It circled and the giants dove into their cave. When the dragon drew close to the mouth of the cave, it pulled up with massive, beating wings and let loose a spear-thrust of fire. Inside the cave, the giants howled in pain. The poor things were still bellowing and carrying on when the dragon kin came in to jab the dragon away with their spears. Keep it moving.
The dragon swung its head and caught one of the wasps and its rider in its jaws. The dragon kin screamed and beat frantically at its head. The dragon tilted its head back, took another chomp and ate both the wasp and the rider in two gulps. Nevertheless, the spears had prodded it away from the giants’ cave. It was shortly flying over the forest again, spewing fire.
Why? What was it up to?
The dragon wasn’t burning the forests to get at giants, and it certainly didn’t care about ravens, owls, and robins. This was an attack on griffins. The fires would either cook the griffins and their riders in their towers or flush them out to be destroyed in the air.
Palina pulled up to Daria and gave urgent gestures for her to look forward.
They had almost reached the canyon with the golden griffin aeries. Several of the animals swooped in from the north. The fire, the smoke, and the roaring dragon had brought them from their hidden redoubt. They came screaming in, ready to give battle. Then they appeared to spot the dragon and hesitated. Tearing apart dragon wasps was one thing. Facing this black monster was another. By some unheard command, they peeled away and fled north. The dragon wasps gave immediate chase, and moments later, the dragon itself accelerated. Its beating wings slowly but steadily gained speed. The golden griffins were no fools; they broke away from their nesting grounds and scattered.
One of the golden griffins was in trouble. It had fallen behind the others, and three dragon wasps were closing in.
Daria acted on pure instinct. She cried out for her mother and urged Joffa after the lagging wild griffin. As she did, her fingers worked at the tether that held the dead lamb in place. She sent it tumbling end-over-end to the forest below. Then she drew her blades. Yuli came in beside Joffa. Palina had her sword in hand. She’d also shed her sheep carcass.
The golden griffin favored its right wing, which was why it couldn’t keep up with the rest of its flock. It wheeled away from the first spear thrust, and Daria had a shock of recognition. Her own golden griffin. Talon.
One of the dragon kin spotted the two women. He gestured with his spear and shouted. Daria dove for him. Joffa slammed into the wasp, which turned its head, snapping. Daria swept her right sword across the man’s throat as she passed. She caught the left sword on the wasp’s leathery wing. It rolled away with a hiss. The rider fell off. He flailed at the air as he fell.
Two more wasps had closed with Talon. The griffin yanked off the first dragon kin with his talons, while his back paws tore at the wasp’s belly. But the second dragon kin rose in his saddle and pulled back to throw his spear. Daria came in hard and hacked at the outstretched arm. She sliced clean through his wrist. He screamed and grabbed at the bloody stump. Without direction, his wasp fled the battlefield with its rider slumped over.
Her mother stayed above with Yuli, where she fended off two more wasps, but three more came in from the south, followed by the dragon itself. Smoke and fire bled from its nostrils.
Talon was ahead of her, still tearing at the wasp in his talons. He turned his head and screamed at her, then returned to his battle. He didn’t see the dragon. He needed to toss aside the dying wasp and flee.
Daria urged Joffa to approach. He gave a single, questioning squawk, but did as he was told. She sheathed her weapons and untied Joffa’s tethers, which she wrapped around her shoulder. When she drew alongside the golden griffin, she dropped onto his back.
Talon didn’t buck. The wasp was still struggling feebly in his grasp, and its mouth snapped ineffectually at the iron-like talons. Daria secured the tether around his neck, looped it around her legs, and dug her fingers into the feathers at his neck. She jerked hard. He tossed his head with a screech. The dragon wasp fell twitching from his claws.
“Daria!” her mother warned from above her.
Palina held off several circling dragon wasps and their riders. The dragon was at two hundred yards and closing fast.
Daria dug her knees into Talon’s ribs. “Ska!” It hesitated. “I said go, you idiot. Go!”
