The Dark Griffin

by K J Taylor

  The man looked unhappy. “Well, how much will it want, sir?”

  Arren swallowed a mouthful of apple. “Not too much. One haunch should do it. About this big.” He indicated the size with his hands.

  The man looked even less happy about this. “I see. Um, I’m not sure. I haven’t got a carcass handy right now. But one of my neighbours has got a cow that’s on its way out; I could go and ask him.”

  Arren paused. It hadn’t occurred to him that they probably wouldn’t have large pieces of meat just lying around. Keeping cows was expensive, and only the wealthy ate fresh meat regularly. Everyone else had to have theirs dried or salted or made into a kind of hard smoked sausage which had to be soaked before eating. “You’ll be properly paid for it,” he said eventually.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

  Once the man had gone, Arren bit into the apple again and glared at the griffin. “I hope you know how much trouble you’ve caused everyone.”

  The griffin stared back at him. It didn’t say anything, but there was a question in its eyes.

  Arren looked away. “I should have killed you,” he muttered.

  The griffin didn’t try to speak to him again, but as the day began and Arren continued his vigil, it continued to watch him. A bloody hunk of meat was brought in around noon and dumped on the floor by the cage and the black griffin tore into it at once.

  After eating, it drank from the trough and slipped back into a drugged sleep.

  The rain had stopped by now, and the sun shone in through the windows, turning the air gold with suspended particles of hay. Arren dozed in the warmth. He lay on his side, one hand curled under his chin, face creasing occasionally in time with his dreams.

  It took two days for the wagons to arrive. Arren spent them almost exclusively in the barn, guarding his charge. Deanne offered to take over for him but he refused. He didn’t want to leave. Somehow the idea of going out into the sun again almost frightened him, as if leaving the barn would mean breaking out of the numbness that had taken hold of him after Eluna’s death. Now that the initial shock had worn off and his wound had begun to heal, he found that he couldn’t think about her any more. She would slip out of his mind every time he tried. But it wasn’t that he didn’t feel any pain. There was pain, buried somewhere under the emptiness of his heart and mind. But it stayed where it was and let him go on living in a hollow, pointless kind of way. All he could really think about now was home. He wanted to see Flell again, and his parents. And he had some vague notion that if he could get back to his house then everything would be all right again.

  When the trio of wagons arrived from Lansdown, Arren helped the bearers load the black griffin onto one of them. The cage was lashed down with rope and covered with a large piece of sackcloth, and boxes of supplies were stacked around it to stop it shaking too much. A second wagon was reserved for the griffiners; it was covered and contained bedding for the three of them to sleep on. The third one was packed with straw and was for the griffins.

  There was no room in either of them for Arren. He elected to sit on the back of the supply wagon, where there was just enough space for him to lie down, albeit uncomfortably. Once everything had been loaded up and the inhabitants of Rivermeet had been thanked and given money for their trouble, the procession got underway.

  Arren sat on the splintery wood at the back of the wagon, listening to the griffin shifting restlessly in its cage, and watched the village slowly recede into the distance. A small place. Not a particularly interesting one, either. I’ll come back, he thought. I swear I’ll come back one day. To see you again.

  He could just see the field where he had buried Eluna, visible between the houses. He was leaving her behind, he realised. He was abandoning her.

  For a moment he was seized by a wild impulse to jump down from the wagon and run back to the village and beyond it to the field, but he didn’t move. It was in that instant that the full impact of what had happened began to dawn on him.

  Arren bowed his head and started to cry.

  The journey passed miserably. No-one paid much attention to Arren. Even his fellow griffiners seemed to be avoiding him, as if they were embarrassed to talk to him. He didn’t try to seek out their company, or talk to any of the wagoners or the mounted guards who rode alongside the procession. It rained for most of the way, and the cover over the supply wagon wasn’t quite able to shelter him completely, so his clothes and blankets were constantly damp. When they stopped for the night at various inns along the way, he quietly refused to go indoors and remained at his post. It wasn’t that he particularly cared about guarding the griffin, he realised eventually. But the prospect of being with other people did not appeal to him. All his life, people had known he was a Northerner as soon as they looked at him, and he had always hated it. Even when they didn’t say anything, he could tell what they were thinking. It was in the way they looked at him. In these places, people didn’t know of him. He didn’t know how they would react to his presence, and he wasn’t interested in finding out.

