by Jess E. Owen
“Tor is the thunder, Tor is the thunder!
Tyr is the wrath and the rain.
Tor is the thunder, Tor is the thunder!
Tyr is the wrath and the rain!”
Thunder boomed and broke across the sky and the flying gryfons shrieked, then laughed and soared high, weaving in dodgy imprecision that neither Asvander nor Brynja bothered to correct.
“I’m coming, Rhydda,” Shard whispered into the storm, his words in time with the chanting and the thunder. “I’m coming to face you again, and you will hear me.”
Thunder rolled out in growls like a gryfon mother warning a beast away. Rain fell, and they flew hard, rebelliously high, toward the Voldsom Narrows and the Outlands where the wyrms dwelled.
~24~
Orn’s Message
KJORN FLEW AT THE HEAD of his small wedge of companions, every now and then eyeing the dark storm that had rushed in windward of them. Shard would be flying in that storm.
“Shard,” he muttered, “watch your back.”
“What, my lord?”
Brought out of his thoughts by Nilsine’s frank, clear voice, Kjorn shook his head, shifting his wings to soothe his irritated flight. “I was thinking aloud.”
He felt the stares of the gryfesses on his back, and kept his eyes resolutely forward. Behind him, Nilsine resumed her conversation with Ketil, about the similarities of their prides. The other half of the wedge, Dagny and Sigga, caught up on tidings from the Dawn Spire. Kjorn flicked an ear to that, to the news that Dagny’s family was well, and Brynja’s family was well, though watched. Orn spared no one if they were suspected to have helped Shard, or incited the attack on the Dawn Spire.
“Be prepared,” Sigga said to Dagny, and he thought, a little to him. “It will not be as you remember. Many of the outer towers are toppled. The great red bridge on the dawnward border—”
“No,” Dagny whimpered. “Not my bridge?”
“Smashed,” Sigga confirmed. “The smaller three to the starward outskirts remain.” She watched Dagny, then averted her gaze. Kjorn’s feathers prickled with further unease.
“Brynja and I would always meet under that bridge,” Dagny said quietly, her wing strokes leaden. “In the evenings, to catch up on the news after I lit the fires.”
Sigga made a clipped noise of sympathy, and when Kjorn peered back at them, she was looking at him. When he met her eyes, her ears slicked back and she looked away, dawnward, folding her talons in what looked like apprehension.
Outer towers, toppled. A stone bridge smashed.
A shudder rippled over Kjorn’s skin to think of the wyrms, powerful enough to smash rock. A warm, climbing thrill followed the shudder. They had routed the monsters once, and they could do it again if needed.
Then he thought of Shard’s dream, and at the idea of the wyrms marauding in the Silver Isles, his skin went cold as snow.
“I have fought and won against the wyrms once,” he said, forcing himself to remain in the present. “If honor and courage remains, then nothing is broken. The Dawn Spire is more than towers and stone.”
Sigga sniffed, one ear ticking forward, then back, and he knew her thought.
How would I know such a thing?
“Wait until you see it,” Dagny said, her voice brightening, though edged, and Kjorn understood why she and Brynja were wingsisters. Her determination to be cheerful was impossible to break, and always a comfort.
Meanwhile, Nilsine and Ketil had fallen quiet. “Beware, my lord,” Nilsine said, “of any expectations.”
The heavy scent of rain gusted intermittently, but the storm crawled along the border of the First Plains and didn’t drift starward. For a moment, Kjorn suffered the mad fantasy that the rain was following Shard, and he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Good, he thought after a moment. It would wash away the ash from Midragur, and Shard liked the rain.
He registered Nilsine’s comment. “How do you mean?”
“It would be wise not to have expectations about what it will be like when you return,” Ketil chimed in, her voice warm and warning.
Kjorn eyed the Vanir thoughtfully. “I suppose you’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. Returning home, I mean.”
He didn’t mean it to sound cruel, or like anything but an observation, but she looked struck, and turned her face from him. “Ketil,” he said swiftly, “forgive me. I’m on my own wind, thinking of Shard, and my aunt at the Dawn Spire. I didn’t mean any offense.”
With a quick glance at him, she rolled her shoulders in a shrug and said quietly, “I only meant it might not be as you remember.”
