A PERFECT DAY IN VALDEMAR
Larry Dixon

SECOND Guard Hallock Stavern fought toward consciousness, only to find that his eyes had been glued shut.
There was a feeling that he knew was pain, but it was of such magnitude that it was not a part of him—instead he was just a bit of flotsam tossed around on its churning flow. Hallock felt only a sickening detachment. His awareness of his body extended about as far as knowing he had limbs—two legs, yes, and arms—two of them. Breathing created a heaving pull of muscle that seemed to roll upward and never recede quite as much in return. Moving his hands was no more productive, because Hallock's body seemed to be restrained by a web of thick syrup. At least that was how it felt, insofar as he could feel anything with certainty. He couldn't move by his own volition, but as best he could tell he was moving. Carried—that must be it. He was being carried.
Hallock moved his head to the left and right, feeling wet webbing restricting the sway of his head and neck. The viscous glue that held his eyes shut cracked, apparently dry at the edges, but then returned to pool in his eyes, dimming what little he saw. His right eyelid reluctantly slit open enough for Hallock to perceive a lurching view of sky and trees. Vertigo made them spin around him.
That wholly unwelcome vision provided enough added disori-entation that he gave up on consciousness as a place of residence. For an unknown amount of time, he would only be an occasional visitor there.

Hallock found awareness and memory returning in sporadic fits. There were recollections of the skirmish, the fallback, and the formation for retreat. Then, the peculiar memory of falling to the ground, and watching an arrow fall with him. That much he remembered, as clearly as he remembered his last birthday or his daily sword drills. He was on a dapple-gray stallion named Dughan. Hallock was yelling a break order to his company third, and then he found himself spinning sideways. He hadn't intended to. As the ground came up to meet his face, he remembered seeing a great war arrow dropping along with him. Its bladed tip was as long as his own sword hand, barbed in well-cut triangular serrations, and it was trailing a line of slow-falling blood. He struck the earth, left shoulder first, then rolled to his side and onto his back. He remembered seeing a riderless horse churning the earth to run away. His vision narrowed in from all sides and that was the end of the memory.
There was the vague memory of jostling and trees, and the unsettling vertigo, and being carried. Then—nothing for what could have been weeks.
When Hallock regained awareness of his own being, it was from feeling his eyes being prodded at. There was a voice murmuring a reassurance in Valdemaran. It didn't register just yet what the specific words were. Even though that sensation of tremendous full-body disorientation was still present, he felt annoyance that someone was messing about with his eyes. He hazily realized the clinging goo that had blocked his vision had been congealed blood, and plenty of it. He lifted his right hand to swat away the offending "help," but his arm didn't respond as expected. There was a movement, to be sure, but his hand might have been waving a baton in front of the Company Chorus as far as he could tell.
"Just stay still until I get you cleaned up, sir," the voice insisted, and Hallock felt his arm being put at his side. There, at last, was a point of reference. A nudge of his left hand against his hip confirmed that it was in a similar position. Left leg—kick. Not quite. More of a twitch.
"Sir, you aren't helping," the voice snapped, with clear exasperation.
"Is he giving you trouble, Birce?" another voice called out from afar.
"I've had worse," the voice responded close by Hallock's face. "I've had to patch up Heralds before. They think they're ready for action with two broken legs and a hangover. This one's just twitching right now because he had his bell rung, I think. Could you come over here for a look?"
There was still a surreal element in all of this. Reason told him that he was hurt and being attended by Healers, but, to Hallock, it felt like it was happening to someone else. He was aware he was alive and that things were not right. There was something where pain should have been, pain but it didn't hurt him, as much as it filtered out anything in his mind that made normal sense. Fear, logic, or linear thought were immaterial. Time was just an un-needed detail, discarded in favor of a floaty haze.
Hallock sucked in a deep breath and had an inexplicable sensation that he couldn't exhale as much as he'd drawn in. His forehead felt the size of a horse regiment, and it throbbed like a regiment's hoofbeats with his pulse. The sensation of pressure in his lungs and head was relentless. The Healer attending him held a glass vial to his crusted lips and poured a syrup into his mouth, which seemingly absorbed into his tongue and throat.
Suddenly very much awake, Hallock surged upward with a cry of pain. Full consciousness rushed in. To say that he suddenly "hurt" would be like saying that an ocean was "damp."
His eyes opened abruptly and he found himself on a cot, looking up at stained and patched canvas strung with cord holding dozens of bright oil lamps. Clots of blood were still stuck to his eyelashes, blotting out most details. The dozens of slightly different shadows cast by the individual lamps complicated the view further, mixed with the dazzle from the pain. Hands were pushing him back onto the cot even as he already felt himself falling backward, and the two Healers in attendance were practically screaming at him to calm down. Hallock realized that they were screaming to be heard over his own howls of pain, and pulled himself together enough to lower his utterances to a series of groans.
