City of Death (5 page)

“What are lyaks?” Leech asked.

“They're the hereditary enemies of the griffins,” Scirye explained, cradling her friend against her. “Did they see you?”

Kles's chest heaved up and down still from the extertion. “No, but they have powerful snouts that could find us anyway.”

“How big are they?” Bayang asked.

“About eight feet long,” Kles explained. “They have throwing axes that might penetrate even your scales.”

“Then I'll hit them before they get within throwing range,” Leech said as he reached for the flying discs that still hovered near him. “I'm a smaller, faster target than Bayang.”

She had meant to talk to the hatchling when they were alone, but there was no time for that now. “You seemed distracted when you fought the lord of thunder.” The dragon set a paw on Leech. “Don't try to fly and fight unless you can give it your undivided attention.”

The hatchling frowned. “I was just figuring out what to do.”

“Well, the cave is a good defensive position so you don't need to fly anyway,” Bayang insisted. “I can grow big enough to handle any trouble so you stay behind me and take care of anything that gets around me.” She didn't give him a chance to object, pacing immediately to the mouth of the cave.

 

8

Leech

She knows I'm awake!
the Voice said in alarm.
She only spared you before because she thought you were alone. Now she wants to keep us trapped in the cave so she can finish us later.

Leech felt not only scared but sad as well, because he had come to value the dragon's friendship.
She's just trying to keep us safe,
Leech insisted, or at least he hoped so.

He watched his friend spread her paws, her body bouncing up and down as she flexed her knee joints. He desperately wanted to believe her fangs and claws would harm only their enemies and not him.

Their visitors came down a pass across the lake, small dots slipping and sliding down the snowy slope. At first they fanned out as they searched, but then they smelled the smoke from the fire, and they began to howl as they crossed the lake, sometimes skidding on a patch of bare ice, but coming forward steadily.

Leech studied them as they drew closer. Their heads were long like a horse's with a single large eye in the center and a wide flattened nose. Their skin was as pale and moist as a slug's belly. They wore little more than furry kilts and vests, revealing chests and limbs almost as hairy as their clothing. Broad leather straps ran diagonally down from the lyaks' shoulders, and sheathed on it were several axes. Hanging from the belts at their waists were pouches and daggers.

They ran on all fours, but because their legs were longer than their arms, it gave them a peculiar humping gait. Still, they moved with a speed that suggested they could be quite nimble despite their clumsy way of running.

“Steady,” Bayang said.

Scirye was standing behind her to her right with M
ā
ka and Tute while Koko and Leech had positioned themselves to her left. Kles began to growl, the sound reverberating in his chest, every feather and hair bristling, his eyes gleaming with a ferocious light. The griffin clans had fought the lyaks for thousands of years, and Kles was surrendering to a battle rage so old it was almost instinct by now.

Inside Leech's head the Voice was screaming,
What are you waiting for! Hit them now!

His fingers tightened around the weapon ring, remembering that murderous fury that had filled him in his fights up in the Arctic.
No,
he told the Voice.
We can't go charging out there by ourselves. You're going to just get us killed.

So you'll let the dragon murder us instead,
the Voice argued but then fell into silence.

 

9

Bayang

The lyaks' howls grew higher and more frequent as they excitedly straightened and began drawing their weapons, ambling toward them on just their hind legs now.

Bayang crouched, getting ready to spring out and swell in size when M
ā
ka's voice rose suddenly in a shrill chant. “Ñake!” M
ā
ka finished.

A bouquet of roses suddenly bounced off the head of the lead lyak. He stopped dead in his tracks and nudged it suspiciously with a paw.

“Well, that will work if he has hay fever,” Tute drawled lazily.

Unfortunately, the lyak had neither allergies nor a sense of humor. Deciding that the bouquet was no deadly threat, he trampled it into the snow.

“Hmm. What did I do wrong? That was supposed to be a bushel of swords,” M
ā
ka murmured.

