by Logan Jacobs
“Everything’s fine,” I assured her. “I was just thinking about the bounty. Why weren’t the Stewards able to get it before? They have more money and resources than we do.”
“’Cause they’re a bunch of cowards,” Lavinia answered from her place in the driver’s seat of the water cart. “There are things money can’t buy. It’s like I told Ren, we’re just a better guild.”
“How far do you think they got?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Aerin replied. “I haven’t heard anything about it, anyway, but guilds don’t usually advertise that sort of thing. They might not even have tried yet. The mage who supposedly has the medallion, Aurelius Gellen, has a really dark reputation. He’s been wanted by the Mage Academy for practicing all kinds of forbidden magic since before any of us were even born, and of course, getting to him isn’t easy, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Stewards were putting this bounty off.”
“Like I said, they’re cowards,” Lavinia asserted. “We can handle the desert, and we can handle some old hermit in the mountains.”
“What else do we know about this Aurelius guy?” I asked. I thought of Allowen, the necromancer we’d stumbled upon a few weeks back when we were searching for the Dovar-cu. “Does he specialize in any particular forbidden magic?”
“He used to be a mage of rank in the Academy,” Aerin answered. “Not sure what his position was, specifically, but I know he was important and really well-respected for a long time. He wrote a lot of books about magic and its uses that the Academy used to teach young mages. Of course, after they found out he was practicing dark magic, he was stripped of his rank, his books were pulled from the shelves and destroyed, and he was imprisoned. He managed to escape, and no one’s been able to catch him since. The official report isn’t very specific, of course, the arch-mages don’t want to give people any ideas, but supposedly he was involved in life and death magic. Some necromancy, but mostly arcane healing and curses.”
“Not healing like you do, I’m assuming,” I said, and Aerin’s look became shadowed.
“No,” she replied, her tone unusually grave. “It’s not at all like what I do. I pray to Evarun, and he heals through me. Gods can heal and give life, but that sort of power was never meant for mortals to have on our own. The sort of magical healing, so to speak, that Aurelius was trying to do … well, it goes against nature, and it’s a mark of extreme arrogance even to try. I don’t know the specifics of what he did, of course, but you hear things. People talk about blood magic and consorting with unholy spirits. It’s dark stuff.”
I’d never heard Aerin sound so disturbed, not even after we’d been attacked by the corpses Allowen had reanimated.
“Is it very different from necromancy?” I asked.
“Yes,” Aerin replied as she chewed on her lower lip. “Necromancy is a form of desecration, but the necromancer isn’t actually creating life, not in a real way. The corpses are like puppets, they’re animated by magic, but they could never act independently. The sort of thing Aurelius was trying to do, at least as far as the rumors go, went much further than that. He wanted to revive dead things in a way that they could go back to acting on their own.”
“I see,” I said. While I had my own reasons to distrust the various bans on magic instituted by the Mage Academy, given my manipulator magic was at the top of that list, I had to admit I could understand why the kind of blood magic Aerin described would be outlawed. “So should we be prepared for some kind of corpse army or something?”
I’d meant it partially as a joke, an attempt to lighten the mood, but Aerin looked nervous as she answered.
“We don’t really know what he’s capable of,” she said, “especially since he’s been in hiding for decades now.”
“Gabriel uses his magic to stop the mage, I shoot the shamblers in the head, and you and Maruk make sure we don’t get too scraped up,” Lavinia said with a grin directed at the redheaded elf. “It’ll be easy.”
I half expected some sort of retort from the orc at that, but he hadn’t heard since he trailed behind the cart with Lena while they discussed rare mushrooms.
As much as I appreciated Lavinia’s confidence, I knew it would probably take a somewhat more complex strategy to deal with Aurelius, but we would have to wait until we actually found the rogue mage to make that sort of plan.
