The Griffin's War (Fallen Moon Trilogy)

by K J Taylor

  Arenadd could feel himself trembling. “Yes. And it’s all yours, Skade. Protect it, and I’ll protect you.”

  “I shall.”

  He kissed her, harder this time. “If I can’t stop you from fighting, then promise me this.”

  She drew back and looked him in the eyes. “Yes?”

  He put his arms around her, holding her close. “Stay by me,” he said fiercely. “Stay behind me. Let me protect you; keep me between you and danger. Let me be a shield.”

  “A shield does not feel pain,” said Skade.

  “I don’t care. I don’t care. Stay behind me. Promise me you’ll do that, Skade.”

  “I . . .”

  “Promise,” he said fiercely.

  “I shall,” she said.

  Locked together, they staggered and fell onto the bed. They lay there, still clinging to each other, and laughed.

  Arenadd found Skade’s arm. “Is this mine?” He tugged it. “Wait . . . no, that one’s yours.”

  Skade grabbed on to one of his. “This one is yours, silly.” “Ow. Yes, definitely . . . whose leg is this? Wait, that one’s mine, too. The boot’s a dead giveaway . . . the sole’s coming off.” He pulled the boot off and tossed it aside.

  “I think this leg is yours as well,” said Skade, tapping the other one on the knee.

  “Yes, definitely.” He took the other boot off and turned it upside down, tipping out a handful of dirt. “Urgh, I had no idea that was in there.” He threw it away. “Now then . . .” He pretended to notice Skade’s own footwear for the first time, and did an exaggerated double take. “Hey! Take those off—d’you want to get dirt on the sheets?”

  Skade pulled them off and put them aside. “Oh, I am sure someone will clean them for us.”

  Arenadd tickled her toes. “Now, these toes are definitely yours.”

  She giggled. “How can you tell?”

  “Well . . .” He tapped them one after the other, as if counting them. “For one thing, mine are longer. And for another, they’re hairier. And they’re more flexible, too. See?” He flexed his own toes. “They match my fingers. And for another thing, my toes don’t have nails like these on them.” He tugged at one of Skade’s toenails, which were in fact not toenails at all but curved black claws. “By gods, I’d hate to be kicked by you with your shoes off.”

  “Why, because of the scratches?” she said.

  “No, the smell.”

  She kicked him. “Smell! If you had my sense of smell, you would know how terrible you smell.”

  Arenadd put on an exaggeratedly sinister leer and waggled his fingers at her. “Why, do I smell like blood?”

  “No, like sweat,” she said, and pushed him off the bed.

  He hit the floor with a thud, and waved an arm over the edge of the bed. “All right! I surrender!”

  Skade leant over and pulled him back up. “Fine, come back up, then, but if you insult my toes again . . .”

  Arenadd climbed up beside her. “No, the toes are safe. Trust me. But this ugly dress, on the other hand . . .”

  Skade prodded him. “Indeed, I cannot for the life of me understand why you are still wearing it.”

  Arenadd pouted. “Well, fine. I’ll let you see the ugly skin underneath, then.”

  She helped him struggle out of the robe, and he dropped it on the floor.

  “See?” he said. “Now I bet you’re sorry.”

  She leant forward and touched his chest, smooth and white with a scattering of coarse black hair where it wasn’t broken up by scars and the tattoos that covered his shoulder.

  “I would like you better if you had more feathers there,” she said.

  “I’ll try to grow some. Promise.”

  “What colour?” she asked seriously.

  Arenadd grinned. “Black, to match my eyes.”

  She fingered the little patch of hair around his belly button. “Ah, but you already have fur. Although not much of it.”

  “I bet I have more than you do,” said Arenadd.

  He helped her struggle out of her dress. Once she was naked, he examined her chest.

  “Nope, no fur here,” he said. He felt her breast. “None here, either. Wait . . .” He reached into her armpit and found the patch of hair there. “Ah-ha! There we go. So that’s where you were hiding it!”

  Skade laughed. “You talk far too much,” she said, and pounced on him.

