Lord of the Changing Winds (18 page)

Peace. Peace
, said Kairaithin, sounding harshly amused, and all the griffins settled, slowly.
Man, take more care.

“Do you take care for
my
pride?” retorted Bertaud, a little more sharply than he had intended, and made himself stare back without giving ground.

Are you free to come and go in this hall?
The griffin waited a heartbeat, pitiless eyes holding the man’s.
Then take more care.

After a moment, Bertaud bowed his head. “Lord.”

Your folk died well
, said the gold-and-copper griffin by the king. His voice was swift as fire, fierce, proud… not kind, precisely. Generous, perhaps. Bertaud stared at him, wondering what death a griffin might find good.

It was a day of blood and fire
, said the griffin. He seemed to mean, in some odd way, to offer comfort.
Though they were overmatched, your people fought bravely. You may have my name, to speak as you choose: It is Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu.

“Thank you,” said Bertaud, which seemed due. “Did you… are they all… do any still live?”

Certainly not
, said the griffin. Eskainiane… Eskainiane Escaile Sehaikiu. His quick fiery voice held surprise, somehow even reproof.
We would not so offend their courage as to leave them living on such a day.

“What?”

The griffin blinked, a slow sliding of feathered eyelids across amber-colored eyes.
Their dishonored blood would cry out of the sand that drank it in. We would hear their names in our dreams, in the voice of the wind through our wings.

“Men are not griffins,” Bertaud protested. He wanted to shout it. He managed a calm tone, somehow.

The coppery griffin looked at him with unhuman eyes that might have meant well, yet failed entirely to comprehend him.
Blood is blood.

We have no need to take our counsels with men
, the white griffin said, breaking in with angry impatience. His voice came like a knife edge against Bertaud’s mind, like fire whipping through the dark—nothing like the blatant power of the king’s voice nor the subtlety of Kairaithin’s nor the brightness of Eskainiane’s.

To Bertaud, this griffin’s voice was like a physical assault. He shut his eyes to keep from flinching from it, found his physical balance compromised, and shamed himself by staggering. He steadied himself only with difficulty because there was nothing close enough to catch hold of. It was very nearly as disorienting as his first encounter with Kairaithin, and he had believed himself past that strong a reaction.

We shall do as we please and as we must, and let this human king send men against us if he does not care for what we do
, said the white griffin, and again his voice seemed to Bertaud like a blow, although the griffin was not even looking at him.

We would do better, Tastairiane Apailika, to have a care for what men might do,
said Kairaithin.
Or why are we here building a desert in this foreign land?

Peace.
The king’s powerful voice slammed down across the whole hall, silencing all dissent. Bertaud swayed with the force of it.
Man. Bertaud, son of Boudan. Will you bear a word from me to the ear of your king?

“Certainly,” Bertaud said, staring at him, trying to keep his voice steadier than his undependable body. “If you ask me. What word, O Lord of Fire and Air, would you have me take to my king?”

We forbid men from our desert. We will tolerate no intrusion into the country we have made. In return, we will not hunt men. What will your king say to this word?

Bertaud said honestly, “He will not accept it. He will bring a thousand men against you, or hire Casmantian mercenaries if he must, and drive you back across the mountains.”

He expected anger, hotter and more dangerous than before. Strangely, it did not come. The griffins spoke among themselves… He could distinguish words and phrases and the odd uninterpretable image. But it was like listening to a quick interchange in a foreign language one barely knew: He knew he missed far more than he understood.

The griffin king said,
What then will he offer?

It dawned on Bertaud that he was, in fact, negotiating with the griffins… just as Iaor had desired, although not from the position of strength they had both expected. But negotiating. He saw that the griffins had made, not an ultimatum, but a first offer. Like merchants bargaining over a length of cloth or a jeweled ring. He was astonished. He said instantly, “My king will forgive your incursion into his land, if you go at once. You may depart in peace.”

That is not acceptable
, said the griffin king.
We will hold this country hereabout for four seasons, until the heat of the summer rises again, and hunt as we please among the pastures of men and the woodlands of these hills.

The overwhelming power of his voice made it seem, again, like an ultimatum or a threat. Forcing himself to disregard this impression, Bertaud countered, “You must go south, to the lowlands beyond Talend, where there is little farmland to be ruined. You may stay in that country until the leaves turn, provided you hunt only in the forest and the hills, leaving be the pastured beasts.”

There was a short pause.

We will stay in this desert we have made
, stated the griffin king.
But we will stay only three seasons, until the light dies and then quickens anew in the rising year. But we must hunt, and there are no desert creatures here for us.

Unexpectedly, the girl stood up. The slim brown griffin rose with her, gazing at the larger griffins over the girl’s shoulder. It seemed the girl, unlike Bertaud, had been able to follow the speech of the griffins, for she said in a low voice that was hardly more than a whisper, “Kiibaile Esterire Airaikeliu, Minas Ford and Minas Spring and Talend—and Bered—all the small towns and villages will give your people a dozen cattle. Two dozen. We will drive them into the high desert you have made and give them to you. So you can leave be the animals we value more.” She glanced quickly and nervously at Bertaud. “Lord, it would be better so.”

Bertaud stared at her. So did the griffins, but though Kes blushed and dropped her eyes away from his, she did not seem to mind their savage attention.

Six for each month that we stay
, said the king of the griffins, to the girl.
And we will not withdraw until the light quickens in the next year.
He swung his fierce head around and stared at Bertaud out of fierce black eyes.
Agree, man, if you are wise.

