Windswept: Gryphon Riders Book Two (Gryphon Riders Trilogy 2)

by Derek Alan Siddoway

  “I have told you everything!” Chel shouted back, her voice recovering some of its old steel. “Aleron left us, almost a year and a half ago. He said he knew what was causing the Smelterborn to attack, where they were coming from and a way to stop them. Something from his time exploring the east. He said he had to be sure before he tried returning to the Windsworn, but he had to be sure first. He told me if he didn’t come back that things were worse than he had guessed and I would have to find you.”

  “Anything else?” Eva asked in a flat voice. Part of her didn’t want to know. Part of her wanted to start walking into the plains and not stop until she collapsed.

  “He told me they had awakened something, something that should have remained asleep when they journeyed into the ruins,” Chel said, voice dropping. “He said if he could make it back to the island, he would know for certain.”

  “Island?” Eva asked, frowning. Although no one knew much about the far east, even after the eastern expedition, she’d never seen any mention of an island on any maps on that coast of Altaris.

  “That is all I know, I swear it,” Chel said. She looked between the three of them, still on her back on the ground. “Are you…are you going to kill me?” The way she said it made Eva think she didn’t mean to put up a fight, which was probably the only thing still holding Sigrid back from attacking.

  Eva sucked in a deep breath and pushed it all out, feeling drained and cracked, in addition to empty. “He could be anywhere,” she said to no one in particular. “He could be dead for all we know. Anywhere between here and the eastern sea.”

  Ivan knelt down beside her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Sigrid remained standing over Chel, hands balled into fists.

  “Maybe we should go home,” Eva said. The idea didn’t bring much comfort — for all she knew they’d be thrown in irons as soon as the first Windsworn patrol spotted them.

  “I gave up everything for this,” Sigrid said. “We’re deserters, we’ll be banished from the Windsworn. If we don’t find something, we have nothing to go back to.”

  The thought of making the same long journey in reverse — with all its hazards and perils and nothing to show for it — seemed an impossible task. A mournful, whining wind blew the smell of death and smoke all around them.

  “Chel,” Eva asked after a long pause, “how do your people care for your dead?”

  Chel gazed around the remnants of the camp with dull eyes. “We burn them.”

  “Let’s put these people to rest,” Eva said. Ivan nodded in agreement. Sigrid, however, wrenched her knife out of the ground and stomped off without a word, waving the gryphons down as she reached the edge of the camp.

  For the next couple of hours, Eva, Ivan, and Chel, did their best to gather the bodies into a pyre, which Ivan lit with a kenning. They stood side by side in silence, watching the bodies consumed by the flame. When the fire reached its peak, Chel began chanting a bone-chilling dirge for several minutes. When she finished, the lonely wind and snapping fire did little to break the heavy quiet hanging on them.

  Eva tried to imagine what Chel must be going through, how she would feel if all of the Windsworn were killed and she had to watch them burn into a heap of ash and blackened bone. No matter how hard she searched to find empathy, however, all she could think of was her father. Even now, a tiny part of her, like the first bit of plant poking up through the frozen ground in spring, wanted to hope he was alive. The practical side of her said it was a fool’s errand, that she couldn’t ask any more of her friends, and that it was time to give up this folly.

  Sigrid remained on the edge of camp, facing the other direction as she sharpened her knives and unsaddled and tended to Fury and Sven. When the wind shifted and blew the foul smoke into their faces Eva left Ivan and Chel and crossed the desolate camp. Sigrid and Sven remained facing the other way, the grey gryphon as surly as his owner but Fury approached Eva and cocked his head to the side as if to ask what was going on. Eva wrapped her arms around her gryphon’s powerful neck and buried her face in his blood-colored feathers. All of the emotions of the past weeks hit her at once and she sobbed.

  Fury held still in a rare show of tenderness. When Eva pulled back at last and wiped her face, the gryphon chirped in concern and nudged her shoulder with his beak. Eva sniffed and looked up into his yellow eyes.

