Lance of Earth and Sky

As silence descended again on the forest, the rain dwindling to a drifting mist beyond the camp's shield, Isri moved to soothe the agitated seridi. Their behavior was so unpredictable that Vidarian often found it difficult to tell when they were actually more agitated than usual, but Isri, her mind brushing constantly with theirs, was much more sensitive.

// We are passing through, // Altair said, while he delicately set about the grisly work of dragging the dead wolves away from their camp. Vidarian moved to assist him, but the gryphon waved him off with a talon. He reneged only out of practicality: Altair could seize the wolves by the root of their neck-spines, his large beak impervious to the barbules that would have sliced Vidarian's hands open. Now that they were still, Vidarian could see that nearly every other protruding surface—paws, knees, tails—were dressed with smaller versions of the wicked neck barbs.

“He speaks only mind-to-mind,” Calphille observed quietly when Altair had disappeared between the trees, though Vidarian was fairly sure the gryphon's sharp ears would catch the sound. “Did he lose his voice by some misfortune?”

“Gryphons…have not spoken with physical voices for hundreds of years, I'm given to understand,” Vidarian said carefully, trying to piece together when she might have last spoken with either gryphon or man. If his body and mind weren't still pounding with a battle fervor, he'd certainly be reeling still over the memory of how recently she had been a tree.

Her thoughts must have run parallel to his. A pensive frown shadowed her bark-colored face and she turned slowly, taking in the ring of trees one angle at a time. Suddenly she gasped and hurried over to one, bird-quick and equally as silent, and ducked beneath its low-hanging branches to examine its trunk. Crouching, she looked back at Vidarian, one palm on the tree, a strange expression on her face. “My people have slept a very long time. What—year is it?”

A rustle announced Altair's return. He clacked his beak, a sound unsettlingly like bones cracking, and a backbite of coppery distaste colored his thoughts as he answered. // 1,652 in the Ascendancy, by western human reckoning. 5,008 gryphon reckoning since the First Crossing. // Then he wiped his beak on the grass. On the one hand, Vidarian was relieved his distaste seemed to be from wolf funk rather than mention of the Ascendancy, but on the other, how had none of the gryphons mentioned that there was any such thing as a “gryphon reckoning”? Much less one going back five thousand years? In his mind he ceded a little bit more credence to the creatures' long-suffering attitude toward humans.

When Calphille didn't answer, Vidarian turned back and found the color washed from her face. “What's wrong?”

“If friend gryphon is correct,” she said, barely above a whisper, “my people have slept for eight hundred years.”

* Those trees are pretty long-lived, * Ruby observed, “showing” Vidarian a page from an ancient book with a watercolored painting indeed similar to the spruce.

“How can that be—” Vidarian began.

A high-pitched yip from the nearby trees thrust them all into tense silence.

Altair stalked immediately toward the sound, waking in Vidarian an incredulous objection to a creature of his size moving so silently. Despite his fruitless denial, he felt worse, not better, when the gryphon quickly found himself blocked by fallen logs and a long, sprawling thicket two lengths into the forest.

// I can fly a circuit— //

“I'll go,” Vidarian said, drawing his sword. “With a yip like that, and in the thicket, it's a small one.” A whisper of thought, and the longsword's blade lit with water energy to his inner eye.

* Better, * Ruby said, so caustic he was sure she didn't mean it.

I'd appreciate some respect for risking my skin, he thought acidly at her.

* Somehow the sting of mortal threat has lost its bite, * she replied. * Can't imagine why. *

Vidarian sent a thin line of fire energy out beneath the water. The two energies snapped at each other, but the fire clung hungrily to the blade while the water was repelled by it, and so they achieved an uneasy balance. He slashed at the thicket, and the fire sprang ahead of his strokes to sear the vegetation away. Even without the blade physically touching the branches, it was slow going; it took three slices to clear a space tall and wide enough for his body, and with every lash the water and fire energies squabbled like jealous children.

The creature kept up a steady stream of eerie, high-pitched yips, helping him to cut straight to it—and when he finally broke through the last thicket wall, he saw why.

A terrified thornwolf pup, charcoal-furred with electric blue eyes, sat yipping in a small, low clearing. It yowled when it saw him and scrambled backwards, but was blocked from escaping down its den tunnel by a fallen log. It dug furiously—and ineffectually—in the mud around the log, whining.

* Kill it, * Ruby said.

