Page 59 of Gryphon in Light

But—but!—he noticed with hope that now that he was aware of these things, the mage-lights were not bending toward him. His feathers sifted out, for lack of a better term, ambient power, but he was not unconsciously reaching greedily for and absorbing everything else within his perimeter as he had been before. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that he was consciously preventing himself from doing so.

“I will be very glad to eat,” Vindaria confessed as they drew near the Veil. “It was a long flight, and a hard one, but we had no notion of when you would leave, only that the gods felt we would reach k’Valdemar before you did. I will confess that there were three times we descended on some poor farmer, threw down gold to him, then ate his beasts. Not all of them!” she added hastily. “But we did noticeable damage to the size of the herds.”

“Did you say gold?” Kel asked as they passed through the Veil, with himself feeling not unlike a sheepdog as he controlled his greedy feathers. “If you paid in gold, I very much doubt that you underpaid. You may have done the farmers a favor, allowing them to buy new, fresh bloodlines.”

“We had permission from the Guard and Heralds at the Border to do this, after they saw the purses we brought with us,” she said diffidently. “It was hard to estimate what the prices here would be, so we carry precisely measured gold rings, the same as we use with the traders we allow to enter Iftel. Gold is plentiful in Iftel; one of the reasons Vykaendys sealed our border was to prevent the greedy from swarming and overwhelming us before we were strong enough to defend ourselves.”

New bit of information I am certain Darian will want to know and I will certainly pass on to Hallock. “Gold is plentiful there.” For a moment he worried about thieves and bandits, or even a rebellious lord embarking on a wholesale invasion of the country to get at its riches, but then he remembered that it was Iftel. The man who tries to make off with the wealth of a land full of Heavy Wing gryphons, and a country where the Sunlord is exceedingly interested in the fate of the people, is worse than a fool.

“Silver is plentiful also. Copper, brass, tin,” she added. “But gold is worth more, per weight, so that is what we carried.”

Kelvren’s belly had already flipped a few dozen times, but it did so again as he realized Daria was being conversational. He had expected fanatical focus and military discipline, but here she was, being personable.

By this time they had reached his temporary home, and he could tell that—as he had expected—the hertasi had deliberately been listening as they walked through the Vale, had heard how hungry Vindaria was, and had prepared accordingly. He had no doubt whatsoever that her five companions were already stuffing their crops at Firesong’s ekele.

She raised her head and sniffed appreciatively. “Fresh bread!” she exclaimed. “I have not had that since we left Iftel!”

“Fresh sweet bread,” he told her. “If you have never had it before, I am sure you will love it.”

As they shoved aside the curtain that closed out the insects, it was clear that the hertasi had indeed been listening very carefully to them as they walked, for the little lizards had laid out exactly the sort of meal that a gryphon who had made a long and arduous trip would need. First, pitchers of warm broth, to properly start digestion, followed by raw meat and fish, followed by the aforementioned sweet bread, a particular favorite of Kel’s. Nothing but the bread was cooked, not for a hungry gryphon who had been traveling quickly. Cooking, while it did impart flavors, caused meat to be harder to digest for a gryphon. With a side glance at Kel, and an answering nod, Vindaria fell on the food and made short work of it, slowing down only when she came to the bread.

Kel just sat and let her eat. He wasn’t hungry, thanks to the usual very good breakfast provided by Jylan, so he simply waited for her to be ready to talk.

Because she was so much larger than he, she ate a lot more quickly than he could have, wolfing down chunks of meat and bone that would have choked him. He didn’t even have to pretend to be busy; it wasn’t long before she took a huge sigh, and settled with a bowl-sized mug of cool water in one claw and a loaf of bread in the other. The bread was heavily laced with the fiber a gryphon needed to clear their crop. A gryphon hunting on their own would just eat the hide and fur or feathers, but one in an established aerie or a Vale where cooking was available would almost always choose this fiber-laced bread. It was much nicer to eat bread than mouthfuls of wool or fur.

“That . . . was needful,” she sighed. “We pushed very hard this last leg; we began at false dawn. I think we will need a day or three to recover. Have you any notion of the land we are to cross to get to the Lake?”

“Only that it is at best partly Cleansed and at worst still displaying the effects of the Cataclysm and the Storms,” he told her honestly. “And possibly laced with Change-Circles. You know what they are?”

She nodded. “Vykaendys protected us from the Storms and their effects, but we have all seen the Circles as we traveled, and the Herald at the border warned us about them.”

“Iftel, I assume, has been tame for a very long time?” he responded.

“Much of it has. At Vykaendys’s behest, we left certain parts wild. Not,” she hastened to add, “that the Sunlord dictates everything we do! But especially in our early years, he would speak to us all, all at once, and make his preferences known, and give us reasons why. We were still free to make our own decisions, but according to our history, it very soon became obvious that it was better to follow his advice, unless someone devised a better solution.”

“All of you?” He blinked. “At once?”

“Aye, this was his way of preventing a priestly class from gaining too much power by claiming they spoke for him. Possibly he was regretting what he had created in Karse, but that is my speculation and nothing else.” She tore off a bite of bread, swallowed it down, and followed it with water. “But that is not what I need to speak with you about. It is the leadership of the Wing.”

And before he could say something like “I’m perfectly happy to hand it back to you,” she went on.

“It is yours,” she said simply. “I come from a place where there is little conflict, the land is safe, and we are tested only in games. I cannot possibly lead effectively here. My training is theoretical only, not sufficient for crossing truly wild lands, or for actual combat. I would be blindsided constantly, and I would not be prepared for surprises.”

Well, I have certainly had my share of those. It was clear that she was parting with her authority reluctantly, though as a good leader, it was the only thing she could do. And he sympathized with how downcast she must be feeling. But part of him crowed like a happy rooster to have his title and position back.

“If you’re sure—” he said.

She dipped her head. “I am sure, and so are my Wingmates. We talked about this last night before sleep. We might as well be green recruits out here, even though Vykaendys chose us for this. The Wing needs a leader with a lot of experience in unexpected developments.”

You could certainly say I’ve had that. But if I was unhappy about losing my rank, I don’t imagine she is happy about it, even though she sees it as necessary.

“If you are all in agreement, I accept,” he said, then held up a claw as she began to speak. “But in matters of order and discipline in the Wing, you are still the Wingleader. And I have a compromise suggestion. I don’t know your gryphons, and you do. The humans here—the Valdemaran ones—have a rank called ‘captain.’ I will be your captain, and you will retain your position as Wingleader.”

Her eyes gleamed as she looked at him. It was clear that she was utterly delighted with this solution. He was very proud of himself for coming up with such a solution and offering it to her like a fresh-killed deer for her approval. I wonder if she’ll take it that way? She hasn’t said anything about being mated—

“Three of us are mages,” she continued. “Once we are rested, we could both shorten the time it will take to get to this Lake, and bypass any potential danger spots by creating a two-mage Gate with one of your mages at the expedition and one of us at the advance point,” she said, abruptly bringing him back to the present.

“Hurrr! It would! You could fly ahead with an anchor and find a good spot, and your mage and Firesong could send us through! We wouldn’t even need to leave the beginning anchor behind, because a gryphon can fetch it and travel by air! And what Firesong and I are working on, I think, will power the entire thing!”