  “You’ve grown.” Although with the constant travel and shortage of food, she wasn’t sure how. Fury clacked his beak and spread his wings, preening at the comment. Eva thought back to the tiny ball of red down she’d once held in her hands. It was hard to imagine that tiny hatchling was the same majestic creature before her. Although she still didn’t feel like anything special — especially given their current dire straights — there was no doubt Fury filled his part as the destined red gryphon, said to come only once every generation.

  “I’m sorry I brought you all the way out here, boy,” Eva said, fighting back another wave of tears. Her mind flashed back to Belarus lying dead in the arena, his blood staining the white sand. She didn’t know how she would have kept going if that had been Fury.

  Fury clacked his beak and tipped his head to the side as if to say he didn’t mind either way. Eva sighed and embraced him again. This time, the gryphon dipped his beak down over her shoulder — the best he could do to return the hug. “Thanks for having my back,” she said. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Eva looked over at Sigrid, knowing what she had to do next. When she sat down next to the dark-haired girl, Sigrid continued to stare off across the plain as if Eva wasn’t there.

  “Hell of a thing,” Sigrid grunted after a long, uncomfortable silence stretched between them.

  Eva nodded. “I’m really sorry about all of this.”

  The dark-haired girl shrugged. “Not your fault. She tricked us all.”

  “I…” Eva hesitated, knowing what her next words would mean. “I don’t think we were.”

  Sigrid shot her a murderous look and Eva quickly continued while she had the chance. “That doesn’t make it right, or change anything, but I believe her.”

  Sigrid shook her head and hurled a stick she’d been whittling off into the grass. “You’re a storming idiot, Eva.”

  “I know,” Eva said. She shook her head and heaved a giant sigh. “Trust me, I know.”

  She trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

  “So where do we start looking?” Sigrid asked after another long pause.

  Eva’s mouth fell open and she would’ve fallen over if she wasn’t already sitting down. “Are you crazy?”

  Sigrid looked at her, this time with the familiar rebellious fire burning in her eyes, instead of cold rage. “Eva, I came all the way out here, froze my ass off and almost died more times than I can count so you could find your sky-cursed, storming father. If there’s a chance he’s still alive and knows how to defeat the Smelterborn, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you go back to Rhylance until we find out for sure.”

  Eva stared, speechless. As Sigrid’s words sank in, however, an incredulous smile stretched across Eva’s windburned face.

  “You’re crazy, you know that?” she told Sigrid. A dry, desperate laugh burst out of her, unbidden.

  Sigrid chuckled and nodded. “Not as crazy as you.”

  “We’re probably going to die out here,” Eva said, still laughing, although she didn’t know why.

  “More than likely,” Sigrid replied.

  Before Eva could thank her, Ivan’s shouts sounded from across the camp. Eva twisted around and saw the Scrawl running toward them at a frantic pace.

  “We’ve got company!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Eva and Sigrid scrambled to their feet, signaling Fury and Sven into the air. Rushing to Ivan’s side, Eva followed his hand out past the camp to a spot between two hills illuminated by the setting sun. She saw several tall, dark shapes standing, watching.

  “That what I think it is?” Sigrid said.


  A chill ran down Eva’s back. Although they were far away, she knew exactly what those brooding figures were.

  “Smelterborn.”

  A few paces away, Chel let out a heart-wrenching scream and ran toward the golems. Eva raced after her, leaping and stretching out to snag Chel’s ankle before the girl got away. She tried to kick free but Eva pulled herself farther up Chel’s body and fought to hold down the larger, vengeful girl.

  “Chel, listen!” she said in between grunts, trying to pin the Juarag-Vo girl’s arms down. “Listen to me! Killing yourself won’t bring them back!”

  Chel vented a last frustrated howl and went limp. “They must pay for what they did!”

  “I know,” Eva said. “Believe me, I know. But this isn’t the way to do it. Even with four of us and the gryphons, we wouldn’t stand a chance. If you want your vengeance, help me find my father. Help us find a way to stop all the Smelterborn.”

  Chel stared up at her, confused. “You aren’t returning to your people?”

