The Griffin's Flight

by K J Taylor

  He re-emerged into the open air, coughing and gasping, pain shooting through him as he breathed in at last. Skandar, moving on three legs with Arren’s sodden form clasped to his chest, scrambled up the bank and dumped him on the sand. Arren lay there on his back, head spinning.

  Skandar nudged him with his beak. “You hurt?”

  Arren coughed. “Sk-Skandar.”

  The griffin flopped down on his belly and laid his head beside his partner. He was breathing hard and his feathers were soaked. “Drink later,” he muttered.

  Arren managed a laugh. “I think I’ve—had enough—for now.”

  “Arren?” It was Skade. He turned his head and saw her coming toward him, moving slowly and carefully. She kept glancing at Skandar, but the black griffin only groaned and closed his eyes. The silver-haired woman came to Arren’s side. “Are you well?”

  Arren stayed where he was, looking up at her. “I’m all right.”

  Skade touched his forehead, pulling away the damp locks of hair. “I thought you had drowned.”

  Arren lifted his head briefly and then let it drop. “I’ve had landings that went better.”

  She smiled. “I am sorry I did not try and rescue you myself, but Skandar looked very . . . upset. I did not want to provoke him.”

  Arren watched her, and the wonderful certainty became stronger. “You really care about me, don’t you?”

  Skade looked uncertain. “What do you mean by that?”

  Arren didn’t answer. He pulled himself into a sitting position and kissed her. She started a little, but she returned the kiss willingly enough.

  “You like that,” she said once they parted, smiling slightly.

  Arren looked into her eyes. “You’re right, Skade,” he said softly. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t care what people think, or worry about right and wrong. We’re different; we’re not bound by their laws; we’re . . . free. Free to do and think what we choose. I shouldn’t have tried to push you away like that or been ashamed of the way I felt. I’m sorry.”

  Skade looked a little taken aback by his outburst. “You were thinking all of that while we were flying?”

  “Yes, I was. I didn’t know how I felt at first, but now I do.”

  “You were not certain,” said Skade. “But you paired with me willingly enough last night.”

  Arren looked at the ground. “Yes. I—I was attracted to you. While you were thinking of me yesterday, I was thinking of you. I’m such a terrible person, Skade. I killed Lord Rannagon in front of his children. I set a man-eating griffin free. My parents—they’re in danger right now because of me. That’s why I was going to Norton. I warned them to leave their old home before they were arrested, and I promised to meet them in Norton and help them escape. I don’t know if they ever made it there, but Skandar still wanted to go. But I chose not to. I chose to go to this cave . . . with you.”

  Skade stared at him. “You mean you only chose to go there because of me?”

  Arren couldn’t look her in the eye. “Yes,” he mumbled, hating himself for lying to her.

  She smiled and touched his arm. “You are not a terrible person, Arren Cardockson. You are . . . sweet.”

  Arren smiled back. “You’re wonderful, Skade. You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. Human, griffin—I don’t care which one you are. You’re you, and that’s all that matters to me.”

  Skade looked wistful. “You would make a magnificent griffin.”

  Arren struggled to his feet. “It’s said all griffiners are part griffin already anyway. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be a griffin. To have wings.”

  Skandar was asleep. He looked to have fallen asleep almost immediately after rescuing Arren from the river.

  “We should not disturb him,” said Skade. “He exhausted himself today.” She gestured at Arren. “Come. We should make camp.”

  Arren surveyed the area. They were on a patch of open sand close to the river, and further ahead of them there was a thicket of wattle trees. Plenty of firewood and water, and the sand would be comfortable to sleep on. “We’ll have to move in under the trees,” he said reluctantly. “We can’t risk sleeping in the open; if anyone flies over they’ll see us.”

  “Yes, you are right,” said Skade. “We shall have to ask Skandar to move. But later. Once he has slept a little.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you there,” said Arren. “Let sleeping griffins lie. Especially if they’re the kind that rip people’s limbs off.”

