by Jess E. Owen
“Yes,” Shard said quietly, and Kjorn gusted a sigh. “The wind of war.” He stepped forward. Kjorn eyed him warily. “You told me you would be open to peace, but all I see is that you’re preparing war, preparing everyone else for war, letting gryfons like Asvander tell you it’s what everyone wants—”
“I have to honor the plan,” Kjorn said, lifting his wings.
“Kjorn, if the wyrms are flying to the Silver Isles, we have no time to lose. Think of Thyra—”
“I am,” Kjorn said, his voice harsh. Shard regretted pushing him, but his muscles felt tight with unease and foreboding. “I cannot leave things uncertain here before I return with her. Shard . . .” He met Shard’s gaze, then looked away. “Just, promise me you will stay by my side.”
Shard gazed at him, struck. Then he realized Kjorn thought that if he disagreed with him, Shard would fly, would leave on his own, return to the Silver Isles.
And the worst was, he’d considered it. “Of course I will, Kjorn. You do understand my urgency though?” Shard asked tightly.
“Yes. I do. I promise, my brother.” Such relief glowed in his face, Shard felt horrible for ever considering leaving on his own. “Whatever happens here will happen swiftly. I will see to it.”
“Just remember the dragon blessing,” Shard said quietly. Kjorn tilted his head, and Shard recited, “Whatever you are will be more so.”
Kjorn lowered his head briefly, touched Shard with his wingtip reassuringly, then pivoted and leaped from the den. Shard stared after him, at the hole of empty, cloudy sky and the view of the canyon beyond the den. Weariness needled at his eyes.
He walked to the edge of the den, looked out over the Dawn Spire and the ruined towers from his previous mistake.
The dragons of the Sunland had a unique way of training their warriors, relying on principles of the elements. They learned the way of earth, to be steady and defend. After that, they learn the art of airy evasion, then of fire, to attack. And they learned of water, to flow, to use their opponent’s strength and energy against them, no matter what direction it came at them.
Today, Shard thought grimly, I will be like water.
Spying Kjorn gliding through the canyon, he leaped and sped to catch up, in silence. They flew toward the nightward edge of the aerie, and without further words, they landed at the appointed spot to wait for the rest of Kjorn’s army.
As warriors, huntresses, young, and old, gathered to follow them, Shard watched for familiar faces. He saw those he’d hunted with that autumn past, saw those who’d fought when the wyrms attacked the Dawn Spire.
The queen came, and many gathered near her, rather than Kjorn, as if unsure whose war they were fighting.
There was one gryfon Shard didn’t see. As the Dawn Spire mounted its army in the morning light, Shard searched for Orn.
Brynja found Shard as the last of the volunteers flocked to Kjorn. “What troubles you?” Her voice was husky, her body roiling with the tension before a fight. Shard leaned into her, seeking enthusiasm.
“I don’t see Orn.”
Brynja tilted her head, searching, then lifted her beak to point to the Wind Spire. Shard looked up, and there spied the aging monarch, watching his pride pour out of the Dawn Spire to Kjorn’s side. He watched, Shard thought, with regret, with anger, his wings open slightly as if he could mantle and shield them all.
As if he sensed Shard looking, Orn met Shard’s eyes across the distance.
Compelled by a gnawing mix of strange pity and frustration, Shard dipped his head in respect. Orn stood frozen a moment, then inclined his head. The old king watched as Kjorn called the final summons, watched as the gold prince sprang from the ground, and Shard sensed he was watching still as his pride of ten years left their home to follow Kjorn to battle.
The sun was high on their backs as they came in sight of the Voldsom Narrows.
Shard tried not to look behind them again. Foreboding closed a storm over his heart every time he beheld the host that Kjorn led toward the maze of canyons.
Over three hundred gryfons strong, all the able-bodied Dawn Spire Aesir, with some just barely out of fledge-hood and eager to make their initiation by battle against the wyrms. A contingent of ten healers joined them, with apprentices beside. Kjorn appointed Asvander First in Command, and he led a long, multi-tiered wedge of sentinels. Huntresses, in their own ranks, flew above.
“Kjorn,” Shard murmured, then had to raise his voice over the wind. Many flew in silence, but many talked, and Shard fancied they sounded like a windstorm through pine trees, and that he could hear the thunder of three hundred hearts.
