The Gryphon's Lair

by Kelley Armstrong

  “I’m hoping I can leave Tiera with you,” I say. “To raise with the others.” I gesture from Tiera to the young gryphons. “I’d love to keep her. I just…” I swallow. “She belongs with her own kind.”

  Why are you explaining? She can’t understand you.

  This is pointless. It’s never going to work.

  Even as I think that, I hear Jannah’s voice at my ear.

  She’s smart. Very smart. Even if she can’t understand your words, she hears your tone. She also knows you aren’t here to steal a baby. You brought one to her. Trust that she’ll understand.

  “Will you take her?” I ask, with plenty of motioning between Tiera and the gryphon and the other juveniles.

  She walks to Tiera again and lowers her head for a sniff. When Tiera hisses, the gryphon bats her with one front paw, talons curled under, and makes a noise in her throat like a growl.

  “It’s okay, Tiera,” I say. “She won’t hurt you.”

  Tiera grumbles and squawks, her wings fluttering. Then she sidesteps over, close enough for me to pat her reassuringly as the gryphon sniffs and prods Tiera with her beak. She walks around the young gryphon, still sniffing and prodding, as if making sure she’s healthy. Then she prods me, and I jump with a little yelp. She gives me a hard look, like I’m a baby who has complained at a gentle poke.

  “Sorry,” I say. “You just startled—”

  She nudges me again, harder, her head down, and it’s like what Tiera does when she’s trying to herd me. Except the adult gryphon’s head is the size of Tiera’s entire body, and even a soft nudge has me tripping over my feet. Malric rushes over to plant himself beside me.

  Beside me, not between us. I notice the difference, even as he growls at her. He’s warning her to be gentle with me, but he isn’t trying to stop her.

  I turn to face her. “I don’t under—”

  Another prod, in the same direction. Then a look that wonders if I’m not terribly bright.

  “You want me to go…” I glance over my shoulder…at a sheer drop, twenty feet away.

  I shake my head. “I can’t fly, and if you’re trying to push me off the edge—”

  She nudges again, with another look that’s harder than the prod. Okay, logically, if she wanted to push me off the edge, she could just drive me there before I realized what was happening. Also, she hardly needs to force me over a cliff to kill me.

  I take a deep breath and trust my gut, which says I still don’t understand what’s going on but “marching me to my doom” isn’t it. I walk as close as I dare to the edge, look over it and…

  There’s a ledge about twenty feet below, strewn with gryphon feathers. The aerie.

  “You want me to go…”

  She lifts off with a great flap of her wings, the whoosh of air making me stumble. She lands on the ledge below, all four legs thumping down, her wings folding, and I am struck by her beauty and grace.

  The only times I’ve seen a gryphon in the wild, I’ve been too busy staying alive to actually see it. I remember my father coming home from every manticore hunt sighing because it wasn’t a gryphon. I’ve hated remembering that, because the memory drags with it the reminder of the first time my father finally saw a gryphon. The one that killed him.

  “This is what you wanted to see, isn’t it, Dad?” I murmur as I watch the gryphon land, see the muscles ripple under her fur, the sweep of her tail, the settling of her feathers.

  I watch for a moment. Then she looks up, squawks and bobs her head toward the cavern.

  “Oh,” I say. “You want me to bring Tiera.”

  That makes sense—it will be easier for the gryphon to keep Tiera from following me if she’s in an enclosed space.

  “Tiera?”

  I glance over my shoulder to see her watching the other juveniles chasing a snake through the rocks. Her hindquarters wiggle, tail whipping, like a kitten about to pounce. She stays where she is, though, and when I look at her, old emotions well up, memories of all the times I stood on the sidelines watching other children, knowing it’d spoil the game if “the princess” joined in.

  “You can play with them soon,” I say. “Come and see this first.”

  Am I tricking her? I hope not, and I’m glad when she scampers over to me.

  I point at the aerie ledge. “We’re going down there, okay? Fly after me.”

