The Golden Griffin (Book 3) (24 page)

Chantmer glanced around the courtyard, as if looking for someone. When his back was turned, he whispered a counter spell to whatever was digging in his head. The itching feeling passed.

“No wonder the sultan wants me to watch you,” the eunuch added. “I leave you for five minutes, and already you’re working mischief. Come, the sultan has a scroll he wishes you to translate.”

He turned on his heel. Chantmer clenched his teeth and followed. His first step brought a wave of dizziness, and he staggered before catching his balance.

The simple spell had cost him dearly. He wished he had the strength to silence this insolent man. He must regain his powers.

Chapter Eighteen

Griffin riders stared when Daria flew into the encampment on Talon’s back. Their mounts struggled against tethers, flapped wings, and tried to get airborne. The sight of the wild golden griffin made them anxious to either fight or flee.

Talon descended into the squawking, flapping chaos calmly, seemingly above the fray. One of the white-crowned griffins nipped at his wing. He whipped his head around and glared. The other griffin shied away with a nervous cry. Riders tugged at tethers to get their mounts to a safe distance. A few riders scowled at Daria, but most stared in awe.

Daria’s mother watched her descend, then turned back to a heated discussion with Daria’s uncle, Jhon Kellsworth. Palina and Jhon had spread a large sheepskin map over a flat rock in the middle of the slope. Two of the Swansin men squatted nearby, repairing leather armor, while one of the Swansin women and two of her children—too young for battle—attached iron tips to eight-foot lances made of ash wood.

The hillside was the site of some ancient holy site. In addition to the flat rock on which Palina and Jhon studied the map, there were a number of giant cut stones that ran in a semi-circle across the grassy slope. They faced the khalifates on the distant plains thousands of feet below. The largest stones were twice the height of a man and had long-since toppled to their sides, but a number of smaller stones, five or six feet high, remained standing in the turf. Riders had tethered their mounts to many of them while they busied themselves with other matters.

Daria’s first inclination was to do the same, but she remembered what the old man in the mountains had told her. Instead, she swept back her cloak and put her hands on her hips.

“If I leave you alone, you won’t fly off or misbehave, will you?”

Talon squawked.

“I know, believe me. But you won’t earn their respect if you cause mischief. You’re not tethered, it’s up to you.”

Daria collected her breastplate and her father’s hunting horn before she left him to make her way to her mother and uncle. She threw the horn’s strap over her shoulder and carried the breastplate under her arm.

As she turned to go, Talon waddled after her.

“No, you stay here.”

He squawked again.

She made an awkward squawk back. Stay.

He answered. I go.

“Fine. Have it your way.”

The Kellsworth tower sat on the hillside above the slope, just visible through the trees on the edge of the grass. A face watched from the uppermost window, and someone—Daria’s cousin, she guessed—waved an all-clear to two more riders who soared in from the south.

Her Uncle Jhon flashed a warm smile as Daria approached. She embraced him, then her mother.

“So this is the golden griffin I’ve heard so much about,” Jhon said. “Is he ready?”

Talon cocked his head and eyed Jhon as a robin might eye a tasty worm. Daria rubbed her hand against his neck. He twitched restlessly and watched as several riders took their mounts to the air. They wheeled overhead, charging and feinting with the new lances.

“As ready as any of us,” Daria said. “Where’s the dragon?”

Palina turned to the sheepskin map. She put down a black stone north of the Tothian Way. “Right here.”

The map itself showed mountains, rivers, forests, and canyons. It marked the castles of Montcrag and the Teeth along the Tothian Way as the road passed through the Spine. It showed the Old Road and the Wylde to the north of that, and the highest peaks along the range. It didn’t show towers or hidden aeries. Some of these had been marked, however, with small pebbles. A white stone showed their current position, perhaps a hundred miles south of the black stone.

“So far already,” Daria said, dismayed. “Does that mean all the Wylde is burning? It must be a hundred miles below where we saw it a few days ago.”

“Not all of the Wylde is burning,” Palina said. “But enough is.”

“It’s a wasteland up there,” Jhon said. “Mountains charred from the foothills to the tree line. Soot falling from the sky like ash. Rivers running black and dirty. Animals fleeing or burning alive by the thousands.”