A dragon wasp shrieked past her head, and she only just got a sword out to parry a spear thrust. Talon moved.
He fled north with swift wing strokes. Palina came along Daria’s left flank, riding Yuli and leading Joffa, now riderless.
Daria gave a hand signal. Over the top.
They swung west to cross over the mountains again, but Talon still favored that wing, and the dragon wasps were closing behind them. There were only four left, and they hung back while the enormous beast at their rear gained ground. How long until the griffins were in range of that deadly fire? Seconds.
Suddenly, five huge golden griffins tore at them from the north. Daria braced herself for attack, but they blew past with a thunder of wings and ear-splitting screams. They blasted apart the formation of wasps before shooting past the dragon. It turned its head and roared flame, but not in time. The griffins came back around, and the dragon wheeled to meet them. This was Daria’s chance.
Talon tried to circle around to follow the other golden griffins, but Daria dug in, jerked the reins, and yanked hard on his neck feathers.
“Oh, no you don’t. This time, you’re coming with me.”
He fought and bucked as she forced him higher into the mountains. The two smaller griffins helped keep him in line. Behind, the roar of the dragon and the screams of griffins faded. She glanced back to see the golden griffins break loose and flee south, where they disappeared into the smoke that rose from the burning forest.
They came back for us.
Either to free Talon or to hold off the dragon long enough for the humans and their white-crowned griffins to escape.
Daria wanted to consider what that meant, but at the moment she had all she could handle keeping Talon from pitching her off. If that happened, she’d fall hundreds of feet to be dashed apart on the rocks below. He was still skittish when they reached the heights, but no longer actively trying to kill her.
The stink of burning trees still filled her nostrils as they crested the range and descended into the unburned forest on the other side. No enemies followed.
But Daria could only think of the raging fires, the birds and animals cooking alive. She and her mother had escaped the dragon, but what would keep it from burning a thousand miles of mountains and forest?
The dragon was huge, indestructible. A giant’s stone cracking off its scales had been no more than an irritant.
Yet somehow, Daria had to find a way to stop it.
Chapter Fourteen
Chantmer the Tall leaned against his staff and wheezed. Even three weeks after rising from the swamps of Estmor, a thousand pinpricks perforated his lungs. And there was a nasty little worm living inside him that kept him from healing. Mostly it was silent and still, but sometimes he woke in the night to feel it squirming in his lungs, gnawing on his flesh.
Ahead of him, Roghan turned with a frown. He whispered a word of power, which made his torch blaze. Dust motes danced in the light.
“Move quickly,” the mage told Chantmer. “I cannot hold it open much longer. We must reach the temple before the channel closes.”
Chantmer managed a nod. He staggered forward, following his companion along the safe path through the Desolation of Toth. It was marked by swirling dust and a dim green light. Beyond the light, voices whispered, beckoned him to step toward them. Wights. The dead of Aristonia.
They had been traveling the northern reaches of the Desolation since that morning, and Chantmer had been growing progressively weaker. Roghan wasn’t much help. It was all the mage could do to keep the channel open. He had nothing to spare for Chantmer.
The ruined temple ro
se in front of them. Wide stone stairs led to a platform, on which only the columns remained, as if propping up the star-studded sky. An orange moon reflected against fire salamanders carved into its surface, making them twist and grimace. Roghan gained the first steps and gestured violently.
“I’m coming.”
“Hurry!”
There was such urgency in the other wizard’s voice that Chantmer turned to see what had alarmed him. Behind, Roghan’s magical channel was folding in on itself. A mass of glowing, writhing shapes clawed it aside. Men in armor with maces. War dogs with spiked collars. Even the ghost of a mammoth. Life’s warmth had entered their domain, and it drew them, hungry and insatiable.
Chantmer gained the stairs, and the chill evaporated from the air. He staggered up to lean against one of the stone columns. Sharp, stinging coughs rose from his chest. He hacked and spit. When he finished, the taste of blood and swamp water mingled on his lips.
