On the Subject of Griffons

by Lindsey Byrd

  They had to go.

  Kera knew it deep in her bones. The fire would flicker out soon. It would die and then they would die. Kera dared to pull a hand from her ear. It felt like a nail was being hammered through her skull. Her eyes squeezed shut against the sensation. No complaints to the manager. Every worker was too incapacitated to move.

  “Aurora!” she shouted, tears falling from her eyes. She threw a hand out and grabbed Aurora’s arm. “We need to go!” Kera couldn’t even hear herself. She doubted Aurora could hear her. But Aurora’s eyes were fixed on her lips. She nodded. No complaints from her.

  Aurora pulled her hands from her ears. She locked in place the moment the sounds assailed her. Tears pressed from her eyes, but she persevered. She kissed her daughter’s cheek. Kera pressed Aiden into Faith’s care with trembling fingers. Aurora held out her hand for Kera, and together they stood. They gagged on the putrid air, but they stumbled together to the horses.

  The wraith screeched louder. Nausea swirled up Kera’s throat. She spewed bile on the ground by her husband’s saddle, but she never stopped. They had mere moments to spare. With trembling fingers and protesting bodies, she and Aurora saddled their horses. Blankets, bags, tack, the works. Everything went into place. Waves of dizziness shuddered through Kera’s body, but she would not submit. The books were tucked back into their pouches.

  All at once, the noise stopped.

  Kera fell to her knees; the relief was as overwhelming as it was instantaneous. She choked on another mouthful of bile as her muscles trembled. “Get on the horse,” she gagged. “Get on the horse.” Tilting her head toward her children, she met Faith’s eyes. “Get on the horse.”

  Faith dropped her hands from her head. She pushed herself to her feet. She swayed, but she made it. Her hands reached down for Aiden; together they walked. They walked and Kera rose. On the other side of the fire, the wraith lingered. Watching. Looming. It knew. It knew how close they were to walking to it, and it waited. Faith tripped, but Kera caught her shoulder. Aurora helped her on the other side. They worked together and hoisted her up. Push here, pull there. Faith was saddled. Aiden next.

  The wind began to pick up. The wraith’s jaw chewed on air, foul teeth grinding and releasing like a broken mill. It reached toward them one final time. The flames flickered.

  Aurora and Kera mounted their brave steeds and the line broke.

  Both horses burst forward and flew into the night.

  Holly rode like a cloud. Her long legs stretched out in front of her and her head reached forward, neck extended as far as it could go. Her ears aimed precisely where she was looking. Kera kicked her heels into Holly’s body. She held her son in one arm, and imagined herself as a soldier in war.

  This was how her husband would have sat. One hand holding his reins, one hand around the handle of his sword. Shouting for his men to line up around him. Charging headlong into battle with John Sarren on one side and Amit san Ruug on the other. They were the best of friends and the best of soldiers. Together they rode forth on their great steeds to conquer all foes before them. With guns and swords, whole armies surrounding them, and support on all sides, they would have had no need to fear.

  But Kera didn’t want to fight the wraith. She just wanted it gone.

  Kera kicked her heels into Holly’s side, and Holly ran like she was twenty years younger. She stretched out her geriatric legs. She huffed and she galloped through the trees like no other horse had ever galloped before.

  Aurora’s gelding was struggling to catch up and still Holly flew. There was death on her tail, and she had no interest in letting it catch her. She was a mad creature, every bit as fearless as Mori always described, and Kera could feel his faith in the horse. She could see how her husband had survived the war.

  It had been Holly. It had always been Holly. Holly had saved him time and again.

  And now, years after she’d survived a war with the most reckless soldier in Absalon riding on her back, she looked death in the eye one last time. She stamped her feet into the dirt, snorting air like a dragon heaving fire and brimstone. No, she seemed to say. Not today.

  Kera was a soldier riding into battle, sword in hand. She was a spy flying through the night, missive pressed to her breast. She was a mother, holding her son to her heart and urging her horse forward with every bit of strength she had in her body. She would not die today, and—gods help her—she would outrun this wraith.

  Still, she flew.

