“No!” Trystan jumped at him, trying to get the keys back. Marcus held them out of his reach. “They’ll burn to death, if we don’t help them!”
Already, the building was beginning to fail. He could hear the dome cracking, even at a distance. They were running out of time!
“The whole Sunchase Clan territory burned when I was a boy.” Marcus retorted bitterly. “None of the other clans came to save us, when we had nowhere to go. Why should I save them?”
The Sunchase Clan had always been apart from the other gryphons. They lived in harsher conditions and under their own brutal rules. They had no permanent home, now. Perhaps, that was why they were one of the few clans who’d sided with Uther in the War. Their lives were so miserable that even his false promises were better than no promises, at all.
“Fuck Lyrssa.” Marcus shoved Trystan away. “I’ll take my chances with the wingless.” He declared and looked over at Horatio. “Tie him up. We’ll take him back to the King’s Men.”
Horatio glanced down at Trystan, obviously torn. “It would not take much effort to check the cage. Perhaps some of the gryphons are still alive and…”
“Perhaps you should follow orders.” Marcus interrupted. “Uther put me in command, because he knows I’ll get shit done. The sooner all the savage clans are wiped out, the sooner we can ascend to our rightful place, j’ah. When this war is over, Uther will place us in charge of Lyonesse, as the Sunchase Clan always should’ve been. That is what matters.”
“Uther wants to kill all the gryphons.” Trystan snapped. He knew that firsthand, his earliest memories filled with fighting and death. “If he favored the Sunchase, why has he not lifted the curse for your clan? Why do you suffer with the rest of us?”
“Uther will lift the curse, once we prove ourselves.” Marcus insisted. Did he really believe it or was he trying to convince himself? Trystan was never sure. “The wingless king is the only one who can stop our people’s extinction.” He looked back at Horatio. “Even if it costs some gryphon lives now, more will be saved in the long run.”
Horatio nodded, his hesitancy gone. “You’re right, brother. We work towards a greater good.” He reached down, intending to grab Trystan and ship him off to another wingless jail.
And that’s when the Primitive People’s Exhibit fell.
The glass dome toppled down in a waterfall of jagged shards and the walls caved in, burying everything inside. The rush of oxygen had the fire increasing like a furnace. The Yellow Boots stepped back, shielding their eyes from the sudden spike of heat. The animals around them all screamed out in terror.
And Trystan had no more clan.
Whoever had been left alive inside the cage after the bomb dropped, died in the final collapse. The strength left Trystan’s legs and he sank to the sidewalk, staring at the fire with stunned eyes. He was too frozen to even cry. To shout out. To run.
He just… stared.
“Well, that ends the debate, does it not?” Marcus said dismissively. “Gryphons like that are better off dead, anyway. They live in the past. You adjust to the wingless ways or you die like animals.”
Trystan looked up at him, still sitting on the ground. His heart was beating in his ears so loudly that he could barely hear anything else. “I’m going to kill you, one day.” He said very seriously.
Marcus didn’t look impressed. “Well, that day is not today. Today you’re going back into chains and Uther can decide what to do with you. Now, tie him up, Horatio.” He snapped his fingers impatiently. “Let’s go. We have more enemies of Camelot to round up tonight.”
Horatio sighed, moving towards Trystan, again. “It is a shame that a gryphon this young will die. Children are getting rarer…”
He never got to finish that lament.
A sudden blur crashed into him, knocking Horatio off his feet. The man gave an agonized bellow, instinctively trying to fight off his attacker. But it was no use. No one could defeat an eight hundred pound cat with their bare hands.
The blue tiger had gotten hold of Horatio and seemed intent on devouring him whole. Whether it was hungry or crazed by the noise or if maybe something else was guiding it, Trystan never knew. He just knew the cat saved him.
It was hard to see what was happening in the darkness, but Trystan’s other senses told the grisly story. There was an earthshattering roar. Bones crunched. Blood splashed out, splattering across Trystan’s tattered clothes.
