The Mage Wars Read online

  Skandranon’s eyes blazed and he found himself lunging towards the woman. “Cull?”

  Tamsin and Cinnabar held onto both of Skandranon’s wings. He repeated his incredulous question. “Cull?”

  Winterhart ignored both his obvious anger and his question. Instead, she rebandaged Aubri and held her hands over his burns.

  Even Skan knew better than to interrupt a Healing-trance, but it took him several long moments to get his anger back under control. “Cull, indeed!” he snorted to Tamsin, indignantly. “Young Zhaneel is no more a cull than I am! These idiots in Sixth Wing don’t know how to train anyone who isn’t a muscle-bound broadwing, that’s their problem! Cull!”

  Tamsin made soothing noises, which Skan ignored. Instead, he watched Winterhart closely. The fact that this cold-hearted thing was Zhaneel’s Trondi’irn explained a great deal about why no one had tended to the youngster’s obvious emotional trauma and low level of self-esteem. Winterhart simply did not care about emotional trauma or self-esteem. She treated her gryphon-charges like so many catapults; seeing that they were war-ready and properly repaired, and ignoring anything that was not purely physical. Zhaneel needed someone like Cinnabar, or like Amberdrake, not like this… walking icicle.

  But she was giving Aubri the full measure of her Healing powers; at least she was not stingy in that respect. And she was good, very good, provided that the patient didn’t give a hung-claw about bedside manner or Empathy. Aubri was clearly used to treatment like this; he simply absorbed the Healing quietly, and made neither comment nor complaint when she had finished.

  But for the rest of her duties—those, she scanted on. She did not see that Aubri was comfortable. She did not inquire as to any other injuries he might have, other than the obvious. She did not ask him if there was anything he needed. She simply gave Tamsin and Cinnabar another curt nod, ignored Skan altogether, and left.

  No one said a word.

  “Well!” Cinnabar said into the silence. “If that is the quality of Healers these days, I should have Urtho look into where that—woman—got her training!”

  Tamsin nodded gravely, but Cinnabar’s expression suddenly turned thoughtful.

  “Odd,” she muttered. “I could have sworn I’d seen her before, but where?”

  But a moment later, she shook her head, and turned to Aubri and said, “I’ll have one of my personal hertasi come to see to your needs, until we can get Jewel back for you. Is there anything I can do for you now?”

  Aubri’s ear-tufts pricked up in surprise. “Ah—no, thank you, my lady,” he replied, struggling to hide his amazement. “I’m really quite comfortable, actually.”

  “Well, if there is, make sure someone sends me word.” Having disposed of the problem, Cinnabar turned back to Skan. “Do you think you can keep your temper in check when that one comes back?” she asked. “If you can’t I’ll have Aubri moved so you won’t have to encounter her again.”

  “I won’t promissse,” Skan rumbled, “but I will trrry.” It was a measure of his anger that he was hissing his sibilants and rolling his r’s again.

  “I won’t ask more of you than that,” Cinnabar replied, her eyes bright with anger as she glanced at the still-waving tent-flap. “It is all I could expect from myself.”

  Tamsin mumbled something; perhaps he had forgotten that a gryphon’s hearing was as acute as his eyesight. It would have been inaudible to a human, but Skan heard him quite distinctly.

  “I must speak with Amberdrake about that one…”

  Tamsin chewed his lower lip for a moment, his brow wrinkled a little with worry, and then sighed. “Well, greatest of the sky-warriors,” he said lightly, with a teasing glance to the side, “I think you won’t have any real need for us in the next few hours, so we’ll go tend to those with greater hurts and smaller egos.”

  Skan pretended to be offended, and Aubri snorted his amusement; Cinnabar lost some of her anger as her lover took her hand and led her out.

  Ai’bri settled back down, wincing a little as burns rubbed against bandages. Skan arranged himself in his own nest of cushions with a care to his healing bones, and watched his tent-mate with anticipation, hoping for another battle of wits. But the Healing had tired Aubri considerably, and the easing of some of his pain had only left an opening for his exhaustion to move in, assassin-like, to strike him down. Before either of them had a chance to think of anything to say, Aubri’s eyes had closed, and he was whistling.

