As Eva sprinted to Tahl’s aid, a red streak flashed through the air beside her. Fury hit the sabercat full force in the side. Just as the two animals tangled together, Eva grabbed Tahl’s arm, dragging him free of the awful fight.
Tahl’s breath was shallow and he moaned, knocked half-senseless. Eva paused long enough to check him for serious injury then rushed to help Fury. Before she could, a sabercat leaped into her path.
The beast was huge, its brindled gray fur covered in scars. Sinking on its haunches, the cat pinned its ears back and let out a whining growl from deep in its throat.
Eva raised her sword in a guard stance and tried to brace her wobbling legs. Yelling, she swung at the beast. The cat hissed at the tip of Eva’s sword flashing in front of his face. In a blur, it batted a massive paw at the blade. The edge caught, biting deep into the pads of the cat’s foot.
Instinct alone saved Eva. The cat shrieked in pain and pounced. Even injured, the brindled sabercat moved like lightning, and Eva felt a whoosh of air as she dove to the side. She barely had time to collect herself as the cat smacked at her again, tearing Eva’s sword from her grasp.
Weaponless, Eva froze. She dared not take her eye off the sabercat but knew she had nowhere to run and nothing to fight back with. The cat hissed and limped toward her. Eva took a faltering step backward and stumbled.
Soot came out of nowhere. Raising his hammer, the smith swung sideways, striking the sabercat before it changed focus from Eva. Twisting around to meet the new threat, the beast snapped at empty air with its long, horrible fangs.
Soot moved with a speed Eva wouldn’t have believed possible. Bellowing, he smashed the hammer on the top of the cat’s head with an awful crack.
The sabercat stumbled.
Thwack!
Eva’s stomach rolled at the meaty sound of the hammer smashing through the beast’s thick skull.
The sabercat collapsed with its mouth agape.
Soot tossed the hammer aside and rushed to Eva. Pulling her to her feet, they embraced, both of their chest’s heaving from fear and exertion. Pulling away, Eva saw Fury worrying at his dead opponent’s belly. Carroc let out a soft call, dripping blood from a ragged wing onto Tahl as he nudged his rider.
“Tahl!”
Eva ran to her beloved’s side. Groaning, Tahl sat up, gently pushing away Carroc’s beak.
“I’ll live, I’ll live,” he said in between coughs.
The surviving Juarag and their cats ran for the trees. Heaps of iron marked the defeated Smelterborn torn apart by Seppo or struck down from the Scrawls’ rune magic. A quick look told Eva all of her friends were alive, although she flinched at the number of Scrawls lying dead across the meadow.
They gathered together, the gryphons picking their way across the sodden, turned up ground. Fury, Sven, and Lucia all had various bites and cuts but none appeared too serious at first glance. Eva cringed at Carroc’s limp wing. By the look of it, he wouldn’t be able to fly until it was healed and rested for a day or two.
Wynn stumbled toward them in shock but, aside from a long cut down her arm, seemed whole. Spattered in gore, Eva couldn’t tell with Sigrid, but she acted none the worse for wear. Chel limped on a swollen ankle. Eva hoped Ivan would be able to patch most of them up, once he stopped throwing up from the kenning sickness and rested.
The surviving Scrawls walked from one fallen clansmember to another, using the last of their strength to heal those not too far gone. Out of the injured, Eva doubted a third would make it, even with the help of magic. She squeezed her eyes shut as the glade started spinning.
Rhys joined them, blood splattered across his bare, tattooed chest. He looked exhausted, but even more pained as he surveyed his clan’s dead.
“Ferike?” Ivan asked. The man shook his head and pointed to a pair of Scrawls pulling her body out from beneath a Shadowstalker.
“I am sorry,” Eva said, bowing her head.
“We have rid the world of some of its evil,” Rhys said. Eva couldn’t believe the change from his former jovial tone. “Do not apologize. It was not you, but the Juarag and Smelterborn who brought this upon us.”
“Should you ever find your way to Rhylance, come to the citadel in Gryfonesse,” Eva said. “I know it will not replace the fallen, but I swear to repay this debt any way I can.”
