The Silver Gryphon

“Hush a moment,” she interrupted, and closed her eyes to concentrate better. Was that really what she thought it was? She began to isolate it mentally from the rain of bits of leaf, twig, and half-eaten fruit.

“I think I hear running water,” she said at last. “Come on!”

She abandoned all attempts at secrecy, trotting as quickly as she could through the tangle of underbrush, with Tad hot on her heels. If that was the long-sought river she heard, then their safety lay more surely in reaching it than in trying to hide themselves or their trail. Above them, a few canopy creatures barked or chattered a warning, but most of them seemed to regard her and Tad as harmless.

Well, they would. Now we’re running openly, not stalking. We can’t be hunting, so we’re not a danger to them directly. The sounds above kept on, and the fruit eaters didn’t even pause in their gluttony. That was comforting; it meant there was nothing else around that aroused the tree dwellers’ alarm. If there had been something trailing them closely, when they broke cover, it would have had to do the same to a certain extent, just to keep up with them. And if that had happened, the treetops should have erupted with alarm or once again gone silent, or both.

There was sunlight pouring down through a huge gap in the trees, off in the distance; it shone green-gold through the leaves, white between the trunks of the trees. The closer they got, the clearer the sound of water running rapidly over rocks became.

They literally burst through the luxuriant curtain of brush at the river’s edge, teetering on the rocks lining the banks. She wanted to cheer, but confined herself to pounding on Tad’s shoulder enthusiastically.

The river at their feet was wide, but so far as she could tell, it was deep only in the middle. More to the point, across the river lay the cliff they had been looking for, with a wide beach made of rocks and mud lying between the rock cliff face and the river.

Caves, waterfalls—even a crevice that we can fortify. Any of those will do very nicely just now!

“Let’s get across,” Tad urged. “If they’re following us, we’ll be able to see them, and there’s going to be water between them and us.”

Water between them and us. Right now, that was the best protection she could imagine. Tad was right; with an open space of water between their enemy and themselves, they would certainly be able to see the mysterious hunters coming. We can look for a cave as soon as we‘re across.

For the first time in four days,, they should be able to find a safe and secure place to wait for rescue, a place too difficult to dig them out of, with walls of rock instead of flimsy canvas.

And they might be able to actually see the creatures that were following them— assuming that the shadow-hunters were bold enough to go this far. They might give up. She wasn’t going to count on it, but they might. This was certainly more trouble than most predators wanted to go through for a meal.

Now she grinned, and it was heartfelt. “Let’s go get wet,” she said. “We both need a bath anyway!”

Seven

Blade peered through the curtain of rain, looking a few lengths ahead to see if there was anything like a cave in sight, then looking back down at her feet to pick out her footing among the slippery mud and river rocks. Here, out in the open, the rain came down in sheets, making footing doubly treacherous. More rain sluiced down the cliff face, washing across the rocks at her feet. This time, they hadn’t gone to ground when the rains came; they didn’t even look for a shelter. Instead, they continued to make their way along the cliff-side bank of the river. For one thing, the only shelter from the rain lay back on the other side of the river, and she didn’t really want to take her chances back there. For another, every moment they spent in huddling away from the rain was a moment that they could not spend in looking for real cover, the protection of a place from which they could not be extracted by force.

By now poor Tad was a wet, sodden mess, and after this, she was certainly going to have to figure out what they could spare to make him a new bandage for his wing. The bandages he wore were soaked and coming loose, and wouldn’t be any good until after they had been rinsed clean and dried. Sacrifice some clothing, maybe, if we don’t have enough bandages. I could shorten the legs of my trews for cloth, since they don’t seem to be much protection against the bugs. That and some rope might make a decent sling.

She was going to have to get him dried out before they slept; allowing a gryphon to go to sleep wet was a sure prescription for illness.

We need a cave, or at worst, a cleft. This rain is going to go on until nightfall, and we won’t be able to see anything then.

The water level in the river didn’t seem to be rising much, if any, which suggested that it was probably as high now as it ever got, except in the occasional flood. And I hope we don’t happen to be in the midst of flood season! There was evidence aplenty for a flood, in the form of flotsam, mostly wood, washed