“If you fall overboard, swim for shore,” I call to the others. “Do not try to fight in the water. It’s too deep and too choppy. Get to shore. Forget us and swim.”
“That goes for you, too, princess,” Dain says.
When I don’t answer, Alianor says, “He means it. Don’t worry about us. Once you’re in the water, you’re the one in danger. Just swim.”
I nod. The ceffyl-dwrs are less than ten feet away now. I grip my sword and adjust my stance. Then I pause and step backward. Everyone glances at me in confusion.
“They’ll try to break up the raft,” I say. “We need to let them try. Allow them to get close enough. Allow them to bite the ropes. That’s when we strike.”
They nod.
“The stallion’s mine,” I say. “Dain, go for the mare on my left. Alianor? Take the wounded mare. Malric will help wherever he can. Just be ready for—”
A massive wave hits, one that rolls right over the heads of the ceffyl-dwrs, and when it passes, the mare on the left is gone, leaving only the wounded one and the stallion coming at us. Was she pulled under? Where—?
Black shimmers beneath the water. Then the stallion dives.
“Hold on!” I shout. “Grab something. They’re going—”
The raft rocks as the mare slams up under it. As I grab the ropes, I manage to smack my sword down to kneel on the blade. Then the stallion hits. It crashes into us, and the raft leaps from the water, wood cracking as the beast rises, its fish-stinking breath washing over me. One rolling green eye stares into mine. Then it swings its huge head, wet mane slapping me, jaws opening, teeth gleaming, so close I see the shovel shape of them, coming to that razor-sharp edge. One chomp from those teeth—
I punch the ceffyl-dwr in the eye. My fist hits hard, and the beast screams, falling back. As it does, a log under my leg rolls free, and I scramble, flailing, until Malric shoves me back onto what remains of the raft…just as my sword slides into the water. I almost grab it by the blade. Luckily, my brain kicks in, and I grasp the hilt.
I lift the sword just as a ceffyl-dwr lunges at me. It’s not the stallion. He’s right there, recovering from my blow, blinking and snorting. This is the uninjured mare, dodging in front of the stallion to get to me.
I swing my sword. It’s too fast, and the blade strikes her in the neck, but tilted, slicing instead of cutting deep. As I pull back to try again, Alianor lunges beside me, sinking her dagger into the mare’s front shoulder. The ceffyl-dwr rears, a deep wound in her shoulder, a cut across her neck, her eyes rolling, hooves slicing through the air.
I swing again, and this time she’s too far away, but my blade still catches her in the shoulder. With a scream, she twists, and one of her front hooves hits the stallion. Blood sprays, and the stallion bellows and lashes out, biting the mare in her shoulder.
The raft hits a rock and ricochets off it, spinning us into the river, away from the fighting ceffyl-dwrs. We still have most of the raft, but a few logs have fallen free. Dense mist swirls around us, and I struggle to make out forms. Dain is behind me with Malric, both of them watching the dark shape of what must be the other mare, well back from the raft. I don’t see Tiera, but I presume she’s safe, having flown from danger. Jacko is by my foot, and I reach for him.
The rafts slams into another rock. A log cracks, the one right under Jacko. He leaps for me as I grab for him, but the log shoots away, his back legs still on it, and he falls into the swirling water…just as a ceffyl-dwr bellows in the fog.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“No!” I scream.
Jacko writhes in the water, shrieking. I reach for him, but the raft is already hurtling away, leaving him thrashing, unable to swim, the ceffyl-dwr’s dark shape bearing down. I spring to dive in, but hands grab me.
“No, Rowan,” Alianor says.
I spin on her, snarling, but Malric’s right there, snarling back. When I try to leap in again, he grabs my tunic, and I pound at him, twisting wildly, hearing the ceffyl-dwr coming closer, my jackalope in her path.
I must get to him.
I will get to him.
As I fight, Malric snarls at Alianor. She throws herself on me, and he turns, crouching as if to jump in. But before he can, there’s a splash. Alianor releases me, and I scramble to the edge to see Dain swimming for Jacko.