Kjorn nodded once, turning forward to behold the distant outline of the Dawn Spire. “Fortunately for me, I remember nothing at all.”
Kjorn had plenty of time to ponder his past and his legacy as they soared closer to the Dawn Spire, but still he was not prepared for the sight of the aerie. As late afternoon touched the face of the Winderost in pale light, Kjorn stared at the place of his birth, and at the ruin that had surely come with the attack by the wyrms.
Towers of stone jutted from the earth and stood tall, but some were only half as high as the others, with newly crumbled red stone around their bases. Kjorn counted at least four of those, smashed. Arches of stone rose and thrust toward each other fruitlessly, spanning only half the distance between each other. Broken bridges lay in marbling shades of ochre, umber, and red, red stone.
He’d thought he would remember it, but the only thing vaguely familiar was the drifting scent in the air. Nilsine flapped up closer to Kjorn as he lifted his head, grasping for something, anything familiar. He curled his talons, staring hard.
“My lord,” Nilsine said, her voice touched with warning.
Kjorn realized voices called to them, ordered them to land. He flicked his ears, noting that sentries stood on the high towers and some even on the piles of rubble. He remembered nothing about any of it. He didn’t remember the ancient formations of stone, vast and dazzling in their color and formation, nor the lay of the landscape beyond it. He didn’t remember the way the sentries were posted, nor the stream that ran out of the aerie and broke into the lands beyond.
It felt nothing like arriving home. His idea of home was still the Silver Isles, and he shook his head, hard.
This is my home. Was my home. And it will be again.
Four more sentries left their posts. Warning tapped at Kjorn’s heart. Four well-built Aesir of the Dawn Spire flew hard at them, folding their wings, calling orders and questions, and Kjorn turned to them to answer.
Too late, he realized that more gryfons stooped at them from above. And they were not slowing down to ask questions.
“Kjorn!” Ketil swooped forward, wings fanning in a hunting flare. Kjorn had time only to suck in a breath before the gryfess struck him hard, knocking him out of the way of the warrior who dove at him, and under the four sentries.
As Kjorn caught a breath, he whirled, stroking the air to gain his equilibrium and understand that they were not being stopped, or welcomed, but attacked.
Four more sentries converged from behind.
“Contain him!” barked a male.
“Mar?” Dagny cried. “What are you doing?”
The male, ruddy in color, flashed her a look of regret before calling down two of his warriors on her. Kjorn scoured his mind for memory of the name. It gnawed with familiarity.
“Sigga!” Dagny shouted, “how could you trick us? We hunted together!”
“That’s why the king suspected me of treason as well.” The gray huntress circled the fight, her voice raw. “He threatened my family if I did not bring Kjorn this far.”
Above Kjorn, Nilsine swooped to distract and avoid their attackers, but wouldn’t engage in battle, and Ketil slashed and fought against the largest of the sentries. Dagny shouted their names, imploring them to stop, even as they drove her to the ground. As Kjorn chose a target and pushed up higher, weight slammed into his back and talons gripped his wings at th
e joint.
He shrieked, hind legs thrashing as he fought to spin and see his opponent, slashing talons at the next gryfon to flare in his face. The male Dagny had called Mar grasped for Kjorn’s forelegs, and all their wings beat in chaotic disarray, smacking each other, swiping faces. Kjorn had to duck his head to avoid stiff flight feathers slicing his eyes.
They sank. The gryfon riding his back dug talons into Kjorn’s wing joints to force him to fold and turn, driving their whole knot of feathers and beaks to the ground. Kjorn hit first and gryfons piled on to pin him down.
Shouts broke the dusty air, and Kjorn sucked in a beak full of ashy, red dirt. Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .
“Mar, look—”
“After her!” barked Mar, and Kjorn squirmed to lift his face from the ground and see who of his number had escaped. Before he could discern anything in the dust and chaos, talons swiped near his eyes and he jerked his face away.
Mar, Mar, why do I know the name?
Four gryfons pinned him, one straddling his back, another sprawled across his hind legs, one nearly sitting on his wing. At least he wasn’t trying to break the wing, Kjorn noted with festering rage. Nearby he heard Dagny, her voice raw and sounding as if she wept. Then it was muffled as if someone held her beak shut.
