by P B Hughes
“All right what?” Daniel asked, raising his head.
“This looks like a good place for you to take flight.”
Daniel’s heart leapt into his throat. He looked over to his classmates who leaned out of the wagon, eager with anticipation. All save Jude who returned his gaze with a smile of smug satisfaction.
“I don’t think this is the best place for a take-off,” said Daniel. “Maybe further down the road.”
Mordecai scowled. “The road slopes down after a few miles, so you won’t have the elevation. I think this will do.”
Daniel tried to swallow, his mouth as dry as cotton. “Shade’s a bit tired, honestly. The last few days have been rough on her, so it’s best she walk for now,” he said, hoping to sound authoritative.
“Nonsense,” replied Mordecai, “gryphons are meant to fly. I’m sure she’d love to stretch her wings.”
As if on command, Shade unfurled her wings. She did a turn and leapt onto the highway railing with catlike balance.
“Traitor,” Daniel muttered.
“It would appear she’s ready to begin,” said Jude. “Go on Daniel; demonstrate the trick you mentioned. Now, what was it again?” he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Oh, I remember,” he said with a snap, “the quadruple aerial flip. Show us that one.”
Daniel felt heat rush into his face. He knew Jude was enjoying this, and he loathed him for it. Flying was never his idea in the first place. He had been minding his own business, peering over the cliff, when Shade darted between his legs and sprang into the sky. The taste of bile filled his mouth. A trial by fire, and if he failed he’d be nothing but a splat against the valley floor. He shot Jude the dirtiest look he could muster, determined to not let him win.
“Come on,” he said to Shade between gritted teeth. “You’re the one who got me into this mess. Now let’s fly.” She didn’t move. Instead she tilted her head back and chirruped like a small bird.
“Ah hem,” said Mrs. Doppledodger. “Boy, you might want to try climbing on her back.”
Daniel’s face reddened. “I know that,” he replied. “Of course I know that.”
Mrs. Doppledodger raised an eyebrow. “You know, Mordecai,” she said quite loudly, “gryphon riding is interesting. You can still ride them if you don’t have reigns, bridle, or bit—which is what I’m sure Daniel is about to demonstrate for us.”
“Mm, interesting,” said Mordecai.
“Yes, gryphons are quite intelligent. You can still give them vocal commands—‘hai’ for bank right, ‘lu’ for bank left.”
Daniel heard Mrs. Doppledodger’s instructions, and suddenly he realized she was not saying this for the benefit of Mordecai. She knew he couldn’t fly. He wasn’t quite sure how, but she knew.
“Okay, come on Shade,” said Daniel as he took her by the collar and pulled her onto the road, leading her to no place in particular. “Let’s do our thing.”
Daniel tried to swing his leg over the top of her back, but she blocked him with her wing.
“Shade, now what?” Daniel hissed in her ear. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“See—now he’s got to give her the proper command,” Mrs. Doppledodger lectured. “He’ll have to say, skyward!”
Mordecai shot Mrs. Doppledodger an irritated glance. “I know you know, Dorothy. Let the boy show me.”
“Right,” said Daniel over his shoulder. “Shade—skyward!”
Shade’s wings shot out and she crouched down.
Daniel grinned and climbed over her back. “So that’s the secret, huh?” he whispered as he clutched her collar “If you want me to keep you, you have to cooperate.” Daniel waited for Mrs. Doppledodger’s next command.
“I remember the first time I had to say, ‘Yi-hup!’ to take off,” said Mrs. Doppledodger loudly.
That was all Daniel needed. “Just don’t let me die,” he said in Shade’s ear. He locked his gaze straight ahead and shouted, “Yi-hup!”
Shade bound forward—graceful, catlike—a smooth, liquid ride. With a leap and several beats of her wings, they went over the side of the railing and were airborne. A scream rose in Daniel’s throat, but he did not loose it. He closed his eyes, bit his lip, and hunched down.
“Not too high,” Daniel said as they soared upward. Immediately Shade leveled off. He popped one eye open and he looked down at the ground. A rising feeling of sickness replaced his former scream. They weren’t that high, he thought, but still too high for his liking. He dared a look over his shoulder. The wagons were moving down the road and they were headed out of sight.
