A Shard of Sun (47 page)

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, smoothing the feathers back down over the wicked wound across her chest. He gently arranged her body into a dignified pose, wings outstretched, and knew she’d only died a day or so earlier. They hadn’t fed on her. They’d killed her, taken the deer, leaving only its bones, and left her body in the ashes.

Shard spoke again, his voice pebbly and cracked. “I’m sorry that I didn’t come, that I didn’t hear you when you called my name.”

His voice grew ragged and dangerously loud in his own ears.

“I’m sorry,” he choked again, thinking of her empty den, of the wyrms entering the scrap of territory she’d called home. He imagined how she’d stood her ground. She’d stood her ground, waiting.

Waiting for him. Waiting for her king.

“No more,” Shard pleaded, pressing his talons to her shoulder, and tilted his head to the hazy sky through which he saw no stars. “No more of this!”

A dry, wicked rumble trembled distantly in the air, from the canyon.

Shard whipped his head around, ears laying back.

“No more,” he hissed, and lunged into the air. He had failed to be a prince, a king, for this gryfess once.

He would not fail again.

A shriek shattered the haze.

“Yes I’m here!” he shouted. “You’ll fight an old, sick huntress and steal her kill? Well, she was one of mine, my pride! Now, fight me!”

Everything he’d plan to do, to try, to get through to them fell away in sick, righteous anger.

He heard them coming. Wings rushed the air. They’d heard. They’d heard his challenge from a league off and it would take them no time at all to reach him. Shard soared high, breaking the haze, letting the first starlight and the final glow of sunset declare his presence for all to see.

Below him, the haze swirled and, as if he stared through water, he saw shadows squirming as the wyrm horde gathered, rose, and burst from the haze. One, two, ten—he tried to count them all and failed.

Then he only saw one.

The bloodstained skin around her eye sparkled scarlet for half a breath in the last light, then the sun was gone and they all looked the same, dull color.

Shard made himself as huge as possible, flaring his wings wide with each stroke, bellowing with his dry, broken voice.

“You cannot ignore my words forever! Gryfon slayer, wrathful one, you will hear me and answer. Tell me why you’re so full of hate!”

The wyrm’s head ticked to one side. At first Shard thought she understood. Then he realized she’d caught sight of the silver around his neck.

“Or is this truly all you want?” He yanked the delicate chain from his neck and brandished it in the star light. “Are you only ignorant, greedy and jealous as the dragons believe?”

The wyrm’s head flew up and she blared a roar.

“Is this what’s so precious to you you’ve forgotten honor, and your name, and your voice? Well have it!”

Shard flung the silver chain away. Rage pumped hot through his wings and kept him strong, and he flapped higher, away from the larger horde. All the wyrms squealed with greed and threw themselves after the dainty chain as it fell. All but her.

“Or is it
this
you want?” Shard shouted, and tugged the firestones from their pouch. Keeping an iron grip, he struck them together. Sparks flared and died, tiny and useless.

The wyrm gnashed her teeth, almost seeming frustrated at her companions, squabbling over the tiny chain, below them. She turned with a shattering roar and dove upward at Shard, wing strokes hard and fast. For a heartbeat, Shard stared. She hadn’t gone after the chain.

He knew he should dodge, or charge, or do something, but he only stared, mesmerized by her baleful eyes and jaws, slowly grinning wide. The meat stench on her breath snapped him from it.

Fumblingly he stowed the fire stones and whipped up higher, grasping to remember all he’d learned.

They are an ancient race.…

A strange, warm light rose from somewhere. As if his sparks had set the haze alight, Shard saw an orange glow suffusing the shroud below them, a league off from where he’d flown and shouted his challenge.

.…
with an ancient memory.

Shard gasped for air and for clarity, darting up as jaws snapped near his tail. He banked and fell to one side and the wyrm tilted to follow.

Throwing himself around to face her, Shard beat his wings hard, hovering. “This cannot be all that you are!”

The wyrm flapped her massive wings, hunching up to his level and bearing her great fangs again. Sharp, snapping roars and squeals grated up from the greedy wyrms below, a storm of thrashing wings and wrestling reptilian bodies in the haze.

