I fired three times. Two shots simply kicked up little puffs of dirt. One more ricocheted off the iron chains with a twang.
It was tough to concentrate. The SHREE just went on and on, rattling the fillings in my teeth.
Over the din, I dimly heard Ironwood shout “Stop her!”
Blackthorn leapt into action. He bounded towards me over the griffins who lay writhing in pain. I swung around to bring my weapon to bear. He was so damned quick that he was practically on me already. His huge body loomed in my sights like a charging grizzly bear.
Galen braced himself with one hand to keep his human torso upright. He raised the other.
“Liom a heiceáil stoirme!”
A bolt of blue lightning sizzled from the centaur wizard’s outstretched palm. Blackthorn took it in the chest. The smell of charred feathers filled the air as he cartwheeled out of control, skidding across the floor and smashing into the far wall.
I didn’t even turn to look. I doubted that even a dose of Galen’s lightning would keep the drake down for long. I raised my gun again and got off another couple of shots.
A miss, followed by another ricochet off the steel chains. The bullet whined off and buried itself in the closest strung-up body of a Skinned One. The smell of burned leather and moldy bacon filtered down in a gagging mist.
I squinted as best I could at the crystalline shimmer. This time I aimed a little low.
A gentle squeeze of the trigger, just like I’d practiced with Esteban.
The bullet hit the rock, crumbling away some of the ledge. The crystal that had been perched above tumbled down. It struck the network of chains with a metallic tingle and shattered.
The piercing shriek of sound cut off instantly.
My ears still rang from the sonic assault. Shaw’s three offspring shouted to each other, though I couldn’t tell who said what.
“I want them dead!”
“Pay them all back!”
“We have no choice!”
All around us, griffins were snarling as they staggered to their feet. Many swayed as if drunk. I tried to rouse Liam, who still remained senseless on the floor.
“Down!” Galen cried. I didn’t hesitate, but threw myself over Liam’s prone body.
Blackthorn had spread his wings and leapt into the air. He passed inches over us, but we weren’t his target. He pulled up towards Belladonna. For her part, she reared up to fight him, though her reactions were slow and stiff.
One of the gray-furred members of the Council dove between the two. Blackthorn’s talons came down in a killing strike, the Elder catching the blow across the side of the neck. The griffin’s head sheared off in fountain of red-black and bounced across the cavern floor like a macabre version of my skipping stone.
The rest of the cavern exploded into violence.
Snarling, slashing griffins tore and bit at each other as wails and shrieks of eagles and lions assaulted my already abused eardrums. Galen surged to his feet, shouting an incantation that surrounded us in a circlet of blue light. A pair of griffins tumbled towards us, grappling and biting at each other. They rolled up against the circlet and then bounced off with a thud.
“My protective sphere won’t hold more than a few seconds,” Galen warned. “We must bring Liam back to consciousness and remove ourselves from this scrum. Otherwise, we shall be torn to pieces!”
Chapter Forty-Three
The blue light that held back the mass of tumbling, slashing griffins had already begun to flicker. I grabbed the Fayleene’s furry shoulder, bent down, and spoke gently but firmly into his ear.
“Get up, Liam! You know I can’t leave…without my good luck charm.”
His eyes, one soft brown and the other emerald green, winked open. He stumbled upright, shaking himself off like he’d been doused with cold water.
“Such a sound!” he exclaimed, “I thought it would never end.”
“It has, and so will Galen’s shield. As soon as it fails, get clear of these griffins before you get turned into shredded venison!”
The words were just out of my mouth when Galen’s spell winked out with a comical-sounding foop. The wizard jumped to his feet and dashed for cover. Liam bounded the other way, leaping and ducking through the mass of rolling, snarling griffins. I turned and ran flat-out through the closest open spot I saw.
A single griffin, one I didn’t recognize, swiped his opponent with a tremendous backhand, knocking him out. The drake oriented on me, razor-sharp beak agape and dripping blood. As he sprang at me, I thought: Only a couple of days ago, I put my hand down that mouth.
