"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 01 - The Black Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

ssso high. I ssssee them, thrrree, below me."
Skan could readily picture it in his mind's eye; especially if she had been flying as high as he thought
she was. Those tapering wings—surely with wings like those the aspect ratio would be remarkable, and
the narrow leading edge would complement the long primaries. The makaar would have been halfway
between her and the earth; she would have been invisible to them.
"Too farrr to rrreturrrn to rrreport, it wasss," she continued. "They would be gone when
warrrriorrrsss came. They mussst have been looking for sssomething. Ssssent. They would have found it
and gone."
Now Skan nodded. "True," he rumbled, and Zhaneel started at the sound of his voice. "Quite true.
Your duty was to try to stop them."
Her hissing had made him conscious of his own speech; normally he only hissed and trilled when he
was under stress or very, very relaxed, among friends. When he chose, he could speak as well as any
human, and he chose to do so now. Perhaps it would comfort her.
"But how did you kill them?" Urtho persisted.
She ducked her head. "I wasss high. They could not sssee me. I sssstooped on them; hit the leader.
Like thissss—"
She held up one foreclaw, fisted.
"I ssstruck hissss head; he fell from the sssky and died."
No doubt; coming from the height Zhaneel had been at, she must have broken the leader's neck on
impact, and the ground finished him.
"I followed him down; the othersss pursued, but I climbed again, too fassssst for them to follow."
She pantomimed with her foreclaw, and Skan saw then what he had not noticed before—a reason she
may not have struck to slash, or bind to her quarry as he would have. Her talons were actually very
short; her "toes" long and flexible, very like stubby human fingers. A slash would only have angered the
makaar unless she had managed against all odds to slash the major artery in the neck.
"I go high again, verrry high; the two follow, but cannot go sssso high. I turrrrrn, dive, hit the first
asss he fliesss to meet me." She sat back on her hindquarters and mimed that meeting with both of her
odd foreclaws; how the makaar struggled to gain height, how she had come at him head-on, angling her
dive at the last possible moment to strike the top of his head with her closed fists.
"He wasss ssstunned; he fell, brrroke hisss neck when he hit. I follow him down, to be sssure, then
turrrn dive into climb again." She would not look at any of the three of them, keeping her eyes fixed on
some invisible point on the ground. "The thirrrd one, he isss afrraid now, he trrries to rrrrun. I go high
again, asss high asss I can, and dive. He isss fassst, but my dive isss fassster. I hit him. He fallssss." She
ducked her head. "It isss overrr. It isss nothing ssspecial."
Nothing special—except that these were tactics few, if any, gryphons had tried before.
Spectacularly successful tactics, too, if Zhaneel's experience was anything to go by. Most gryphons,
when they fought makaar, closed for the kill, binding to the prey's back and bringing it down, or slashing
with talons in passing strikes. Hawk and eagle tactics, not falcon. Zhaneel had fought as would a very
hungry—or very brave—falcon, when taking a goose or very large duck, prey that would outweigh her
twofold or more—knocking the prey out of the sky, and not using her talons.
"Zhaneel, your act of courage has probably saved any number of our people, and no few of your
own kind," Urtho said, as these thoughts passed through Skan's mind. "I am quite impressed and quite
pleased that Commander Loren thought to bring you to my attention personally. At the very least, my
dear child, I am going to present you with the reward you richly deserve."
With that, he reached into a pocket and pulled out one of the reward-tokens he used instead of
medals or decorations. Urtho felt medals were fairly useless; he rewarded bravery directly. This
particular token was the highest possible; a square of gold with a sword stamped on one side and a
many-rayed sun-in-glory on the other. He slipped this into the tiny pouch Zhaneel wore around her neck,
an accessory that most gryphons not on duty wore. She could trade that particular token for virtually
anything in the camp, from a fine tent to the exclusive services for a month of her very own hertasi. Or