  And then, at last, Eagleholm came into sight. Arren heard the driver of the supply wagon point it out to one of the guards, and stood up to look ahead to where the mountain jutted up from the landscape. They would be there before nightfall. He sat back down again.

  The rain had stopped, and the damp ground was steaming slightly in the heat from the returning sun. Arren crossed his legs and scratched his chin. He’d forgotten to take a razor with him to Rivermeet, and by now he’d grown quite a thick thatch of stubble. He hated that. It made him feel grubby and unkempt. But he supposed he would have looked untidy even if he was clean-shaven. At Rivermeet he’d been given some fresh clothes to wear, but they were too large for him and had picked up quite a bit of dirt along the way. I must look ridiculous, he thought miserably.

  Thunder rumbled overhead. Behind him, the black griffin shifted and bashed its beak against the bars of its cage. It had spent most of the journey drugged, but when it was awake it spent a lot of time thumping on the wood around it. Arren didn’t know why. It wasn’t vigorous enough to be a real attempt to escape; it was just a mindless action that went on forever. Thump, thump, thump.

  It started to rain again.

  The thumping went on. Arren was used to it by now and could shut it out, but it filtered through to his brain, mingling with the sound of the rain on the wagon’s cover. It was almost rhythmic, really.

  As he watched the landscape slowly roll by, he found himself thinking about his childhood. He’d grown up in Idun, living there even after Eluna had chosen him.

  Unlike other griffiners, his training had taken place in secret—supported by Roland, who passed on his knowledge whenever his Northern protégé came to visit. After they had been discovered and the Eyrie had been forced to accept the situation, Roland had lent Arren enough money to buy his own house in the city. He was still paying off the debt, which was one reason why he hadn’t been able to afford to pay Rannagon’s fine.

  That made him angry. Most griffiners were wealthy. Even those who didn’t have high-paying positions generally had inherited wealth. Supposedly anyone could become a griffiner, but Arren knew that wasn’t true. The griffiners currently in power were descendants of griffiners, and some could trace their ancestry all the way back to the ancient warlords who had first conquered their fellow humans and become the ruling elite. The griffins knew this, and so did everyone else. It wasn’t so much that commoners were forbidden the chance to win a griffin’s respect—more that a griffin was much more likely to be interested in a human who was already powerful and who had, moreover, grown up among griffins. Plenty of new griffiners already spoke griffish, learnt from their parents or grandparents, even though it was technically forbidden for anyone but a griffiner to know the language. Those who made the rules were allowed to break them. That the son of two slaves who spoke no griffish and had no power or status at all had managed to become a griffiner was extraordinary.

  Thi
nking back on those early days made a terrible ache arise in Arren’s throat. It made him want to scream or cry, but he made no sound. He started to hum. Then, quietly, he started to sing.

  Ar y waun, y diwrnod hwnnw,

  Rhoddaist flodyn i mi,

  Blodyn cyn wynned â’r lloer

  Ond nawr rwyt wedi mynd—

  Gwynwood y blodyn,

  A’m calon sydd ddued â’r nos.

  It was an old song, one his mother had taught him. She said that their ancestors had sung it at night in the slave-houses, when the moon was up and they were alone after a hard day’s work. They had been forbidden to speak their own language, but they had continued to do so anyway, among themselves.

