The Griffin's Flight

by K J Taylor

  He realised that Skade had asked him a question. “Sorry, what?”

  “I said, where are you from?” said Skade.

  “Oh. Uh, well, nowhere really. It’s not important.” Arren cursed inside yet again. He hadn’t been ready for the question and didn’t have a lie prepared.

  “I can understand that you do not wish for other people to know,” Skade said more gently.

  “I prefer to keep things to myself,” said Arren. “I can tell you do. You’re on the run, aren’t you?”

  She tensed. “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s obvious. You’re from Withypool, but you’re not there. You’re hundreds of damn miles away, in the middle of the countryside, all alone and with no shoes. Why in the gods’ names would you be out here by choice?”

  Skade looked at him, unreadable. Arren wondered if he had made her angry, but then she relaxed and sighed. “You are not a fool,” she said.

  So he’d guessed correctly. “Are you trying to get somewhere?” he asked.

  “Why should I tell you?” said Skade. “I do not trust you, blackrobe.”

  Arren winced. “But you told me where you were from. You told me your name. That’s enough for me to tell other people who you are and where you are.”

  Skade laughed at him. “You cannot threaten me. You are a fugitive as much as I am. You would not go near anyone to tell them.”

  Arren relaxed. “And neither would you.”

  “No,” said Skade. “I would not. Tell me your name, and I will tell you where I am going.”

  “Why do you care?” said Arren.

  “I do not care,” said Skade. “But I will trust you if you trust me.”

  “Fine. I’m Taranis.”

  Skade looked away. “Why are you out here, Taranis? Are you a slave who has escaped?”

  “Do I look like one?”

  She examined him. “You are a blackrobe. You are hiding. There are collar scars on your neck.”

  Arren nodded. “That’s a good guess,” he said. “But there’s one problem.” He held up his right hand, showing her the grubby skin on the back of it. “No brand,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Skade. “I noticed that. And”—she looked at Skandar—“a slave would not be travelling with a griffin. And he would not know griffish.”

  “And how do you know griffish?” said Arren. “Wouldn’t it be easier to speak human?”

  Skade’s expression hardened. “I have the right, blackrobe. Who taught you to speak it? Was it this griffin?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Arren.

  “But I want to know,” said Skade. “Tell me.”

  “No. You said you’d tell me where you were going if I told you my name. You know my name, so tell me where you’re going.”

  There was a tense silence. They looked challengingly at each other while Skandar watched, ready to attack if Skade showed any sign of hostility.

  She glanced quickly at him, and then looked at Arren again. “I was looking for a cave.”

  “A cave?” said Arren. “What sort of cave?”

  “Have you ever heard of a spirit cave?” said Skade.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “There is more than one spirit cave,” said Skade. “I was looking for one that is said to be near the Northgate Mountains. It is a magical place.”

  “Why are you looking for it?” said Arren.

  “The spirits of the dead dwell inside it,” said Skade. “The cave has magic. It can do things no griffin can do. Answer questions. Give guidance. Reveal the future. And . . . it can heal a soul.”

  “Heal a soul?” said Arren. “How? Is it a holy place or something?”

  “No,” Skade hissed. “It is a griffish place. Griffins have no gods. The magic of a spirit cave can undo other magics. It can remove even the most powerful curse.”

  Arren froze. “Curse? What sort of curse?”

  “Any that is woven by a griffin,” said Skade. “Even a death curse.”

  His hands closed around the now-cold meat, squashing it. “Where is this place?”

  “It does not matter,” said Skade. “I am not going there now. I have been travelling toward it for more than a year, but now I have seen sense. It does not exist.”

  “But it has to,” said Arren. “I mean, how can people talk about—you shouldn’t give in until you know.”

  Skade looked at the ground. “No. My heart tells me it is not there. There is no hope. A griffin’s curse cannot be healed.”

  “Not even by another griffin?” said Arren.

  Skade shook her head. “I do not know.”

  “Take me there,” said Arren. “Let me come with you to this place. I’ll help you, Skade.”

  She looked up, all fire and anger again. “No. I travel alone.”

  “But if we travel together, we can work together,” said Arren. “Protect each other. Help each other find food, keep each other company. And you can travel faster if you’re with me. I think Skandar could carry both of us.”

  “I do not need company,” Skade hissed. “I am not going to this cave.”

  “Well then, where are you going?”

  Skade said nothing.

  “You really do want to find it, don’t you?” said Arren. “Don’t give up. I’ll help you get there, I promise.”

  “Why do you want to go there?” said Skade.

  “Because I want to see it. Why do you want to go there?”

  Silence.

  “You’re cursed, aren’t you?” Arren said softly. “That’s why you’re out here, isn’t it? There’s a curse on you.”

  She snarled softly and looked away.

  “Is that why you look like that?” said Arren.

  “Yes,” Skade said at last.

  “I’ll help you, Skade,” said Arren. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Skade hesitated. “I will . . . think about it.”

  “Thank you,” said Arren.

  He ate the cold offal, not noticing the unpleasant taste. His mind was abuzz. She can take me to this place. We’ll find it together, she and I. I’ll go in there and talk to those spirits, I’ll ask them . . . I’ll ask them to save me.

