Lance of Earth and Sky (The Chaos Knight Book Two) (28 page)

“And what are you teaching them?” Vidarian asked.

Altair's head drew back, his tufted ears low as he thought over the question. //
They learn wildness. Survival. And a bond with their pride as strong as the bond between gryphon pridemembers.
//

“Wait—you said ‘especially large gryphons.’ What do you mean? Thalnarra seems quite able to manage herself—”

Altair was looking at him, wry amusement radiating from him with a scent like fresh-cut basil. //
Well—I imagine you'll see in a moment.
//

They were almost upon the tent when Thalnarra herself landed next to them. She panted softly with exertion; she'd been busy greeting all who needed greeting, and well she might; Vidarian had never seen so many gryphons—or so many different
kinds
of gryphons—in his life, nor his imagination.

There were two tents that looked command caliber, and Vidarian entered the one on the left at a quick nod from Thalnarra's beak. Inside, his eyes took a moment to adjust—and then, sitting there, waiting for them, were the two largest gryphons he had ever seen, short of the Starhunter's giant companion, which he half suspected he may have imagined.

//
Pridemother, I bring you Vidarian Rulorat, and Altair, our wind brother.
//

Vidarian realized that the standard against which he had measured gryphons—Thalnarra—was an excellent one, but not nearly large enough. The pridemother was massive, an athlete among gryphons, her shoulders half again as broad and her wings long and gleaming. On seeing her, Rai actually barked a warning, and Vidarian hurried to shush him.

But large as she was, the pridemother herself was dwarfed by a gryphon beside her, whose long head—bearing the single largest beak Vidarian had ever seen, an eagle's hooked weapon twice the length of his spread hand—was several handspans above the pridemother's at rest. His rectangular wings were also the largest Vidarian had seen, with powerful golden primaries. And next to the large-beaked gryphon's, Thalnarra's talons looked slim and dainty; not only were her claws smaller overall, they were significantly smaller by proportion.

Looking at the monstrous creature—and boggling all over again when he realized that he was a drake gryphon, a male, meaning that a female of his type would be even larger—Vidarian's entire view of gryphons shifted. Thalnarra was a striking creature, without doubt, but he had been so used to thinking of her as the largest of her kind, as she was broader and larger than Altair or the other gryphons he had met. Now he realized that he had only encountered scouts and supporters—excellent creatures, well-suited to border tasks, but hardly the fighting core of gryphonkind. And Kaltak and Ishrak, whom he had always thought of as average in size, now seemed awkward and adolescent, as no doubt they were when compared to the elders of their pride and flight.

//
Welcome, Captain Rulorat, to our camp. I am Meleaar.
// The huge gryphon's voice was warm and rich, almost like hot butter and a sharp spring morning.

“Thank you, Sir Meleaar,” Vidarian answered, at a loss for what to call him. “And Pridemother. I—had no idea you were out here, that there were gryphons on the northern continent.”

All four gryphons clicked their beaks gently, chuckling. //
We would hardly call our own home ‘Gryphonslair,’
// Meleaar said. //
Our allies refer to it thus. We are a temporary encampment, owing to the eastern campaign.
//

“Eastern campaign?” Vidarian blinked. Thalnarra had said nothing about this.

Meleaar and the pridemother exchanged startled glances. //
Well, of course. We assume that your forces are here for that reason—and quite welcome they are.
// When Vidarian did not immediately answer, Meleaar continued. //
We won't keep you long. We are sure there is someone you should be seeing at once.
//

After the pridemother, Thalnarra shepherded Vidarian to the tent adjacent, pushing him and Rai through its flap with her beak…and then leaving. Vidarian started to call after her, but knew by the determination in her step that she would never hear him.

Rai whined, and Vidarian turned around—almost directly into Ariadel.

She had stood from her desk, piled high with parchment and message tubes, and walked halfway to the tent flap, her arms folded across her chest. Her stomach very visibly swelled now, and her cheeks were red—and not, he thought, out of joy at seeing him. Heat and pressure filled his chest at the sight of her, and it was all he could do to keep his hands at his sides.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “I never authorized a landing.”

Vidarian started to answer, then blinked. “You—command this place?”

“Of course I do,” she said, turning back to the desk. “This is the heart of the resistance. They didn't tell you that?” And then, without waiting for him to answer, “Someone had to do something.”

Parchment crinkled on the desk—Raven, the cat, even larger than Vidarian remembered, still flame orange and striped.

Rai started barking and charged, the puppy-wolf taking over his brain. Vidarian shouted wordlessly and dove after him, tackling. He earned an accidental shock for his efforts, but Rai immediately left off, whining apologies.