  Skan snorted. “Told you,” he whispered to the sleeping gryphon.

  At least the poor thing was finally getting some sleep. Skan was only too well aware that Aubri’s sleep had been scant last night, and punctuated by long intervals of wakeful, pain-filled restlessness. Skan had wondered then why his tent-mate’s Trondi’irn hadn’t come to ensure that the gryphon at least got some sleep—well, now he knew why.

  Because this “Winterhart” doesn’t care for us. We’re just weapons to her; weapons that have the convenient feature of being able to find their own targets. All she cares for is how quickly she can get us repaired and back on the front line again. She might as well be fletching arrows.

  Winterhart wasn’t the only person in Urtho’s forces to think that way; unfortunately, two of Urtho’s commanders, General Shaiknam of the Sixth and his next-in-command, Commander Garber, had the same attitude. Urtho’s most marvelous creations meant the same as a horse or a hawk, or a hound to them. If a gryphon didn’t do precisely as ordered, no matter if the orders flew in the face of good sense, there was hell to pay. Obviously, Shaiknam picked underlings who had that same humanocentric attitude.

  Skan put his chin down on his foreclaws and brooded. It wasn’t often he had his beak so thoroughly rubbed in the fact that he was incredibly lucky to have Amberdrake as his Trondi’irn and Tamsin and Cinnabar as his assigned Healers-of-choice.

  And if anything ever happened to Amberdrake?

  I could end up with another cold, unfeeling rock like Winterhart. And I would have no say in the matter… just as I have no say in when I may sire young, which commander I must serve, nor any way to change battle-plans if the commander does not wish a gryphon’s viewpoint.

  The gryphons found themselves treated, as often as not, as exactly what Shaiknam and his ilk thought them to be: stupid animals, deployable decoys, with no will, intelligence, or souls of their own.

  The more he brooded, the more bitter his thoughts became. Thanks to Amberdrake, he had led a relatively indulged life, insofar as it was possible for any of the Urtho’s combatants to be sheltered. But Zhaneel was an example of how a perfectly good gryphon could be turned into a self-deprecating mess, simply by neglect.

  Because too many of Urtho’s folk—and sometimes even Urtho!—treat us as if we aren’t intelligent beings. We’re things. We have no autonomy.

  From where he lay, he had no trouble reading the titles on the spines of the books Urtho had loaned to him. Biographies and diaries, mostly—all humans, of course—and all great leaders, or leaders Skan considered to be great. Did Urtho have any notion how Skan studied those books, those men and women, and what they did to inspire those who followed them? How he searched for the spark, the secret, the words that turned mere followers into devotees? Or did he think that Skan read them as pure entertainment?

  Make your motivations secret to the enemy, fool them into false planning, use their force against them, lead them onto harsh ground, hold true to the beliefs of your followers and show them the ways they may become like you. Lead by example. Those weren’t fictions on a page, they were a way of life for those who had become legends in the past. Urtho knew half of these writers. A quarter of them worked for him when he created us. One he served.

  Urtho had learned from all of them; and now, so did Skandranon. So why must things remain the same?

  * * *

  Amberdrake came conscious to the smell of simmering bitteralm-and-cream. Gesten bustled about with fluid efficiency as the kestra’chern awoke, whistling jaunty hertasi tun
es while he folded towels and polished brass, pausing only to check the bitteralm pot on the brazier between tasks. Amberdrake couldn’t help thinking of morning-wrens greeting the dawn, like the hertasi tale of how the sun had to be coaxed from slumber each day with music.

  Amberdrake rolled over and slid sideways, stretching his legs underneath the glossy red and silver satin cover that Urtho had sent to him upon his graduation from apprenticeship. He curled up around a body-pillow and hoped that Gesten wouldn’t realize he was awake, but it was too late. The hertasi pulled back a corner of the blanket and offered a cup.

  “Morning and daylight, kestra’chern. Much to be done, as always.”

  Amberdrake blinked and mumbled something that could have been interpreted as rude, if it had been intelligible. Gesten was as unimpressed by it as he’d been the last hundred times, and proceeded to prop up pillows behind the Healer’s head. “There’s hot bread and sliced kilsie waiting outside. We have three clients today. Losita has pulled muscles and can’t take her usual clients, so I accepted one of hers for us. Should not take long. And before you ask, nothing has gone wrong with Skandranon, he is fine, and sends his best regards.”

