The Golden Griffin (Book 3) Page 2

  Darik didn’t need the magic trail to follow the path through the weeds. It crossed the field, a ditch, and then came onto a rutted farm lane that ran behind a hedgerow about the height of a man’s shoulder. Here, he picked up the magic trail again, this time headed north, in parallel with the King’s Road for a stretch.

  He followed it for twenty minutes. It had rained the previous night, and water filled the ruts in the farm lane. With the magic trail clear enough, he didn’t pay the ruts close enough attention at first, but there were fresh horse prints in the mud, and since he hadn’t seen any riders all day, he climbed down to have a look.

  The prints were heavy and plodding. The shoes were worn. They came from a workhorse. One of the shoes left a lighter imprint, and he remembered suddenly the horse the thief’s brother had ridden when he’d tracked down the Knights Temperate to beg their aid. It had favored the front left leg, pain seemingly earned from years of dragging a plow.

  And suddenly Darik knew what had happened. The brother had either ridden after the thief or met at some prearranged spot. Once united, the thief threw aside his oath—uttered in bad faith—to seek Sanctuary for his crimes. The two men were on their way together to—what? Hide from justice? Seek out a band of thieves on the Old Road?

  Wherever it was, they wouldn’t get there quickly riding double on the back of an old plow horse.

  Darik stepped up to his own mount and rested a hand on the pommel of his sword, strapped to the side of the saddle. Two men. One had lost an arm in the war. He could handle them easily. But should he, that was the question.

  It had only been two months since his flight from slavery in Balsalom. Since then he’d found himself in the heart of a huge war, consulting with kings, khalifas and wizards. Flying griffins, battling dragons wasps. Learning magic and skill with the sword. He’d cast aside the boy he’d been and his childish passions and rages as if they’d been a ratty cloak.

  And yet he somehow felt weaker, less confident. As a slave, he’d been bold and certain. As a Knight Temperate, he was cautious and afraid of his own judgment.

  It was almost evening. His quarry was at least an hour ahead of him, maybe two. Darik wasn’t excited at the thought of following the magic trail in the dark, but he didn’t see a way around it.

  As he picked up the pace, he rested his right hand—now stronger—on the pommel of his sword. He’d named it Waspcleaver before the battle with the dragon wasps. He’d done a fair share of cleaving in the skies over Sleptstock and the Citadel. Tonight, it would do a different duty.

  Tonight it would cut thieves.

  Chapter Two

  Daria Flockheart climbed onto the griffin’s back, grabbed the reins, and urged him toward the window. Joffa keened, muscles tensing, wings flexing. He tossed his head and pulled, anxious to take to the air.

  “I mean it,” Daria’s mother said from the top of the staircase to her rear. “If you’re not back by dark, I’m coming after you.”

  Palina Flockheart was in her mid-forties, still striking, even with gray beginning to show in her thick black hair. She was slender and carried herself with the easy grace of an acrobat, a woman who could lean from the bare back of a griffin five thousand feet above the forest to grapple with an enemy mid-flight. Daria’s temperament may have come from her father, but everyone said she looked like her mother.

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” Daria said. “I told you where I’m going, now let me be.”

  “And I’m telling you that I saw two dragon wasps in the foothills. Can’t you smell the smoke? Something is happening. It’s not safe.”

  “It’s never safe, Mother. But what kind of leader would I be if I cowered in my aerie whenever there was trouble?”

  “Then let me come with you.”

  “Not tonight, Mother.”

  Her mother looked hard at Joffa. “You’ve packed bags. Where are you going?”

  “Never mind. You can fly if you’d like, but don’t come chasing me, I mean it.”

  Daria didn’t wait for her mother to further question her about the packed bags, but dug her heels into Joffa’s haunches. He leaped from the window with a scream. Her stomach dropped away, then the griffin got his wings out and she soared up and over the pine trees that grew around the tower.

  Mother. Why couldn’t she move back into her own tower?