Dain grabs the jackalope and starts back. The ceffyl-dwr appears right behind him. I steady myself on my knees, sword ready. Malric leaps into the water just as Tiera appears. She swoops, and Dain looks up, but she only seizes Jacko in her talons and continues on, depositing the jackalope on the shore and then settling in herself.
The ceffyl-dwr rises right behind Dain, and the gleam in her good eye says she knows he’s the one who fired that arrow. Her hooves shoot up from the surf as she rears, and I tense to leap off the raft, having no idea how I can fight her in the water but determined to try if she gets any closer.
Dain keeps swimming as fast as he can, cutting through the choppy water. The current helps, but it’s not enough. When the ceffyl-dwr drops from rearing, her front hoof slices through his breeches. Bright blood stains the leather for one heartbeat before his leg kicks underwater, the blood disappearing only to well anew.
I want to leap to his rescue, but my brain is like a ball caught between two walls, bouncing back and forth.
Jump in! Distract her! Do something before she gets him!
Stay where you are! You have your sword. He’s almost to the raft. You can knock the ceffyl-dwr away while he climbs on board.
How fast is he swimming? How fast is she swimming? How fast is that gap between them closing, and how swiftly is the raft moving?
I rock on the edge. The ceffyl-dwr tears through the water. She’s almost on Dain. Her head clears the surf, mouth opening, ready to bite.
I dive, and in midair, I spot a dark shape launching itself at her rear haunch.
Malric.
I forgot about Malric.
While I was watching the ceffyl-dwr and Dain, he’d swum behind the monster. Now he’s biting it, and Dain’s getting away…and I’m in the water. I thrash, trying to get my bearings. Dain’s hand rises above the surface in a long breaststroke, and he’s here. I help him clamber onto the raft. Then Dain and Alianor pull me up, and I draw my sword.
Malric has his powerful jaws sunk into the ceffyl-dwr’s haunch. She’s trying to bite at him, but each time she twists, she’s only swinging him out of the way.
“Oh no,” Alianor breathes.
I’m about to tell her Malric’s fine—he’s tiring the beast out by clinging while she fights uselessly. Then I follow Alianor’s gaze to see a huge shape bearing down through the fog. The stallion.
“Malric!” I shout.
We all scream, but he doesn’t seem to hear us as the mare whips him in and out of the water. Dain grabs his bow. I wheel toward Tiera on the shore where she’s preening Jacko’s bedraggled fur as he shivers.
“Tiera!” I say.
She looks up, decidedly unconcerned about what’s happening over here.
I jab my finger at the approaching stallion. “Can you drive him off?”
She cocks her head, uncomprehending. Of course she doesn’t understand. She’s a monster and a baby one at that. But sensing my panic, she rises and spots Malric. She takes wing and flies at the warg, her talons down, as if she can rescue him the same way she rescued Jacko.
“No!” I shout. “Fly at—”
She swoops up, realizing Malric is far too big to grab. Then she sees the stallion. With a piercing cry, she shoots into the air and then plummets. The stallion glances up. It’s an unconcerned glance—just wondering what he spots out of the corner of his eye. Then he sees the gryphon.
There are few predators big enough for a ceffyl-dwr to fear, but a gryphon is one of them. In that second, I’m sure he doesn’t notice how young Tie
ra is. He only sees a gryphon, and he rears, hooves slashing the air as he falls back. Tiera swoops past and flies up again with a screech of victory.
I open my mouth to shout for Malric, but he’s seen the stallion. He releases his grip on the mare, and she sends him flying, skimming like a stone over the water. Then he swims for the raft while Tiera dives at the two ceffyl-dwrs.
Malric reaches the raft. We haul him on, and we barely have a moment to breathe before the raft strikes something submerged in the water. It knocks against the left side, sending us straight into a fast-flowing eddy, and we’re spinning downriver so fast all I can do is hang on.
As we whirl, I do a lightning-fast tally. Tiera is in the air. My sword is in its sheath. Jacko is safely on the shore, and my body is wedged between Dain and Malric’s wet forms. I spot Alianor and exhale. Everyone accounted for.