Rhys nodded but the hollow look never left his face. “I perceive that the road ahead will tax you enough.”
To her left, Ivan winced.
“We must gather our dead and return to the rest of our clan,” Rhys said. “Even so, we will give you what supplies we can spare. And our blessing.”
The Scrawl raised his hands, palms facing them and swung them away from his body, chanting as he did so. Eva felt a small warmth run through her and nodded in thanks.
As the companions tended to their wounds and washed the gore of battle away, the Scrawls’ dirges filled the meadow: songs of life and death that broke Eva’s heart even though she didn’t know any of their meaning.
A rough, untrained voice in their midst joined in. Eva looked in surprise at Sigrid, who stood next to Ivan and sang, eyes locked on the dead. No one spoke or moved as they continued, captivated by the raw, yet somehow lyrical, words and melody. When the song drew to an end, Sigrid bowed her head with the rest then turned and walked away, refusing to meet anyone’s look.
When they were ready to depart, Ivan stopped at the edge of the meadow. He raised a hand in farewell to the Scrawls, who had gathered their dead on pine bough litters and, still singing, faded into the trees. Plumes of acrid smoke rose from the flaming piles of sabercats and Juarag, drifting into the still air. Using the last of their strength, the Scrawls buried the empty husks of the Smelterborn after Seppo piled them together.
Evening set in and a quiet, peaceful calm settled over the meadow. The wind changed and blew the smoke to the west, filling the air with the cool, clean scent of new life and spring.
“We brought this upon them,” Eva said in a low voice. The guilt and grief weighed heavy on her heart.
“Destroy the First Forge, and we will avenge them,” Soot said. “That’s the only way to make sure they didn’t die in vain.”
Eva nodded but didn’t feel any better.
Chapter Eighteen
The following days stretched on, each longer than the last. The expanse of forest and mountains seemed never-ending. Even in the sky, there was no end in sight to the high country and Eva began to wonder if they would ever reach the eastern coast or Palantis.
Spirits remained downtrodden after the battle in the meadow. Most days, no one spoke more than a few muttered words and only when necessary. They continued scouting the surrounding country for Smelterborn and Juarag, but the land seemed devoid of any human life, even other Scrawl clans.
Before they’d gone their separate ways, Rhys provided them with a few supplies, dried fruits and hard cakes made from pounded acorn paste. After the terrible death toll the clan took from the battle, Eva was loath to take the food but knew they needed the added provisions. Although Rhys asked for nothing in return, the burden of guilt ended up a heavy cost nonetheless.
The weather grew cold, stormy and windy. The companions spent nights huddled around a flickering fire that Ivan constantly tended. Freezing and shivering. they ate their meager rations and whatever scrawny, winter-starved animals they dredged up in the high country.
Eva found some small relief lying in Tahl’s arms each night. Since leaving the Talon, they hadn’t spoken further about their engagement and no one else knew about it. Part of Eva wanted to tell them all, to talk with Tahl about their future together — a lone bright spot in a world of gray days and cold nights. Another part cautioned Eva not to get her hopes up, that the journey ahead was still long and fraught with peril.
The others huddled almost as close together as the lovers, a hodge-podge of cloaks, jackets, and pine serving as their shelter when the rains drizzled for days on end. One night, tossing and turning from
half-dreams of the battle at the Talon and the more recent scrimmage in the forest glade, Eva could take no more.
Wrapping her cloak tighter around her, Eva joined Seppo on the edge of their camp. The friendly golem stood watch — a quiet sentinel in the wilds. The only sign of life in the golem came from his bright blue eyes peering into the forest night, searching for any sign of danger.
“You should be sleeping, mistress Evelyn,” he said in a low voice.
“I thought you might like the company,” Eva said. “It must get lonely standing watch all night alone.”
Seppo’s iron pauldrons rose in a shrug. “I am happy to do it.”
“Are you…” Eva searched for the right word. “Nervous? Scared? For what’s ahead, I mean.”
