Page 74 of Gryphon in Light

Before any explanation could be made, the tervardi began singing pleasantly, no louder than the rain was at its worst, and that was enough to warm everyone nearby in spirit.

Hallock felt exhausted. He’d been using some very different muscles than he did as a soldier. And now I remember why I left the farm! Genni had made a kind of back rest with some of the cut grass and a piece of canvas, and he leaned into it, drinking that gods-awful willowbark tea, with her leaning against his shoulder.

It was deceptively peaceful, with the rain coming down and pouring off the edge of the canvas wings in streams. Ayshen hadn’t even needed to send anyone out for water; he’d done some tweaking of the edge of the canvas to direct most of the water into channels, and now their water barrels were full, the canvas troughs for the dyheli, kyree, and Jak were full, and he had water collected for kitchen cleanup. They would not just drink rainwater—every soldier knew that was disease waiting to happen—but they had ways of purifying it, and potable water was available in a white-striped barrel. Everyone was tired after a long day of hard work, and the only ones alert were the three night-watch Tayledras and their birds.

It should have been peaceful—as peaceful as last night had been. But it wasn’t. Despite the fact that no one but Jefti and Jak had seen anything, people were on edge. The three of the night watch had put their birds up into the trees, equally spaced around the camp, and they themselves had donned rain-capes and stationed themselves where they could see past the fire. No one spoke much, and when they did, it was no more than a few words. Everyone ate quickly, and the hertasi cleaned up just as quickly, banking the pots of breakfast into the coals of the fire with heaped ashes.

The kyree made a heap plastered against the middle barge. The dyheli layered themselves about two deep on either side of their huddle. The gryphons bookended the dyheli, keeping their heads pointed toward the forest. About half the hertasi went to bed, along with about half the humans. Uglik stayed, sharpening his ax. Firesong dimmed the mage-lights with a wave of his hand, and the remaining humans and hertasi arranged themselves around and on top of the barges, weapons to hand. Hallock glanced over at Firesong, silently cursing the fact that with the mask, Firesong had no features to read. “Is—” he whispered.

“Shh,” Firesong hushed him. “I’m trying to See through this blasted magical fog. And I can’t see very far.”

Hallock decided that now would be a good time to sharpen his sword.

Jefti crept in next to him, silent as a cautious rabbit. Hallock thought about ordering him into the barge, but if there was something out there, there was no telling which was safer, to be out here or in the barge.

The cursed rain made it impossible to hear anything out there. There could be an entire group of creatures sniffing around the thorn bushes and he wouldn’t be able to hear them.

But that gave him an idea. He looked over at the huddle of kyree and picked a name at random. “Wirrell,” he whispered, knowing that kyree ears were good enough to hear him over the rain. “Can you smell anything out there?”

All five heads came up. Three of the five got to their feet, split up, and trotted to the shield line, where they made a full circuit, sniffing the air. The remaining two jumped to the top of the barge and did the same up there.

:Nothing,: Wirrell said to all of them. :At least, nothing that smells alive and active; just some faint, strange smells that could be almost anything.:

They all came back to the banked fire, pausing just long enough and far enough away from the group to shake themselves vigorously.

“Our birds are not seeing anything, but they are hampered by the rain as well,” came a voice from the top of the end barge.

“I do not want to use magic,” Firesong growled.

“You’re already using magic,” Hallock pointed out reluctantly. “The wards and shield, the mage-lights . . . I’m guessing that Kel is basically one gryphon-shaped blob of magic.”

“I heard that!” Kel hissed. “I am not a blob!”

One of the Iftel gryphons snickered.

“Hmm.” Firesong pondered that a moment, then shook his head. “In for a grape, in for a bunch,” he muttered. “At least if I do this and there’s something out there, we’ll be able to see it.”

He got to his feet and made a couple of gestures with his hands. Kel got up and came to join him, standing right at his elbow, clearly illuminating the Adept. In the next moment, there wasn’t any question about what Firesong was doing, because the thorn bushes all lit up as if someone had painted them with foxfire. Light—not bright enough to blind, but definitely bright enough to see—traced every single branch and twig.

They were encircled by what looked like an enchanted forest. Or, at least, an enchanted brushpile.

“There,” said Firesong, sitting down rather heavily. “At least if anything is creeping around that barrier, we’ll see it.”

“Not if it’s invisible!” Hallock protested.

But both Firesong and Kel barked a laugh. They sounded uncannily like each other. “Do you have any idea how much power it takes to become invisible?” Firesong demanded.

“Obviously not, or I wouldn’t have said anything,” Hallock muttered.

“If there was something out there invisible, anyone with Mage Gift, trained or untrained, would See it,” Firesong went on. “The spell actually twists light, so it’s got a signature that’s bigger than what it’s hiding. And even if someone was good enough to hide that signature, there would then be a hole to mage-sight where the invisible thing would be.”

“Hurr,” Kel nodded in agreement. “Especially with magic so diffuse now. There would be a sort of shadow in the magic-mist.”

“Like that?” Jefti cried, jumping to his feet and pointing.

Hallock was just fast enough to see—something. But what he saw—well, he couldn’t identify it.

It looked like a long plume of smoke, narrowing to a point at either end. It moved horizontally through the branches of the thorn bushes as if it was intangible, at about waist height. The smoke it was composed of seethed and churned as it moved. But at Jefti’s cry, it froze for a moment, giving everyone who was looking in the right direction a good view of it, before it darted away into the darkness.