  Holly burst from the trees. Her hooves dug in, making the transition from grass to road easily. She shifted her stride without so much as a break in her step. Her back rode smooth and even. Kera’s seat was hardly altered. She kept her arm locked around Aiden. She slapped the reins against Holly’s neck and scanned the horizon.

  Even though they had one wraith chasing after them, it was impossible to tell if they were running toward another. Aurora shouted, and Kera turned her head to look. The wind blew her hair askew, and it wrapped around her face, shrouding her in darkness. She couldn’t see. Black strands whipped into her eyes. She closed them and twisted forward. With her hands full, she couldn’t wipe the locks from her face.

  Shaking her head left and right, she grimaced as Holly let out a furious noise. Slowing as Kera provided mixed signals by jerking on the reins even as she kept kicking Holly forward. She clicked her tongue as loud as she could, urging Holly faster, to go! She said anything she could think of, but in the end all synonyms devolved into: Move. Move now. Don’t stop.

  Aurora’s gelding picked up his pace. They were riding side by side, the night growing loud all around them. Kera opened her eyes and could just make out the bends in the road. Holly never faltered. She guided them forward, pumping her powerful legs with unmatched perseverance. She turned and carried them to safety as if it was the last thing she would ever do. They were her priority, and all Kera could do was beg her to work harder.

  A screeching noise sounded far too close to Kera’s head, and she twisted. The wraith flew by her shoulder, its skeletal face bright as snow. Its jaw dropped, hideous and laughing. The hole in its head was a mocking divot that proved how immortal it was. It reached out to grab her. She couldn’t help the scream of fright that tore itself from her lungs.

  Holly pushed herself even further. They were weightless on Holly’s back. They were nothing to her proud and triumphant heart. Holly was a force unto herself. She galloped forward, a titan meant for the gods to ride upon. A valiant soldier who had seen battle and knew how to manage it.

  Aurora’s gelding was terrified. He ran in a panic. She and Faith were falling behind once more as he wore himself out from their combined weight, but Kera could see the whites of his eyes glowing in the moonlight. She chanted under her breath, “Come on, come on, come on, come on.” Desperate for him to keep up and not falter under the pressure.

  Kera tried to calculate how many hours it had been. How long would it be until sunrise? It couldn’t be too much longer, could it? But too much longer could still be hours yet, and their horses couldn’t manage this pace that long. They needed safety. Shelter. Anything.

  Scanning the horizon for the smallest hint of light, Kera saw nothing but the moon casting more shadows in the dark. Trees towered on all sides. The road bent and curved, but there were no signs of anything that could be described as safety.

  I don’t have time for this.

  Kera kicked Holly harder. The trees started to pull back, stepping away from the road. There was a clearing up ahead; the road poured out into a great field. Grass was overgrown on all sides, but the road was patted down. A black cloak flickered in and out of Kera’s vision. She turned her head left and right, and could feel the icy chill of the wraith floating too close. Could hear its shrieking laughter as it scratched through the air. Her breath caught in her throat. Cool fingers wrapped about her neck in a tight grip. She did not know if it was the wraith or her imagination. She couldn’t draw breath, and the world turned black and inky. She was blind.
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  “Mama!” Aiden screamed. His little voice was so shrill. She remembered the day he was born. Remembered the feel of Mori’s hand in her hair. How with each child, he had been reprimanded by women for acting as both midwife and physician, but he stayed with her. He taught himself the science of her body so he could be the one to hold their boy when he first came into the world.

  Their relationship was still recovering when Aiden was born. Mori had been terrified to ask if he would be permitted in her birthing chamber for their little Aiden. He had stumbled and collapsed at her feet, begged her for permission to join her. “Please don’t send me away.” She had taken his hand, and they had spent the night together. He at her side, promising her he wouldn’t let anything happen to their final son. Their babe was their chance to make it right.

  Aiden, part two: an Aiden who wasn’t going to die in a boyish duel he had no business being in, an Aiden who would outlive her and be her shining star, an Aiden who would give her a chance to see her boy live past nineteen.

