Of Gryphons and Other Monsters (Taryn's Journey Book 1)

by Shannon McGee

  The details of the next few moments were foggy. Distant. Through a haze and a dull pounding in my head, I felt myself being dragged and heaved upwards without care. Fire burned and faded down each of my arms in turn. When I returned fully to myself, my cheek rested against the cold surface of a flat boulder. The flat boulder that the sheep had rested on, my brain registered unbidden. Unlike them, however, I was not bound. He hadn’t had the time. I didn’t move, attempting to take stock of the situation. My arms stung where they touched the dusty boulder, and a careful glance at them proved I sported fresh slashes that bled sluggishly. Something to make me more tantalizing to a gryphon? They were shallow. That was a blessing. I wouldn’t bleed out from them at least.

  I pushed myself quickly into a sitting position. My hands, which I had skinned on the ground, stung. The clearing spun. When it righted itself, Michael was by the cart, untying the second sheep. The first one was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps the thing had more sense than I did and had run. I rubbed my skull tenderly and winced at the sharp pain. Michael looked up at the noise I made and nodded absently. The second sheep, free, made a break for the trees.

  “That kick was a little unnecessary. Revenge for the last time I made you wait on me in the field?” I quipped. I attempted to stand, and my head swam. I sank back to a bended knee, my hands braced on either side, my head bowed. Where was Aella?

  Michael pulled Father’s crossbow from where it rested on his back. The bolt he notched he pointed at me. “Zehya will be here soon. You will sit still until she arrives.”

  “Michael, this is insane. Even if this gryphon comes and she eats me alive, you’re not a mage and she will turn on you!”

  “I’m not a mage yet,” he admitted. “Master Noland will train me.”

  “It’s not something you can learn.” A sheep screamed in the not far distance. I broke out in a cold sweat.

  “I will never achieve the success of a natural mage. I’ll allow you that, but I’ve read enough. I’ve done enough already under Master Noland’s tutelage to know that it is possible for me to bend and subvert the laws of nature to suit my needs.” He used one hand to tap the book behind him. He practically glowed with pride. “It is hard work, but I am not averse to hard work.”

  “It’s monstrous work.” I spoke hurriedly, my eyes darted around the clearing. My crook was back where I had fallen, a foot from the edge of the boulder. “Michael, if you let a gryphon maul me, you will regret it. You will not only have lost your sister, but you will be caught and you will be burned.”

  “When Zehya has killed you, she will be completely mine. My research supports that the entirety of a twin’s being is more than equal to a single part of me. Zehya consuming you will take care of the last two parts of the ritual at once. Meaning our bond will be stronger than what even the spell would have originally given me. With her in my control, I will leave this very night for Master Noland’s estate. By flight.”

  There was a noise to my right. Slowly I turned to look. Michael did the same, delight rippling across his features. Beak red with the blood of the sheep she had slaughtered and impossibly huge, there was Zehya, and she was looking at me. I shuddered.

  She chirped, the noise somewhere between a bird’s trill and a cat’s purr, oddly gentle coming from a beast so terrifying to behold. Zehya, I had the ability to admit, was gorgeous. Her white and gray coat looked soft and luminescent. Her wings, heavy and huge, were folded neatly along her sides, and the shoulders where they connected were thickly muscled. She tilted her head and squinted her yellow eyes. They held intelligence in a way that lesser gryphon’s did not, and she flicked them between my brother and myself.

  She took a pace forward, and an unbidden moan of fear bubbled past my lips. My eyes burned as I tried to keep them open, afraid that if I closed them, she would be on me. Breath whuffled through her mouth and nostrils as she took in the scent of the blood still oozing from my arms. Her beak was slightly agape as she breathed in the scent to taste it on her tongue. Beyond that there was a deathly silence. No birds, no rustling of rodents in the underbrush. I couldn’t speak, even to plead for my own life. One thought screamed through my mind: I am going to die today.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Michael muttering and his hands flashing in complex patterns. It pulled my attention for the merest of moments. When Zehya sprung, it was instinct alone that sent me rolling off the boulder and onto the hard earth. My hands clapped against the dirt, breaking my fall, and I pushed off with them, my eyes on my crook. I spared Michael one glance, to ascertain his whereabouts. He had stepped back, by the cart his face impassive. Seeing he was out of the way, I could and did grab my only defense, not pausing in my desperate beeline towards the trees.

