A Shard of Sun (29 page)

“I won’t,” Halvden said. “Look at him. He’ll kill you.”

Sverin crouched, tail swiping across the snow, his gaze darting between them. His beak opened in a long hiss.

“He will not,” Caj said, trying to shove around Halvden. “I know him. I trust him, and he’s in there somewhere. Shame and fear have hidden his name. You said fighting makes it worse. Move.”

Halvden didn’t—partly because there was nowhere to go between the cliff and the river.

“My brother,” Caj called. “My king. This is not you. Your heart is—”

The gryfon that was once the Red King lunged. Halvden fell back, smashing into Caj, and Sverin hit them like a boulder, beak snapping for Halvden’s throat. They rolled, and with a sickening crack, the ice broke.

At the first touch of frigid water, Sverin shrieked and his great scarlet wings slapped at the river, then Halvden and Caj as he shoved out with brute power. He flapped up high, retreating deep into the canyon again.

Caj grabbed for the rocks of the bank, then saw that the current had swept Halvden out to the middle of the river. He swore, shoved from the bank and let the river rush him toward the green gryfon. It took only two breaths for the freezing water to slip under his feathers, to soak his oiled fur and squeeze the wind from his chest.

“Halv—” water splashed into his face and he gave up calling out. Halvden fought to swim, but churning swirls of water dragged him under again and again. Caj had not the skill of a Vanir for swimming, but he faired better than Halvden, and managed to struggle to Halvden’s side. He grabbed the green scruff and dragged Halvden’s head out of the water. The green warrior hacked and sputtered but his head lolled. The cold was overtaking him. Caj kicked his hind legs hard and used his good wing to help remain afloat, grateful the freezing water numbed any pain from his broken wing.

Deciding that the far bank had a broader shoreline and would be an easier swim, he kicked out that way. Downstream about fifty leaps, rocks kicked the river into a wrath of foaming rapids and spinning chunks of ice. Caj swam diagonally, as Sigrun had once taught him, trying to let the current assist him toward the shore.

Ahead, a long, thin dead birch stretched over the water, as if the tree or the mountain itself was offering help. Desperate, dragging Halvden along while trying to keep his own head above water, Caj strained toward the branches. Two more leaps and they  would be swept past it.

His hind paw kicked the river bottom and sharp pain broke through the numbness—but Caj laughed madly. The bottom. He let his head dunk under, scrabbled both feet against the gravel and shoved his body toward the branch. He caught it in his talons and with his beak and clung hard, holding Halvden close by the scruff between his shoulders.

Now what.

The birch shifted at the weight of them and Caj’s belly lurched. Beak clamped around the branch, he reached out with his talons and pulled them farther in, alternating beak then talons. His foreleg strained against Halvden’s weight and he shook the younger gryfon, trying to rouse him, but he must’ve gotten a chest full of water.

The birch shifted again, loosening, and Caj groaned against the bark, clawing forward.

A blur of animal movement caught his eye, and his gaze darted downstream. A wolf raced toward the birch tree.

Caj tried to shout Tocho’s name but it came as a guttural gurgle around the birch. The wolf sprinted nimbly up the snow-covered bank, splashing through water where he needed to, but leaping out too quickly for the river to catch him. Caj’s tree lurched, almost loose of the rocks. Caj felt the current grabbing at them.

Tocho burst forward and leaped the last distance, skidding through rocks and snow like a goose coming in to land. He lunged up and pounced the birch trunk, wedging it firmly back between the rocks.

With the tree once again anchored, Caj was able to drag himself and Halvden out. Tocho helped him bring Halvden onto the shore, and when they rolled him to his side and Caj slapped him between the wings, he gurgled up river water.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Caj muttered to the wolf, and they both curled around Halvden to warm him, and themselves.

“I had a feeling,” Tocho murmured. “A bad feeling for you. And I realized you were right. I sought guidance from Tor, and under the moon, I understood and decided that if Halvden will put his judgments aside, so will I.”

“We saw Sverin,” Caj told him. “He’s witless. He didn’t know me, but I know I can reach him. If you two will stand with me, I know I can bring him around.”

Halvden coughed, and Caj took that as confirmation.

A feather prickled and Caj bent his head to straighten it, then realized it was near broken, and he plucked it out with his beak. After pausing a moment to consider, he dropped it and pushed it to Tocho. The gold wolf perked his ears at the feather, then at Caj.