  The griffin struck the wood harder. Arren stopped singing and got up, muttering to himself. It was probably time to feed the wretched thing again. He took a piece of dried meat from a bag and sprinkled it with yellowish liquid from a bottle—more sleeping draught. Loading the cage onto the lifter would be a lot easier if the griffin was unconscious. He lifted the cloth away and tossed the meat through the bars. The black griffin stopped striking the planking beneath it and snapped it up. Once it had swallowed the food it resumed its monotonous beating and Arren returned to his seat. He listened to the thuds until they finally stopped, and then sighed in relief. It had disturbed him at night more than once doing that, and he suspected that it was only encouraged to go on doing it when he gave it more food to shut it up. But he couldn’t think of any other way to make it stop. It didn’t respond to threats any more.

  After a while, lulled by the sound of the rain, Arren slipped into a doze.

  He was woken up some unknown time later by loud voices. As he straightened up and rubbed his eyes, he realised the wagon had stopped. Their path had ended between a pair of large stone buildings, the warehouses used to store supplies before they were taken up to the city on the massive platform attached to the lifter. They had arrived.

  Arren jumped down from the back of the wagon and stretched. He was horribly stiff and sore. He winced and rubbed his back while the guards and the wagoners identified themselves to the workers in charge of the lifter. The griffiners had already come out of their own wagon and were busy preparing to fly off. Tamran was putting his griffin’s harness on, and as Arren watched, he got on her back and said something to her. She walked away from the wagons for a short distance before she took off, flying up toward the city. They were probably going to report to the Eyrie.

  “Oi!”

  Arren looked up. One of the guards had approached him. “Yes?”

  The guard pointed at him. “Start unloading the wagon, and hurry up, we don’t want anything to get any wetter than it has to be.”

  Arren stared at him. “I’m sorry?”

  “You heard me,” said the guard. “Get on with it. You’ve done sod-all on this trip, and I’m tired.”

  The curt command in the man’s voice irritated Arren. “You could say please,” he said.

  The guard hit him on the ear. “Who d’you think you are—a griffiner?”

  The insult stung him more than the blow did. He was about to argue, but then dull depression settled over him. What was the point? He lifted a box down from the wagon. It was heavy. “Do I just put it on the platform?” he asked.

  “Yeah, now move it.”

  Arren changed his mind. He put down the box and glared at the guard. “Excuse me, but what d’you think you’re doing?”

  The guard hit him again. “I’m telling you to get to work before I thump you in the nose, blackrobe.”

  Arren snapped. He pulled his dagger out of his belt and pointed it at him. “If you call me that again, I swear to gods I’ll kill you.”

  Instantly the guard darted forward and struck him on the wrist, making him yelp and drop the dagger. The guard flicked it away with his foot and punched Arren in the face, so hard he knocked him off his feet. Arren hit the back of the wagon quite hard and landed in the mud, but he rolled when he hit the ground and was upright in a moment. He nearly attacked the guard, in spite of the man’s armour and sword, but at that point Deanne came running up.

  “What in Gryphus’ name is going on?” she demanded, reaching for her sword.

  The guard bowed his head to her. “I’m sorry for the fuss, my lady, but your slave needs to be disciplined.”

  Arren started forward. “I—am—not—a slave!” he roared.

  “Well, you bloody look like one,” said the guard, unmoved. “Where’s his collar, anyway?”

  Deanne covered her face with her hand. “Oh gods—just get out of here, please.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Arren snatched up his dagger from the ground and stuffed it into his belt. “Thanks,” he muttered.

  Deanne sighed. “I’m so sorry, Arren. It never occurred to me that we hadn’t told any of them who you are.”

  “Oh, I think they already know who I am,” said Arren, unable to stop himself. “Nobody. Should I—” He glanced back at the cage. “I should probably go to the Arena with it. I caught it, after all.”

  “Yes, you should,” said Deanne. “And after that you should go to the Eyrie. They’ll want to hear your account of what happened.”

  In other words, he was going to have to try to explain himself. But he didn’t intend to be the only one.