  Amberdrake took a sip of the hot, frothy bitteralm-and-cream, and smiled at Gesten. What would any kestra’chern do without hertasi, and what would he do without Gesten? “So things are back to normal.”

  “As normal as ever in a war. Tchah,” the hertasi spat, and flicked his tail. “New orders are down from Shaiknam and his second, Garber. ‘All hertasi of convalescing personnel are to be reassigned to more important tasks, according to the judgment of the ranking human officer.’” He thumped his tail against the bed-frame. “I don’t think Urtho knows. It’s the most stupid thing I’ve heard in years—we aren’t tools to be traded around! Hertasi know their charges. It takes time to learn someone! And to send off a hertasi when their charge is in pain—it’s unthinkable. Worse, it’s rude.”

  Amberdrake finished his cupful and thought for a moment. Gesten apparently expected him to do something about this—an assumption that was confirmed when Gesten produced Amberdrake’s full wardrobe for the day, laid out his sandals, and stood with his arms crossed, impatiently tapping his foot.

  * * *

  “So, just how did you manage to get yourself bunged up?” Skandranon asked his erstwhile companion, when they had both finished the hearty breakfast that Gesten brought them at dawn. Somehow—possibly from Cinnabar, or one of Cinnabar’s hertasi—the little fellow had learned that Aubri was without an attendant, and had simply added one more gryphon to his roster of duties. Hence, the double breakfast: a lovely fat sheep shared out between them. With the head, which Skan had courteously offered to Aubri, and which Aubri had accepted and had Gesten deftly split, so that each of them could share the dainty.

  Aubri had been profuse with his thanks, and Skan had quietly kept his requests to an absolute minimum so that Gesten could concentrate on Aubri. By the time Gesten left, Aubri was cradled in a soft nest of feather-beds that put no pressure on his burns, and the tell-tale signs of a gryphon in pain were all but gone.

  “How was I hurt?” Aubri asked. “Huh. Partly stupidity. We were flying scout for Shaiknam’s grunts; we had one report of fire-throwers coming up from behind the enemy lines, but only one. And you know Shaiknam.”

  Skan snorted derision. “Indeed. One report is not enough for him.”

  “Especially when it comes from a nonhuman.” Aubri growled “Needless to say, one report was certainly enough for us, but he ignored it. He didn’t even bother to send out a second scout for a follow-up on the report.”

  The broadwing grunted a little and flexed his talons, as if he’d like to set them into the hide of a certain commander. Skan didn’t blame him.

  “Anyway,” Aubri continued after a moment, “I was just in from my last flight and officially off-duty, so he couldn’t order me on one of his fool’s errands, and I figured I was fresh enough to go have a look-see for myself. And I found the fire-throwers, all right.”

  “With your tail, I see,” Skan said dryly.

  Aubri snorted laughter, as Tamsin arrived, with Cinnabar and two of the Lady’s personal hertasi. “At least Shaiknam believed the evidence of his eyes and nose, when I came in smoking and practically crushed him!” Aubri chuckled. “You should have seen his face! I set fire to his tent when I landed, and I only wish I could have seen how much of it burned.”

  “Not as much as you or I would like, Aubri,” Tamsin said. “By the way, flaming hero, we’ve had you reassigned for the duration of this injury, anyway. You’re our patient now, and if Her Royalness Winterhart comes giving you orders, you tell her to report to me first.”

  Skan blinked in surprise; it wasn’t often that Tamsin made room in his overcrowded schedule for a patient from another wing and another commander. Winterhart must have truly angered him yesterday!

  “Tchah, Shaiknam should be set down to scrub pots a while,” Cinnabar added, wrinkling her elegant nose in distaste. “My family has known his since our grandfathers were children, and it is a pity that anyone ever gave the cream-faced goose any vestige of authority. The only thing he truly has a talent for is losing interest in one project after another.”

  “And spending someone else’s money,” Tamsin reminded her.