  Arenadd let her pin him down. “Actually—”

  She silenced him with her lips.

  12

  The War Begins

  Erian and Senneck left Gwernyfed so early the sun had barely begun to rise. It meant they avoided the villagers, but doing so created a lump of unease in Erian’s stomach that stayed there for much of that day’s travelling. He tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t leave him alone. He felt like a thief stealing away in the dead of night.

  I didn’t do anything wrong, he told himself dozens of times, but the feeling refused to be convinced and continued to nag at him until later that morning, when Senneck stopped to rest, touching down in a snowy field.

  She curled up, apparently unbothered by the snow, yawned and rested her head on her talons. “Loosen up your legs,” she advised briefly. “I will not stop again soon.”

  Erian drew his sword and walked back and forth, making experimental slashes at the air while he limbered up. “D’you think we’ll get to another village tonight?”

  Senneck yawned again. “Unlikely. We shall probably have to camp.”

  Erian stabbed the sword at nothing. “Good,” he said, almost angrily. “I’d rather freeze than entrust myself to those people again.”

  “I doubt we will encounter the same people in the next village,” Senneck said acidly.

  “You know what I mean.” Erian paced back and forth more rapidly. “By Gryphus, they harbour a criminal and then treat us as if we were the ones who’d committed a crime.” He put on a high-pitched whine. “‘What’ve ye done with our son, ye bastard, ye’ve killed him, haven’t ye?’ Hah!” He made another slash with the sword. “I’d have liked to take the brat’s head off. If that sister of his hadn’t seen us follow him . . .” The memory of the distraught faces of the miller and his wife rose up, and Erian struck at the air again, more violently. “It wasn’t my cursed fault,” he muttered. “I didn’t kill him, just scared him a bit . . . if he couldn’t find his way back, then that’s his fault. Anyway, they’ll find him on their own—how far could he have gone? The stupid little—”

  Senneck sighed. “Erian, stop that at once.”

  Erian glared at her. “I’m just tired, all right?”

  “Rest, then,” said Senneck. “Or at the very least allow me to.”

  “Fine.” He stalked off.

  Erian found a half-rotted stump at the edge of the field and spent a good while hacking pieces off it, which helped to soothe his temper. When he had calmed down he wandered back to Senneck and found her busy grooming her wings.

  “I am nearly ready,” she said.

  Erian nodded and stood by until she crouched low to let him get on her back.

  They travelled on for the rest of that day without incident, stopping a few more times to rest, before making camp shortly before sundown. Erian built a crude lean-to and got a fire going while Senneck flew off to hunt. She returned after dark with the carcass of a wild goat and allowed him to take one of the animal’s hind legs to cook while she ate the rest herself.

  Erian cut up the meat and spitted it over the fire. While he waited for it to cook, he sat back and ate a dried apple.

  “Senneck,” he said, once she had finished eating and settled down to gnaw on the bones.

  She flicked her tail briefly to acknowledge him, and he plunged on. “I was thinking . . . well, wondering . . . could you tell me more about this place we’re going to? I mean, is it dangerous?”

  Senneck paused and then spat out a bone. “I do not know much. It is said to be the place where a band of your ancestors stopped as
they entered this land for the first time.”

  “Yes, I know that part,” said Erian. “And Baragher the Blessed was with them, as their leader.”

  “How much do you know of your ancestor, Erian?”

  Erian shrugged. “He brought Gryphus to Cymria, they say. He built the first temples to him, and created the rituals and the chants. They say Gryphus appeared to him in a dream and gave him this symbol.” He touched the sunwheel around his neck.

  “Some even say he became the first griffiner, because Gryphus willed it,” said Senneck. “I do not believe in your gods, but if Baragher discovered a powerful object of some kind . . .”

  “What do you mean?” said Erian.