Just then, someone whistled up ahead, and I followed the pointing fingers of the merchants in front of us with my eyes to a few dark specks in the sky. It was difficult to tell at this distance, but I supposed they were birds, or …
“Gryphons,” Liam reported as he came up on our right. He rode one of the few horses that hadn’t been needed to replace the fallen mules on the wagon team, a healthy young mare with a shiny silver coat like mercury. The guard’s green eyes were narrowed as he peered at the wheeling flock, and when he pulled down the bandana he wore around his face, his teeth were bared slightly in a sneer.
“How can you tell?” I asked. The creatures were little more than dark dots off in the distance. They could have been normal birds or even dragons, but it was impossible to discern their shape from so far away.
“Flight patterns,” Liam answered simply. “See how they follow each other in a line like that, then how they start to circle? Only gryphons fly like that.”
“Should we be worried?” Aerin asked, and as she did, she entwined her fingers in mine.
I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
“No, looks like they’ve got their sights set on something else,” the guard answered. “We’ll keep an eye on them just in case, but I don’t expect they’d come to bother with us.”
I wondered then if Liam had the experience with fighting gryphons the author of my guidebook lacked. I couldn’t say I personally liked the guard very much, but there was no denying he knew what he was doing out here.
“How do you fight them?” I asked.
“You avoid them if you can,” Liam answered with a frown. The expression stretched a scar on his cheek, and I found myself wondering how he’d gotten it, though I knew it would be impolite to ask.
“Right,” I said, a little annoyed. “I mean, if they did attack us, what would be the best way to combat them?”
“The best thing is to bring them down with arrows or magic while they’re still circling,” Liam replied. He rubbed his scar in a way that seemed automatic, like he didn’t realize he was doing it. “You don’t get much of a window, but they’ll take some time to check you out before they attack to see if you’re worth the trouble. That’s why we always try to have at least one fire mage with us on these trips. Gryphons don’t scare easy, but they’re still animals. They’ll back off pretty quick if someone starts throwing fireballs at them.”
“I see,” I murmured as I looked back up at the circling beasts.
Liam cocked an eyebrow. “You’re a mage, aren’t you?”
“Not a fire mage,” I answered. Our current cover story was that I was an air mage, but I thought it would be better to keep the lie in reserve unless someone asked directly, at least for now. I didn’t want Liam to start asking to see any tricks, or request my help later for a task the caravan might need an air mage for.
“Hmm,” the guard grunted. “Well, that’s too bad. Not much else really works against those bastards. If you have to fight them in close quarters, you just have to do your best to keep them from surrounding you. Better yet, get into a safe place where they can’t reach you and wait for them to lose interest and move on.”
He pressed his lips tightly together, and when he spoke again, there was a haunted tone to his voice. “We had to do that on one of my first runs of this trip. At first, we thought we could fight them, but they’re damned fast, and they’re mean. We lost a couple people before we made it into some caves, and we just had to watch while the gryphons killed the folks who didn’t make it. They killed a few of our oxen, too, gorged themselves, and carried off another couple of the mules.”
“That’s a
wful,” I said.
“It was,” Liam agreed, “but we learned from it. Hired mages, made sure we all had crossbows. The next time we had to fight them, we were better prepared, and we managed to bring two down before the rest of the flock fled.”
I wondered if my fire illusions would be enough to frighten away any wary gryphons we might meet in the mountains, or if my magic might be able to work against them in another way.
“Thank you for letting me know,” I said to the guard.
Liam cleared his throat and averted his eyes. “Yeah, well we ought to reach the pass by tomorrow.” Then he clicked his tongue and urged his horse forward without another word.
“You want to take the reins for a while, Gabriel?” Lavinia asked when the guard had gone. “I wouldn’t mind the chance to stretch my legs.”
“Sure,” I replied, and then I hoisted myself up onto the wagon while it was still moving and took the reins so the ladona woman could jump down. By now, the oxen that pulled the water cart were more or less used to us switching out like this, and they didn’t even slow down. Aerin joined me on the driver’s seat and leaned against my shoulder slightly as she rode along.
