by K J Taylor
“Yes, my lady,” said Arren, suddenly remembering his manners.
“You don’t have to call me that,” Deanne said kindly. She glanced around at the barn’s interior. “It may get a bit boring in here on your own—d’you want something to read? I brought a book with me.”
Arren nodded. Why not?
“All right. I’ll bring it along, and some food as well.”
She came back with a bowl of hot stew in her hand and a book tucked under one arm.
“Here you go,” she said, giving him the stew. “That should warm you up.” She placed the book on the hay bale beside him. “It’s not a bad read at all, quite interesting. It was a present from my son.” The title was A History of the Peoples of Cymria.
Arren took the spoon out of the bowl of stew. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem. I’ll come back later and visit you.”
Deanne left with her griffin beside her, the two of them moving together, almost as if they were one being. Never completely alone.
Arren ate the stew. It was mostly vegetables, with some low-grade meat mixed in, but it tasted fine and was hot. He paused between spoonfuls to check on the black griffin. It was still asleep, perhaps lulled by the rain drumming on the roof. Arren was glad about that. He didn’t want to see those silver eyes staring at him again.
He finished the stew and put the bowl aside. Now that he was alone and had nothing to distract him, there was nothing to stop him thinking. Nothing to keep him from starting to realise the enormity of what had happened.
Eluna was dead.
Arren stared and stared at the black griffin. It had killed her. It had taken away his partner, his protector, his friend. It had taken Eluna. An image of her danced behind his eyes, like lightning in darkness: the wound in her chest, like a massive eye weeping blood. He saw the black griffin’s talons descending on him and heard its screech in his ears. His hands ached for his sword. He imagined bringing the blade down on the black griffin’s neck or driving it into the creature’s flank.
Arren started to reach for his bow. All he had to do was hit it once, in the eye, or maybe the chest. He could say it had woken up and tried to break out. He could say it had lunged at him and that he’d panicked. He could say all sorts of things.
They wouldn’t believe him.
He picked up the bow and took an arrow from the quiver. It was right there, right in front of him, completely helpless. He could kill it in an instant. What did it matter if he got in trouble? He had captured the griffin. It belonged to him now. The owners of the Arena couldn’t complain if he chose not to sell it to them.
Arren stood up and walked slowly toward the cage, drawing the bowstring back tight. He pointed the arrow through the bars, aiming the point at the black griffin’s eye. He couldn’t possibly miss. Just let go, his inner voice whispered. Just let go.
“Arren?”
Arren turned sharply. Deanne, standing in the doorway, flung up a hand. “Arren!”
Her griffin sprang forward, snarling, and Arren realised he was pointing the arrow straight at the griffiner. He hastily relaxed the string and threw the bow aside. “Deanne, I’m sorry. You surprised me.”
The red griffin hissed at him, tail swishing, and Arren bowed low to him. “I am sorry,” he said in griffish. “I did not mean to do that.”
The red griffin eyed him suspiciously for a few moments and then returned to Deanne’s side. She laid a hand on his shoulders but kept her eyes on Arren. “What were you doing?”
Arren went back to the bale of hay and sat down. “I thought it was stirring,” he said.
Deanne glanced at the black griffin, which hadn’t moved an inch since it had fallen asleep. “No need to be so jittery. It’s sound asleep. And you really shouldn’t point an arrow at it like that; you could very easily have let go of the string by accident. And don’t stand so close to the bars. I already warned you about that.”
“Sorry.”
She came over and placed a large iron lantern next to him. “Here. For when it gets dark.”
“Can I have some blankets?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Sorry, I completely forgot. I’d better see about that hammock, too.”
Arren paused as something suddenly occurred to him. “Deanne?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you come here?”
“We came here to deal with the griffin,” said Deanne. “We’d been given the assignment about a week before you suddenly disappeared.”
Arren stared at her. “You mean you knew about it all the way back then?”
“Of course we did. We don’t just rush off on these assignments, you know. They have to be planned first. We left the day after you did.”
“Who told you about it?”
“Lord Rannagon, of course. He always handles things like this. What’s the matter?”
Arren looked away. “I—nothing. Never mind. I was just curious.”
Deanne frowned at him. For a moment she looked as if she was going to say something, but then she turned away, saying, “I’ll just go and get those blankets.”
Arren stared at the book without really seeing it. His mind was racing. What was going on?
9
To Home
The black griffin didn’t wake up for the rest of the day, and by the time night came it was still asleep. It lay very still, its breathing slow and peaceful, its tail twitching from time to time. Plenty of people ventured into the barn to look at it, muttering in astonishment when they saw how huge it was. None of them ventured too close, but Arren kept an eye on them anyway. Some of them tried to talk to him, but his replies were curt and unfriendly, and they quickly realised that he wasn’t interested and left him alone.
He became bored with watching them and opened the book. It was a beautiful thing; the pages were high-quality parchment, and the writing on them was neat and done in fine black ink. There were illustrations, too. He turned the pages carefully, skimming through the information on them. There was a section for each of Cymria’s regions and their different customs. Eagleholm. Withypool. Wylam. Can-ran. He turned a page and came across the section about Northerners.
