The Gryphon's Lair

by Kelley Armstrong

  “If we need to kill them to escape, then I’m okay with that,” I say, “but I think it can be avoided. In fact, I think we can even make it easier for the monster hunters later. Right now, we’re trapped in this cabin. But what if we flipped that? The young one came in easily enough. What if we…”

  I trail off, feeling my cheeks heat as I realize that what I’m proposing may sound ridiculous.

  “Lure the rest in?” Alianor says. “Preferably without trapping ourselves alongside them?”

  I nod. “There’s food, so they won’t starve. They may break out again before I can return with the hunters, but at least it’d give us a chance to escape.”

  “They’ll need water, too,” Dain says. “And we’ll need to post a warning.”

  “Dropbears inside?” Alianor says with a chuckle. “I’m not sure anyone would believe a sign like that, but at least they might pause long enough not to throw open the door.” She looks at me. “How do you propose we get them in?”

  “Well, first we need bait…”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “I know you two love to compete,” Alianor says. “But this is ridiculous.”

  “Do you have a better idea?” I ask as I lay a towel over the small stool.

  “I do,” Dain says, “but Alianor refuses to help.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Alianor says. “Clan Bellamy may not be Tamarel’s most loyal subjects, but I draw the line at knocking the princess over the head and tying her up.”

  “Really?” Dain says. “Because I seem to recall you helped your clan put Rowan in a cage.”

  “I didn’t help. It was just my idea.” She turns to me. “I’m not going to tie you up to keep you from playing bait, but Dain’s right—he should take the risk here.”

  “It is the job of the royal monster hunter to accept the most dangerous role in any mission,” I say. “Clan Dacre made a pact with Tamarel, promising to risk our lives keeping them safe—”

  “Ugh, stop. You’re as bad as your brother. Fine. Fight it out.”

  I kneel in front of the stool with my elbow on it, hand raised. Dain grumbles but kneels on his side and grips my hand.

  “You won’t win, princess,” he says. “A sword fight, yes, but arm wrestling? That’s no contest.”

  “Then why are you trying to talk me out of it?”

  “Because I don’t want to embarrass you.”

  I snort and adjust my grip. “Referee?”

  Alianor sighs. “Fine. Three, two, one. Go!”

  We grapple, grunting. It’s been two years since I’ve beaten Rhydd in arm wrestling, but Dain’s smaller, more wiry, and I hope to stand a better chance. I might, too, if I can outlast him. That’s the trick here. Stamina over brute strength. Just—Jacko leaps onto Dain’s back, digging in all his claws with an ear-splitting screech. I slam Dain’s hand down as he yowls. Jacko scrambles over to me, climbing to perch on my shoulders and chitter at Dain.

  “That does not count,” Dain says, turning to Alianor. “I demand a ruling.”

  “A rematch,” I say, flexing my arm.

  “No, he’s right,” Alianor says. “Game forfeited to Dain, on account of jackalope interference.”

  I argue that Jacko was just confused, thinking I was under attack. It’s no use. This gives them the excuse to do what they wanted—let Dain play bait.

  We’ve set up the cabin as best we can. We pulled a half-full rain barrel in from the back and filled every bowl and basin with drinking water. We opened an underfloor pantry filled with dried meat. We’ll obviously need to reimburse the owner for their losses, but the building should contain the dropbears until an expedition returns to deal with them. Hopefully, I’ll be part of that expedition.

  Once the cabin is prepared and secured, we take up our positions. Alianor and I flank the front door. I have Dain’s bow ready—this is why it made sense for him to stand guard, and me to be the bait, but no one listened to that reasoning.

  Alianor has her short sword, and Dain holds his dagger. Malric stands beside me, and Jacko’s settled on my feet. Throughout it all, the young dropbear has watched with intense interest from the rafters, but it’s made no move to leave its safe spot.