“Yes?” Kjorn looked fully at him, as if to prove he was still listening and paying attention.
“Some of them are too young.”
“Of course they are.” Kjorn glanced behind them. “They’ll stay at the back, assisting the healers. But this is a moment that will be legend, Shard. I couldn’t refuse them a chance to witness.”
“Couldn’t you?”
“Shard, it’s already decided. They’ll be as safe as they can be. They saw their home attacked by the wyrms. Let them fight.”
Shard ground his beak and shifted his talons in his chest feathers, his gaze darting back to the young, chattering fledges that flew at the bottom of the ranks below them. The youngest appeared to be just short of four years. Shard thought of his friend, Einarr, who had been barely seven at the time of his initiation, and had still been considered young.
“Do you remember the boar?” Shard asked quietly.
War, battle, glory—the more Shard saw, the less he liked it. He remembered a time when he’d wanted glory, desired nothing but to show his bravery and courage, to fight for his pride, to prove his worth. Then he had seen his first true test, and felt his first true fear. Perhaps he was not a warrior. Perhaps at the end of his days he would not be worthy to fly with Tyr in the Sunlit Land, but he wearied of fighting.
A whisper warmed his heart. You were worthy without ever seeing battle. You were worthy the moment you listened to your own heart.
Kjorn was arguing. “. . . a chance to face the enemy, and their fear, head on. They’ve already seen it, when the wyrms attacked the Dawn Spire. Let them choose to face their fate. I said they would remain in the back. This is difficult enough, Shard, please, I need your support.”
Shard fought against more arguments. But he didn’t want to be seen further questioning Kjorn in front of everyone. “You have it, Kjorn.”
Gratitude flickered in Kjorn’s face. “Thank you. I promise the fledges will stay with the healers.”
That soothed Shard’s nerves, until they drew nearer to the Voldsom.
The broken canyons remained the same, but Shard heard Kjorn draw a sharp breath, his eyes widening, and when Shard followed his gaze, he saw the greatest host of creatures he’d ever witnessed in his life. For a moment he slowed, flying to a near standstill so that his wings almost stalled against the brisk wind.
At the dawnward rim of the canyon, the lions had gathered. Shard spied Mbari, and three other healthy, big, male lions prowling amongst rank upon rank of lionesses and mane-less youths.
A good stretch starward gathered a legion of painted wolves, many of their heads lifted to behold the host of gryfons flying in. They had banded in smaller family groups of ten or twenty, and ranged all along the rim. Some trailed down into the canyon, but many stopped to watch.
And the eagles. Eagles carpeted the walls and ledges of the canyons, soared through the air to meet Kjorn’s army, or circled lower above the river, watching the gryfons below.
The Lakelanders and the gryfons of the Dawn Reach had arrived, and appeared to have claimed the dawnward bank of the Serpent River at the bottom of the main canyon. With them, Shard saw the rest of his Vanir, thought he caught sight of Stigr’s black feathers.
On the opposite bank, the scouts who’d flown with Shard, the warriors of the Vanhar, Brynja’s huntresses, and the exiles who followed Rok, all clustered and
talked and laughed, and exclaimed to see Kjorn flying at the head of the Dawn Spire gryfons.
It was unimaginable.
The noise, the eerie sight of so many former enemies gathering together, and the suffocating waves of anticipation thrumming from the canyon nearly sent Shard reeling.
“Well.” Kjorn’s talons slowly clenched tight as he, too, took in the sight. “It begins.”
~33~
The Voiceless Horde
RAGNA APPROACHED SVERIN. He eyed her. She watched him slipping between himself and a Nameless, terrified creature.
“What frightens you so?” she murmured, though her own heart had quickened despite herself. She could feel the line of the enemy on the horizon, as if a hurricane of hatred and fear gusted toward them. The storm wind didn’t help, smelling of rain and chill, and skyfire flashing on the horizon. Normally thunderstorms thrilled her, but not that day.
“You’ll see,” he growled.
“No, you will tell me. Tell me in your Tyr-given voice. Tell me, Sverin, son-of-Per, what it is you fear.”