I dropped, converting my forward run into a slide. The griffin had expected me to dodge; he flew overhead, talons raking the air above me. With a smack, I slid against the cavern wall. My left leg burned from calf to thigh. I felt the blood-seeping tingle of road rash pop up in a sudden flush.
I did my best to ignore the pain as I scrambled to my feet. A serious twinge in my ankle made me limp, but it held my weight. The drake pivoted on its hind paws and turned to stalk forward. Blood madness had purged out all sentience. Pure animal instinct drove it now.
Grimshaw broke out of the mass of griffins. He came up from behind and clubbed my attacker across the head with an unfurled wing. The drake fell, paws twitching, and then lay still.
Two more griffin foes moved to attack Shaw. One cried, ‘For the pride of Reyka!’. The other rose up in a challenging roar, right before Shaw head-butted her in the midsection. I cringed as I heard the crunch of ribs breaking. I brought up my gun and kept squeezing the trigger until the griffin slumped over, bullet holes punctuating its flank.
“Dayna,” Shaw shouted, “This battle is beyond thee! Get clear of it!”
Even as he dove back into the fight, I saw Galen backed into another corner of the cavern. He held off a pair of griffins with swipes of his wizard’s staff. The two flared their wings, hissing, and dove in as one. Together, they clamped their beaks on each end of the staff and yanked it free of the centaur’s grip.
Galen calmly spoke a series of words I’d once heard in the Fayleene woods. The hiss of an electric hot plate came from the staff as its entire length turned white-hot. Greasy smoke puffed from the eye sockets of the two griffins who had taken the weapon in their beaks. They fell and lay still as the wizard whirled to face yet another foe.
Holly was aloft, skimming just below the ceiling chains as she chased something on the ground. She banked sharply to one side as she followed her quarry. A caw of frustration as her raised wingtip grazed the chain network, almost sending her out of control.
Liam burst from behind a group of scuffling griffins, continuing to taunt her as she landed and shifted to a run.
“Come on! You’re too slow in the air for a griffin! Let’s see how well you do on the ground!” As Liam charged down one of the cavern’s side passages Holly let out an eagle’s angry shriek and disappeared after him.
I made my way along the wall, trying to heed Shaw’s orders. But the closest exit was a narrow crack in the wall, and it was blocked by a heap of fallen warriors. The best I could do was hug the closest rock and put a bullet in any reeve or drake that got too close to me.
The battle grew even fiercer as more and more griffins succumbed to wounds. The remaining fighters began to give into blood madness. They blindly attacked anything that came into sight, even tearing at defeated enemy corpses.
I spotted two more council members lying still on the blood-smeared cavern stone, both flesh and armor ripped open. Judging by the number of griffins which fought alongside the remaining Elders, the majority of griffins had remained loyal to them. But Shaw’s offspring kept the outcome in doubt.
Blackthorn smashed bodily through entire groups of drakes and reeves at a time. Yowls of pain filled the air as the huge griffin slashed through fur, feather, and bone. His brother Ironwood was almost as deadly, thrashing his tail to distract his foes and stabbing outward with his claws or beak.
The Lance Captain’s
second, the reeve I recognized from the pride-spar as Alfhild, moved to fight at Ironwood’s side just as he engaged Elder Ulrik. Ulrik parried or absorbed Ironwood’s blows, sparks flying as beak and talons scraped armor plate. Alfhild attacked the Elder from one side as Ironwood darted in from the other. Ulrik slammed the reeve against the wall with one mighty sweep of his paw. She fell and did not get up.
Ironwood darted into the opening, lightning-fast blows knocking the older griffin on his side. The Lance Captain pounced, landing on his opponent the same way Holly had pinned me. His rear claws came up. Ulrik’s eyes bulged in fear and pain as Ironwood swept his leg down, tearing through fur and stomach muscle in a gout of blood and ichor.
The Lance Captain turned to see if Alfhild was still alive, and suddenly, Ulrik sprang up. It was more than I could believe. The Elder griffin had been mortally wounded. Loops of pink and black intestine hung dripping from his shredded belly. He landed on Ironwood’s back, trapping him in a death grip.
