Skyfire

by Jess E. Owen

  “Who hunts here?”

  A female voice. She spoke in the low, growling language of the earth. A gryfon who wasn’t listening would hear only witless noise.

  “I am Shard. Son-of-Baldr. Prince of the Silver Isles in the starward sea. I’ve come to meet you in fairer winds than we have before. This is my uncle, Stigr, son-of-Ragr.”

  Words disintegrated into snarls. Shard made out their faint outlines in the dark and tried to get a count. They would see him clearly now and know he was a gryfon.

  “You trespass here!”

  The female circled around him, sniffing, trying to gain a scent. Shard stood still, as a wolf would, to let her. Stigr likewise stood still, though tilted his head to keep her in his field of vision. If they had to, they could fly.

  At least she trotted back, baring her teeth. “This plain marks the border of gryfon claim.”

  Shard mantled. “Then we ask your leave to stay and speak with you.”

  Stigr inclined his head and added, “Do you lead this pack, great huntress?”

  She stopped in front of Stigr. “Do you know why I lead this pack?”

  “No.” Stigr watched her, and Shard tensed, sensing the pack moving around them.

  “Gryfon filth killed my mate. My hunter, Kuruk.”

  Angry yips and howls met her declaration. Wind drove against them with the scent of icy rain. The moonlight dimmed but Shard caught the glint of her eyes.

  “He went to speak with them as you speak to me now, but they wouldn’t hear him.” Her teeth gleamed through the dark. “He was a hopeful fool. What do you want?”

  Shard answered. “Only to speak with you. To ask you about the dark creatures who terrorize the Winderost. I’m not from this land.”

  “That much I can see.”

  “Will you tell me your name?”

  She dipped her head and paced, gnashing her teeth once, then stuck her nose near Shard’s face. He had seen Catori do this to the wolf cubs, to establish her dominance over them. Shard moved his head away and lifted his wings, respectful, but not accepting her dominance. She bared her teeth, first to Stigr, who met her gaze, head tilted respectfully, then Shard.

  “You see me as your equal?”

  “If not my better,” Shard said quietly. “You know this land and hunt at night when the dragons fly. That makes you braver than any gryfon in Orn’s pride.”

  Wild, surprised laughter and howling met his words. She leaned in to sniff his wings, then raised her head. “I am Nitara. I lead this pack now with my brother, Ilesh. He hunts tonight by the Little Serpent River in the canyons that gryfons call the Voldsom.”

  Shard dipped his head. “Thank you. May I ask you questions?”

  “Ask me questions? What must a gryfon learn from a wolf?” She studied him, head cocked, and licked her muzzle thoughtfully. “You’re strange.”

  “I know.”

  “He gets it from me,” Stigr said, and she loosed a curious yawr sound, as if she gnawed on a laugh.

  “You both smell strange.” She looked from Stigr to Shard. “You smell of winter and the sea, like the gryfons of the Vanheim Shores.”

  Stigr looked interested at the mention of that, but only shrugged his wings. “We’re from a bit farther away.”

  Shard took a chance. “Ajia the Swiftest said I am the Star-sent. I followed the starfire here, and I’ll help you rid the Winderost of the Enemy, if you help me.”

  Nitara held still, then tossed her head. Shard caught the glint of white around her eyes. “We do not share signs with the hunting cats of the First Plains.”

  “But you know Ajia.”

  “We arrange our hunting borders.” Again she showed Shard her teeth, as if years of anger with gryfons had to release in snarling at him. “We can meet and talk, as gryfons will never meet and talk. I talk with lions, with eagles. I would talk with dragons if I thought they could hear, but they…”

  “All that’s left in them is hate,” Shard whispered. She whuffed in agreement. The scent of rain grew stronger and the wind icy cold. They had to speak fast.

  “How would you get rid of them? They hear nothing. They say nothing. They are witless and dead in the heart. They’re too large to fight.”

  Shard had heard it said so often from one creature that another creature was witless, Nameless, without reason or honor—yet he’d found that the opposite was usually true.

  Could it be so, for the dragons of the Winderost?

  Shard wondered, with a shock, if that could be the true meaning he was supposed to gather from the Summer King song Ragna had sung. It claimed such a king would speak to all.