  I make my way down. Malric paces above, grumbling, and I grumble back as his pacing showers me in pebbles and dirt. He knows he has to wait for me to get down first, and he’s not happy about that. As soon I climb down onto solid ground, he descends, slipping and sliding until he’s beside me on the ledge. Tiera lands with us.

  The cavern door isn’t as big as I’d thought, and the gryphon needs to duck her head to get inside. We follow and…

  I am in a gryphon’s aerie. An actual aerie.

  I might be the first person in all of Tamarel’s history to see this.

  I stand in the light beams falling through the entrance and peer around.

  All those stories about gryphon nests littered with bodies and bones are, as Jannah had expected, nonsense. There are bones, but they’re in one corner, and there’s no more than a dozen—big bones like the thighs of deer. Marks suggest the juveniles have been gnawing on them. Dinner brought by their caretaker, now turned into toys.

  There are molted feathers, too. They’re also piled neatly to one side, in heaps that make my finger itch, imagining arrows with gryphon-feather fletching. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to pluck any from Tiera’s mother, and the stable hands had snatched up any that fell. Here there are whole heaps of them, in every size from baby fuzz to adult feathers the length of my arm.

  There’s dried grass, too—low heaps of it that suggest beds. I see sticks in amongst the grasses, keeping the beds in shape. Less structured nests, more of a sleeping mat between the gryphons and the cold stone floor.

  The adult gryphon stands by one of the smaller heaps. Beside me, Tiera chirps anxiously, her talons clicking as she shifts her weight. The gryphon’s beak nudges the bed…and something inside peeps.

  The gryphon looks at me, and then back at whatever is in that nest. She repeats the gesture, and I know she wants me to come over there. As I take a step, I catch a whiff of cave smell, that musty, cool, damp scent, this one mingled with the sweeter smell of gryphons.

  I look into that alcove, and in my memory I see another cavern, another gryphon, another cave tucked at the back, me and Alianor and Dain and Jacko in it, Tiera’s mother terrorizing us. There were moments when I thought I’d never get out of there alive…and now I’m voluntarily in a cave with a gryphon?

  My legs shake so hard they seize up, and I’m frozen there, my heart slamming against my chest as the terror from that day rolls over me.

  The gryphon clicks her beak. Then she prods whatever is in the nest. Two small tufted ears appear. Then a white-feathered head and yellow beak. It’s a gryphon smaller than Tiera, its head wobbling, eyes dull with sickness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Oh!” I say, and I run forward before I can stop myself.

  The adult gryphon pulls back, shaking her head and squawking, but she overcomes her surprise as I slide onto the rock beside the nest. Inside is a dark-furred male a little younger than Tiera.

  When the adult’s beak lowers into the bed, I don’t have time to jump back. Then I see a gash on the juvenile’s rear leg, a deep and ugly wound seeping pus. The adult gryphon licks away the pus as the young one mewls weakly.

  Tiera appears at the side of the nest, chirping in concern and nudging the young gryphon. The adult makes that growling noise, but it’s a soft warning, telling Tiera to be careful. Then the adult gryphon looks at me. At the wound. Back at me.

  “You…you brought me in here…” I glance at my bandaged arm. “You want me to fix him.”

/>   She saw me bandage my arm, and she wants me to heal this young gryphon, who has a similar injury. Except it’s not really similar. Mine is a shallow cut. This is a deep slice through skin and muscle, and it’s already festering.

  Don’t panic. Just do what you can.

  I examine the cut. When the young gryphon fusses, I absently pet him, not realizing what I’m doing until I see where my hand is…rubbing the belly of a gryphon that is not Tiera. He only makes a noise in his throat like Tiera’s rumbling contentment, and he collapses back onto the nest. His skin is hot. He needs water for his fever, but I have no idea how to get that. I look around…and spot a big upside-down turtle shell, half-filled with water.

  I stare at the adult gryphon. She brought him water, in a container that would hold it. I’ve seen monsters use tools—for cracking open nuts and shells—but this is a whole other level of intelligence.

  I lift the shell to the young one’s beak and help it drink. Then I rip off my other sleeve and use the remaining water to clean the wound. The flesh is still firm, with no signs of necrosis—where the flesh begins to die. Binding it won’t be enough, though. It needs stitching.

