FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  Hoffan hesitated, then turned and shouted new instructions.

  Darik and Sofiana found Whelan before Ethan, but when Whelan heard that his brother was searching for him, he started looking. They found Ethan shortly. The two embraced, then Ethan said, “I’m glad I found you. You’ve got to return.”

  “To Balsalom? How badly was the city damaged?”

  Ethan’s expression turned grim. “The dark wizard has murdered and carried away thousands of people.”

  “And the khalifa?” Whelan asked in a tired voice. Years lined his face and the glint dulled in his eyes. “Did she die easily or did he torture her?”

  “Kallia?” Ethan said, a smile coming to his lips. “I forgot to tell you. Kallia is alive. She sent me to find you.”

  Chapter X

  HOFFAN SENT MEN TO GUARD Montcrag’s entrance, now unprotected by gates, while Flockheart’s griffins carried the others to safety on the ridge. The ridge topped the mountain like a lizard’s bony spine. Cragyn’s men could scale the mountain with effort—that was Montcrag’s escape route, after all—but the griffins could hold back the armies long enough to make pursuit impossible. Some of Hoffan’s men climbed onto the griffins with terror on their faces, clinging to the rider and clenching their eyes shut. Others rose into the air with looks of exhilaration.

  Darik gathered his belongings and returned to the green. Hoffan climbed onto the back of one of the griffins, and gave a sad look over his shoulder. Montcrag had never fallen to direct assault. Until now.

  Flockheart and his griffin Brasson returned to the bailey green, followed by a second beast and rider. Whelan approached Flockheart with Scree securely in his hands. He’d covered the falcon’s eyes with a leather hood, but the bird still struggled. She screamed, and Brasson eyed the bird with a curious gleam in its eyes. Recognition? Darik had no idea how intelligent the griffins were.

  “Boy,” a voice called from the second griffin. A girl sat on the back of this second animal, or rather a young woman, not a girl. About Darik’s age. A thin leather harness looped around the griffin’s neck, then tied to her belt to keep her from falling should she lose her grip; there was no saddle or bridle. She gestured for him to come.

  Darik swallowed hard, trying to steady his nerves, then slowly approached the griffin. He held out his hand like he might to a strange dog.

  “Not like that,” she said. “She’ll take your arm off.” She grinned. “Come on, just climb on back.”

  Sheepishly, Darik climbed onto the back of the animal and wrapped his arms around the girl. The griffin shifted its weight. It felt much like sitting bareback on a horse, but it moved like a recently broken stallion. The girl tied the leather strap around his waist, and wrapped it around his legs and pulled it tight at the crotch.

  “There,” she said. “You feel secure?”

  “No, not really.”

  She laughed. “You look all right to me.”

  The girl climbed in front and secured herself, then told Darik to hold on. “Ska!” she shouted, digging her heels into the griffin’s ribs.

  Darik felt a terrific lurch and they were airborne. The ground receded rapidly and the wind buffeted his face. Darik looked down at the ground, fighting terror.

  The griffin wheeled south over the walls before banking sharply. As it did, Darik held on tight, stunned by the speed. The griffin flew as fast as a galloping horse, but smoother. Cragyn’s men looked skyward, shielding their eyes against the sun. Darik flew too high to see faces, but he imagined envy, fear, longing. Now turned completely around, they climbed swiftly toward the summit. His stomach lurched when they hit a pocket of wind and dropped suddenly, before climbing again. The griffin picked up speed.

  It took Darik a moment to recover from fear, from the shock of battle, from the change from ground to air. But then he felt it. He was flying!

  Darik let out an exulting shout. The girl looked over her shoulder and laughed, a high, joyous sound.

  Most of the griffins landed on the ridge to drop their loads before flying back to the castle for a final, brief defense. Darik and the girl, however, continued over the mountain. Whelan and Markal had decided that Sofiana and Markal would continue with Hoffan before breaking west for Eriscoba with Ethan. Whelan and Darik, however, would fly to Flockheart’s aerie, then return to Balsalom.