  Am I meant to speak even to these dragons?

  “We don’t know how, yet,” Stigr said, when Shard failed to answer Nitara.

  Shard shook off his thoughts, apologizing. “But we will. Ajia said she would stand with me, if I chose to fight.”

  Nitara studied him. “And the gryfon pride?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Shard said. “Tell me all you know of the dragons.”

  Like him, Nitara was aware of the gathering storm, and she spoke quickly. “All we know is that they do not belong here. No dragon was born in the Winderost. They came after Kajar’s war, they came seeking gold. Then the cursed clans fled, and the dragons didn’t follow them over the sea.”

  “But they might,” Shard whispered, fear tingling up his chest. “If they regain their wit and understand that the son of Kajar left.”

  “What do you mean, cursed clan?” Stigr asked. Icy drops of rain splattered against their backs and Shard heard the greater part of the storm rumbling toward them over the plains.

  “The cursed clan,” Nitara repeated. Dark murmurs coursed through the wolf pack who milled around them. “Those who followed Kajar to the dragon land. Those who made war and who stole dragon gold. Cursed,” she bared her fangs around the word, “as my dam’a taught me, their feathers burned bright, we know not how. Like adders, their bright feathers warn of their poisonous natures.”

  “But Sverin never fought dragons, nor Per before him,” Stigr said.

  “Or Kjorn,” Shard said.

  Nitara huffed and shook herself as heavier rain fell. “It’s as my dam’a told. They are cursed, blighted, by the deeds of their forebears.”

  Before Shard or Stigr could respond, the rain struck. Frosty wind lashed them and curtains of sleet battered down. Nitara yelped and wheeled about.

  “Away, away, my pack! Strange gryfons, strange allies, come to shelter. Shelter with us, and we will talk more.”

  Neither of them questioned. They turned and ran like fellow wolves in the rain, toward a rock outcropping where they could shelter together.

  There Nitara told them the history that she knew. Kajar had seen the starfire as a young initiate, Shard’s age, and led the young warrior heirs of all the Winderost clans to the realm of the dragons. They made war, took spoils of gold and gems, and returned to the Winderost.

  Then the dragons came.

  Shard tried to reconcile what she told and what he had seen of the dragons. Somehow, they didn’t match. Nitara’s story was missing something critical, but he didn’t want to question and insult her and break their new, tenuous truce. Every piece of information would help.

  “They fought over gold,” Nitara said. “Per and the others tried to keep the gryfon clans together, but we watched as they splintered, returned to their homelands.” Freezing sleet poured around their rock shelter, and Shard huddled close to Stigr. The musky, rich scent of the painted wolves was almost comforting, for it reminded him of Ahanu and Catori. “And then the dragons came, and the gryfons could not fight them.”

  “So Per and Sverin fled,” Stigr said, fluffing his feathers. “I knew it all along. The cowards fled their own land, left them to the dragons, and came to wreak havoc on our home instead.”

  “This is what we know,” Nitara agreed.

  Stigr broke into grim laughter. Shard watched him, knowing it filled his uncle with dark
glee to hear that everything he believed about the Aesir was true.

  An ache began behind Shard’s ears, crawling forward. It seemed too simple. Something was missing, something was not right. Nitara couldn’t know everything that happened, and possibly Brynja and the others didn’t even know. There was no one left alive who had fought the dragon war, no one who knew the truth. If Sverin and Caj and the Aesir of the Silver Isles actually knew the truth, then Shard now suspected they covered it with tales of glory and war.

  “If the dragons hated Per,” he said slowly, “Why didn’t they follow him to the Silver Isles? Maybe he actually hoped to draw them away.”

  Stigr’s gaze slid to him, but he offered no guess.

  Nitara chuckled. “A question I’m sure the gryfons of the Dawn Spire ask every day.”

  “Cowards,” Stigr spat again. “Thieves and cowards, I knew it. They flee one fight and then declare themselves king of a different land.”

  Shard remained quiet. Stigr had not seen the dragons in the night. Shard couldn’t say if he would’ve stayed to fight.

  Stigr ruffled his feathers. “Maybe the dragons fear the sea.”

