A Pride of Gryphons

by Kristen S. Walker

  The site was carefully chosen in an empty spot on a hill near the center of the upper campus. There was a small building nearby that held the haematomanteya laboratories and another for the alchemists, but the area didn’t see much use, since the academy had been mostly devoted to astrology and viewing the stars in the large observatory higher up on the mountain. It was ideal because there were many large trees for him to use but nothing important close by that he could disrupt if the spell went awry.

  He’d already drawn the sigil on the ground, connecting his chosen trees with a series of lines and magical symbols. He pulled a large parchment out of his pocket which held building plans for the structure he wanted to create—drawn for him by an architect that Omalia had hired to supervise the academy’s construction, because he had no idea how to design a building himself. Then he called up magic and began speaking the words he’d adapted from the earthworks spell, carefully chosen by consulting the academy’s only grammanteya professor.

  The redwoods he’d marked began to warp, stretching out their limbs toward one another. At his direction, the branches wove together, becoming walls and a roof. Rocks rolled up the hill to fill in the ground below them, creating the foundation as he’d promised. A pile of scrap metal he’d dumped nearby flew through the air, changing into hinges, doorknobs, and other hardware as they went to find their places; another pile of sand melted and shaped into glass windows.

  The whole process took the better part of an hour. His voice was hoarse from chanting by the end, but still he went on, making sure that no detail was overlooked. Power flowed through him and out in precise lines as it transformed the entire grove of trees into a unified building.

  When he was finished, an enormous hall rose before the crowd, stunned into silence. There was no sign of the original trees, but the whole building still had an organic sort of shape as each line curved into another like they had grown together, instead of the sharp planed corners of a carpenter’s work.

  Ameyron stepped up to the front of the building, turned around, and bowed. “Welcome to the Interdisciplinary Studies Building,” he announced, secretly clutching a small magical charm in his pocket that projected his voice to carry across the crowd. His tired voice needed the help. “Please, come inside and see.”

  Omalia rushed up to his side, her eyes wide in surprise but grinning with excitement. “The Niketos building,” she said, adding his family name with a flourish of pride. “Did you add a new office for yourself?”

  He looked down at the ground shyly and shrugged. “Well, there are some offices, and also research laboratories along one side. I’d be happy to use one if it’s available.” He opened the front door and stood aside for her to go first. “But why don’t you see what everything looks like before we start dividing up the space?”

  She ran her hand across the smooth wood of the door, then stepped inside the building with a smile. He let a few of the academy’s prominent professors in after her before he finally went in to see for himself.

  The floors were smooth and even and the walls rose up straight, although the joins between them were a little more rounded than a ninety-degree angle. There was a main hall in the front with doors leading to two separate wings on either side. He’d planned it out so there were classrooms in one half, offices and labs in the other. If everything had gone correctly, there would already be tables, chairs, desks and shelves in every room. Someone would have to bring in lighting later, but the large windows let in enough natural light that they could see where they were going for now.

  Omalia crossed the entrance hall and went to the middle doors, ignoring the wings on either side. She pushed open the doors and gasped when she found herself stepping outside again.

  The other professors hurried after her and looked up. In the middle of the building, there was still a small portion of the forest left untouched, including the largest redwood in the grove. The huge tree towered over the building, stretching its branches over the roof on all four sides as if it were watching over the other trees who had sacrificed their lives to create the structure.

  Omalia turned in a complete circle, examining the entire structure from the inside, and then spun to look at Ameyron with a puzzled frown. “There’s a hole in the middle of it? Did you mean to do that?”

  Ameyron came outside with her and smiled up at the central tree. “It’s like a house, see?” He pointed at the four sides around the central courtyard. There was a paved rock path that led to different doors along the walls, but otherwise the forest was intact. “There’s still plenty of rooms all around here, but the forest is inside and out. No matter where you are in the building, you can see trees outside a window on at least one side.”