  He glanced at her and smiled very slightly. She’s beautiful, he thought. In a strange way.

  Skade was watching him. The blackrobe was difficult to read, but she could sense his hopefulness, along with a kind of buried fear. She saw his glance toward her, and her eyes narrowed. You want something, she thought. And I will find out what it is.

  Arren finished eating, and stretched. It was dark now, and he wrapped up the smoked mutton in a scrap of dirty cloth from his pocket and hung it from a tree to protect it from animals. Skandar was already asleep, his back rising and falling gently in time with his breathing.

  “Well,” said Arren, “I’m ready to sleep now. Keep my robe. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Skade watched as he curled up beside the griffin, sheltering under one wing. She was tempted to throw the robe aside—but the night air was cold, and though the garment was very dirty and was trimmed with ragged edges, it was still thick and warm. She wrapped it around her shoulders and watched in the dying firelight as Arren fell asleep. He looked tired, but after a few moments she saw his face crease as if in pain. His lips moved as he muttered something to himself, and one hand twitched.

  Skade lay down by the base of a tree, pulling the robe over her exposed shoulders. In spite of herself she was feeling better now. The food had filled her up, and she was warm. And perhaps, after all, the blackrobe could help her. Perhaps the spirit cave really did exist. Perhaps, when she got to the place she had been striving to reach for so long, the cave would be there after all. I will get there, she thought. I should not have given up. I will find it. And afterward, it will be time for my revenge.

  She looked at Arren again, at his scarred face. She had never seen a Northerner who was not a slave. This one was bolder and far more well-spoken than the rest of his race. And he w
as intelligent, as well. But clearly desperate—for something.

  You will help me, she decided. You and the black griffin. I do not care any more. I will break the curse.

  Arren stirred in his sleep, and his lips formed a single word: falling.

  Skade sighed. You are right to sleep uneasily, she thought. Murderer.

  Skade was still there next morning when Arren woke up. He’d half-expected her to be gone, and when he was woken at dawn by Skandar’s screech the first thing he did was look toward the spot where she’d been lying the previous night. She was there, and stirred when Skandar screeched again, though she didn’t wake. Arren felt curiously relieved to see her.

  Skandar finished his calling and came down to land at the edge of the camp. He stretched and fluttered his wings a few times and then strutted over toward Arren. “We go now?”

  Arren scratched his head. “Not yet. I need to eat first. And”—he looked at Skade—“we have to talk to her.”

  Skandar shook his head irritably. “Why talk?”

  “She hasn’t agreed to help us yet,” said Arren. “I have to talk to her some more and see if she’s made up her mind yet. And if she says no, then I’ll just ask her if she knows which way to go.”

  The black griffin started to preen his feathers, hissing to himself. “Not like. Human smell wrong. Look wrong.”

  “If she can help us, I don’t care what she looks or smells like. Try and be pleasant to her, Skandar.”

  Skandar didn’t reply. Arren left him to sulk and went to check on the sheepskin, which he’d hung from a tree. It was smelly and still a little damp, but it looked to have cured nicely, and he draped it around his shoulders, wool side down, to try to stave off the early-morning chill while he set to work getting breakfast ready. There was still some meat left on the sheep’s carcass that he hadn’t smoked, so he refuelled the fire and cooked it. Skandar, apparently still satisfied from the previous day’s gorging, gnawed on a couple of bones.

  While the meat was cooking, Arren walked back to the pool. It still looked filthy—and it hadn’t been improved at all by his having used it as a tanning solution—so he climbed the rocks by the stream that fed it and followed it for a while until he found a spot where it was a little deeper. He drank from it; the water here was clear and fresh, and the taste of dirt in it didn’t bother him. Once he’d satisfied his thirst, he looked speculatively at his reflection. His face looked thin and grubby, and his beard was a mess. So was his hair. I look ridiculous, he thought glumly.

  Well, he had some time now. He wandered off and picked branches from a soap-bush and took them back to the water’s edge, where he wet his hair, then crushed the leaves. They released an oily sap, and he washed his hair as well as he could with it. The sap helped soften and dislodge some of the dirt, and from his pocket he took a comb—he’d carved it himself, rather crudely, from a piece of wood—and started to try to put his hair into some kind of order. It wasn’t easy. Skandar generally insisted on leaving shortly after dawn and landed when it suited him. Time not spent in the air generally went toward looking for food, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a moment for personal grooming. His hair had worked itself into a horrible mess.

  But he combed away diligently at it until it was as neat as he could make it and then used some more soap-bush sap and his knife to try to do something about his beard. It didn’t work very well: the knife was too blunt to be much good as a razor, and the sap was a pathetically inadequate substitute for real soap. He persisted anyway, removing the moustache that had started to sprout. He hated having hair around his mouth. It made him feel scruffy.

  He cut himself a couple of times before he achieved what he was aiming for: a pointed tuft perched on his chin. He’d only started wearing a beard very recently, but when he checked his reflection again he decided it rather suited him.