I liked having her there, and the sound of the water sloshing behind us was oddly comforting. What was more, with the sun gradually trailing west as the afternoon wore on, we even got a little shade from the canvas covering. I was one of the lucky ones, though, since the last few days beneath the desert sun had only given me a tan. Maruk, on the other hand, had the ill fortune to get a terrible sunburn. The green skin of his exposed arms and face had, curiously enough, been burnt bright purple by the sun and overall gave the impression that the orc sustained some terrible bruises.
On the upside, Lena had been able to quickly whip up a cream that would both relieve the sting and help protect Maruk from further burns, and Aerin and I were able to talk her out of making it so the cream would also cause Maruk to temporarily grow opaque scales wherever it was applied.
Maruk and Lena were walking together on the left side of the wagon, and I could hear them talking quietly. By the sound of it, Maruk was trying to convince the alchemist to develop some sort of moisturizing cream, but Lena was having some trouble with the concept.
“Well, I think I could do it, but it would be difficult. I’m not sure I could control what sort of liquid your skin would turn into, though,” Lena said.
“No, no,” Maruk groaned, “like a lotion. You know what lotion is, don’t you?”
“Sure, but that isn’t nearly as interesting,” Lena replied. “Changing a living being into another state of matter would be much more of a challenge.”
“I don’t want to be another state of matter,” the orc pouted. Then he heaved a sigh. “Forget I asked.”
Only a few minutes had passed, however, when I suddenly felt the twist of nerves in my gut. Intuition guided my gaze back toward the spot where the gryphon flock were circling earlier, and I saw with a sinking feeling that the creatures were now much closer and headed our way. Apparently whatever had held their attention before was no longer a sufficient distraction from the caravan.
Just as I nudged Aerin to point out the gryphons, there was a whistle from up ahead, our signal to stop, and Liam came riding back at a canter.
“Those gryphons are headed our way,” he warned. He now had the crossbow that he’d been wearing on his back in hand, and it was already loaded and ready to fire.
“I saw them,” I answered as I pulled the oxen to a stop. The beasts hardly needed the prompting, however, and Aerin and I were able to jump down. “What’s the plan?”
“The merchants will stay in their wagons, or under them,” the guard answered. “You can, too, if you don’t want to fight.”
“We want to fight,” I answered.
“Then get your weapons ready,” Liam said, then, with a long look at me, added, “or, you know, your magic. The other guards are at the head of the caravan with Uriel. We’ll make our stand there to try to keep the gryphons from attacking the merchants.”
With that, Liam turned and rode back up toward the front of the caravan. The gryphons were still en route, but they were close enough now that I could make out their unique silhouettes, the long, feline bodies and powerful wings. I counted six of them.
“Lena, you should stay with Clay for now,” I said. I knew we could trust the dwarf to look after her, and I knew he had a crossbow, which would come in handy in case they ended up having to defend themselves. Some small part of me hoped, too, that the gryphons might find the stench of the fire-breathing toads as unbearable as the rest of us did and leave Clay’s wagon alone.
The alchemist nodded, her expression resolute, and I was impressed by her courage. She must have heard what Liam had told us about the gryphon attacks he’d fought through.
We led Lena up to Clay’s wagon before we joined Uriel, Liam, and the rest of the guards at the head of the caravan. I noticed a few of the merchants, including the lion man we’d met in Gilamar, had taken up arms themselves. That was good, the more of us there were to fight, the better chance we stood at holding off the gryphons.
I reached for the hilt of my dagger beneath my cloak as the others readied their own weapons. I obviously couldn’t do air magic, but I didn’t want to be completely defenseless. I would only summon the mana blade as a last resort, I wanted to avoid anyone else noticing it if I could, in case they recognized the magic from stories about manipulators. If I did have to use it and someone asked about it, I could claim it was enchanted, but it was better to play it safe and only use it if I had no other options.