“I've done what I could,” he said, more sharply than he meant to, standing, his arm smarting from the electricity. “I've brought you two dozen Sky Knights, nearly two hundred Sea Kingdom sailors, and four skyships.”

“You brought them?” Ariadel said, moving to the opening to draw back the tent-flap and peer out. “Skyships?” Her eyes had gone dark and thoughtful, calculating.

Vidarian stood, and before he could blink, Ariadel rushed into his arms, pulling him tightly against her. His own arms fell around her, carefully, hardly daring to touch her, and especially careful of the fragile curve of her stomach. The feel of her pressed against him, and the thought of her condition, the child she carried, made his head spin. Something started to break loose in him, but then her head was coming up, and she kissed him, fierce and with abandon at once. Her hands lifted to bring his face even closer, and then there were no thoughts at all, only fire and ocean, depth and height, as it had always been with her from the moment they met.

“I'm sorry,” she said, when she drew her head back, then pressed her forehead into his collarbone. “I thought—I didn't—”

“It's all right,” he said, kissing her hair. “Of course it's all right. I never should have…” He couldn't finish the sentence.

She laughed softly into his chest, saying without words that he didn't need to. They stood that way for a long time, and yet if it had been years it wouldn't have been long enough.

“I didn't think you'd ever forgive me,” he said. The words fell out, as they had so many months ago, but this time not nearly so disastrous.

“I wasn't going to,” she said, looking up at him, then looking away. “But—spending this much time around gryphons has a way of sinking in.”

“I didn't know gryphons were the forgiving type.”

“They're not,” she replied, and his eyebrows lifted. “But they mate for life.” She pulled away, but only to look at him.

Vidarian rested his hands on her shoulders, searching her eyes carefully. “At risk of losing everything I care about right this moment—that doesn't seem an especially good reason.”

Ariadel covered one of his hands with her own. “They have—a more distant perspective. Whatever this is, and much as we'd hate to admit it, something larger than either of us has brought us together. And it didn't think about taking its time or making it easy. But that doesn't mean it was wrong.”

Vidarian straightened, startled at hearing his own thoughts echoed back in Ariadel's voice.

“Just promise me a future when we can learn more of each other,” she said.

“I would move worlds to make that happen,” he said.

“All right. We're even.”

Turning back to the desk, she drew away, and again he fought not to move immediately with her. It was enough to have the terrible pull in his chest alleviated, if only for a moment. It was enough to have true purpose again.

Raven, the oddly named cat, perched on the edge of the desk, her head down and nose almost touching Rai's as he looked up at her in fascination. A tiny spark of electricity jumped from his nose to hers, and she hissed, slashing at him with a paw. She missed, but he yelped, more than half an apology, and ran back behind Vidarian, tail low.

Ariadel moved behind the desk, shifting stacks of parchment with one hand. “There have been rumors of a weapon, something large and terrible, capable of killing multitudes at once. It was also rumored they would test the weapon on the prison camp.”

“Have you found your mother?”

She looked up, the answer already on her face when she shook her head. “We believe she is in the camp. But we don't know.” Then, as she dropped her eyes to the desk, searching, her face hardened again. “But with your skyships, we'll have tipped the balance.”

“The ships and all we bring are at your disposal.”

Ariadel smiled, but only halfway, a world of sentiment in half a movement. “Rest today, but we must attack tomorrow, before they can send reinforcements.”

W
hen Vidarian emerged from the tent, Thalnarra was waiting for him. //
Come with me. There's someone I want you to meet.
//

She turned northwest and Vidarian followed with Rai pacing alongside him. Thinking of Meleaar, he wondered whom she meant for him to meet, and whether he would have to revise his notions of gryphons again. It seemed foolish in retrospect to think that they should be contained to the types of the handful he'd met, and now his mind roved in speculation.

But as they passed beyond the command tents, busy with gryphons and seridi moving among them with purpose, the next path she chose led them to a different “village” of tents, these positioned much more closely together. Gryphons moved here, too, trotting down the narrow roads, often with burdens hanging from their beaks or strapped to harnesses at their sides, but the farther they went, the more the population changed to human.

A mixture of faces turned to look as they passed, mostly dark of hair, but with the occasional blond or mop of red. Very few had any identifiable ethnicity that Vidarian could recognize, and none of them wore clothing he had ever seen before. They were dressed predominantly in leather or doeskin, more varieties than he could count, with decorations of feathers—small and large—and beads of precious stone. They paused in their work—blacksmithing, carpentry, cloth weaving—as Vidarian passed, staring at him almost as openly as they stared at Rai.

