The Black Gryphon

No-wait. He caught a hint of movement through the heavy haze. Something’s going on down there!

Aubri circled higher, to get a better perspective on the situation. So far as he had been told, Shaiknam wasn’t supposed to order any kind of attack unless an opportunity too ripe to ignore arose, and Aubri hadn’t seen any evidence of that. Was this just false movement? A little shuffling in place to make the enemy think that Shaiknam was about to press an attack?

He pumped harder, gaining more height, and looked down half a minute later.

At first he couldn’t make out anything at all. Then the haze parted a little, giving him a clearer view of Shaiknam’s troops. His wingstrokes faltered with shock, and he sideslipped a little before catching and steadying himself in the air. Demonsblood! What does he-Why-He can’t be that stupid! Can he?

Shaiknam’s troops had parted right down the middle, and were pulling back, leaving the easiest place to cross the ravine wide open.

This would have been a classic move, giving the enemy a place to penetrate and then closing companies in on either side of him while the troops to the rear cut his forces off from the rest. The only problem was that there were no other companies in place, and no time to get any in place. Shaiknam had not been positioned directly protecting one of the two vital passes, but from here Ma’ar’s forces could easily get to one of those vital passes.

He’s bluffing. Ma’ar’s commanders won’t believe this and he knows it. He’s just giving them something to occupy them. . . .

He couldn’t hover; the best he could do was to glide in a tight circle, panting with weariness and disbelief. Even as Aubri watched, the two groups that had pulled back moved on in a clear retreat, and Ma’ar’s army marched across the ravine and into Urtho’s territory with all the calm precision of a close-order drill.

What in hell is going on here?

Now he wished he was one of those gryphons with any kind of Mindspeech; if only he could tell someone what was happening! By the time he lumbered through the sky to a message-relay, it would be too late to stop the advance.

Damn, it’s already too late. . . . III can’t stop it, maybe I’d better find out who ordered this. That’s what Skan would do. Has Shaiknam lost what little mind he used to have? Or have his troops somehow been sent false orders?

Aubri dropped through the haze, well behind the line of advancement, and landed just outside of Shaiknam’s all-but-deserted command post. He got out of sight, just in case someone from the other side was watching, under cover of a grove of trees right behind the command tent. Predictable, he thought savagely. Trust Shaiknam; ignore the fact that someone can sneak up to your tent in favor of the fact that you get to sit in the shade all day. I hope there’re red ants in those trees biting on his fat behind. He’d wondered why there seemed to be so little activity going on around the command tent, but he’d figured it was simply because there was no activity along this section of the front lines. Now I know, maybe. Either Shaiknam’s been assassinated or replaced or-

or something worse has been going on. He tried to emulate Skan, blessing Zhaneel for all those hours on the obstacle course, as he slithered on his belly through the underbrush. The lessons were second nature now; shove the branches aside with your beak, close your eyes, and let them slide over your neck and your tight-folded wings. Creep forward with forefeet until you were as stretched-out you could get, then inch the hindfeet up until your back hunched, and start over again. Vary the intervals and your steps. Make no patterns.

And why the hell aren’t there guards around the tent, after what happened to Farle? Because Shaiknam isn’t there? Or because he knows he doesn’t need guards? Or because he has no guards left?

He had concentrated so hard on his stealthy approach that he didn’t keep track of how far he’d come. The buff canvas of the tent suddenly loomed up in a wall from out of the underbrush a few talon-lengths in front of his beak, just as he heard voices coming from inside.

Well, there’s someone in there, anyway. He closed his eyes and listened. Whoever was in there murmured, rather than speaking in normal conversational tones, as if they wanted to be certain they weren’t overheard from outside.

“. . . going very well, my lord,” whispered an unctuous voice. “And Ma’ar is keeping his side of the bargain. By the time Judeth of the Fifth realizes what has happened, Ma’ar’s troops will have the Pass.”

“Well, good.” That was Shaiknam, all right; Aubri had heard his whining tones often enough to be certain of that. “Once he has the Pass, we can close behind him, and no one will know we let him through. His mages can set up Gates to pour troops down onto the plains, and I can ‘surrender’ with no one the wiser. My command and holdings will remain intact. And without you, Levas, I would not have been able to contact Ma’ar’s commander and bring all this to pass.”

Levas? Co

“Thank you, my lord.” The unctuous voice was back. “I always make certain to be on the wi

Shaiknam laughed. “I have another task for you, if you think you’re up to it. Urtho may yet be able to pull off a miracle; he has a disconcerting habit of doing so. But without Urtho . . .”

There was a certain archness to the mage’s reply that held Aubri frozen. “I am a mercenary, my lord; you knew that when we made our bargain. There will be an additional price for additional services.”

Shaiknam laughed very softly. “Name it,” he said, as arrogantly as if he had all the resources of all the world to call upon. “Whatever coin you choose.”

“Twenty-four thousand silver, and the coin of bodies, my lord.” The mage’s voice, already cold, grew icy. “Two bodies, to be precise, and both still alive and in a condition to be amusing to me. The Trondi’irn, Winterhart, and the kestra’chern, Amberdrake.”

“Done and done,” Shaiknam replied instantly. “Neither are combatants; they should be easy to subdue. Cheap at the price. You could have sold your services more dearly, mercenary.”

“Their value is peculiar to me-“

Aubri could bear it no longer.

I have to stop them! Now!

He lunged at the tent wall, slashing it open with his sharp talons, back agape to bite the spines of one or both of them in half-

And tumbled ignominiously to the ground, unable to move even his eyes. He landed with bone-bruising impact right at the feet of General Shaiknam, skidding a little on the canvas of the tent floor.

If he could have struggled, he would have, but there wasn’t a muscle of his body that would obey him. His heart continued to beat, and his lungs to breathe, but that was all the movement he was allowed.

He’d been the recipient of a spell of paralysis, of course. Idiot! Co

General Shaiknam looked down at him with mild interest in his catlike eyes, then searched his pockets for a moment. Then he turned to Co

“Indeed, my lord,” Co

Shaiknam shrugged, and his eyes reflected his boredom. “They have no interest for me. I will see that they are captured unharmed. It should not be terribly difficult.”

“What of-this-my lord?” A new voice, but another one that Aubri recognized. Garber.

Shaiknam’s second-in-command spoke from out of Aubri’s line-of-sight, but there was no doubt of where he was. A toe prodded him in the ribs, waking pain in his chest muscles.