Ironwood shrieked. His arms were pinned, his legs useless to attack a foe that clung to his back. His prehensile tail came up, tipped in razor-sharp steel. He stabbed deep into Ulrik’s side like a dagger. Once, twice, three times.
The Elder slid his forelegs up to Ironwood’s neck, and with a last, convulsive gasp, he gave a twist. With a crack, Ironwood’s neck broke. The two griffins fell dead, one atop the other.
Blackthorn, engaged with yet another griffin, saw his brother fall. With a vicious bite, he severed his foe’s wing and pushed through the battle to reach his sibling. Grimshaw emerged from battle nearby and leaped forward, cuffing the larger griffin on the side of the head. Blood welled and ran across Blackthorn’s beak as he re-oriented on his new enemy.
The two circled each other, slashing and biting like alley cats. Shaw dripped blood from multiple wounds, but as the two revolved around each other, I saw that Blackthorn also carried a gallery’s worth deep bites and scratches. His tail kinked painfully at a forty-five degree angle, evidence that it had been broken. And his chest still bore the scorch mark of Galen’s lightning bolt. If anyone was hurting, it was this drake.
“Sire, don’t make me send you to the Eternal Sky,” Blackthorn panted.
“I say the same to thee,” Shaw gasped back.
The younger drake bulled ahead, deciding to use his massive bulk to pin Shaw and end the fight. But Grimshaw, veteran of many more battles, rolled with his opponent’s motion. He lashed out with his hind legs to shove Blackthorn up and away in the same way Holly had out-maneuvered Thundercrack.
Blackthorn didn’t land on a stalagmite. Aware to that danger, he spread his wings and made a single mighty beat to gain altitude.
That was a mistake. The huge drake shot straight up – directly into the network of chains. His bulk and raw power ripped an entire section free, the ends of the severed chains falling like a cast-iron net. With a despairing cry, Blackthorn plummeted back to earth, his wings and body badly tangled in the strands.
Yet as he landed, he still fought on, parrying blows from both Shaw and a second griffin. In doing so, he tumbled across the cavern floor and down one of the still-open passageways, Shaw limping after him. Echoes reflected sound back up to me. Cursing, the sound of rattling chains, and the unmistakable sound of something big falling into water.
Then the hairs on the back of my neck stood at full attention as I heard panting from off to my side. I held my gun at the ready as I turned to face the newest threat.
Holly stood there, her feathers all awry, her fur a mess.
Her beak dipped in red.
With a horrifying shock, I wondered if it was Fayleene blood.
“For God’s sake, Holly,” I gasped, “Did it have to end like this?”
“I think it did,” she replied grimly. “There was no other way.”
I leveled my weapon. “Don’t make me do this.”
She cocked her head at me. “Are you really going to shoot me, Dayna?”
I looked back at her. “Only if you come any closer.”
Holly took a step forward.
I squeezed the trigger.
A click was all I got.
“We are so alike, you and I,” Holly said sadly. “Neither of us bluff.”
“You’re right.” I slowly slid my hand to my jacket pocket. It was a wild stab in the dark, but this was the only thing I had left. “Do you really need to kill me, Holly? Am I really that much of a threat?”
“I don’t think so. But he does. The one who sent us to your world.” She saw my movement and gave a little sniff. “Remember our talk at the Autumn Rites, Dragon-Hand? I know that you can’t reload your gun before I cut you down.”
My fingers found what I was looking for, and I grasped it for dear life. I’d only get one chance and then Holly would be on me, claws and beak tearing me to bits.
“Who said I was reloading?” I asked.
I pulled out what I’d taken on a whim from my office presentation bin.
It was a Class 4 laser pointer I’d inherited from whichever paper-pusher had previously used my office. Stupidly, I’d once used it as a highly illegal presentation device. At twelve-hundred watts, the thing could start small fires and pop balloons if held on them long enough.
Without hesitation, I pulled it out and shone it into one of Holly’s huge gold-and-jade eyes.
She let out a yowl of feline anguish, clapping her paws over her eye and rolling back and forth, trying to blot out the pain.