  Trees flew by underneath them. The terrain was rugged and barely passable, except through the air. They followed a small river pouring from a canyon, and flew over a waterfall cascading down the mountainside. He stared in amazement at it all. Occasionally, the girl would turn and point out some feature of the landscape, naming Bestor’s Hollow, and the Sacred Copse. Flying at such speeds made it hard to hear and several times he had to ask her to repeat herself.

  After the initial burst of energy, Darik noticed something else. The girl was quite beautiful. She had a smooth face and an attractive pucker to her lips when she leaned into the wind; her eyes sparkled with life. He still held her tightly around her waist, and her breasts pressed into his arms when they leaned into a turn. Her long hair swung free in the wind, brushing through his face like a horse’s mane, and he loved the feeling. She had dark hair like a woman of the khalifates, but her face was as white as cream, like a barbarian’s.

  He leaned forward. “What is your name?” She said something, but the wind carried it away. “What?”

  She turned around again and put her mouth next to his ear. “Daria. What is yours?”

  “My name is Darik.”

  She laughed. “Darik and Daria. We could be brother and sister.”

  Darik’s sister’s name was Darikia, although he called her Kaya for short, so she wasn’t far off. Brother and sister, however, wasn’t on Darik’s mind at the moment.

  They rode for some time before spotting the aerie. It might have been an hour, but it felt like less. Darik didn’t want the flight to end.

  The aerie rose from a copse of trees, invisible until they were upon it. It sat in an old watch tower, half-crumbling with age. Ivy gripped the tower, working its way into the stone. The windows in the upper reaches were broken out to accommodate griffins.

  “Watch your head,” she said as they swooped toward one of these openings.

  Darik ducked and shut his eyes, sure the griffin would miss its entrance and slam into the wall at such speed. It didn’t, but came to an easy stop inside. He found himself in a wide room with a stone floor. A bed of evergreen branches lay in one corner. In another, two small griffins woke as they entered. They rose to their feet and waddled toward them, squawking.

  “Yes, I know you’re hungry,” Daria told them. “But you’ll have to be patient.”

  She climbed off the griffin, then untied Darik and helped him down. His backside was sore, as were his arms from gripping Daria too tightly. The griffin turned and eyed him.

  Daria laughed. “She’s wondering who’s been riding on her back.”

  “And no doubt thinking what a poor rider I am.”

  “Ah, you weren’t bad. And you didn’t panic when we took off like most people do the first time.”

  “Where are the other riders?” Darik asked.

  She looked out the window. “They have their own aeries. We’re only expecting my father and your friend, but Brasson took a nasty scratch on his haunches, so Father won’t ride him hard. Do you want to help me rub down Averial?”

  The question surprised him. “Yes, very much.”

  Daria pulled two brushes with hard wire bristles from the wall. “Averial grooms her own feathers, but she has a hard time with her haunches. Here, let me show you how it’s done.”

  She took his hand with the brush and rubbed it with the grain of the fur. Averial’s haunches were hot from the flight. It was exactly like rubbing down a horse, which Darik knew how to do. But he kept his mouth shut, enjoying the touch of Daria’s hand.

  “There, you’ve got it. Keep brushing while I get some food for these two before they start pecking at my legs.”

/>   She disappeared from the room. Darik kept rubbing, but it made him nervous to stand alone with the griffin and her fledglings. The younger animals eyed him hungrily, perhaps wondering if he was their lunch.

  Daria returned with the severed hind legs of a deer. Not, he noted, one of Hoffan’s sheep, although that might appear regularly in their diet, as well.

  “Do they eat mostly deer?”

  Daria said, “Deer, rabbits, wild goats, and sheep. Pretty much anything we can catch. Usually, the adults hunt on their own, but we ride to catch food for ourselves, as well. If you want, you can come hunting with me tomorrow.”

  “I’d like that,” Darik said, “but I doubt Whelan intends to stay that long. How much do they eat, anyway?”

  “Maybe three or four deer a fortnight. More if they’ve been flying a lot.”

  As they finished grooming Averial, Daria told him more about the griffins. There were wild griffins in the mountains far to the north, but this particular breed had lived among humans for hundreds of years.

