Skyfire

by Jess E. Owen

  And woke, hissing defiance in Stigr’s face.

  The black gryfon blinked calmly. “What did you see, my prince?”

  Shard caught his breath. The first dream raced back, of Brynja by the stream. The enemy who plucked her away. Then, Caj.

  He shook his head, face hot, and looked away. There was no way to tell Stigr that he feared the death of his nest-father, the very gryfon who had taken Stigr’s eye in battle, and took Stigr’s first love for his mate. But the image of Caj lying bloody in the snow hung between them, and he wondered if he had called the blue gryfon’s name in fear, if Stigr heard.

  “Just a nightmare. A raven dream. Probably…probably not real.” He said it to Stigr, and to himself, though everything else Munin had shown him was true. And if that was so, it meant bleak winter was closing on the Silver Isles.

  It meant his nest-father would die, and wolves would be the ones to kill him.

  It couldn’t possibly be true.

  “Well,” Stigr said. “We’ve overslept.”

  Shard shook his head again and followed Stigr out of the den.

  “Ah, there’s my finest hunter!” Brynja loped along the canyon wall to meet them. She and Stigr bid good morning before Stigr left them, and Brynja met Shard with bright eyes.

  “I’m not your finest,” Shard mumbled, recalling the dream and her, tucked snugly under his wing. He hoped the embarrassment couldn’t show in his eyes.

  “What it is?” Her expression fell and she cocked her head, searching his face. “You seem—”

  “Race you,” Shard said quickly, and bounded away, jumping up to fly toward the tower where Brynja’s hunting band met each morning. Behind him, her laughter only made the memory of his dream flare brighter. He had to remember why he’d come. He had to accomplish his purpose soon. As soon as the full moon brightened the Winderost, he would fly.

  That day they hunted in a distant, windward portion of the Narrows. A vicious flight of eagles attacked them there, though they were different then those Shard had met on his first hunt. They refused to speak to him, and fought savagely.

  Their numbers were great enough to harry the gryfons out of their territory and the retreat ended with all the hunters but Shard in the healer’s dens for gashes and bruises. Now that he understood the eagle’s fighting strategy, he’d been able to fend them off and out-fly them to help others.

  Sigrun would have marveled at the number of healers, not even counting the apprentices. The Vanir in the Silver Isles had one trained healer, sometimes two but often that was a healer and an apprentice. Sigrun, with her two apprentices, made up the largest healing force the pride had enjoyed in many years. The healer gryfons, upon learning that Shard’s nest mother was a healer, promptly put him to work treating the smaller injuries.

  Shard had done well by chasing off the eagles that harried Dagny, probably saving her eyes from their talons. She made a point of telling any gryfon within hearing, and boasting with grateful awe that she had never truly appreciated her eyes until she almost lost them. She made sure everyone knew that she owed Shard her life. And her eyes, of course. It was all very dramatic, but any time Shard tried to play it down, Dagny smacked him with a wing.

  That same day Stigr and his small patrol of gryfons had run off a large pack of painted wolves from gryfon hunting grounds in the pronghorn plains. The younger guardians couldn’t speak enough of Stigr’s fighting skill despite his handicapped vision, and his fine leadership when their younger captain panicked under the onslaught of wolves.

  That evening, Shard followed Stigr toward their crack of a den, both tired and aching, but proud of what they’d done. When they arrived at the den they found Valdis blocking their way.

  “King’s orders,” she said, eyeing Shard. Stigr began to growl but Shard nudged him with one wing, waiting. “You’re to nest in a higher cliff.” She stretched her broad wing up to point across the canyon floor to a neat row of more artfully carved dens, each facing dawnward. “Take your pick of those, one each. Well done today.”

  “We only did what was necessary,” Stigr said.

  Valdis appraised him. “Stigr, please consider joining my clan on the Wild Hunt. And you, Shard, though I’m sure Brynja has already asked. Rest well.”

  She left, and Stigr narrowed his eye, looking to Shard. “The Wild Hunt?”

  Shard laughed, and flew up to claim a new den.