  Skade laughed as they entered the trees and began to search for a new campsite. The wattles were thick; Arren had to draw his sword and hack a way through. Once they were through those, they picked their way through a patch of marsh and gained the higher ground. It was studded with large rocks and dozens of fallen branches, but it would have to do; they were too tired to go further. Arren gladly took his sword off his back and leant it against a tree before the two of them set about clearing the area, removing rocks and sticks. Arren made a fireplace with a ring of stones, and he and Skade began to gather wood for it.

  Arren paused in the act of breaking a large branch in half. “Skade?”

  She looked at him. “Yes?”

  He snapped the branch over his thigh and turned to look at her, holding the two broken pieces. “I never did ask as much about you as I should have.”

  “I probably would not have told you,” said Skade.

  “Ah, but you have to tell me now,” Arren said, and grinned. “Tit for tat; I answered your questions, and now you have to answer mine.”

  “What did you want to know?” said Skade.

  Arren tossed the wood toward the fireplace and bent to pick up another branch. “The answer to the same question you asked me. Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?” said Skade.

  “You know what I’m talking about, Skade. Why did you kill those people?”

  “I killed them for revenge,” Skade said softly. “You and I are more alike than you think.”

  “Revenge for what?” said Arren.

  She looked away. “They had killed someone I cared for, someone who did not deserve to die.”

  “Who? Another griffin? One of your family?”

  “No. My human.”

  Arren started. “You had a human?”

  “Yes. I chose him, and they killed him.”

  Arren moved closer to her. “Who was he?”

  Skade turned and looked him in the face. “His name was Welyn, and he was a Northerner.”

  8

  The Man Without a Heart

  Skade told her story that night, when she and Arren had lit the fire and eaten a frugal meal of reed-roots and berries. Skandar had recovered somewhat and was dozing nearby, his great flanks rising and falling gently in time with his breathing.

  “I lived in a nest near the Eyrie,” the silver-haired woman said, the firelight flickering in her eyes. “There were two other griffins there, my siblings.”

  “Only three of you?” said Arren, surprised.

  “Yes. Unpartnered griffins lived where they chose. The state granted them food and shelter, and every nest had an attendant to clean it every day and bring food and water and fresh bedding. My siblings and I had grown up together after our mother died of disease. They were always looking for humans to choose; they would go out into the city most days in the hopes of finding one. I had gone with them a few times, but I was the smallest of the clutch and did not want to risk invading another griffin’s territory. And I was not interested in choosing a human. I looked upon humans as weak, stupid, inferior beings whose only purpose was to serve us.”

  “What about the griffiners?” said Arren.

  “They were servants to griffins even more so than the rest,” said Skade. “The only difference was that other humans admired them for it.”

  Arren thought of Shoa. “Yes, I suppose that’s true in a way. Plenty of griffins—never mind.”

  “So I stayed in the nest most
of the time,” Skade resumed. “Sometimes I would go flying, away from the city. I enjoyed that. I even thought of leaving, flying out into the wild to live on my own. But what would have been the point? I did not know how to hunt or build a nest for myself, and I knew what humans did to wild griffins. A silver griffin’s hide to decorate some human’s nest,” she snarled. “So I stayed. The only human I came to know well was the blackrobe slave who brought my food. His master owned the nest and sent him to maintain it; he was too lazy to do it himself.”

  Arren sighed. No wonder Skade thought of his race as inferior: one had been cleaning up her dung for years. Slaves got all the worst jobs. Although, when he thought of it, he’d been the one who had cleaned up after Eluna. That was the menial side of a griffiner’s life; if the griffiner was too poor to own a slave or to pay someone else to do it.

  “One day,” said Skade, “one day the slave stopped coming. I found out later on that he had fallen ill. Instead, his son was sent to do his work. He was just a boy, no more than ten years old.”

  “Welyn,” Arren guessed.

  She nodded. “His name was Llewellyn, but he shortened it to Welyn.” She smiled sadly, her gaze becoming distant for a moment. “My little Welyn. He was too young to have a collar yet, but he wore a black robe, like all slaves. He had never been close to a griffin in his life, and when he came to the nest for the first time, he was terrified. I could smell his fear. But he came in anyway and gave us our food. My siblings thought it was amusing to snap at him and watch him run away; I thought they were acting like chicks and ignored them.”

