"Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon - Mage Wars 03 - The Silver Gryphon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

couldn't molt without explicit written instructions."
Aubri blinked mildly, but his great golden eyes were twinkling with hidden amusement. "Did I say
that? I'm cleverer than I thought. Well, yes, I think I remember Outpost Five, now that you mention it.
Pretty remote; it's hard to find volunteers to man it. Good place for a vacation if what you want is
thunderstorms every evening, fog every morning, and just enough of the sun to taunt you about, its
existence. There's a reason why the Haighlei call that kind of territory a 'rain forest.' It is wetter than a
swimming kyree."
Well, good. That's one thing that wasn't in our lessons on manning outposts. And there's
nothing in the briefing Blade read me that says anything about the weather there. "Would you say
the weather is difficult enough to become a hindrance to our duties, sir?" he responded politely.
"Hindrance? I suppose if you're the kind that thinks he's going to melt if he has to fly in the rain."
Aubri's mild manner turned just a trifle sharp, as if giving Tad subtle warning that he'd better not be
thinking any such thing. His pupils dilated and constricted rapidly, another sign of warning. "No one
promised sunny beaches and half-day duty when you volunteered for the Silvers."
"It is dangerous to fly during thunderstorms, sir," Blade put in politely, verbally maneuvering Tad
from under Aubri's talons. "And it can be dangerous to take off during heavy fog. We won't be doing
White Gryphon any favors if we get ourselves bunged up doing something stupid and they have to send in
replacements and a rescue party. If the weather can become difficult enough to be dangerous, we ought
to know about it in advance and know what warning signs to watch for. We can always ground ourselves
and wait out a dangerous storm."
"Well, now, that's true enough." Aubri was back to being the bumbling, genial old "uncle." "But I
don't think I said anything to give either of you the impression that the weather was going to make it
impossible to fly your regular patrols. You'll just have to be careful, the way you were taught, and be
diligent in watching for developing problems, that's all. The thunderstorms aren't violent, just briefly
torrential, and the fog is always gone an hour after dawn."
Both of which would have made his bones ache, if he's having the same problems as my
father. Aubri might be the oldest surviving gryphon from Urtho's forces; he was certainly older than
Skandranon. He looked it, too; his feathers were not as sleek or as perfectly preened as Tad's were; in
fact, they were a bit ragged, a trifle faded from what must have been his original colors of dark, warm
brown and tan. Now he was rusty-brown and cream, and even feathers just grown in looked a bit
shabby. Like Skandranon, he was of the broadwing variety, hawklike rather than falconiform, but he was
huskier than Skandranon. His raptoral prototype was probably the umber-tailed hawkeagle, rather than
the goshawk. There were signs of age in the delicate skin around his beak and eyes, a webwork of faint
wrinkles, though those wrinkles were not as pronounced as the ones that humans got with increasing age.
There was no sign of age in the mind, although you could not have told that from the way he was acting
now.
"Acting," indeed. It's all an act, first to last, the old fraud. He never forgets anything; I'll bet
he remembers the order in which every trainee finished the last run on the obstacle course two
weeks ago.
Aubri and Judeth were adept at playing the ally-antagonist game, with Aubri playing the
absentminded and easily-fooled ally and Judeth the sharp-edged antagonist. Tad had caught onto the
game in his first day of training, but then he had seen both Aubri and Judeth all the time when he was
growing up. In particular, he had watched "absentminded" and "bumbling" Aubri best Skandranon time
and time again over a game of stones, so it wasn't likely that he would ever be fooled into thinking that
Aubri wasn't as sharp as his human partner.
Not that Father would ever admit to losing a game to Aubri except on purpose.
"Where is Commander Judeth, by the way?" he asked, for the white-haired human co-Commander
of the Silver Gryphons had not been in evidence when the two of them arrived a few moments ago. Aubri
jerked his beak toward the door, still standing open, as it had been when they arrived. On warm,
pleasant days like this, most of the inhabitants of White Gryphon preferred to keep all doors and