Bayang could hear her rifling frantically through the pages of her pamphlet. It was just as her lynx had said, if only the sorceress's skill matched her grand title.

At least the other lyaks had stopped in surprise at the floral attack, and the dragon took advantage of it. She sprang from the cave mouth, muttering the spell and signing with her forepaws in midair.

Bayang landed in a shower of snow, now three times her former size and lashing out with a tail the size of a tree trunk. Three lyaks went down, but she felt something sting her shoulder. From the corner of her eye, she saw the axe with part of its edge embedded between two scales.

Pain on her left hind leg told her that another axe had struck her. The problem with being this big was that it was impossible to miss her. She spun on her legs, sweeping her tail out like a club. Two more lyaks went down, but the others were just as nimble as she had feared.

One of them managed to leap onto her back.
“Tarkär!”
screamed Kles. Casting aside all reason, he struck, becoming a furred and feathered lightning bolt aimed directly at the face of the lyak.

With a howl, the creature toppled off Bayang. And then she could hear Scirye shouting her war cry and Leech and Koko echoing her.
“Yashe! Yashe!”

A lyak ran past screeching as it tried to pull Tute from its back, and then bouquets of roses began plopping everywhere as M
ā
ka must have panicked.

Bayang should have stayed in the cave, blocking the mouth with her body as she had intended. She was making one mistake after another. Not only was she in danger of losing Leech's friendship, but now she was going to get him killed.

Forget M
ā
ka's overconfidence. It was Bayang's own skills that didn't match her pride. She was just about to order the hatchlings to retreat when high above her, she heard a cry.

“Tarkär!”
screamed a voice far deeper than Kles's.

More voices took up the call.
“Tarkär, tarkär!”

Bayang risked a glance up and saw giant war griffins swooping down toward them.

 

10

Scirye

While a lap griffin like Kles was small and lithe and graceful, these war griffins were large and powerful, capable of carrying an armored warrior—though at the moment they wore no riding tack and their backs were bare of riders. There were a half dozen of them, and each wore a large steel oval over their chest for protection while smaller metal pieces protected their broad shoulders. It took great strength indeed to flap their large wings, and their thick bodies and limbs were roped with muscle too.

Since they were chanting the same war cry as Kles, they must belong to his clan, the Koyn Encuwontse, which meant Iron Beak in the Old Tongue.

Immediately, the surviving lyaks whirled around and tried to race away, but the war griffins hunted them down mercilessly. Scirye knew the two species had been enemies for thousands of years, so she understood the griffins' ruthlessness in a way. Even so, she found herself looking away from the battle on the lake, searching for her own lap griffin.

The lyak whom Kles had been battling was trying to flee, but the little griffin swirled around the creature recklessly. Afraid the cornered lyak might hurt Kles in desperation, Scirye held up her gauntleted hand.

“Kles,” she commanded. “To me.”

But fighting an age-old enemy seemed to have brought Kles's battle fury to the point of madness, and the lap griffin, ignoring his own safety, continued to bite and slash at the lyak.

Koko let out a whistle. “Remind me not to get on his bad side anymore.”

“I'll go after him,” Leech volunteered from the air.

“No, if he doesn't come of his own will, she's lost him,” Bayang said, voicing Scirye's own worries.

Scirye spoke even louder, using his formal name. “Klestetstse, I order you to come!”

The order nearly proved her friend's undoing, for when the griffin paused in a daze, the lyak nearly knocked him from the air. The only thing that saved Kles was a bouquet that suddenly materialized, ruining the lyak's aim.

“Kles, if you don't come this instant, I'll never speak to you again,” Scirye said urgently.

Kles flew to her then with awkward beats of his wings as if the obedient part of him was struggling with the warrior part of him for control of his body. But he came, slowly, reluctantly, to perch on her leather-covered wrist as the mad light in his eyes slowly died.

Scirye instantly gathered him against her, stroking his ruffled feathers and fur. “You were so brave, Kles,” she murmured. “You fought well.” Remembering her manners, she looked over at M
ā
ka. “Thank you.”

