"I would try the communication spell with her, but it risks giving away our location to any mages attempting to look for that. And it would fail both in the case where she is dead or captured - likely scrying would as well." Sigh. 

"How long can you keep the scry going on Vkandis's soldiers?"

"All day if I must, it is not that draining and there are nodes nearby, but swapping between all the locations is more tiring, and I cannot do other complex magic and scry at the same time." 

"I could go out and disable them pretty well if I got a good look at all of them in advance. And then try talking to the Tayledras. ...I'm only mostly sure I can do that without accidentally killing anybody though so if you have another idea that would be better."

"I - can potentially also hold them off, but it is unlikely I could do it without killing anyone, even if I were to mostly attempt to cast compulsions on them and force them to stop. I could shield you from attacks, if that would make it easier for you to be careful? We could also keep moving, but - at this point I am concerned they are not going to stop following us." 

"Shielding me would help, yes. Or - getting any one person and making them tell me everyone else's names."

"I think I can grab one of the soldiers on the ground, and neutralize them quickly enough not to put either of us in danger. Although, what are your self-defence capabilities, if I misjudge that - I should probably find you a shield-talisman as well, there should be extras here... Also a replacement for Thoughtsensing, if you want it, yours was damaged back there. I have not been reading your thoughts," he adds. 

"I don't have shields. I might be able to directly foul up spells with visible effects but probably not fast enough."

Leareth tries his best to keep the scrying in place, monitoring the Ifteli army's progress, while he rummages among the crates again, gets down a smaller box, cuts it open with magic and digs in it. "Here. Physical shield, magical shield, Thoughtsensing." He tosses her multiple pieces of nondescript jewelry hung on leather cords. 

She puts jewelry on. She stares at the scry.

So does Leareth. 

The gryphons pause and one of them, apparently a mage, erects a temporary Gate-threshold from folding poles - clever trick, Leareth thinks, for people who don't have his skill of unscaffolded Gates - and transports the two hundred or so foot troops (humans and lizards of some sort) who have no hope of keeping up otherwise. In addition, there are cavalry, and some other sentient species, deer-like ones (dyheli, Leareth says for her benefit) plus large cats (ratha) and wolves (kyree). They're falling behind the gryphons each time the gryphons fly ahead, but will catch up within minutes, it looks like. 

The foot soldiers cross. 

"I am going to try for one of the humans," Leareth says. "I think the rust-coloured uniforms are for un-Gifted soldiers, not mages, though I am not certain. I was not aware until today that Iftel had an army, let alone gryphon cavalry, although I really ought not be surprised." 

"Okay." Stare stare stare.

Leareth focuses intently - and then loses hold of the scrying as soon as he reaches for the other end of his Gate, doing an unscaffolded Gate to a place he's never been anchored only on a scry takes all his concentration. 

It goes up, though, a round Gate-hole appearing under a soldier's feet and another round terminus in the ceiling of the records cache, and a very surprised Ifteli soldier shrieks as she falls through and crashes to the floor in a heap. 

Leareth's Othersenses are all on alert and it takes about half a second to determine that his guess was right and she isn't a mage. She does seem to be a Mindspeaker. Fortunately that won't help her, here, his facility is very well shielded, and both he and Promise are personally shielded against Thoughtsensing too. 

He pins her to the ground with a force-net. 

"I need your name. Neither of us will have to cast anything on you if I get it," Promise tells her.

The woman stares at her from her position sprawled flat on the floor, white showing all around her eyes. She looked possibly too panicked to have parsed the question; she definitely isn't answering it. 

"Your name," snaps Promise.

Nothing. 

"Do you wish me to mindread her or compulsion her to tell you," Leareth whispers to her, quietly enough that the woman won't hear. 

"Second thing."

Leareth does that, his expression impassive. It's a very simple temporary compulsion so it takes him about three seconds. 

"R-Rebekah," the woman says, now trembling. 

"Tell me the names of the rest of your detachment."

She's shaking uncontrollably in panic, which makes her voice slightly hard to understand, but she tonelessly goes down a list of people, giving military rank too. Most of the names click. A few don't; several people she seems to only know by surnames that must be their married names or something, those don't click either. 

"None of those are gryphon names," Leareth hisses to Promise. "She may only know all the names of her own human military unit, they likely train separately." 

"Answer all of my questions honestly, promptly, and without omission or extraneous content. Do you know the names of any of the nonhumans?"

"Yes."