  He wasn’t supposed to die like this.

  She didn’t hear the wraith move. Just felt the ability to breathe return to her at the same time that Aurora swung a stick toward Kera’s body. Kera had no idea when Aurora got the stick. Maybe before she even got on the horse? Maybe she’d snapped it off a branch as she had ridden by?

  She didn’t have time to think. Aurora was shouting and yelling obscenities as she slashed her stick through the air. The wraith screamed. Echoing calls seemed to burst all around them. Her Aiden’s terrified wails grew louder. He was holding her so tight that she need not worry about the wraith stealing her breath, her son was doing it for it.

  The pain, when it came, was indescribable. Everything happened too fast to follow: something pierced the air, screams echoed in her ears, drowning under the pain that sliced her from hip to shoulder. She saw the fluttering of a black cloak. The white smear of a skull floating before her face. Images collided together. Hair in her face. Aurora at her side. Faith leaning forward as Aurora tried to get her gelding to come on. Just hurry up.

  The pain started and it never stopped.

  Her skin shred along her back. Her muscles tore beneath the claws—were they claws?—blood burst free from her flesh. Her shirt was a strip of cotton, useless. Her nerves sent shockwaves through her body. Her head was thrown backward as her spine arched, desperate to pull away from the blow. A blur caught in her peripheral, but she couldn’t see it clearly.

  Aurora was wielding her stick once more, striking at the figure that reached around Kera on all sides. Holly whinnied loudly as the wraith swirled around to their front. She slid to a stop, throwing Aiden and Kera forward into her neck. The wraith darted this way and that just in front of the mare, and with the confidence of more than five years of war, Holly reared up, her hooves kicking forward in rage.

  A proper soldier would lean forward, ride out the attack and sit the seat like the paintings in the Overwatch. Brave soldiers on the battlefield. Afraid of nothing at all.

  But Kera was afraid.

  Each nerve, sense, and receptor on her back flared into focus with all the life the wraith lacked. Her brain filtered images through her mind, each one colored red. Her son. Aurora. Faith. Holly. The air behind her whooshed against her tortured flesh. The saddle shifted. She hadn’t secured it properly. Holly liked holding her breath to avoid the cinch strap being pulled taught—

  —Kera’s weight floundered. She released the reins and wrapped her arms around her son. Holly was struck hard by the wraith she’d aimed to kick. It flew through Holly’s body, seizing the horse’s brave heart as it directed itself at Aiden and Kera.

  But they were already gone.

  They were falling, falling from Holly’s back and down to the ground five feet below. Kera watched as the wraith moved, as Holly let out one final whine. A proud mare losing everything in a final battle she never should have fought.

  Kera’s shoulders hit the ground. She ducked her head and squeezed Aiden tight. Her back exploded in agony. She couldn’t breathe. Aiden’s weight was suffocating. Her lungs were crushed. Her ribs were broken. Her head started to spin. Her brain felt like it was buzzing with insects.

  Insects like ants.

  She had ants in her skin. That was what she’d called it once. Ants in her skin. They were crushed too.

  Holly collapsed to the ground, her body pitching opposite Kera and Aiden. That was lucky. She didn’t crush them under her weight. But she lay still, and she did not get up.

  Hair finally out of her face, Kera stared up at the sky, watching as the wraith began to circle around her. It swooped in low, reaching for her with sickening claws. She rolled to the side, curling over her son, and her backed burned as though it would never heal. She had been stripped raw, and knew that all her prayers were for naught—this was how they would die: with Mori’s war horse dead at their sides, their belongings scattered from their bags, and Mori’s books tipping out onto the ground. The moon was still high in the sky, but the horizon started to show signs of light. Maybe it was a fantasy. Maybe it was just hope. It mattered little. It wouldn’t be fast enough.

  Thundering hooves clamored across the earth. The ground tremble beneath her head. Aurora was there, wielding her stick as though it were a sword. Her hair was tied out of her face. Faith was pressed low to the neck of her horse. Aurora screamed out commands, shouting words that Kera could not make out.