M
ā
ka the Magnificent was rolling up the pamphlet hurriedly so she could hide it in her sleeve. “The print is so small it's hard to get the spell right.”

“Well,” Bayang said, observing the floral bouquets littering the landscape, “at least the effort was there.”

“M
ā
ka doesn't know when to quit,” Tute agreed, “which is both a strength and a weakness.”

“If the magic doesn't work out, you can always become a florist,” Koko suggested.

“I would if they lasted very long,” M
ā
ka said, blushing. Even as she said that, the bouquets began disappearing with soft puffing sounds.

Out on the lake, the war griffins were returning, looking almost cheerful from the battle. As they hovered before the cave, their powerful wings raised the snow in spurts with each beat.

Parts of their fur had been woven into braids, each griffin twisting the strands differently. Lumps of jade and raw golden nuggets were entwined within the strands as suited the fancy of each griffin. The braids of everyone, though, were held together at the tips by cylindrical beads of lapis lazuli. Around their legs were steel greaves and armbands in addition to the discs across their chest.

Their leader was a griffin whose braids held large coral beads. Encircling his thick neck was a golden torque cast in the shape of a serpent with scales of turquoise and large carnelian eyes.

“Why have you trespassed on the lands of the Koyn Encuwontse?” he demanded.

Kles squirmed out of Scirye's hold and stood up straight on her gauntleted wrist. “They are my guests.”

The griffin leader squinted. “Ragtail, is that you?”

Kles cringed for a moment as if the war griffin had swatted him. But then the lap griffin lifted his head again. “It's been a long time, but I haven't forgotten you either, Kaccap.”

“Captain Kaccap,” the griffin leader corrected.

“Well, Captain,” Kles said. He fluttered into the air and gave a grand flourish of paw and wing to Scirye. “This is my Lady Scirye—.”

Kaccap bobbed up and down in the air as he roared with laughter. “Since when does a lady dress like a court jester?” In her furs and coveralls, Scirye thought she probably did look like a clown.

These new arrivals had an attitude that reminded Scirye of the bullies she'd encountered in the various schools she had attended as she had followed her mother from embassy posting to posting. It didn't matter the country, they acted like little kings and queens of their domain.

These war griffins might be at the top of the roost in the eyrie, but in the greater world where Kles thrived, they would have been country bumpkins.

Kles shot forward, his claws stopping only inches from the griffin's head so that the war griffin flinched.

“You may say what you like about me,” Kles growled, “but watch what you say about my Lady Scirye of the noble House of Rapaññe, daughter of no less than Lord Tsirauñe the Griffin Master.”

At the mention of her father, the griffins instantly grew silent, and Scirye felt their eyes scrutinizing her. Her father was responsible not only for all the griffins at court, but also handled the relations between humans and the griffin eyries, which made him a powerful figure.

With great dignity, Kles indicated Leech and the others. “And these are her friends.”

Kaccap dipped his head ever so slightly. “I humbly apologize, lay-dee.” He spoke her title with obvious skepticism.

Even though he had rescued them, Scirye was developing a distinct dislike for the war griffin. She tried to adopt the manner and tone her mother used when facing down some low-ranking diplomatic bully.

Lifting her head haughtily, Scirye said in a voice that would freeze fire. “We have come a long way on a mission vital to the empire, Captain. You and your squad will take us to Riye Srukalleyis where we can finish our task.”

Kaccap seemed startled by her destination. “And what would a young lady want in the City of Death?”

“I'll tell you on the way,” Scirye said.

Kaccap stared at her doubtfully—well, she wouldn't have believed her if she were in his place either. But even if her hauteur had been a poor imitation of her mother, some of it seemed to have worked because Kaccap didn't speak his doubts out loud.

“We … were returning from patrol when we saw the lyaks,” Kaccap said slowly as he tried to figure out what to do. “We must warn the eyrie first about the raid. They shouldn't have been able to sneak up this close to our home.”