“Lu,” he said. Shade turned slightly to the left. “Lu,” he said again, and again she turned left. He kept this up until they were flying in a wide circle around the caravan below.
Hours later, when the cloud-filled sky had turned pink and crimson, a bright, pulsating spark shot across the sky from the ground below. Daniel watched as it rose from the caravan to above his head; it vanished for split second and burst with a crackle.
“That’s Mrs. Doppledodger’s signal,” Daniel said, patting Shade’s neck. “Let’s go.”
They swooped down and landed next to the wagons alongside the river, now as red as the sky above. At first Daniel could barely climb off of Shade’s back—his limbs stiff, back aching. The other children were out stretching their legs, chasing each other in a rousing game of tag. Jude seemed to be doing his best to ignore their quibbling, lying propped against a wagon wheel, lost in his book. Daniel tried to catch his eye to give him a triumphant grin, but Jude paid no heed. Daniel tied Shade to the back of the wagon and stroked her beneath the beak.
“Thanks for not getting me killed,” he said softly.
“Excellent flying up there, Daniel,” Mordecai called out from behind one of the wagons. He pulled out a bundle from inside and hefted it over his shoulder, cheeks flushed. “I was starting to think you were trying to deceive me, but you proved me wrong.” His eyes went wide as a flaming log went rolling past them. “Gregory—I thought I told you to use a flame stream to light that fire, not a fireball!”
“But fireballs are easier,” said Gregory as he chased the log. “Doesn’t require as much concentration to—”
Mordecai’s steely gaze froze the remainder of Gregory’s sentence in his throat.
“Right. Flame stream it is next time.” Gregory stuck out his toe and nudged the log back toward the campfire.
Martha stood nearby, knee deep in the river, gripping a training staff in her left hand. A haphazard knot of hair lay upon her head, loose strands falling lazily about her face. Her sandy eyes were locked on the river bottom in deep concentration. Suddenly, she cupped her hand and jerked her wrist upward. A blob of water rose up from the river. She squinted at it, then let if fall back down with a splash.
“How’s the fishing coming, Martha?” Daniel asked.
“Terrible,” Gregory answered for her as he placed another log on the pile. “She hasn’t caught a single fish and it’s been nearly half an hour.”
“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Martha shot with a scowl as she pulled another empty blob from the river. “These fish are so quick.”
“Try to anticipate their movements,” Daniel coached. “Tease the water behind them while simultaneously pulling the water from in front of them—it should frighten the fish into your sphere.”
Martha bit her lip, looking rather annoyed with the both of them. Nevertheless, she waved her staff and scooped her hand; out of the water raised another ball, a catfish wriggling inside.
“She got one!” cried Gregory as he shot a spray of fire from his staff onto the pile of logs. Smoke filled the air as the damp branches hissed and crackled. “It’s a bloody miracle.”
Martha spun her hand and the sphere of water went sailing straight at the unsuspecting Gregory.
“I thought we were all going to starve for having to wait so long—” The sphere exploded in Gregory’s face, the catfish’s tail slapping him on the nose.
Gregory clinched his fi
st and hunched his shoulders. Slowly, he turned and cast an evil eye at Martha.
“Whoops,” said Martha as she pulled another fish from the water, her mouth turned in a half smile. “Clumsy me. Oh, and thanks for the tip, Daniel. This is much easier. Gregory, be a dear and nab the fish for me before it flops back into the river.”
As soft-spoken and shy as Martha was, Daniel noticed the ease with which she dealt with Gregory, in stark contrast to the girl who never spoke a word as a child. He remembered the little girl who arrived at Littleton with glassy eyes, a husk of what a child should be. It was tragedy that had stolen her speech, and hers was a story that made Daniel’s blood chill.
