The Golden Griffin (Book 3) (12 page)

When Daria was halfway across, she addressed the griffin in a stern voice. “Now listen to me. I’ve got a pair of rabbits. Nice and tender and tasty. I’ve also got this knife, but don’t be scared. It’s to get the spear out.”

She gestured with the knife to her shoulder blade, roughly equivalent to where the animal suffered the lodged spear in his own body.

“You’re no dumb beast—you know what I’m doing. And you’re not a fledgling, either. You can take a little pain. I’ll make it hurt as little as I can, but it will hurt.”

Daria spoke in her most commanding voice. Inside, she did not feel so confident. She felt young and terrified and convinced she was making a stupid mistake. Parents would be sharing her fate to their little ones as a warning for generations to come.

Daddy, Daddy, tell me the story about the girl who fed herself to the golden griffin.

She took a deep breath and stepped right up to the rock. The golden griffin looked down at her with unblinking eyes. His enormous curved beak lay inches from her scalp. Daria slowly laid the two rabbits at his talons. He gobbled them down.

While he ate, she edged around the back of the rock to his lion-like haunches. She put the dagger in her teeth and climbed up. The rock was warm. Daria took the hunting knife in her right hand, stood clear of the back claws, and reached out her other hand to touch the griffin’s golden fur.

He screamed and whirled on her. Daria barely held her balance above the swirling river. She almost swallowed the wad of moonbalm in her cheek. The hunting knife trembled in her hand and it was all she could do not to clench it in front of her like a weapon. With effort, she tucked it into her belt.

For a long moment, the griffin stared at her, hissing and screaming. She found her voice.

“Stop that. It’s not helping. Now you listen to me. Either you calm down or I’m leaving. And that spear is going to stay in your shoulder. You won’t be flying anywhere and nobody will bring you food. You’ll die, do you understand me?”

He glared back. Daria shot a glance to her mother, who stood on the riverbank, clenching and unclenching her hands. Daria had to settle this quickly or Palina would run back for Joffa and Yulia, then make a charge to free her.

Daria turned back to the griffin. She tucked the dagger behind her back and reached her other hand for the animal’s neck. He opened his beak, but didn’t bite. She buried her fingers in the warm feathers. For two or three minutes, she did nothing but stroke his neck.

“There, that’s a good boy. See, it doesn’t hurt. I know you’re wild—so am I. But we can be friends. I’m going to help you and it will feel better. You’ll see.”

She kept her hand in contact with his body at all times as she worked her way around his injured side. As she moved, she continued with the reassuring talk.

“My name is Daria. I have flown griffins all my life. That’s right, I know all about your kind. We are great friends, the riders and their griffins. We hunt together, eat together. We protect these mountains and keep them wild and safe.”

Her hand closed on the shaft of the spear and slid to where it embedded in the griffin’s shoulder. The animal shuddered when she felt around the wound. But he didn’t fight her. He knew.

A delicious shiver shot down Daria’s spine. She had spoken to a golden griffin of the Wylde. Seen into its mind and communicated her intent.

She prodded until she found where the barb hooked into its flesh. Right through the muscle. Not so deep that it would render the griffin crippled when she cut it loose, but the pain would be excruciating.

She removed the hunting knife from her belt. “This is the hard part. It’s going to hurt.”

She pushed around the wad of moonbalm in her cheek. Mixed with her saliva, it worked to numb her lips and gums.

Daria grasped the spear shaft in her left hand, leaned against the griffin’s shoulder, and took a deep breath while she readied the knife. She thrust in the tip of the knife. The griffin kicked his back legs. A wing smacked her in the head.

She cut the muscle, twisted the spear, and yanked. It came free. She threw it into the water. Blood streamed from the wound.

All the while the griffin screamed and thrashed. Daria dropped her knife and clung to its side, tucked herself in ahead of the claws. She grabbed tight at the fur with one hand, spat the moonbalm into her other palm, then slapped it onto the wound and pressed down.

The griffin gradually stopped struggling. At last it lay down, panting and blowing. Daria held the moonbalm in place. She spoke soothing words.

