by Jess E. Owen
Aesir. Conqueror. Son of the Red Kings.
For the not first time that winter, Kjorn laid his ears back in uncertainty and shame. Then, he bowed his head to them.
“I seek my wingbrother, Shard, who is your rightful king. Who among you leads while he’s away? Who knows where he’s gone?”
“Starward,” said an old male. His wings hung wearily from his sides, ribs sticking out against his dull pelt. “That’s all I know.”
“Not to face the wyrms? Alone?” Not even Shard is that naive. He tried once, and failed.
“Seeking more Vanir,” the old male growled. Tension flickered as sure as the flame.
Kjorn kept his head low, and inclined it. “Of course, I understand. But do you know—”
“I’ve told you all I know. Leave us. We want nothing more to do with you.”
“We’ve come to help Shard,” entered Brynja’s silver-smooth voice. “To help you. He has made peace with the Aesir, and hopes to keep ties between us. Let us help.”
“Find our prince if you want to help.” Ears flat to his head, the old male didn’t move nor soften.
The wind stirred the ashes of the fire and the ash on the ground, and Kjorn took a deep breath of the thick air.
A hesitant, young male voice spoke up from the group. “You said he went starward, seeking Vanir?” He looked at the old one, and his voice rose, almost in accusation. “You didn’t say that’s why he’d gone! You should’ve told me—”
“You’ve only just arrived,” growled the old Vanir. “Settle down.”
The young male stepped forward, a Vanir almost exactly Shard’s age. “Frar, you don’t understand! If he went starward seeking Vanir, he had be looking for me.” He looked between the old one he’d called Frar, and Kjorn. “For me, and my mother. We’re the only gryfons I know of who still nest starward of the Voldsom.”
“But you came alone,” said Frar.
He bowed his head. “I fled when the wyrms came back from the mountains, but Mother refused. She told me to get to safety, and insisted she wait.” He looked around, perhaps fearing disapproval for leaving his mother alone. “She insisted. She thought he would come back if she waited...”
“Where is she now?” Kjorn asked, lifting his head. “Can you take us to where Shard might be?”
“It’s wyrm territory. But I will show you.” The young Vanir looked grim, and opened his wings.
“Wait,” said Brynja, looking to Kjorn, then the bonfire, which gleamed reflected in her eyes. “I have an idea.”
~ 48 ~
Rhydda
SHARD REACHED THE STARWARD border of the Outlands before dawn of the second day he’d flown from the Vanir and the bonfire.
When he’d heard the cracked screams of the wyrms in the night, he’d landed and ranged along the ground, wanting desperately to shout but knowing it would only draw them to him. Now in the deep hour before dawn, he trotted along the rim of the vast canyon that divided the Voldsom Narrows from the Outlands. He knew the canyon stretched deep into the earth and split off into the Narrows, but he saw little of it through the dark and the ash. That far starward, haze still blanketed the air, obscuring his vision and his sense of smell.
His hearing though, remained sharp. Guttural wyrm snarls and shrieks from high above and across the broad canyon warned him to remain low. When he found a pile of rocks, he ducked into its shadow and waited for the sun to rise and the wyrms to go to ground. His eyes stung from the haze, and exhaustion. The brief nap at midnight near the bonfire did little to help him. He stretched out on his belly, ears perked toward the yawning canyon before him, and waited.
Dim sunlight suffused the haze. The air glowed golden, then amber. Gradually the wyrms fell silent as they went to their nests. Shard rose, ears twitching back and forth, and crept to the cliff edge, his talons curled over the rocks before the face plunged down into the hazy deep.
Shard held his breath a moment, tail flicking as he squinted across the canyon, which was a good fifty leaps. The dim humps of rock and stunted trees looked passingly familiar. If that was where he’d wandered, Nameless, then he could find the old Vanir gryfess and her son again.
As surer rays of light beamed through the gloom, Shard leaped, gliding over the vast, dead canyon. Dust filled the air, joining the haze, and he sneezed, then resisted the urge to cough. The sound bounded down and through the canyon. His feathers prickled and he paused, hovering between cliffs, ears perked.
Nothing. Either the wyrms had not heard, or they avoided the morning light. Shard flew on across and landed.
He knew then that he’d been there before. The very shape of the trees looked familiar, and the layout of rocks. Head low like a wolf, searching for any scent or sign of life, he trotted on. That part of the Voldsom looked no better than the Outlands, with dry, baked earth all coated in dull ash, the grim haze, and no scent of water or life.
Ahead he saw a stack of boulders that he knew, and perked his ears before breaking into a sprint.
“Hail!” he called, trotting up to the boulders. “I’ve returned, Shard, son-of-Baldr.” He circled around the den, wary, trying to catch a fresh scent. “You called to me. A moon or two ago, I came this way, lost.” Shard stepped forward hesitantly, poking his head into the dark cave. “. . . Hello?”
Ash swirled in eddies around his talons. “Hello? I come peacefully…”
But there were no gryfons in the den.
Out hunting, he told himself. The wind shifted, bringing him the faint, distant scent of wyrm flesh and old blood. He shuddered, unsure if it was the blood of wyrm, pronghorn or gryfon. They couldn’t be dead. He wouldn’t be frightened off. The Vanir gryfess had called to him, and he owed it to her to bring them home again.
They’d gone hunting, and they would return.
He sat down to wait.
Afternoon stretched to evening. Shard shifted anxiously in the fading light, his energy sapped out into the dead land, the dry ground, the thick coat of ash everywhere, and a nagging sense of foreboding. He curled in the den for a time and rested, rousing again near evening. At last he could wait no more, and struck out in the direction of the strongest gryfon scent.
Catori and Stigr had taught him the best way to track on the ground, and he’d learned a little from Thyra, as well. Because of all the dangers flying in the Outlands posed, he thought the best course for any gryfon who lived there might be to hunt on foot. Sure enough he came upon a faint gryfon track in the ash, perked his ears, and trotted forward, head low as he followed the trail.
A few times he lost the footprints where wind had kicked up the dust and ash, but followed a faint scent and, here and there, a bit of down or tuft of fur caught on the brittle twigs in the ground. A gryfess had passed that way, hunting.
Maybe I should’ve waited for her at the den. What if, even now, she’s returned?
The wiser, deep part of him knew that was wrong. The tiny, silver whisper in his heart knew that he would have waited forever. The part of him that the dragoness Ume would’ve called sky knew what he would find at the end of the trail. Still, stubbornly, he followed it as darkness closed a wing around him.
He coughed against the haze, and his steps slowed to a reluctant drag as the scent grew fresher, and it was not the proper scent of gryfon with a fresh kill.
In the last evening light, Shard rounded a tumble of rocks that stank of wyrm flesh, old blood, and rotting meat.
Deer bones littered the ground. The gryfess had hunted, indeed, but too far. Too close to the wyrm’s nesting ground within the walls of the canyon.
Shard saw her.
For a moment he couldn’t look, then, feeling it was his duty, he walked to her body. The rising night wind brushed up feathers from the still flesh, giving her the brief illusion of breath.
“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 d
ay 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.
~ 49 ~
The Battle of Torch
es
SHOCK BOLTED THROUGH SHARD 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!”