And Horatio stopped screaming.
Marcus didn’t try to help him, either. Still clutching the keys to the other cages, he took off into the sky. Cursing and terrified, he left his brother to die. He flew away like he was afraid that the tiger might evolve wings and pursue him, not even looking back. Trystan didn’t see any more of Marcus that night. He didn’t see anyone else in the zoo, at all.
He just saw the tiger.
The blue cat’s eyes flicked to Trystan, still crouching over Horatio’s body. It was gigantic and wild, the color of deepest midnight. Trystan didn’t move, just like his father had told him. The raw power of the creature was overwhelming. Hypnotizing. He was close enough to touch its darkly striped coat. Close enough to see the red staining its teeth.
But the tiger didn’t attack him.
With an arrogant shake of its head, the huge blue cat began dragging Horatio’s corpse away. It must have decided that Trystan wasn’t appetizing, because it didn’t pay him any attention. It left him alone.
All alone.
Trystan sat there and watched the tiger disappear into the bushes with its meal. He sat there for hours, mindlessly rocking and listening to his mother’s voice singing to him in his head. Sat there until the fire in the Primitive People’s Exhibit went out and the first hints of daylight began to appear.
Awareness slowly began to break through his shock and despair. A desire to keep his word to Ban. Somehow, Trystan managed to rouse himself from his stupor and crawl into the hedges, hiding until it was dark, again. The next evening, he began his trek westwards, towards the lavender hues of twilight.
Purple was his path.
In his mind forever, he would recall the sound of the glass dome shattering before the enclosure fell. He would replay all that happened again and again, trying to find a way he could have saved his clan. He would eternally blame Marcus Sunchase and the Yellow Boots for letting them die. At odd moments, he would hear that song his mother sang to him, giving him comfort and guidance.
And he would always have a deep respect for tigers.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Who is the ya’lah?
How can one single person hope to undo all the evil Uther rained down on the world?
I do not know. No one does.
Not yet.
But, the gryphons’ time runs short. Our people will become extinct within decades. The ya’lah might already be alive. This generation could well see the graal itself, held in the ya’lah’s hand.
Then we will know the answers to questions that stretch far back into history.
I just hope we are smart enough to listen.
How the Wingless War Happened
Skylyn Welkyn- Gryphon Storyteller
St. Ives- Kit-Cat-Sack Street
Trystan had accomplished the impossible: He was holding a creature made of moonlight.
He stood on the street, gazing at the door to the club that Galahad had disappeared through, and the world rearranged itself around him.
Everything he’d ever wanted was in his grasp.
The knight was furious at him, but he was also giving Trystan all of himself. He was sharing pieces that he never shared with anyone else. He wasn’t fighting to get free and disappear back into his own realm. He was fighting to keep Trystan with him. If Trystan didn’t fuck this up, he could have… everything.
What could possibly be worth losing everything?
Vengeance?
Suddenly, he didn’t think that was worth much, at all. He’d spent his entire time in prison dreaming about rev
enge. But now that dream felt pointless. Leaving Camelot to hunt his enemies could cost Trystan everything. The men he planned to kill mattered little to the world at large and were nothing at all when you compared them to Galahad.
Why in the hell was he risking everything on nothing?
The more he considered it, the less sense it made.
“If I had a mate who looks at me, as your mate looks at you, I would not let him out of my sight.” Konrad volunteered in the gryphons’ language, as if he was reading Trystan’s mind. “My sainted mother always says the best way to hold onto something valuable is to never let it go.”
Trystan glanced at him in surprise. “Caelia said that?”
“Well, it’s kind of the second part of her advice.” Konrad allowed with a shrug. “In part one, she mentions that it’s a smart idea to preemptively kill anybody who might want to steal from you, in the first place. Cuts way down on the risk.”
Yeah. That sounded a lot more like Caelia.