She relaxed her grip. The wound was still bleeding, but a trickle now instead of a flood. Her hand was numb from pressing into the poultice, her lips tingled, and she guessed that it had eased much of the pain. In addition, it would cleanse the wound and aid the healing process.

“Thank you for letting me help,” Daria said. “May your flight be swift and sure, and may the sun shine upon your aerie.”

She slid into the freezing river and let it wash the griffin’s blood away before she continued toward shore. The griffin keened softly behind her.

When she arrived, Palina hugged her tightly. “I was so scared. You were on the other side and I couldn’t see what he was doing. I thought he’d attacked you.”

“He was frightened and hurt, but he knew I’d come to help.”

Daria let her mother dress her. Her nerves still vibrated, and she felt as alive as she’d ever been. The golden griffin was so big, so powerful. And not even fully grown yet. He would be formidable indeed when he reached his full size and power. He lay on the boulder, still watching her.

Daria finished lacing her boots, and tied on her cloak.

“It was worth the risk. He’s very intelligent, Mother.”

“Let’s hope he’ll tell his friends so they don’t try to kill us. Are you ready to fly?”

Daria hesitated. An idea began to form. “Not yet.”

“It’s not like you can watch him recover. He won’t be flying again for a day or two.”

“Exactly. He’ll be hungry.”

“He won’t starve in two days. In fact, maybe it will get him in the air quicker if he’s got a good appetite.” Palina tugged at her daughter’s arm, but the younger woman resisted moving from the riverbank.

“Did you see them in battle? Magnificent. Imagine if we’d had a few of them at the Battle of Arvada. Father would still be alive.”

“You can’t change that now.”

“And what about that dragon we saw yesterday? Imagine if we could count on golden griffins at our side.”

“You’re not going to convince a flock of wild griffins to attack at your command. I don’t care how intelligent they are.”

Daria smiled. “I wasn’t thinking about a flock of griffins. I was thinking of one griffin in particular.”

Palina took a step back.“That’s impossible. You couldn’t possibly—”

“Oh, yes I could, Mother. I’m going to tame that beast and ride him into battle.”

Chapter Ten

Kallia wasn’t asleep when Whelan woke beside her. She’d been awake at least an hour, unsettled by a nightmare whose details faded quickly, but whose sensations lingered. A cool breeze fluttered at the curtains. It brought in the scent of lemon trees from the garden below.

Whelan didn’t speak, but slipped from bed and dressed himself. She guessed it was a full three hours until dawn. He was on his way to the barracks, to make sure the men were up and ready to march at dawn with all their equipment and gear. It would take some time to get so many men through the city and out the Great Gates toward the Tothian Way.

He took soft steps across the stone floor to the door and unlatched it. When he didn’t open the door, Kallia cracked her eyes to look.

Whelan stood, his back to her, his head bowed. He sighed so long and deep that she almost broke her resolve and spoke to him. But he didn’t need the distraction. She’d meet him at the gates to say her goodbyes.

At last he opened the door and slipped into the hall. Kallia caught murmured instructions to the guards posted outside, then the door shut and left her in silence.

A second bed sat on the other side of the room. A small figure lay beneath the blankets, sleeping quietly. Whelan’s daughter, Sofiana. She’d gone to bed fully expecting to ride out with the men that morning. If she’d even suspected that Whelan intended for her to stay behind in Balsalom while he rode to war, she’d have been up and dressed and waiting.

There was no getting back to sleep now. Kallia rose and made her way to the balcony. The gardens stretched below: flowers, fountains, statues of strange beasts. Much of the palace grounds had been repaired since the uprising against the dark wizard’s pasha, but her old apartments remained in ruins.

There were guards in the gardens, hidden, watching at all times, although she could also see the normal patrol making its way along the footpaths. Then, along an arcade passageway below and to the right, Kallia spotted Whelan’s familiar stride. Long and purposeful. Two of his men flanked him, one with a torch, the other a drawn sword. Each was tall and muscular. Moments later, the three men had disappeared into one of the lower buildings.

Below Kallia’s palace lay the manors and lesser palaces of the guildmasters and viziers. After that was a warren of alleys that led into progressively poorer parts of the city, until finally emerging in the bazaars and souks. The guild towers kept silent vigil in that part of the city.

