“Hello, mistress Evelyn!” Seppo said, stomping toward them. When he spoke it was a ringing metallic voice like a hammer tapping on a plate of steel. “It is a strange hour to be calling, but I have missed you.”
“Seppo, sshhh!” Eva whispered, holding a hand to her lip. In his joy, the golem didn’t seem to mind that it was the middle of the night and Eva knew he was apt to wake the whole neighborhood if he kept going on. Made entirely out of dull gray plates, Eva had no clue what sort of magic or machinations powered the golem. There was none better working the forge, but Seppo often showed a glaring lack of social understanding.
“Ah, of course,” Seppo said, lowering his voice until Eva could barely understand him. “How can I be of assistance?”
“I was hoping you could wake up Soot for me,” Eva said. A giant of a man, the last thing Eva wanted to do was disturb her foster father unannounced in the middle of the night. Seppo, on the other hand, could survive an instinctual hammer blow to the head without so much as a scratch.
“Of course,” Seppo said. He started walking toward the cottage’s back window where Soot slept and then paused. “Are you sure this is wise? As I have already mentioned, your arrival at this hour seems most peculiar.”
“No,” Eva admitted, her patience running thin. “But I need to talk to him, Seppo. Hurry!”
Finding Eva’s response satisfactory, Seppo nodded. Before he could take another step, however, the cottage’s front door swung open, revealing a shirtless, bleary-eyed Soot, a hammer raised in his one good hand.
“Storm it all, Seppo! What have I told you about —” The smith paused, stunned into silence at the sight of three gryphons, his foster daughter and her companions in his yard in the wee hours of the night. “Eva! What in the sky is going on?”
“Mistress Evelyn came calling and asked me to wake you,” Seppo cut in. “That unpleasant girl and the Scrawl are with her, but that’s all I know. There’s someone else too, but I don’t recognize her.”
Sigrid frowned, living up to her unpleasant description. Ivan, on the other hand, swallowed hard and took a step backward. When the boy had fled after stealing Fury’s egg from the Gyr, he hid in the woodshed behind Soot’s forge. When Seppo discovered the young thief, at an hour similar to the one they were now visiting, Ivan completely immobilized Seppo with his rune magic. It was a feat Eva hadn’t seen before or since, even if the only permanent injury to the golem was his pride. As a result, Ivan kept a wide berth from Seppo whenever they crossed paths.
“Yes,” Ivan said clearing his throat. “It’s good to see you again Seppo.”
Soot shot Seppo an annoyed glance for interrupting and then gestured with a burly scarred hand towards Chel. “Now that this giant bucket of bolts is done running his yap, tell me what you’re doing here in the middle of the night with that captured Juarag girl.”
“Well…” Eva began. If Soot already knew about Chel, this might not go so well.
Soot folded his arms across his chest and looked down at Eva, frowning. “What sort of trouble have you gotten into now?”
Eva opened her mouth to say that was hardly fair — since joining the Windsworn she’d only ever been in real trouble one time when a possessed Celina had kidnapped Ivan and took him down into the catacombs to sacrifice him and revive an ancient golem. Afterward, she’d developed a little bit of a flair for, as the Lord Commander put it, “doing things the way her father would’ve done.”
“It’s a long story,” Eva said. “And I don’t have much time to explain.”
“That’s funny,” Soot said. “Someone else used to tell me that all the time, too: your stormin’ dad. You didn’t think I wouldn’t find out about all that from Andor or Adelar, did you? Let me guess, you got a wild hair and decided to go after him?”
Eva tried to think of a way to make her decision sound more responsible but it added up the same no matter how she tried to come at it. “You’re not going to rat me out, are you? Adel — someone told me to come see you before I left. So here I am. Plus I wanted to say goodbye.”
She knew that would get to the old smith. As gruff and salty as he pretended to be on the exterior, Soot had a special soft spot in his heart for Eva.