“It’s for you,” Caj said gruffly.

“I thought you didn’t like it when wolves wore gryfon feath—”

“I didn’t understand why, before. Now I do.” Caj lifted his good wing and draped it over a shivering Halvden and Tocho, and felt renewed warmth in his own skin. “I’m…proud, to call you friend. I want everyone who sees you to know what you’ve done for me, to know that I owe you my life.”

Tocho, not taking his eyes from Caj, bent his head to sniff the feather, then laid his head over it protectively and averted his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Halvden.” Caj nudged him. Halvden groaned. “Will you survive?”

“You could have let me drown,” he stammered through cold, “and saved yourself.”

“Well if you’re talking, that’s a good sign.”

“No one would’ve known,” Halvden snarled. “An accident. You could have, and the pride would’ve been rid of me.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Caj gave him a firm shake to snap him out of it. “Tocho saved us both. I take it you don’t mind his company now?”

Halvden shivered, and managed to lift his head. “Thank you,” he mumbled to the snow, then looked sideways at the wolf. “I owe you a debt.”

Tocho showed his teeth in a not-unfriendly expression. “Let us consider all our debts paid.”

“We’ll rest,” Caj said, “warm up, hunt, and then we will finish this.”

They all lifted their gazes to the canyon, and stared down the frozen pass in the direction Sverin had flown.

T
HE AIR HUNG DAMP
with melting frost as the first hazy sunlight broke over the edge of the canyon. Kjorn gathered with Nilsine, Brynja, and four eagles. Two leading females, and their favorite male consorts.

“This is all your fault,” one of the males accused Kjorn.

Kjorn lifted his head. “How does that follow? I wasn’t here when the wyrms left the region, and I only just arrived. I don’t know them, they don’t know of me.”

“Your pride is cursed. I can see by your bright feathers you are part of the cursed family who fled—”

“That will be quite enough, Arn,” said Hildr, the leading she-eagle Brynja had named on the first day. Kjorn had met her briefly, as they gathered near the river at first light. Grunna, a sleek auburn eagle Kjorn gauged to be of middle years, watched quietly, and her consort beside her.

“He draws them near,” Arn said, edging in a last word, “I’m sure of it. We of the Brightwing should never have allowed gryfons to nest here.”

Kjorn suppressed a low rumble in his chest.

Arn opened his beak and his feathers pricked up high, giving him the illusion of size. “Do you think I fear you, giant, lumbering—”

“Do you prefer wyrms nesting here?” Brynja asked with a touch of ice. “We’re happy to go and leave you to them.”

“As if you’ve done anything about them,” Arn said. “Your kind brought the enemy to this land, and you flee when they become too dangerous.”

“Arn.” Hildr nipped his wing with her beak. “If you won’t be silent, then leave.” She dipped her head, eyeing Kjorn. “I allow these gryfess huntresses to remain because they showed respect and humility after being cast out of their home. I allow you to remain because you were a friend of Shard, who was the first gryfon I met to bother asking my name. So I’m curious about you, though you look like typical Dawn Spire ilk to me.”

It had taken Kjorn a few moments, at first, to understand the eagles, for they spoke in slightly different tones. But as he’d learned to understand the wolves of the Silver Isles, he listened carefully.

Now, finally given a chance to speak, Kjorn lowered his head so he was not towering over the eagle, who stood on the ground and barely reached his chest. “I was raised in the Silver Isles, with Shard. Only recently have I begun to understand how arrogant my kind can be, and how much we might learn from others. I hope we can be friends, your aerie and my pride.”

“I see no pride with you.”

“In spirit,” Kjorn said evenly, “friends of mine are allies of my pride.”

She swiveled to peer at him with one eye, sizing him up, then looked to the older eagle, Grunna.

Grunna lifted one taloned foot and set it down firmly, as if testing the ground between them. “Words mean nothing. It is what you do. Time will tell. Do you have any intention of ousting the enemy that plagues us all? The enemy your forefathers drew here?”

“It has never been proven to me one way or another that these beasts came here because of my ancestors,” Kjorn said. “I won’t take responsibility for that. But Brynja tells me my wingbrother wished to help them see reason, or wished to help rid the Winderost of them if possible. If that’s his wish, then I will help too, and perhaps make friends of the Brightwing aerie and renew my ties to the Dawn Spire as well.”