  There was a reason Daria’s parents had never lived under the same roof, even as they’d raised two daughters together. As a child, Daria had preferred time with her father, who was quieter and difficult in his own way, to Mother, who kept a strict set of rules. Now that Father was dead, Palina had insisted on moving into her husband’s larger tower, where she wanted to rule the aerie and her daughter alike. Never mind that Daria was the flockheart and commanded dozens of riders and griffins. In the aerie, Mother thought she was in charge. Every day, it was something different.

  Today, the argument was about flatlanders. “Leave them be,” Mother had insisted. “Let them fight their wars. If the dragons return, we’ll deal with them. Until then, it’s none of our business.”

  Daria was up over the rocky crags of the Dragon’s Spine before she was sure that her mother hadn’t taken to the skies to follow. It was colder up top, with fresh snow on the highest peaks. Daria wore a fur cloak and ermine-lined gloves, but the wind stung her cheeks and sent her knotted black hair flapping like a griffin’s tail.

  To the right lay the khalifates, fading into darkness as the world of Mithyl turned away from the sun. Sand and brown hills. She caught a glimpse of the hulking ruins of an old castle deep in the Desolation of Toth, and the twinkle of torchlight along the Tothian Way. More armies on the march. Somewhere in that direction was the mighty walled city of Balsalom. She had flown above its towers, seen its unbelievable maze of streets and markets, the hundreds—no, thousands—of people living there.

  Before the war, Daria had never seen more than a few dozen people together at one time, and that only rarely. She had gone for months at a stretch without speaking to another soul but her own family, and sometimes only to her father. During the war her natural suspicion of flatlanders had turned to fear as she saw their brutality and bent for destruction.

  She crested the massive range, and suddenly the green fields and forests of the Free Kingdoms sprawled to the west. From this height and distance, Eriscoba looked peaceful, even serene. The golden sunshine of late afternoon bathed the land. But the collection of semi-independent kingdoms, eorldoms, duchies, and freeholds was only a few weeks removed from a horrific battle that had seen the death of thousands. Even the ranks of the griffin riders had been decimated in the struggle. Mother was not alone in demanding that the people of the mountains remove themselves from the struggle.

  We’ve done our duty. We are few and cannot survive such losses. Let others fight.

  This wasn’t a pleasure ride. Daria glanced over her shoulder one last time to make sure that her mother wasn’t winging after her. Then she hooked over into the windward side of the range and came in low to follow a gorge that carried a tributary of the Thorft River.

  She flew above fields, paying no attention to flocks of sheep that scattered or to Joffa’s hungry stare after them. A boy with a shepherd’s crook stared up at her with bugging eyes and she smiled and waved. He ran crying for his house, arms waving. It was hard to tell if he was thrilled or terrified. Minutes later, a horseman on the road spotted her and galloped after her, trying in vain to pace the griffin. She quickly left him behind.

  Daria laughed in delight every time she saw a flatlander. She hadn’t left the mountains in weeks, and it was thrilling to see these strange people and their reactions. Of course she kept a sharp eye for bowmen. A single lucky arrow would ruin her day. And she couldn’t help but watch for Darik, even if she knew the odds of spotting him were slim.

  It was warmer down here, and she loosened the string at her neck to let the air blow through her tunic. It lifted the pendant at her neck with its green stone, and sh
e tucked it back in against her breast.

  Daria flew over the lowlands for about an hour until she was north of the highest peaks. They were infested with giants, who chucked rocks at griffin riders with alarming accuracy. Between the giants and the wild griffins that hunted in flocks in the mountains north of the Tothian Way, her people rarely ventured north of the road, and rarely alone.

  It was soon dark and she kept flying. Her eyes were sharp, but she was still human, and so she flew higher than usual to avoid crashing into the trees or slamming into the side of a hill. Back up over the mountains, with the day’s warmth bleeding rapidly this late in the season, she soon shivered with cold. She wrapped the reins around her hands to keep from losing her grip.

