The Silver Gryphon

Amberdrake was all too able to imagine what that would do to a carry-basket; and from the way Winterhart suddenly clutched his arm, her fingers digging into the muscle, so was she. In his mind, he saw the two figures he had watched fly off into the distance suddenly stricken for a moment, then plummeting to their deaths on the unforgiving ground below.

“That means we’re going to have to come in somewhere near the edge and walk in,” Judeth continued, without any hint that she had envisioned the same disaster that had played itself out behind Amberdrake’ s eyes. “Our Gate probably won’t work inside this area, and we’ll have to suppose for now that nothing else magical in nature will work either. We’ll have to operate by the old rules of working without magic, although yes, we will be taking mages, just in case magic does work after all. Though—if there’s no local mage-power available, Snowstar tells me that the mages will be just like Journeymen and Apprentices, and limited to their own personal power. That’s going to put a serious crimp in their activities, and any mages that go along had better start thinking in terms of budgeting themselves before they act.”

She leveled a sharp glance across the table, to the point where the mages of the Silvers had bunched together.

“What about the gryphons?” someone wanted to know. “Can’t they just fly overhead and scout the way they always do?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, and sighed. “If I wanted a sign that our luck has turned truly wretched, I could not have conjured up one more certain. This is the rainy season for that part of the world—and the weather-mages tell me that storms will be unceasing over this particular area for the next several days to a week. Thunderstorms have already grounded the original pair that was out looking for our missing Silvers; they are on the ground and we know where they are. It might well be a side effect of the loss of magic over the area; we just don’t know for certain. But what that means is that there won’t be any flying going on. I’m not going to ban any gryphons from the search-parties, but they’ll be strictly on foot unless the weather improves drastically.”

“I’m still going, and so are Zhaneel and Keeth,” Skan spoke up firmly. Judeth nodded, as if she had expected as much. “In that case, since I’m going to divide the searchers into three parties, each gryphon can go with one. I’ve already sent out a gryphon with a Gate-mage; but he’ll be coming straight back, and so will the two still out there while weather cooperates.” Judeth cocked an eyebrow at Skan as if she expected him to object to this, but he didn’t. Amberdrake could certainly understand why. A gryphon on the ground was severely handicapped; Skan, Zhaneel, and Keenath would be as much a hindrance as they were a help. The two who had been on patrol would be exhausted, and the one who had ferried the Gate-mage even more so.

Judeth continued. “Now, here’s the current plan. We’ll Gate in here—that’s the closest I want to get to this area with anything that depends upon magic.”

She stabbed down with her index finger. Here, the point where her finger indicated, was on the line that Blade and Tad had been expected to fly.

“The Gate-mage and a small party will stay here, at a base camp, holding the area for the rest of you. We’ll divide up; the party with Skan and Drake in it will go north, up to the top of the area, and then in. The one with Ikala leading it, including Keenath, will go straight in. The one with Winterhart and Zhaneel will go south, then in. That way we’ll cover the maximum area in the shortest possible time.” Judeth straightened, and looked straight at Skan again: “And in case you’re wondering why I haven’t put you two in on the expected line, it’s because the two gryphons out there already flew that line and didn’t see anything before weather forced them down. So either the missing patrol didn’t fly that line, or it’s going to take an expert in that kind of territory to find signs of them. That’s Ikala, not you; he’ll be leading a party of people all used to moving quickly, and after he scouts the line on the ground, he’ll be covering the areas north and south of that line. I’m putting you two on the likeliest alternate track; Tad always had a tendency in training to stay on the northern side of a given flight line. My guess is, if they’re anywhere off the line, it’s in the north.”

“But that’s just a guess,” Skan stated. “They could be south.”

She nodded. “And the gods know I’ve guessed wrong before; that’s why the third party. The parties are going to number eight; one gryphon, one Healer or trondi’irn, or whatever comes close—that’s you, Drake—two mages, and five fighters, all experienced Silvers. Any smaller is dangerous, any larger is unwieldy. Don’t bother to pack at all; you’ll be taking standard Silver kits including medical supplies, and you aren’t going to have time to change clothing. Besides, by the time you make a camp at night, you and your clothing should be sluiced clean.”

Her stare at Amberdrake said, as clearly as words, And if you don’t like that, you don’t have to go.

He stared right back at her. Try and keep me from going and you’II have a fight.

She waited for him to say something, staring into his gaze with challenge in her stance, but it was she who finally dropped her eyes. “This is an in-and-out mission, the faster the better. As of this moment, consider yourself facing a real enemy, a powerful one, if he can drain all the mage-energy out of a place. I don’t know what’s caused magic to leach out of that area, but I have to assume it’s a hostile, and it isn’t going to like having twenty-four people traipsing all over its territory. As soon as the mage gets to the Gate-point, we’ll be bringing it up, and I don’t want it up for longer than it takes to pitch all of you through it. Is that understood?”

Once again, she stared at him as if her words were meant for him alone. Her tone of voice implied that, given the opportunity, she would “pitch” Amberdrake through the Gate. He simply nodded, as did everyone else.

“Good. From now until you leave, you are all sleeping, eating, and everything else right here.” She smiled