For a moment, their eyes met. With a sharp breath, Shard saw a familiar light there, one he’d seen during the battle of the Dawn Spire. First he’d thought it was like a serpent gaze, meant to snare and hold him. And he was held.

He gazed deep as their wings stirred the wind. Shard felt breathless, as if he could dive straight into her black, gleaming eyes, seeking that one point of light. For half a breath, he saw broad, rolling moors carpeted with reddish purple heather, and beyond that, constant, drizzling gray skies and hills brighter green than the emerald room of the chronicler.

A shriek from below yanked him from the vision, and he shook his head hard. Above him the stars blazed, the back of Midragur, the star dragon. Shard felt the dream net and thought, maybe, he could speak to her. He thought of the Copper Cliff, the nesting cliffs, the Sun Isle, laying the Silver Isles over the images of green hills and rain.

My home,
he thought desperately, painting it for her as he had for Groa. If she saw his dream, or understood, she gave no indication. A low, hideous snarl began in her throat. Shard scrambled for all the chronicler had told him.

They live to be very old.

…the last named wyrm was called Rhydda.

Rhydda.

“Rhydda?” He barely realized they both still hung in the air, staring at each other, his shoulders cramped from hovering.

Her jaws closed, nostrils flaring with gusts of heavy breath.

A snapping howl from one of the fighting wyrms drew her gaze down and a growl curled again in her huge chest.

Shard flung out the name again like a weapon. “Rhydda!”

She sank down, tossing her horns with a snarl.

“Rhydda,” Shard called again, extending his talons as if to implore her. “I name you! Are you the same? Have you lived, did you live, in the time of Kajar? Do you seek justice for some wrong?”

She didn’t attack, didn’t flee, didn’t respond, but beat her broad, veined wings to hover again.

Risking all, Shard winged forward again, within striking distance, to see her eyes.

“
Rhydda.
Did you once fly to the Sunland…”

She’d stopped listening. Something else drew her gaze.

The glowing haze. Shard looked too.

The golden light grew beneath them like a second sunrise, too bright and orange to be a trick of the moon.

It looked like…

“Fire,” Shard whispered, shocked, wondering if his sparks had caught on something below. But that was impossible. Foolish. He’d needed a tinder bundle and kindling to start one before.

The wyrm he’d named Rhydda hesitated, baleful gaze sliding between the growing wash of light and Shard, then to her band of wyrms who still fought over the chain like buzzards with a hare. The cacophony washed over them and the land like a thunderstorm.

Then she chose. She opened her jaws in a roar that felt as if it split Shard’s bones, her wings stroking forward. Shard held fast to his strand of wind, opened his chest and screamed wordlessly in challenge, breaking into a lion’s roar at the end.

His every feather stood on end. He stretched his talons wide as if to embrace her.

The wyrm closed, fanged jaws yawning wide, and her huge, bloody claws reached up toward him.

Shard scooped his wings, readying to dive.

Then, as if his roar had summoned the very flames and warriors of Tyr himself, the haze below them exploded upward in fire and gryfon screams.

S
HOCK BOLTED THROUGH
S
HARD
and he tucked a wing to roll away as Rhydda thundered past, jaws snapping hard enough to crunch stone. Shard circled tightly underneath her as she re-grouped, and he tried to make sense of the lashing smoke, confusion of wings, shouts, and fires everywhere.

Through the thrashing bodies, whirling flames and smoke, he realized with stupid glee that an entire war band of gryfons had appeared, bearing torches.

Among them, he heard a familiar voice calling commands.

Impossible hope leaped through him at that voice. Kjorn.

Fire flashed off of golden feathers. “
Kjorn!”

A chorus of shouts and familiar voices answered him, and five gryfons shot higher skyward, two bearing torches.

“Brynja!” His own voice sounded high and coarse.

Briefly, he saw her—like a dream, he saw Brynja and Dagny, bearing torches and seeking him against the sky.

“I’m here!” he shouted, and sucked a breath as he plummeted down to meet them, Rhydda turning her huge body above them and readying to dive.

Then, Kjorn was before him.

Shard flared to hard stop and they stared at each other a moment, even as the murderous wyrm circled above them, checked only for a moment by the surprising sight of fire.

“I’ve been all over Tyr’s creation to find you,” shouted the big, gold prince over the roiling battle, “and where should I, but here in a pack of—”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Shard offered, breathless. “Later!”