Suddenly, I heard Belladonna’s high-pitched rattle of a voice.
“Art thou cowards or sluggards? We take her, while she remains helpless!”
The Eldest and three other griffins set upon Hollyhock and began biting and cuffing her. Holly’s yowls turned to screams as the four griffins tore at her, talons ripped great gashes from her sides. A brittle snap, and one of her forelegs broke.
“Enough!” I cried, as I ran towards the fray. “I want her alive! I need her alive!”
The nearest griffin pulled his head back and snarled at me.
A bloody paw came from the corner of my vision. It smashed into the griffin’s beak, sending him sprawling. Shaw, panting and dripping rivulets of sweat, pushed forward to shield me. His voice was raw, pure rage.
“Art thou deaf and addled? Dayna needs her alive! Stand down, lest I tear your flesh from bones!”
“Stand down,” Belladonna repeated reluctantly. “I suppose we need her alive. For just a little while longer.”
The two remaining griffins stepped back. Holly lay gasping where she had fallen. One of her eyes had swollen shut, one of her forelegs bent the wrong way. It made me wince to look at it.
“Thank you, Eldest,” Shaw said. “As thou canst see, the contest has come down in thy favor.”
I looked around. My friend spoke truly. The battle had ceased. The cavern floor was covered in a sea of bodies, blood pooling in the low spots. With a rush of relief, I spotted Galen and Liam across the room’s expanse. Both looked battered, but not seriously injured.
Shaw spoke to Holly in a heavy, tired voice. “Thy allies lie dead and beaten. It is over.”
“No,” Holly wheezed. “It’s not quite over. I want to tell Dayna…what little I can. She deserves to know.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Holly struggled to an upright position as I came to stand before her. Shaw sat next to me, his expression grim and unyielding. Galen and Liam made their way over as well, their hooves making a loud clatter in the underground space of the Lair. Belladonna paced back and forth within earshot, casting hateful glances our way.
It hurt just to look at Hollyhock. The proud young reeve’s body was a ruin. Bites and slash marks mottled her gold fur. Her broken foreleg quivered as she held it up somehow, and blood collected to drip steadily from her talons. Her left eye had swollen shut from the sheer number of blows directed at her head. Her right eye had a milky-white glaze from where I’d directed the laser into her cornea. I doubted if she could see much at all.
My words came out of a dry throat.
“I’m here, Holly.”
“Dayna…” she rasped. Something broken rattled in the back of her throat. “I need you to know…for several nights after the Elders destroyed my young, I flew to the highest peaks north of here to vent my sorrow to the wind. That is where I met him.”
Who? I wanted to cry out. But I forced myself to keep quiet as Holly went on.
“He was the one who struck a deal with me. With my brothers. He offered us a way to destroy the Elder Council and assume its place. He transported me and my siblings to your world, where we would find the crystals. Crystals that would have completely disabled the Elders, if we had gotten the time to place them all. Your arrival and my assignment to you delayed us too long.”
“So all three of you broke into the museum.”
“Aye. Blackthorn was the strongest, so he was chosen to rip open the vault door. He lost a single feather in that feat. I feared that would lead someone back to us, and I was right…”
“Never mind what thou dost fear,” Belladonna snapped. “Tell us who this ‘he’ is!”
“He is…” Holly squirmed, as if in even further pain. “He is the one who told us to murder Dayna. He is the one who sent Ironwood to slay Dayna as she slept, for I could no longer be trusted to do it.”
So it was Blackthorn’s feather that Ollivar found, I realized. And that wasn’t a dream that I experienced here at the aerie. That was Ironwood, as he tried to move close enough to score a kill. Only Shaw’s presence deterred him from striking at me in the dark.
“Thou wouldst have received stewardship over the aerie,” Shaw rumbled. “But what was promised in return for thy bloody bargain?”
A sigh. “He never asked for anything in return.”
“Tell me who you’re talking about, Holly,” I urged. “Please. This is important.”
“He is…” Her swollen face contorted as she tried to speak, but could not.
“Galen!” I cried, and the wizard was there, lowering his hand to her face. He concentrated a moment, then spoke softly.
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