  Joffa was struggling. He was a young griffin in the prime of his stamina, but they had been flying for at least three hours, and there was no way she could make the entire journey in a single night. Hence, the saddlebags.

  Daria swooped low over the trees until she found a clearing in the woods. She brought Joffa in for a landing. When he was down, he squatted with haunches heaving. She dismounted and removed three rabbits from her saddlebags that she’d trapped the previous night. Joffa gulped two of them, then eyed the third and keened.

  “I know you’re hungry. but I have to eat, too.” She pushed his beak away. “I’m serious. Behave yourself. We can hunt in the morning.”

  Daria got the rabbit spitted over a small cook fire, then returned to rub down Joffa. Together, they searched for a tree with a sturdy trunk and strong branches. They’d be safer spending the night in the canopy than on the ground. When that was taken care of, she fetched a few things from the saddlebags, and returned to the fire. The rabbit was almost done.

  Something rustled in the brush. She drew one of the slender blades at her side and was in a crouch and prepared before it emerged. It was a large badger that eyed her with curiosity as it sniffed the air.

  Daria sheathed the sword. “You could get hurt that way, friend. Oh, and I suppose you want some of my supper, too.” She broke off a piece of bread and held out her hand. “Here, I can spare some of this. No?” She popped the bread into her mouth. “Well, you’re not getting my rabbit, so forget it.”

  She expected the badger to wander off, but instead it stood on its back feet. Then it seemed to be stretching. Growing. Daria’s eyes widened and when she blinked, a man with a gray beard stood in front of her. A wizard. She shrank back in alarm, then saw it was only Narud.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “I might ask you the same thing.” Narud licked his lips. “The truth is, I smelled cooking rabbit and got hungry.”

  She sniffed. “I wasn’t going to share with a badger, and I’m certainly not going to give it to a wizard. I’ve been traveling all afternoon and evening and I’m starved. Can’t you forage your own supper?”

  He pulled a pouch from his cloak and opened it for her to see. It was filled with mushrooms, leeks, and wild carrots. “I did. Or at least, part of a supper.”

  “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? How about rabbit stew?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  She removed the rabbit from the fire and gingerly picked off the steaming meat. She put it in a pot with Narud’s vegetables, and collected water from a nearby stream. About twenty minutes later they had a nice-size meal for two. Then a second wizard showed up. It was Markal, huffing and bending over to grip his knees. It seemed that he’d been running after Narud too fast to bother collecting food. He had plenty of appetite, though.

  Markal kept his left hand tucked against his body as they ate. She supposed he’d withered it with some spell, although what, he didn’t say. Neither wizard spoke much. Soon, the food was gone, and the berries and cheese Daria had packed for breakfast as well.

  The moment they finished, Narud wiped his mouth with his beard and gave Markal a look.

  “Use your own hand this time,” Markal grumbled. “I’ll be helpless.”

  “The girl can look after you.”

  “You shouldn’t have changed back in the first place.”

  “I had to, she wasn’t going to give the rabbit meat to a badger.”

  “Fine,” Markal said. “What now?”

  “An owl,” Narud said. “I need my eyes.”

  Markal bowed his head and chanted. Daria didn’t need to see the wizardry, so she climbed up to where Joffa nested in the tree. The griffin was asleep with his head tucked under one wing. His claws flexed in some dream. She stroked her hand along the feathers of his neck, down to where they gave way to fur. Then she returned to the fire.

  Narud was gone. Markal rolled a glass sphere in his stiff left hand. He tucked it away when she approached, and the hand, too.

  “Good night to you,” she said. “Will you be here in the morning?”

  “Are you really going to do that to me?”

  “Do what?”

  “Go to bed already. I’ve been traveling with Narud for a week. I could use the company. It wouldn’t kill you, either. Toss another branch on the fire and take a seat. We’ll talk.”

  She obeyed, although she was at a loss for words. If he had news, why didn’t he share it already? Did he want something?