  I could probably break off a splinter from those discarded bones and take a thread from my tunic. I do have a much better idea, though…if the gryphon will allow it.

  There’s no way of explaining what I need to do. She’ll need to see what I’m asking.

  I go to the mouth of the cave and shout until I get a response. Then I hurry back into the cave and resume cleaning the wound.

  The water is gone, and I look around for more. There isn’t any. I rise, empty shell in hand, still searching for water, when Malric walks over to the nest and puts his front paws on it, peering in. The adult gryphon hisses, and the young one squirms at the smell of a strange predator. I pet Malric, and thankfully he allows it, as I assure the gryphon the warg won’t hurt the baby. She stays right there, her gaze glued to him, front talons scratching the floor.

  Malric sniffs the wound. Then he looks at me and gives a deep put-upon sigh. When he lowers his head to the wound, even I tense. His tongue extends, and he begins cleaning it, better than the gryphons can manage with their beaks and shorter tongues.

  Tiera crowds in to watch, ignoring his growls. When he pulls back, he gives me a look, as if to say, “I hope you appreciated that.”

  I nod. “Thank you, Malric. I know that was, well, gross, but thank you.”

  He grunts, satisfied, and backs away to stand watch. I’m examining the wound when a sound comes, the scrape of boots climbing the mountainside. The adult gryphon’s head shoots up, her amber eyes narrowing.

  I run ahead of the gryphon to the ledge. Below, Alianor has reached a gentle slope, and she’s racing toward the cave, Dain still climbing below her. When she sees me, she waves her arms.

  “I have my medical supplies!” she calls. “What happened? Where are you hurt?”

  “I said I was fine!” I shout back.

  Dain says, “Which from you, princess, only means you’re still alive.”

  “Is it Malric?” Alianor calls.

  I shake my head. “It’s a young gryphon.”

  “Tiera?”

  I wave for them to get closer, and then stop them below the ledge…where they can’t see the adult gryphon yet. I explain as quickly as I can.

  “A gryphon wants you to heal her baby?” Dain asks.

  “He’s not hers. I think she’s the caretaker. The nanny or nursemaid.”

  “Uh…” Alianor says. “You didn’t eat any weird mushrooms in the forest, did you, Rowan?”

  “Ha ha. No, there’s a young—”

  They both stumble back as a shadow passes over me. The adult gryphon walks to the edge, head lowered as she peers at the two new humans.

  “These are my friends,” I say. “Alianor is going to come and help the little one. She’s a healer. She can sew him up.”

  Tiera appears, walking to the edge and peering down. The adult nudges her back with a scolding click of her beak.

  “That’s…a gryphon,” Alianor says. “You’re talking to a gryphon.”

  “She doesn’t understand me. It’s the tone that matters.”

  “Uh-huh…there’s a gryphon. Right beside you.”

  “You don’t need to come in if you don’t want. I’ll climb down and get your kit.”

  “You’re asking me to come into a gryphon aerie. I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

  She starts climbing, and I tell her to approach carefully, while I watch for any signs that the nanny might have a problem with that. She just watches, wary but calm.

  As Alianor climbs onto the ledge, my heart suddenly seizes, and I call down to Dain, “Wait! Where’s—?”

  I don’t even get the rest out before Dain’s back starts wriggling. He mutters and pauses on the mountainside. As he half turns, I see Jacko in a sling on his back. The jackalope must have been asleep. Now he’s heard me, and he’s antler-butting Dain to let him down.

  “You’re welcome!” Dain calls as Jacko bounds free and starts up the mountainside.

  The jackalope races to me, and I bend, and he leaps into my arms. Then he sees the gryphon and hisses…and she hisses back. Tiera hears her playmate and comes galloping over. She nudges him with her beak, and he rubs against her cheek.

  I tell Dain to wait and then I put Jacko onto Tiera’s broad back and glance at the adult gryphon, hoping that will prove the jackalope isn’t a threat…or dinner. She’s staring at the sight, and I have to chuckle at that.