  Zehya had cleared the distance between the tree line and the rock in one smooth leap, and she wheeled to follow me as I scrambled to get away. The thickest grouping of trees seemed to be acres away to my panicked brain. My head reeled, and a misstep brought me to my knees in the midst of the bluebells. As green and blue smeared across the knees of my skirt, Zehya dove through the air where my head had been. At last a scream ripped from my throat, as I cowered, arms over my head. Zehya landed in front of me, her tail swinging as a counterbalance. She growled, low in her throat, and I screamed again.

  This time my scream was answered. As Zehya stalked towards me a bolt thunked solidly into the earth by Zehya’s right haunch, causing her to pause. She twisted to look in confusion at what had almost struck her, and then her eyes locked on a shape above us. Aella.

  “Taryn,” Aella snarled, “Get up and run!” She was situated on a thick branch in a tree by the path out. Perched close to the trunk, she kept her crossbow trained on the gryphon.

  Zehya glanced between the two of us, then turned fully to face Aella. The questioning noise she made was not gentle. If she was a person, she would have been asking, “Who the blast is this?” I clapped my spare hand over my mouth to smother the hysterical giggles that threatened to slip free.

  Shakily, I stood. As I did so Zehya’s gaze flicked back and she started to turn towards me. A second bolt sailed through the air and would have hit her this time if she hadn’t sprung to the side, wings flaring to give more air to her side-step. It was Zehya’s turn to snarl.

  “Come get me beastie. Try for something that isn’t weak and beaten down!” Aella taunted. Zehya made a guttural noise and danced out of the way of another shot.

  “I can’t believe you brought the mercenary.” Michael was watching Aella with disgust. She continued to lob insults at his pet, and had struck her once, but just a glancing blow on the shoulder. Zehya was closing in, using the nearby cover and the tree’s large circumference to give herself time to dodge closer while Aella shifted around to find her, aim, and shoot. “She’s going to get slaughtered.”

  My blood ran cold. He could have been talking about the outcome of a race … but he was right. Gryphons were huge and clever, and any hunt I had ever heard of involved at least three fully grown adults. Even that was pushing it. Without someone to flank the gryphon, and keep it guessing, the beast would close the gap between it and its attacker. Once that gap closed, a gryphon used its superior size and strength to overpower any human that came calling.

  I had a moment to acknowledge that I was not a gryphon hunter in any sense of the word before I shouted. “Zehya! Leave her!” I made a series of loud hoots and squawks, trying to draw her attention. It worked; Zehya’s gaze found me, and then, for all her bright color, suddenly she was out of sight.

  Aella whipped her head around to look at me, and made a motion for me to cut it out. I swallowed my last hoot. A lull came in Zehya’s dogged attacks after she vanished into the trees, and there was no sign of her for a few tense moments. Swiping at the buzzing next to my ear that had to be flies, and glancing periodically at Michael I edged towards Aella. He made no move to stop me.

  When Zehya reappeared, it was in the line of trees closer to Michael and me. She eased out of the dwin
dling shadows and stalked towards me, intently.

  She was bleeding from the shoulder that Aella hit, the red standing out in stark contrast to her frosty coat and she was panting lightly now. I almost felt bad for her. If Michael hadn’t interfered she might have never encountered any creature that could have been considered a threat. She might have had a peaceful life, found a mate, and raised a kitten. Now her life would be more of this. More violence and killing whoever Michael or Master Noland decided, and if Michael was any indication they’d leave her to the fighting unaided, even if someone was shooting at her. Even one of her own kind would have helped her.

  I blinked. Zehya had stopped. She inspected me, her head tilted. Could she—could she understand my thoughts? That was crazy. The stress of the fight made it hard for me to focus on this line of thinking. I’d never heard of a gryphon—of any creature that could read minds. Still … if Michael communicated through a magical link, and if I was more than a part of him, didn’t it follow that I could do as he did?