Soot heaved a big sigh, his broad shoulders dropping. “No, I’m not going to try to stop you, but I’m not going to tell you that you’re doing the right thing either.” Eva opened her mouth to argue, but Soot raised a hand to hold her off. “Eva, you’re a grown woman now. You got to make your own decisions.”
For a moment, doubts stole into Eva once more. “I know,” she said, trying to force back the uncertainty. “But if he’s out there I have to know. And if what we heard about more Smelterborn is true…”
Eva trailed off. The childish part of her hoped to the sky she’d never encounter another golem aside from Seppo again.
Soot’s expression darkened. Although no one ever really talked about it, the smith had been to the Far East on the same expedition as Aleron, Andor, Celina, and others. From the bits and pieces Eva had managed to gather, it hadn’t been much of a grand quest like the ones in children’s tales. Somehow, somewhere on that journey, Soot had lost a hand. He seemed to forget he’d found Seppo on the same journey, though, so Eva knew it couldn’t have been all bad.
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” Soot said. “I wouldn’t go back east for nothing. There’s a curse upon that land, there’s a reason the Ancients all died out.”
Eva glanced behind her, up toward the Gyr. Although the first rays of morning light had yet to crack the darkness, she knew it wouldn’t be long until someone came after them. So far, Soot hadn’t exactly been a fount of useful information.
The smith seemed to realize he wasn’t going to say anything that would change Eva’s mind. He sighed and ran his good hand over his bald head. “If anyone could survive out there in that sky-forsaken country, it would be Aleron. The only advice I got for you is this: out there, there’s no rules and no laws. The east is wild, savage country. Do everything you can to avoid a fight, trust me. If you get yourself in trouble, best thing you can do is run away.”
Overcome with love for her foster father, Eva ran forward and wrapped her arms around Soot. She buried her face in his blackened, fire-scarred apron and clung tight as he wrapped his arm around her and squeezed back.
“We’ve gotta get going,” Sigrid said. “There could be riders after us at any minute.”
“Get going, girl,” Soot said, voice thick. “I wish I could send Seppo with you but he’s too heavy to fly.”
“It’s true,” Seppo said. “My maker never designed me to take to the sky. But I wish you well on your journeys, and will mourn for you if you die in the middle of nowhere and never return.”
Eva let out a dry laugh, wiping away her tears.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Ivan muttered.
Standing there a moment longer, Eva took in Soot, Seppo, and her childhood home. Part of her wanted nothing more than to stay there, to work the forge and pretend like wars, Windsworn and her long-lost father didn’t exist.
“I’ll come back,” she said, although Eva didn’t know if it was for Soot’s benefit or her own. “I promise!”
Once again, Eva swung up into Fury’s saddle, leaving someone else she loved behind. As the flickering lights of Gryfonesse faded behind them she looked to the east, to the great unknown, where somewhere she hoped her father waited.
Chapter Eight
In the midst of his breakfast, King Adelar heard his brother approaching long before the flustered guard arrived to announce the lord commander’s appearance. Andor burst into the garden terrace, destroying the tranquility of the fine autumn morning.
“She’s gone!” Andor said. He looked more flustered than Adelar had seen his brother in a long time. “I’ve sent patrols and birds out but I don’t think it will do any good. They must’ve left sometime in the night.”
“Whoever are you talking about?” the
king asked, a blank, puzzled expression on his face.
Andor scowled. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. I know Eva spoke with you just two days ago.”
Adelar pushed back his tray of eggs, fruit, and ham and set his clasped hands on the table. “And I told Eva I agreed with your decision — it was just too risky.”
“I’m sure that’s all you told her,” Andor said. “She’s just a child, Adelar, and the crown princess as well!”
The king sighed. Between dealing with family matters and the business of tallying the remaining winter stores, it was shaping up to be a long morning.
“Andor, you know just as well as I that Eva would have gone with or without our consent. She’s got too much of her father in her.”