  The half moon swelled toward fullness. Shard worked as he never had to be the best hunter in Brynja’s band, the best male hunter of the whole pride of the Dawn Spire. When gryfons spoke his name, they spoke of great skill in flying and his wit when facing and fighting other hunting beasts. Shard had only encountered the eagles and wolves. The lions of the plains remained a mystery, and most warned that he was better off not knowing much of them.

  “All breezy from here,” Dagny said one morning as they flew toward the plains to hunt pronghorn. “Do well on the Wild Hunt, and the king will accept you as one of his own.”

  And then, will he let me roam freely? Shard wanted to ask. But it was a question for Brynja or Valdis. If Dagny knew of his real origins, she hadn’t said it out loud. Shard thought she must know, for otherwise, Brynja was keeping a big secret from her wingsister.

  But who of us have never kept something from someone?

  “Thanks,” Shard said belatedly. “I hope I will.” He tilted his head as she just laughed and soared off into formation. Shard flapped to catch up to Brynja. “Brynja!”

  She cast a look over her shoulder, wings working smoothly against the chill dawn air. Shard caught an odd look in her eye, but he couldn’t name it. “Shard, stay in formation.”

  He blinked at her tone, then chuckled. “Brynja, did you know we moved to a higher den? You should show me where to find some pine bows so it doesn’t smell like old gryfon.”

  “Shard—”

  “I think the last gryfon to live there must have been ancient. The scent is—”

  “Shard! This isn’t the time.”

  Shard angled away and stared at her. The last fortnight they had always talked and laughed before a hunt. He tried to catch her eye but she looked away with a stern expression.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, and fell back, straightening his wings to fly in line with Sigga.

  “Serves you right,” the gray gryfess said under her breath. “She’s too high tier for you.”

  Shard ignored the barb. All the talk of tier and rank and clan wore thinly on him after awhile—truly, it wouldn’t matter to him once he was safe and secure in the Silver Isles. Safe and secure, and king. Something else must be worrying Brynja for her to act like that. They’d been growing closer, and Shard’s whole world seemed better when she was near. Later he would find a time to ask what it was, and they would laugh again.

  But he didn’t find a time to ask her during the hunt, or the butchering.

  At the end of the day as they bore the meat home, Shard tried to catch up with her, but she only glanced at him with another strange expression, as if she was nervous. “Shard, please. I’m very tired.”

  “I only wanted to say good hunting today.”

  “Thank you. You too.”

  Shard kept pace with her a moment and then fell back when she said nothing, the deer haunch in his talons feeling five times heavier than it was. Something was different.

  Did I do something wrong? He wracked his mind and came up with nothing. Something else was troubling her. He could help, if he knew what it was, but she wouldn’t talk to him.

  By the evening when they were done distributing the spoils of the hunt, Shard brooded. He returned to his den and kicked dirt and nesting material around, trying to rearrange it again and drive out the old scent.

  A female voice hailed Stigr from outside the neighboring den. Shard, feeling nosy, trotted out, ears lifted.

  Valdis flared and landed on the rock ledge outside the dens. “Stigr! Out you come, you stubborn crow. I’ve promised everyone.”

  Stigr emer
ged, with a strange expression when he saw Shard, as if he’d been caught at something. “Valdis. You’re early.”

  “I’m perfectly on time. Come on then, I suppose you’re cleaned up enough.”

  “Where are you going?” Shard stepped forward, noting the distinct lack of enmity in the air between the two older gryfons. That evening, they appeared more bemused by each other than hateful.

  “Apparently I’m to be the amusement for Valdis’s kin tonight.”

  “What he means,” Valdis said, “is that I’ve asked him to come tell us tales. Whatever tales he can without giving you both away. Although they’ll suppose anything strange you know will be some sort of Outlander thing.”

  Stigr flattened one ear. “What sorts of strange things do you think I know?”

  “I couldn’t begin to imagine.”

  “I’m sure you’ve thought of a few things,” Stigr said. Shard stood there, watching, until Stigr noticed him again. “Shard. Would you like to come?”