Seppo’s eyes rose to the dark night sky above as if seeking an answer there. “I do not know,” he said at last. “I am…confused. I still recall my life as Talus in fragments. I have felt more…alive in recent months than ever before since Soot woke me all those years ago on Palantis.”
“Do you remember what it was like to be human?” Eva asked. As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
Seppo let out a sigh and his metallic voice held a note of sadness and longing. “The things I remember are strange: the feel of the sun on my face, water running through my hands, grass beneath my feet, the touch of a loved one — I may be protected from age, disease, and weapons in this shell, but I have come to learn that it keeps out more than it lets in.”
Eva reached up and wrapped her hand around one of Seppo’s fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said, throat tight. “When you put it that way, it sounds like a terrible thing.”
“Once, long, long ago, I thought this was the greatest thing I could ever do for my people,” Seppo said. “Immortality! In my pride and vanity, I thought I would make us like the gods of Palantis. I thought I was a god — fashioning life eternal, cheating death and pain. How foolish I was.”
Silence fell between them, broken only by the faint chirp of crickets. Eva looked at Tahl and the others.
“It doesn’t sound like such a bad thing to want to keep the ones you love safe and with you forever,” she said.
“Ah, mistress Evelyn,” Seppo sighed. He bent down and, with surprising tenderness, plucked a budding wildflower from the edge of a rock at his feet. He held the new plant before him, bathing the delicate, half-grown petals in the light of his sapphire eyes.
“Love, happiness, joy — all the wonderful things of life are treasured because they do not last. Time may decay, but it also heightens, that most dear to us. When time is defeated, when moments such as those are infinite, they lose all meaning.”
The golem fell silent, leaving Eva alone with her thoughts. Eventually, he reached down and nudged her back toward the rest, who were still sound asleep.
“You had better get some rest, mistress Evelyn,” Seppo said. “We still have many miles to go.”
Eva started back toward her spot next to Tahl then paused. “Seppo?”
“Yes?”
“I love you. Thank you, for everything.”
The golem’s blue eyes flared brighter for a moment and he gave a brief nod. Although his helmeted head could show no expression, it sounded to Eva like Seppo was smiling when he replied.
“You are most welcome.”
The next few days were spent wandering and retracing their tracks, up rocky heights where the snow held firm and down into mist-covered valleys. The clouds rolled in and fog settled over everything until they couldn’t even fly the gryphons clear of the haze. Unable to fly for more than a few hours, Carroc stumbled along on the ground with them, making the going even slower. At last, after four days of wandering, Soot threw down his cap in disgust.
“I can’t make heads or tails of anything in this sky-cursed soup!”
Eva could tell he was angry at himself for letting them down and thus irritable overall. “We’re going to have to wait it out, or I’m apt to lead us right off the edge of a cliff. We could be headed north into the Endless or straight south to the Ice Mountains for all I know.”
They hunkered down in a valley by a river, each snapping at one another with nothing to do but dwell on their thoughts and succumb to boredom and irritation. When at last the sun shone clear, and they could fly the gryphons out of the forest canopy and valley, Eva had never been gladder to be in the sky.
Once again, she marveled at the glorious sights flying brought. Never ending, forest-coated mountains stretched in every direction, cut here and there by the river they’d been camped by as it wound its way to the east. Soaring through the clear blue skies, Eva took a moment to close her eyes and soak in the pale sunlight, glad to be free of the dreary gray smog. Even Carroc seemed to find renewed strength in his injured wing — Eva heard Tahl let loose a shout of joy and his white gryphon stretched his wings. He was almost back to normal thanks to Ivan’s diligent care.
When they landed and reported what they’d seen to Soot, he clapped a hand to his head.
“Of course — what a windblown idiot I am!” he said. “We followed this river on the expedition — if we keep on going, it should open into a lake surrounded by cliffs. The low country is less than a week’s travel away, on the other side of that lake.”
