A Pride of Gryphons

by Kristen S. Walker

  Aristia nodded and reached for the shutters.

  “I love you,” Korinna called after Galenos as he ran out of the front door. She listened for an answer, but all she heard was him giving orders to the guards outside to make sure that she didn’t leave. She sank back against the cushions with a sigh. She wanted to go help, but she’d already reached her limit.

  Aristia finished bolting the shutters in the sitting room and looked around. “Do you really think it will help just to close all of the windows? The courtyard is still wide open.”

  Korinna shrugged helplessly. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt. And close the doors to the courtyard.” She knew it would make the room feel too claustrophobic without any fresh air flowing through, but her fear of whatever was happening in the city was stronger. She was just too tired to take any more chances.

  Aristia pulled the folding doors closed against the courtyard garden, latching them securely, and then rushed on to the next room.

  Korinna could do nothing as she watched. She envied the girl her energy, but it was all she could do to block out the screams from her mind. She laid back down and put both hands over her belly, trying to ignore the ache inside. She feared that she’d already strained herself too much.

  Galenos IX

  Galenos ran down the street in the flickering light of torches and street lamps. His body ached with exhaustion from the earlier fight and his armor, a spare set that had gone stiff in the back of his wardrobe from months of disuse, chafed in uncomfortable places. But he’d left his normal armor back at City Hall and he didn’t want to risk running all of that way unprotected. He didn’t even know what enemy he faced or where the latest attack had come from.

  He slowed to a stop in the nearest square, gasping for breath, and looked up for a better view of the sky. But all he could see was the same view he’d glimpsed from his bedroom window: marewings wheeled and dove in the sky above, bare of any saddle or rider, while alarm bells rang out. There was no enemy, so who were they attacking, and why had they risen without their riders?

  He was at a crossroads and he had to decide which direction to go. Should he turn toward City Hall, where the captain of the city guard and other officials could report to him easily on the situation? Or should he go straight toward the military compound and see if Warlord Varranor and the others had the best information about what was going on? He couldn’t be in two places at once and it took time for a runner to bring him messages from one location to another. His choice now could make all the difference in how quickly he handled this latest crisis.

  His first instinct told him that he should go to the military compound to be in the middle of the action, but he’d just told Korinna that his fighting once already had been a mistake. He couldn’t afford to be seen so close to the mercenary company again. Hoping he wasn’t dooming them all for the sake of saving face, he clenched his hands into fists and turned toward City Hall.

  He’d barely made it a single block when a marewing’s scream caught his attention. He looked up and saw a piebald marewing diving straight for his head. He ducked and threw himself to one side, narrowly avoiding the sharp hooves. The marewing flew so close that the wind of her passage made him stumble for footing on the cobblestone street.

  He grabbed for the wall of the nearby building to catch himself and looked back over his shoulder, craning his neck to see where the monster had gone. She screamed in frustration and whirled in the air, coming back for a second pass.

  Impossible! Marewings would lash out at strange humans who got too close, but they were naturally shy and more likely to fly away than attack. Yet he couldn’t deny that this marewing seemed to be on the offensive against him. What could have provoked such an out-of-character attack?

  The piebald was coming at him again fast, so Galenos couldn’t stop to wonder more at the cause. He ran around the corner into a nearby alley. Here, the tall buildings were too close together for a marewing’s wing span. His attacker diverted back up into the sky, screaming her anger at him.

  Well, that was one problem taken care of. He would stick to the narrow side-streets and keep an eye on the sky for more marewings. But that still didn’t answer the deeper question of what was going on. Perhaps he should head for the military compound after all.

  He waited, catching his breath and watching until he was sure that the piebald had stopped pursuing him, then started for the northwestern corner of the city where the Storm Petrels were stationed. He kept to the narrowest streets that he could manage, walking next to buildings and avoiding open spaces.

  A crash echoed over his head, sending shards of glass and wood raining down. He dove under an awning at the next building and looked back. He couldn't believe what he saw.

  Marewings were smashing into windows. From the frightened cries he heard inside, it seemed that they were attacking innocent civilians. The marewings screamed louder in their frenzy to reach people and attack.

  With their homes no longer providing them with shelter, people ran out into the streets and chaos descended. They ran in every direction, which only allowed the marewings to swoop down over the streets and attack them freely. Some people saw Galenos and called for help, but he could only stare helplessly. His only weapon was a dagger, but what could he do? He couldn't attack the marewings from his own company, and he had no idea how to stop their attacks. They had gone completely mad.

  He struggled to get through the mob. “Let me pass!” he said, not wanting to push people aside in the crush. “I need to find out what's going on so I can stop it!”

  But the mob only screamed and continued to swarm around him.

  The narrow streets were harder to get through now because of the crush of bodies. He found himself forced to run through the main roads, ducking hooves because he was the tallest target in the crowd. He only prayed that he could reach the military base and find his brother. Maybe Varranor would have an answer for him.