  Now it’s time for us to leave our safe spot. Dain opens the rear door and steps through, his boots tramping loudly on the tiny porch. Outside, the dropbears had gone silent, but hearing Dain, they yip and yowl and race toward the house. A few go overtop, their paws clattering against the wood. They’re planning to drop on Dain from the roof. I open my mouth to shout a warning, but Alianor’s hand claps over it.

  “Don’t you underestimate him either,” she whispers. Then she’s on her feet, pulling me along as I grab Jacko and we yank open the unlatched front door. We slip out, and I wheel just in time to see Dain racing through the house, pursued by dropbears.

  Dain makes it through the front door, and I yank it shut and throw the latch as Alianor’s footfalls thump around the side of the house. Dain takes off after Alianor.

  The rear door smacks shut, and the latch clanks just as the dropbears inside hit the front door, their bodies slamming into it.

  I lean against the door, but Malric pushes me aside and takes my spot, his glare warning me against trying to move him. Inside, the thud of bodies stops as the dropbears reverse course and run to the door they’d entered through, thump-thump-thump-ing against it.

  I check the latch. It’s sturdy. Both doors open inward, so the dropbears won’t be able to force them open.

  I step back and survey the cabin. Malric follows, padding alongside me as we circle the building, searching for signs that the dropbears have found an exit we missed.

  “They’re trapped,” Alianor says as she joins us, Dain straggling, still eyeing the building. “Let’s see how they like it.”

  “Hmm,” I say.

  “It was a good idea, princess,” Dain says.

  “As long as we can find our way back later, and they don’t die horribly in there.”

  Alianor says, “As long as we don’t die horribly, I’m okay with that.”

  Dain shakes his head. “Rowan’s right to be concerned. Starvation would be crueler than killing them outright. But I think they’ll be fine. We should get back to camp.”

  “I need to leave a note,” I say. “So the owner doesn’t return and open that door.”

  Dain doesn’t answer. He stands there, his face shadowed in the moonlight. I might not be able to read his expression, but I feel the unease seeping from him.

  “Dain?” I say.

  He shrugs it off and lights a fire stick, then blows it out and passes me the smoldering splinter of wood. “You can write with this.”

  “Good idea. Thank you.” I head to the front door. As the others follow, I say, as casually as I can, “You were thinking something, Dain.”

  I glance back. He shakes his head, eyes sliding across the clearing. It could seem as if he’s only surveying our surroundings, but I know better. He’s avoiding my gaze.

  At the door, I use the burned end of the fire stick to write BEWARE! DROPBEARS INSIDE! Jacko jumps onto Malric’s back to sniff the lettering and then chirps, as if pronouncing it fine work, very fine work indeed.

  I head around back. As I write, I murmur to Dain, “Strange, isn’t it? Finding a cabin so deep in the Dunnian Woods.”

  “People do live here,” Dain says as he strikes another fire stick for me.

  “Do they?”

  “I did. Wilmot did.”

  “But otherwise?” I use the fresh stick to finish the back door sign. “I always got the impression from Jannah that people might pass through, and they might camp here—for trapping and hunting and fishing—but they don’t stay. This looks like a permanent residence.”

  “No one’s been here in days. There are buildings like this. Not permanent residences, but long-ter
m hunting shacks, used for generations.”

  I glance at Alianor. She’s just listening. When I look over and tap the sign, she takes the stick and adds one more exclamation mark and underlines beware.

  We circle the cabin one last time, but there’s still no sign of escaping dropbears. Time for us to head out.

  When I start walking, Alianor calls, “Uh, Rowan? I see how you two got lost in the first place. The camp is that way.”

  “Yep,” I say. “So is the trail of wounded and angry dropbears we left in our wake.”

  “Ah. Good point. This way it is.”

  As we walk into the forest, I pick up the conversation. “You said there are more permanent buildings out here, but that place was a house, not a hunting shack.”

  Dain mutters something incomprehensible.

  “Those herbs,” I continue. “The way they were tied. You said it reminded you of—”

  “Witchcraft, all right? Is that what you want me to say, princess? Yes. I’ve heard stories of old women who live in the forest. When I worked for the mayor, someone brought herbs shaped like that. He said it was witchcraft and burned them, and then his hay barn caught on fire, and everyone said it was because he’d burned those herbs.”