"Sir . . . sir, I'm going to give you something for your pain," the one apparently named Birce told him as he propped his head up from the cot. "Stavern, right? Second Officer Stavern? I had to get you awake and cleaned up first, I'm sorry. I know that was unpleasant. Things will be better. I'm Senior Healer Birce Bedrin. Drink this." Birce Bedrin, heavyset but clearly strong, was not in the best of shape himself; his own neck and temple had small bandages, and several uncovered abrasions and bruises graced his businesslike midlands features. His accent was upper-class Haven, but this was obviously a man who was unafraid to be in the thick of mud and muck to do a job.
"Just—" Hallock began, then grimaced as a cupful of cold, thick, and lumpy juice laced with something tasting of charred bark was all but poured down his throat. "Just get me an officer in here to report."
"Soon, sir. Sorry about the taste. Devon's going to get someone for you as soon as he can. Devon?" Birce looked around to find the only other man in the spacious tent. "Devon, the Second here needs an officer from his unit."
"Sixteenth Regiment, Third Company," Hallock murmured, and heard it repeated to the other man more loudly. Devon was thinner than Birce by half, with the swarthy skin of a far-southerner, and hair as black as coal. Devon gave Birce a significant look, and the senior Healer excused himself, wiped his blood-caked hands on his Greens, and went to confer further at the tent entry. Devon nodded and left, flipping the tent flap aside with a hint of frustration.
What Hallock saw hanging from the tent flap filled his attention entirely, all pain and misery forgotten in a moment of dread. It was horrible to contemplate. Just last week had found him walking with Genni under trees laden with fragrant white blossoms in the narrow presentation walk in front of the Guard house. Genni, with her lovely light brown eyes, and her dreams of the future and their children, had lovingly taunted him that they would grow old together as great-grandparents before he retired from the Guard.
He had known and trained with enough Healers to recognize what was tied to the tent's closure tab, and what it meant. It was a loosely knotted yellow ribbon—one knot indicated "one patient." And yellow, in Healer sorting code, meant "unlikely to survive."

A sullen-looking man in a Guard-blue undershirt and riding pants lurked around the tent's doorway as a light spattering of raindrops tapped on the stretched canvas of the tent. He wore a uniform cap with Support bars, and looked as weary as if a horse had been riding him. He didn't give his name, but related a briefing from four respectful steps away that allowed Hallock to piece together the order of occurrences that had put him here in this isolated tent. The candlemark of steady medicinal fluids had made Hallock lucid enough to realize the impact of the past days' events.
Haven's Sixteenth Guard Regiment had been sent at point, with three companies of light horse and moderate support following a day behind, to reinforce Lord Breon's household troops after reports of a particularly nasty trade dispute. On the way there, the Herald that rode with the Captain warned that the situation was bad enough that there was a possibility of encountering full insurrection around Deedun.
The word was that a former city magistrate named Farragur Elm had been propped up by twenty or more major trade barons and declared "Chancellor of Prosperity," a pompous title at best. He was reportedly already making declarations about a fledgling nation claiming independence from Haven, in the northwest of Valdemar. Secession was not impossible, but this coup was apparently being built upon goods seized from honest tradesmen, expressly for the purpose of staging the secession. The illegality of that action was clear, but what was even clearer—and had brought the troops out—was news from Kelmskeep that entire villages had found their expected income cut out from under them. Entire taxpaying villages of loyal citizens, to be more specific.
When a Herald returned with word from Deedun that a mercenary force under contract to the Crown had been hired out from under Valdemar by this Chancellor, the Guard mobilized. When it was realized that the Herald was a circuit rider evicted from Deedun at swordpoint, the response from Haven took on an entirely different feel. The problem with Hallock Stavern and his fellow Guards being dispatched to assist Lord Breon, though, was that Deedun was between Haven and Lord Breon's hold of Kelms-keep. The Terilee River ran as strong as ever on the eastern side of Deedun and the only main route was the trade road north from Haven. This was, he'd suspected at the time, a testing mission to get a feel for the resolve of the insurrectionists' hired swords when they saw troops of some kind on the move toward them.
The Sixteenth Guard Regiment advanced to the brink of Paw-ta's Wood and found a double picket of professional mixed cavalry and three lines of war archers barring the road. The flurry of arrows that rained into the Valdemaran ranks confirmed that battlefield diplomacy was not an option. The closing assault that followed left no doubts about the resolve, or skill, of the mercenaries.
Hallock had gotten the retreat call from his Captain, and had been shouting out fallback orders to his Third when the first arrow from the initial volley had creased him across the forehead. That was the memory of the falling arrow.