  “I’m surprised he kept coming,” Arren remarked.

  “Surprised?” Skade blinked. “Of course he kept on coming. He would have been flogged if he had disobeyed.”

  “Ah.”

  “It went on like that for a long time,” said Skade. “And then, one of my siblings chose a human. It happened suddenly; one day he was there and the next day he had left the nest for good and moved in with his new partner. My sister must have been jealous, and perhaps that made her more anxious to go. She chose a human a month or so later, and after that I was alone. I became depressed; I had been so used to their company that I did not know what to do now that they were gone.

  “Welyn was my only company, and I began to look forward to his visits. He had become more confident around me; he knew I would not attack him. He used to speak to me; he would talk about everything under the sun while he took out the old straw, and I would listen. Sometimes I thought he was annoying, but after a while I came to enjoy listening to him.” She prodded the fire. “He saw how unhappy I was. I was eating less, and it worried him. In the end, he went and told his master that I was ill. They brought a healer, who examined me and found nothing wrong. I bit him for his trouble.

  “The next day, when Welyn came he was walking strangely. Limping. I knew he was hurt, and when he came closer I smelt blood on him. It unsettled me, made me angry and upset. When he tried to lift the bucket to refill my trough, it was too heavy for him. He kept trying, but he could not do it, and then he collapsed. Fainted in front of me. I went to him, and I saw the blood on the back of his robe.”

  “He’d been flogged,” Arren said grimly.

  “Yes. His master was angry with him for wasting his money and the healer’s time. But it was too much. He was not strong enough for it.” Her lips drew back, exposing her teeth as she snarled her rage. “He was a boy. And when I saw what they had done, I suddenly felt something I had never felt before. It was so powerful, like magic. I felt as if he were a chick and I were his mother who must care for him. I did not want him to be hurt or to feel pain. But I did not know what to do. I pushed him into my nest and curled up with him lying against my belly, where it was warm and soft.” She smiled a little. “I even tried to groom him, as if he were another griffin. Foolish. He woke up after a time, and I expected him to be afraid, but he was not. He looked up at me and smiled, and I let him touch my beak. He stayed with me all that night and slept lying against me. They came looking for him the next morning; they were all angry, threatening. When Welyn saw them he was afraid; he stayed close to me, and suddenly I felt furious. He tried to go to them when they called, but I blocked his way, and when they came toward us to drag him from me, I threatened them. His master tried, but I knocked him down. Later on, a griffiner came, sent by Arakae himself, and commanded me to give him up. But I would not. Welyn was still there by my flank, still frightened and hurt, needing my protection, and I came forward and faced them, and I said”—she breathed in deeply—“mine.”

  Arren shivered. Mine. My human, mine, mine.

  “I did not understand what I was saying,” said Skade. “I said it as if I were being controlled by something else. But I said it anyway, again and again. He is my human. My human. Mine!”

  “My gods,” Arren mumbled. “What did they do?”

  Skade shook her head. “There was nothing they could do. They were angry, but they left us in peace, Welyn and me. I have never felt so relieved in my life. By that afternoon the news was all over the city that a griffin had chosen a slave as her partner. People came to the nest to see us, Welyn sitting next to me with his hand on my wing, unafraid. I felt so proud of him. He had accepted what had happened, and from now on he and I would be friends and would live our lives together.” She paused. “And two days later he was dead.”

  Arren groaned. “Gods. My gods. They couldn’t stand it, could they? A blackrobe griffiner? It violated everything they held dear, didn’t it? They couldn’t just respect your choice, could they?” His voice was getting louder, anger behind every word. “So they murdered him. Just as they murdered Eluna. They had to get rid of us. Welyn and me, we were dangerous.” His fists clenched. “I’m glad I killed Rannagon. I’m glad I killed all those griffiners in the Eyrie. I’d do it again. I’d do it a hundred times.” He looked at Skade, almost glaring. “So you did what I did, didn’t you? You went for revenge against them.”

  “No.” Skade was hunching her shoulders, threatened by his rage. “No, Arren, I did not. That was not what happened.”

