:Not that I know of,: Snowfire told him after a moment of thought. :I never saw dead scavengers around the carcasses, anyway.:
:Then we’ll dump them in a crotch up in the canopy,: Kel decided immediately. :Their masters will never find even a bone, then, and it will give the scavenger-birds a good meal or two.:
So that was what they did, he and Hweel laboring heavily up into the canopy until they were well screened from the ground, leaving the two bodies wedged tightly into forks in neighboring trees. Perhaps eventually bones would fall down, but not until every scrap of flesh had been picked away or eaten by insects and larvae, and by then the matter of their masters should have been settled.
Afterward, both owl and gryphon rested while they conferred with Snowfire.
:I honestly didn’t see anything that would make me think there were still any villagers there,: Kel told the Tayledras, as he cleaned the monsters’ blood fastidiously from beak and talons. :I will grant you, we weren‘t overhead long, but I can’t imagine where they would put the villagers if there were as many fighters as the boy thought.:
Snowfire thought back on the brief look that he’d had through Hweel’s eyes, and tended to agree. :We know they‘ve fixed the bridge, and that most of the buildings are still intact; we know that the enemy is still in possession of the place because of all the horses we saw. That’s really what we came to find out. If you want to go back, I’m certainly ready.:
Kel sighed, and spread wings which were probably starting to ache. He’d put his flying muscles through a great deal of abuse, and just about now was when they would start to complain. :I think we ought,: he replied, trying to sound reluctant. :I hate to admit it, but I’m not good for much more.:
:Oh, I think you could rise to the occasion if you had to,: Snowfire said encouragingly. :But I see no reason why you should have to. You were mighty enough tonight. Let’s go home.:
:Very well,: Kel replied, and took off - carefully - gaining altitude until he was above the treetops.
Snowfire began the slower process of making his way toward the clearing where the dyheli waited.
But Kelvren could not contain his pleasure in silence. :You know, I really was good tonight. Wasn’t I?:
Snowfire sensed a certain wonder behind the boast, and smiled. :Definitely,: he replied with warmth, too busy picking his way through the canopy to give a more elaborate reply.
But Kel didn’t seem to mind; he was still intoxicated with success - and mostly talking to himself. :I was,: Kel sighed with content. :I really was. . . .:
Six
Snowfire kept having to hide his smile the next day when he encountered Kel; the young gryphon was so pleased with himself - not in any truly vain way, but simply full of joy and astonishment at his own daring deeds. He had probably been a great deal less sure of himself at the time than he had pretended. In fact, he reminded Snowfire of a certain young Tayledras after his first successful mission, some few years ago. It was odd how certain things transcended the boundaries of species.
Nightwind, of course, had made a great fuss over Kel; over both of them, actually, but she was more demonstrative with Kel. So when, after greeting the gryphon, he’d gone to her to ask her to make sure he hadn’t done any damage to himself, he also asked her why she’d been so effusive.
“I was beginning to think you were being a little too enthusiastic,” he told her. “You know, the way doting mothers make a great fuss over a child who’s done something perfectly ordinary? I don’t mean to try to teach you your job, but Kel’s old enough to see through that sort of thing.”
“Gryphons, especially young ones like Kel, are a lot more fragile than you’d think,” she told Snowfire, as she checked his arm wound and rewrapped it. “They need a great deal of encouragement before they become secure in making their own judgments. It’s a fledging sort of thing; they really go through several stages of fledging, and the most critical is in learning to trust their training and make their own decisions instead of waiting for orders from someone else.” She sealed down the end of the bandage with a firm finger. “He really was very clever to remember Tadrith Wyrsabane, and the Changed creatures he encountered. I can promise you that not one in a dozen of the gryphons I’ve tended would remember a tale that old. Tadrith is ancient history, and the young ones tend to dismiss history out of hand.”
Snowfire thanked her with a smile, then stretched out along the rock rimming the larger pool to soak up the sun. That was his prescription for muscles aching from his unbalanced climbing last night. “I think he may be trying to model himself off this Tadrith,” he suggested. “It’s just a thought, but the way he Mindspoke the name suggested something of the sort to me last night.”
Nightwind unwound her hair from the knot at the back of her head, and shook it free; it fell in rippling waves to her waist. “I can certainly think of worse examples, and gryphons that have tried to follow them. Well, for one thing, trying to model himself off Skandranon would be a very bad thing to do. We don’t have any stories of Skandranon as a young, rash, and fallible gryphon, only those in which Skandranon succeeds beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and pulls off another miraculous, heroic coup. By this time there is so much myth associated with the Black Gryphon that trying to emulate him would be impossible, and failing would be devastating. No, he could do a lot worse than try to copy Tadrith Wyrsabane; by the time Tadrith was growing up, White Gryphon was well established, and we have plenty of tales about how difficult it was for him to make a name for himself in his father’s shadow.”
Snowfire rolled over on his stomach, and she began working on his back muscles without his having to ask. He sighed with content - and occasionally grunted in pain - as her hands worked out knots and sore spots. He decided to change the subject - he really wasn’t in the mood to discuss gryphonic myth. “About those little monsters - “
“Yip Dog and Attack Dog?” she said; the terms were so strange he wasn’t certain he’d heard her correctly, and craned his head around to give her a puzzled look. She giggled at his expression. “That’s what I thought of when Kel described them to me. The little one was like the small dogs one of the Haileigh peoples created. They’ve made pampered, spoiled pets out of a breed that was supposed to be alarm-dogs; very small, very fast, very annoying. When they see a stranger, they swarm him, yipping; we call them Yip Dogs, and when I reminded Kel of them, he agreed that the smaller creature was exactly like a Yip Dog.”
“Huh. Good enough name for it,” he replied. “So you think this Yip Dog was meant to raise alarms?”
“I’m sure of it - and I’m sure Kel was right. From his description, it detected the aura of magic that is a part of every gryphon.” She sounded quite positive, and after a moment of thought, Snowfire was inclined to agree tentatively with that conclusion. He couldn’t think of any other reason why it would have been able to find Kel in the heavy cover of the forest canopy.