Wights swirled in the darkness, but none climbed the stairs. Roghan sank to the stone platform. He was breathing heavily. He pulled off his robe and searched his torso until he found one of his few remaining tattoos.
The trip across the Desolation had cost Roghan much of his strength. Tattoos of vines, sunbursts, fists, daggers, and other runes and symbols had covered his bare arms only a few days earlier. Each represented a spell to be called forth when needed. The mage bled many of them away simply crossing the Desolation. At times he’d been forced to sacrifice markings representing stronger incantations simply to keep the passage open for a few minutes longer.
“We must be close,” Chantmer said. “The Temple of the Sky Brother is no more than a mile from the Tothian Way.”
Roghan opened his eyes. “After that we still have to cross the southern wastes. A day and a night until we gain the safety of open desert.”
“You said it would be easier south of the Way.”
“Easier, not easy. I’ve spent much of my magic. And there are enemies ahead. I have detected a seeker.”
“So have I. Who is it?”
“I don’t know, but they are close. Can’t you feel them?”
“No, I cannot,” Chantmer admitted. “You should have let me rest more in the mountains. I would be stronger.”
Yes, he thought to himself, and strong enough to resist this wizard from the south.
#
Only three weeks earlier, Chantmer the Tall had been rotting at the bottom of a swamp in Estmor. Following the unsuccessful fight atop the Golden Tower in Arvada, he’d fled the battlefield as a wisp of red smoke. When he’d tried to reconstitute himself, he discovered to his horror that he didn’t have enough strength to both form his body and bind his soul to his flesh. And so his wight had hovered over his body, a ghostly blue light that shined from the bottom of the pond.
Every day the body sank further into the mud, snails nested in its beard, and worms ate its flesh. Occasionally, a mud turtle or six-foot-long gar came to investigate the blue light and, seeing the rotting body, thought to bite off a meal. They fled when they saw the wight.
Week after week, Chantmer’s wight clung to the body, determined not to drift away to join the other souls that wandered aimlessly through the swamps of Estmor.
And then one day a light appeared in the sky overhead, shining through the black water in swirls and circles. The wight looked up and feared. A single thought penetrated the dusty, untrod halls that had become its mind.
The Harvester!
Terrified, the wight turned to flee, ready to abandon the corpse. But it couldn’t escape. Half-bound to the body after all, tendrils grew from its fingers and toes and anchored it to the flesh of the dead body.
A splash overhead, then someone dove to the bottom of the pond. Strong hands gripped the corpse and dislodged it from the mud. Water beetles shot away from their nests in its robes. The diver dragged the body toward the light, and the wight was pulled along with it. The body broke the surface, and still the wight couldn’t break free.
“Help me,” the man cried. “You didn’t say anything about a wight.”
“Never mind,” a second voice said, a few feet away. “It can’t hurt you. Bring him here. Hurry, hurry.”
The light was bright after weeks at the bottom of the swamp, and the wight couldn’t see either speaker. The swimmer dragged the body through the water by its hair, then a second man hoisted it out of the water and into a boat. The first man scrambled in, where he lay gasping.
“Stand back,” the second, deeper voice told the swimmer. “If the wight touches you out of the water, you’ll regret it.”
“I thought you said—”
“Quiet.”
The second speaker loomed over the body, light reflecting from robes. “Animach na regram.”
The wight screamed as a jolt of pain shot through it. It wrenched free from the corpse at last and turned to flee, but the body wouldn’t let go. It reached out two hands, grabbed the blue light, and dragged it toward its open mouth. The corpse stuffed the wight into its mouth and chewed with teeth that hung loose in their gums. The wight screamed again.
“By the Brothers!” The boat listed to one side.
“Jark, if you jump out of this boat, I’ll leave you for the wights.”
Chantmer the Tall sat up suddenly in the boat, his mind churning against the rot. He was alive.
