog itself had an odd, bitter aftertaste to it, nothing at all like the sea mists Tad was used to. The air felt heavier and thicker, although that was probably his imagination. The fog condensed on his feathers, and he kept shaking himself so that it didn’t soak in. Poor Blade had no such ability; her hair was damp, and she would probably be shivering if they weren’t trotting along fast enough to stay warm from exertion.

He found himself trying to think what kind of creature the hunters could be. Those stories about Ma‘ar and all the creatures he made—what sort of things did he do? Father said that most of what he did was to make copies of the creatures that Urtho developed. . . .

The makaar had been analogs of gryphons; had there been analogs of hertasi and kyree? The tervardi and dyheli were natural creatures, surely Ma’ar had not bothered to make analogous creatures to them; why would he? But then again, why not? Ma’ar had never hesitated to do or try anything he considered might give him an edge.

He made cold-drakes and basilisks, but those weren‘t analogs of anything Urtho made, so there goes Father’s theory. There were smaller creatures, but I can’t remember anything that might correspond in size to the hunters. Did he do flightless makaar? But why would he, when a makaar on the ground would be more helpless than I am? The shadow-hunters can’t be analogs of hertasi, because I’m certain that what we’ve been seeing is four-footed, not two-footed.

Had anyone else involved in the Mage Wars made a four-footed hunter the size of a horse?

I just can’t remember anyone ever going into a lot of detail about the mage-made creatures. Maybe Snowstar would know, but he’s rather effectively out of reach at the moment.

He kept his ears trained on the trail behind them, and his eyes on Blade’s back. She was a ghost in the fog, and it was up to him to keep track of her and not lose her. Her pale beige clothing blended in beautifully with the fog—but so would his own gray plumage. For once, it would probably be harder for the hunters to see them than vice versa.

Whatever is behind us is clever, very clever. They weren‘t deceived by my false trails, and they either gave up on the decoys or recognized them as false, and if they gave up temporarily, there’s no guarantee that they won’t realize what’s going on when they come back. They didn’t find us, but they might not have bothered to look. Or they might have needed to hunt and feed, and they couldn’t take the extra time to figure out where we were. Why should they? They knew we’d come out in the morning, and all they have to do is wait for us to come out and get on our way and they could trail us again. They could even be hoping we will stay put in that campsite, since it has been proven to protect us once.

He wanted rock walls around him; a secure place that these shadow-hunters couldn’t dig into. He wanted a steady food source that the shadows couldn’t frighten away. Once they had both, they could figure out ways to signal the help that must be coming.

And he wanted to see them. He wanted to know exactly what was hunting them. Traps might give him more of a chance to see one, provided that any injured or dead hunters remained in the trap. And there was no guarantee of that, either.

They freed the injured one from the deadfall. That was what I heard last night; they were freeing him.

That meant cooperation, which meant more intelligence. Wolves might sniff around a trapped fellow, might even try to help him gnaw himself loose, but they would not have been able to remove parts of a deadfall trap except by purest accident, and then only after a great deal of trial and error effort.

He had heard them last night. It had not taken them long at all to free the trapped one. And they had done so without too many missteps, if there were any at all.

The snare—they didn‘t just chew the leg or head off the rabbit it caught and then eat the rest. The noose of the snare was opened. They killed the rabbit, pulled the snare open and removed it, then pulled up the snare and looked it over.

That was evidence of more intelligence, and certainly the ability to manipulate objects. What that evidence meant to their survival, he couldn’t yet tell.

But he had his fears, and plenty of them. He could only wonder right now if Blade shared those fears. Maybe it was time to stop trying to shelter her and start discussing things. Maybe it had been time to do that a couple of days ago.

Blade stopped in the shelter of a vine-covered bush.

Is that what I think it is?

She frowned with concentration, and motioned to Tad to remain where he was so she could hear without distraction. There was something in the distance, underneath the chatter of the four-legged canopy creatures, and the steady patter of debris from a tree where some of the birds were eating green fruit—a sound—

Tad shifted his weight impatiently. “Shouldn’t we—” he began.