Martha was born to a fishing family in an icy town off the northeastern coast. She was only five-years-old when the boats with black sails appeared—a fleet of men and goblins—ominous, depraved, and free. They called themselves the Raiders of the Severed Skull. The ships lingered in the harbor at first, where they sat like silent beasts stalking their prey. For three days they remained with no sign of life aboard—no signal, no word. The villagers finally sent a small dingy to check on it for fear disease had taken their crews. In the mist of the fourth morning, the fisherman’s boat floated back to shore filled with nothing but dead men’s bones. Then murderers came, crawling up from the sea like crabs, over the pebbled beach and up the docks that cold, grey-sky morning—pillaging, massacring. Their faces were white like skulls, the skin around their eyes inked as black as the deepest well. The villagers were armed, though the raider’s amphibious landing caught them unawares.
Martha saw her parents cut down before her very eyes by a man that kicked down the door of their home. He looked more like a gaunt sea creature, she had said, wielding a butcher’s cleaver.
When the man turned on her, it was then that Martha discovered her powers. A blast of water erupted through the floor of her home built on the docks, sending the man through the roof. Then, Martha crawled beneath the rubble, her ears filled with the screams of her people.
She was found days later by the Imperial Guard…the only survivor.
Daniel remembered how hard he had tried to get her to speak to him. After hearing Mordecai tell her story, he felt for her a deep and genuine sorrow. He had never known his own parents, though he counted himself fortunate that he hadn’t witnessed their deaths. But she refused to say a word for close to a year, not even to Mordecai. It wasn’t until Gregory arrived at Littleton that she final started talking. Gregory himself would barely speak to anyone except Martha, yet to her he would drone on for hours. Likely because he gave her time to heal, Daniel thought. Gregory’s not one to pry.
He must have put her at ease, for it wasn’t but a month before she was communicating with the rest of them. For they all had at least one thing in common: they were orphans, and to that they could relate.
When Martha’s back was turned, her focus back on fishing, Daniel watched with amusement as devilish delight bloomed on Gregory’s face. Gregory reached down, his hand the harbinger of vengeance as he picked the fish from off the ground and took aim at Martha.
“Martha, look out,” Daniel called.
Before Gregory could release the slimy projectile, however, the fish gave a violent flail, slipping from his grip and smacking him across the mouth.
Daniel and Martha burst out laughing.
“Oh, Gregory,” said Martha between fits, “that was quite possibly the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.” Tears went streaming down her face as she doubled over, a hand on her knee, her staff propping her up.
Gregory covered his mouth. “It cut me!” he cried, glowering down at the fish. “The blasted bugger cut me with its fin.”
Martha’s laughter stopped and her expression changed to one of compassion. “Oh, I—I’m so sorry, Gregory,” she said, sloshing toward him. “Really, I didn’t know. Let me have a look at it.”
She stepped up on a rock and presented her hand to Gregory to help her up onto the bank. Gregory reached out, but before she could grasp it, he yanked his hand away revealing his uncut mouth for her to see.
Martha plunged face first into the water. This time it was Gregory’s turn to laugh as Martha came up sputtering, a hat of green moss upon her head.
“Daniel,” Mordecai called out from behind them, as Martha hurled reprimands at Gregory. “A word.”
For a moment, Daniel’s heart stopped, worried Mordecai had found out about Shade.
“Mrs. Doppledodger asked if you wouldn’t mind helping her set up her tent.”
Daniel shot a look over to Mrs. Doppledodger, relief flooding him. She sat on the lip of the wagon, puffing on a long, skinny pipe.
“Of course,” said Daniel, glad he could return the favor for the help she had given him earlier.
“Good,” said Mrs. Doppledodger, taking another puff and climbing down. “Let’s get to it then.”
Daniel followed Mrs. Doppledodger to where her tent lay flat on the ground.
“I’m surprised you didn’t get yourself killed,” she said quietly.
Daniel coughed. “You shouldn’t be—I’m an excellent flyer, I’ve been told.”
“Told by a nincompoop, I’d wager—you’re as clumsy a flyer as I’ve ever seen.”
Daniel felt the heat rise to his face. “Good enough,” Daniel cast a wary glance at Mordecai who seemed to be preoccupied with laying fish across the now blazing fire, “for only my second time in the air.”
“To be sure, to be sure,” she replied between puffs. “Although, you’re no prodigy. First prize in a contest indeed. And you’ll score no points for lying.”