  Eva shook her head and helped Chel to her feet. “Can I trust you?” Eva asked. Part of her wanted to punch the other girl in the nose, but she resisted the temptation.

  Chel nodded. “I swear by the Spirits of the Plains that I will help you defeat these Smelterborn or I will die trying.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Eva said. Her eyes drifted toward the two hills and the Smelterborn on them. They hadn’t moved, but it looked like a couple more had joined the line.

  “Hey!” Sigrid shouted. “I’m fine that we’re not going to kill her, but we need to get out of here!”

  After allowing Chel a final moment to say her goodbyes to the cremated remains of her people, they mounted the gryphons and took to the sky. The Smelterborn watched, not attacking, but not retreating either. As they drew closer, high in the air, Eva counted ten altogether. She shuddered as their orange eyes looked at them hovering far overhead. Otherwise, the golems remained motionless, like giant statues rotted into the prairie ground itself. The golems’ fiery gaze brought back a slew of foul memories. Recollections of smoke, fire, and darkness consumed Eva’s mind. For a moment, she was fighting Celina in the bowels of the Gyr all over again. She’d hoped back then to never see another.

  “Why don’t they attack?” she asked Chel.

  “They are the scouts,” Chel said. “Not as strong as the others, but faster. If they are here, more cannot be far.”

  Upon closer inspection, Eva noticed the Smelterborn below them were leaner and a bit taller than the one she’d fought, their helmets pointed, body armor narrow and arms and legs extra long. Their only weapons appeared to be a long spear each.

  “We can’t fly at night,” Eva said, “We need to find somewhere safe to land.”

  “I’m not going back north,” Sigrid said. She and Ivan hovered close enough on Sven to join the conversation. “No way, no how.”

  “We should go back to the west,” Chel said. “Or we may find ourselves surrounded in the night. The Smelterborn have no need to stop or rest like living things.”

  Eva paused, considering their options for a long moment. “We’ll go south. I don’t want to backtrack any more than we have to.”

  A few hours after dark, they finally found a spot to land near a small watering hole. The half-grown moon showed no sign of any other life around them but Chel assured them the Smelterborn scouts would have marked their direction. After a cold meal, Eva and Chel took the first watch together, spreading out on opposite sides of the pond.

  Eva jumped at every sound: the wind rustling through the grass, night hawks over the water and even Sigrid’s snores. She knew by the chirping of the late season crickets that there was nothing to fear but she couldn’t shake the sight of a Smelterborn looming out of the darkness, eyes glowing like hellfire. Even after Sigrid and Ivan relieved them of their watch Eva didn’t get much sleep, slipping in and out of consciousness, blurred thoughts of her father and a Smelterborn ambush melding together in her mind.

  As soon as the first gray light of morning dawned, they prepared to depart. Everyone had red eyes, shadowed by dark rings. They flew eastward and the wide open plains gave way to broken hills with scraggly trees and thick brush. No birdsong rose from the gnarled cedars below, not even the racket of crows or magpies. Unlike the plains, where four-legged herbivores of one kind or another could be seen in any direction, the thin, gray grass was barren of life.

  Around noon they spotted another band of Smelterborn. Like the group before, this one consisted of about a dozen golems, although there were both scouts and thicker, heavier-armored variations, like the one Eva had fought. Seeing an almost exact copy of the automaton that had almost taken her life made the threat even more real. She could feel the Smelterborn’s angry orange eyes on them long after they flew out of sight.

  The landscape remained the same into the evening and they spotted another band, this one closer to twenty strong. Forced to abandon any ideas of camp before sunset, they turned and flew to the north, searching for fiery eyes in the night to determine if it was safe to land or not. They stopped for a few hours then took to the sky at first light, wearier and more lost.

  “This isn’t working,” Eva said after they diverted again later that afternoon, dodging between the numerous bands of Smelterborn growing more frequent with each mile eastward. “We’re just flying around in circles.”

  “There will only be more the farther east you go,” Chel said. “And many more behind us to the west that we did not see.”