  “No.” If Stigr was joining Valdis’s kin for the evening, then Brynja might well be there, and if she didn’t want to be near Shard, then he didn’t want to be near her either. He had plans to make.

  Valdis grated her beak. “All right. Let’s be along then, before the lighting of the fires.”

  Stigr gave Shard a look, as if to warn him not to do anything stupid in his absence, then he flew off with Valdis, down through the towers and spires toward the creek.

  Shard sat down where he was to watch the lighting of the fires, trying to shake a sense of foreboding. Brynja wouldn’t talk to him. Stigr was befriending Aesir, or making a good show of it. He hadn’t dreamed a vision again and so he knew it was the same. Seek the mountain. He had to know what he faced, and to do that he had to ask someone other than a gryfon of the Dawn Spire.

  Shard watched the gryfons who bore the torches toward the great pyres on top of the towers and canyon walls. He admired their flight, the careful, slow wing strokes that kept their feathers from catching the flames or putting them out. The shadows grew deep around him, the light warmed to orange.

  A gryfon landed heavily behind him, drawing him from his reverie.

  “Shard!” Dagny declared, as if surprised to see him there, in front of his own den. “I’ve come to help you.”

  “Help me?” Shard stood and fluffed the dust from his tail.

  “I heard you tell Brynja that your den has a special smell. I know a good spot to get some pine and juniper. And herbs. We’ll get it fixed up tonight.”

  He leaned forward, sniffing the air around her. “You smell like—”

  “Smoke? Yes.” She flapped her wings a couple of times, sending up dust. “A hazard of the duty.”

  “Duty?”

  “Flame-bearer.” She eyed his wings. “You could do it, you’ve got the skill. It’s a high honor. A good way to earn respect. Anyway, I’m here about the smell in your den. You want that cleared out…in case you have any gryfon visit.”

  “Who would visit?”

  She laughed so loudly it rang off of the rock. “You are a lark, aren’t you. Come with me!”

  “Oh, well…” Shard had to skip forward and hop into the air to keep up with her. He would be grateful to freshen up his den, and it was best not to spend the night brooding or wondering what Stigr was up to. “Thank you!” he called again, and she only laughed over her shoulder. Shard took the opportunity to glance at the moon, and felt a thrill.

  The next night, it would be full. The next night, he would fly.

  27

  Kajar’s Legacy

  The grass plain stretched ghostly pale beneath Shard, washed in moonlight and rippling with silver when a wind caught the grass. He glided low, breathing in the sweet grass and frost scent. The Dawn Spire and the Outlands lay a half mark’s flight behind him, and from where he flew, he couldn’t even hear the roars of the enemy.

  He hunted lions.

  He hadn’t told Stigr.

  Sneaking away from the Dawn Spire had taken longer than he’d thought, for the sentries never slept. At last he’d discovered a darkened corridor between the arches where he could slip away into the night, but he’d gone on foot at first to avoid attention.

  Far ahead of him, he made out the ghostly mass of a pronghorn herd, grazing, sleeping, some on watch. Not wanting to startle them, he landed and walked through the tall grass, ears twitching to and fro, beak lifted to scent the air. Where there were pronghorn, there would surely be lions.

  A sensation more than a sound made him turn, and through the grass, moonlight flashed green in night-seeing, feline eyes.

  “Greetings, huntress,” Shard said, rumbling the words in the language of the earth. The lioness turned her ears first back, and then forward again. She crouched only two leaps’ length from Shard, still and silent as stone. Then her eyes moved to something behind Shard. He turned, breathing slowly, working himself to stay calm, for he hadn’t come for a fight.

  A second lioness walked up behind him, and she matched him for height and build. He’d never seen a lion so large. The mountain cats of the Silver Isles were smaller and lithe, and the spotted snow cats of the high mountains so rare they might as well be spirits.

  Her sleek, pale hide shone in the moonlight, sheathing rippling muscles on her shoulders, back and haunches. A long tail like a mountain cat’s hung low and confident with an extra tuft of fur on the end, and the faintest hint of spots freckled the backs of all four legs. Shard met her eyes, then was surprised by a familiar sight.