The memory of a hundred men butchered like oxen suggested a stiff refusal, followed by a punitive expedition—even if Iaor had to hire Casmantian mercenaries to help deal with the griffins Casmantium understood better than Feierabiand. But the sober knowledge that it was they themselves and none others who had been responsible for leading their men against a foe they had calamitously underestimated, argued otherwise. And he, who might have overruled Jasand, was most to blame.

Kairaithin had tried to bring him here, before the… battle. The attempted battle. If he had come—if he had not let Diene’s fears overrule his own inclinations—Bertaud deliberately shut down that thought. It was one to endure on sleepless nights. Not, by any means, one to entertain while in the midst of serious negotiations.

He said, “There are small villages and homesteads through all this country.”

We will not trouble them
, said the griffin king.

“And you have ruined enough land. Your desert is wide enough.”

The griffins stirred. The red-and-gold female opened her beak and made a low, aggressive sound. The king did something that was like a silent, motionless hammer blow, and she was suddenly still. All the griffins were still.

We shall contain the desert as we can
, said Kairaithin.
It is a considerable concession, man
, he added impatiently.
Agree, if you would be wise.

Bertaud inclined his head. “Subject to my king’s approval, I do agree. However, the king’s honor will demand suitable recompense for the damage and trouble you have caused him.”

The honor of men
, said the white griffin, contemptuously.

“If you seek peace with Feierabiand,” Bertaud said flatly, “you will recognize that we have our own honor, even if it is not the same as yours.”

Kiibaile Esterire Airaikeliu did not, at least, strike him down immediately where he stood for his temerity. Bertaud thought the white griffin would have liked to. But the griffin king did not move, and Kairaithin said,
We shall consider what you say. Perhaps you may have a suggestion regarding what your king might find suitable remuneration.

For a moment Bertaud’s mind went entirely blank. He could think of absolutely nothing Iaor might consider acceptable that griffins might supply. It seemed, in fact, a question for mages. If a mage could be found who did not despise the desert and actually knew something of its creatures. He said temperately, “I shall inquire. When I bring your word to him.”

“Rubies,” said Kes, again breaking in unexpectedly. “Fire opals. Sparks of gold.”

Bertaud stared at her. But Kairaithin said,
We might indeed part with these echoes of blood and fire, if these would please your king. If he is wise, he will indeed ask for such small tokens. Will you permit me to take you to him? Will you give him this word?

“Yes,” said Bertaud.

At sunset, then.
Kairaithin stood and stretched himself like a great cat. He shook his feathers into order. He was suddenly gone: The hot, close air seemed to hesitate an instant before closing into the space where he had been.

One by one the other griffins rose and paced to the edge of the open hall and dropped off the edge of the cliff into the wind. The white griffin went first. Bertaud found himself surprised by the strength of his own relief at that creature’s departure. Then the red-and-gold griffin, and the gold-and-copper one, and last the king.

Their departure left Bertaud alone in a hall of twisted red stone and sand, with a girl who spoke to griffins with amazing familiarity and a slim-bodied brown-and-bronze griffin. The relief of the departure of the other griffins was so great that it took him a moment to realize the brown one was still present, for all it was the size of a small horse and undoubtedly capable of tearing an unarmed man in half, if it wished. Which it did not seem to. It stood by the girl like a dog, or a friend. She had her hand on its neck, as though for comfort and support—in fact, precisely as though it were a dog. Or a friend.

The girl did not
look
like a mage. Nor like the kind of vile, treacherous, death-loving creature who would deliberately let a hundred men go to be slaughtered by griffin savagery and desert fire. In fact… in fact, if Bertaud had passed her on the streets of Tihannad, he thought he would not have so much as glanced her way. Though, to closer inspection, she was not without a certain waiflike attractiveness.

She ducked her head as he studied her, closing in upon herself. Her hair fell forward and hid her eyes. The griffin with her stared at Bertaud with pale, fierce eyes, startling in its dark face.

He said, “Kes. Am I right?”

“Yes,” she whispered, not looking up.

She was shy. She looked timid as a fawn. And yet she stood in a stone hall above the world with a griffin at her back and had spoken to the powerful, dangerous king of griffins by name.

“Why are you here?” he asked her directly.

The girl glanced up, and dropped her gaze again immediately.

She is a powerful… healer
, said the small griffin. Its voice was subtle, soft; it came unobtrusively around the edges of Bertaud’s mind.
She made you whole.

Bertaud flashed on the shining white griffin, leaping down from the rock above to come against him after it had cast him down from that height. He had known he was going to die. The memory was vivid enough that he was forced to sit down rather suddenly and lean his head on his hand. He had been badly hurt. He knew that. He remembered a blow that he thought had crushed his ribs, and put a hand involuntarily to his chest. It seemed momentarily beyond belief that he could draw breath, that the bone and flesh under his hand was not even bruised.

And this girl had healed him. So she was a mage, then, after all.

The girl lifted her eyes again, tentatively. “Kairaithin said he wanted you whole. He told me I might use fire to heal you, even though you are a creature of earth. I thought at first I would not find a way to do that. Then I did. It was hard. I thought you might… might die of it. But if I hadn’t done it, you would have died anyway. And then it worked after all.”

“Yes.” Bertaud touched his chest again. “Thank you.”

The girl gave him a tiny nod. “I was afraid for you. Even after you were whole. Tastairiane Apailika said… He said you were his prey. But then Kairaithin made him give you to me.”

“He’s very powerful,” Bertaud said, trying for a neutral tone. “Kairaithin. Isn’t he?”

“Yes, lord,” the girl answered faintly. “But he has no power for healing. So he told me. He brought me to see the battlefield after the battle was done.” She met his eyes with what seemed to be an effort of will. “It was terrible to see everyone dead. I was afraid you would die, too.”