Thalnarra threaded her way through the tents, bringing them around to the far side of the encampment and a lean-to surrounded by racks of leather. There were straps of all sizes, and more varieties and treatments of animal hide than he'd seen on all the villagers so far. A man sat on a worn leather stool in the center of it all, working rivets into a piece of thick harness. Thalnarra scratched on a bit of thick hide stretched across a little rack for that purpose, and the man looked up, then stood and approached.

His thick, black hair falling in unruly waves to his shoulders would have been the envy of many an imperial countess. The leather he wore was extraordinarily fine, its origin animal unidentifiable, and a strap of darker hide across his chest was covered with cabochons of amber, each with a tiny feather trapped inside. He bowed first to Thalnarra, and when he turned to Vidarian, his silver eyes were intent but wild, untrusting.

//
Kormir, this is Captain Vidarian Rulorat, and this is the shapechanger I told you about.
// To Vidarian's surprise, Thalnarra turned as she spoke, dipping her head at Rai.

Kormir looked from Vidarian to Thalnarra, and then to Rai. “It is true, then?” He knelt and held his hand out to Rai, who crept forward with a hesitant wave of his tail, and sniffed.

//
Kormir is the finest skin-worker in my pride, and in the entire flight,
// Thalnarra said, and Kormir waved his hand negligently. There was something warmer in Thalnarra's tone than respect for a craftsman; a lilt of vanilla and
kava
steam.

“She shows partiality to her ward. It is unseemly.” Kormir's eyes twinkled as he turned back on his heels to Thalnarra and swatted at her foreleg. Vidarian had never seen any human so forward with a gryphon before.

//
You have been kinsman for a decade now. I am therefore unbiased.
// She leaned her head down to Kormir, nudging his shoulder.

Kormir shook his head, pushing at Thalnarra's beak. “It is good to see you,
akrinha
.”

Thalnarra preened a piece of Kormir's hair, then turned her head toward Rai. //
Go on, little one,
// she said, gesturing at Rai with her beak. //
Show him what you can do.
//

“Come around on him, have you?” Vidarian asked.

//
Even a gryphon eventually accepts being out-stubborned
. //

“Or learns to respect creatures that grow substantially bigger than them?”

Rai shuffled backward, then became the dragon, stretching behind into the scrub brush clearing to their west. He crouched in the dry weeds, long, spiked tail swishing like a cat's, rather to the detriment of the foliage. His huge head was now even with Kormir, who drew in his breath.

//
It should be impossible,
// Thalnarra said, with a fresh rosemary note of bemusement that said she had grown used to contemplating impossibilities. //
In five thousand years there has never been a dragon shapechanger. I verified this with Kree. It must have been the influence of the Gate.
//

“He is stunning,” Kormir said, and then, to Vidarian's surprise, eeled up next to Rai and began feeling at his legs, his barrel, his wings. Rai's head jerked upward and curved on a swanlike neck to look at him, but did not intervene. “I would be honored to make you a harness and saddle, if you would allow it,” he told Rai, patting him on the shoulder.

Rai's horned head lifted again with surprise, then looked to Vidarian before returning to nod at Kormir.

//
I hoped you might. You will have an assistant, if you'd like. My new ward.
//

Kormir gave a little hop and a whoop, startling Rai, then apologized, but turned immediately back to Thalnarra. “This is excellent news! They said you would never!”

//
Come, he will want to meet you, and then you can see to this harness.
// Thalnarra deftly ignored the young man's effusiveness, but her cheek-feathers puffed. Kormir stood, brushing his hands on his trousers, beaming, and Thalnarra turned back to Vidarian. //
We will take care of Rai. You should go to Malinai. He has asked for you.
//

Malinai was a dying gryphon.

When Vidarian asked for him, gryphons and humans alike pointed with solemnity at a red stone plateau to the south. None would discuss Malinai, but one of them gave him a waterskin and told him to ration it. It was a long, hot trek followed by a climb hundreds of feet in altitude, back and forth along the sage-bordered switchback trails that led up to the summit.

At the top a persistent wind whipped, cooling his skin but drying his tongue almost instantly. And there, across the stone, was Malinai.

The old gryphon was slow to move, and under the constant beat of the sun overhead it was hard not to emulate him. His feathers at one time may have been a rich russet red, with cream secondaries banded with black, but here the sun had bleached them to cream and white with delicate tan striping. With a shiver Vidarian realized he was the same type of gryphon as his friends Kaltak and Ishrak; was this the aged fate that awaited them?

“Malinai, sir?” Vidarian asked, when he approached the gryphon and his eyes remained closed.