  The faint image in the water smiled grimly up at him. Everyone in Cymria could recognise a beard like this one. It was in all the history books, the ones that described the savage Northerners trying to invade from the cold lands beyond the Northgate Mountains centuries ago. Unlike the brown-haired people of the South, the Northerners had never forged an alliance with the griffins. They had come south in great numbers and had waged war with the Southerners, a spectacularly idiotic thing to do. Today, the only surviving Northerners were either slaves or vassals.

  Arren ran his fingers through his still-wet hair. It looked a lot better now. Maybe Skade would take him more seriously if he didn’t look like a beggar.

  Sudden realisation dawned. Arren scrambled to his feet and dashed off, swearing.

  It seemed to take forever to get back to the camp. He stumbled through the trees, still cursing. Idiot! He must have spent half the damn morning mooning over his reflection, and the gods alone knew what could have happened while he was gone.

  He finally reached the clearing and slumped against a tree, panting. Skade was there, awake now and sitting near the fire. Skandar was on the other side of it, and the two of them were glaring at each other.

  Arren came closer. The meat he’d put over the fire was still there, burned to a crisp.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, using griffish.

  Skade turned to look at him. “Where have you been?” she said abruptly.

  “I was—getting a drink,” said Arren. “Why did you let the meat burn?”

  The silver-haired woman nodded toward Skandar. “Your friend would not let me touch it.”

  Arren crouched beside her and pulled the spit out of the ground. He examined the meat, but it was patently obvious that it was inedible. He dumped it in the fire. “Why did you do that?”

  The black griffin clicked his beak. “Your food, not hers.”

  Arren hesitated briefly. He had to concede that made sense. Regardless, he said, “Well, it was for her, too. Now you’ve forced her to let it go to waste. Can’t you stop being a pain in the neck for once?”

  Skandar dug his talons into the ground, obviously aware that he had just been insulted. “You ask,” he snapped. “She tell. Now.”

  Arren groaned inwardly. So much for diplomacy.

  Skade, however, laughed. She had an odd, harsh laugh, but it was sincere enough. “Your friend knows what he wants, doesn’t he?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Arren, reverting to Cymrian. “He doesn’t speak griffish very well, and . . . he’s not very good with people.”

  “I can see that,” said Skade, using Cymrian for the first time since they’d met. She spoke it quite well, but with what Arren easily recognised as an Eastern accent, typical of someone from Withypool or its surrounds.

  Skandar was watching them. Now the griffin suddenly advanced, tail swishing ominously from side to side. “You talk, talk to me,” he hissed.

  His voice was low with anger, and Arren quickly saw that he had made a mistake. He turned to Skade. “Look, Skandar and I have talked,” he said, speaking griffish now, “and we’ve agreed that if you want us to help you, then you have to help us first.”

  Skade glanced quickly at Skandar. “I do need your help,” she said. “I confess that now. And you have been a great help to me already. What exactly do you need me to do for you?”

  “We go North,” Skandar said instantly. “You tell us way.”

  “No,” said Arren. “Not yet. Skade, I want to go to this spirit cave with you. If you’ll let me, I’ll come with you. Afterward, we can go our separate ways.”

  “No,” Skandar rasped. “Norton. You say we go to Norton. Not cave. Norton.”

  “Well, the plan’s changed,” said Arren. “Norton can wait.”

  Skade was giving him a long, slow look. “And why do you want to go there, Taranis?”

  “Because . . .” Arren faltered. “Because there are things I want to see there. If there really are spirits living there, then they could give me guidance. Besides,” he added, with a sudden burst of inspiration, “there’s no reason for you to come with us to Norton. If you
want to be cured of this curse, whatever it is, then we should go to the cave first. What do you say?”

  Skade was silent for a long time. “Agreed,” she said at last. “But there is a problem.”

  “What’s that?” said Arren.

  She fiddled with a lock of her silver hair. “I do not know the way to the cave,” she said. “I am as lost as you are.”

  Arren’s heart sank. “But don’t you know anything about where it’s supposed to be? What it looks like? Anything at all?”

  “It is said to be near a river,” said Skade. “Between two mountains. The legend says it is not far from a place called Healer’s Home, where herbs of every kind grow.”

  Arren scratched his beard. “I’ve never heard of any place like that. But I’ve never been that far north, so—”

  “We could find it by following the river, maybe,” said Skade. “The mountains must be part of the Northgates.”

  “Yes, but there must be dozens of caves in the mountains,” Arren said wretchedly. “How are we supposed to know which one it is?”

  Skade shook her head. “The spirit cave must not be too far from the river. If the Healer’s Home is a village or a city, it would need to be built near water.”

  “Wait a moment,” said Arren. “Healing—does that mean there’s a temple there?”

  “It could,” Skade conceded.

  “Well, if it’s an important place for healers and healing, it makes sense for the priesthood to be running it or at least supporting it,” said Arren. “So if we can find a temple near the river—”

  “What temple?” Skandar interrupted.

  Arren glanced up. “Oh. It’s a building, Skandar. It would have a roof shaped like this”—he made a dome shape with his hands—“and a big gold disc on top.”

  Skade looked thoughtful. “That makes sense. I am willing to try.”

  “We’ll do it, then,” said Arren. “All we have to do is find the river.”