His eyes of molten gold found her, glinting like the metal in his nest. “I’ve seen them kill. I . . .” he shook himself. “Don’t you see? All my life they’ve hunted gryfons. I was never safe. I couldn’t leave my nest after dark. Their horrible shrieking filled my dreams. As a kit, I had a nightmare that I’d hatched from a wyrm egg and they killed me on sight. My fledge-mates who stayed out too late hunting near the wyrms’ borders were killed.” Ragna shuddered, and Sverin’s hackle feathers raised. “They stink of death. Their fangs are the length of your leg. They don’t hear, they don’t speak. Like empty shadows, they don’t know fear or love—”
“But you do,” Ragna said firmly. Outside, Halvden and Thyra and Caj called orders. Gryfons whipped past Sverin’s den on the wing, pregnant gryfesses climbed the cliff. “Tyr burns in your heart. Think of Elena, think of Kjorn. You know love, and courage—”
“No. I have never known courage. I was born hearing their screams, I was born afraid.”
“You can atone now,” Ragna urged, though her patience teetered on a cliff’s edge. Cold wind swept into the cave, and clouds blotted over the sun, dimming the air around them like evening. “You can fight, now.”
Staring at her, feathers sleeking down, he whispered, “I cannot. You’ll see, and when you do, perhaps you’ll think better of me.”
Before Ragna could speak, animal screaming shredded the air in the distance.
A pure fear slithered through her. She clung to the ground, feathers lifting, and managed not to spring away and flee.
“You see,” he whispered. “You see? They will take everything from you. Your love, your courage, your honor. Your very name—”
“I am Ragna.” She ground the name from her beak, wrenching her gaze from his pathetic, huddled form. She strode to the mouth of the den and flared her white wings against the storm. “I am Ragna, daughter-of-Ragr, queen of the Vanir.”
Without a glance back at Sverin, she leaped, and the wind nearly bashed her against the cliffs. She slipped into it, fell two breaths, found a sliver of lift and pushed herself higher, high into the air where Halvden was leading his warriors. Below, Caj, Thyra, Sigrun, Dagr, and Vidar herded the pregnant females up the cliff. Ragna saw them stumbling, stopping to stare out over the sea, crying out in fear.
“Sons and daughters of Tyr and Tor!” Ragna cried, “strengthen your hearts! We have not come through sorrow and war to become Nameless, not now that we are close to being whole. We are one pride! We are strong! Hold to each other!”
Whether her voice helped, or the sight of her, pale against the blackening sky, gave them courage, she didn’t know, but they appeared to collect themselves and move. Caj shouted encouragement. Thyra remained close to them, never pulling too far ahead, nudging them along.
Ragna turned, circling, wheeling hard against the wind to keep an eye on the approaching monsters. Their scent brushed her, decaying meat and oiled, reptilian flesh. A primal, ancient terror woke itself in her and seized at her muscles. Surely, the first fear ever felt by the first Nameless creature couldn’t be worse than this. She shook her head, hard. She would not end up like Sverin, puddled in fear in the dark.
“Warriors to me!” Halvden’s voice, scraping against the wind, brought her round. If he could hold on to himself, so could she.
As her insides quivered, she beat her wings. “I am Ragna,” she breathed. “Queen of the Vanir.”
The monsters, a league out across the sea, clarified against a backdrop of driving ice and rain. Ragna stared, and with sharp eagle eyes saw them in horrendous detail.
The largest led them, a hulking creature of impossible length and girth, with a hairless hide the color of dry mud. Two bat-like wings, leathery and veined, pumped against the storm wind. A long tail ended in a sharp spade, and the long, muscled neck ended in a wedge-shaped head crested with horns. Staring, Ragna knew in her gut the monster was female.
The rest of the flock swooped, squirmed, and flew in a swarm behind. For half a breath, Ragna thought of landing, cowering, calling the others down, presenting peace instead of a fight. But she had already made that mistake when they welcomed the Aesir, long ago. She remembered Caj’s warning that the wyrms would not understand even if she did offer peace.
Looking at them now, she understood that he was right, that these creatures wouldn’t have known the difference between peace, war, or cowardice at all.