  “Simply that the Island of the Sun is said to be where Baragher concealed an item with great powers; therefore, if it is real, it must have magic inside it.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Erian. “How can magic be inside something? I thought only griffins—”

  “Magic comes from the world, from nature,” Senneck told him in clipped tones. “We are part of nature. Some believe that our kind was created by magic, when—”

  “Oh yes, I know about that,” said Erian. “That old children’s story about how Lion and Eagle fought each other until they fell into a bottomless pit, and while they were in there a great light appeared and changed them into one being called Griffin.”

  Senneck glared at him. “Magic is in us, and we wield it, but nature wields it also. That is what makes the sun rise and the seasons change. And magic can be in certain objects—sometimes placed inside them by griffins, perhaps by accident. I have heard of an object becoming infused with magic accidentally, simply by being close to a griffin using magic.”

  “Oh!” said Erian. “So . . . so you think that whatever Baragher hid on this island must be something like that.”

  “That is the only logical explanation,” said Senneck.

  “I wonder what it could be, though?” said Erian. “If it’s a weapon . . . maybe it’s a dagger . . . or a sword!” His eyes gleamed. “By gods, a magic sword . . . when I was a boy, I used to pretend I had a magic sword, and I called it . . .”

  “Erian.”

  “. . . and I used to pick up a stick and pretend that was it, and—”

  “Erian,” Senneck repeated patiently. “Your food is burning.”

  Erian jerked back to reality and retrieved the charred meat, swearing colourfully.

  Senneck chirped and cracked a bone into splinters with her beak, while her human gloomily settled down to his blackened meal. “That’ll teach me to daydream,” he muttered. “Magic swords—hah.”

  “I doubt it could be a sword,” Senneck said unexpectedly.

  “Hmm?” said Erian.

  “I said, I doubt it could be a sword.”

  Erian deflated slightly. “Why?”

  She struck the goat’s skull with the point of her beak, cracking it open in order to get at the brain. “Think carefully. Whatever it is, it has been there for hundreds of years. Any sword would have rusted away to nothing by now. No matter how magical.”

  “Oh.” Erian couldn’t help but be disappointed. “But . . . how can it be a weapon, then? If a sword would rust away, so would a dagger or a spear or anything else.”

  “As I said before, I do not know,” said Senneck. “But we shall find out, you and I.”

  Erian chewed at a piece of burned meat for a moment, and then gave up and threw it into the fire. “There’s something else I was wondering about,” he said.

  Senneck made a rasping noise in the back of her throat but said nothing. She pulled the goat’s brain out of the skull in chunks and swallowed them.

  Erian tried not to let his revulsion show. “I’ll wait,” he muttered.

  Senneck finished eating and rubbed her beak on the ground to clean it before she settled down to groom her chest feathers. Erian didn’t try to interrupt, and she proceeded to reorder feathers and fur, even nibbling the length of her tail and combing the fan of feathers she used to steady herself in the air. After that she cleaned her talons, nipping away a few dead scales from her toes and forelegs. That done, she shook herself vigorously, sending up a small cloud of dust. She scratched her flank, dislodging a few loose feathers, and then lay down again with a contented sigh.

  “Always questions with you!” she said abruptly, as if there had been no interruption to their talk.

  “Well, what do you expect?” said Erian, a touch irritably. “One moment everything’s normal and I think we’re done with . . . with him at last, and now people are telling me I’m some sort of Chosen One or something.”

  “I suggest you accept it,” Senneck said brusquely. “I believe Kraal’s word—do you?”

  “Of course I do. But I was wondering . . .” Erian sat back. “If I’m Aeai ran kai, shouldn’t I have powers? He does—why not me?”

  “For a human to use magic is not as simple as you think,” Senneck snapped. “You are not born to it. If you were to use it, you would have to become something other than what you are now. It would change you in ways that would make you unrecognisable. You would not be Erian Rannagonson any more, or even human—you would be something else, something as warped and hideous as Kraeai kran ae. Would you, too, choose to be heartless; would you give up your very soul simply to have what only griffins were supposed to have?”

  Erian gaped at her for a moment, and then looked away and shuddered. “No. I didn’t mean . . .”