A picture stared up at him. It was of a man, tall and sinewy, with pale skin. He was clad in a long black robe, which was open at the front to reveal a narrow, scarred chest and a pair of black leggings. His hair was black and decorated with feathers and bone discs, and he had long fingers and a thin, angular face painted with blue spirals. He had a small, pointed beard and carried a long spear in one hand. The eyes were black and stared coldly straight at Arren.
Arren sighed and, in spite of himself, started to read the text on the next page.
The people of the North, also known as the “darkmen” or “blackrobes,” live in an icy and inhospitable part of the country. They are a primitive race, noted for their savage and heathen ways and for their cruelty in battle. They worship the dark Night God and speak a harsh, crude language, but have neither the wit nor culture for writing or art. Their songs and legends are barbaric and unsophisticated, full of tales of battle and slaughter, and unlike the other people of Cymria, they are not unified but constantly fight amongst themselves.
After the coming of the griffiners and the creation of a united nation under their rule, the blackrobes attempted to make forays into the warmer lands of the South but were driven back. War ensued, and the griffiners led a massive assault on the North which became known as the Blackrobe War. The blackrobes were soundly defeated and their cities destroyed. Most were massacred, but many others were taken back to the South as slaves.
Very few free blackrobes now survive in Cymria, and in fact the very name “blackrobe” has become synonymous with “slave.” And yet blackrobes have achieved many great things in the modern age. They were responsible for the building of most of the great griffiner cities, including Eagleholm, Withypool, Can-ran and Wylam. Woodger’s Dam was also the work of blackrobe slaves, and indeed the dam is said to have been named after a blackrobe who dr
owned in it shortly after the wall was completed.
That was all it said, but there were some other illustrations: pictures of a row of black-robed men and women, their wrists shackled together, slave collars clamped around their necks, carrying heavy rocks to a half-completed dam wall, and another of them hauling huge split logs up a mountainside. He recognised the mountain and the lake half-hidden behind it. They were building Eagleholm.
And there was a detailed illustration of a slave collar, a thick metal band hinged so it could be opened and closed. The inside of it was studded with sharp metal spikes. When the collar was put on, the spikes would be driven into the wearer’s neck—not deeply enough to kill or seriously injure, but deeply enough to cause constant pain. Any attempt to remove the collar would only make it hurt more. A perfect device to kill someone’s spirit.
Arren slammed the book shut and dumped it on the hay beside him. He couldn’t bear to have it so close and finally stuffed it down the side of the bale and out of sight.
He looked up. People were staring at him.
“What are you looking at?” he demanded.
His outburst provoked several shocked looks, but no-one answered. They moved away from him, and most of them left the barn altogether. Arren retrieved his bow and sat down cross-legged with the weapon lying across his lap, glowering at anyone who looked in his direction. Eventually the last of the spectators left, and he was alone with the black griffin, still sleeping in its cage.
The sun was going down, and darkness was gathering in the barn. Arren stayed where he was, not bothering to light the lantern. He had good night vision. Always had done.
His anger didn’t last. He looked down at his hands. The fingers were long and thin and sprinkled with black hairs. A blackrobe’s hands.
Arren rubbed his eyes. Misery and despair were starting to close in on him, bringing a blackness over his mind as the shadows gathered around him. Eluna was dead. He wasn’t a griffiner any more. Now he was . . . what?
Nothing. He was nothing now. With Eluna gone, he felt more alone than he had ever been in his life. For as long as he could remember she had been there beside him, guiding him. She was his friend, but more than that she had defined his very identity.
Without Eluna, Arren felt his world crumbling to pieces around him.
The black griffin sighed in its cage. Arren looked at it. He could just see it, a black, hunched mass in the gloom, moving up and down slightly as it breathed.
The black griffin would never fly again. Not in the Arena. They would cut its feathers and chain its wings together. They even cut the wings off some of the wild griffins they used in the pit, or so some people claimed.
How long would it survive? Some wild griffins lived in the cages under the Arena for years before they finally died—from stress or starvation, or in the Arena. Or from despair. Plenty of people disliked the Arena, particularly griffiners. But there was little chance of it being shut down in the near future. It generated too much money, and people liked it too much. If it was removed, there would probably be riots.
It was too dark to see anything now, but Arren continued to stare at the spot where the wild griffin lay. It had killed humans, and now its punishment would be to kill more of them. In a way, this griffin would soon become a slave just like Arren’s parents had been.
Kept alive because it had a use, and fated to die on the day that its usefulness ran out.
“You poor bastard,” Arren muttered.
No-one had brought him the hammock he’d asked for, so he slept on the bale of hay. It was uncomfortable, but he was too exhausted to notice much. He slept fitfully, constantly disturbed by brief snatches of bad dreams. Bits of memory replaying themselves in his mind. His chest hurt, preventing him from lying on his side, and when he woke up shortly before dawn he decided to give up the struggle and stop trying to sleep. He sat up and checked on the griffin. It still hadn’t moved, but he could see it beginning to stir. The drug had worn off.
Arren sat with a blanket around his shoulders, sagging a little with tiredness, and resumed watching his charge.