Her mind reeled at the sight of their talons, their whipping, deadly tails. She hovered, staring. They were too close. She saw them, and knew she beheld her death. They would fall upon the pride and kill them all.
“Lady Ragna!” boomed a male voice. “Steady, my queen!”
Ragna shook her head hard, and saw Dagr. “Dagr—”
“Go to safety, I beg you.” The coppery gryfon swooped around her, gave her one last look, and flew to Halvden to help rally the warriors who already joined him. Ragna wheeled, hearing Halvden shouting orders, sounding older, sounding confident.
“Form up! We will distract them away!”
With a flare of hope, Ragna saw the gryfons obeying him. All the gryfons—Vanir, Aesir, half-bloods, worked as one, forming into clustered ranks, prepared to meet their enemy.
Ragna glanced down at the fleeing pride, dots of color and wings, racing across the snowy plain to the river. Caj and Thyra’s voices rose above the wind, guiding them. It was dangerous for the females to move too quickly, stress themselves and risk their unborn kits. But they had no choice.
A second monstrous scream split the air, echoed by terrified gryfon cries below. Ragna whipped around to see the oncoming monsters. She couldn’t flee now. Despite Dagr’s wishes, Ragna knew she had to fight. She was a huntress, she was able-bodied. She had to fight.
She had to do something.
Halvden was shouting orders. “Hold here, hold at the cliffs!”
Dagr added, “Distract them from the forest!”
Ragna swooped forward to join two half-bloods, Andor and Tollack, beating the air as they watched the dragons swarm.
“Maybe they’ll flee,” croaked the younger Tollack, a half-blood of mottle gray coloring with a falcon mask.
“If they smell you they will,” said Andor, weakly.
Ragna laughed for both of them, hoarsely, to show them it was all right to laugh. “Steady,” she said firmly to Tollack, who didn’t even look amused.
The gryfons hovered in a stacked formation, forming a wall of wings and talons in the air over the nesting cliffs, a first and last line of defense against the horde.
The big she-beast flared her wings, and loosed a discordant, shattering howl that raised Ragna’s feathers and nearly sent her reeling out of the sky to cower on the ground.
“Steady,” said Tollack next to her. Then, “Andor. Andor!”
The other half-blood had actually begun to sink, with a mewl like a kit. Tollack smacked his head with a wing and he rose again, beating the air
by Ragna.
The horde surged toward them, at least a dozen huge bodies hurtling out of the storming sky toward the gryfon ranks.
A few gryfons faltered, as if to break the line.
“Wait!” Halvden yelled. Ragna hovered, wings beating the air. The scent of oncoming rain and rotting meat clung to the wind.
Ragna could nearly hear all the desperate gasps and growls from down the lines.
Screaming monsters drove toward them, deadly tails whipping behind, claws the size of Ragna’s hind legs extended, giant mouths agape to show fangs encrusted with blood.
A few gryfons dropped from the ranks with terrified cries, diving toward the woods. Ragna swore.
“Hold . . .” Halvden snarled to those remaining.
The monsters closed, fifty leaps, twenty, ten. Ragna’s belly turned to water.
Halvden shot down like a green stone in front of the wall of warriors, shouting, “Scatter! Now! NOW!”
As the monsters closed, the hovering wall of gryfons burst apart in fifty directions.
With Andor and Tollack, Ragna peeled away, shrieking to loose some of her terror and to form a distraction. The monsters smashed into the ranks of flying gryfons, horned heads snapping this way and that, tails lashing, claws swiping randomly at Ragna’s warriors.
A smaller, dull green beast focused on Ragna, loosing a guttural scream that almost shattered her heart with fear. She spun in the air as Stigr had once taught her, and drove under him. Behind her, Andor and Tollack cheered at her aerobatics, then split, forcing the beast to choose between them. It lurched after Tollack, tail slashing the air behind.
“Don’t be heroes,” Halvden was yelling, “just keep them flying, keep them away from the pride!” Surprise and pride bubbled in Ragna’s chest that Halvden was leading so well. He had come very far. Then, with sudden shrillness the green gryfon shouted, “King’s Guard to me! To the woods, the woods!”
Ragna, veering hard, saw that the big dragoness was not fooled by their chaotic display, but flying over the whole scene toward the fleeing pride.