Grunna considered him, then said again, “Time will tell.”

Nilsine spoke, abruptly. “And if gryfons rose against the great enemy of us all, would eagles fly at
our
side?”

Kjorn and Brynja watched the Vanhar curiously. She nudged Kjorn covertly with a hind foot.

“
If
that happened,” Hildr said, while her consort Arn made disgruntled noises, “we would consider it. Depending on the intelligence and courage of the gryfons involved.”

“I believe we can all prove ourselves on those accounts,” Nilsine said calmly, even as Brynja and Kjorn flattened their ears, feathers prickling with indignation.

“Then prove yourself,” Hildr said. “Face the enemy.”

“Gladly,” Kjorn said.

Nilsine scoffed. “You said courage
and
intelligence. It’s foolhardy to barge forward against the wyrms just to satisfy you.”

“Who said anything about barging?” Kjorn stood. “I just want to get a look at them.”

Brynja and Nilsine stared at him.

“Well?” Kjorn looked between them, and the eagles. “Didn’t you say they sleep during the day? That they avoid the sun?”

“Yes,” Nilsine said quietly.

Brynja stepped forward, tail lashing. “This is foolhardy. You said you were here to seek Shard. You must trust that it’s a fool’s mission to seek out the wyrms merely for a look, to satisfy your curiosity.”

“Shard faced them,” Kjorn said, meeting her stern face. “A lioness told me that Shard faced them, and the first time he saw them he didn’t lose himself in fear. Do you think I can do less?”

“No one is questioning your bravery,” Brynja said, and Kjorn noticed the light of admiration in her gaze at his mention of Shard’s courage. “I question your timing. If you mean to help Shard, to help us in dealing with this enemy, the time will come. Let us continue the search, instead. He may have answers we don’t know.”

“He may be dead,” Hildr said flatly. “We saw him not, after the attack on the Dawn Spire. I can’t say that no small, gray gryfon wandered Nameless into the Outlands, but he is certainly not sheltering near the Voldsom. If I had to judge, I would call him reckless.”

“You were just surprised,” Brynja said, “by how well he flew and that he spoke to you.”

Hildr fluffed and looked toward the sky, repeating only, “He may be dead.”

“Thank you,” Kjorn said tightly. “If so, then I will find where his body rests and bear it home.”

“If not in a wyrm’s belly,” chuckled Arn. Hildr pecked at his neck but didn’t send him away. Kjorn began to understand how strained gryfon-eagle relations were.

“Midragur breathes fire,” Nilsine murmured, diffusing a few of the choice, heated remarks rising in Kjorn’s head. “Could your Shard have something to do with that?”

“Shard? Set off a volcano?” Kjorn paced. “I suppose at the moment anything is possible. If I can go about raising Sunwinds, then why shouldn’t he set off a volcano?”

“I mean,” Nilsine said, “could he have gone to the Aslagard Mountains?”

That silenced them for a moment and Kjorn walked back and forth thoughtfully, restless. He was weary of hearing about the great, wrathful enemy which supposedly followed his great grandfather back from the dragon kingdom to wreak havoc. He was weary of having his mettle questioned by creatures his own father would consider lesser. Weary of being without his wingbrother who, he had to admit, knew him better than his own father after all.

Kjorn stopped walking, tail twitching, and saw that all gazes were on him.

I came here with one purpose.

“You’re right,” he said to Brynja. “I must stay on my course.” He turned to Hildr and Grunna, and ignored Arn’s smug look. The eagle probably thought him a coward, but Kjorn told himself he didn’t care. “If it’s within my power to help rid the land of these wyrms or strike a truce, I’ll do so
after
we find Shard.”

“I think that’s wise,” Grunna said softly. “If he passes this way or we hear of him, we will tell you.” She studied Kjorn quietly. “If you remain here long enough, you will face the wyrms. And all who face them feel fear.”

“I’ve felt fear,” Kjorn said.

“Not like this,” said Arn, challenging.

Grunna ignored him, focused on Kjorn. “The only trick is, to feel that fear, and face them anyway.”

Kjorn studied her fierce, wise face, and dipped his head. “When I face them, I’ll remember that.”

Brynja spoke. “If I could make a suggestion?”