  She shook her head, and brushed her hair back over her shoulders. “That was for peace-time,” she corrected him. “Now he simply trades upon his father’s reputation, rather than spending his father’s gold on one incomplete project after another.” She began telling off some of them on graceful fingers, as Skan and Aubri listened with pricked-up ears. “There was the theater-company he abandoned, with the play into rehearsals, the scenery half-built, and the costumes half-made. They struggled on to produce the play, no thanks to him, but since it was written by one of his friends with more hair than wit, it did not fare well and the company disbanded quickly. Then he set himself up as a publisher, but once again, when the tasks proved to entail more than an hour or so of work at a time, he lost interest, and left half-a-dozen writers wondering what would ever become of their works. Then there was the pleasure-garden he planned—oh, Amberdrake knows the tale of that better than I—but it was the same old story. The garden languishes weed-filled and half-finished, and a number of talented folk who had turned down other offers of employment to take up with him ended up scrabbling after work and taking second and third place to those with less talent but more perception when it came to dealing with Shaiknam and his enthusiasms.”

  “His father was Urtho’s first and greatest general,” Tamsin told the two fascinated gryphons, “and I have heard the man with my own ears say that he is certain he is heir to all of his father’s genius. As if wisdom and experience could be inherited!”

  Skan laughed aloud at that. “I would say that Shaiknam is living proof that intelligence can skip entire generations.”

  Cinnabar’s lips twitched, and her eyes gleamed with amusement. “Well, as proof that the so-observant Skandranon is right, this is the latest of Shaiknam’s orders—that ‘hertasi of convalescing personnel are to be immediately reassigned to tasks of more immediate importance.’ That is why I brought Calla and Rio; right, little friends?”

  She looked down fondly on the two hertasi, who gave her toothy grins. “Let some fool from Sixth Wing East come in here and try ordering us about,” said Rio, who, like his fellow, was clearly clad in the personal colors of Lady Cinnabar’s retinue. “We’ll send him out of here with boxed ears.”

  “You’ll have to share us, though,” added Calla. “The Lady is seeing how many injured there are from Shaiknam’s command, and we’re to tend them all, if we can. You don’t mind?”

  “Mind?” Aubri replied, clearly surprised, pleased, and a little embarrassed. “How could I mind? I didn’t expect any help! I can only thank you, and know that thanks are inadequate…”

  But both Lady Cinnabar and Rio waved away any thanks. “My friends have been itching to do so
mething besides tend to my nonexistent needs,” she replied. “If my family had not insisted that I take a retinue due my rank, they would not be here at all.”

  “For which we are grateful,” Rio butted in. “And grateful to be able to do something useful. So, we will return when we know how many patients there are, and see what it is you will be needing from us. Eh?”

  Aubri nodded, speechless for once.

  “It isn’t surprising that Shaiknam would have someone like that Winterhart woman as a Trondi’irn,” Tamsin observed, checking Skan’s healing bones as Cinnabar and her two helpers rebandaged Aubri’s burns with soothing creams and paddings.

  Aubri let out his breath in a hiss of pain, but replied, “It’s typical of him. She won’t stand up to him at all; that’s why he picked her. Honestly, I don’t think there’s a Trondi’irn in the army that would put up with his sketi, other than her. But she’s just like him: thinks we’re nothing more than self-reproducing field-pieces. We’re like fire-throwers, only better, because we repair ourselves if you leave us alone long enough. Very efficient, is Winterhart.”

  “Efficient enough to requisition Jewel as soon as she knew you were down,” Skan observed.

  Aubri snorted. “Surprised she left Jewel with me as long as she did. Maybe she just didn’t notice I was gone. She’s been quite efficient about that new order.”

  “Who actually issued that particular chunk of offal?” Tamsin demanded in disgust.

  “Garber. Shaiknam’s second. In case you don’t know him, he’s by-the-book, and every inch an officer.” Aubri’s tone made it very clear what he thought of officers like Garber.

  “So in the meantime, those who have been injured in the front line—where, presumably, Shaiknam and Garber never go—are supposed to do without those who might serve as their hands and make their recovery more comfortable.” Lady Cinnabar’s cold voice only told Skan that there was a great deal of heat within. The angrier she became, the chillier her voice. “We’ll just see about that.”