The Black Gryphon

And he found himself being supported by Vikteren, his head under the spout of a pump, the young mage frantically pumping water over him.

He spluttered and waved at Vikteren to stop, pushed himself up to a kneeling position, and shook the cold water out of his eyes. He was barely able to do that; he had never in all of his life felt so weak.

“You passed out,” the mage said simply. “I figured that what worked for drunks would probably work for you.”

“Probably the best thing you could have done,” Amberdrake admitted and coughed. How many more wounded were there? His job wasn’t done yet. “I’d better get back-“

He started to get up, but Vikteren restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t do much but let it rest there, yet that was enough to keep Amberdrake from moving.

“There’s nothing left to go back to. You didn’t pass out till you got the last tervardi and a couple of the humans that the others hadn’t gotten to yet. The rest no one could have helped,” Vikteren told him. Amberdrake blinked at that, and then blinked again. The mage was a mess-his clothing stiff with blood, his hands bloodstained. He had blood in his hair, his eyes were reddened and swollen, and his skin was pale.

“We’re done?” he asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

Vikteren nodded. “Near as I can tell. They brought the last of the wounded in through the Jerlag Gate, evacuated the rearguard, and shut it down about a candlemark ago.”

Evacuated? Shut the Gate down? Amberdrake blinked, and realized then that the light shining down on both of them was entirely artificial, one of the very brilliant mage-lights used by the Healers. Beyond the light, the sky was completely black, with a sprinkling of stars. We’ve been working all day? “Sunset was about the same time they shut the Gate down,” Vikteren told him, answering his unspoken question. “Urtho’s up at the terminus now, and-“

A ripple in the mage-energies, and an unsettled and unsettling sensation, as if the world had just dropped suddenly out from underneath them, made them both look instinctively to the north. The Jerlag Gate was in the north, beyond those mountains in the far distance.

Far, far off on the horizon, behind the mountains, there was a brilliant flash of light. It covered the entire northern horizon, so bright that Vikteren cursed and Amberdrake blinked away tears of pain and had false-lights dancing before his eyes for several moments.

It took much longer than that before either of them could speak.

Vikteren said carefully, “So much for the Jerlag Gate.”

“Did he-“ Amberdrake could hardly believe it, but Vikteren was a mage, and he would recognize what Urtho had done better than any kestra’chern.

Vikteren nodded. “Fed it back on itself. Ma’ar may have taken Jerlag, but it’s cost him a hell of a lot more than he thought it would. That’s the first time Urtho’s ever imploded one of his permanent Gates.”

The thought hung between them, ominous and unspoken. And it probably won’t be the last.

Amberdrake swallowed; he could not begin to imagine the forces let loose in the implosion of a fixed Gate. Vikteren could, though, and the young mage squinted off at the horizon.

“Probably a hole about as big as this camp, and as deep as the Tower there now,” he said absently.

And then it was Amberdrake’s turn to grab for his arm and steady him, as he trembled, lost his balance, and started to fall. He was heavier than Amberdrake could support in his own weakened condition; he lowered the mage down to the muddy ground in a kind of controlled fall, and leaned against him. Vikteren blinked at him with glazed eyes.

“You collapsed,” Amberdrake told him gently. “You aren’t in much better shape than I am.”

“You can say that again, Drake.” Gesten padded up into the circle of light cast by the mage-light overhead, with Aubri and two of Lady Ci

I’m supposed to have Dierne and Lysle help Vikteren back to his tent and get some food in him, while Aubri helps me get you back to yours.” The hertasi patted the young mage on the shoulder. “Good work, boy. Tamsin says you two basically took care of every badly injured nonhuman that came in. Real good work. If I had a steak, I’d cook it up for you myself.”

“Right now a couple of boiled eggs and some cheese sounds fine,” Vikteren croaked, his face gone ashen. “I’d rather not look at meat just now-could look like someone I knew. . . .”

Gesten gestured to the other two hertasi who levered Vikteren back up to a standing position and supported him on his feet. “Get some food, get some rest. And drink what these two give you. It’ll keep you from having dreams.”

“Nightmares, you mean,” Amberdrake murmured, as the hertasi helped the mage down the hill, step by wavering step. “I remember my first war-wounded.”

“As do we all,” Aubri rumbled. “Gesten, if you can get him standing-Amberdrake, you lean on my back-“

As he got to his feet, he began to black out again, and Gesten tsked at him as he sat abruptly back down. “I thought as much,” the hertasi said. “You’ve drained yourself. You’re going to be a right mess in the morning.”

“I’m a right mess now.” Amberdrake put his head down between his knees until the world stopped spi

“That’s why I brought Aubri. Just give us a moment.” The hertasi hustled into one of the supply tents, and came back out again with a number of restraining straps and a two-man litter. While Aubri muttered instructions, Gesten rigged a harness over Aubri’s hindquarters, and stuck one set of the litter handles through loops in the harness. “Get yourself on that, Drake,” the hertasi ordered. “I’ve got this inclined so Aubri takes most of your weight.”

Amberdrake did manage to crawl onto the litter, but he was so dizzy that it took much longer than he thought it would, and his head pounded in time with his pulse until he wanted nothing more than to have someone knock him out. He knew what it was; he’d overextended himself, drained himself down to nothing. He was paying the price of over-extending, and he wouldn’t be the only Healer who’d done that today.

He closed his eyes for the journey back to his tent; when he opened his eyes again, he was being lifted into his bed. But the moment he tried to move, his head exploded with pain, so he closed his eyes again and passively let them do whatever Gesten told them to. He wound up in a half-sitting position, propped in place by pillows.

When he opened his eyes again, the tent was silent, lit only by a single, heavily-shaded lantern, and Gesten was still there, although Aubri and the rest of the hertasi’s recruits were long gone. Gesten turned with a cup in his foreclaw, and pushed it at him.

“Here,” he said brusquely. “Drink this, you know what it is.”

Indeed he did; a compound of herbs for his head and to make him sleep, so thick with honey he was surprised the spoon didn’t stand in it. At this point, he was too spent to protest, and too dizzy to care. Obediently, he let the too-sweet, sticky liquid ooze down his throat.

Then he closed his eyes, waiting for the moment when the herbs would take effect. And when they did, he slid into the dark waters of sleep without a single ripple-for a while.

Winterhart had never wanted quite so much to crawl away into a hole and sleep for a hundred years. Instead, she dragged herself back to her tent and collapsed on her bedroll. She curled into a fetal position, and waited for her muscles to stop twitching with fatigue, too tired even to undress.

Urtho was losing. That was the general consensus. The only question was if their side would continue to lose ground, or if Urtho would come up with something that would hold Ma’ar off for a little longer.