  “Zehya—kill.” Michael said smoothly, and the gryphon shook her head as if to rid herself of a gnat. Then she was moving once more.

  I brought my crook across my body. “Zehya,” my voice quavered, “Please.” Desperate, I tried to project to her what life could be. A home, a child, warmth and affection, though I didn’t know if that was something a gryphon ever aspired to. Images of my own mother and home mixed amidst the future I imagined for her. Though she didn’t stop coming, Zehya slowed, snorted, and her head twitched side to side. Her eyes were intent slits. Instinct screamed through me to turn and bolt, but I refused to give in. I knew if I ran, any control Zehya had would be lost to predatory drive and she would kill me.

  To my right Michael had rekindled his mutterings, coupled with hand movements that were too quick to follow. Zehya let out a terrible noise, this time it seemed laced with pain more than hunger. She moved to pounce, her tail twitching madly, her bright dilated eyes fixed on me.

  My brother screamed, and I whipped my head around to look. An arrow protruded from his left shoulder, and he stared at it, eyes bulging, mouth gaping. My own shoulder ached in automatic sympathy as my hand flew to cover the phantom wound. His hands hovered around the shaft but didn’t quite touch it.

  My gaze returned hurriedly to Zehya, but she was no longer preparing to leap. She was looking around the clearing, as though she didn’t recognize where she was. When at last her eyes fixed on Michael, who was making small panicked noises, she licked the blood from her own beak, and emitted a low, thoughtful growl. He tore his eyes away from his own wound.

  More words I didn’t recognize tumbled out of his mouth, and Zehya obediently stilled. Michael’s eyes scanned the clearing, and I followed suit. Aella was no longer in the tree, which made sense. She couldn’t have hit him from that angle.

  “Mercenary!” Michael called, in a rough voice, “Show yourself. Don’t fight from the shadows.” He did his best to sound condescending, even with a cross bolt stuck in his shoulder and it rankled me.

  Behind me, Aella laughed harshly, but she did as she was bidden and came into the clearing. I turned my whole body so that I could keep the other two in my sight as I watched her. Like the gryphon she breathed heavily and she was coated in a sheen of sweat from dodging about. The crossbow hung casually at her side. Her hair was mussed but still firmly pulled backward. Aella met my eyes, and I felt a jolt in my chest. She was so young— as young as I was, and here I had been thinking she was going to come in and save the day. As much as I didn’t want to die today, even more so I wished I hadn’t dragged her into this as well. The faintest of smiles tugged at her lips, and she raised her right brow. I returned the smile weakly. She turned cold as she faced down Michael.

  “You lure your sister to her death with no defense— you set up a ward so there’s no hope of rescue, and you judge how I fight?”

  “A ward?”

  Michael looked smug, if a skewered man could look smug. The expression was wasted on Aella. She appeared more irritated than impressed.

  “It’s like a boundary. You walked straight through it, and I had to break through. That’s why I was late. Your brother is more trained than we thought, or else this master of his is investing an awful lot in him and his gryphon.”

  “The ward is my own. As I’ve said, I have power in my own right now. I’d like very much to know how you got through it. Are there more of you killers for hire running around the woods?”

  “There might be, but why would I tell you?” Aella jerked her chin up defiantly.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter. You’ll be dead before help arrives. Zehya—”

  “I will plug you full of holes before she even passes Taryn, Michael.” Aella had her cross bow trained on my brother, notched and ready to fire. I blinked rapidly. Gods. She was as fast as Father with that thing. Perhaps faster.

  “We have a stale mate,” I burst in, “Can we not lay down our weapons and mythical beasts and walk away?”

  “Don’t be foolish. I can’t leave without finishing the ritual.” As he spoke, Michael’s voice rose in pitch. “Master Noland will not accept anything but a gryphon for my entrance, and it must be willing to answer to me and no one else!”