  Arren stopped abruptly. “What? What do you mean?”

  “Griffiners did not kill Welyn,” said Skade. “Other blackrobes did.”

  Arren stared blankly at her. “What?”

  “I tell you, they did it,” said Skade. “I saw it happen.”

  Arren couldn’t help it. He let forth a string of Northern obscenities, startling Skade, who pulled away from him. “What for?” he shouted at last.

  “He had betrayed them,” Skade said sharply. “Do not take such a rosy view of your race, Arren. They are not all free and educated men like you. Most of them have been slaves from birth. That is their station in life, and they accept it. Those who do not, die. There were no free Northerners in Withypool, none at all. Everyone knew about the actions of the Lady Riona in Eagleholm, and they saw it as dangerous insanity. No. What Welyn had done violated the way of the world, and it had to be stopped. He was killed by his father.”

  “His own—?”

  “Yes,” she rasped. “You hear me: his father killed him. He came to the nest with some of his friends; he was in a violent rage and shouted at Welyn, told him he had endangered all their lives and if he did not abandon me, Welyn would see the Northerners all killed in the end. The gods did not will our partnership, he said. But Welyn was bold now he had me; he told his father it was his choice and mine and that he would become a griffiner and use his power to make the city great.”

  Skade hissed. “The man was a fool. He killed Welyn in front of me, hit him so hard that he fell against the wall and broke his neck. I rushed to try and stop it, but I was too late. My talons hit Welyn’s father, tore him open. He died there on the floor, and the others fled. I should have let them go, but I had gone mad. I killed them. All of them. Hunted them through the city, every last one, and I killed anyone who tried to stop me. When the city guard came to capture me, I attacked them and killed some before they
snared me. After that I was brought before the council of griffins, who were quick to condemn me as mad and beyond saving. Arakae wielded his power to trap me in human form, and after that there was nothing but anger and misery. I had nowhere to run to, and I did not care, because Welyn was dead.”

  Arren laughed, a flat, bitter laugh that had no humour in it whatsoever. “And after all that you decided to throw your lot in with another Northerner. Haven’t you learnt your lesson by now?”

  Skade hissed at him. “Do not mock me!”

  Guilt hit him instantly. “Sorry. I’m sorry, it’s just—I just didn’t know what to say.” He reached out and took Skade by the hand.

  She made no effort to pull away. “That is why I decided to trust you, and why I came to look on you as worthy of being more than a friend. We are of a kind, you and I. The gods willed us to meet; that our stories are so alike is a sign.”

  “The gods!” Arren snorted. “Hah. The way I see it is that the gods piss on your head and then condemn you for being wet. They never let me in the temple back at Eagleholm, but I never really wanted to go in there anyway. Gryphus and Scathach can lick my boots for all I care.”

  “But you are a Northerner,” said Skade, surprised. “Your god is the moon.”

  “The moon,” Arren spat. “The moon never did anything to help me. I prayed to it to save me when I was in prison, and it was the last thing I saw before I—”

  “Before you what?” said Skade.

  Before I died. “Nothing,” said Arren. “It’s nothing. Sorry.” He glanced at the sky. The moon was up now, its white light outshining the stars. “But you’re right,” he added more quietly. “You and I are of a kind, Skade. You and I together. We can do anything.”

  She was watching him carefully. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Anything.”

  Their journey resumed the following day, and it was one of the happiest times of Arren’s life. Part of the reason was Skandar’s return, and another was the knowledge that they would soon reach the spirit cave and the healing it offered. But the biggest part of it was Skade. The silver-haired woman had recovered her strength and every evening helped him make camp and forage for food. She was taciturn a lot of the time, even unemotional, but her looks toward him were warm and her affections aggressive, almost violent. It was not in her nature to be gentle, not in anything, but Arren didn’t mind. He loved her. He loved her as he had never loved anyone before, more than he had loved Flell. He didn’t care that her eyes were gold or that her fingernails were sharp claws. He did not care that she had been born as a griffin. Nor could he make himself think about what might happen when they reached the spirit cave. For now, all that mattered was . . . now.