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

by Shannon McGee

  “Did Michael do something?” Aella asked, glaring at my brother.

  He was staring at me, I realized. He appeared thoughtful. Not frightened, or guilty. That frightened me. Resolutely I turned away from him. Whoever that person was, he wasn’t my brother.

  Ito shook his head. “No. The magic was drawn to itself more powerfully than I expected. I’m afraid I was a little overconfident. I did not take into consideration that magic acquired in this way would behave erratically. You are all right?”

  I thought about that. The gryphon was gone. I could no longer feel that foreign fire rushing through my veins. Someone was offering me a flask, and I took it. When the first sip proved it to be water with crushed mint leaves, I drank deeply before replying. “I’m ok.”

  “Good girl,” Aedith said. She was the one who had handed me the flask. “It’s time to move. Can you walk?”

  There was approval in her eyes. That bolstered my spirits enough for me to give her what I hoped was a confident nod. She nodded curtly in return, and began barking orders at her company.

  At her command, Michael was steered bodily between two of the men, back down the path. Cherub, who was still attached to the cart, was led behind him. I’d have pitied the poor animal if I’d had any energy left.

  “Aella,” I murmured quietly as she rose from her crouch. “I don’t think I can get up on my own.” With an apology, she knelt back down and let me loop an arm around her shoulders. My legs felt like they were made of jelly as we rose together.

  “Ok?” she asked.

  For a moment, I stared, at the field of trampled bluebells, not truly seeing them. Then, with a headshake, I jerked myself back to the present. “Get me to Hale, and I’ll be fine from there.”

  The walk back to the main road was surreal. Part of me wanted to run to the front of the line; I wanted to grab Michael by the shoulders and demand he explain himself. I kept waiting for the moment when I would wake in my own bed, and realize it had all been a dream. Already the exact details of the fight were becoming hazy as my nerves and body succumbed to exhaustion.

  When a mob of our neighbors met us halfway back to the house, a commotion broke out. I was at the back of the line of mercenaries, a position I would never have thought would have felt safer than being near my own people. It did though. There was a grim darkness to their expressions that frightened me, almost as badly as Zehya had.

  “We are taking Taryn home,” Aedith attempted to explain, her voice almost drowned out by the people blocking our path. “Then we are taking Michael to the capital.”

  “I’m afraid that will not be the case,” Willy said, amidst jeering agreement. Of all the people in front of us, he looked the most like himself. There was a hesitance in the way he glanced back at the mob, as though he was checking that he really had to do this. “We’re taking Michael to stand trial in town.”

  A short discussion ensued, but ultimately Aedith conceded to Willy’s authority. This was what they had been hired to do, after all. They had found the monster that had been attacking livestock, it just turned out that monster was my brother. When she indicated the men holding Michael were to give him over, Kaleb moved quickly to the front of the column of mercenaries. He bent his head low to speak with Willy but what they said was lost to me as the crowd shifted then, blocking them from view.

  “What was she doing out in the woods with…?” one voice, that sounded like Glenn’s hissed. I flinched, ducking my head.

  Another voice, which sounded like Benjamin, said, “She was out on the street… the night Beth was attacked.”

  There were more mutters. Each time the amount of malice with which it was spoken sent a bolt of terror into me. I couldn’t stand the way some of the town’s folk were looking at me. It was as though they thought they ought to grab me as well, though they didn’t.

  Michael didn’t look back at me once. I didn’t know if I wanted him to. The last glimpse I got of his face showed it held an air of strange disinterest—even boredom. After that, I kept my stare on Hale’s mane. Eventually the whole crowd rode off, Michael at the center. When they took Michael away I expected to hear my own voice, demanding they let him go. I wanted to tell them not to touch him. I wanted to say that what was happening was wrong—all wrong, but I didn’t.

  Once they had gone it was just me and the mercenaries. Aella reached across the gap between our horses to squeeze my wrist once, but let her hand drop away when I didn’t look at her. When we reached the house, Aedith’s seconds took the majority of the company back towards the village to settle up.