  I blinked. “Do you think this Noland will take your gryphon and toss you out on your ear if you don’t bind it specifically to you?”

  Michael was pale now, and red dripped along the bolt in his shoulder, and spread across his shirt front. He wiped a hand across his clammy forehead. Zehya watched him, unblinking. “No, don’t be foolish, but at this point, entirely thanks to your idiocy, I must flee the mountains as soon as my business is completed here. If you leave… well, I reek of prey. Zehya is already under a compulsion to seek my flesh to finish the ritual…”

  “She’ll kill you if we leave. She won’t just take a piece if you try and offer your own body,” I whispered.

  “Not our problem, Taryn,” Aella reminded me. “He brought this entirely upon himself. The ritual always called for a human heart and a piece of him, and magic will have its way.”

  “What do you know about magic?” Michael took a step forward, but the movement pulled at his wound, and he stopped short, wincing in pain.

  “Clearly more than you do. I know better than to meddle with it when it wasn’t granted to me by the gods.”

  “The gods appreciate those who struggle,” he countered.

  Zehya chirped almost plaintively, reminding the other two of the presence of the beast waiting to tear my throat out. However, she wasn’t looking at me, or even at Michael. Her gaze was fixed on the path from which Aella and I had arrived. We turned our attention in that direction. Aedith, and an entourage of mercenaries stood there—but not all of them, I noted. I let my eyes sweep the circumference of the clearing and spotted four more in the trees surrounding us. My gaze returned to Aella in time to see her nod to her mother, who nodded back firmly, her eyes gleaming with pride.

  Relief and concern swamped me, making my bones feel light and airy. She had told them. She had planned this. We were safe, but now Michael was destined for the pyre.

  “Aella…”

  She looked at me, and the smile on her lips shrank, but when she spoke, it was to Michael, and she turned to fully face him. “Michael, shepherd’s son of the Carpathe Mountains in Nophgrin, you are hereby charged with the slaughter of your neighbor’s and father’s livestock, the brutal assault of Bethany, daughter of Susannah of the Carpathe Mountains in Nophgrin.” Aella’s voice was emotionless and formal, and my stomach churned at her final charge. “As well as the attempted murder of your sister, Taryn, shepherd’s daughter of the Carpathe mountains in Nophgrin.”

  Michael’s eyes darted wildly from one mercenary to the next, and his tongue flicked over his dry lips. “I have been chosen as a student of Master Noland, a trusted advisor of the crown—all I’ve done has been after his teachings!”

  “Master Noland, servant of the crown though he may be, takes under hi
s belt projects that the crown does not condone, Michael,” Aedith said.

  As she spoke she closed the gap between herself and her daughter. Zehya snarled uncertainly at all the new humans entering her space. Aedith raised her eyebrow dryly as every armed person surrounding us raised their weapons. Michael spared her a sulky glance and emitted a soft whisper. The gryphon looked to him, to us, and back to him once more. Then she lay down slowly, tail twitching.

  Concerned that Michael, wounded as he was, would not be able concentrate well enough to keep Zehya from panicking and attacking us all, I did my best to lend my own soothing energies to the beast. She looked at me, large eyes contemplative, head turning back and forth. I gulped. I couldn’t tell if I was really doing something, or if it was coincidental that she had settled more solidly into the earth just then.

  “I know more of Master Noland than you do. He’s a killer and a master manipulator. Likely he has done something to your pea brain, causing you to effectively destroy any place you have except by his side.” Michael opened his mouth to protest, but Aedith cut him off, continuing. “Whatever the case is, the crown’s justice will not spare you. If we brought you to Master Noland in shackles, he would deny you, and he would ‘confiscate’ your gryphon as a dangerous magical experiment.”

  “Which is likely what he intended from the beginning.” Kaleb had stayed at the mouth of the clearing, but his smooth voice rumbled across the distance between us easily.

  “You’re wrong!” Michael’s voice cracked as he yelled. Zehya’s wings flexed uneasily, and the feathers along her neck raised. I made hushing noises to her, kneeling so that I was at eye level. Bound as she was, she was more like a frightened cat than a vicious monster.