  Markal smiled. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “You’re sixty miles north of the Tothian Way. There’s a company of Veyrian deserters two miles from here, holed up in a ruined castle. A few miles to the north is a band of cutthroats recently driven from the Old Road.”

  “They’ll never find us here,” she said. “And if they do, we’ll take care of them.”

  “Narud and I spotted dragon wasps three days ago. They seemed anxious for us to depart from their lands.”

  “Their lands? They are interlopers, they do not belong here.” Daria leaned forward. “Where was it? Near the forest fire?”

  “Ah, now we get down to it.” Markal held out his left hand. It was curled into a claw, raw and pink. He kept the other hidden in the sleeves of his robe. “Would you do me a favor, Daria? This hand is still aching and the other will be no good until morning. If you could stretch my fingers and massage the palm, it would be a big help.”

  It was strange to touch another person, but she treated his stiff hand like she would a knot in a griffin’s shoulder. She kept massaging until it began to loosen up. He sighed.

  “A little harder. Yes, yes, that’s good.” He eyed her. “Are you investigating the fire, or are you looking for Darik?”

  Daria didn’t answer. There was a reason they called this wizard the Talebearer. And it wasn’t because he knew how to keep a secret. For her part, Daria was terrible at withholding information, so she thought it best to keep her mouth shut.

  “Very well,” Markal said. “I thought I’d ask because Darik is nearby, you know. Ouch!”

  Daria was gripping his hand like a griffin with a lamb in its talons. She dropped it and felt her face flush. “He is? Where?”

  Markal flexed his fingers. When he looked up, he smiled. “You know what I love about the griffin people? You are so honest, so transparent. You have no guile. It’s refreshing.”

  “Yes, yes, but where is he?”

  “Riding with a company of knights. I’m trying to keep an eye on him—we were supposed to ride east to Veyre, after all—but I’ve been distracted.”

  “Distracted by bandits and cutthroats?”

  “No, the Veyrians are traitors. They have no intention of returning to the khalifates. Why would they? They’d only end up in battle again, on one side or the other.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’re up to any good here,” she said.

  “No, they’re not. But they’re not my worry. It’s the servants of the enemy who have infiltrated the north country who have my attention.”

  “The dragon wasps,” Daria said with a nod. “And the dragons in the mountains.”

  Markal leaned back. “Ah, tell me more.”

  “I don’t know much.”
/>
  “You know more than I do.”

  “Three dragons survived the battle. One was badly injured and fled into the southern deserts. The other two have taken refuge on the Spine. Mostly, they stay deep in the mountains, in caves, where evil magicians from the khalifates—torturers, and the like—stoke their fires.”

  The wizard looked disappointed. “Right.” He flexed his hand, then reached for a stick, which he picked up clumsily and poked at the coals.

  Daria fell silent. He knew all of this already, it was clear, and she felt foolish.

  “Anything more?” he asked.

  “They came out of their lairs a few days ago and did battle over the leeward hills. You might have seen smoke from the burning forest.”

  Markal stiffened and fixed her with a penetrating gaze. “By the Brothers.”

  “What is it?”

  “And that’s where you were flying?”

  “Yes, to search for the dragon caves.”

  “And when you find them?”

  “We’re going to mount an expedition to drive them from the Spine, but we’re not strong enough yet. Perhaps by spring.”

  “Too few griffins?”

  “Too few riders,” she corrected. “We’ve been keeping our excess fledglings instead of turning them loose into the wild. And we’re training new riders as fast as we can, but it will be another season before they’re ready. They are too young yet, children, really.”

  “There are many orphaned young men and women in Balsalom,” Markal said. “Bright, eager to learn. I’m sure the khalifa would send more than you need.”

  “We tried that. But they aren’t from the mountains. They’re so different.”

  “Ah, I see. You’re afraid of flatlanders.”

  “Shouldn’t we be? They are so many, we are few.” Daria was getting distracted. She shook her head to clear it. “Why did you react like that when I told you about the fighting dragons?”

  “It might be nothing. I don’t want to alarm you.”