A second arrow had pierced his left side between the belly muscles and his intestines. His Third had pulled him up onto his horse and led the rest of the company back toward Haven. The Sixteenth's relaying retreat was only barely quicker than the mere cav apparently chose to disrupt. As soon as a rout was apparent, the meres held their attacks and went defensive in posture, finally pulling back to what their employers had evidently declared was their border. Mercifully for the Sixteenth, the meres sent no cleanup units to finish off stragglers. Hallock and the other wounded were relegated to travois and stretchers for the remainder of the fallback. Individual Guard units had been scattered into the countryside, and regrouped on the roadside south of the attack, some of them riding for candlemarks. Even now, they continued to straggle into this improvised camp around a riverside mill town.
The clerk rubbed his eyes and begged to be let off for some sleep. The patter of raindrops was increasing in frequency, and he wanted to get to his rack before getting soaked. Hallock was clearer of thought, but hadn't even realized his time perception was so badly altered by the juice he had been fed until he had been asked for dismissal three times. The Healer Birce guided the clerk out once Hallock had grunted an assent, then returned to answer a few questions before another draught. The explanations didn't honestly make him feel any better.
"Healer Birce, isn't it? Mmm. Let me guess. Gut wound. Bleeder."
Birce nodded gently. "Yes, sir. You don't seem like the kind of patient that wants me to make it sound any better than it is."
"I'm a veteran, son. I know what a yellow ribbon is in Healer code. What's keeping me from being fixed?"
Birce rubbed his right hand, hard, and picked at his dark-stained nail beds. He paid a great deal of attention to his hands while finding adequate words. "It isn't that I am not skilled, sir. You've just had some wounds of a type that we don't have the ability to cure under the very best of circumstances. You were hit when you were already down, by another arrow, after the first one had creased your forehead and unhorsed you. In your belly, a couple of fingers' width below your stomach. It wasn't incurable, then, I don't think, because it was mostly in the belly muscle. But when you were dragged off the battlefield, the arrow was still pierced inside you. While you were carried, the serrations of the war point sawed away until ..."
Birce held his hands apart, letting his explanation end there. "I've sent word with the dispatch rider that a magical Healer is needed, someone with a Gift or spell or maybe some kind of obscure knowledge I just don't have. But whether Haven responds with anyone, or quickly enough, I cannot say." He folded his hands, wringing them twice before letting them be still. "In the meantime, I have drugs that can keep your pain down, your mind in the here-and-now, and keep you asleep when it's best for you."
As optimistic as the Healer tried to be, Hallock knew better than to think he had much of a chance of seeing Haven again. It was one of the worst thoughts to have as the last one before a helpless sleep.
Hallock had much more to return to than just Haven, a point he tried to stress to Birce as he drank his medicine. When Birce turned his back to put the cup away, Hallock mustered up his voice of command. Midway through, he was all too aware of how it weakened and cracked.
"Healer, listen to me. I have a wife. We're going to have a family. I know you probably can't get me well enough for active duty again. I can accept that." Hallock paused for a breath, and there his stoic demeanor broke. "But at least keep me alive for her. At least keep me alive long enough to get back to Haven for Genni. She needs me."
Birce pursed his lips so tightly they turned pink. He resumed picking at his nails and then exhaled gustily. "Sleep now," was his answer. "I should know by the time you wake up how things will go. All right?"
It wasn't all right, but that was how it was. The oil lamps faded, and Hallock was in oblivion before Birce had even left the tent.

Hallock heard a commotion outside, but it was as if it was far distant and heard through a tube of parchment. Peaceful rest was hopeless. His sleep was a storm of memories of rain, uniforms, sunlight, brown eyes, smiles, horsemanship classes, weapons drills, war, falling, Genni, the arrows, spinning trees, and Haven. He wanted to stay in the initial oblivion the Healer's draught had put him in, and couldn't, but the drugs he had been given wouldn't let him be as awake as he wanted either. Now some bastards outside were making more noise than a free beer Festival full of cadets. Shouts and hoofbeats passed around his tent, fol-lowed by twice as many and the sound of wagon wheels.
The din was split by an inhuman and impossibly loud shriek, answered by expletives and sounds of breaking wood and bodies falling. He was shocked fully awake, sucking in a deep breath. He couldn't sit up due to the bindings and stitching of his belly wound, but he did manage to edge up on his elbows little by little, only making the tent spin mildly in his vision. He tried to see through the slight gap in the tent flaps.
Birce's voice could be heard, shouting as he passed outside the tent, "No! He cannot be moved to another tent, I strictly forbid it! You, come with me now . . ." And nothing more of that command was discernible to Hallock's thrumming ears.