“This is why they attacked us,” Vidarian said, letting his sword tip drop toward the ground. “We made camp right against their den.”

* Then we did the larger camp a favor, * Ruby said. * Now they won't have to deal with them. *

“Are you truly so cold? It's practically helpless, and we killed its parents.”

* Are you truly considering not killing it? It won't be helpless in a couple of months, and besides that, it won't survive out here alone. If you let it live now you're just punishing it with starvation. *

Vidarian didn't answer, but the longer the wolf scrabbled pathetically at the log, the guiltier he felt.

* Thornwolves are vicious, destructive predators, * Ruby insisted. * You want this one to grow up into what you just saw? *

“You're right, damn it. But you're not the one having to actually do this.”

He only realized that she'd been radiating anxiety at him when it melted into relief and sympathy. When they got back to the camp, he was going to have to talk to Isri about blocking at least some of her out.

Wearily, he lifted the sword again, and now let go of the water energy, letting it fall back inside him. He stoked the fire, but kept it close, willing the blade to be hot and sharp. If the magic was strong enough, he should be able to make this fast enough that the pup would feel almost nothing.

He started toward the blocked den, keeping a tight rein on the fire energy, forcing it down into a tight, white-hot band. The pup looked up, and for a moment he feared it would dash across the clearing or even under the thicket, but it turned immediately back to the mud and dug even faster.

Now he was close enough to get a better look at the creature. Like its parents, it was dark grey over most of its coat, with black stripes on its ruff, feet, and nose. The very tip of its tail was a shock of white, as were the tops of its ears. Unlike its parents, it didn't have any traces of lurid green or dark red; a couple of patches might have been deep blue, but under the soak of the rain it was hard to tell. Of spines it had only nubs—undeveloped, perhaps? He had no idea when they grew the poisonous barbs, but it seemed merciful they weren't born with them.

When he was close enough to touch it, the wolf turned, and he raised his sword, expecting it to growl or attack. Instead it hung its head, exhausted, its bright blue eyes gone dull and vacant. It sat and leaned against the log, panting.

* Quickly now, * Ruby whispered gently.

Carefully Vidarian turned his wrist, aiming the point of his sword at the top of the pup's head. From this angle it would be difficult to strike the top of the spine as he'd hoped, so the blow must be sure. He lifted the sword, hand tightening around the hilt as he wound the fire energy tighter one last time.

The pup looked up, mournful and tired, and his eyes flashed white, reflecting a burst of lightning that crashed through the forest behind them. The light seemed to strike right to Vidarian's soul, seeking out his every thought and memory. For that moment it was as if those eyes belonged not to an animal, but to another being, a soul that knew Vidarian's like no other.

Rain hissed down around them, renewed, in waves that drifted across the clearing. Vidarian's arm didn't move, stayed locked until it ached with the weight of the sword.

Finally, he lowered his arm, then reflexively returned the blade to its sheath. He knelt.

* You're not serious, * Ruby burst, revealing that, however close her mind was to his, she hadn't experienced what Vidarian just had. He wasn't sure whether to be reassured or worried.

“A wild creature like this,” Vidarian said, leaning back on his heels and slowly raising his hand toward the wolf pup. “Never seen humans, he's wet and miserable and cornered. What do you think he'll do?”

* He'll bite you and you'll get a disease. *

He stopped his hand, which the pup was looking at with curiosity, but not fear. “I'll take that bet. If he bites me, I'll kill him.” The words were even difficult to say. “But if he doesn't, I'm bringing him back with us. Agreed?”

* What's there to agree to? It's not as if I have any leverage here. * Her acidity was back.

“Good enough.”

Vidarian reached again, palm flat, to the wolf. It stretched its nose to him, then carefully, gently, licked his hand. Just as the pink tongue brushed his skin, a jolt of electricity shot through his fingers, and he yanked them back with a yelp.

The pup's ears drooped sadly and it whined, while Ruby crowed, * There! You see! *

“He didn't…” Vidarian slowly clenched and unclenched his hand, wincing. “He didn't bite me. He shocked me.”

* Like there's a difference? *

“Of course there is. He didn't mean to.” Ruby filled his mind with a disgusted noise, but he ignored her, reaching out to the pup again. This time it put its head under his palm, and he petted it, carefully.

* You have gone completely soft in the head. *

“The gate's magic mutated him,” Vidarian said, now understanding the nubs that ringed the pup's neck and paws instead of spines. “It's a wonder the other wolves didn't kill him themselves.”