  Daria’s father came from a long line of riders and was the leader of those few who still raised and trained griffins in the old way. Like her father, Daria loved her griffins and planned to stay here all of her life.

  “How many riders are there?” Darik asked.

  “Oh, lots of us,” she said. “Maybe a hundred and fifty. I see other people all the time. Once a month, at least.”

  Darik nodded. He’d seen a hundred times that many people in the Grand Bazaar at once, rivers of people that eddied and flowed and could drown you if you didn’t know how to move with the currents. No doubt Daria would be shocked to visit such a place.

  “As for griffins,” she continued, “when we have extra fledglings, we usually free them in the mountains. There are several hundred higher along the Spine, where they’ve made aeries. Not exactly wild, but not entirely tame, either. If you’re ever in the high mountains and see a griffin, be careful.”

  Whelan and Flockheart arrived about twenty minutes later. Brasson bled from one haunch and Daria and her father tended to his injuries. Whelan unstrapped the saddlebags from its back.

  “Give me a hand with this, Darik?” Whelan asked.

  Together they carried it down the stairs to the human rooms. “This is heavy,” Darik said as they staggered around the corner. “What’s in here?”

  “That steel book. Markal didn’t want to carry it over the mountains, but didn’t want to leave it for the dark wizard either, so he sent it with me. We can leave it here and he’ll come get it later.” He shrugged. “Or we can, if we return first.”

  Darik kept his emotions veiled, but inside he was pleased. Perhaps tonight he could get a longer look at it while Whelan and Flockheart talked. But then, there was Daria. He’d like to talk to her more before they left.

  “When are we leaving?” he asked Whelan.

  “Tomorrow morning, or maybe even tonight, but Markal warned Flockheart that a storm might be coming. The Sea Brothers have begun their battle.”

  Every fall and every spring, the North Sea Brother and the South Sea Brother warred to control the ocean. In fall, the colder, northern waters prevailed, and in the spring, the southern waters won the struggle. Rather than accepting the inevitable, the two brothers did battle for several weeks, sending storms west across the plains.

  Whelan said, “Flockheart doesn’t want to ride into a thunderstorm. Too dangerous. We might be grounded tomorrow, depending on the weather. We could make a go on foot, but in this terrain and with the Desolation between us . . . ” He trailed off, gnawing at his thumb.

  “Worried about the khalifa?”

  “Very. But also relieved that she’s alive. But more than that, even, I’m ashamed at my cowardice.”

  “Cowardice?” The claim bewildered Darik. He’d seen the man battle at Montcrag with no thought to his personal safety.

  Whelan nodded his head. “I’m only delaying my return to Eriscoba by returning to Balsalom. Perhaps I am afraid of death, being killed by Knights Temperate whose loyalties run deeper for my brother than for myself. But more than that, I’m afraid of my brother’s scorn. His hatred.”

  “But the Khalifa needs you,” Darik protested. For Whelan, going to the Free Kingdoms may very well mean facing his past, but it would mean running from the larger problem—how to defend Balsalom from Cragyn’s armies.

  “She does,” Whelan admitted. “And so we return.” He laughed. “We fly back to danger and yet I feel an overwhelming sense of relief that I don’t have to face my brother yet.”

  “That is,” Darik said, “we fly back if the weather holds.” Darik changed the subject. “Whelan, will you teach me how to use the sword?” He looked down to the ground in shame. “I wanted to do more at Montcrag.”

  “Montcrag meant everything to that bandit friend of mine. To surrender it to the dark wizard is a sore blow indeed. We all wish we could have done more.”

  Yes, Darik thought, but the difference is, everyone else did do something useful. Even Sofiana killed a man. Darik nearly succeeded in killing himself when he blundered into battle with Hoffan’s sword.

  “Yes,” Whelan said, seeing the frustration on Darik’s face. “I’ll teach you the sword. But you’ll have to be patient. It takes time, like any other discipline.”

  They ate venison stew for dinner. It tasted delicious, nicely seasoned with peppercorn, and thickened with wild carrots and some other thick, bready root. But from the way Daria took her time, Darik suspected the griffin riders ate this particular meal far too often.