  Ivan ran his hands over his sleep-haggard face, the lines of exhaustion crinkling the runes tattooed on his cheeks and brow. “We don’t have any clue where this island is, or if it even exists.”

  “Hate to admit it, but he’s right,” Sigrid added. “You know I’d never turn down a fight, but if any of those Smelterborn catch us, we don’t stand much of a chance.”

  “Eva…” Chel began, reaching out to take Eva’s hand in her own. “We don’t even know if Aleron is still alive…I want to find him as much as you but —”

  “He’s alive,” Eva snapped, yanking her hand away from Chel’s grasp. “I know it. We’ll find him. We can’t stop now.”

  And so it continued. For days, they woke at first light and flew up and down the edge of the woodlands. The Smelterborn grew in number just as Chel promised and it wasn’t out of the ordinary to come across a dozen different bands in a day. With game scarce, they subsisted on whatever prey the gryphons scrounged up during flight. On more than one occasion, they spotted a herd of deer bounding ahead of a party of Smelterborn and swooped down to pick one or two off to carry away for later.

  The Smelterborn seemed to be everywhere, smashing their way through the woodland brush, crashing through streams and wallowing through mire. They gave no heed to any obstacle in their path, walking through or over everything, slashing down saplings and bushes, hefting aside boulders. Many marched west but others appeared to be searching for something. No matter how hard they worked to clear a path, they never paused or even slowed. Each night, Eva dreaded landing, fearing they would be set upon in the darkness. There were so many golems combing the woodlands and hills between the forests and the plains that they were bound to clash sooner or later.

  Although the rest of the group carried on uncomplaining as the weariness took its toll, Eva saw the looks they passed between one another when they thought she wasn’t looking. It was plain they thought she’d gone mad. She wasn’t so sure herself anymore.

  At night, Eva cupped her mother’s Wonder in her hands, staring into the depths of the light as if it could somehow show her father to her. When she laid down for a few hours of fitful sleep, she was plagued by dreams of a hooded man on a gryphon, shouting something unintelligible at her. No matter how hard Eva ran, or how loud she yelled — which often translated into real screams that woke the rest of the camp — she could never get him to come closer, however. The dreams became more outlandish as Eva’s hope faded with e
ach passing day. Soon, even she doubted that her father yet lived.

  After a particularly harrowing day when they’d been forced to remain in the air from late morning until nightfall the gryphons half-landed, half-collapsed at the foot of a small ravine. They’d frozen in the cold winter air with nothing but half-cooked, half-smoked strips of meat to eat. No one spoke, too tired to set a watch, too tired to do anything but huddle up next to the gryphons and sleep. When they woke the next morning, a dusting of snow had settled over them.

  “It is time to turn back, Eva-lyn,” Chel said, wrapping her arms around herself to try to warm up. “We will die out here if we do not go north or west.”

  Sigrid and Ivan stared at her through hollow eyes, too worn down to agree or disagree with either woman. Eva looked between her three friends and then at the gryphons. Their glossy coats and feathers were dull and muted and the fire was gone from their eyes.

  “You’re right,’ Eva said, hating the words as they came out of her mouth, yet knowing it was the truth. “Let’s go north. It’ll be warmer and game will be more plentiful. We can recover our strength and decide what to do after that.”

  She looked at Ivan and Sigrid, expecting one of them to tell her to stop being a storming lunatic and go home, but they both just gave weary nods and rose.

  “You feel like we’re being followed by something?” Sigrid said, breaking the silence as they fed the gryphons and tightened down their packs on the saddles. “The Smelterborn are searching for something and they almost completely ignore us, but it’s like we’re still being watched, making sure we don’t get tied up in whatever’s going on.”

  Eva nodded. She’d felt the same heavy presence, like the gaze of the Smelterborn, even when the golems weren’t around. With no way to tell the golems apart, who knew how many there were or how many times they’d seen the same groups over and over.

  “Followed,” Eva repeated her breath. Realization struck her like a sudden winter storm. “That’s it!”