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before they spotted twin gray peaks split down the middle by a river gorge. The entire mountain chain rose so high that the tops were obscured by lofty, white clouds. As they drew closer, the canyon walls grew narrower and narrower, until they were forced to go single file on a footpath cut by wildlife down one side of the gorge. The roar of the water echoed on the rocks loud enough that they had to shout to be heard over its rushing waters. Eva glanced over the side and saw a raging current, hurtling trees limbs and chunks of ice smashing into the rock walls. From their vantage, it was a straight fall down, hundreds of feet to the turbulent river below.
“I think I’ll fly over,” Wynn said, peering down into the canyon below.
Soot shook his head. “Not a good idea. Last time we came through, Uthred almost got thrown off his gryphon trying.” The smith pointed a gnarled finger up at the mountain peaks far, far above. “Canyon’s too narrow to fly through and the winds up there are storming wicked — the gryphons’ll have a rough enough go getting over on their own without the extra weight.”
Eva looked at Tahl and saw concern for Carroc heavy on his face. But Soot refused to be swayed and they set about removing as much gear from the gryphons as they could carry. When they finished, Eva looked Fury in the eyes. “I know you — don’t be showing off up there and get hurt.”
The red gryphon rolled his head in a show of exasperation. Eva jerked on one of his lines to show she meant business. “I mean it, be careful. And take care of Carroc.”
Fury bobbed his head and Eva threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug. Like usual, Fury twisted in her grip but Eva held on until he relaxed and wrapped his beak around her shoulder to return the gesture.
“See you on the other side,” she said.
They waited for the gryphons to take flight. As Fury and the others grew smaller and smaller, Eva couldn’t help but notice the tug of a breeze. She reached out and gave Tahl’s hand a reassuring squeeze before turning to the canyon.
Seppo led the way. Although he technically had no reason to fear falling, his width forced him to edge along sideways, arms extended against the wall of the gorge. The rest followed close behind, Soot behind the golem. Chel brought up the rear, clutching the wall much the same as Seppo, although she had ample room to walk normally.
“What do you suppose we do if the trail ends?” Wynn asked, yelling to be heard over the crashing river. The wind had also increased in the tunnel and tugged at Eva’s hair. She didn’t want to think what it might be like up near the mountain peaks.
Eva glanced back and saw the look of terror on Chel’s face and shook her head at Wynn. She wished she could make her way back to give the other girl some comfort and e
ncouragement, but there was no way past the line of people between them. Instead, she motioned to Sigrid to offer her adopted sister some comfort.
“Don’t worry — the fall alone would probably kill you,” Sigrid yelled over the wind and water.
It didn’t seem possible, but Chel’s eyes grew even wider. Eva shot Sigrid a reproachful look. Rolling her eyes, Sigrid grabbed Chel’s arm and gave her a gentle tug.
“Come on, I’ve got you.”
As they continued in a long, slow procession, one careful step after the other, Eva realized the trail was narrowing. Eventually, Seppo had to press himself against the rock, sending occasional showers of pebbles down into the gorge whenever his heavy iron feet stepped on the edge. Even the humans turned sideways, and Eva found it hard to imagine flying through rough winds could have been worse than their current predicament.
A few yards later, the rock wall and the pathway grew slick with water. Craning her head up, Eva saw snowmelt trickling down the sheer cliff above. The thin path grew treacherous and their progress slowed by half. Eva worried about Chel, but there was no way to see back through the line of people to tell how she fared.
The sound of clattering rock froze them in place. Eva twisted around to look up, but Soot grabbed her arm and yanked her down into a squat.
“Don’t look up, cover your head!”
Sure enough, a small slide of pebbles and fist-sized rocks rained down on them, the larger ones bouncing off the cliff far enough above to shoot out over them into the empty air above the river. They waited several moments until they were sure the slide had stopped before rising again.
An angry, shrieking wind picked up, ripping down the canyon and threatening to pry them from the cliff. Seppo managed to block the worst of it, but a couple of strong gusts left Eva clutching whatever handhold in the rocks she could find with her numb fingers. Eva shivered from the cold gusts, back soaked from the melting snow running down the back of the cliff. The sky above was nothing more than a narrow slit between the looming rock walls.
Windbreak: Gryphon Riders Book Three (Gryphon Riders Trilogy 3) Page 12