  “Huh.”

  Dain glares at me. “Go on.”

  “She only said ‘huh,’ Dain,” Alianor says.

  “That’s not all she wants to say. Believe me, I have already been treated to Princess Rowan’s views on witchcraft and the stupid people who believe in it.”

  “I would never call my subjects stupid.” I glance over my shoulder at him. “And I’d certainly never use that word for my friends.”

  His cheeks flush. “If you mean me, princess, I never claimed to believe in witchcraft.”

  I bite my tongue. Hard. When we first met, before he knew who I was, he’d accused me of bewitching Jacko and Malric. However, I will admit that I may have been a little quick to dismiss such things as superstitious nonsense, and therefore, understandably, he’s not going to say he believes in them now. So I choose my words with care.

  “My father believed in magic,” I say as we walk. “He said proof of it was all around us. The sun rising every morning. The flowers blooming every spring. The snow falling in winter. Mom would say that was science, and he agreed, but he said it still made life magical. He’d also say there are things science couldn’t explain. Like how Berinon just happened to be there when Dad needed him in that fight. Like how when Dad fell in love with Mom, she magically fell in love back. Or how Clan Dacre has a gift for monsters, Clan Hadleigh a gift for navigating waterways, Clan Bellamy a gift for…” I glance at Alianor. “Teaching travelers to pay better attention to their belongings.”

  Dain snorts. “That’s not what you meant by magic, though, princess.”

  “Maybe not, but people can mistake science for magic, and that’s okay, as long as you’re not afraid of it. If you know that sometimes the moon passes over the sun, and you can calculate when the sun will disappear—and know it’ll come back—then that’s not scary. If you believe it’s magic, though, you might mistake it for a curse and think the sun is gone forever.”

  “The mayor’s barn really did burn down that night.”

  “I’m sure it did. What if someone who hated him knew he believed in hexes and realized they could get away with destroying his barn by blaming the witch?”

  Dain walks a few minutes in silence. Then he says, grudgingly, “That’s what Wilmot said, too. A lot of people did hate the mayor.” He takes another couple of steps and then says, “Wilmot also says there are healers who live in the woods. They harvest herbs and plants only found here, and then they sell tinctures and salves in the villages. They’re usually women—widows who don’t have children or women who never married. He says people are happy to buy their medicine when it works, but if it doesn’t, then they call them witches.”

  “People are stupid,” Alianor says.

  I give her a look. She throws up her hands. “I’m not a princess. I don’t have to watch what I say. And you know I’m right.”

  “I know that people can be cruel, which isn’t the same as stupid. They know exactly what they’re doing.”

  “True.” Alianor glances over her shoulder. “So do you think that’s a healer’s hut? Clan Bellamy tells the same stories of women living in the forest. Only they say if you find the huts, you’re lost forever, because it means you’ve passed into another realm.”

  “And you accuse me of silly superstitions,” Dain mutters.

  “It’s not a superstition. It’s a story.”

  “It’s kind of both,” I say. “It’s a story that keeps people from searching for the healer huts, which is a good thing. If these women want to be left alone, they should be.”

  “Well, that one won’t be alone anymore,” Alianor says. “She has a houseful of drop—”

  Malric stops suddenly. We’re walking single file on a narrow deer path, with the warg in the lead, and when he stops, we all do, stumbling and staggering in the dark as we knock into one another.

  “Princess…” Dain growls between his teeth.

  “It wasn’t Rowan,” Alianor says. “It’s—”

  My hand flies up, warning her to silence. Malric has gone still, his gaze swiveling left and then right. It fixes on something off to our right, and a low rumble sounds in his chest.

  “Dropbear?” I whisper.

  Malric takes a few steps off the deer trail. When I move toward him, he tosses a growl over his shoulder, telling me to stay where I am. Another step, and his muzzle rises to sample the air.

