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

That was too horrifying to think of further. Skandranon had faced the Adept commander of all the
troops below, the Kiyamvir Ma'ar, twenty months ago. He had volunteered for that mission, too, and had
limped home wing-broken, stricken with nightmares. He had seen his wingmates skinned by the Adept's
spells, feathered coats peeled back in strips by the Adept's will alone in full daylight, despite Skan's
attempts to counterspell. The nightmares had left him now, but the memory made him determined to
protect Urtho's people from the Kiyamvir's merciless rule.
Skandranon's eyes focused on the town of Laisfaar. Urtho's garrison had not all been human; there
had been hertasi, a few tervardi, and three families of gryphons. His eyes searched the ramparts, noted
the wisps of smoke of fires still burning since the attack. There were the aeries of the gryphons; the ramps
for visitors, the sunning beds, the fledglings' nests....
... the bloodstains, the burned feathers, the glistening rib cage....
All the usual atrocities. Damn them.
She had been alive until very recently; she had escaped the worst of it by dying of shock and blood
loss. The makaar had no love for gryphons, and their masters gave them a still-living one after a battle as
a reward. Often it was a terrified fledgling, like this gray-shafted gryphon had been. The rest of the
garrison's gryphons had doubtless been wing-cut, caged, and sent to the Kiyamvir for his pleasures by
now. Skandranon knew well that, unless Ma'ar was distracted by his business of conquest, there would
be nothing left of them to rescue by day's end.
If he could, Skandranon would insure the captives would not last that long. Crippled as they would
likely be, he couldn't help them escape; but he might be able to end their ordeal.
Before that, he had a larger duty to attend to.
Now he moved, slinking belly-flat to the ground, catlike; one slow step at a time, eeling his way
through the underbrush with such delicate care that not even a leaf rustled. The Weaponsmaster's wagons
had plenty of guards, but not even the Weaponsmaster could control terrain. The mountains themselves
provided brush-filled ravines for Skandranon to creep through, and escarpments that overlooked the
wagons. The encampment was guarded from attack from above by makaar, but only over the immediate
vicinity of the camp. It was guarded from penetration from below by the foot-soldiers, but only outside
the camp itself. No one had guarded against the possibility of someone flying into the area of the camp,
behind the sentry lines, then landing and proceeding on foot to the center of the camp.
No one could have, except a gryphon. No one would have, except Skandranon. The omission of a
defense against gryphon spying told him volumes about the military commanders who led this force. The
Kiyamvir would reprimand them well for such a mistake—but then, Ma'ar was the only one of their side
who understood the gryphons' abilities. Most commanders simply assumed gryphons and makaar were
alike, and planned defenses accordingly.
So Skandranon stayed in the shadows, moving stealthily, as unlike a makaar as possible.
Time meant nothing to him; he was quite prepared to spend all night creeping into place. Even in the
most strictly ruled of armies, discipline slackens after a victory. Soldiers are weary and need rest; victory
makes them careless. Skan had timed his movements to coincide with that period of carelessness.
He noted no sentries within the bounds of the camp itself; his sharp hearing brought him no hint that
the commanders prowled about, as they were known to do before a battle. Doubtless, the commanders
were as weary as the soldiers and slept just as deeply.
He spent his moments waiting committing details to memory; even if he died, if his body were
somehow recovered, Urtho could still sift his last memories for information. That would only work if he
died swiftly, though. Otherwise, the memories would be overcome by sensory input; thus the immediate
torture of gryphon captives. Daring rescues had occurred before, and once retrieved, the gryphons'
bodies were tremendous sources of information.
 That could also be a clue to where the rest of the gryphon families were; it was also not unheard of
to use captives as bait for rescue-traps. Captives' minds were often stripped of the will to resist, the
prisoners forced to give information to the enemy. This was why Skandranon held a horrible power—a
spell of death keyed to gryphons—for mercy.