Daria looked at the sky. It was blue, clear in every direction as far as the eye could see. And warm, with the air coming up from the south a welcome change from the chilly weather of the past week. But those same warm air currents pushed the smoke and haze ahead of them. She was sure if she rounded the giant hump of a mountain above and behind them, she’d see a vast stretch of brown and black smoke hanging all along the range to the north.

“The dragon is lying in a narrow gorge near the Old Road,” Jhon said. “Dragon kin and their wasps guard it, together with riders on horses. Enemy soldiers. I didn’t expect to see them this far from Veyre. Not after the beating they took in the battle.”

Daria thought about Markal’s talk of ravagers on the road. Were they with the dragon now?

“We scouted the area but didn’t dare risk a closer look,” Jhon continued. “Not with so many wasps to give chase. I’m not sure what they’re doing down there, if the dragon needs its rest or if it’s injured. Maybe something else.”

“They’re stoking its fires,” Daria said. “It used everything it had burning the forests, and now they’re feeding it charcoal.”

“For how long?” Jhon asked.

“A day, a week. Who knows? But sooner or later it will be up and destroying again.”

“When it comes, we’ll make our stand here,” Palina said. “Wait until the enemy comes around the corner, then ambush them.”

Daria shook her head. “No, that’s not the way.”

“We know the terrain,” her mother pressed. “We can duck into the forest, or fight over the grass if the enemy burns the trees. The Kellsworths have a good watch tower, perfect for spotting distant enemies.”

Uncle Jhon looked worried. This was his home she was talking about. “What if they know of this place already? They could swing west, come over the mountains, and be on us before we have sounded the alarm.”

“How would they know?” Palina asked.

Daria cut them off before they continued that particular line of thought. “It doesn’t matter if they do or don’t. We’re fools if we wait for the battle to come to us.”

“It’s what we should have done in the first place,” Palina said. “If we had, your father would still be alive. The mountains wouldn’t be burning, because the enemy wouldn’t even know we were here. They’d carry on their war with the flatlanders, and it would be none of our business.”

“It isn’t that sort of war, Mother.”

“You don’t know that. You can’t be sure of anything. If we stay here, maybe they’ll be content to fly around for a while, burning, then head east to rejoin the war.”

“Do you really believe that?” Daria looked at Jhon. “Or you?”

They didn’t answer. Palina stared at the map. She rested a hand on the black stone and rubbed her thumb along its side.

“This is a war of domination,” Daria said. “Everything will fall. Balsalom, the Western Khalifates. Eriscoba. The Golden Tower. The mountain castles that guard the Way. They’re going to burn the mountains from one end of the Spine to the other. The lucky ones will die.”

“We can’t survive this,” Palina said. “Look at us. Fifty riders. That’s all we can muster.”

“More are coming,” Jhon said.

“Not enough.”

“Have the Wingets arrived?” Daria asked.

“Not yet, but they’re on their way,” her mother said. “They’ve given plenty already, but they’re coming.”

The Winget clan had suffered terrible losses at Sleptstock, but Daria thought they could still muster a dozen griffins.

“When?” Daria asked.

“Tomorrow morning, at the latest,” Palina said.

“Maybe a few others, too,” Jhon said.

As if to punctuate his words, a griffin dropped from the sky. Oh its back was Kellum Highfall, a dour rider from the north country, whose wife had fallen in the Battle of Arvada.

“Then we’ll wait until morning,” Daria said. “Whoever we have at dawn, that will be our army.”

Daria lifted the hunting horn to her lips and let out a short blast, followed by a second, longer blast. The sound echoed over the peaks that rose behind the hillside.

Griffins dropped from the sky. Other riders untethered their mounts from the ancient stones and led them toward where Daria, her mother, and her uncle stood around the flat stone. The force of beating wings sent a wind that lifted the stray hairs from Daria’s braid and swirled them around her face. Talons and paws tore at the turf as griffins landed, and a few griffins nipped irritably at others when they came too close. They all kept their distance from the golden griffin.

“No more flying for tonight,” Daria told the assembled throng. Talon was growing jittery, and she put a hand on his head to calm him.

“We’ll need our strength for the morning,” she continued. “Find whatever place you can to hole up for the night. Be ready to fly at dawn.”