  Only a few more blocks to go, and the mob was thinning out as he left residential areas--no one wanted to live near the mercenaries. Galenos finally had the space to run again, and he took a deep breath, preparing to bolt across an open square.

  He slammed into a dark shape and went sprawling across the cobblestones. Pain exploded across his hands and knees as he tried to break his fall. The sound of hooves alerted him to another attack, and he rolled to one side, shielding his head.

  He looked up and stared in horror. The marewing facing him now, her head down and panting with exhaustion, was pitch black. Nightshade. How could she have turned against him?

  He pushed himself up, grunting with pain, to a crouching position and held out his hands. “Whoa, girl, it's me. It's alright. Take it easy.”

  Nightshade hesitated, her nostrils flaring as she caught his scent. She pawed at the ground and took a step back, shaking her head.

  “That's it, take it easy, girl,” he repeated. He got to his feet, still holding his hands open. “You don't want to hurt me.”

  Nightshade lowered her head toward him, her ears pricking forward in recognition. But then she screamed as if she were in pain and her ears went flat against her skull. She reared back on her hind legs, spreading her wings wide.

  Galenos stumbled backward to avoid her lashing hooves. “No!”

  She crashed down on all fours again, and for a moment, he thought she would attack and it was all over. But then she whirled and galloped down the street.

  He could only stare helplessly after her. By the gods, what had gotten into her? He'd never seen her act like this, not in seventeen years together. Now it seemed like all of their training together had been undone in a single night.

  He couldn't stop to feel bad about it. He forced himself on, limping slightly on his injured knee. Somewhere there had to be answers.

  Varranor VI

  Varranor awoke to a cacophony of noises. It took his groggy brain some time to process what was going on. Alarm bells. So he was in the city? Right, he'd gone there to stop an a
ttack and then decided to sleep there for the night. But if the alarm bells were back, did that mean the attack was on again? More gryphons?

  He rolled over and abruptly found that he was not alone in the bed. “Sorry,” he mumbled, climbing over the naked female form. He didn't remember taking a companion with him.

  The healer lifted her head and looked around in surprise. “Are we under attack again?”

  “I don't know.” Varranor found his discarded uniform and pulled on his pants and a shirt. “I'll go see what's going on.”

  Frantic pounding started on the door before he could reach it. Not a good sign. Varranor opened the door and squinted against the sudden light. “What is it?”

  “It's the marewings,” Navera snapped. She looked just as bedraggled as him, with her shirt untucked from her pants and still in her bare feet. “They've gone mad.”

  He stared at her as her words sank into his sleep-deprived brain. “Mad? What do you mean?”

  She grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and dragged him to the window. “I mean they're acting insane. And they're attacking the city.”

  He looked out over the courtyard. He dimly remembered that earlier, they'd bedded down the marewings in practically every empty space outside to make room for them all, but now the slumbering herds were gone. Instead, he saw torches illuminating empty paddocks and soldiers rushing back and forth with no clear direction.

  Navera pointed up, and then he saw them, flying over the rest of the city. It was hard to make out at this distance but they did seem to be behaving aggressively. As he watched, one of them dove toward a building, smashing the windows with her sharp hooves. The clanging bells finally made sense.

  Varranor shook his head, but the nightmarish vision didn't go away. “Why are they doing this?”

  Navera sighed. “Your guess is as good as mine. According to the sentries, they all just started screaming, and then they took off. The ones in the stables broke out of their stalls. I've never seen anything like this before.”

  He heard someone shouting his name and looked back down into the courtyard. Galenos was marching toward the headquarters, dressed in armor and looking like he'd already been in a fight. “I guess His Grace wants answers, too. We'd better go talk to him.”

  Navera released her grip on his shoulder. “You take him to the war room. I'll go find the mage and bring him there--he may be able to help.”

  Varranor swallowed against the dryness in his throat. Could magic be behind this? Well, what else could it be?

  He squared his shoulders and headed for the door. It would only make his brother angrier if he kept him waiting.

  Galenos increased his speed when he saw Varranor, favoring his left knee. “What…” He stopped, panting for breath, then started again. “What in the world is going on?”

  Varranor gestured up at the sky. “That’s going on. As to why it’s happening, your guess is as good as mine.” He held out his hand to support his brother. “Are you injured?”

  Galenos shrugged away his touch and shook his head. “Just a little bruised, I think. I’ll be fine if I can find somewhere to sit.”

  “We’re meeting in the war room to discuss the issue.” Ignoring the refusal for help, Varranor threw his arm around his brother and held him up. “You’d better lean on me, it’s a long hallway.”

  Galenos grumbled but didn’t refuse again. He leaned into the supporting arm on the way to the war room, and sank gratefully into the first chair at the table.

  The war room at the military compound hadn’t been used in months and didn’t have much beyond tables and chairs, but it served the basic purpose of providing a meeting space. Several other officers had already arrived in various states of dress, and they were arguing at increasing volume about how to deal with the attacks.

  “We should send all of the riders out to call down their marewings individually and get them out of the city,” one of the captains was saying. “Why aren’t they out there right now? Everyone should be able to control their own marewing.”

