The Black Gryphon

“As for the rest of his accusations . . .” he paused a moment, and assessed his own feelings. Should I? What happens if I do? And what would happen if I don’t? “. . . would you care to have a professional assessment?”

She pulled away, eyes wide with surprise. But not with fear or revulsion, the two things he had been worried that he would see in her expression.

“You can’t-I mean, do you mean-“ she stammered.

He smiled, and nodded. “The assessment would be professional,” he told her, very quietly. “But the motives are purely selfish. I find you exceedingly attractive, Winterhart. I do not want to complicate our friendship, nor do I want to jeopardize it, but I wish that we were more than just friends.”

She blinked for several moments, as her cheeks flushed and paled and flushed again. For a moment, he thought that she was going to refuse, and he wished that he had never said a word. Then, to his own delight and surprise, she suddenly flung herself at him. But not like a drowning woman grasping after safety, but like an eagle coming home to her aerie after a long and weary flight, and there was no doubt left at all, of her feelings-or of his.

The afternoon respite was rare enough for Skan-and that Amberdrake had time to spare was a gift from the hand of the gods. Time for the two of them to sit in the warm sun together-and as an excuse to keep others away, Amberdrake tasked himself with repairing feathers Skan had broken in the last engagement with the enemy.

“The word on the lines is-stalemate,” said Skan, as Amberdrake imped in one of his old feathers on the shaft of a broken primary. “Again. Not a quiet stalemate though, at least not for us.”

The warm sun felt so good on his back and neck . . . he stretched his head out and half-closed his eyes, flattening his ear-tufts and crest-feathers with pleasure.

“That seems to be the case up and down the lines,” Amberdrake replied, his brows furrowed with concentration, as he carefully inserted the pin that would hold the new shaft to the old.

Skan turned his head a little, and watched him with interest, and not a little envy. He would have loved to have the hands to do things like this for himself. Even Zhaneel couldn’t imp in her own feathers, for all that she had those wonderful, clever “hands.” She could do plenty of other things he relied on a human for, though.

She no longer had the disadvantage of shortened foreclaws that had handicapped her in aerial combat. A human in the Sixth who had once been a trainer of fighting cocks had made her a set of removable, razor-sharp fighting “claws,” that fit over the backs of her hands. She could still manipulate objects while wearing them, for they worked best when she held her own foreclaws fisted. Now she was as formidable as the strongest of the broad-wings and wouldn’t need to rely on her shears to take down makaar! These new claws were made of steel, sharp as file and stone could make them, and much longer than natural claws.

She had been so effective in claw-to-claw combat with the makaar while wearing these contraptions that the man had been pulled out of the ranks and set to making modified “claws” and “spurs” that other gryphons could wear. The makaar dropped with gratifying frequency, and gryphons wearing the new contraptions found themselves able to take out two and even three makaar more per sortie.

The trouble was, of course, that as soon as someone in the enemy ranks figured out what the gryphons’ new advantage was, it would be copied for the makaar. It was only a matter of time.

As long as every makaar that gets close enough to see the new claws winds up dead, we can keep our secret weapon secret a little longer, Skan told himself. And every makaar dead is one more that won’t rise to fight us and will have to be replaced.

“I understand that the word in the camp is much more interesting than that,” Skan continued casually, looking back at his friend through slitted eyes.

Amberdrake fitted the trimmed feather onto the spike of the pin, and slowly eased it into place. Skan had expected him to hem and haw, but the kestra’chern surprised him by glancing up and smiling. “If you mean what’s going on between Winterhart and me, you’re right,” he said, with a nod. “The situation between us is not a stalemate anymore.” He looked back down and finished the work of gluing the feather to the steel pin and the place where both shafts met. “Hold still. Don’t move. If you can sit there patiently until this sets, it’s going to be perfect.”

“Not a stalemate?” Skan asked, suppressing the urge to flip his wings, which would ruin Amberdrake’s careful work. “Is that all you can say?”

Amberdrake peeled the last of the glue from his fingers, and tossed aside the rag he had used to clean up before he answered. “What else do you want me to say?” he asked. “She’s the Sixth Wing East Trondi’irn, I’m theoretically the chief kestra’chern. She can’t and won’t abandon her duties, and neither will I. Mine take up a great deal of the evening and night, and hers take up a great deal of the daytime. Aside from that-we are managing. Co

“Huh.” Skan cast Amberdrake a look of dissatisfaction, but the kestra’chern ignored it. “Tamsin and Ci

“Tamsin is a romantic, and Ci

Skan raised his head carefully and flattened his ear-tufts. “Heyla, excuse me!” he said in surprise at Amberdrake’s controlled vehemence. “Didn’t mean to pry. When you’re in love, you know, you like to hear that the whole world’s in love, too!”

Amberdrake finally looked into his eyes, and patted his shoulder. “Sorry, old bird,” he said apologetically. “There’ve been too many people who want to make up some kind of romantic nonsense about the two of us being lifebonded, and just as many who want to turn me into the evil perchi who seduced the virtuous Winterhart away from the equally virtuous Co

Skan nodded, but for all of Amberdrake’s denials, there was very little doubt in his mind that Amberdrake and Winterhart were a lifebonded pair. Tamsin and Ci

“It won’t be easy for either of them,” Tamsin had added pensively. “Lifebonding is hardly as romantic as the ballads make it out to be. Both of you have got to be strong in order to keep one from devouring the other alive. And you’d better hope that both of you are ready for the kind of closeness that lifebonding brings, especially between two people who are Empaths. You can’t fight or argue-you feel your partner’s pain as much as your own. You become, not two people precisely, but a kind of two-headed, two-personalitied entity, Tamsin-and-Ci

“But when it finally works,” Ci