Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

The boy shrugged and smiled. “Not like I want to get eaten, sir, but if I did get all killed, I’d still have had a life. Been told I shouldn’t have, enough times, I figure I’m lucky havin’ even a short one.” He pinched the edges of his hat, staring at the water drips that fell from it while Kelvren finished the remains in the bag. “It might not be such a bad thing, anyway. They say you go to a really nice place when you die, where everything’s warm and pretty. It’s supposed to be a place where folk really like you no matter what. You probably know how it is, bein’ a monster and all. No one can really be welcome everywhere.”

Kelvren nudged the bag a few inches sideways toward the boy. “Ssso I am learrrning.”

The boy picked up the bag and knotted the cords. “An’ anyhow, I have my mum, an’ she’s good to me no matter what, even now that all’s this happened. She said we were just about to get rich, too, which woulda been nice. Still, all the army trouble can’t go on forever.” He wiped his bloodied hands on his trousers. “Uh—thanks for not tearing up the bag or eating me,” he said cheerfully, and put his soggy hat back on.

“Anytime,” Kelvren replied, still mystified by the boy’s logic.

The boy smiled, and waved back as he tromped out through the muddy field toward his town.

“This haze is . . . intolerable,” Treyvan growled in Kaled’a’in, lashing his tail in anger. “I can’t do any better with my distance viewing, and that Herald with that FarSeeing Gift just left for the Deedun front. The Storms haven’t so much made things unreliable as they’ve made them . . . hurrh . . . unfamiliar. This all would have worked five years ago and now it is giving us nothing. All we know is where the target is. And just a glimpse.”

“Did the glimpse show you anything useful?” a small voice crooned from below Treyvan. The gryphon turned his hawklike gaze down past his magic instruments to the hertasi in the vast room with him. The little lizard creature looked up at the gryphon with a wide-eyed but unafraid expression.

“Rrrhhh. A Changecircle near by a Valdemaran Guard camp. A gryphon body in a tent. Head down, wings flat.” Treyvan pondered. “Signs of heavy injuries but tended to. Looked like Far Westerner, but he was no gryphon I know. I couldn’t read an identifying radiant—” Treyvan snapped his head up suddenly. “No radiant aura, Pena. No distinctive life glow to Mage-Sight. No wonder it was so hard to find him. He wasn’t shielded, there was just nothing there to shield. I was looking for gryphon aura traits, but I must have passed him by a dozen times since he seemed to only come across as a common animal from such a search.”

The hertasi looked alarmed. She obviously knew what that meant. “Hirs’ka’ursk you think? He’ll be dead soon,” is all she could think of to say.

“We’ll see about that,” Treyvan growled, with an undertone of determination, and stalked to a massive cabinet. He reared up onto his haunches, laid both claws flat on the upper corners, and dug his thumbtalons into the sockets in the trimwork. He twisted them and spoke “hiskusk,” and the sound of long metals rods shifting and clanging into place sounded from inside. The cabinet unfolded. Mage-lights inside gleamed off of teleson sets, a massive leather and brass harness, steel fighting claws, a narrow breastplate and more. Treyvan pulled out and shouldered on one side of the harness, while the hertasi rushed in to clip and buckle the other side of it. More hertasi rushed in after three sharp whistles from the gryphon, and preparations for a flight gained momentum quickly. Three telesons were wrapped and packed into a flat case, and at a nod from the gryphon, the fighting claws were packed as well. Treyvan called out instructions of what must be brought, and side pouches were stuffed with arcane materials and clipped to the harness. Before long, a swarm of the little lizards were readying him for flight and unlacing his talonsheaths. When Treyvan reached the outdoors, he shook his wings and tested the harness for fit. Another pair of hertasi affixed his ornamental breastplate and cinched it tight, while another one added several more pouches to his flight harness. “Pena. That downed gryphon is going to need a trondi’irn. Get Whitebird ready for travel right now. Tell Hydona I am going north.”

Pena, the senior hertasi, turned to her charges still inside. “Get Whitebird ready for travel right now. Tell Hydona that Treyvan and I are going north.”