A Pride of Gryphons

by Kristen S. Walker

  As he dealt with each crisis, two more popped up in its place. By afternoon, the Council Room was filled with anxious lords and ladies, all of whom owned parcels of land that were currently under attack.

  “What is being done to stop these monsters from destroying our livelihood?” one lady said, her voice quavering as if she were on the verge of tears.

  “I heard that you’re going to pay back the peasants for the loss of their homes,” a lord butted in, his hands planted on his hips. “Are we also going to be compensated for our losses?”

  Galenos raised his hands, trying to silence the angry outbursts. “Please,” he called over their heads. His voice was growing hoarse from all of the talking, but he drew in a deep breath and projected as best he could. “We are doing the best we can to handle this matter with minimal destruction. Right now, we are focusing on ensuring the bodily safety of our citizens. If you have tenants who are affected by this disaster, I urge you to help them.”

  One of the lords scoffed. “You expect us to take care of some grubby farmers? They’re the ones abandoning their homes and our valuable crops.”

  Galenos picked out the speaker from the crowd and shot him a withering glare. “You are their lord. These people are your responsibility. If you cannot do your duty by them, then perhaps the government should relieve you of the burden of your lands.”

  The assembled nobles gasped aloud. “You wouldn’t dare,” a lady’s voice burst out, but it came from the back, hidden by the crowd.

  All the same, he turned to glare in the direction of the protest. “I have the power to strip all lands and titles from traitors,” he said pointedly. “Abandoning your people during an attack or natural disaster is hereby declared an act of treason against Kyratia. Now get out of my sight before I exile you with the cultists.”

  The lords and ladies rapidly cleared the room, leaving behind only the Council.

  Galenos turned to the assembled councilors, who had watched the audience with open astonishment. “I move to enact a law enforcing the responsibility of any land-holding nobles to care for the people who live and work on said lands in times of need.”

  Charis raised his hand nervously. “Seconded, Your Grace. Shall we call for an immediate vote?”

  Diokles got to his feet, looking unhappy. “As the representative of the House of Lords and Ladies, I must express my disapproval of this new law. It seems unduly harsh to label this an act of treason.”

  Galenos took a deep breath and let it out, cooling down his rage. He’d spoken too brashly to the nobles and he had to be careful how he proceeded. “Perhaps you can come up with a scale to judge such infractions, with fines for only minor neglect, and treason saved for those nobles who totally abandon their people despite prior warnings.”

  Diokles frowned. “I will need time to draw up such a proposal.”

  “You have until tomorrow morning,” Galenos said with a curt nod. “I want this vote to happen as the first item on our agenda. Next matter.”

  Diokles paled, but sat back down.

  He felt a twinge of guilt, because Diokles had been a long-time supporter and advisor, even before he became duke. But he couldn’t afford to let personal feelings interfere with his work today. The nobles could help with the refugee problem, and he could focus his attention on the next crisis to come up.

  ***

  As he feared, Galenos wasn’t able to get away from City Hall until well past nightfall. The time just seemed to rush by without any notice of the hours.

  Although he normally walked the streets alone, he permitted a small escort of guards to follow him home. With emotions running high and some of his choices creating controversy that day, he didn’t want to leave himself open to an attack.

  As they walked through the darkened streets, he found, for the first time in months, that his hand itched to hold a sword or bow. He trusted the guards, but he felt naked without his armor or a weapon of his own to defend himself. The feeling surprised him—he never thought that he would miss fighting when he was finally retired. But with human threats and monsters out there in the night, his warrior instincts flared up, and he rankled at the thought of putting his safety in the hands of others.

  This was what Korinna had been talking about, he realized. The forced helplessness, no power to go out and vanquish his foes, just waiting while others did his fighting. For a brief moment, he envied Varranor, the commander of his old company and directly in charge on the front lines. His brother knew what was happening and made decisions that could change the outcome of the fight. In the city, surrounded by desperate refugees and greedy nobles, he only felt blind and trapped.

  But then he saw his house with a candle shining in one of the front windows to welcome him home. He looked up at Korinna’s bedroom on the second floor and smiled. He had this to come back to, and that was worth more than any weapon or company of soldiers at his command.

  He’d told Egina not to bother with his supper, but when he went inside, he found a covered plate waiting for him on the table. He sat down and ate the cold food gratefully, because he hadn’t had time to eat much during the day. When he was finished, he brought the dishes back to the kitchen himself. He snuffed out all of the candles left burning for him and tiptoed upstairs.

  He walked as softly as he could, but there was a loose board in the hall floor outside his bedroom door, and it creaked when he set his foot on it.

  “Is that you, Galenos?” Korinna’s voice called down the hall.

  He squinted into the darkness ahead of him and realized that her door was open. He’d meant to go to his own room without disturbing her, but now he walked over and looked in.

  A candle blossomed into light in her hand. She was sitting up in bed, her hair falling down her back in unbound curls, wearing only a simple shift. The candlelight illuminated her face, making her glow in the otherwise dark chamber.