  As strange as this all is for us, it must be just as weird for the gryphon, meeting a new juvenile, who brings along human, jackalope and warg friends.

  “So I guess I’m staying down here,” Dain calls from below.

  When I don’t respond, he squares his shoulders. “That’s fine. Alianor is the healer. You’re the royal monster hunter. There’s no reason for me to come up.”

  “Give it a few minutes. Let her see Alianor at work.” I pause. “Oh! Actually, I have a job for you.”

  “Of course you do.” He sighs. “What is it, princess?”

  “Hold on.”

  Alianor stands on the ledge gaping at the gryphon. I lead her over for an introduction, and as the gryphon sniffs her, Alianor stands a whole lot firmer than I did.

  “I want to pet her,” Alianor says as the gryphon moves beside her for a sniff at her back. “That would be wrong, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. Does a healer need both her hands?”

  She laughs. The sound makes the gryphon back up and study her. Then the nanny steps far enough away that I take that as permission to lead Alianor inside.

  As we walk through the cave, it’s a good thing I have hold of Alianor’s arm, because she’s so busy looking around, she’d trip over her own feet otherwise. I take her to the bed, and she marvels at it. Then she sees the wounded gryphon.

  “Oh!” she says. “Poor baby.” She kneels and peers in as I scratch the juvenile’s ears. “You did a good cleaning job.”

  “Malric helped.”

  “Did he?” She glances at the warg. “Good boy.”

  He gives her a hard look, and she chuckles.

  “Sorry,” she says. “That made you sound like a dog. Thank you, Malric.” She turns back to the young gryphon. “My full kit went down with the raft, but I kept a few things in my pockets. Needle and thread, luckily. Also a bit of healing salve.”

  “Good. Just hold on a moment, and I’ll get us more water.”

  I run the shell to the ledge and call down to Dain. Inside the cave, the gryphon watches with suspicion but doesn’t complain as he climbs. He stays on the ledge and looks around as best he can as I hand him the shell and explain what I need.

  “There’s a spring over there,” I say. “Maybe a hundred feet west. Stay aw
ay from the forest and watch out for young gryphons. There are five of them up there. It’s their training grounds.”

  “Training…”

  “For hunting. Either the gryphons picked this spot because of that forest or they expanded it to suit their needs. It’s the perfect hunting area for young gryphons.”

  “That’s…”

  “Unlikely?”

  “Amazing. Wilmot is going to be so mad he missed this.”

  I smile. “His fault for being on the wrong side of the raft.”

  Dain returns my smile and then heads down the mountain to fetch water.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Dain leaves, and I return to Alianor. I comfort her patient as she works. I worry about how the young gryphon will react to the stitching needle—if he cries out in pain, it might make his nanny think we’re hurting him. But he’s so exhausted by the fever that he only flinches and chirps, and the older gryphon isn’t alarmed by that. She’s too busy watching, her huge head right over Alianor.

  “No pressure,” Alianor says, glancing over at the eye…which is almost as big as her head.

  That hovering eye isn’t a threat, though. The gryphon is fascinated by the process, following the needle as it darts in and out, closing the wound. Jacko has come over to watch, too, and the gryphon is thankfully ignoring him. Tiera settles in with one of the bones, worrying it with her beak.

  At a sound, I glance over to see that one of the younger gryphons has returned. It’s the smallest—the most curious. He’s watching Tiera with the bone, and the older gryphon divides her attention between them and the stitching. When the younger gryphon gallops toward Tiera, I tense, but he only snatches another bone and flops down to gnaw alongside her.

  Alianor has just finished stitching when Dain whistles. I hurry out. The younger gryphon follows, and Tiera trots after him. When she sees it’s only Dain, she grumbles and flounces back inside, but the other one trails after me.

  “That is…not Tiera,” Dain says as he crests the ledge.

  “I think it’s a male. My theory is that the dark-haired ones are male and…” The gryphon walks past, giving me a rear view. “Yep, male.” I take the shell from Dain. “Just wait here. He’ll probably stay with you. He’s curious.”