  Omalia nodded slowly. “It’s… unusual, but striking.” The pleased smile spread across her face again. “I think I like it. And you’ve proven that your spell does exactly what you proposed.” She clapped him on the shoulder. “Excellent work.”

  Ameyron took a deep breath, drawing in the scent of redwoods and earth, and felt exhaustion settling over him now that the spell was done. “It’s a lot of energy for just one spell caster. It will be better, I think, to have students working in teams to use this spell for future castings. We want to be wary of burnout.”

  She grinned and nodded back at the rest of the crowd, who was flooding into the building behind them and exclaiming over what they saw. “After this success, you shouldn’t have any problems finding volunteers for the project.” She laughed aloud. “Months’ worth of construction done in less than an hour! Can you imagine what this academy will look like a few months from now? We could achieve all of our plans at a fraction of the cost.”

  She took him by the arm and led him into the wooded courtyard, away from the others, and lowered her voice. “Of course we’ll have to work out the priorities for all of the buildings we’ll need, and everyone will argue for their facilities to be built first,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder at the other professors. “But you might as well start designing that new library you wanted. I think there could be room in the budget for some books after all.”

  Ameyron’s eyes lit up and he rubbed his hands together. A new library full of books! “I can’t wait to get started.”

  Tatiana II

  Tatiana felt the breeze ruffling through her short hair as she crouched in the forest brush. When she’d first started training at the beginning of the summer, she’d resisted cutting her long hair like Delia and most of the other girls, but after months of wrestling with her long braids each morning, she’d given in and chopped them off. Now she was grateful that she didn’t have to worry about a strand coming loose and falling into her face.

  Six months of grueling work culminated in this final test: hunt and kill the monsters that lurked here. The forty recruits in her unit had to fight together to demonstrate everything they’d learned. From the brief report they were given back at the fort, she knew they were searching for a pack of spiderwolves, but she’d never seen a spiderwolf and she didn’t know much about how to kill one. All she could do was wait until someone spotted their quarry and the unit leader gave the signal to attack.

  There was a rustle in the bushes up ahead. Tatiana froze, then turned her head to look at Delia, hunched over nearby. The other girl nodded and notched an arrow on her bow, ready to fire. Tatiana gripped her sword and shield in readiness.

  A dark shadow fell over her friend. Tatiana looked up—and saw a gray, shaggy body dropping down out of the trees.

  “Look out!” she cried, jumping to her feet and rushing forward, but the monster moved faster than her.

  Delia looked up too late as the spiderwolf descended on its silk line toward her. It reached out with eight legs and gripped Delia, sinking its teeth into her shoulder. She went limp, eyes glazing over.

  Tatiana let out a wordless cry and swung her sword at the creature’s head. Her first strike glanced off its shoulder, but as it looked up at her with a snarl, she swung again and struc
k its neck. She kept hacking until its ugly head rolled off.

  The spiderwolf fell off of Delia and she slumped onto the ground. Tatiana knelt down and checked her friend’s pulse. She was unconscious, but still breathing. The venom had paralyzed her but hopefully would not kill her.

  She looked up at the cries of other fighting going on around her, and saw that more of her fellow recruits had been taken by surprise when the spiderwolf pack dropped down on them from above. As she watched in horror, one boy was wrapped up in silk until he was completely hidden from sight, and the spiderwolf started to drag him back up into the trees.

  She hesitated for a moment, afraid of leaving her friend helpless on the ground. Then she remembered the bow. Instead of taking the time to reach for the one on her back, she plucked the weapon from Delia’s weakened grasp and fired at the next spiderwolf, rapidly drawing more arrows from her own quiver. It also turned on Tatiana, growling deep in its throat, but she struck it in the eye and shot two more arrows into its throat just to be sure.

