The Silver Gryphon

“Has anyone ever gone missing this way before?” he asked, without looking either at Skan or at Amberdrake. “I know that there have been a handful of accidents among the Silvers, but I don’t ever recall any of our Silvers on Outpost Duty ever disappearing before. Judeth, you haven’t even had any fatalities in the Silvers since we encountered the Haighlei, and all of those were on the trek to find the coast. If this is a new development, I think it is a very serious one.”

Aubri opened his beak, then looked at Judeth, startled. She was the one who replied.

“Actually—you’re right,” she said, sounding just as surprised as Aubri looked. “The fatalities among young gryphons since we founded the city have all been among the hunters, not the Silvers, and the accidents causing injuries among the Silvers have all been just that—accidents, usually caused by weather, and not a single death from something like a drunkard or fight. To date we haven’t had a single case of Outpost Patrols going missing. They’ve broken limbs, they’ve gotten sick, we’ve had to send help out to them, and one set of humans even got lost once—but they had a teleson and we knew they were all right, we just couldn’t find them for a while. We’ve never had anyone just vanish before. . . .”

Her eyes were the only part of her that showed how alarmed this new observation made her, but Amberdrake was savagely pleased at the way that her eyes went blank and steely. He knew that look. That was General Judeth, suddenly encountering a deadly enemy where she had been told there was open ground with no threats.

“I kept thinking this was—sort of one of the hazards of duty—but that was under war conditions or while we were making our way here,” Aubri muttered, so shamefaced that his nares flushed a brilliant red. “Snowstar, you’re right! We’ve never lost a Silver since—since we allied with the Haighlei!”

You two have been making the mistake of thinking that the Silvers were the extension of the old army—but they aren’t and our situation is completely different than it was before the wars. And how could I have been so blind not to have seen your blindness?

“Then I believe this does qualify as a full-scale emergency,” Snowstar said firmly. “When two highly-trained individuals drop completely out of sight, for no reason and with no warning, it seems to me that the danger is not only to them alone, but possibly to the entire city. What if they were removed so that they could not alert us to some enemy who is moving against us? How can we know that if we don’t mount a rescue, in strength and numbers?”

Heads nodded all around the table, and Amberdrake exchanged stricken glances with Winterhart, who had come in just in time to hear that. He felt cold all over, and she had paled. He could have done without hearing that. He was perversely glad that Snowstar had thought of it, for it certainly swayed even the veterans on the Council to their cause, but he could have done without hearing it.

Either Snowstar really believes that, or the self-proclaimed nondiplomat Snowstar just made a shrewd play in our support. Or both.

A heavy and ominous silence filled the Council Hall, and no one seemed prepared to break it. Skan was as frozen as a statue, and beside him, Zhaneel simply looked to be in too much shock to be able to think. Winterhart stood beside her Council seat, unable to sit, clutching the back of it; her knuckles were as white as her namesake. Amberdrake himself felt unable to move, every limb leaden and inert.

Judeth cleared her throat, making all of them jump. “Right,” she said briskly, silence broken. “We have the original pair flying a search pattern; we’re putting together more search teams. Does anyone have any further suggestions?”

Skan opened his beak, but Snowstar beat him to it. “I’ll organize the mages and start distance-scrying,” he said immediately. “We’re probably too far away, but those who can scry for them should at least try. We’ll look for the traces of the magic on all the items they had with them; even if something made them crash, those traces will still be there. I’ll also pick out mages for the search parties.”

Once again, Skan opened his beak—then glared around the table, to make certain that he wasn’t interrupted this time. “We should send a message to Shalaman,” he said belligerently. “His people know that forest better than we do. We should make him—I mean, ask him—to send out parties of his hunters.”

“That’s good,” Judeth approved, making a note of it. “I can put anyone who’s been posted to that area on search parties, but if we can field Haighlei who are trained to hunt the forest in addition to our own people, that will be even better. Anything else?”

Search parties, magic, the Haighlei. . . . Thoughts flitted through Drake’s head, but he couldn’t make any of them hold still long enough to be examined. Judeth looked around the table to meet shaking heads, and nodded.

“Good. We’ve got a plan,” she said firmly. “We should assume that whatever has happened to these Silvers could endanger the city, and make finding them a top priority. Let’s get to it.”

She stood up and was halfway to the door before anyone else was even out of his chair. He didn’t blame her. If the situation was reversed, he wouldn’t want to be in the same room with four frantic parents either.

And he wouldn’t want to face two people who had just threatened to blackmail him for not taking the loss of their children seriously enough.