  “Maybe,” Shard said doubtfully. He thought of Ajia. “Or maybe they don’t care about the gold or Per anymore, or who started it. Maybe nothing is left for them but to hate.”

  Nitara whined, low and soft. “Maybe this is true, Star-sent. Maybe…if so, then our future is dark indeed.”

  Beside him, Stigr grumbled, then shuddered, and they said nothing more.

  They sheltered the rest of the night with the wolves and flew back only when gray dawn touched the sky. Overnight the falling sleet softened to slushy snow. Frost and drifts of white pocked the Winderost. Shard and Stigr slipped undetected back to their dens, slept a half mark and rose again to start their days.

  They didn’t fly at night again. Stigr was ready to leave, Shard could tell, thinking that the mystery of the Aesir was solved. But Shard still had questions, even if he couldn’t articulate some of them. He still needed to earn King Orn’s esteem so that he could roam freely as a true member of the Dawn Spire pride. He needed to find the mountain from his vision.

  Though Brynja still spoke to Shard with only courtesy, as if she were avoiding forming deep friendship with him, he still enjoyed his days hunting. Dagny assured him the Wild Hunt, their mid-winter celebration, would be his chance for initiation. He need wait only a little longer.

  Part of him was happy for the days to stretch out, to know that every morning he got to wake and fly with the same gryfess who filled his dreams.

  Soon he would be initiated, he could fly freely, fulfill his vision and answer his questions. Shard woke each day with purpose and a strong place in the pride. He fell to sleep each night thinking of his accomplishments. He’d rarely felt so proud in the Silver Isles, where his only true accomplishment was being Kjorn’s wingbrother, and a botched attempt at running Sverin’s colony on Star Island.

  In the Winderost he had a warm, fine nest of his own, more positive acclaim and curiosity from the gryfons of the Dawn spire and even grudging respect from Asvander.

  It was as things in the Winderost improved that Shard’s dreams began to change.

  30

  The King of Star Island

  Snow flurried through the great pine forest of the Star Isle, blurring Kjorn’s vision, deadening the scent of any creatures that might have passed by. The only advantage they gained was spying fresh tracks in the white powder. Kjorn, Einarr and the rest of their band had split to each follow a game trail through the woods, prepared to summon others if they detected a fresh scent. They mimicked bird calls—an invention of Shard’s, that summer past.

  Kjorn trotted through the woods almost like a wolf, head bent as he stared along the game trail, wings tensed and ready if a threat arose. The worried faces of his pride, his father’s warnings about the Long Night, the sea, and all else faded in the face of the hunt. He had found, over the last weeks, that he enjoyed his time on the Star Isle, losing himself in the woods, in the chase and the kill. He wondered if it would be un-kingly if he continued hunting once Thyra whelped.

  Not that it matters yet.

  The deer trail before him split and he paused, looking up, tail twitching. Tall cedars ringed around him, the sweet scent of moldering fern filtered from under the new snow. Under that, cold wet earth. And deer. He turned his head, studying the paths for freshness. Then he spied the distinct, round outline of a wolf print in the snow.

  A snarl built in his throat. How it would ease Father’s mind before the Long Night if he had a new wolf pelt!

  It wouldn’t do to plunge ahead alone. It could be a trap. Kjorn lifted his head and loosed his chosen call—the mimic of a pine jay—then clawed a distinct mark in the nearest cedar trunk. He was confident Einarr would understand that he’d turned off to track the wolves. The others had ranged far, but with the light, fresh snow, they would easily be able to follow him. He called again, a quick she-ay she-ay that carried through the woods to his hunting band, and loped down the wolf print trail.

  Chuckling at the thought of Halvden’s face when he saw Kjorn and the other hunters hauling wolf carcasses, Kjorn slipped quickly through the woods. Snow slacked in the heavier undergrowth and he lost the trail in places, but the scent grew strong enough to follow.

  Maybe I should find Caj…he dismissed the thought. The wolves were elusive. If he left the trail now, they would likely cover it, or the snow eventually would, and he would miss the chance.