* A wonder, * Ruby echoed flatly.

The pup stood, looked up again for permission, then, with a low wave of his tail, ambled closer to Vidarian, pressing close to his legs for warmth. He trembled in bursts. Vidarian picked him up, and, when he didn't resist, tucked him into his shirt.

The frustrated stream of invective Ruby directed at him was in neither High Alorean nor trade-tongue. He thought it was some sort of southwest islander language but wasn't sure. “You know I don't understand any of that.”

* H'salu nikkti kreshaluk. Kreshaluk. *

“I didn't even know you knew one of those languages. That's not Malu, is it?” Much as he wouldn't like to admit it, arguing with Ruby was shaking loose the hold of the dark thoughts on his mind, of Ariadel's rejection. The pup shifted, curling himself up against Vidarian's chest, and despite the rain and his aching muscles, Vidarian felt something close to contentment for the first time in a long time. He even enjoyed Ruby's frustration, if a little guiltily.

Halfway back to the camp, * What's its name? * she said finally, after her vocabulary in that tongue had worn out. At least she hadn't switched to another one he couldn't understand.

“Haven't decided yet. I take it you're not mad at me anymore?”

* I've decided he's your problem. If he zaps you—and he will—or he bites someone, or he eats one of the seridi, it's your hide, not mine. I'm just along for the ride— *

“I appreciate that—”

* —Even if you do any number of things that are totally, completely, ridiculously inadvisable. I am deciding to be entertained. *

They broke then into the clearing and the camp, where Altair had again erected his shield of air to block out the rain. The droplets formed a silver ceiling that magnified the pale moonlight above them.

Altair and Isri both stood from where they'd been warming themselves near a freshly crackling fire, and Vidarian strode straight to it, thinking more of the still shivering pup than himself. The dead thornwolves, thankfully, were all gone.

Isri radiated relief at him. “I sensed a commotion, intense worry—oh!” She cut off in a squeak as Vidarian pulled the pup from beneath his shirt.

Altair reared back, the feathers around his neck flaring. The pup yipped, terrified, then immediately growled, stiffening the fur along his spine. A crackle of electricity radiated out from the lifted proto-spines, but Vidarian managed to hold onto him.

// That creature is dangerous, // Altair said, and he returned his formidable talons to the ground, but the roused feathers of his neck and head still made him seem twice his actual size. // Thornwolves are— //

“Vicious and destructive—”

* I tried to tell him. *

“—I know.”

// Why did you not destroy this one, then? // The gryphon's large, sapphire eyes were flared wide, and all-pupil with alarm.

“Because he's not a thornwolf. At least, not entirely.” He soothed the pup with a murmur, then lifted him, squirming, toward Altair. As the pup's alarm peaked again, he discharged another crackle of electricity, but the pulses seemed to be getting weaker the more he used them. “But mainly,” Vidarian added, “we're the reason he's on his own. I'm all he has.”

Altair eyed the pup, about to argue, but a figure came hurtling down through the ceiling of rain overhead.

The dark-feathered shape landed lightly beside the fire, too small to be a gryphon. As she stood, revealing herself to be a seridi, she bowed to Isri, and then to Vidarian and Altair.

The seridi ruffled her feathers, shaking free droplets of water. She either did not recognize the pup for what he was, or was too preoccupied with her mission, or both. “Lord Tesseract,” she began, and Vidarian squelched his still-irate reaction to the title, “a messenger waits for you at the foothills.”

“Who could send a messenger this far?”

“He claims to be from your human emperor, my lord. We were told you would wish to know of his arrival.” She read Vidarian's startlement as affront and her facial feathers lifted with embarrassment. “I apologize if our assumption was incorrect.”

“No, no, you're quite correct,” Vidarian said, managing to summon back some of his diplomacy. “I'll be along as soon as I can.” He looked at Isri. “Can they manage a ride in the ship?” he indicated the two sedated seridi with a nod.

“I believe so,” she replied, closing her eyes for a few moments and then opening them again. “If we travel by night they'll take the journey easier.”

“I'll convey your response,” the messenger said, and Vidarian realized he didn't even know her name. But she was bowing again, and taking off, before her feathers had even dried.

The pup was squirming, the fire and warmth giving him new energy, and so Vidarian set him down to amble around the camp. As he looked around, he realized for the first time that one of their recent number was missing.

“Where is Calphille?” he asked.