City of Death (6 page)

“Every minute counts, Captain,” Scirye said, trying one more time.

“If the mission is so important, lay-dee,” Kaccap said her title with a smirk, “then the Keeper of the Eyrie will want to meet you. I'm sure she will provide you with reinforcements.”

Scirye sighed inwardly. With the straw wing gone, it had been worth trying to get the griffins to carry them to the City of Death. “How far away is Riye Srukalleyis from here?”

Kaccap tapped a claw on his beak. “About a hundred miles to the southeast for a griffin. For a human on foot…” He spread his forepaws. “Who knows? There are many tall mountains and deep chasms between you and the city. And it's winter so there is ice and snow.”

“Ouch.” Koko raised a hind paw and rubbed it for emphasis. “I don't think these tootsies can make it.”

“It sounds like it would take forever on foot. If we can get help from the griffins,” Bayang added, “it's worth a slight delay.”

“Too lazy to fly yourself, dragon?” Kaccap demanded.

“My friend,” Scirye said coldly, “injured her wing fighting the emperor's enemies.”

“Indeed,” Kaccap sneered.

Scirye glanced at Leech who shrugged. “I'm with Bayang and Koko. I say let's ask the Keeper for help.”

“I can't leave my wagon behind,” M
ā
ka said.

Kaccap eyed the shining wagon and chuckled. “Is this my lady's chariot?”

“This really isn't your battle,” Bayang said.

“It is now,” M
ā
ka said stubbornly. “Didn't I fight side by side with you?”

The last of the bouquets were disappearing. “I suppose so,” the dragon admitted.

Scirye pointed at the cave. “Captain, have your squad pull M
ā
ka's wagon as far as it will go into the cave and then send someone back for it.”

Kaccap opened his beak to protest but shut it with an abrupt clack. At least he hadn't refused out loud.

The snow swirled as five griffins settled on the slope. As they hid the wagon inside the cave, Bayang shrank again to human size.

When the griffins returned outside, they crouched on all fours. As Scirye climbed onto one, she felt the thick pelt. Their coats of winter fur made them appear even larger. When Kles shed his winter fur in the spring, she was always careful how she spoke to him because he grew touchy about his shaggy appearance.

Koko felt the fur of his griffin. “Whoa, it's like riding an overpadded sofa.”

The next moment the badger had tumbled to the ground as the griffin reared. “Have a care, you overgrown weasel. You can either ride as a silent passenger, or you can be carried like prey in my claws.”

Meekly Koko put up a paw. “Um, I vote for the first one.”

So the griffin grabbed the badger by the scruff of the neck and slung him up onto his back, making a point to clean his forepaws with snow afterward.

“Squad up!” Kaccap ordered, and the griffins leaped into the air as one.

 

11

Scirye

As far as Scirye was concerned, there was nothing to beat the elegance and power of a dragon in flight, but the griffins were a close second. And there was something to be said for warm fur rather than cold scales during a winter flight.

She had to suppress a giggle because Koko had been right. She felt like she was flying on a furry sofa.

She'd never ridden griffins bareback and without the proper tack before. Fortunately, Kaccap's shaggy coat gave her more to grip. It had been years since her father had given her riding lessons, but at least she remembered to try to keep her shoulders straight and parallel to her mount's shoulders. Her friends were doing their best to copy her but they were only barely managing to keep from falling off.

She had expected Kles to ride with her, but the little griffin had made a point of using his own wings. Kles might be the size of a parrot, but he had the heart of a war griffin.

Ragtail, his clan had called him. His full name, Klestetstse, meant Shabby in the Old Tongue. It was an odd sort of name that didn't fit the polished courtier she knew. And he had always passed his name off as a joke, insisting that he might have been shabby once but had grown into a magnificent specimen of griffinhood.

However, it seemed now that his own clan didn't agree with Kles's claims. His old acquaintances had treated him as some sort of joke.