No one falls off. We’re huddled in the middle of the raft’s remains, and as fast as we’re moving, it’s a smooth ride, no rocks appearing to dash us to bits. Not that we’d stand any chance of spotting rocks. We’re flying along, the trees a blur, until finally we crash into something, and we’re all thrown into the air, flailing. I brace for water to close over my head. Instead, I splash down flat on my back.
I carefully lift my head. The smashed remains of our raft lie scattered around a tree trunk, half-submerged at the river’s edge. I’m on my back, the water halfway up my sides. I rise shakily, looking around. The others are all fine, having landed in less than a foot of water.
Jacko leaps onto me, and I cradle him as he rubs his wet cheek against me, his heart racing from his run. Tiera lands beside Dain, who’s on all fours, coughing. He glances at her and mutters, “I’m alive, no thanks to you.”
“She took Jacko away so you could swim to safety,” I call over.
“Rowan’s right,” Alianor says as she stands farther down the shore. “Tiera wasn’t rescuing Jacko and leaving you to your fate. Not at all.”
He grumbles, and I push to my feet, calling, “Malric?”
The warg is splayed motionless on the bank, but when I start toward him, my heart thudding, he rises and shakes and gives me a look like I interrupted his afternoon nap.
I walk around, assessing our situation. I have no idea how far we are from Wilmot and the others, except that the answer is “too far to easily walk back,” especially when there are three ceffyl-dwrs between us. Farther down the river, small mountains rise, the larger ones behind.
Alianor comes up beside me. “We’re close to where we needed to be.”
She nods at the mountains. “The aerie is in those foothills. That’s what Yvain said. Down the tributary river to where the foothills begin and then a quarter-day’s walk into the setting sun.”
“Do you know the area?”
She shakes her head. “Clan Bellamy never comes this way. Too many monsters. Encantados and ceffyl-dwrs. What are the chances?”
“With me around, pretty good.”
Dain walks over. “Don’t go taking the credit for all our monster encounters, princess.” He glances at Alianor. “Yvain suggested that Rowan’s affinity for monsters may also attract them. That means if they’re nearby, yes, I think something draws them to you. A scent or just a…” He shrugs. “A sense. But you didn’t attract dropbears from a hundred miles away. As for the encantados, Yvain said they’re often in that river.”
“And the ceffyl-dwrs?” I say.
“Yeah, we can totally blame you for those.”
I shake my head and walk toward the tree stump that wrecked our raft. It’s a dead tree that fell long ago, a massive one, the trunk cutting partway across the river and forming a dark, deep pool. If we hadn’t crashed against the stump, we might have ended up in that pool.
We’re fine, though. Battered and bruised, but on our feet. Also completely without supplies. Still, we have our weapons, and we can get food and water. The question is whether to push on or try to circle back to the others.
I eye the mountains and consider our options as Jacko snuggles in my arms. Alianor tends to Dain’s shallow leg wound while I walk and think.
I’m wandering near the fallen tree trunk when a shape rises from the deep pool. At first, I think it’s a turtle or an otter—it’s dark and no bigger than Jacko. Then two points appear and flick. Ears? Yes. Black ears atop a black head. That’s what I’m seeing—not the entire beast but just its head, rising from the water.
The ears appear first and then the top of a skull and then nostrils, each as big as my hand, rounding as the beast inhales air. That long head turns toward me…and a bright-green ceffyl-dwr eye meets mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I freeze as Jacko hisses, his claws digging into my arms before he shifts them with a chirp of apology. His gaze, though, stays fixed on the beast. On that green eye. On the hair that had seemed black, but is actually darkest green.
One of the ceffyl-dwrs caught up to us. It swam underwater into that deep pool…
No, there’s a white blaze on the beast’s nose, and its head is only the size of my mare’s. This is another ceffyl-dwr, a young one.
And where there’s a juvenile, there will be adults. Ceffyl-dwrs live in small herds—family groups of a stallion, a few mares and their children.
We’ve escaped one family only to run straight into another, and I want to fall on my knees and weep with frustration and exhaustion. Dropbears, encantados, ceffyl-dwrs and more ceffyl-dwrs.