  She didn’t have time to look around and see how the others were doing or listen for any orders. Rage filled her at the spiderwolves’ attack, driving her movements without a thought. She took up a battle-ready stance over Delia’s unconscious body and kept firing at any spiderwolf who dared approach her friend or the boy wrapped in silk. Not every shot felled her foes, but the ones who didn’t die scrambled away again once they were injured, running off into the forest or climbing back up into the trees.

  She ran out of arrows in her quiver, then the ones in Delia’s. She picked up her sword off the ground where she’d dropped it and gripped it with both hands before her. “Come and get me!” she taunted the creatures. “I’ll take you all on!”

  A large spiderwolf darted toward the trapped boy, but she lunged at it with a yell and plunged her blade into the beast’s belly. It jumped back with a high-pitched yelp. She pushed the attack, swinging past the wolf’s sharp teeth to one of its many legs, knocking it to the ground and delivering the final blow with a satisfied grin. It convulsed and died at her feet.

  She looked around eagerly for her next foe, but suddenly, there were no more wolves that she could see. She blinked in surprise and swung her sword experimentally, sweeping away the underbrush to see if any hid from view. Surely there had to be something else that she could kill.

  “Don’t shoot!” came a familiar voice. Philagros, one of her fellow recruits from Helyma, stepped out from behind a tree with his hands raised defensively. “It’s alright, Tatiana, it’s all over. You can calm down now.”

  She realized that her heart was pounding faster than she’d ever felt before. She forced herself to take a deep breath and lowered her sword. “Are you sure?” She took another look around at the forest, peering up into the trees for any sign of her foes.

  Philagros walked slowly toward her, his hands still raised. “Yes, they’re all gone. Now c’mon, we’ve got to get the wounded out of here.”

  Tatiana knelt and helped Philagros cut the other boy free of the spider silk, then turned to Delia. Both of them were still breathing, but neither one roused when they tried to wake them. Philagros lifted up the boy and Tatiana scooped up Delia herself, carrying her out of the forest.

  In the empty field outside of the forest, there was now a crowd of other soldiers. Some of them helped to collect the wounded recruits, others gathered up the fallen spiderwolves and dug shallow graves to bury the disgusting monsters. Healers circulated among the wounded, treating injuries and administering an antidote to the spiderwolves’ venom.

  Tatiana carried Delia to the nearest healer and waited by her side as he bandaged her shoulder and gave her the antidote. It wasn’t until she watched her friend’s eyes flutter open that she finally felt the battle-rage begin to ease. The healer checked to make sure that Delia was alert, then moved on to the next patient.

  She was surprised at her own reaction. She thought she would be frightened by her first fight, but instead an anger had swept over her at the sight of her friend being attacked, and it only seemed to grow with each monster that she killed. Who knew that she was capable of such violence? When she’d pictured being a soldier, she hadn’t imagined the blood or the feeling of her blade sinking into another living creature, even a monster. Yet she had killed them all without a thought and almost…enjoyed it.

  Delia pushed up onto her elbows and blinked at Tatiana. “Is it over already? Did I fail the test?”

  “You both fought bravely,” a deep voice boomed out over them before Tatiana had a chance to respond.

  Both girls looked up in surprise and saw a dark man, taller than anyone they’d seen before with short wiry hair and broad features, grinning at them proudly. “Good work, you two. Welcome to the Storm Petrels.”

  Only after he turned away did Tatiana catch sight of the commander’s bars on his uniform. She gasped, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her shock. “I think that was Warlord Varranor,” she whispered to Delia.

  Delia looked up with wide eyes. “So we both graduated? Thank the gods!” She lay her head back down on the ground. “He was surprisingly handsome for a foreigner.”

  Tatiana punched her friend playfully in her uninjured arm. “Hey, what does that mean?”

  Delia grinned. “Well, he doesn’t turn red as a lobster, which helps.”

  Tatiana stuck her tongue out, but she laughed all the same. The company’s healers had given her a stronger ointment to protect her from sunburn, but she was still pink on her exposed skin and pale beneath her clothes.