“I will come peacefully,” said Nilsine’s smooth, calm voice. “Lay talons on me and I will snap them off.”
So Ketil had escaped. Indignation and hope flurried in Kjorn’s heart. Their last conversation, what had he said? She might have been insulted. He’d apologized, but he didn’t know if she would flee him and take this turn of events to Shard, or return to the Ostral Shores, to her Vanir, and simply wait out the rest of this farce to go home. Or perhaps she would be captured. He didn’t know. He knew only that he’d failed the gryfesses who’d accompanied him, and now the gryfon called Mar was staring down at him.
“I came peacefully,” Kjorn growled against the red ground. Dust blew into his face and he coughed, which caused the warrior sitting on him to press talons harder against his neck, grinding his head against the ground. “At the invitation—”
“There was no invitation,” rumbled Mar, stepping close so his shadow fell over Kjorn. “You have no friends here.”
“My mother’s sister, the queen—”
“The queen has no idea you’re here, or even alive. We’re to keep it that way.” He took a short breath and lifted a foreleg, revealing a rock clutched in his talons. It was big enough, hard enough, to break Kjorn’s skull.
“Why a rock?” Kjorn rumbled against the ground, stalling, desperate. The big gryfons pressed him against the ground. He couldn’t move.
“They don’t want royal blood on their talons,” Nilsine said drily from nearby. “What a mighty group of warriors.”
Mar snapped his beak at her. A muffled squeal rose from somewhere, Dagny. Crouching back, Mar raised the rock high.
Nilsine loosed a blood-chilling shriek and Mar dropped his rock in surprise, then whipped about to stare at her. Kjorn bucked against his captors, and they answered by grinding him flatter against the ground. Through talons pressed hard to his head, he saw two big warriors fall on Nilsine, pin her wings, and grasp her beak shut as they did Dagny.
“You know this is right,” Mar growled at Nilsine, then at Dagny, who jerked her face from him. “If he shows his face it will be chaos, and he comes from a line of cowards. “
Dagny’s eyes blazed. Kjorn stared, straining his talons against the ground, trying to shove off his captors. They hadn’t clamped his beak shut. He still had his voice, but he didn’t know what to say. He would have one chance, one plea, one promise to give these gryfons to save his own life.
He scrabbled against the dirt as Mar retrieved his rock and stood over Kjorn. The late light shone at his back, painting him in bloody silhouette.
“Forgive me,” he whispered, “bright Tyr.”
“Do it quickly, Mar,” growled the biggest gryfon pinning Kjorn. “Or I will.”
Brynja, exploded a bright voice in Kjorn’s memory, and he sucked a hard breath. I am Brynja, daughter-of-Mar.
He jerked his head to meet Mar’s eyes as the rock swept down. “Brynja follows me—”
Surprise flickered in the warrior’s face, then pain cracked Kjorn’s head. Then, nothing.
~25~
A Gathering of Rogues
BRYNJA CHOSE THE SPOT to land, as darkness swamped under the clouds and the rain lightened to foggy drizzle. The long flight brought them to the border of the Voldsom Narrows, a network of canyons and crags where the gryfesses of the Dawn Spire had once hunted.
In fact, the great eagles of the Winderost claimed the lands as their own hunting grounds, and only recently, with Shard’s prompting, had Brynja or anyone else bothered trying to listen to them. Now they were staunch allies against the wyrms, who stalked and lived in the Outlands, on the border of eagle territory.
As Shard took a head count, making sure none had been lost in the storm, Brynja trotted up to him, ears alert. “I’ll take some and fly ahead to alert the Brightwing Aerie that we’re here.”
“It’s getting dark,” Shard remarked, looking across the nearest crevasse, where mist drifted from far below, presumably a stream at the bottom.
Brynja chuckled. “My Vanir prince, afraid of the dark? It was you who taught me to find the light.”
Shard stretched his wings, keeping them warm in the cool, damp air. “I meant to say I would go.”
“Shard,” she said quietly, “you need to remain. Half of the gryfons in this band fly only for you, and Stigr will have my tail if anything happens to you.”