//
I give myself to the sky and the sun. They are almost done devouring me. You interrupt my sacred journey.
// The voice was pale as powder, but complex, with notes of sage and burning rock, spearmint and citrus.

“They—said that you sent for me,” Vidarian said, hoping desperately the old gryphon wasn't senile.

The narrow slits of the gryphon's eyes opened, revealing vivid orange-umber eyes beneath. //
Did I?
//

Then, without warning, he lashed out with an arm of fire energy, scorching the ground just to the left of Vidarian's feet. He tried to stop it, to lift his recalcitrant fire magic up to deflect the blow, but could not move in time.

//
Your fire is unruly! Whoever trained you should be ashamed.
//

“One of your people trained me,” Vidiarian grunted, brushing at soot from his trouser leg.

//
Then I fear for our future,
// Malinai said, his eyes sliding shut again. //
I am almost gone to the goddess. She fills me with light.
// At the last of his words, his voice took on a strange harmonic tone, as if two twins sang the words with him. //
What would you ask of Ele'cherath, light of the world, goddess of the sun?
//

“I—” Vidarian began, but could not pull the words out of his dry throat. He coughed, then tried again. “I would ask her to release my potential,” he pointed up at the
Luminous
, where Endera and her apprentices were drilling, little flashes of fire magic arcing into the air. “To give me control over the warring elements that she released within me.”

//
You do not need a goddess for that!
// The gryphon growled, his voice returning to a single pitch. His eyes opened again, but squinting, and he tilted his rough-feathered head to one side, dissecting Vidarian. //
You know what you must do. You have seen it.
//

“Thalnarra told me that what I witnessed was not possible,” he said, fighting to keep bitterness from his voice.

//
The young are creatures of certainty,
// Malinai said, and Vidarian had to repeat the words to himself before he realized the old gryphon was talking about Thalnarra. //
They are governed and reassured by rules and their heritage. It is to battle against the great fear in their hearts, the true unnamed certainty that their parents and their elders have left them, bequeathing the world into their claws.
//

“I'm not sure I understand how that relates to the physical effects of the elements.”

Malinai's beak clacked dissatisfaction, a hollow sound like an old dry bone. //
Reality—physical effects—are mostly what we perceive them to be. And, it often follows, what we expect them to be.
//

“That's not my experience,” Vidarian said carefully, swallowing annoyance. “If I drop a rock on the ground—” he picked up a triangular stone, then dropped it, “perceiving that it did not fall will not keep it in the air.”

//
It will not,
// Malinai agreed. //
But you can perceive that the ground instead rises to meet the stone, or that the stone is drawn to the center of the world, which happens to be toward the ground, and these will cause your realities to be quite different.
//

“And that means…?” He was beginning to grow impatient, and incredulous that a creature who had so little life remaining could be so indirect.

The great beak clacked again, and Malinai roused his feathers, shaking off a small cloud of dust and several loose secondaries that were caught and spun about by the wind. //
Your culture, Thalnarra's culture, expects the elements to behave a certain way. She
needs
them to behave. Your Qui opponent perceived reality differently.
//

“So you're saying I just need to think about my elements and they'll be happy?”

//
No,
// Malinai said, as if speaking to a particularly slow student. //
I'm saying it behooves you to speak with a Qui elementalist.
//

“That's become rather complicated, thanks to the war.”

//
There are three Qui elementalists in this camp,
// Malinai said, and Vidarian's heart lifted, but then, //
but none of them have the pair of elements you require.
// Frustration flickered up again, but then— //
You'll have to make do with me.
//

“You?”

//
Yes, but I'll need your assistance. I have a flicker of water ability, but not nearly enough to demonstrate anything up here. You're going to have to channel some to me if you want a demonstration.
//

“Channel…?”

//
They haven't even taught you basic conduitry? A kitten in straw knows how to conduit.
//

“There hasn't been time,” Vidarian began.

//
Excuses!
// The gryphon shook his feathers again, and Vidarian was afraid he was going to lose all he had if he kept it up. //
Now, hand me your water energy. Just—draw some together, and push it toward me. Be ready to release it.
//

Vidarian gamely pulled the water out of the air, drying it even more than it had been before, and shaped it into a column of water. As it had before, his fire sense reared up in him, hissing, striking. He gritted his teeth, and passed the water toward Malinai, ready to let it go.

Suddenly the water lifted away from him, and despite being warned, he was pulled with it, and nearly stumbled. He let it go just in time, and the water moved away from him, though a thread remained with which he could feed more energy to it to keep it alive. Malinai turned it deftly in the air, clicking his tongue in approval, and then drew out his own fire: a bright, pure flame so strong and true it stirred memories of love in Vidarian's chest.