  Mother and Father met us in the front yard. I practically fell out of the saddle into their arms. As I breathed in their comforting scent, I broke into silent sobs that racked my body. It was too much. I couldn’t speak. Aedith told them what had happened as my mother stroked my back and hushed me.

  Inside, Mother set me up on the couch with a cup of tea and a blanket, since I refused to go down the hallway to the bedrooms. Within moments I was dozing listening to Mother and Father, who talked in hushed tones to the mercenaries in the kitchen. Every so often, I’d awaken and one of my parents or Aella, or the mercenary mages would be looking in on me. They’d give me a tight-lipped smile, and then I’d close my eyes and they’d be gone again. It wasn’t until I heard the sound of a horse at a gallop that I was startled into full wakefulness.

  “Don’t move,” Father said to me, opening the door a crack to look out. Only when he saw who it was did he open it fully.

  I looked backward, out the window. It was Nai. She swung off her father’s horse before it had come to a full standstill and came straight to the house at a run without tying him off. Her hair was undone and wild. Farther down the road behind her, a wagon and horses kicking up dust, headed this way.

  “Nai, this isn’t the best time—” Father began, but she cut him off.

  “You’ve got to get Taryn out of here. Beth woke up, and she said it was Michael who assaulted her. She said he’s got some sort of plan to trap a gryphon, and she said he said Taryn’s involved. Now they’ve got Michael, the gods only know how. There’s a group of people getting ready to come get her to put her on trial too. Such as it will be, with the state they’re all in,” she said, her tone stating clearly how just she thought the trial was likely to be. “Those dung heap mercenaries are right behind me but we can still hide her and then maybe we can stop them from…” she trailed off, taking in the armored guests, and finally seeing me on the couch.

  “Hey,” I said dryly with a small wave.

  Nai pushed past Father, rushing to embrace me tight enough to hurt. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve been rung out and hung to dry.” She rounded on Aedith and the three other mercenaries present. “You can’t have her. She hasn’t done anything. She wouldn’t hurt anyone!”

  I wished I could have laughed, but I couldn’t. To my own ears, my voice sounded brittle. “Nai, don’t yell. They’ve just finished saving my life. It isn’t polite.”

  She looked back at me, suspiciously. “What?”

  “Nai, you said they’re coming for Taryn?” Aella interrupted.

  Nai seemed to see her for the first time. “Yeah. Laura, Martin, Robert, Daniel, maybe some others, I don’t know. Willy tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn’t listen. Michael is talking in riddles, but he’s making it seem like she was in on everything. As soon as they started talking that way, father helped me sneak away to the stables.”

  I felt dizzy. I hadn’t done anything, but would that matter? They were scared, and they were angry. If my essence was close enough to Michael’s to complete a spell, then wouldn’t they be right to assume that I’d been infested with the same ill luck he was? They’d burn me too. They’d have to, to protect their crops, livestock, and families.

  When illness had swept the Nophgrin mountains a few years prior it had taken many lives. My grandparents had been included. The town had watched from a distance as the bodies had been burned, to prevent the
tainted luck of sickness from spreading. The fire had raged so hot and steady that when it was over there had been barely enough ashes for each affected family to scatter a handful. A wave of nausea rolled over me.

  “Ma,” Aella murmured urgently.

  The two of them were staring at one another. Aedith’s eyes flicked to the side. She looked to Ito and Belinda in turn. They each gave the tiniest of nods.

  Outside, the mercenary wagon had drawn up next to the house. Around it swarmed the rest of the company. Kaleb ducked inside with a nod to my father who was still by the door, looking lost.

  “Time to go,” the tall black man said. “Things are getting a little too exciting in town for my tastes.” He looked from my father to my mother. “I’m sorry, for both of you. This trial is all but over. Michael confessed outright as soon as we ungagged him. There may yet be time for you to say your goodbyes if you leave now.”

  To my shock Mother shook her head. “No. Michael made his choice.”

  “Mother,” I protested.