  She could only stare, broken and in agony, as Aurora slashed her stick through the air. She slammed it into the wraith’s skull. Stabbed it through its chest cavity. “Be gone! Be gone! We’ve had enough of you! Get! Get going!” Aurora’s screams were futile, but her actions were vicious.

  Brutal.

  She was every bit the soldier that Kera had imagined. She was fire and blood. She was a blue coat on a great horse, challenging the foes that they never thought they could defeat. Riding into battle with everything she needed: a dream of tomorrow and a steadfast will to survive.

  Kera feared she was going to lead both Aurora and Faith to their deaths. That it would be for naught. All of this would be pointless. None of this would have mattered. They should have run. They should have run and left Aiden and her to die, because at least that way they could have survived. And yet, Aurora didn’t leave. She hurled expletives Kera’s mother would have blushed at. She battered the wraith when it came close, startled it by her refusal to be cowed. She kept it back, back, back. The sun rose in the east. Light crossed the grass like a line pulling the world in two. One half living, one half dead.

  Kera watched the line travel closer and closer, the wraith grew more confused by the moment. It reached for Kera. She didn’t have the strength to move or to flinch away. She lay still on the ground. Her head felt so very heavy. Her limbs ached. It was nothing compared to her back. Her back was a hot pan pressed against her flesh. Her skin was fire consuming her alive. It was death reaching back to the wraith, offering life for life.

  It was pain. Pure and simple.

  The light shifted closer. The line touched her toes. The wraith vanished as quickly as it came. And Aurora towered over her.

  She looked like an angel.

  Kera stared up at the sky and listened. She listened as Aurora tied her gelding off to a tree. She listened as Aurora placed Faith on the ground. She listened as her son cried at her side.

  He had wriggled from her grasp at some point. His hands shook her shoulder, but she couldn’t respond. She couldn’t speak. Her head wouldn’t let her, her chest wouldn’t breathe. He cried for her, and she looked at the sky. Her consciousness faded.

  The world coiled in circles, a snake poised to strike. She couldn’t determine if she was the rat caught in its grip, or the mouse in its stomach. Maybe she was the fleck of dirt on its brow, meaningless and easily forgotten, not even worth being swallowed down and used as food for a new world’s beginning.

  That didn’t make sense.

  She was tired.

  Her ey
es struggled to stay open, and her lips trembled as they failed to form words. She felt as though she had been cut in half—a tree chopped down, left as a stump on the ground. Roots held her to the earth, but nothing else could grow. There were no new heights for her. She was going, going, going, gone.

  Kera’s eyes closed.

  They opened.

  Aiden was no longer at her side. She was no longer lying on her back by Holly’s body. Instead, she was lying on her side with her head resting on her left arm. She could hear Aurora heaving something heavy. The younger woman gasped and groaned for a while before exhaling in relief.

  Kera squeezed her eyes shut. She breathed in. Her ribs were still broken, but at least her lungs worked.

  “There’s a crick over there,” Aurora said. Crick. Not creek. Crick. Kera opened her eyes. Aurora was crouching by her side. Kera didn’t know when that happened. “Faith can bring Aiden. I can bring you and the horse.” Faith was a sick child who’d been fitting for half an hour the day before. “She says she’s feelin’ a bit stronger, c’mon now. While it lasts.”

  Kera could see Faith behind Aurora, holding Aiden’s hand. She was standing. Standing, when Kera could not. Aurora leaned down and wrapped her arms around Kera’s body. She hauled Kera up to her feet, and Kera groaned. Her brain issued its complaint to the manager. Then it remembered it was the manager and grudgingly returned to work. It let her lean on Aurora, let her feet move so she could walk. It wasn’t happy about it.

  One foot in front of the other. One step at a time. Kera tripped. She stumbled. Aurora did not let her fall. She kept Kera on her feet, holding her waist to keep from aggravating the wounds. She locked Kera in place and didn’t give Kera the chance to falter.

  They reached the crick, and Aurora helped her sit. Kera’s legs collapsed underneath her. Her head hung low. Her hair was limp around her face. She stared at their ends. They were split and broken. Tears pressed against her eyes.