Gryfons winged up to them with torches—Dagny, then he saw Asvander, and another, lanky brown gryfon he didn’t know, wearing a thin gold chain.

“Is this him?”

“Yes!” laughed a familiar voice, and Shard flapped around to see Brynja, on his level. Brynja, bright with torchlight—flying with fire as he had taught her.

She met his eyes, and said, “Shard, just like the eagles.”

Shard shook his head. “What—?”

“Now!” Asvander shouted, and he and Kjorn swung up higher into the sky. “Shard!”

Jolted, Shard joined them, with a last look at Brynja, but she was back to her task of drawing the wyrm’s gaze with her fire. The brown male Shard didn’t know swung off to one side, joined by two more gryfons. He saw a third triad winging toward them from the orange haze and the squirming, thunderous chaos below.

The wyrm Rhydda seemed to have lost track of Shard, and chose her new target—the flicking torches, Brynja and Dagny. Shard flew snug to Kjorn and Asvander. It was as if he’d never left either them, and none of them needed to speak. He understood what Brynja meant, and why she’d said it, with no time to explain.

Like the eagles.

Rhydda swooped down. Brynja and Dagny dove, their torches threatening to gutter out, the uncertain light drawing her furious attention.

By silent understanding, Kjorn, Asvander and Shard shot down after them, an arrow with Kjorn on point. Like the eagles of the Voldsom, they would attack above and from the sides, to bring down a much more massive foe.

Brynja and Dagny brought the wyrm up short by flaring to sudden stops and bearing the torches high, threatening her gaping jaws with fire. Rhydda flared with a hollow grunt, whipping her spade tail toward the gryfesses—but they scattered away.

Kjorn slammed down between her shoulders. Shard landed hard on her haunch, Asvander on a thrashing wing.

She wailed in rage, then a long, low bellow Shard suspected was to summon help.

Shard  focused on digging his talons into her leathery hide, timing quick, hard shoves with Kjorn to push her down. They were one single, fighting mind. His body rocked with her hard, deep wing strokes.  He felt her jerking with the impact of more gryfons, from the sides, from below. Like the eagles.

“Your idea?” he shouted at Kjorn, and the golden prince shrieked a laugh, wings flashing wide.

“I think Caj would be proud, don’t you?”

Rhydda’s head flailed at the end of her muscled neck,  the thick, sharp horns seeking any target. Shard heard a scream, and knew a gryfon had fallen. Blood pounding, he dug in, shoving. Rhydda’s spade tail curved, seeking targets but ruining her flight coordination. They fell, a knotted, writhing mess of gryfon and wyrm, leathery hide and claw and talon.

Haze and fire whirled around them.

They fell into the larger, squirming mass of battling wyrms and gryfons.

A smaller wyrm of near black coloring darted in, claws splayed toward Asvander. The Lakelander shoved off and away. The black wyrm ignored him, circling tightly to seek another target without harming the larger she-wyrm.

Kjorn roared a challenge, still dug into Rhydda’s shoulders. He clamped his beak on her neck. The smaller wyrm’s spade tail lashed toward him, but he didn’t move. With a roar, Shard leaped, throwing his body against the non-lethal muscle near the spade.

“Fly, Kjorn!”

Looking stunned by his near-death, Kjorn disengaged and fell away, swearing.

The gryfons holding Rhydda peeled off as other wyrms thrashed away from their fights and closed in to save her.

Shard let the wyrm fling him off his tail, and rolled through the air, flaring only when he sensed enough room for his wings.

The wyrms screamed in renewed fury, and as Shard righted himself and glided fast, seeking Kjorn, he saw why. Through the fire he made out smaller, darting, winged shapes pelting toward the wyrm’s heads, their faces, their eyes.

“Eagles!” Dagny’s bright voice was unmistakable through the din. The unexpected assistance drove the gryfons to fight with fresh vigor, reform their triad attacks, and drive at the wyrms.

And the doubled assault was too much for the foe.

Shard saw Rhydda, clear of her attacks, bleeding but whole, flying up over the clash.

Her bone-rattling roar sliced through the fighting. The wyrms broke off. One by one, they broke from the knot of battle. And fled.