  Father’s eyes were bleak. “You take care of family, and Michael is no son of mine. If they’re coming for our daughter then we must focus on that. She can’t stay here.”

  “We don’t have much to offer. Most of our wealth is in sheep,” Mother said. “But you’re leaving now. We’ll give you anything we have if you take Taryn out of the mountains with you.”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and I felt like I was falling. Nai was holding my hands and I could see my wide eyes in her own. Leave Nophgrin? Run away with mercenaries? But it was that or face almost certain death by fire. Nai squeezed my hands, and I squeezed back.

  Aedith didn’t keep us in suspense. “There isn’t much time to waste. Gather what you think you’ll need, Taryn. We ride as soon as you’ve packed.”

  With Nai’s help, I stood. Father grabbed his overnight bag from under his bed. It had barely been used in the past, and the leather was still stiff. It fit a few dresses and other articles of clothes. Nothing in my room seemed like it belonged with me on the road. My crook might have, but it had been left back in the clearing. I wasn’t about to request we go back for it.

  My work belt I looped around my waist. Father had commissioned a matching set for my brother and me, when we became old enough to take solo watches. I stroked the cool leather thoughtfully, tracing the patterns. Had Michael been wearing his when he was apprehended? I couldn’t remember.

  In the blur of packing I found the little wooden gryphon that I had been whittling. Mother was hovering in the doorway, and I gave it to her.

  “For your birthday,” I said. “I’m sorry, it’s not finished.”

  She cupped my face in her hands. “I love it. I love you.”

  When her face crumpled and tears began to fall she turned away from us with a muffled apology. She strode down the hallway and then the sound of my father comforting her in the family room came to me faintly.

  I looked back at Nai, knowing this would be where we said our goodbyes, and unsure how to. “Thank you,” I finally said to her. “Your warning probably saved my life.”

  Her smile was as bright as ever, though tears were streaming down her cheeks like the rest of us. “You’re my best friend. What else was I going to do?”

  “I wish you could come with me,” I said, and when fear flashed in her eyes, I quickly amended, “I know you can’t. I’m not asking you to. I just think I’d be less scared if you were with me.”

  “With a girl like her at your back, you’ll forget me soon enough.” Nai jerked her chin over my shoulder. I didn’t look, I knew she meant Aella.

  I hugged her, hard. As I did so, an intense feeling struck me, and before I let go, I whispered into her ear, “In Michael’s room there is a journal of notes. Take it. Hide it away. Ok?” I pulled back to look her in the face. She nodded, eyes wide. I had so rarely asked her to keep secrets, but I knew she would keep this one.

  In the kitchen, I said my goodbyes to my parents. “Be brave,” Father told me. “It could be that they’ll calm down and it will be safe for you to come home.”

  “Write us when you’ve reached somewhere safe to stay.” Mother pressed a coin purse into my hands, and a parchment with a list of names. “These are our contacts from the capital. The people we thought Michael might,” she faltered, then went on. “Try and get to them. That way we know where to write to you. You’ll be safe with them until we can tell you when you can come home.”

  I knew I wouldn’t ever be able to come home. My luck was tainted with what Michael had done, wasn’t it? Even if the town changed their minds, I knew better. I could never come home to poison them. I didn’t say as much. Instead I hugged them tight, for what I knew would be the last time.

  Then I was out the door and mounting Hale. In one breath, I was waving goodbye to my parents. In another, I was riding alongside Aella, and Lucas was sympathetically telling me it was going to be all right. In a third, we were cresting the first part of the mountain pass, and I was looking down the slope at Nophgrin. It was so small that I almost didn’t see the plume of smoke that curled up from it into the afternoon sky.

  I was on a pyre. My legs and feet were bound to a long, thick piece of wood. Idly, I wondered how many of these we had on hand and where the guards kept them. It seemed odd to think we had a stockpile of stakes laid up on the off chance that someone needed burned.