  Then she remembered that she still had work to do, starting with taking care of her equipment. She set Delia’s bow on the ground beside her and began cleaning her sword. The spiderwolves’ blood was thick, and she didn’t want it to dry and ruin her blade.

  There were more officers circulating among the recruits, congratulating them on their successful graduation. Two of them, a short-haired middle-aged woman and a long-haired young one, both wearing the leather uniform of marewing riders, came up to Tatiana.

  The older woman, who wore a sergeant’s bars, tapped Tatiana on the shoulder and crooked a finger at her. “Your friend will recover just fine, thanks to you. May we speak to you alone?”

  Tatiana glanced at Delia, who shrugged tiredly, then stood up and followed the two women a few steps away.

  The sergeant smiled warmly when they were alone. “I’m Sergeant Navera,” she said kindly. “I was in charge of training marewing riders, but now I’m training Itychia to take over the job.” She gestured to the younger woman, who gave a thin, more reluctant smile. “We’ve both chosen you to join the rider candidate training.”

  Tatiana’s eyes widened. “Me?” she gasped in surprise. She glanced back at Delia, suddenly feeling guilty. “But not my friend? She wanted to be a rider, too.”

  Sergeant Navera shook her head. “Unfortunately, we can only take so many candidates for the training, so we have to be selective.” She gestured at Delia. “She’ll be given another post, and of course if she proves herself later on, she could be selected as a candidate in another year. But you won’t let that stop you from accepting the chance yourself, will you?”

  Tatiana looked down at her hands. She’d discovered today that she had the capacity for killing. She couldn’t imagine going back to her home village and facing her mother now, knowing what she was capable of. The other soldiers must have seen that bloodthirsty rage in her and that was their requirement for catching a marewing and making a lifetime commitment to fighting. If they wanted her to join this life, then so be it.

  She clenched her hands into fists and raised her eyes back to Navera’s face. “I’ll do it. Thank you,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

  Navera smiled wider, and Itychia clapped her on the shoulder encouragingly as if she knew what Tatiana was feeling. “We’ll be leaving in four days,” Navera said with a nod. “Be ready then.”

  She watched as the two women moved on to speak with Philagros. She
couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he grinned and nodded, looking a lot happier about the news.

  Tatiana went back to helping the other graduates gather up their weapons, but she kept her mouth shut about the marewing rider training. The others had seen her talking with Navera, but they said nothing.

  Four days. Then she’d start down the path to becoming a fighter for life, and there was no backing out. But she realized that she’d already changed the moment she signed the contract and left her village, and this was just the next step. How much more would she change? Would she even recognize herself in a few months?

  ***

  After months of training in the flatlands, the mountains around Fort Aelyzoai were a welcome change. Tatiana looked up at the wall of gray stone stretching up to the sky and smiled. “They look like the cliffs back home,” she said to Philagros.

  He wrinkled his nose. “It doesn’t smell like the ocean, though.”

  She inhaled the scent of dry leaves and dust from the forest and sighed. “No, but I guess we can’t have everything.”

  He looked up at the fort, which was little more than a tower, and pointed to the very top. “Are those birds circling up there?”

  “No, marewings,” she said, squinting against the sunlight.

  One of the other candidates, Thyrsis, came up beside them. “I heard you gotta climb all the way up there by hand, but I don’t see how we could do that.”

  Philagros shrugged. “Not much harder than climbing a sea cliff, I guess.”

  Thyrsis scowled. “What would you do that for?”

  Tatiana grinned. “To collect eggs out of the sea birds’ nests.” She nudged Philagros teasingly. “Bet I can climb up faster than you.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “I’m not taking that bet again. You almost pushed me off the cliff last time we raced.”

  “Whoa!” Thyrsis interrupted them. “No way you could get away with that here. There’s no water at the bottom to catch you if you fall.” He smashed a fist into his other hand. “Splat.”