  For a moment, his breath caught at the sight of her. More than a year after he’d met her, her beauty still surprised him sometimes. The way she held herself, that confidence and strength he could see even when she was waking up from sleep, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin to look up at him expectantly.

  Then he came back to the present moment. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. It’s late, I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

  She set the candle down on the nightstand and beckoned him closer. “I’m hardly tired after staying in bed all day. Come, tell me what I missed.”

  He hesitated, both to let her rest and because he was very tired himself. But she was looking at him with alert, wide-awake eyes, so he didn’t think she would let him go without some recounting of the day’s events. He climbed into bed next to her and pulled her into his arms.

  She turned her head to face him. “Are the gryphons still attacking? Is everyone safe? I’ve had no news all day, so I’ve been distracted with worry.”

  “The attacks continue, but the Storm Petrels are facing them bravely.” He brushed a curl out of her eyes and kissed the top of her forehead. “You needn’t worry. Everyone is coming together to face this crisis. The lords and ladies are coming forward to provide shelter for their people who came from the affected areas, here in the city where they will be safe.”

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “The nobles volunteered to help all on their own?”

  His lips twitched in a faint smile. “Well, I might have encouraged them a little.”

  She laughed. “I would have liked to see how you ‘encouraged’ them.” She nudged him in the side. “In my experience, the nobles don’t usually care much about what happens to the peasants who serve them. But I’m glad that they’re getting away from the attacks. What else? I want to know everything that’s going on.”

  He wanted to spare her from any bad news, but he knew that she wouldn’t believe him if he simply said everything was fine. So he outlined the day’s events, smoothing over the worst of it, holding back a few lesser details so that when she pressed him for more in
formation, he had something to reveal and let her think that she’d uncovered everything.

  He didn’t tell her how many refugees were already flooding into the city, or his concerns about Varranor’s ability to estimate the extent of the gryphons’ attacks. There was nothing she could do, anyways, and knowing the truth would only upset her.

  At last she ran out of questions and snuggled in closer to him. “I missed you,” she murmured.

  His arms tightened around her. “I missed you, too.” And that was the truth. They’d been working closely together every day since they won the battle for the capital and he’d grown used to her constant presence. Although his day had been easier in some ways, without her constant questions and challenges of his decisions, he’d felt her absence like a hole.

  She put her head down on the pillow. “You should sleep in here again tonight. If I can’t see you all day, at least you stay with me now.”

  He lifted his head just enough to blow out the candle, then lay back down next to her. “I’d like that. Good night, my love.”

  With his arms wrapped around her warm body, he slipped into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

  Ameyron III

  Ameyron scanned the morning reports of gryphon attacks and marked each one quickly on the small map at his side. Dealing with the large wall-map and pins took too much time to keep updating by hand, but the smaller sheet told him all he needed to know. He only had to glance at the shape for a moment to see the lines clearly drawn.

  “Get this down exactly,” he said, lifting his head to address the company clerk across the table from him. “The gryphons are attacking in a defined wedge shape that funnels directly down the path of the Maenna River and systematically taking out the major farms on both sides. At the rate they’re going, they’ll reach the capital city in two days. The duke should concentrate on reinforcing their defenses against airborne attackers.”

  The clerk nodded without looking up. Her pen glided across the page, copying his words in a quick, neat hand.

  Ameyron transferred his notes to a second copy of the map and passed it to the clerk to include with his report. “Make sure this is sent top priority to the duke.”

  The mage had tried writing his own reports at first, but it took too much time for him to write with enough care to make his words semi-legible to another person. The company had assigned a clerk to assist him and he found that it made the work go much faster when he dictated his ideas to her. Perhaps he could find someone with similar skill when he went back to the academy.

  The clerk sealed the packet of reports with the Storm Petrels’ official mark and rose to leave. She crossed the War Room with quick steps but stopped short in the doorway.

  Varranor blocked her exit. He took the report from the clerk and slipped it inside his jacket. “Thanks, I’ll give it to a messenger right away.” He stepped around her into the room. “Good morning, Mage. Anything new for me today?”

  Ameyron looked up blearily. “I’ve been up all night running the numbers, and I can say that there’s definitely a pattern this time.” He nodded to the papers scattered all over the table. “These gryphons are attacking in a defined wedge shape that funnels directly down the path of the Maenna River—”

  “That’s obvious.” Varranor walked up and leaned against the back of a chair, looking down at the papers with a frown. “They’re concentrated on our most fertile farmlands. What else?”

  Ameyron blinked several times as he skipped ahead in his thoughts. He wasn’t used to these kinds of interruptions. “Well, ah, since they are heading south along the river, I estimate that at their current rate, they will reach the capital city in two days.”

  Varranor sauntered over to the large map on the wall and pointed to where the most recent attacks had reached, a flat area of the plains where the river widened and met several tributaries. “That’s why I need to make a stand here and strike hard, so they can go no further. How do I stop them?”