It’s the Dunnian Woods, Rowan. At the edge of the mountains. This is where the monsters are. This is why people don’t come here. Weeping about that is like heading to sea and crying about all the water.
I know this, but I’m just so tired. I’m not sure I can fight. I’m not sure any of us can. I should shout for Dain and Alianor, warn them, and prepare, but instead, I just stare at the young ceffyl-dwr as it stares back.
The beast snorts, its breath rippling the water. Then it makes its way toward the almost-submerged trunk separating us. The ceffyl-dwr looks like an alligator, half its head skimming over the water. When it reaches the trunk, it can no longer see me, and that head rises, very slowly, peeking over the log.
Jacko has stopped hissing, though his flanks vibrate with a low, steady growl. I glance around for the others. Dain, Alianor and Malric are all occupied fifty feet away. Tiera is farther down the river, fishing and ignoring us.
I look at the ceffyl-dwr.
“Hello,” I say, my voice unsteady.
The ceffyl-dwr’s ears flick at the sound. It tilts its head, as if waiting for more.
“I’m Rowan,” I say. “A human. Have you ever seen one before?”
Another attentive head tilt. It doesn’t know what I’m saying, but the sound of my voice tells it that I am reasonably calm, maybe a little afraid, but not aggressive, not threatening.
The beast swims alongside the log until it reaches the shore. As it emerges, I brace myself, fingers twitching for my sword as I calculate how close I can let it get before I draw my weapon.
It steps onto the shore and turns to regard me. It stays where it is, as uncertain as I am and twice as curious. Still growling, Jacko leans forward, his nose working.
“You’re a beautiful beast,” I say. “I bet you know that, don’t you?”
The ceffyl-dwr tosses its head. His head. When it walked from the water, well, I could tell its sex. A stallion makes me extra nervous, but I remind myself I still have time to draw my sword, and he isn’t any bigger than my mare. I see no other members of his herd. He might actually be alone—after a certain age, a stallion is driven from his herd to fend for himself until he is old enough and strong enough to fight another stallion and take his mares.
As the ceffyl-dwr watches me, I keep telling him he’s beautiful. It’s true. His coat is deepest green, the sun catching and lighting the incredible color. His eyes are bright emeralds.
His hooves shine black, and his mane…I’m not sure whether it’s black or an even darker green than his coat. It hangs twice as long as a horse’s, a tangle that looks like seaweed. Barnacles cling to the ends of the strands, and when he tosses his head, they click like castanets.
I’m not sure what to do next. He isn’t moving toward me, and I know I shouldn’t move toward him. Even a wild horse is dangerous to approach. Yet I’m not certain I should back away either. He might see that as submission and attack.
I draw myself up taller and continue talking and—
The ground thunders behind me, and I glance to see Malric charging at the ceffyl-dwr, his head down, paws pounding, Dain and Alianor behind him, running with weapons in hand as they finally see where I am and what I’m doing.
“No!” I shout. “It’s fine. Don’t—”
The ceffyl-dwr rears, whinnying. His hooves slash so fast I hear them slice through the air. I shout at Malric. The warg skids to a halt just out of striking range, and he bears down, snarling and snapping.
The young stallion paws the air and trumpets his battle cry. He doesn’t attack, though. He stands his ground in a threat display, and Malric does the same. I move up beside Malric. He shoots a snarl my way, one that I’m sure translates to “Draw your blasted sword, girl!” I don’t. I only move forward, Jacko hopping at my feet.
I stay beside Malric and call to the ceffyl-dwr softly, saying, “You’re all right. Everyone’s all right. We’ll be leaving in a moment. We just need you to let us pass.”
“He can’t understand you, Rowan,” Alianor says.
“It’s her tone,” Dain says. “He’ll understand that and her body language.”
The ceffyl-dwr watches them as they speak, and again he cocks his head, ears flicking. Those green eyes seem to shine even brighter, and I swear I see the beast processing. He may never have seen humans before, and now he hears us all making the same sounds, and all speaking in the same unthreatening tones as we communicate amongst ourselves.
The Gryphon's Lair Page 17