Even now, when most of the city slept, Kallia could still feel it pulsing, like a heartbeat slowed but never silenced. When the breeze shifted, she heard the men who went through the streets marking the hours with bells, roosters, even a woman shouting at her husband, a handful of words swept up to her like leaves on the wind, before the conversation vanished. Balsalom was unlike any other city, born of war and peopled by refugees, slave and free. It was both of the desert and yet close enough to the mountains to feel their influence. She loved it.

The bed creaked at her back. Footfalls on stone.

“Go back to bed, Ninny,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s still the middle of the night.”

The girl didn’t answer.

“Whelan said not to wake you,” Kallia said. “We’ll meet him at the gates.”

Still nothing.

Maybe she’d misheard the footsteps. She turned as a dark figure slipped catlike through the curtains. His face was wrapped, with only the eyes visible, glittering dark and deadly at her. He held a long, slender dagger in his right hand.

An assassin.

Kallia shouted her alarm and reached for her own dagger. But of course she wore her loose-fitting paijams and had set aside her weapon before going to bed.

He sprang for her with dagger flashing in the moonlight. Kallia fell back against the stone railing. She got her arm up and deflected the blow past her shoulder. It grazed her with its tip and left a searing pain in its wake.

“Help!” she cried as she struggled with her attacker. “Assassin!”

Her cries alerted the guards in the garden, who shouted to each other as they raced down the paths to enter her building from below. But the door to her room had not opened; either the guards in the hall had not heard through the thick doors or the assassin had dispensed of them before entering.

And what about Sofiana? By the Brothers, don’t let her be hurt.

She grabbed at the assassin’s wrist as he brought the blade around for a second thrust. He was no taller than her, but stronger, and wrenched free. He pulled back to thrust it toward her belly. This time he had her pinned against the rail. There was no way to get free in time.

And so I die.

Her unborn baby would die, too. As would many of the guards on duty tonight. The captain of the guard would tear them apart in his rage. No doubt he would send the survivors to the slave market. Then he would kill himself.

All these thoughts raced through her mind in a flicker while she braced for the dagger to plunge into her belly.

Then the assassin stiffened. He fell face down at her feet. A crossbow bolt lay buried in his back, and he reached around to grab at it with clenching fingers. Sofiana stood behind him with a crossbow in hand. She saw the man still struggling and without hesitation tore loose his knife and cut his throat. When it was over, the girl let the knife fall. She gave Kallia a curt nod.

Kallia stared. Sofiana was two months short of her thirteenth birthday. Yet she’d hacked down this assassin without hesitation and now stood, seemingly undisturbed, with only the faintest frown betraying any emotion.

Men burst into the room with torches and drawn swords. They found Kallia and Sofiana on the balcony, and the khalifa only just stopped them from attacking the girl before she could explain what had happened. The guards in the hall lay dead, throats cut.

Kallia turned away from the bloody spectacle and gave the captain a hard look. “There are fifty men in the palace guards. So why is it that a child had to protect my life?”

The captain threw himself at Kallia’s feet. “Kill me quickly, I beg of you.”

One of the other men handed his sword to the khalifa. The others looked equally stricken, as if terrified that her wrath wouldn’t stop with the captain. Kallia Saffa was known for her mercy, but surely that wouldn’t extend here. Never before had assassins penetrated so far into her quarters, and they would be fortunate if she rendered a bloody judgment now, before the grand vizier turned them over to the torturers guild.

“Stand up,” she said. “Take this body and scour the palace grounds. I want every pantry searched, every wardrobe turned inside out. If there is another assassin, you had better find him. But,” she added with a sigh, “none of you will lose your heads.”

“Thank you,” the captain said with a gasp. He rose to his feet, face drained of blood.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” she added. “I’m sure there will be lashes. My viziers will demand that much, at least.”

#

Kallia and Sofiana watched from the patio as dozens of men with torches and swords crisscrossed the garden. Even if the terrifying assassination attempt hadn’t rendered sleep impossible, the shouting and lights would have done the same.