“All right, all right,” Daniel said, looking around to make sure no one heard. “Are you going to tell?”
“My dear boy,” she said incredulously, “You must think little of me if you think I’d turn you in.”
“But you said—”
“Never mind what I said. If I was going to turn you in I would have done it long ago. And I also wouldn’t have assisted you when I saw you making a fool of yourself.”
Daniel looked down at her a moment to check her sincerity. “I suppose it was fairly obvious then.”
“No—not obvious to someone who knows nothing of gryphon riding. But try to fool an expert,” a smile formed on the edge of her mouth, “and you look like the fool.”
“You’re an expert gryphon rider?”
“I was Imperial Champion twenty-two years running, back in my prime,” she said. “And I actually have the ribbons to prove it.”
“I had to lie. Mordecai wouldn’t let me keep her otherwise.”
“You never have to tell a lie, boy,” said Mrs. Doppledodger as she pulled out a wooden mallet from a large sack. She picked up a tent peg and poked it in Daniel’s direction. “Lying is the easy way out of difficult situations—but a lie will always come back to haunt you.” She drove the tent peg into the ground with a swift whack. “It takes time to build trust. But it takes only a single lie to tear it down. When Mordecai finds out you lied to him, and believe me he will, you’ll break his trust.”
Daniel glanced at Mordecai nervously. “But what if he makes me sell her?”
“He might—though I doubt he will. I believe Shade was a gift to you, so it’s my opinion that she’s already yours.”
“A gift? A gift from whom?”
“The fairies, boy. They sought you out, took you to her, and presented her to you as a gift. Fairies do that you know,” she drove another peg into the ground, “for kind travelers.”
Daniel looked over to Shade, who lay curled up, snoozing beneath the wagon.
“I never expected I’d get a gryphon as a gift.”
“A fairy’s gift is never what you’d expect.” Mrs. Doppledodger looked upward thoughtfully. “But always what you need.”
She drove the last peg into the ground, lifted up the tent canvas by the edge, and crawled underneath. Suddenly, her tent rose up as she hoisted the center pole into the air.
“But know this,” s
he said from inside the tent, “a blackwing is a rare beast—the rarest in the gryphon family. The Emperor himself was said to have owned one. Their fur makes them more valuable dead than alive, which is why I’d rather not see her sold. She’ll catch the eye of the wrong kind of people. People like Rasta Murk. Some might even try to take her from you.”
“I’d like to see them try,” said Daniel.
“That’s the attitude I like to hear,” said Mrs. Doppledodger as she stuck her gray head out of the tent flap. “In the meantime, I’ll teach you to fly. It’s a short trip, but in a few weeks time I think you’ll get enough practice in to be proficient.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Of course I mean it. Dorothy Doppledodger never says anything she doesn’t mean.”
Daniel could not believe his good fortune—he would be trained to ride by an expert, and by the time he arrived at Brightcastle he would be a full-fledged gryphon rider.
His excitement was suspended for a moment as he caught another look at Mordecai.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“I guess I should tell Mordecai the truth.”
“That’s entirely up to you,” she said, staring straight into Daniel’s eyes. “In the meantime, I’m going to bed. Goodnight!”
With that, she retreated into her tent.
Chapter 12
The sound of Shade’s eagle cry pierced through the clouds above, proud and daring, a mock to those left crawling across the ground. From his seat at the front of the wagon, Gregory spied Daniel hunched on the gryphon’s back as they streaked across the sky. It was a glorious sight to behold—Shade’s black fur rippling in the wind, raven-wings fanned, her tail streaming behind. Gregory bit his lip, envy seeping into his spirit like mire through a sewer pipe. Daniel always had the talent, and now he had the fairy’s gift, too.
At first, Daniel’s good fortune didn’t bother Gregory. Daniel had to be up long before the sun—a monstrous hour Gregory deemed unfit for anyone to experience except beneath a pile of warm blankets. By the time Gregory’s eyes opened in the morning, Daniel was already up in the sky—practicing all he’d learned from Mrs. Doppledodger’s lectures. The woman’s badgering alone was enough to make the thought of riding repulsive to Gregory. He was fine where he was: safe on the ground.