Snowfire broke contact with the falcon with a feeling of fierce pleasure. “The first stage worked perfectly!” he told Daystorm. “Any sign from the mage that he knows what happened?”
She shook her head. “Nothing at all out of the ordinary,” she reported. “You ought to check with Starfall, though. He might have noticed something.”
That was an excellent idea, and he was not at all loath to follow it. He brushed the dust off his trews and loped up the trail to Starfall’s ekele, hoping that the Adept was not too lost in his work to speak to him.
As it happened, Starfall was just finishing the last of his rations, and greeted Snowfire with a wave of his hand. “We’ve dropped the bluff; it worked perfectly, and they lost three in the rockfall,” Snowfire reported. “Have you noticed anything from the mage?”
“Only that he’s trying harder than before to take control of the lines and nodes from me,” Starfall replied. “He’s getting aggressive; I think he’s getting extra energy from his fighters. Are they doing anything unusual?”
“Only the mounted ones are left; Daystorm says they’re practicing against each other, and that’s unusual, because there isn’t a lot of room for them to practice ordinarily.” Snowfire cocked his head to the side. “From what I saw, the mounted fighters are the least disciplined. Would that be enough to generate extra energy for him?”
“Probably; it isn’t a lot, but these days, when there isn’t a lot of energy to be had, a mage would grasp at anything.” Starfall blinked, and rubbed his eyes. “At least he isn’t practicing blood-sacrifice.”
“I’ll say this much for the barbarians; so far as I know, they don’t tend to stoop to that. They’ll use the power generated by slaughter on a battlefield, but they won’t practice blood-sacrifice. Or at least, not of humans.” He grimaced. “Let’s hope this lot runs true to form.”
“Dar’ian would never forgive us if anything like that happened,” Starfall muttered, and shook his head. “Well, he’s due for another try, and I need to be on guard; keep me informed if you can.”
Starfall raised the containment shield again, and sank back into his trance. Snowfire left him with his falcon standing watch and returned to Daystorm.
“I think you can drop the close watch on the village,” he told her. “Starfall says the mage hasn’t reacted to what we did at all.”
She sighed with relief. “Oh, good. If I don’t get myself stretched out, I won’t be any use for the raid. I’ll leave the hooligans in place; I don’t need them here, and they’ll call me if something catches their attention.”
“Good plan,” he said approvingly, and went to check on the others.
Wintersky had taken charge of building their packs; each of them would carry an identical load of climbing staff, short bow, arrows, and throwing darts. The idea was not to get into combat, if they could avoid it; the idea was to free the slaves and guard their backtrail. Snowfire wished he had some other sort of magic than the type he had; it would have been so useful to be able to turn water into drugged brandywine and arrange for the remaining barbarians to find it!
Seventeen Tayledras and one adopted boy would be the whole of their army; Nightwind and Kel would remain behind to guard Starfall, with five dyheli and three of the most timid of the hertasi. Wintersky had finished seven of the packs, with ten more to go; he was checking each and every weapon with utmost care as he packed it, and there was a small pile of rejected arrows beside him. Snowfire didn’t interrupt; he had the job well in hand.
Seventeen against how many? We must be mad. Yet if they could just avoid rousing anything or anyone, the odds of pulling this off were good. Or at least, they weren’t insurmountable.
Time to check on someone whose optimism more than equals my pessimism. He left Wintersky and took the path that led to the pools and Kelvren.
The only quiet place to practice was beside the bathing pools, and Darian was more than tired of repeating his tiny magics over and over when Kelvren provided a welcome interruption.
“What passsesss, brrrancherrr?” the gryphon called, as he flew low over the pool, craning his neck to the side to keep his eyes on Darian. When Darian waved at him, the gryphon executed a slow and graceful gliding turn, then backwinged to a perfect one-claw landing on the rock edge of the pool beside Darian. Darian had to duck his head and shield his eyes against the dust storm kicked up by the gryphon’s wing-beats, but he grinned a greeting anyway.
“Nothing much passes except time, and that’s passing too slowly!” he complained, as the gryphon settled himself with a couple of crisp wing-flicks. He noticed that Kel had a bundle in his right front talon, which he placed on the ground behind the rocks, just out of sight. “I want to do something, not just sit here!”
“I agrrree,” Kel responded readily. “But I happen to have sssomething you can do. Do you sssuppossse you could give me a hand with grrrrooming? Nightwind isss bussy prrepar-ring herrr weaponsss, the herrrtasssI arrre all gone orrrr busssy, and I am no grrryfalcon, to have handsss that hold toolsss well.”
Help Kelvren? In a heartbeat! Darian was absolutely thrilled to be asked, and jumped to his feet, prepared to do anything that Kel requested. “Do I need to get anything special?” he asked anxiously. “The feather-oil or anything?”
“Not featherrr-oilsss,” the gryphon replied, “I have ever-rrything we’ll need. Thisss will be battle preparrrationsss.”
With his foreclaw the gryphon picked up the bag which he put down in front of Darian. He opened it and spread out the contents on the ground. It contained the usual brushes and combs, but also held files, a thin and flexible chest protector that was clearly made to fit over the chestplate on Kel’s harness, and a set of sharp metal claw-sheaths. “Thessse fit overrr the talonssss,” Kel said, indicating the metal sheaths. “You’ll have to file my talonsss to fit; they arrre a bit longerrr than they werrre when I wasss fitted with thessse.”
Darian picked up the set of three files and the right-side set of sheaths and went to work, as Kel advised and corrected what he was doing. He found that if he sat just under the gryphon’s chin with his back against Kel’s chest, they were both able to see what was going on clearly and were more comfortable. It was very pleasant, sitting there with his back against the feathery warmth of his friend, working diligently with the files on the shining black talons. He could almost forget why they were making these preparations. He couldn’t help thinking what the other boys Of Errold’s Grove would say if they saw what he was doing now. Wouldn’t their eyes just pop! They wouldn‘t believe what they were seeing! Imagine, me, helping take care of a real, live gryphon! Why, next thing, I’ll be helping trap a snow-drake or something.
The talon-sheaths fit over each claw and were held in place with a glovelike web of fine, strong leather straps. The workmanship was really ingenious, and the articulation was perfect. The sheaths didn’t really extend the length of the talons all that much, so Kel would still be able to walk, land, and pick things up. When Darian finished fitting the whole contraption to Kel’s right leg, the gryphon had what was effectively a set of four single-edged knives on the end of his leg. Not only did each sheath taper to a point as sharp as a needle, but the first third of each had a real sharpened edge for slashing.