  Long, tapered feathers hung like a bird’s crest behind her ears, around the back of her neck like a collar, braided roughly into the fur. Gryfon feathers. He wasn’t sure if the feathers meant she was a friend of gryfons, as it did with the wolves of the Silver Isles, or if they were trophies of battle. Shard checked movement on either side of him, and from the flickering eyes and the flash of fur, he knew he was surrounded. Here and there he saw a lioness with a feather or two, but none like the one before him, so to her, he bowed.

  “Great huntress,” he said as he straightened. “I am Rashard, son-of-Baldr, prince of the Silver Isles in the distant Starland Sea. I wanted to speak with you about the gryfons of the Dawn Spire.”

  The lioness regarded him with the intelligent, measuring look of a Named creature. Low, warm rumbles came from the surrounding huntresses. Shard shifted his talons, trying not to be impatient, for just when he thought Brynja was right and the lions were Voiceless, their leader spoke.

  “I am Ajia the Swiftest, the third daughter of Badriya, Who is Pale.” She walked forward, her paws silent through the grass. She might have been a ghost in front of him, except that if he concentrated he heard the brush of grass against her fur. The ring of lionesses around him held perfectly still. Ajia stopped three steps from Shard and stretched her head forward to sniff delicately. Her nose and whiskers wrinkled and her gaze rolled to the moonlit sky.

  “Yes, he is the one! He is the one great Tor has led to us. He is the Star-sent, who bears the fire of Tyr.” Again she smelled him, as the words sank in for Shard. “You come from snow, from the dark, from far away.”

  “I followed Kajar’s Sign.”

  She chuffed, nose wrinkling again but this time to reveal long, thick fangs. “That is an eagle-cat name. We the oldest know it was a sign for all, and bears no true name.” Her gaze leveled on him. “I am singer and healer and story keeper of my pride. I have waited for you since the starfire came. I wanted to hunt for you, but the winds said wait, the Star-sent will come to you. Wait for the Summer King. No gryfon of the Dawn Spire would come to us, not under the light of Tor, not speaking the words of the earth. So I know it is you. Welcome to the First Plains, young prince.”

  Shard sat down in the grass, struck dumb. Catori had once told him she thought all creatures had a song of the Summer King, but he hadn’t believed, or he’d thought she meant only creatures of the Silver Isles. But truly, it must have been an ancient song, a legend for all.

&n
bsp; “Tell me how we may help you, for surely it is you who will lift the darkness from the Winderost.”

  “You mean the enemy,” Shard said softly. “The enemy of the gryfons of the Dawn Spire, who they won’t even speak of or name.”

  Ajia loosed a low, disgusted roar. “They will not? Then the enemy is winning. We of the earth know they wish only to spread fear.” Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Do you truly think it is the fire that keeps them from the Dawn Spire? No! They delight in filling every creature’s heart with fear, for their hearts are filled with hate.”

  “How do you know they hate?”

  “Can you not hear it in their cries?”

  Shard could. He remembered his dream with a chill. It hadn’t been Nameless hunger or fear that filled the creature’s screams. It was hatred. And to feel hatred was the burden of a Named creature, a higher creature who felt pride and fear and sorrow. Shard thought of the gryfons and wolves of the Silver Isles and the hatred between some of them and its cause. Where there is hatred is anger, is injustice. But surely these creatures are too powerful to have experienced injustice. Shard couldn’t fathom it. They had to be angry over Kajar, over their lost treasures. That had to be the source of their hate.

  “Who are they?” he whispered. “What are they?”

  Ajia dipped her head low, her eyes lifting once again to the moon. “They are the First children of the earth, born of the earth and of fire.”

  Shard shook his head, not understanding. “Are they…are they dragons?”

  Ajia looked to one side, as if consulting the night. “You should know with your own eyes. You should see. They might have been great beasts once called dragons, but now they are only their hatred, wicked wyrms in a dying land. Come. You should see.”

  She slunk past him and picked up to a trot. As one, the circle of lionesses rose to follow her, and Shard turned to catch up before he ended up alone in the grass.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the border,” Ajia said as Shard caught up. “To the home of the enemy.”