“Then you should stay too,” Shard said, stubbornness rooting in his chest. “You will be my queen.”
“We’ll go.”
Brynja and Shard turned to see a trio of gryfons—Keta, Ilse, and Toskil, approaching with heads low in respect. Keta spoke for the group. “We’ll scout ahead, meet with the eagles in your name, and begin the search for the wyrms.”
Breath lodged in Shard’s throat. Arguments rose in him, caught in his chest, and smothered there, as Stigr’s request echoed on and on. Let them serve you.
He wanted to shout no, that it was too dangerous for all of them, but then Asvander was approaching, ears forward.
“I’ll assemble Lakelanders and any of the Vanhar who wish to scout,” he said. “But not tonight. Everyone,” he looked at those who were gathering, “after that flight, we need rest. Do you agree Shard? It’s best not to fly at night yet. The eagles are expecting most to be gathering soon anyway so we shouldn’t surprise them too much.”
Shard agreed quietly, and Asvander and Keta walked among the volunteers, telling Shard what they would do while he stood there, wanting only to go himself, to spare them, to make sure it was safe.
Isn’t that what princes do? Lead?
“Let them,” Brynja whispered. She’d drawn so close, the whisper was only another echo in his head. “Let them serve you.”
Before he could answer, a battle scream ripped the air, and Shard’s relaxed band sprang into a chaos of flaring wings and ramping gryfons and shrieked challenges.
They had not posted a watch upon landing, nor scouted around, nor thought at all about danger for they weren’t yet in the Outlands. They’d heard no wyrm shrieking, but suddenly battle was on them.
A voice boomed above it all. Asvander, shouting, “Form up!”
Shard whirled, pressing his wing to Brynja’s, part of a line that flowed into an outward-facing ring. The shriek came from above, and so their heads turned. Gryfons. Shard spied them against the dull gloom of the clouds. Gryfons, not wyrms. Still his heart scattered.
“Who goes there?” he called, nudging his wings open against Brynja, on his left, and Toskil, on his right. He stepped forward, though not far from the ring.
No answer. The wave of gryfons in the air—he counted only ten—dove, and Shard watched as the Vanhar leaped to meet them, wings beating the air. But this lef
t their ring broken, and even as the Lakelanders moved to close it, Shard heard the rush of wings that meant the first ten attackers were a distraction, and the true assault now came from behind.
“Behind!” he yelled, but was too late, and others had already realized the mistake. Thirty gryfons dove in silence from above, and Asvander roared in challenge, breaking the ring to lead his wave of Lakelanders forward.
“Exiles,” Brynja said to Shard, ears forward, “rogues. If they were here to meet Rok—”
“And he’s at the Dawn Spire,” Shard said grimly, “they’ll think they’ve been betrayed.” Shard backed out of Brynja and Toskil’s space to give himself room, and shoved hard from the ground, wings flapping hard. Gryfons smashed into each other all around, battling with fierce and angry shrieks.
“Stop!”
They fought without strategy now, having used up what appeared to be the only trick they knew in the pre-emptive, pinscher ambush. Shard tried to shout again, then a shriek warned him of impending attack. A stocky, long gryfess the color of ash and bone flew at him, talons splayed. Shard’s gaze darted around, and he held his air, flapping hard, preparing to dive at the last moment.
She closed fast. One wing beat more and she would be upon him.
Then a gray and russet blur barreled into her from the side. Asvander, bowling her over and through the air.
Shard caught a breath and stroked higher, nearly losing sight of the skirmish in the whirling, low-lying clouds. He scoured the battle, saw his own Vanir fighting gamely from the ground beside half of the Lakelanders, saw the Vanhar forming into more precise wedges for defense and attack, and saw that the exiles had no form at all and would soon be driven to ground and subdued if they did not surrender.
Shard tried to discern a leader among them, and heard Asvander shouting. He and another Lakelander held the big female who had attacked Shard, and she was shouting at her band to stand down.
With a painful lack of care or discipline, they kept fighting with seeming glee. Shard peered around and chose a target, a smaller male who looked to be an exiled Vanhar. Just as he angled his wings in preparation to dive, two gryfons stroked in to harry Shard’s target to the ground. Almost before the fight began, it was won.