  Galenos lifted his head. “I just tried to calm down mine, but she didn’t respond. I feel lucky that I escaped with only a few scratches.” He held up his battered hands as evidence. “I wasn’t sure if she even recognized me.”

  Varranor stared at his brother in shock. “Nightshade? I don’t believe that.”

  “Did you offer her any cloudfruit?” a gray-haired female captain demanded without so much as a nod to the duke. It seemed that tensions were high enough that etiquette was forgotten.

  Galenos shook his head. “I didn’t have any on me at the time, I’m afraid.”

  The gray-haired captain pounded her fist on the table. “This base has emergency cloudfruit stores, right? We need to open those immediately and distribute them to the riders. It’s the best way of luring the marewings down.”

  An infantry commander banged his own fist against the table. “We’re wasting our time trying to coddle the monsters. We should just attack them directly. Ready the archers, and—”

  Every rider in the room immediately drowned out the rest of his suggestion by shouting in protest. No one could stand the idea of attacking their own marewings.

  Varranor pulled the infantry commander out of the room. “Listen,” he said in a low voice, “I appreciate you trying to help, but I think you could be more helpful somewhere else. Why don’t you take your soldiers and go help the guards manage the mob outside? Keep people from trampling each other in the streets, at the very least.”

  The commander frowned. “Are you seriously going to let these monsters continue to harm the populace out of sentimentality? The marewings were valuable when they listened to you, but clearly, that’s no longer the case.”

  Varranor glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was close enough to hear, then leaned down toward the officer. “I won’t rule it out, but I’ll save that for a last resort. Let us explore other options first.” He patted the commander on the back. “You’ve done good work for this company. Now get out there, but don’t attack anything until you receive explicit orders, understand?”

  The commander saluted. “Yes, sir.” He turned and hurried down the hallway, dodging around Sergeant Navera and Mage Ameyron as they came around the corner.

  Ameyron covered a yawn with his hand. “I must apologize for the delay, Warlord. What can I do to help?”

  Varranor stepped aside and gestured to the door. “Just come in. We’re all trying to figure this out.”

  Back in the war room, everyone except Galenos was on their feet, each one shouting for their argument to be heard over the others.

  Navera shot one look at Varranor, then climbed up on top of a chair. “That’s enough! If you can’t sit down and discuss this calmly, then I will throw you out of this room myself.”

  The war room went very quiet. One commander started to open her mouth, but she was silenced by another glare from Navera, so she dropped down into her seat. Gradually, the others sat down and looked to the warlord.

  Varranor smiled and stepped to the head of the table. “Thank you. I know everyone is short on sleep and agitated by the news, but we can’t lose our heads now. Let’s break this down one thing at a time. What do we know about our current situation?”

  Navera rose from her chair. “The preliminary report is that every marewing has flown out of the base to attack civilians. The guards have told me that these attacks seem to be random, with no pattern they can identify. Although we’re trying to keep people inside, some buildings have been damaged which caused the inhabitants to panic and run into the streets.”

  Varranor nodded to her. “Thank you for the summary.” He turned to Galenos. “Your Grace, you had additional information?”

  Galenos pushed himself to his feet with a wince. “I encountered my own marewing, Nightshade, but she didn’t seem to recognize me. She failed to respond to any of my orders.”

  One of the other commanders raised her hand. “I’ve also heard riders claim that
they couldn’t get control of their marewings, but it’s hard to get close enough to even try. Should we get everyone up on the walls or somethin’ and try to call them down?”

  Varranor held his hands up to stop her. “I think we need to understand this situation a little better before we discuss a plan of action. Do we have any idea what the cause could be?”

  Navera shrugged. “I’ve never seen any marewing act like this in all my years of experience. We still don’t even know what made the marewings or the gryphons come here in the first place. Maybe this is all related to something we don’t even know about.”

  Ameyron rose to his feet. He was holding several sheets of paper and he shuffled them back and forth, glancing around the room nervously. “If I may speak, I have a hypothesis about a potential cause.” He stared at his notes a moment longer, then coughed. “That is, I suspect there is wyld magic involved.”

  Varranor leapt out of his chair. “Those Varulans are back again! I knew it.” He shot a look at Galenos. “I told you banishing them from the city wouldn’t be enough.”

  Galenos’s eyes narrowed. “Exile was already a harsh punishment, considering that I seized everything they owned. What did you expect me to do, order the execution of priests?”

  “If they commit treason, then yes!” Varranor shouted back.

  Ameyron’s reedy voice tried to cut across the arguments. “I don’t want to jump to conclusions—”

  Varranor whipped around to glare at the mage. “Skip your academic blathering and get to the part where you tell us what to do about it.”

  Galenos leaned back with a sigh. “This would go a lot faster if you just let the man speak. Or do you just want to hear his suggestion so you can shoot it down again?”

  Navera pounded on the table. “Enough, both of you! Your childish bickering isn’t going to save the city.” She gestured to Ameyron. “Please, continue.”