The Black Gryphon

To destroy three makaar was remarkable; to destroy three at once was uncommon even among experienced frontliners. Who is this “Zhaneel?” he thought, beak agape with surprise. And why have I never heard of her before this?

From the dumbfounded look on his face, Urtho’s surprise was just as great as Skan’s, and that was astonishing in itself. The gryphons were his favorite creations, and he knew and kept track of every promising youngster. Yet he did not appear to know of this one.

“You mussst bring herrr herrre,” Skan said imperiously before Urtho could speak.

Loren looked to Urtho for permission first. When the mage nodded, he pushed back the tent flap and stalked out into the sunset-reddened dust and activity of the camp.

He returned much more quickly than Skan would have expected, though not too soon for the gryphon’s impatient nature. He had bolted the last of his meal and called the hertasi to come take the remains away and light the lamps before they arrived, partially to be able to devote all of his attention to the visitors, and partially out of a wish to be seen at his best, limited though that “best” might be at the moment. He hardly presented a gallant sight - swathed in bandages, propped up by pillows, and without having had a proper bath in days. Still, Gesten had groomed him as best he could manage, and it did not do to be presented to a brave lady with the leavings of a greedy meal in front of him.

You just want to look good for the lady, vain bird. As if you want to be sure that you could add her to your harem if you wanted, like a collector of figurines lusting after yet another little statue.

Still, he didn’t want her to think that he was some kind of ragged-tailed hooligan. The gods only knew what she’d heard about him; Drake and Gesten wouldn’t repeat half of the stories they said they’d heard about him. But then again, he had only their word for the fact that they’d heard these stories at all. . . .

It was a good thing that this was a relatively large tent, made for two gryphons as patients, and only holding Skan at the moment; once Commander Loren brought his young gryphon in, things became just a little crowded.

“This is Zhaneel, my lords,” Loren said formally. “Lord Urtho, Skandranon, this is young Zhaneel, who today disposed of three makaar single-handedly.”

While Urtho made the usual congratulatory speech, Skandranon kept very quiet and examined Zhaneel. She was small and lightly built, with a deep keelbone but narrow chest. Her ear-tufts were compact and dainty, her feathers very smooth, and she had no neck-ruff at all. In color she was a light brown with a dusty-gold edge to her primaries; like most gryphons except the unassigned, her primary feathers had been bleached, then dipped in the colors of her wing-in this case, red and gold. On her head and face, she had malar-stripes of a slightly darker brown, and eye-markings flowing down her cheeks, like soft-edged tear tracks.

While Loren and Urtho spoke, she kept her head down and turned to the side, as if shy or embarrassed-the gryphon equivalent of blushing. Was she simply shy, or was she truly uncomfortable in their presence? Most of the gryphons that Skan knew might have been subdued in the presence of their overlord and creator, but they wouldn’t have acted like this.

When Loren finally coaxed her to speak, her voice was low and soft, and she spoke in simple sentences with a great deal of hissing and trilling-and yet it was not because she was stupid. A stupid gryphon would not have been able to do what she had done. It was as if she simply could not get the words past her shyness.

“It wasss nothing,” she insisted. “I only fly high, verrry high. Sssaferrrr it isss. Makaarrr ca

Skan could readily picture it in his mind’s eye; especially if she had been flying as high as he thought she was. Those tapering wings-surely with wings like those the aspect ratio would be remarkable, and the narrow leading edge would complement the long primaries. The makaar would have been halfway between her and the earth; she would have been invisible to them.

“Too farrr to rrreturrrn to rrreport, it wasss,” she continued. “They would be gone when warrrri-orrrsss came. They mussst have been looking for sssomething. Ssssent. They would have found it and gone.”

Now Skan nodded. “True,” he rumbled, and Zhaneel started at the sound of his voice. “Quite true. Your duty was to try to stop them.”

Her hissing had made him conscious of his own speech; normally he only hissed and trilled when he was under stress or very, very relaxed, among friends. When he chose, he could speak as well as any human, and he chose to do so now. Perhaps it would comfort her.

“But how did you kill them?” Urtho persisted.

She ducked her head. “I wasss high. They could not sssee me. I sssstooped on them; hit the leader. Like thissss-“

She held up one foreclaw, fisted.

“I ssstruck hissss head; he fell from the sssky and died.”

No doubt; coming from the height Zhaneel had been at, she must have broken the leader’s neck on impact, and the ground finished him.

“I followed him down; the othersss pursued, but I climbed again, too fassssst for them to follow.” She pantomimed with her foreclaw, and Skan saw then what he had not noticed before-a reason she may not have struck to slash, or bind to her quarry as he would have. Her talons were actually very short; her “toes” long and flexible, very like stubby human fingers. A slash would only have angered the makaar unless she had managed against all odds to slash the major artery in the neck.

“I go high again, verrry high; the two follow, but ca

“He wasss ssstu

Nothing special-except that these were tactics few, if any, gryphons had tried before. Spectacularly successful tactics, too, if Zhaneel’s experience was anything to go by. Most gryphons, when they fought makaar, closed for the kill, binding to the prey’s back and bringing it down, or slashing with talons in passing strikes. Hawk and eagle tactics, not falcon. Zhaneel had fought as would a very hungry-or very brave-falcon, when taking a goose or very large duck, prey that would outweigh her twofold or more-knocking the prey out of the sky, and not using her talons.

“Zhaneel, your act of courage has probably saved any number of our people, and no few of your own kind,” Urtho said, as these thoughts passed through Skan’s mind. “I am quite impressed and quite pleased that Commander Loren thought to bring you to my attention personally. At the very least, my dear child, I am going to present you with the reward you richly deserve.”

With that, he reached into a pocket and pulled out one of the reward-tokens he used instead of medals or decorations. Urtho felt medals were fairly useless; he rewarded bravery directly. This particular token was the highest possible; a square of gold with a sword stamped on one side and a many-rayed sun-in-glory on the other. He slipped this into the tiny pouch Zhaneel wore around her neck, an accessory that most gryphons not on duty wore. She could trade that particular token for virtually anything in the camp, from a fine tent to the exclusive services for a month of her very own hertasi. Or she could save it and add it to others to obtain other luxuries. Skan simply kept a ru