The Lord Commander of the Windsworn ran his hands through his graying golden hair and rubbed his face. “And you know just as well as I do that being like Aleron isn’t always a good thing. I would have thought she’d see reason. When you told her she was going to be the heir…”
Adelar coughed and looked down at the remains of his breakfast.
“You didn’t tell her, did you? For sky’s sake, Adelar, you’re the king! You’re supposed to be the reasonable one!”
“And where has that gotten me?” Adelar leaped to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process. He spread his arms and gazed around the garden. “Do you have any idea how long I brooded over what happened with Aleron, how many years I’ve sat in this empty castle and wished for the chance to do things differently?”
“So this was all because of your guilty conscience?” Andor asked, fighting to control the last remnants of his temper. “What were you —”
“Enough!” Roaring, Adelar grasped his breakfast table and flipped it on its side. But even as dishes rolled past him, Andor refused to move. After several haggard breaths, the king let out a long sigh and let his shaking hands fall to his sides.
“Sometimes the right choice and the reasonable choice aren’t always the same thing,” Adelar said. Andor stared at his brother for a long moment, face blank.
“I hope you’re right.”
* * *
In a matter of days, gryphon wings carried the companions past rolling woodland hills that melted into cedar bluffs of pale clay. The only water came from small springs and ponds scattered at the bottom of the narrow washes and gullies. Eva knew it would be weeks before even a skiff of snow came as far north as they were but a lack of snow didn’t let the warm autumn weather tarry. They spent many a bitter night huddled around a small fire, their gryphons circled around them to hold in the warmth.
Any meat came from hunting, which Chel proved to be almost as good at as the gryphons. After a week, Eva reluctantly gave her back her bow and spear, hoping the gesture would be taken as a sign of trust. When they landed in the evenings, the girl set off into the brush, returning with a brace of jackrabbits or sometimes a small deer or wild pig.
If game proved scarce, they rationed out the fruits and nuts just brought in from the harvest that they’d taken from the Gyr. For the most part, the three gryphons fed themselves just fine. They hunted together and often returned with enough meat for their human counterparts as well.
To avoid tiring the older Belarus, Chel switched off riding with Eva and Fury part way through each day. Although Sigrid had stopped reaching for a knife any time Chel moved, Eva didn’t want there to be some kind of minor misunderstanding or “accident” that ended with Chel falling to her death if Sigrid got into one of her rotten moods.
At night, Ivan entertained them with a variety of Scrawl stories, tales of Altaris and Rhylance before the gryphons and Sorondarans came and legends of the long-dead ancestors he shared with Sigrid’s people. Whenever Ivan ventured to speak about the Ancients — members of a long-gone civilization that once spread all across Altaris — Chel stopped him and made a sign against evil.
“Better not to speak of them,” she muttered, a dark expression on her face. “They are gone for a reason. It is better we don’t bring them back with our words.”
When she wasn’t hunting or brooding over Ivan’s stories and the weather, Chel would sometimes share a story from her own people. Although she was reluctant to talk about her past — especially Aleron — if Eva was careful not to prod, she could catch the Juarag-Vo girl reminiscing.
“A good man,” Chel said when she could be prompted to continue. “Many times, he has saved us from danger, from the Smelterborn, and from the other Juarag. He is like a father to me.”
The first time she heard such a thing Eva felt a pang of longing jealousy cut her to the core. Long after Chel stopped speaking, Eva found herself resenting the childhood this stranger had with her father, a childhood she’d been denied. After everyone else fell asleep each night, Eva stared into the night sky and wondered how her life would’ve been different if her father had never been forced to leave Rhylance.
In even rarer instances, Chel spoke in a low voice about the Smelterborn. “At first they only came in small numbers, sometimes even one and not often. Then they came more and more. One day, they did not go away. They do not eat, they do not sleep, and they do not build. All they do is kill: kill my people, kill the herds and kill the land.”