#

Daria’s uncle brought their griffins into a separate room off the aerie and made beds for Daria and her mother by the fire. Daria’s younger sister Lacey joined them later, having been busy bedding down Joffa and Yuli. Lacey was only sixteen, and had been deemed too young to fly at Slepstock and Arvada. Now, a few short months later, she’d be flying into battle for the first time.

Between the deerskin rugs, the pillows stuffed with griffin down, and the warmth of the fire and her two companions, Daria was comfortable enough. But her stomach refused to unclench, and she kept worrying about tomorrow. Lacey and her mother fell asleep at once, their breathing regular, peaceful expressions on their faces. How did they manage?

It wasn’t fear of combat that she wrestled with, Daria realized. There was nothing she could do about the actual fighting but face it as bravely as possible. She had a superior mount. She enjoyed excellent balance and better skill with the swords than most riders, and was certainly better with her weapons than any dragon kin. She was not even particularly afraid of death. If she fell, the Harvester would gather her soul and sow it anew. That was the way of the world.

No, what terrified her was the crushing responsibility. If she failed, if the dragon overwhelmed her riders, her people would be destroyed. The dragon and the vermin that flanked it would fly unopposed from the frozen north to the Southern Seas.

Burning everything.

#  

The next morning, griffin riders rose in a single, massive flock from the hillside beneath the Kellsworth tower. Daria blew her horn, and they turned north. It had snowed on the highest peaks during the night, and as they climbed in elevation, the forest beneath lay crowned in brilliant white. The wind burrowed through her heavy cloak. Her gloved hands grew numb. The air smelled of smoke and fire.

Talon stretched into the lead. He was swifter than the others and more eager. He screamed in joy. Daria pulled back on his tether and leaned to speak in his ear, warning him to silence. They were still miles and miles from their quarry, but she needed him to understand the importance of surprise.

Find them on the ground. Smother them from above.

They flew high in the mountains on the west side of the Spine in a glorious, sweeping phalanx of beating wings, helmets glinting in the sun, and iron-tipped lances.

They flew first over Estmor, then Crestwell, then finally spotted the Old Road where it snaked its way through the mountains. Daria pulled to the front of the formation. She made a hand signal that passed through the flock. They cut east.

Twenty minutes later, the flock crested the mountain and swooped over the other side. A narrow fissure spread down from the mountain, its guts carved by melt water. Farther down the mountain, the fissure widened into a canyon, and there Daria spotted the enemy camp. Dragon kin had pitched tents along the river. The dragon itself sat in the midst of a protective ring of poles, their ends sharpened and pointing to the sky. Outside the sharpened stakes lay a pile of charred wood that the dragon kin used to stoke its fires.

It was enormous, seemingly grown once again. Its head alone was big enough to bite a griffin in two. Its mouth was open, and two dragon kin, not yet spotting the griffins coming down against the sun, shoveled charred wood into its jaws. Smoke seeped out of its mouth and nostrils, and she remembered griffins plummeting to the ground, consumed in flames. Her heart hardened.

But something was wrong. Where were the rest of the dragon kin? And the wasps? Where had they gone?

The dragon spotted them. It lifted its head and bellowed. Fire gushed out. One of the dragon kin in front of its head fell back, screaming and beating himself furiously as fire engulfed his clothes. The other man threw himself clear. Still no wasps, or other kin besides these two.

Daria lifted her father’s horn. She let loose two echoing blasts. Then she drew her swords and followed her lancers into a dive.

The dragon swung its tail and smashed aside the protective ring of sharpened poles. It spread its huge wings, batted them, and lifted slowly from the ground.

The first lancers struck. Their weapons shattered off the hard scales on the dragon’s back. It swung its tail and sent them careening away.

Then the monster was airborne and blasting everything around it with fire.

Chapter Nineteen

The dragon let loose its flames, and soon the entire hillside was engulfed. It exposed its belly as it rose. The underside gleamed like a wall of obsidian scales from the tip of its tail to its enormous head, but that belly had to be a softer target than attacking the knobby, granite-like protuberances on its back. Daria formed ranks with her remaining lancers. There were at least thirty of them. Others, their ash poles shattered and useless, formed a smaller, second group to harry the dragon from its flanks and hopefully distract those lethal blasts of fire.