“You should do all you can to keep that man.” Konrad nodded wisely, the neon lights of St. Ives reflecting off the lens of his mirrored sunglasses. “Watching you together… I see a brightness in you that was not there before. He gives you a spark of life, Trystan. Do not lose it.”
“I won’t.” He had no intention of losing the knight or the light the man brought him.
Trystan’s plan to leave Galahad in Camelot, while he went hunting his enemies, would never work. It was so obvious. He’d been a moron to even consider it.
Assuming the knight pledged to patiently wait for him (which was doubtful) Trystan would still not see him each day. Would not be able to listen to his insane ideas, or protect him from his numerous enemies, or touch his shimmery hair. It would be torturous. Weeks and months without the person he liked best in the world? Weeks and months where Galahad might forget him?
No.
That was not acceptable.
Trystan could not stand to be indefinitely parted from the knight. It would be like returning to prison. Worse, because now he’d know what he was truly missing. He needed Galahad with him.
…So Galahad would just have to come with him.
That seemed like the simplest solution. Now that he thought about it, it was no doubt the plan that Galahad had been claiming was so obvious. It did seem obvious. The knight could just accompany Trystan on his mission. Yes. That was the only thing that made sense.
So why was he still so unsettled by the plan?
“Where the hell is Marcus?” Trystan glanced down at Konrad, impatient to kill the man and get back to his mate.
“I told you, he’s following the race.”
“What race? You keep speaking of one, but I do not see it.” As far as Trystan could tell, no one in St. Ives was racing by foot, horse, or wing. “All I see are banners with the incorrect time on them.” He waved at the cheaply printed sign over his head. “It says eight o‘clock, not eleven. Are you sure we didn’t miss this damn thing?”
“The time’s not wrong. The race started at eight and it’s still going.”
“Started from where? Oz?” It had to be somewhere far distant, if it took three hours to get to the finish line.
“No. It started just around the block. Sometimes it can take a while to get here, because it’s a tortoise and hare race.” His eyebrows went up, seeing Trystan’s look of incomprehension. “Backwards, ya know?”
“Backwards?”
“Right. The slowest one wins.” Konrad nodded. “Spectators sort of stroll along side of the runners, talking and drinking and placing bets. But everyone will come right by here.” He paused. “Eventually.”
“Lyrssa save me…” Trystan didn’t have time for this shit. “Marcus must die now. I am not about to leave this Mordy person alone with my knight over an intimate goddamn brunch, while I stand here waiting for a fucking turtle.”
“Probably smart.” Konrad nodded. “Mordy’s got seven mates, but yours would be the crown jewel of his collection, so…”
“Seven mates?” Trystan interrupted, glancing at the club’s neon sign. It seemed as if everything in the whole damn town was constantly blinking. “Wait, he literally has seven husbands?”
“Yes. I think that’s the word. Whatever the wingless call their ha’yan, he has seven of them.” Konrad switched to the common dialect to guess at the proper vocabulary. “Wives? Husbands? I cannot keep the gender titles straight. They make much confusion.”
“Is it legal in their culture to have seven mates?” Trystan wasn’t sure, but he doubted it.
Konrad switched back to the gryphon tongue. “Mordy and his riches run this town. Everything he wants to do is legal, the moment he decides to do it.”
“My knight will not approve of that judicial philosophy.” Trystan shook his head. “He is already upset with Mordy for owning a strip club and possibly exploiting the downtrodden. If he decides that Mordy is oppressing people into unwanted matings, it will lead to many deaths.”
Hopefully, one of them would be Mordy’s. Trystan didn’t look forward to making over a half-dozen men widowers, but he just didn’t like the guy.
“Why is your mate upset about the strip club, when he works at the strip club?”
“He does not work at a strip club! Why do you…?”
Trystan broke off mid-word, his gaze falling on a group of people sloooooowly rounding the corner and making their way towards the club. They were moving down the center of Kit-Cat-Sack Street at approximately the same speed that lead tuned to gold.