But oh, the pain. It ripped his flesh from his toes to his eyeballs. His skin shivered and crawled, barely hanging to his muscles. He opened his mouth but could neither speak nor breathe.
He looked at the two men through clouded eyes. The first was a wizard of some kind, beardless, with dark, braided hair. Red and black tattoos marked his palms, and an amulet hung from a chain at his neck. He watched with pride burning in his eyes at his accomplishment.
The second man was a long, muscular fellow with a short-cropped black beard. This was the one called Jark. A Veyrian soldier. He scrambled to the far side of the boat from Chantmer, where he stared, wide-eyed.
Chantmer looked down at his hands, dismayed at the open sores, the worms and the leaches attached to the flesh. He coughed, and brackish water burbled from his chest and ran down his chin.
Something kicked in his chest. Once, twice, and then a third time, this time stronger. It was his heart, restarting. The bugs fell from his skin and squirmed at the bottom of the boat. He coughed again, and not as much water came up this time. He took in a long, ragged gasp. The pain was terrible.
“By the Brothers,” Jark said again. He fumbled for a knife at his waist, but then he thought better of it and let his hands fall to his side.
Chantmer studied the open sores on his hands as blood began to ooze from his skin. His innards churned and his heart beat stronger now. His vision cleared. He looked at Jark and then at the wizard, who squinted at him against the bright light cast by the lamp. Stars flickered overhead and a cool night breeze washed over the boat. Frogs bellowed at the edge of the swamp, but they sounded to Chantmer’s ears as though they called from the bottom of a well.
“Thank you,” he rasped. “But who are you and why have you rescued me?”
And then a coughing spell overcame him and he fell back into the boat. The wizard lay a blanket over his body.
“Rest, friend. I will answer your questions later. We have far to travel and many enemies to avoid. Knights Temperate and Toth’s ravagers alike are roaming the land. Either one will kill you.”
Jark recovered enough of his wits to pick up the oars and row them toward the shore, some hundred yards distant.
Exhaustion overcame Chantmer. He needed time to rest and heal.
Who had rescued him and why? Not the dark wizard, and not the Free Kingdoms. The Cloud Kingdoms? No. Neither the wizard nor his man Jark spoke like an Aristonian.
Someone else then. But who?
And then Chantmer let sleep wash over him.
#
The day after his rebirth, Chantmer the Tall woke to a terrible shiver. It was already dusk. He
sat up. His thoughts were clearer.
He’d dozed throughout the day, aware of the jostling horse below him, but unable to wake enough to gauge his surroundings.
“My name is Roghan,” the wizard said. “How do you feel?”
Roghan sat on the ground a few feet away. He leaned forward expectantly, one tattooed hand fingering the amulet around his neck. Now that Chantmer’s mind had cleared, the tattoos answered one question. This man was a mage from the sultanates.
Chantmer ignored Roghan’s question and studied his surroundings instead.
They’d cleared Estmor and camped in the foothills on the western slopes of the Dragon’s Spine. A light rain drizzled from the sky, and a crisp breeze came down from the mountains with the setting sun. These didn’t cause his shiver. No, he wasn’t cold at all, but burning hot, as with a fever. He watched in interest as rain hit his flesh and sizzled. A cloud of steam enveloped his head. His breath shot from his mouth, hot as dragon’s fire.
“The Harvester take you both,” Jark grumbled near the fire. He scowled in their direction, then turned back to his work.
The man cooked a rabbit and a pair of quail on sticks over the fire. Chantmer’s stomach rumbled at the sight and smell of the sizzling food.
“Your friend is not fond of wizards,” Chantmer said. His tongue was thick and awkward.
His heart was pounding, like it wanted to hammer free from his chest. The skin on his arms no longer sloughed free, but was still waxy and pale. New veins crawled through his arms like tunneling worms. His extremities tingled as if pricked by thousands of needles.
“He’s a Veyrian,” Roghan said. “Have you ever met a Veyrian who wasn’t superstitious?”
The Golden Griffin (Book 3) Page 14