As Kles struggled to keep up with his larger kin, Kaccap mocked him. “Still falling behind like when we were fledglings.” And the captain brought his wings down in a powerful stroke that sent him shooting forward, and the rest of the squad copied him. The draft from their wings sent Kles tumbling, and by the time he had righted himself the distance between them was even greater.

Kles had always defended her against the bullies and enemies she'd encountered in embassies and foreign schools. Now she would return the favor.

“Captain Kaccap!” Scirye snapped, again trying to imitate her mother's commanding tone, “I expect all my party to arrive together.”

Kaccap shot her an angry look, but he slowed and so did the other griffins. Panting, Kles caught up with them.

“Here,” Scirye said, holding up her gauntleted wrist.

“I'm fine, lady,” Kles said stubbornly and flew on.

By the time they entered a snow-filled pass, though, Kles's chest heaved with each breath and he beat his wings in a staccato rhythm.

She started to ask for a halt, but she saw Bayang, riding on the back of another griffin, shake her head. And she knew the dragon was right. It would hurt Kles's pride if the others stopped for him.

The kindly sorceress had also noticed Kles's troubles. “Let me try to calm the winds a bit,” M
ā
ka said, a hand already beginning to move.

Tute, who was sitting with her, reached up a paw to grab her wrist. “No!”

But it was already too late. The beak of the griffin carrying M
ā
ka and Tute suddenly turned a bright violet. “My beak! What's happened to it?” he cried as she stared at it cross-eyed.

“Just give me a minute, noble steed,” M
ā
ka said. She had taken out her book and was thumbing through it hastily. “Oh, that's where I went wrong.”

The next moment, the beak changed in rapid succession from blue to a scarlet red with yellow polka dots.

The griffin dropped several feet as his wing strokes faltered for a moment. “Stop, stop,” he screamed as he clutched his beak protectively. “You're making it worse.”

Kaccap did a loop so that he was suddenly next to the sorceress. “By Oesho, why did you curse him?”

“I was just trying to help,” M
ā
ka said, waving her book in the air.

“You must be the world's worst magician,” Kaccap snapped. “Whatever made you think you could cast spells?”

Scirye expected sweet-tempered M
ā
ka to wilt under the war griffin's fierce glare, so she was surprised when M
ā
ka pressed a fist against herself. “I can't help it. The magic burns inside me. Right now it's a wildfire, but when I tame it, I will have a power that will light up the world and destroy the shadows. So I will never stop. To me, magic is like breathing.”

Scirye was impressed by the other girl's desire, but she was as concerned as Kaccap about accidents. “Please, Lady M
ā
ka. We're not asking you to quit magic, just let it rest for a little while. What if, by some mistake, you shrank all the griffins' wings?”

Tute nudged her. “Yes, like she said. We won't help anyone but the vultures if we're just stains on the rocks.”

M
ā
ka reluctantly dipped her head to Scirye. “As you wish, lady,” she said as she tucked the book back up her sleeve.

Am I any better at being a hero than M
ā
ka is at being a magician?
Scirye wondered to herself. So far, every time they had caught up with Roland he had gotten away.
Or at least I wish I could feel half the passion for this quest that M
ā
ka has for magic.

*   *   *

They traveled along
the pass without any more mishaps and emerged into a wide valley nestled between walls of black rock so sheer it was as if they had been cut from the mountain range with a knife. Though snow covered the ground like a fine sheet of fleece, she saw more war griffins sparring with dummies mounted on tall poles. When a griffin struck a dummy in the wrong spot, the dummy swiveled and the pole attached to the dummy hit the griffin and sent her spinning to the hoots and laughter of the other griffins.

Still other griffins were honing their agility by flying obstacle courses that contained not only hurdles on the ground, but nets suspended in the air with only narrow gaps through which to fly. And a third group was attempting to take a mock fort from a fourth group.

In the valley beyond, lean, sleek griffins darted around pylons over a snowy oval. “Are those warriors too?” Leech asked.

Scirye had seen pictures of them. “No, griffins come in all sizes for all sorts of purposes. Those griffins are getting ready for the great air races in the summer.” She pointed to another group swooping and swirling. “And those griffins are practicing for aerial polo.”

