The Black Gryphon

“With Aubri, theme’s little depth to ssstudy,” Skandranon said dryly. “But yes, all seems to be well enough. I want to be back in action immediately.”

“There’ll be plenty of action for you, warrior, and that surely means we’ll see you back in surgery soon enough,” Ci

Skandranon stood, feeling more lively than before, and mantled in indignation. In walked an opportunity for mischief. “They haven’t killed me yet! Have they, Jewel?”

A laden and bewildered hertasi looked at Skan wide-eyed, having just come in bearing rolls of blankets for Aubri. “N . . . no?” she said, with a nervous glance at the Healers.

This, of course, was a favorite trick of the Black Gryphon’s-getting people involved in his arguments, whether they liked it or not or whether they had any knowledge of the subject at hand. Always fun! Especially when the topic of discussion was him, and it had turned unflattering. “There, you see? Jewel knows. This was just a temporary setback, and I’ll be back to save Urtho’s army in no time at all.” He puffed up his chest feathers and struck an heroic pose.

“Oh, save me from him!” came Aubri’s plaintive cry. Tamsin and Ci

“He’s unaccustomed to being near greatness.”

Skan gave Aubri a lofty and condescending sidelong glance.

“I’m unaccustomed to drowning in such sketil. I can’t stand him asleep or awake!” Aubri moaned. “Healers, could you please either still his tongue or eliminate my hearing? Something? Anything?”

“Tchah! Blind fledgling,” Skandranon retorted. “I am forced to take up company with the unappreciative. It’s worse than physical wounds, I tell you honestly.”

Jewel paused for a heartbeat, took in the tableau of laughing and posturing, and evidently decided that folding fresh bandages for Aubri was the right thing to do. She fell into doing so with religious fervor on the far side of the tent. Lady Ci

“I’d say our labor is done here, Lady. He’s as good as he’ll ever be.”

“What a sad thought,” Aubri muttered.

“Oh, please,” Skan countered. “I have capacities I’ve . . .”

“Boasted about for years,” Aubri inserted quickly. “And never fulfilled.”

Skan decided that a quick change of subject was in order. “Are you two keeping an eye on our Lord and Master?” he asked. “When Urtho visited me, I thought he looked underfed.”

“It hasn’t been easy, but I’ve been making certain he gets at least a bite or two out of every meal brought him,” Ci

“He’s giving more than he can afford to,” Skan told her, sitting down and becoming serious for a moment. “He never wanted to be a warlord. He isn’t suited to it.”

“He’s doing well enough. We’re all still alive,” Ci

Aubri’s eyes twinkled. “She only says that because it’s true.”

But Skan stuck his tongue out in distaste. “She’s being charitable, Aubri. When Ma’ar first swept down, the border lands burned up like kindling. All the Barons were terrified, and the King’s best efforts couldn’t hold them together. It all fell apart, and we had only Urtho to turn to. No one else had any knowledge of what we faced. Ci

“We remembered that we serve our subjects. The ones who ran served themselves and left their people crying in their wake,” Ci

A shadow fell across the threshold and was followed a second later by a severe-looking, impeccably uniformed woman. Her brown hair was shortcut but for three thin braids trailing down her back, each as long as a human’s forearm, all placed in mathematical precision along her smooth neck. As she stepped in, her hazel eyes flicked from human to gryphon to hertasi in that order; she then flowed like icy water toward Aubri. Or rather, she would have flowed, had she not been trying to cover a limp. Skan stared at her; to intrude uninvited into a tent was not only rude, it was dangerous when the tent contained injured gryphons. Yet Aubri did not look surprised or even affronted; only resigned.

“May we help you?” Tamsin asked, openly astonished that the woman had not offered so much as a common greeting.

The woman did not even look at him. “No, thank you, Healer. I am here to tend to this gryphon.”

“And you arrre. . . ?” Skandranon rumbled, his tone dangerous. Either she did not catch the nuance, or she ignored it.

“His Trondi’irn, Winterhart, of Sixth Wing East,” she replied crisply-not to Skan, but to Tamsin as if Skan did not matter. “His name is Aubri, and he has suffered burns from an enemy attack,” she supplied.

Oh, how nice of her. She’s provided us with details of the obvious, as if we had no minds of our own or eyes to see with. How she honors us! Except that she was paying no attention to the nonhumans, only the humans, Tamsin and Ci

But the woman was not finished. “I’ve also come to reassign you, hertasi Jewel. Your services are required in food preparation with Sixth Wing East. Report there immediately.” Jewel gulped and blinked, then nodded.

Winterhart drew a short but obviously sharp silver blade from her glossy belt and cut one of Aubri’s bandages free, looking over the blistered skin underneath.

“I don’t think-“ Tamsin began. The woman cut him off as Jewel scurried out of the tent.

“Aubri doesn’t require her any longer,” she said curtly, “and the Sixth is shorthanded.”

Skan ignored the rudeness this time, for Winterhart had caught his attention. “Sssixth Wing-that of Zhaneel?” he asked.

The woman looked at him as if affronted that he had spoken to her, but she answered anyway. “Yes. That is an extraordinary case, though. She surprised us all by somehow distinguishing herself.” Win-terhart’s shrug dismissed Zhaneel and her accomplishments as trivial. “Rather odd. We’ve never had a cull in our ranks before.”

Skandranon’s eyes blazed and he found himself lunging toward the woman. “Cull?”

Tamsin and Ci

Winterhart ignored both his obvious anger and his question. Instead, she rebandaged Aubri and held her hands over his burns.

Even Skan knew better than to interrupt a Healing trance, but it took him several long moments to get his anger back under control. “Cull, indeed!” he snorted to Tamsin, indignantly. “Young Zhaneel is no more a cull than I am! These idiots in Sixth Wing don’t know how to train anyone who isn’t a musclebound broadwing, that’s their problem! Cull!”

Tamsin made soothing noises, which Skan ignored. Instead, he watched Winterhart closely. The fact that this cold-hearted thing was Zhaneel’s Trondi’irn explained a great deal about why no one had tended to the youngster’s obvious emotional trauma and low level of self-esteem. Winterhart simply did not care about emotional trauma or self-esteem. She treated her gryphon-charges like so many catapults; seeing that they were war-ready and properly repaired, and ignoring anything that was not purely physical. Zhaneel needed someone like Ci