“What did my father go looking for?” Eva asked.
“He would not say much,” Chel said. “But I think he knew where they came from, and that they had to be stopped. When I left over a year ago, our tribe had moved almost to the very northernmost part of the plains — the only place the Smelterborn had not come. They were moving west, driving the Juarag from their hunting grounds.”
Whenever Eva imagined Smelterborn marching in large bands, the thought filled her with dread. After facing just one of the golems, she had a pretty good idea what an army of the giant suits of armor would do against the Juarag, as ferocious as they might be on the backs of their sabercats. Eva wondered what these iron golems hoped to obtain, what could drive their conquest. From what she could gather they didn’t want the things that other conquerors wanted: land, loot or slaves meant nothing to them.
Following the king’s map and what little knowledge Sigrid had of the area, they pushed farther northward. The land changed again, this time scattered cedar trees to open expanses of broken rock and sagebrush, much like the Endless Plains but without the rich grasses to support the mighty herds. Given the terrain, the hunting was sparse, but thanks to Ivan and Chel’s expertise they also found tubers, roots and other edible plants to get by.
Although the weather warmed a little, they still flew low to the ground. Up higher the humans were in danger of frostbite or pneumonia. Eva worried about flying in bow range but each passing day revealed no sign of people as if the land was devoid of anything but themselves and the few animals that darted away when the gryphons passed overhead.
Devoid of living people, at least. Studying the ground below, Eva spotted the remnants of crumpled towers and pillars half-buried in the undergrowth. In between washes and broken, sagebrush-covered hills, crumpled bits of road and highway still showed through, long forgotten and reclaimed by the wilderness. The ruined buildings and byways hearkened back to a forgotten time, long before the gryphon riders when the Ancients and their empire covered all of Altaris.
One night they camped at the base of a fallen tower, now nothing but a ring of foundation stones as tall as a person. Ivan grew excited when he found some faded carvings in the rock on the inside of the ring, but even with Sigrid’s rudimentary knowledge of the ancient alphabet, they could only decipher a word or two.
“It’s some kind of waypost marker,” Ivan said. “It has a number marked down here although, I can’t tell where to or how far it is, only that it points somewhere to the northeast.”
“There is a city, an old city, there,” Chel said. They turned to look at her in surprise. “They call it in the ancestor’s tongue mathre cittal.”
Ivan gave a dry laugh. “The Mother of Cities? That’s a myth!”
Ivan opened his mouth to argue but Sigrid cut him off. “You want to tell us what in the name of tempest you two are talking about?”
“The Mother of Cities is an ancient city that supposedly exists in northeastern Altaris,” he said with a shrug. “The story goes it holds the last living Ancients, although most versions say they’re a very watered down and incomplete lineage, just like the rest of Altaris natives. The hook is that it’s supposed to be filled with Wonders and other treasures, a city of riches if you will.”
Eva touched the opaque stone hanging from her neck beneath her tunic. It was such a Wonder — a powerful talisman of the Ancients that her father had brought back from his journeys to her mother. Aside from emitting a soft light that changed colors, it paled in comparison to stories she’d heard of other relics: swords that never rusted or needed sharpening, devices that predicted the weather, enchanted tools that could make anyone a master craftsman with no training, lanterns that made light without fire and more.
The only time Eva’s necklace had ever displayed such power was in her fight with Celina’s Smelterborn. She didn’t know why, but the light had blinded the golem and caused its life force to waver, ultimately leading to Celina’s destruction. The stone had also pulled Ivan from a trance but seemed to have no effect on Seppo the golem whatsoever. Eva treasured it more as an heirloom from her deceased mother than anything else and was content to draw strength from its soft light.
“Has anyone ever been there?” she asked.
Ivan shook his head. “Not anyone who made it back, anyway. The North is rough country to traverse, even if you know where you’re going.”
Windswept Page 6