Lyrssa save him…
Trystan pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is the race?” He guessed with a sigh.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Konrad craned his neck to gauge which creature was in the lead. “I got some money on the hare to win, so try not to screw up the results for me. The tortoise has been on fire lately, but he can’t keep up the streak forever, right?” He paused, like something new occurred to him. “Only he has to lose in order to win in a backwards race, so maybe I should have bet against him. But it’s also backwards day, which reverses the rules if…” He trailed off with a puzzled look. “Shit. Who was I supposed to put money on?”
“Do not speak to me.” Trystan warned, frustrated at the world. He had pictured hunting down his enemies many times, but it had always been more grand and less ridiculous.
Fuck it.
He pulled his axe and stalked into the street, directly into the path of the race. Spectators were clustered around the tortoise and hare in a loose circle. The men constantly adjusted their positions, so as not to get left behind. Not that there was much chance of that.
This was literally a bunny and turtle race.
Literally.
The two animals were the regular, non-humanoid kind. The ordinary hare was taking a break to chew on its own foot, while the ordinary tortoise waddled steadily along. The gambling men surrounding the small creatures didn’t seem concerned about the glacial pace. They chatted and laughed, easily keeping out of the race’s direct path. Moving forward, inch by painful inch. They expected that Trystan would move forward, too.
Trystan didn’t move.
The tortoise ran right into his foot. Stymied by the obstacle, perhaps blinded by its lust for victory, it tried to climb right over his boot. …Which resulted in the creature helplessly toppling over onto its back, stubby legs waving in the air as it rolled around on its shell.
The hare did not even try to get past Trystan. It huddled down in a puffy ball of trepidation, nose twitching and with no passion for competition in its pink eyes. The animal gave up too easily. It would never win. Konrad had been a fool to bet on it in any capacity.
“Damn bunny.” Konrad muttered from somewhere behind him, realizing the same thing.
Trystan kept his gaze on the men who led lives pathetic enough to consider this race a worthy use of their time. “I am only here for Marcus Sunchase.” He warned. “Do not interfere and you will not die alongside him.”
St. Ives wa
sn’t a place where you got mixed up in other people’s vendettas. In unison the spectators’ eyes seemed to ping-pong from Trystan, to his axe, and then to a man at the back of the crowd. After a moment of tense murmuring, they shifted apart and Trystan had a clear view of a familiar figure in yellow boots.
“Hello, Marcus.” He said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Marcus had aged, but he was still tall, with a large nose and silvering wings. And still dressed in the second-rate “uniform” that Uther had given him when Marcus vowed to betray his people. Marcus put his hands in the pockets, like he wanted to puff out his chest and display the cheap medals jangling upon it. He was so proud of something that forever marked him as the trained pet of the wingless king.
“I knew you’d show up sooner or later.” He told Trystan snidely. “Most of our kind are driven by primitive impulses, instead of logic. And you’ve always been particularly stupid.”
Trystan didn’t blink. “I promised to kill you one day. The day has arrived.”
The races’ spectators all edged backwards a few steps.
“I was the only gryphon who ever used his brain.” Marcus went on, believing in his choices to the bitter end. “If we had given into Uther’s demands, he would have lifted the curse. Instead, that bitch Lyrssa killed him, we still lost the War, and our future is doomed, as well. Which of us was truly in the wrong, Airbourne? Me or the foolish gryphons who fought against the inevitable?”
“You.” Trystan didn’t even hesitate with the answer. “I will give you thirty seconds to find a weapon. Then I will kill you, armed or not.”
“I’m not going to fight you, boy.” Even as he promised that, though, Marcus was surreptitiously easing a gun out of his pocket. “We’re past our grievances, now. It’s time for all gryphons to come together, again. We are too few in number to kill each other over events we cannot change.”
Best Knight Ever (A Kinda Fairytale Book 4) Page 41