More lucidity helped him take control of his limbs. He had been warned not to try to use his belly muscles for anything at all, but it was much easier said than done.
He knew that kind of shriek—a piercing, raspy blast from a strained, capacious throat driven by huge lungs. He recognized it—from Haven. From the Collegium.
Hallock heard Birce's voice calling for supplies and lamps, and then there was another bestial shriek that fell away into a rasping gurgle, then silence. A candlemark could have passed, or two, or half of one. It was impossible for Hallock to tell, but when the tent flaps were pulled back, he was still up on his elbows with his chin against his ribs. A throng of Guard regulars burst into the tent, and several of them stared at him for one surprised moment before dashing out yelling for the Healer in charge. The ones remaining in the tent stammered apologies, apparently not realizing they had mud and fresh blood spattered across their uniforms making them look as bad as the bedridden officer they stood before.
Devon pushed past them to get to Hallock and blurted, "Sir, there's something here, it's one of the—" then turned back to yell "I'm asking him now!" to someone outside. "Sir, there's—"
A minor Guard officer appeared at the tent entry to interrupt the Healer, and jabbered something to Devon quicker than the Healer could follow. Surprisingly, Devon smacked the soldier with an open palm on the cheek, and screamed "Pull yourself together! Healer's orders!"
There were two heartbeats of absolute stunned silence from everyone except Devon, who just said, "Tell the Second what happened." The soldier composed himself and explained more slowly, and with significantly less vigor.
"What I was told was that the patrol found mere outriders, an' got spotted, an' the meres chased 'em down. An' the patrol turned to make a stand, 'cause the meres was faster. An' when th' meres was closin' in, this thing jus' came screamin' out o'the sky an' tore inta th'mercs—killed 'em, killed 'em all! Th' meres kept stabbin' an' hackin' at it, an' it just wouldn't fall! An' when th' patrol came out from hidin', there was heads bit off, an' arms an' legs strewn 'round by th' bodies an' all! An' the thing spoke— spoke Valdemaran! Said it was an ally to the Crown an' then keeled over. Been delirious th' whole way—they jus' got it dragged back here on some farmer's wagon." He turned angry and jabbed a finger at Devon's chest. "Look! It's as may be that it's some weird ally, but I jus' saw the thing tear up the earth like a whirlwind an' slash at people what was tryin' ta help it. Yer Healer Birce wants ta fix it up, that's his say, but I'm tellin' ya! You put the thing where ya' want but nowhere near me an' my Company!"
Annoyed, Hallock raised his voice.
"Healer! Attend now!"
Devon blinked, stopping with his mouth open in his reply to the regular, and turned toward Hallock.
"You have a gryphon."
Devon nodded earnestly. "Yes, sir. And he's hurt pretty badly-Birce is trying to stabilize him, but he can't do it in the rain. We need somewhere to put him and it looks like we don't have anywhere but in here. Would you—"
"I've been around gryphons before. Permission granted," he replied, before the spinning of his vision grew to be too much for him. He drifted again.
Lucidity became intermittent after that, but he was aware ot much talking and activity. His cot was moved against the wall or the tent by at least four people, he could tell, and the susurration of rain against canvas lulled him into true sleep.
Hallock awoke to an awful throbbing in his head again, and a burning ache in his gut. He groaned and clutched at his belly. It seemed as if the wind from last night's rainstorm had moved into the tent with him, slowly but rhythmically changing in magnitude. Strange acrid and earthy smells struck his nose. When he ripened his eyes, Birce was leaning over him. The Healer was dressed in a green tunic far cleaner than the last one he had been seen in, except for what looked like parallel rips and brush strokes of dark paint all down the front and sleeves. He was wiping his hands with a rag as he looked Hallock over. "Good morning, sir," he said gently. "Sir, just keep looking right at me. There was something that you said last night that I need to confirm with you. I need to be sure that it was not because of the influence of your medicine. You gave permission to share your tent with someone."
Hallock grunted the confirmation Birce wanted. The Healer nodded and remarked, "Not many people are brave enough to share their tent with a wounded gryphon." He laid aside his rag and offered his patient a cup of the dreadful but familiar drugged juice. "No one else wanted anything to do with him. Devon said you'd served with one before. In Haven."
Haven. Where Genni was, even now, not knowing at all that her husband had fallen. Genni with her bright smile and milky gauze scarves, always ready to help anyone she met—probably going about the market stalls hunting up a good length of dyed cloth for those crinkle-skirts she loved to make.
Hallock blinked himself free of his wife's memory and grunted once. "Haven. Collegium Guard. During the Storms, I was Master Levy's escort. There were two gryphons at Haven, with two of their young. They helped the Crown. Helped the Crown save us all. When Levy went to confer with them, I went along. Met them. They were like royalty. Dignified." After a pause, of luxuriating in the melting away of his worst pain, he added, "They aren't animals. I'm not afraid of them."
"Candidly, sir, everyone else is. No surprise. Devon and I wound up closing an even dozen lacerations and a pretty serious puncture just among the crew that unloaded him from the wagon."

Hallock rolled his head sideways to get a look past the Healer. What he saw was huge, as large as a horse, but in sorry shape. Flattened against the oiled canvas floor of the tent was what might have been a gryphon of the same species as the nobles at Valdemar's Court, though precious little looked intact. Stains, smears, and pools of unnamed dark substances showed all around his trembling body, even after the Healers' meticulous cleaning regimen. Broad patches of feathers were sheared away, revealing whipstitched gashes and a bulging packed wound in the gryphon's shoulder, with an exit wound in his upper back. Hemp rope had been cut and knotted in clearly improvised splinting made from tent poles and greenwood, interrupted by clumps of broken and skewed chestnut feathers down the length of the right wing, which stretched to fill the rest of the tent. The gryphon's eyes were covered with towels and more rope to hold them in place. His body heaved in a wheezing but labored rise and fall as he breathed.
Birce frowned, gazing at his bizarre patient. "He's been shot up, hacked at, lanced once, and I think he's been poisoned," the unhappy Healer continued, pausing to lick his lips. ". . . and . . . he won't be flying again. At least as far as I know. That right wing of his was turned all the way around, with bone showing, when I got him in here. I've tried irrigating, filling him up with nutrients and keeping him warm, but beyond that I am lost. His blood's alien to me. I don't know his anatomy. I couldn't do anything to help him except bind and stitch his more obvious wounds. He didn't offer any useful help when he was conscious. He's coming in and out, sometimes delirious or twitchy, other times wide awake. He claimed to be a leader of some kind, ally to Valdemar. I don't know much more than that, except his name. Kelvren."

"Fffirrresssong. He may be a peacock . . . but he can fixsss anything."
"Herrraldsss! Mussst know. Tell Herrraldsss . . . ssshow k'Val-demarrr I live."
"Hurrrtsss . . . Ssskandrranon would not crrry . . ."
"Why issss it ssso darrrrk . . . ?"
The candlemark after the Healer left on his rounds was punctuated by fitful starts, groans, and growls from the stricken gryphon, as well as scores of cryptic declarations. Hallock made it a practice to occupy his mind by piecing the rantings together, but could make little of it. The name "Firesong" he knew; that was the white-haired shaych Adept that he had escorted Master Levy to see numerous times, and "peacock" was accurate enough. If a Herald was anywhere to be found, they'd be told every word, but Hallock had yet to see any white cloth that wasn't a bloodstained rag.
The gryphon stank, and the insects were finding their way inside to him, despite the repelling quality of the lamp oil. It offended Hallock, but he mused that it spoke well of the painkiller Birce had him on, if something so minor was even an issue.
All the time that Hallock's mind was not on the meandering speech of the gryphon he shared the tent with, it was on Genni and her little habits. He could see her at his side now, bringing him medicines and sitting with her palm on his forehead, singing popular songs or telling stories of the neighborhood children. He could see her curly brown hair falling down her cheek and neck, catching the sunlight through their dormer window. He could see her curling a few strands of hair around her fingers as she spoke of her sewing circle and the ceramics her sister had presented to the Captain, hoping to catch the bachelor's eye.
Then the gryphon clacked his beak loudly and said with surprising clarity, "Am I prrrisssonerrr?"
Hallock blinked and glanced side to side without moving his head. The blinded gryphon flexed a foreleg, the uninjured right one, and popping sounds of torn floor canvas punctuated the question.
"No. You're a patient," Hallock ventured, and saw the gryphon's ears prick forward as far as the improvised hood would allow. "You're in Valdemar, in a Healer's tent. They say you were hurt defending the Crown's soldiers, and when you fell, they dragged you here."
"Hurrrrh. Feel morrre like drrrresssed game than patient," the gryphon hissed, not commenting on the rescue story. "Can barrrely think. Need Healerrr. Trrrondi'irrrn. Darrr'ian needs to know I am herrre, and Brrreon and k'Valdemarrr . . . wherrre isss Herrald?" He raised his head and whimpered, dropping down again as the strain unsettled the lance wound, repeating, "Wherrre isss Herrrald?"
"I'm sorry. We don't have one. No one knows when a Herald will arrive here, or a better Healer." Hallock winced at his own choice of words. "Another Healer. The ones here are doing their best, but it would take the Gift to save us." That choice of words was no better.
"Sssave usss," the gryphon hissed, apparently clear of mind enough to read the implications in the Guard's ill-advised comment. "Ssso you are asss clossse to death asss I. Hurrrh. I could Heal . . . ssstudied long at the Vale. But I am ssso exhausssted . .. ssso much pain, makess it harrrd to think." The gryphon unstuck his foreclaws from the flooring canvas and tested his range of movement. Another whimper of pain and labored breathing revealed he could at least raise his head with evident effort. "Can block sssome of the pain . . . ssssimple charrrm. You sssoldierrr?"
"Hallock Stavern. Guard officer, Haven, Second of Sixteenth Regiment. I serve under the Captain," he explained, in case the gryphon didn't understand their command structure.
"And the Captain enjoysss you therrre, I am sssurrre," the gryphon wheezed, apparently trying to make a joke, but falling flat in the delivery. "I am Kelvrrren, of K'Valdemarrr. Wing-leaderrr ... of all the grrryphons of the Vale." A spark of pride lit in his voice when proclaiming his title, but was snuffed out when he went on. "Ssscouting forrr Brrreon. I mussst rrreport beforrre it isss too late. Therrre isss no one elssse herrre to tell-You arrre a ssseniorrr offissscerrr—you have a good memorrry. Or wrrrite?"
"Yes, but—you can't see. I could be an enemy soldier pretending so that I can find out what you know."
The gryphon tucked his head down against his filthy and blood-encrusted breastfeathers, to pick with his talons at the eye-blocking towels and ropes that were evidently annoying him. "You arrre Hallock Ssstaverrn. I can tell you sssspeak trrrue. Lis-ssten and rrrememberrr. Frrrom the forrrk of the white ssstrr-ream therrre is sssupply line, and camp of prrrisonerrrs to the eassst of the ssstand of black oak. Sssixty-two trrroops have built an arrow-nessst therrre—but arrre of firrre isss blocked by fallen oak to the norrrthwessst . . ."
Kelvren's report was exhaustive and apparently, exhausting. Winces of pain and pauses for deep, sucking breaths stopped the gryphon's forced speech every minute or two. Half a candlemark or more passed before he summoned up the last of his strength to finish the report. It was, indeed, crucial information, giving a literal overview of the insurgents' military might, ranges of influence and deployment, and unwatched vulnerabilities.
Hallock had always been an honest man, and now was no time to start lying. These reports the gryphon spoke of were important to Kelvren, and Hallock could not bear the thought of lying to the broken flyer. His pain was building up again, and the throbbing of his lacerated forehead ramped up steadily the more they talked. "It may not matter, Kelvren. I am dying. Gut wound killing me. They have me on strong medicine. No one can Heal a gut wound without serious magic. I'm isolated in here because they don't think I'll recover, and it's a bad idea to put the dying with the savable."
The gryphon snorted in obvious derision. "Valdemarrransss arrre ssso ssstrrange. We would put all the wounded togetherrr ssso they would heal each otherrrsss' painsss. If not of the body, then of the sssoul. Pain sssharred isss pain halved."
"It isn't that ... it isn't my own pain I fear. It's that I won't see Haven again. Or Genni."
"Genni. Yourrr mate . . . ?"
"Mate, yes. Wife. We call a mate a wife. We were going to have a family ... a big family. Genni ... so beautiful. I wish you could see her, the way I see her. . . ."
"Ssso tell me ... I have hearrd of Haven, wherrre the Great Ones arrre. Grrreatessst explorrrerrs of ourrr time, Adept magesss, herrroesss. We sssurrrvive thisss, we ssshould see them togetherrr, yesss, Hallock Ssstaverrrn? They ssstay at the Palassce, in their own prrrivate Vale. And you can ssshow me Haven'sss bessst decadencccesss." The gryphon wheezed a chuckle, surprisingly humanlike. "Tell me what you love therrre. Tell me of yourrr mate. Yourrr wife."
Hallock smiled. The tragically, perhaps mortally wounded gryphon was so much in his humor like the two he had encountered in Haven. "Genni. She is so ... so sweet. I don't know how to describe her, but I can tell you stories about her. I can tell you about why she makes me smile."
"Tell me, then. Ssshow me in wordsss . . . keep my mind on sssomething that won't hurrrt. Hurrrh, whoever put thisss on me will pay dearrrly!"
"Birce probably thought you were like a falcon, that if you were in the dark, you'd be calmer. He meant well." The gryphon replied with a growl but seemed at least a little mollified. "Haven, with Genni. There was a day off, just last month, before autumn had set in. Autumn in Haven is cool and breezy, and even though winter is coming, everything smells like newness. Late summer is when the hedges in the Collegium come into second bloom. Color is everywhere in little splashes, and the vines flower over every archway."
Hallock found himself smiling as he spoke, staring up at the canvas as it rippled lightly in the breezes outside. "Genni can make everything you do every day seem new, too. There was a carter who served the Guard houses, with meat pies and breads. I ate what he brought almost every day, when on duty, we all did. Not great food although not bad either, but it kept us filled. Well. Genni and 1 were out, and I was carrying bags for her, because we were going to walk all the markets in Haven together. She makes these skirts and shawls, you see, with ribbons on the edges. Really complex interlaces that make checkers, then fall in these long fringes." Hallock warmed to the subject, putting in details that, on some level, he knew the gryphon couldn't possibly care about—but he was talking about Genni. Nothing was unimportant about Genni. "Maybe out of habit, because she would stop in and visit me while I was on duty, we swung toward the Guard house. The carter was on his rounds, as usual, and Genni said, 'Let's get something to eat!' I must have looked like a toad spitting up a bug, the way she laughed! But she took my hand and pulled me there anyway.
"Genni walked right up and said, 'I want today's special,' and the fellow went behind the cart, opened up an oven and handed her a basket. A whole basket! With a wink, just like that, no money or anything. She had set me up, my Genni! I remember looking back at the carter, who was laughing so hard as to raise the dead, while Genni led me off. The Guards at the Collegium gates waved us through, and she took me there right into the grounds, through those flowering arches. Birds were all around, singing and swooping around. Skeins of geese went overhead, one after another, going south through that wide blue sky. She led me in to one of the side gardens next to the Bards' auditoriums, by the practice rooms. No one there but the groundsman. Then, the groundsman angled off toward us. Brought something to Genni in a brown cloth bundle, that was just dripping wet. Genni hid it from me, just giggling away. Well, see, I pulled the groundsman aside then, while she looked at whatever her prize was. Worked a deal with him, and off he went.
"Genni sat down in the grass, just like that, and opened up the basket. There was crockery inside, from our own cupboard! She'd planned this long in advance! There were no dried-out pasties and cornbread in there, oh, no. She laid out hot plates and roast duck, steamed carrots and sweet potatoes in honey glaze. She had sweetbreads and salted butter, and when she unwrapped the bundle from the groundsman, I almost cried right there. A cold bottle of wine, from who knows what cellar. Oh, I can taste it now. And then, right then . . . ?"
Hallock sniffled, and tears ran down his temples as he lay there. "And then, in the practice rooms, the chorus started. Bard's choral, practicing together . . . forty voices, if there was one of them, singing 'Light of Freedom's Majesty' in the old style. Genni Poured the wine and the groundsman arrived then, with what I'd arranged ... a bouquet of hibiscus, daisy, and bluebell from Companion's Field. And he said, Til make sure you aren't disturbed,' and went away to the entry of the garden, to work. Genni . . . oh, Genni. We drank the wine and ate, and listened to the singing of the chorus echo off the walls of the Collegium and surround us. We traded jokes, and we kissed, and fed each other sweetbreads. We were young and new again. It was a perfect day. A perfect day."
Hallock couldn't say anymore. His medicine had almost fully burned off. There was no rain outside, but a dull roar filled Hal-lock's perceptions like a storm raging. Before long, the sound of the gryphon's breathing, growls, and wheezing grunts as he worried at the improvised hood were drowned out by the rush of Hal-lock's pounding heartbeat in his ears. He looked imploringly toward the gryphon and made eye contact with the raptorial gaze at the moment the shreds of the hood were pulled free. He flinched when he heard the gryphon shriek—a word. A Valde-maran word, Hallock realized, before another wave of agony shattered his sensibilities.
"Healerrrr!" the gryphon shrieked.
The gryphon swung his head sideways and called the word again, extremely loudly. The huge predator's keening was impossibly loud. It made Hallock's head hurt so badly that a mace to the skull would have been a mercy to him. Pounding heartbeats passed beyond counting, and coherence left Hallock completely. This could be death, he thought. But wasn't death supposed to be peaceful?
Motes of orange starlight swum in the Guard's vision. A shadowy shape and disconcerting sounds of tortured crying and tearing cloth burst in on the crackle of red lightning taking over his vision and the pounding noise in his ears. Hallock closed his eyes, but they sprung open again of their own volition. The tent and lamps were spinning all around him, but seemed so distant as the sensation of falling manifested into tunnel vision. Spikes of pain wrenched him from oblivion. Something huge was pressing down on his belly, and his gut screamed agony anew. His head felt split open from so much pain, and yet strangely, warmth was spreading into him from his gut and forehead. There was the distant silhouette of a raptor's beak against shuddering, dancing lamplight—his last vision before dying?
To die in Valdemar, in service of his nation, would be a good death. For Crown and Country, he would die as a hero, who had fallen defending his own. His name would be cast in bronze and added to the Honor Columns of the Guard house. A good death, if it was indeed his time.
He numbly realized there was a presence beside him, as the sunlike, spreading oblivion engulfed him, pushing out the darkness. It could be an angel of the divine, or a spirit to guide him to the Havens above.
But no matter who or what it might be, he wished with all his heart that it was Genni at his side.

Hallock couldn't see anything at all, but, like the last time he had found himself in this circumstance, the fact that he could think at all was proof that he was alive.
"The gryphon's resuscitated, Healer," he heard a woman say. "Soft tissue's mostly knitted, bone fractures are fused, overpressures are alleviated. What a mess. He looked like he fell hard on a sword factory."
Devon's voice chimed in from nearby. "Should have seen him when they brought him in."
The woman snorted and continued. "He won't be flying for a long time. Wings and those other weird organs of his will take specialty work I can't do. I sure couldn't do anymore today anyway. The lance hit and the slashes weren't so bad, but the blood poisoning and bruising took a lot out of me."
Devon replied, "We're lucky the Skybolts came north as quickly as they did. We all feel a lot better knowing mages, Heralds, and Gifted Healers are with us."
The woman yawned, agreeing. "Yeah. Lucky break all around. You did fine, though, and you were probably wise not to risk drugs with his metabolism. I can't imagine the agony he must have been in, just to move an inch, much less use spells. Glad I'm not an empath or you'd be hauling me out of here in a bucket."
There was a pause. "Listen, I have a concern. I'm going to check with our mages about it. The gryphon has no magic left in him that I can find."
Birce's voice replied to the unseen woman, from very near. "When I got here, he'd dragged himself to Stavern's side. I had to pull his claw off of Stavern's belly. I think he used all the magic he had left on whatever Healing spell he had."
"Could be. I know the tracework. The more precise a Healing spell, the less energy it needs, but that takes a lot of medical knowledge. A broad-use spell takes fifty times the energy as it tries all kinds of things to set a bad situation right. For all I know, he used a Summoning and got whatever spirit he brought here to Heal up your Guard."
There was a long pause in which no one said a word, as they mulled over the implications. In those moments, Hallock could hear the deep breathing of a gryphon somewhere nearby, steady and reliable. The woman finally said, "They live on magic—use it to fly—practically breathe it so far as I've heard. I don't know what a total depletion will do for his long-term health, but for now, I think he'll pull through."
The blurry image of a concerned Birce suddenly loomed in Hallock's vision as the cold compress that covered his eyes was lifted away. The senior Healers was at his side, and for once, was in a clean uniform. "Sir? You're going to be all right. You've received Healing by magic, for all your conditions. We'll feed you as soon as we can, and move you to another tent."
"No," Hallock croaked. "Thanks, but—no. Get me two company clerks and prop me up. I stay here. You just change the ribbon. I stay with Kelvren."
"Kelvren," he heard the woman say as she left the tent, still unseen. "Huh. Well. That explains it."

Candlemarks passed, during which Hallock had a bland but filling meal fed to him, got cleaned up, was changed into fresh bedclothes, and made complete reports for the Herald on station to peruse. Despite the weariness he felt, he still could not get to sleep, and his sleep medicine sat untouched at his bedside. Finally, he levered himself out of bed, stretching muscles that felt like they hadn't been used in years. Hunching down, then going to his knees beside the great beast's head, he spoke to the sleeping gryphon.
"Kelvren? Can you hear me?" He tried touching the feathered brow. It was the first time since Treyvan had brushed against him in Haven that he'd put palm to feathers on one of them.
A low growl came from the feathered hulk on the floor. "Rrrrh. Hussssh. You talk too much."
Hallock grinned, then sobered as he tried to find good enough words. He finally settled for the simplest.
"Kelvren ... I owe you my life."
There was a long pause, and then the gryphon heaved a gusty sigh.
"Hurrrh. Had to be sssurrre . . . my rrreporrrt . . . got thrrrough."
Hallock responded gravely, "You could have used your Healing on your own wounds, then reported it yourself. You could have killed yourself just getting to me."
Kelvren lifted his head up with obvious effort and fixed his gaze on the human before him. His beak swayed, and his eyes dilated then focused again. They seemed somehow darker than before, but Hallock knew with a certainty deep inside that the risk of death had passed this noble soul by for now.
"Perrrhapsss. But yourrr life . . . would have ended. You have yourrr Genni. And in a life ... no one ssshould be alone . . . and no one ssshould have . . ."
The gryphon laid his head down and dozed, contentedly, after murmuring four more words. ". . . only one . . . perfect day."