  10

  The Arena

  Arren had to wait while the supplies were unloaded from around the black griffin’s cage, which took some time. He briefly considered going to visit his parents while he was in the area, but he couldn’t bear the thought of having to tell them what had happened. Right now he felt a shaky kind of strength, and he was going to need it. He did his best to sustain that feeling as the last of the crates were taken down and carried to the lifter. Now that the wagon had nothing on it but the griffin’s cage, the wagoner got back onto his seat and urged the horses onto the narrow road that led around the side of the mountain. There was another lifting device directly under the Arena, used for no other purpose than lifting newly caught wild griffins into their prison. Arren sat by the cage and watched the rain dripping from the underside of the city’s platform. It was astonishing, really, that something so huge had been built and then maintained for such a long time. The platform needed constant repairing and reinforcement, though; thousands of wooden and metal struts had been placed between it and the side of the mountain to help hold it up. Arren thought of the slaves who had put those first few planks into place. He couldn’t imagine how they had done it. He wondered how many of them had fallen to their deaths from the mountainside. Hundreds, probably.

  Arren shivered and turned away.

  Someone, probably Tamran, must have gone ahead and alerted the winch operators, because the platform had already been lowered, ready to receive the cage. A group of large, hefty men were waiting on it. The wagon stopped alongside, and Arren got down and went to meet them.

  One of them bowed to him. “Evening, sir. You’re the griffiner who caught it, right?”

  The wagoner turned sharply in his seat. “You’re a griffiner ?” he said.

  Arren ignored him. “I’m Arren Cardockson.” He gestured at the cage. “I’m not sure you’ll be able to lift it; it’s a big one.”

  “Not a problem, sir,” said the man, going to inspect it. “We know how to deal with this sort of thing.” He climbed up onto the wagon with several of his colleagues and lifted the cloth away.

  Several of them uttered exclamations of astonishment. “Dear gods, look at the coat on that thing!”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” said one of them. “Where’d you catch it, sir?”

  “Rivermeet,” said Arren. “Near the Coppertops.”

  The man grinned at him. “Well done, sir. It’s a magnificent brute. People’ll queue up for days to see this.” He glanced at the griffin again, which hadn’t moved. “Drugged, right?”

  Arren nodded. “Just a sleeping draught.”

  “Good idea, sir. It looks p
retty healthy—got any injuries?”

  “Two arrow wounds, but I’ve treated them. They’re healing. Oh, and some scratches on its face there, just above the beak, but they’re nothing serious.”

  “Good, good. You’re going to get a handsome price for this one, sir. All right, just stand aside and we’ll get it down off the wagon.”

  Arren went to stand by the platform while they spaced themselves around the cage and lifted it down. They were strong and well organised, and got it onto the platform with surprising speed. Once it was on, the apparent leader said, “All right, sir, you an’ me will ride up with it, an’ my mates will wait until the platform’s sent down again for them. Can’t afford to overload this thing. Up you get.”

  Arren stepped onto the platform, and the man tied the rope barriers into place at the front to stop either of them from sliding off. This done, he tugged sharply on a rope that dangled by one of the thick cables that disappeared into a hole in the city platform high above. A few moments later the cables went taut and the platform slowly started to rise. Arren sat down beside the cage and concentrated on watching its occupant.

  The man was also watching the griffin, with considerable admiration. “I’ve never even heard of a black griffin before. Have you, sir?”

  Arren shook his head.

  “I saw a green griffin once,” the man went on. “Well, it was sort of dark brown, but it had green on its neck. Belonged to an ambassador from somewhere in the east. It brought its human to the Arena to watch a fight. I talked to him. The griffiner, I mean. He said the griffin could make plants grow. Now, that’s a kind of magic I’d like to see.”

  “How do you stop the griffins using their magic in the Arena?” said Arren.

  “Oh, it’s simple enough, sir. We drug ’em. There’s a potion you can use that suppresses their magic. We put it in their food and water. Some of ’em figure out what’s going on, but they have to go on taking it or they starve. After a while they get so they can’t use magic at all any more. When I was a lad there was a griffin that managed to get its magic back somehow. It set half the damn Arena on fire—excuse me, sir. They had to kill it in the end. Still”—he watched the sleeping griffin—“I can’t help but be curious. What would a black griffin be able to do?”