We arranged ourselves in three circles, and I stood back-to-back with Aerin, Lavinia, Maruk, and one other caravan guard whose name I didn’t know. He had a crossbow like the others, and I noticed the bolts were tipped with vicious-looking arrowheads. The metal was twisted in a spiral design so that it had three sharp edges rather than two.
“Here they come,” Uriel warned, his voice high and clear. His warning was unnecessary, however, as the heavy wingbeats of the gryphons as they approached were impossible to miss.
“Aim!” Uriel called, as about sixty feet above us, the gryphons swooped into a circle, just as Liam had said they would. The bird parts of their bodies resembled eagles with brown and russet plumage, and the feline half was sleek and dusky tan, like the coats of pumas. Even at this distance, their talons and beaks looked wicked, and I could see the signs of previous battles across the creatures’ bodies, scars on their flanks, and missing feathers from their huge wings.
This was our window, our chance to bring down as many of the beasts as we could before the fight really began. At least, I realized, they were focused on us and paid no mind to the rest of the caravan. It seemed strange to me that they wouldn’t attack the oxen or the mules first, which were defenseless and unable to escape hitched to the wagons as they were, but perhaps the gryphons understood that they would be vulnerable unless they killed off the guards first.
The gryphons wheeled again, and this time, they swooped down a bit closer. Now they were only fifty feet above us. I drew my dagger. Six gryphons, and thirteen of us against them.
“Fire at will,” Uriel called, and at his word, the twang of bowstrings and the thwick of crossbows sounded out in unison as the volley of arrows flew skyward.
I recognized Lavinia’s long ebony arrow as it neatly pierced through one gryphon’s chest, and the creature was dead before it could even let out a squawk. The group next to us had to dodge quickly as the gryphon dropped like a rock between us, but then they cast quick glances at Lavinia, and their shock and admiration were written plainly across their faces.
The other guards were not as good shots as Lavinia, however. One gryphon had been struck in its taloned foot, and even as I watched, it snapped off the arrow with its powerful beak midflight. Another had only lost one of its long flight feathers for its trouble. Once we’d initiated the attack, the remaining five gryphons wasted no time and dove with piercing shrie
ks, their talons outstretched.
I saw Maruk raise up his large shield to cover us and tried to brace myself, but even so, the impact when the gryphon struck the shield was incredible. There was a grating sound as the monster’s claws scored the metal, and brown feathers rained down over us.
Lavinia aimed for the two gryphons that were assaulting Uriel and Liam’s group, and I threw my hand out to touch her right as she drew back a pair of arrows. Just as when we had fought the dragon, I channeled my magic into her, and I saw the bright blue glow of my mana flare up along her arrows a second before she released the string. Her aim was true, and both of the gryphons fell as the magically-enhanced arrows bit into their flesh.
The last three gryphons took to the air again, but not to flee. Instead, they began to circle once more, high out of reach of our arrows and crossbow bolts.
Even so, the other guards and merchants who were helping continued to reload and shoot as quickly as possible, and in their haste, many fired too soon or aimed poorly. They managed to bring down one, but the other two evaded their bolts until one took an arrow to its thigh and screeched in pain as it wheeled, and then it dove for Uriel’s group again.
Lavinia was focused on the other gryphon, the one who still circled above us, and I knew in an instant none of Uriel’s group would be able to act quickly enough to kill the gryphon before it descended on them.
I hoped the monsters would provide enough of a distraction as I raised my hand and directed an illusion at the swooping gryphon. I barely had time to think, but I remembered what Liam had said about using fire. I’d been able to convince the bandits that they were on fire. Hopefully, I could do the same to the gryphon.
Pain burst in the back of my skull with the force of the spell as I cast it, but I was rewarded for my effort as almost immediately, the gryphon pulled up and took to the air again with a panicked cry.
Liam took aim with his crossbow and shot a bolt through the creature’s deep chest. The gryphon pitched violently in the air and beat its wings in a frenzy, but Liam’s aim had been good, and the gryphon fell heavily back to the earth.