The black griffin woke up slowly; he could see it moving its head. The light of the rising sun was coming in through the high window of the barn, all grey and sleepy, making everything colourless. The griffin finally seemed to revive, and made an attempt to get up. The ropes around its legs must have loosened slightly, because it managed to half-stand and turn itself around in the cage. It slumped down again, its head now turned toward Arren. He could see it watching him.
“Good morning,” he said in griffish, without really thinking about it.
The black griffin blinked and raised its head a little. “You . . . human?” it rasped.
Arren started a little. It hadn’t really occurred to him that the thing could speak. “Yes,” he said.
“You . . . kill?” said the griffin.
“I don’t understand,” said Arren. “Kill what? Kill you?”
The black griffin blinked slowly. It still looked rather sluggish. “Human kill,” it said eventually.
“You killed humans,” said Arren. “We should kill you, but we won’t. You’re coming with me. To Eagleholm.”
“Eagle . . . home?”
The black griffin spoke griffish slowly and clumsily, as if it was a chick. Arren watched it curiously. “Do you have a name?” he asked.
“Name?” the griffin repeated dully.
“You know,” said Arren. “A name. What are you called?”
The black griffin just stared at him.
Arren persisted. He placed a hand on his chest. “Arren Cardockson,” he said.
More staring.
“That’s my name. My name is Arren. Arren,” he repeated, touching his chest.
“Ah . . . rin?” said the black griffin.
Arren could see he wasn’t getting through. “Can’t you speak properly?”
The black griffin seemed to understand that. “Not speak. Not . . . know.”
“You don’t know how?”
The griffin started to bite at the ropes holding its forelegs together. Arren reached for his bow, but it gave up a few moments later and rested its head on the ground in front of it. “Want . . . fly,” it said plaintively.
“You can’t,” said Arren.
The black griffin started up suddenly and screamed at him. “Want fly!”
Arren snatched up his bow and nocked an arrow onto it, pointing it at the griffin. “Sit down!” he snapped. “Sit down or I’ll hurt you.”
The griffin hurled itself at the bars, making the whole cage shake. “Kill!” it screamed at him. “I kill! I kill human!”
Arren got up and came toward it, pointing the arrow at its open beak. “I said sit down!”
The griffin ignored him. It jammed its head between two of the bars and started to snap its beak at him, still screaming threats.
Arren loosed the arrow. It hit the griffin in the shoulder, and the creature screamed and reeled, its pinioned wings jerking as it tried to fly away. Arren reloaded the bow. “Lie down, or I’ll do it again. Now!”
The black griffin stopped abruptly, eyeing him. Arren gestured meaningfully at it with the arrow, and the creature subsided back onto the floor.
“All right,” Arren said softly. “I’ll take that arrow out of your shoulder. But if you move . . .”
He laid the bow down, moving slowly and carefully, and reached through the bars. The griffin watched him but didn’t move, and he took hold of the arrow-shaft and pulled it out with one quick motion. The black griffin screeched and bit him. Arren smacked it in the eye with the back of his hand and then pulled his arm out of the cage. The black griffin hissed and shook its head at him, its eye half-closed.
Arren pointed at it, ignoring the blood dripping from his arm. “I am not afraid of you,” he told it in a low voice. “And if you try that again, I will make you sorry.”
The griffin couldn’t possibly understand all of what he’d said, but the stern voice
and steady gaze were enough. It stared back, glaring, trying to scare him, but he held firm and didn’t blink or look away. In the end, the griffin looked at the ground in a gesture of defeat.
Arren felt strangely confident. He’d been among griffins all his life, and he knew how to deal with one that was being aggressive. He could deal with this one. “That’s better,” he told it. “I’ll bring you some food. If you’re gentle with me, I’ll be gentle with you.”
“Arren, what’s going on?”
Arren turned. It was Tamran, looking rather tousled, with his griffin beside him.
He straightened up. “The drug’s worn off,” he said, reverting to Cymrian. “It started getting a bit worked up—had to threaten it. Sorry it woke you up.”
Tamran rubbed his eyes. “’Sall right, Keea wanted feeding anyway. Did you sleep?”
Arren shook his head. “We should probably feed it now,” he said, gesturing at the cage and its occupant.
Tamran yawned. “Yes, yes, I’ll have something sent along.” He turned and shuffled out.
“Could I please have—” Arren began, but the other griffiner had gone. He returned to his seat.
No-one came until well after sunrise. When the sun was up, the owner of the barn came to check on him.
Arren stood up. “Excuse me, could you help me, please?”
“Yes, sir,” said the man. “What can I do for you?”
“I need something to eat. And some food for the griffin.”
The man cast a murderous look at the creature. “I don’t understand why you’re keeping it alive, sir. What use is it?”
“I came here to catch it, not kill it. I have a debt to pay. I’m going to take it back to Eagleholm and sell it to the owners of the Arena. It’ll spend the rest of its life disembowelling criminals.”
“They really do that with them, sir?”
“Yes. Will you please get me some food?”
“Yes, sir.” The man left.
He returned a while later with bread and apples and fresh milk. Arren tucked in very gratefully. “What about the griffin?” he asked between bites.