  Ameyron shrugged helplessly. “Normally, I would say concentrate on finding the lead male of the pride, because the rest of the gryphons will flee without their leader.” He held up a list of all the males identified by the soldiers. “But with so many attacking, there must be more than one pride. It seems like there is another intelligence which is directing these attacks, and that’s what I’m still trying to identify. Is there a supreme leader male who can rally so many unrelated prides? Could another type of monster be driving them to behave differently? Is there a concentration in wyld magic itself, built up somehow over the past several months of drought and monster attacks, and is it linked to the river? I have instruments with me that I can use to measure fluctuations in magical forces—”

  Varranor glanced up at the clock. “I don’t have time to learn about gryphon family structures or wait while you fiddle with your tools.” He strode over to loom above the mage with a glare. “Just tell me how to stop these attacks.”

  Ameyron shifted nervously in his seat under the warlord’s measuring gaze. He saw that other officers were starting to trickle in, and looked around for someone to help him get out what he needed to say. “I don’t think brute force attacks are very effective,” he said, dropping his head and speaking at the table. “Even if you kill one gryphon, there are two more in its place the next day. We need better understanding of—”

  “I will keep killing these monsters until they’re no longer a threat!” Varranor’s voice boomed out, filling the room. “If you cannot tell me what their vulnerabilities are, then I have to face them the only way I know how.” He brought his fist down on the table, directly in the middle of Ameyron’s marked-up map. “With brute force.”

  Ameyron flinched back from the warlord with a yelp, throwing up his hands to protect his head.

  Sergeant Navera rushed into the room and grabbed Varranor by the shoulder. “Terrorizing a mage isn’t going to get us the answers we need. Take a seat, soldier.”

  Varranor shrugged away her touch. “This is all a waste of time.” He snatched up a handful of papers off the table and tossed them into the air. “All of these reports, calculations, theories, they’re doing nothing to stop the attacks. We need to throw everything we’ve got at these gryphons and make a stand before they reach the capital, or Kyratia will lose everything.”

  Navera looked down at Ameyron. “What does the mage say we should do that you find so objectionable?”

  Ameyron pushed himself to his feet. He wasn’t going to give up just because he was afraid. “I think there’s more to these attacks than we realize,” he said, looking directly at Navera so he wouldn’t see Varranor’s glare. “Some kind of intelligence is guiding their movements, almost like what I observed when the Servants of Varula manipulated wyld magic within the city.”

  Varranor shook his head. “That’s ridiculous. The Varulan priests were all banished from Kyratia months ago, and all they did was smuggle monsters into the city, which they lost control over. They couldn’t be coordinating this many gryphons.”

  Navera frowned. “But could someone else have learned from the priests? Or found another way to control wyld magic and monsters to make them attack us like this?”

  Ameyron bent and gathered up the papers Varranor had thrown everywhere. “That’s what I’m still trying to figure out. I need more time to examine the evidence—”

  “You see?” Varranor snapped. “Nothing useful. You can figure out the causes later, but right now, we need to be out there fighting to stop these monsters.” He strode to the head of the table and looked around at the other officers, who were all assembled by then for the morning meeting. “I hereby order that all units move to establish a base camp on the plains north of the city. We will draw a line in the sand that the gryphons cannot cross, and drive back this menace before it can destroy us all.”

  Ameyron bowed and shrank back from the table. There was nothing else he could do.

  Navera held up a hand. “Wait. We shouldn’t abandon this fort entirely, and the mage ma
y still learn something through his research.” She glanced around at the other officers. “Why can’t the marewing riders stay here, at least? We could easily fly from this fort as our base of operations while the infantry holds the plains.”

  A few officers nodded in agreement, but most did nothing, watching their commander warily.

  Varranor scoffed. “You can stay here with the newest riders if you don’t think they’re up to this fight, but I’m taking the main fighting force with me. I want every able-bodied man and woman on a forced march within the hour.” He looked around at the officers. “The rest of you have your orders.”

  The warlord turned and stormed out of the room. The other officers scrambled to follow.

  Navera looked at Ameyron sadly. “Well, I tried.” She shrugged. “At least I’ll have a few riders here if you figure anything out, so we can send messages. Is there anything else you need to work?”

  Ameyron looked around the empty room and shook his head. “I-I’ll work better in my office,” he said. “I’ll go there now, if I may.”

  The sergeant nodded. “Of course. We’ll have another meeting tonight to review what we’ve learned by then—whoever is left in the fort. Dismissed.” She saluted and left the room.

  The clerk stepped forward from the corner where she’d been staying out of the way since the warlord arrived, and helped Ameyron gather up the rest of the reports. He didn’t bother taking the time to organize any of his papers before he hurried out of the room. He didn’t want to stick around in case Varranor wanted to come back and yell at him some more.

  Korinna VI

  Korinna woke in the morning on the third day of the attacks feeling more than rested. She got up even before her husband and dressed on her own, eager to get back to work. Galenos said nothing to stop her when she followed him to City Hall.