  Rowan mingled with the cedar and a twinge of familiarity slowed Kjorn’s steps. He knew the place, though he had seen it in spring and now winter pied it white and brown with snow. He emerged from the woods into a clearing and shivered against the sudden wind. Snow pelted his face, and his throat tightened when he realized he had, indeed, been led.

  This is where we killed Lapu the boar. Kjorn held very still. In the distance, a red-tailed eagle called—but he hoped it was actually Einarr mimicking, responding at last.

  From the trees on the opposite side of the woods stepped a lupine form.

  Kjorn’s blood leaped and he raised his wings in challenge, ready to meet in battle. But he couldn’t make himself move. As if in a dream, he only stared at the creature that had eluded all of them for so long. For some reason he had expected the female wolf who’d warned them of the attack on the Sun Isle that summer, who had befriended Shard, bewitched him, taken him away.

  Before him stood a tall, hulking male. Black fur blended into gold and a pale chest and belly. Thick muscles roped his neck, back and shoulders under his heavy winter coat. He stood proud, ears erect, tail fluffed out behind, but he didn’t bare his fangs. Wary eyes scrutinized every feather on Kjorn’s head. An out-of-place movement caught Kjorn’s eye, and then his breath.

  A long, storm gray feather flicked against the wolf’s neck, braided roughly into the thick fur behind his ear.

  “Shard,” Kjorn whispered. Is that some kind of battle trophy? But I thought they were friends. In that moment, he remembered that he’d seen the wolf before. This one had stood with the red female and a third, had not attacked the nests of the Sun Isle.

  “He lives.”

  Kjorn shook his head. He could’ve sworn he’d heard words in the muted growl.

  “Do you understand me, brother-prince?”

  Kjorn backed a step away, hunching his wings.

  “If you understand the language of the earth,” the growling, rich words settled and sounded more normal as Kjorn twitched his ears forward to listen, “then we may have hope.”

  “You stole my brother from me and he died for it!”

  The wolf tilted his head. “No. We opened his eyes, as your eyes are opening, your ears, your heart.”

  Kjorn’s breath came harder, he panted as he battled with himself. He should be attacking, his talons soaked in wolf blood, at least, to prove to his father…to prove what? he thought desperately. To prove that I think he’s right and that we sh
ould annihilate the wolves and claim all the islands?

  And only in that moment, thinking that, did Kjorn realize he did not agree with Sverin.

  But, the wolves had turned Shard from Kjorn. He had his own grudge to settle. He stalked forward, snarling, and a gleaming expression grew on the wolf’s face.

  “Are you angry from grief, brother? I know this feeling.”

  “I’m not your brother,” Kjorn said. “I have no brother.”

  “What if I said that you do?”

  Kjorn paused, only two leaps from the wolf now. If he lunged, took him off guard, he would stand a chance to win. The wolf stood as tall as an average gryfon, but more muscled, and Kjorn had the advantage of wings.

  I could kill him. Kill him for my father. For Shard.

  Yet…

  “What do you mean?” Kjorn demanded.

  “I have a secret.” The wolf lowered his head, almost as if he bowed, though he kept his eyes level with Kjorn’s. His voice dropped. “Rashard, son-of-Baldr, my friend and brother and yours, is alive and well and treating with your kin in the windward land.”

  Kjorn curled his talons into the mud and dead grass beneath the snow. A war of hope and then anger battled in his chest. He had to be lying. It wasn’t possible that Shard not only survived, but flew to Kjorn’s homeland…but such a strange lie.

  “Einarr!” he shouted. He called for the others, then, in desperation, Caj and even Halvden, knowing they, too, hunted somewhere on the Star Isle.

  “They’re busy,” the wolf said quietly. “My family leads them on a merry chase.”

  “You did this on purpose. You probably even made the deer trail somehow. You’ve turned this whole isle against us so we can’t even hunt!” Kjorn crouched, stalking closer. One leap…“Who are you?”

  “Ahanu,” he said, not denying Kjorn’s claims. “Son of the Great Hunter Helaku.”

  “Great Hunter?” Kjorn scoffed. “Your king? That wolf my father killed?” Confusion tempered into solid anger. This wolf had separated his hunters, herded the deer from them and driven away even the smallest of game. Now he lied about Shard, even while he wore a feather as a trophy.