  “I do not know all there is to know about this,” said Senneck. “Only what Kraal has told me, and the things I knew already. But I know this: if Kraeai kran ae uses magic, then he is no longer human. And the more he uses it, the further from human he will become. It will corrupt him in ways you cannot imagine.”

  Erian felt cold inside. “I understand, Senneck. But—” He couldn’t stop himself from persisting. “But isn’t there something—some sign—something I’d be aware of myself?”

  Senneck clicked her beak. “It is said that Aeai ran kai sees Gryphus—the god—in his dreams, or that some voice comes to him with advice and warnings, which humans believe is Gryphus.”

  Erian tried to think. Had he ever dreamt of the Day God, or something that could have been him? He trawled through his memories, looking for something—some message or symbol—but he had always been bad at remembering his dreams, and nothing struck him.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember ever seeing him.”

  “Then perhaps you will one day,” said Senneck, though she didn’t sound as if she believed it.

  Erian returned to his ruined meal, deep in thought. He wondered if Kraeai kran ae had had dreams, if Scathach, the Night God, had come to him in his sleep. Had she appeared to whisper her dark messages and commands in his ear? Was she truly the one commanding him to do the things he had done? Erian felt his stomach twist. If she had, what did that mean? Did Kraeai kran ae have any control over himself; could he refuse to obey the Night God? She was said to be powerful and seductive, and full of deception, just like her chosen people. What would she do if her creature disobeyed her? What would Gryphus do to him, Erian, if he became defiant?

  But I won’t, he promised himself, thinking that perhaps the Day God could hear. I don’t want to disobey you. I want to kill him; I want to protect Malvern. You won’t have to punish me. And I won’t fail you.

  He thought back to his boyhood, back at the little farm where he had grown up. His grandparents had raised him, and his grandmother had been the one who liked to tell stories and teach him the history of the world.

  Long ago, she had said, long ago, there was a giant egg, floating in the void. One day it hatched, and two great lights came out. One was gold, one was silver; the first was male, the second female. They were called Gryphus and Scathach, the two gods. In the beginning, Gryphus and Scathach were in harmony. They loved each other dearly, and together they conceived a second egg, which hatched into the world. Then they created humans, to live on this wo
rld and be their children. Scathach, who was clever as well as beautiful, said that she and Gryphus could not rule the world together. And so they agreed that they would share, taking turns. Those times became day and night, and Gryphus ruled the first and Scathach the second. Gryphus created the griffins to be the guardians of day, and he gave them magic and wings so that they could fly to him. But Scathach was jealous of what he had made. She did not have the power to create new life, only to end it, and one night she gathered a group of humans together. They were outcasts: liars and thieves and rapists. Scathach gathered them to herself and said that they would be her own people; they would live in darkness and worship her alone. And as they bowed down to her and turned their back on the sun, their skin became pale like the moon and their hair and eyes turned black as night.

  When Gryphus saw Scathach’s people, he became angry and said that if she could have her own people then he would, too. He gathered the rest of the people—the strong, the brave, the kind and the honest—and he gave them yellow hair like the sun and blue eyes like the daylight sky.

  But the people of the night, seeing Gryphus’ chosen, became angry and jealous and began to attack them. They would steal into their villages at night and kidnap their women and take their children to sacrifice to Scathach. When Gryphus saw this, he was angry, and he commanded the griffins to help his people. So the first griffiners were born when the griffins chose humans worthy to ride them, and they attacked the night people and massacred them and drove them into the cold North.

  Scathach had no griffins, but she chose to protect her people by her own power. She found Gryphus at night, when he was asleep, and she took the sickle moon from the sky and stabbed it into his back. But Gryphus did not die. He woke up and they fought, and he took his sword and cut out Scathach’s eye. Her blood created the colours at sundown, and his created the sunrise. Scathach was defeated and fled north with her people. She took the full moon from the sky and put it into her eye socket to replace the eye she had lost, and forever after she and Gryphus were bitter enemies, and so were their people.

  “And that is why the griffiners have always hated the Northerners and fought them,” his grandmother had said. “And why the Northerners have always tried to attack us and take our lands.”