Page 68 of Gryphon in Light

“Is good, no?” said Uglik. “Rain. Rain is good. Keeps bad things close to dens. Washes away scent. Keeps bears away.”

“You have a point,” Kel agreed. “But I don’t imagine the tervardi are very happy about this.” Unlike the gryphons, the tervardi feathers were not water-resistant unless they were prepared with oils.

“Hoho!” crowed Uglik. “No! They stay in barge.”

He actually felt sorry for the tervardi in this weather. Their feathers didn’t do all that much to keep them warm, either. Last time he had looked in on them, they were huddled together like a couple of children, looking solemnly out from under the blanket they’d wrapped around themselves.

“I think we’ll probably be stopping soon,” he told the Ghost Cat warriors. “This kind of weather doesn’t much agree with the dyheli either.”

Earnest nods from all three of the warriors. “Good hunting, earlier, caught plenty of meat. Dark comes early in rain,” added Rina. “You go talk to Firesong. May be good to stop early, get camp made while we can see.”

“I will go and do just that,” he agreed.

He loped to catch up with the three barges. They had been lucky so far; there had been enough room on the game trails they’d been following to allow the barges to squeeze through between tree trunks. He followed the area of trampled vegetation until he got to the stern of the rearmost barge, which was where Silverfox and Firesong rode. There was no sign of either of them outside—well, why would there be? There was no reason to make themselves miserable by riding in the rain. So he used the teleson to alert them to his presence.

A window popped open in the side nearest him, and he trotted up to it, to see Silverfox peering out at him. “I’m here to top up the barges,” he said shortly. “But the Ghost Cats think we ought to stop early so we can set up the camp while we can see. They say we have enough meat.” He spared a glance for the top of the barge, where boar carcasses were stacked like cordwood. “Looks like it to me, too.”

“The hunters got lucky this morning and found an entire herd of swine lying up to avoid the rain. It didn’t take long to ensure tonight and tomorrow’s food supply.” Silverfox craned his neck and looked up—not that he was going to see anything but wet trees, but Kel supposed it was a sort of reflex action. “I think the Ghost Cats are right. Tell everyone we’re stopping as soon as we find a clearing.”

:Silverfox says to stop when we reach a clearing,: he broadcast to everyone, then jumped up on the barge, causing it to dip and shift a little under his weight before it steadied. Once he found a place amid the boar carcasses, he sat down and concentrated on sending the energies he had stored in his Heartstone into the crystal that powered the floating spell, which was something of a complicated matter, since the spell was in force and working.

When he had re-energized the spell, he jumped down again, trotted past the dyheli pulling the barge with a friendly nod, and caught up with the second barge.

By the time he reached the third, there was a lighter patch ahead that probably signaled a clearing, and after he had completed his task, the dyheli did pull the barge into a cleared area—thankfully with no downed trees to have to work around.

:We have a place to camp,: he broadcast to everyone. :If you haven’t started back to the expedition, it’s time to come in.:

By this time, setting up camp, even in this rain, was an efficient routine. The dyheli pulled the barges into a rough half-circle, while the hertasi popped out of wherever they had been riding. They got the pullers out of their harness while Kel slowly damped the floating spell, bringing the barges softly down in place. The hertasi deployed the canvas shelters from the roofs of the barges. Anyone who had any magical ability at all used it to dry out the area beneath those sheltering canvas wings, and anyone who didn’t went out to gather firewood or clear the undergrowth away from the ground, or gather fodder from undergrowth that the dyheli had identified as tasty. By the time the last of the Iftel gryphons came trotting into the clearing, and the last of the kyree stood off out of range to shake themselves semi-dry, the camp had been fundamentally set up. The barges were on the ground, and the floating spell damped so it would burn no power. The Iftel gryphons themselves hauled the dead boars off the top of the rearmost barge. Hallock, Jefti, Nightwind, and Genni started a cookfire under the canvas of the middle barge and set up the kitchen area, and Ayshen and another two hertasi had begun cooking.

Only then did Serenshey appear, and he did not get down off his barge. But Ayshen was prepared to cosset the Firecat, and brought him his own bowls of fresh water and diced meat, which the Firecat ate so daintily that he didn’t drop so much as a crumb.

The dyheli were utterly indifferent to rain and proceeded to browse the vegetation in the clearing. They’d eat the growth of the clearing down about as much as cattle would but not as much as sheep; if they were still hungry after clearing the growth, they’d go to the stacks of potential fodder people had cleared from the forest around the camp while searching for deadfall. Jak joined them to eat, apparently as indifferent to the rain as they were—but then again, the Companion seemed to shrug off rain the way he shed dirt.