  Something whistles overhead. I look up, hand going to my sword as I scan the treetops for a dropbear. Instead, Malric snarls, and I yank out my sword, plunging into the forest only to see the warg twisting on himself, snapping at something on his back. Jacko leaps and grabs what looks like a small arrow protruding from the warg’s shoulder. He tosses it aside and glances back at me.

  The warg collapses. One second he’s looking over his shoulder at Jacko, and then his legs slide from under him, and he pitches muzzle-first into the undergrowth. Jacko tumbles off. I run for him, sword lifted.

  “Rowan!” Dain shouts.

  He pushes past Alianor and races toward me. There’s another whistle. Something jabs my neck. I yank it out and see a dart.

  A dart, like the ones Dain has been experimenting with, only this one is smaller and sleeker, made of a wood I don’t recognize.

  My brain stutters, sliding and stumbling like a chickcharney on a patch of ice. Dain grabs me as I stagger.

  Darts.

  The darts Dain has been experimenting with…

  To sedate monsters.

  Dain’s saying something, his mouth working; Alianor pushing past, her hands going to my face as my feet slide from under me. Dain grapples to keep hold of me; Jacko screeches his alarm cry. Another whistle. Alianor gasps.

  Something in the forest.

  I see something in the forest.

  The wrinkled face of a white-haired woman with a stick in her mouth. She blows. Another whistle.

  Darkness.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I wake still in darkness. Something covers my eyes. I reach up to yank it off, but my hands won’t move. I twist and pull and feel something pull back—a binding around my wrists. I kick, but my feet are bound, too.

  I cry out and hear only a grunt. There’s a gag over my mouth. I can’t see, move or speak. Panic nestles in the pit of my gut, blossoming as my heart begins to hammer.

  I writhe and struggle and knock against something soft. Soft and warm, like a person. Teeth gritted, I slam my elbow into it. A sharp oomph. Then a groan. A familiar groan.

  “Dain?” I say into my gag. It comes out as, “Aa-n?”

  A swish, like fabric shifting against the earth, and then a
muffled, “Ow-n?”

  I don’t try articulating an answer, just make an urgent noise that can be interpreted as “Yes!” I waggle my fingers and manage to snag the rope around my hands, but when I pull it, Dain grunts.

  I keep hold of the rope and mentally struggle to orient myself. I’m lying on my side. Dain is behind me. I lift my bound feet and give an experimental kick. They thump into something, and Dain grunts and snarls.

  I wriggle my feet and feel his boots. Okay, so we’re lying on our sides, bound together, back to back.

  “Alianor?” I ask. Or, in gag-speak, “A-a-a-na?”

  Dain doesn’t answer. I’m asking where she is, but he must think I’m calling for her. I try it again, louder, calling in earnest now. No answer.

  Then, “Malric?” or, “Ah-ic?”

  Panic grips me anew, my heart racing. If Dain and I are fine, Alianor will be, too, but Malric is a warg. A monster. Whoever captured us might have…

  I don’t finish the thought. I can’t. It makes my fingers tremble so hard I lose my grip on the rope and have to fumble to retrieve it. I feel my way along it, and I just find the knot when the rope scrapes through my fingers, and there’s a grunt behind me as Dain sits upright.

  I mutter under my breath.

  “Did you say something, princess?” he asks.

  I’m about to mutter again when I realize I’m hearing Dain’s actual voice, not the gag-muffled version.

  “Rub your cheek against your shoulder,” he says.

  I do, and the gag isn’t as tight as it seemed. I’m able to scrape it down over my cheek, and I’m working it off my jaw when something thumps beside me. I go still. Another thump.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  Before I can place the approaching sound, a familiar scent hits, and I smile behind the half-fastened gag. Jacko. Whiskers brush my cheek as he sniffs me. Then he keeps sniffing, hops over my hip, and begins gnawing at the rope binding my hands.

  “Rowan?” Dain whispers. “I think something’s in here with us.”