  To my right, William was using a torch to light the smaller pieces of kindling. He looked up and met my eyes with his own regretful ones. The wood began to crackle as the fire burned through the smaller pieces of fuel and then eat into the bigger logs. He shuddered and turned away from me. What did he see, I wondered? Not just a shepherd, that was for certain. A mage. A powerful sorcerer. Someone to be feared, and respected.

  I was gagged in deference to that fear. A charm had also been placed around my neck. The mercenary Kaleb had given it to William. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I knew that it made my magic feel as though it rested just outside of my fingertips. Strange how used to its presence I had become in such a short amount of time. Without it, I felt half empty. It was no matter. Soon enough it would be back within my grasp.

  The fire was coming closer to me now. I could feel the heat through my boots. Still, I wasn’t afraid. I shut my eyes against the smoke that was beginning to thicken, and sting. My master would not invest so much into my education only to let this ignorant horde kill me. He would come for me.

  Over the sound of the fire, I could just barely hear the crowd that had gathered. There was some muttering, as some that had thought they had known me debated my ‘motives.’ Mostly a heavy sort of silence prevailed.

  I knew Beth was out there somewhere. I had seen her as they dragged me to the platform. She had been supported on both sides by her mother and stepfather. I couldn’t imagine how much it had taken for her to drag herself out of bed to attend. I was flattered, in a way. The terror and hatred I had seen in her face as she gazed at me had been breathtaking. More was the pity that I hadn’t used her as I had initially intended. But I had gambled, and I had lost. That happened sometimes, even Master Noland had said so. Eggs and omelets, after all. I knew better now. Next time I would not lose.

  Fire licked my ankles; it was more than hot through my breeches. I could smell my leg hair burning. My heart fluttered slightly. Ruthlessly, I shoved the fear aside. He would not let me burn. Think of something else.

  My twin. I had hoped to have her here with me when my master fetched me. It would have simplified things. However, neither she nor my parents seemed to be in attendance. I swallowed, and the smoke burned my throat. Where was she now? I had heard no word of her being caught. Yet, if they had not arrested her when I indicated she had been involved in my plan—well she would have been here, to say good bye.

  It had been difficult to decide to use her in the spell, but Master Noland had been right. Ultimately, using her would have worked far better than some random girl. It had been worth it to try.
If she could have only grasped all he knew, she might even have seen it for the honor that it was. To be in service towards his greater purpose… But there had been no time.

  White hot pain snaked through my thoughts, and panic blanked my mind. I was burning. The fire had eaten through my breeches and was charring my boots. My eyes sprang open, onto a wall of white smoke.

  Shocked, I screamed hoarsely as the fire raced up my leg. My body convulsed on its own, attempting to pull me away from the pain that was eating away at the bottom half of my body. There was nowhere to go. The ropes had been soaked in water, and they were as thick as my arms besides. Pain lanced through the wounds in my shoulder as the movement pulled at them. Agony on top of agony.

  The fire was crawling up my chest now. Soon it would be over my head, enveloping me entirely. He wasn’t going to let me burn. He wasn’t going to let me burn. He was—

  The rope from which the charm hung burned through. The small token fell from my body; it bounced off a log that had yet to be consumed and rolled away from the pyre into the wet grass beyond it. I wouldn’t have noticed it amidst the anguish, but my magic rushed back to me then. For a moment, elation struck me, but the feeling was quickly extinguished. There was too much pain. I could never grip the magic firmly enough to wield it. Not now.

  Tears rolled down my cheeks, little tracts of cool on skin that felt as though it was blistering. Which it probably was. I was more than certain that I could smell myself cooking. I was going to die. How could he let me die?

  Then, all at once the white heat of the fire was replaced with a feeling like ice. Though they still roared around me, the flames were no longer eating my flesh. I sobbed in as much surprise as desperate relief. Panting, I looked around me. To my eyes, a hazy darkness now shadowed the fire. With a sudden intensity, the flames billowed upwards and around me, and the crowd outside of the wall of fire was veiled entirely. They were confused. They gasped and screamed, at the sudden ferocity of the flames.