Rina had been right about how quickly twilight would come; darkness was closing in by the time the latrine area was set up and Ayshen began dishing out food.

For safety’s sake, the cookfire was the only flame they used; no one knew how flammable the barges were, and no one was eager to find out, but the canvas for the shelter wings was certainly anything but fireproof. So the cookfire would be allowed to burn down to coals, and the morning’s meal for the humans and tervardi would be cooked in several pots buried in the coals and ashes. For light at night, they used mage-lights. That was a risk, because things that were attracted to magic would certainly sense the mage-lights, but at least there was no risk of setting the canvas, the barges, or the woods on fire. And at least there was no more danger that Kel would drag the lights and their energy into himself by accident. Besides, wherever Kelvren was, he was the mage-light.

Kel dragged some of the smaller carcasses over to the kyree so they could eat under the canvas shelter of the end barge. The hunters really had taken out the entire herd of pigs; they ranged in size from half-grown piglets to a couple of monster boars. Ayshen had claimed some of the piglets tonight, and there had been enough pork and bones to contribute to a substantial breakfast. Out of the way of the shelters, the Iftel gryphons feasted. The Iftel gryphons were almost as indifferent to the rain as the dyheli were, at least when they were eating. Maybe it’s because the rain cleans them off while they’re eating. The gryphons of k’Valdemar were not what he would have called dainty eaters, but they also weren’t as . . . raptorial as the Iftel gryphons were.

For his part, he dragged his share over to the shelter at the first barge, where he was joined by all of the Tayledras bondbirds, for the simple reason that he had taken it on himself to feed them. He carefully tore off the proper-sized chunks for each bird, always including some hide and hair, and gave each of them a chance at the innards before he took over. Before they were all done, he’d smash the bones into fragments so they each had some for the calcium, and Silverfox’s lammergeier Hesheth couldn’t be happier with the feast of bones. The Hawkbrothers all deeply appreciated this service, and he didn’t mind doing it at all. In fact, he rather enjoyed it, truth to be told. The birds themselves were always on their best behavior with him. He liked Nightwind’s bold little kestrel the best, but Redlance’s gyrfalcon had a surprisingly dry sense of humor, and Snowfire’s magnificent eagle-owls Hweel and Huur always had a choice bit of gossip about the humans to share.

They ate very quickly; raptors were inclined to do that anyway, but they all sensed darkness was coming soon, and the diurnal birds wanted to get to their night perches. The railings around the narrow decks running around the middle barge had been fitted out with padding so the birds could use them as perches—facing inward, of course. As long as it wasn’t cold, Redlance even preferred to make up his bed on that walkway so he could be near his bird and away from the snoring of his fellow Hawkbrothers.

Once everyone had eaten, the diurnal birds had been lifted up or hopped up to their perches, and the three owls—two eagle-owls and one gray—had taken their perches under the canvas on the front and rear barges, vigilantly watching the forest, as their bondmates were. Those three Hawkbrothers were the night guard, and spent the entire day sleeping while the barges moved. It was a good arrangement. Everyone got a full sleep ration this way, as opposed to having their sleep interrupted to stand a watch.

With the leftovers and scraps added to the morning soup pots, people disposed themselves in the camp. The kyree shook themselves dry again, then came to Blackclaw to be completely dried off by magic, because no one really wanted to smell wet fur all night, not even the kyree. Then they curled up against the side of the middle barge, although they didn’t go to sleep. Blackclaw was a particular favorite of theirs, and they were perfectly happy to let him use them as a backrest. The dyheli shook themselves dry-ish and took shelter under the canvas of the first barge. The gryphons took up the canvas of the last barge, and used their own magic to dry themselves. The tervardi settled nearest to the fire with the humans. Serenshey finally joined them.

And the rain continued to come down.

“Did any of you see anything unusual out there?” Hallock asked. He asked that every night, but tonight he seemed a bit anxious.

The rest of them noticed that immediately. “Did you?” asked Snowfire, his arm around his mate Nightwind, sitting up a bit straighter.

“. . . not see, not precisely, but Jak and I thought we . . . we sensed something. Out past the rain. Whatever it was, it was fast and very stealthy. I don’t know that it was soundless, though, we just couldn’t hear anything over the rain.” Hallock pulled at his ear, clearly troubled. “I don’t have a bird with keen senses. I don’t have magic. All I have is my instincts. And my instincts said something was paralleling us today.”

:Mine too,: put in Jak. His Mindvoice sounded troubled. : I do have some special senses, but I still can’t tell you anything about what I thought I sensed. That bothers me. It bothers me a lot. I should be able to detect just about anything.:

They all looked to Serenshey, who tilted his head to one side in a listening pose, then shook his head. :There is something out there. But it’s distant, and I can’t tell what it is.: