Shield's Lady

going to need whatever advantage they could get during the next few years to hold their own with the westerners.
    There was barely enough starlight filtering down to the base of the canyon to enable Sariana to tell water from land. She aimed the craft deeper into the gorge. Lucky hopped onto Sariana’s shoulder and settled there.
    “I know he wanted us to go back to Little Chance,” Sariana told the lizard; “but there isn’t time. Something has happened. I have to get to him.”
    Sariana strained to see the dark river and wondered how angry Gryph would be when he discovered her latest act of disobedience.
    “He can yell at me all he wants as soon as we find him, Lucky. And you can bet your tail he will yell. He seems to have been born with the odd notion that other people should always do what he tells them. I just hope that arrogance hasn’t gotten him into real trouble this time.”
    She was chatting to calm herself again, Sariana realized. The truth was she was scared to death because she couldn’t analyze the earlier explosion of light inside her head. There had been a sense of pain, but she had known it wasn’t her own pain she was feeling. That meant it had to be Gryph’s. But the sensation had vanished quickly along with the bursting beam of light.
    She knew Gryph had to be a long distance away from her and it scared her to think of how devastating that light beam had been to have been reflected all the way from Gryph’s mind to hers. Gryph had said the link between them was highly erratic and unpredictable. It worked best in moments of passion or moments of danger. Whatever had happened to Gryph, it definitely qualified as a moment of danger.
    “What if he’s dead, Lucky? What am I going to do?”
    Sariana pulled harder on the blade handles. She would not allow herself to even think about that possibility again. Gryph wasn’t dead. She would know if he were dead. That realization gave her comfort and energy. The blades and fins of the river sled sent the small craft skimming over the surface of the sluggish river.
    The sled was a model of efficiency, but even so Sariana’s arms ached by mid-morning. She switched to the foot pedals for a while and tried to estimate her progress. The sled was making good headway but the river was flowing more swiftly and powerfully now as the gorge narrowed. She glanced toward shore and wondered if she should tie the sled along the bank and go the rest of the way on foot.
    One of the problems was that she didn’t know exactly how far she had to go. She was counting on the odd sixth sense she seemed to have developed to let her know when she was getting close to Gryph. It had always worked best at short range, she reminded herself encouragingly. She had always been so acutely aware of him when he was near.
    Absently she fingered the elegant pin on her cloak while she scanned the steep walls of the gorge. The water was definitely getting rough and the sled was slowing rapidly. The shoreline was not particularly inviting with its scrubby vegetation and rocky terrain, but Sariana knew it was time to get out of the sled. She decided she would tie up the craft somewhere around the next bend.
    She heard the roar of the rapids a few seconds before she felt the sled begin to buck. Sariana grabbed the blade handles, steering desperately for the shore.
    Putting the small craft at an angle to the strong current proved to be a mistake. It heaved once and then the whole right side lifted majestically up out of the water.
    “Lucky!”
    The lizard was already moving, darting into the safety of one of Sariana’s cloak pockets. Sariana fought for control of the sled as it heaved again in the rough water. But she knew she did not have the expertise to save the boat. It was going to flip over and her biggest fear was getting trapped beneath the sled.
    “Hang on,” she muttered to the hapless lizard as she sealed the pocket of her cloak. “And hold your breath if you can.” She bunched up the cloak and tied it around her shoulders so that it was out of the way. Then she grabbed the blade sling Gryph had entrusted to her and leaped out of the sled.
    The water was cold, a shock to her system, but she had little time to think about it. Sariana’s main concern was fighting through the rough current to get to shore. It wasn’t that far away, she told herself, and the water wasn’t that deep. She could make it.
    But the driving power of the water was a force with which to