A forest of pines covered either slope at the end of the valley and here griffins about the size of collies took turns diving upon a dummy of a bird. Their shoulders were broad but their haunches were slender.

“Are they war griffins too?” Koko asked.

“Those are hunting griffins,” Scirye explained.

As they flew over steep gorges sliced out of the mountain by the river and wide valleys, Scirye realized that Kles's eyrie was much larger than she had thought, for it included not only training grounds but pastures with sheep and goats eating from bales of hay. Fences separated the fields—resting under the layer of snow—and their bordering fences stitched the land like a patchwork quilt. Though bare of leaves now, there were also row after row of almond and fruit trees waiting to blossom in the spring.

Everything suggested a prosperous and well-managed domain. In fact, Kles's clan believed that Oesho the wind god had created this lovely home just for them.

Leech let out an appreciative whistle. “The griffins have everything they need for the winter.”

“It's not just winter that can cut the land routes off,” Kaccap explained. “The lyak have invaded in the past to steal the gold.”

Koko had been sitting hunched with fatigue but he perked up now. “Gold?”

“The eyries were placed here partly to guard the imperial gold mines,” Kaccap said. “Lyak means thief in the Old Tongue.”

“You wouldn't happen to have any samples around, would you?” Koko asked. “You know, sort of as a souvenir.”

“Forgive the badger,” Bayang said. “His mother dropped him on his head when he was a baby.”

Two giant griffins had been carved from the stone at the mouth of the next pass. They stood, ever alert, unwinking eyes staring at the world. At the moment, though, snow covered their shoulders and icicles hung from their beaks.

When they burst over the next valley, Scirye saw numerous humans and wagons on the road leading to a sizable, prosperous town. Beyond it was another lake, but this one was as large as a small sea.

Kaccap explained that the miners, farmers, and shepherds lived here along with all the other humans who served the eyrie's needs.

From the way M
ā
ka pressed herself against her griffin's back as if trying to hide, Scirye suspected they were also overly critical of the entertaiment hired for their banquets.

The ancient eyrie of Kles's clan lay at the end of the lake in the tallest mountain honeycombed with caves and tunnels. Here and there were areas where the gateways had been cut in even rows and at equal intervals, but many had been carved as needed over the centuries so that they were scattered about randomly.

Unlike the rest of the mountains, the snow had been tidily swept away from the openings as well as the ledges and platforms. On its peak, though, was a steel radio tower, a concession to modern times. Snow blew from the mountaintops, reminding Scirye of the white curtains of snowflakes dancing before the Arctic winds.

A river fell from the right shoulder of the eyrie's mountain, but winter had frozen the spray into icicles so that the resulting waterfall looked like a giant tower of crystal. Through the spike-covered walls, she thought she saw water continuing to rush downward. It was only at the waterfall's base that the water remained free, rippling in a large pond, before it slipped under the ice and into the lake.

From his ragged, clumsy flapping, Kles seemed to be on his last wings. It was no longer merely Scirye who was casting concerned looks at the little griffin. Leech and Koko too kept checking on their friend.

And yet when they were finally near their goal, Kles seemed to find some hidden reserve of strength. The beat of his wings became more regular and he lifted his head as if he were just out for a casual flight. Scirye couldn't have been prouder of her friend.

“Welcome to the Tarkär Eyrie, the home of the Koyn Encuwontse,” Kles panted proudly.

Despite the frigid air, griffins of all sizes swarmed in and out of the eyrie. Some were flying in slow gyres as if they were sentries, but others were going about more peaceful tasks.

Several fledglings were even playing an aerial game of tag when they noticed Bayang riding a griffin. A dragon was such an unusual sight that they flocked about her.

A young racing griffin, lean as a whippet, boldly hovered in front of them. “What's a dragon doing here, and why isn't she flying on her own?” He gave a whoop when he saw the dotted beak of the griffin that M
ā
ka and Tute were riding. “And what happened to you?”