  “Do you get many visitors?” he asked Flockheart.

  Flockheart cocked his head in a bird-like gesture. “A few wizards now and then. Markal every few years, Narud more often. Narud spends a lot of time in the mountains with the animals. Sometimes shows up as an animal himself.”

  “Chantmer the Tall came last spring,” Daria said. She wrinkled her nose. “He didn’t care for the griffins much. Just asked a bunch of questions about the Cloud Kingdoms.”

  “You’ve been to the cloud castles?” Darik asked, eagerly.

  “Nobody’s been there for generations,” Flockheart answered, blowing on a spoonful of soup to cool it. “If you approach, they drive you away. If you reach their lands by stealth, they kill you.”

  They finished the meal in silence. After dinner, Whelan took him outside. It was dark, encircled by so many trees around the aerie, and chill. An owl hooted somewhere on the hillside, and a brook bubbled some distance away. It was unnervingly quiet compared to the city. And gone was the all-pervasive sound of crickets. He’d been too busy running the last few days or trying to catch up on lost sleep to notice, but it struck him now.

  Whelan groped through the darkness until he found two thick sticks. He trimmed them with a hatchet from the aerie. Daria and Flockheart preferred it cooler than Darik thought comfortable; the fire light flickering through the subsequently open door provided a little bit of light to see by if they stood close to the doorway.

  Whelan tossed one of the sticks to Darik. “That man you fought at Montcrag? You did far too much parrying and thrusting. You’ve played around with a rapier, haven’t you?

  “My father thought I should be able to defend myself,” Darik said. “My tutor taught me the rapier and the twin daggers.”

  “That’s for duels between men with more money than common sense. In battle, you need a different weapon. Most effective weapons kill by brute force, not by fancy, precision attacks. Chop or bash, it’s all the same.” He hefted the club over his shoulder casually, then swung it toward Darik’s head without warning.

  Darik jerked away from the attack, but not fast enough. Whelan pulled back on his blow at the last minute, but still gave him a thump on the head. Darik grimaced and dropped his stick, clutching at his head. “Ow. What did you do that for?” Yet, even as he complained, the pain receded. Whelan hadn’t hit him hard.

  “We were about to start, but you were standing too close,” Whelan said
with a slight smile. “Frankly, I prefer a sword of about this length to a battle axe or mace because it gives me more reach. I’ve already got long arms, so it doubles my effectiveness. My point is, remember how long your opponent’s reach is, including his weapon. Just two more quick lessons and then we can spar.”

  Darik picked up his club and looked back inside to see Daria watching him. He felt self-conscious. “Is there any chance we can move a bit further out, away from the door?”

  “The light is better—” Whelan started, then saw Daria, who looked away when both of them were watching her. “Ah, of course. You don’t have room to maneuver here against the walls, do you?”

  Once they stood out of earshot, Whelan whistled. “Last time I saw her she was no older than Sofiana is now.” He nudged Darik and grinned. “Now she’s the sort of girl who can give you a single look and make your knees wobble.”

  Darik groaned. “After my feeble attempts at Montcrag I’m going to look like an idiot, wobbly knees or no.”

  “Daria won’t care whether you can sword fight or not. She’ll care more whether you’re kind to her griffins.”

  He took a slow swing, which Darik parried easily. Darik swung his own blow, but Whelan danced away and counterattacked, this time harder. Darik ducked to one side.

  “I know you hear it all the time,” Whelan said, pressing his advantage, “but it’s true. Act like yourself and you’ll do better with the women.”

  “Listen to yourself,” Darik said, feeling more comfortable with Whelan than he had since they both worked in Graiyan’s kitchen. “You must be quite a lover to give your advice so freely.”

  Whelan laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “Have you ever loved, Darik?”

  “Never.” Darik thought about the stablemaster’s daughter Lassa and how she’d tried to seduce him in the hay loft. He’d never loved the girl, but felt only disgust after she’d spurned him when the guildmaster marched Darik and the others naked to the slave blocks.