The North
1
Revenge
D
awn over the city of Eagleholm. The light of the sun was pink and yellow, but from the ground it looked red.
Smoke billowed into the sky.
Most people in the mountain-top city were used to rising at dawn. Every morning at sunrise the city would come alive with the calls of the griffins as they screeched their names, signalling their presence and strength to the rest of their kind and to the humans they helped rule over.
But today it was different.
The sky was full of griffins. They were circling over the ruins of the building that had once been the Eyrie, seat of the ruler of the city, and the sounds they made were not mere territorial calls. They were wailing; it was an endless high keening sound, full of despair. Some were calling the names of friends or family they had lost. Others mourned without words. On the ground below them, where humans mourned as well, Bran picked his way through the rubble, pausing every now and then to stoop and examine something. Most of the survivors had already been found, and now Bran, along with most of his fellow guardsmen and dozens of bystanders, had the unpleasant task of retrieving the bodies.
Most of those left, though, had been burned to the point where it was impossible to tell who they were or even what gender they had been.
Bran paused in the act of sifting through a heap of ashes and glanced over his shoulder. He could see a cluster of people standing at the edge of the devastation, distinguished from the rest of the crowd by their fine clothes. Nearly all of them had a griffin crouched beside them. In their midst, a young man was trying to comfort a girl a little younger than him, who was crying.
Bran sighed and gestured at a nearby guard. “You take over, Dan. I don’t think we’re gonna find much else here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bran wandered toward the group of people. Most of the humans ignored him, but the griffins immediately began to hiss at him, their metallic eyes fierce. Bran bowed low to them, and most lost interest, but others continued to eye him and dig their talons into the ground. Bran kept as far away from them as he could. Even a griffin brought up among humans was perfectly capable of attacking a perceived threat to its human partner.
“Flell!”
The young man looked around sharply. “What d’you want?” he demanded.
Bran hesitated and bowed. “I’m sorry, sir, just wanted t’see if Flell was all right.”
Flell turned at the sound of his voice, and then hurried toward him. There was a griffin chick following at her heels. It stood by and chirped anxiously as Bran and Flell embraced.
Bran let go quickly, somewhat embarrassed. “Flell, are yeh hurt?”
There were tears on Flell’s face, but she shook her head. “No … no, I’m fine.”
“Did yer father get out?” said Bran. “I—someone said he was hurt.”
Flell started to sob. “He’s dead.”
Bran forgot his awkwardness and hugged her again. “Flell, I’m sorry.” He looked over her shoulder at the group of shocked and bewildered griffiners. “How’d this happen?”
The young man had come to join them. A griffin had followed him, this one much larger than Flell’s, with a brown coat and blue eyes. The young man, too, had blue eyes.
Bran inclined his head respectfully as he let go of Flell again. “Are you Lord Erian?”
The man nodded. “And who are you, guardsman? How does my sister know you?”
“Uh, Branton Redguard, lord. We’re friends.”
Erian looked him up and down, then looked away rather dismissively and surveyed the ruins. “I had hoped to live my life here,” he said. “With my father.”
“Did Lady Kaelyn get out?” Bran asked.
Erian glanced at him. “No,” he said briefly, and turned away.
“We can rebuild it,” said Bran.
“No, we can’t,” said Erian. “The Mistress is dead, and so is most of the council. There can be no rebuilding.”
“What happened?” said Bran. “D’you know where the fire started, my lord?”
“Yes,” said Erian. “Everyone knows. It began in my father’s rooms.”
“You mean—?”
“It was not his fault,” Erian snapped.
“How do you know, my lord?”
“This was no accident,” said Erian. “The fire was deliberately lit. And by then my father was already dead.”
“What?” said Bran.
Flell looked up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was trembling. “It was him,” she whispered. “Bran, he did it. He murdered my father. He burned the Eyrie.”
“Who did?” said Bran.
“The blackrobe,” Erian spat. “This was his doing.”
“What, my lord?” said Bran.
“Bran, it was Arren,” said Flell. “He’s alive. He came back. He killed my father. I saw him do it.”
Bran froze. “What? But—but—”
Erian had paused to watch him, and now he started forward suddenly. “Wait. Aren’t you—Flell mentioned you. You were his friend, weren’t you?”
“I knew him, my lord,” said Bran.
“And you were the one who brought us the report that he was dead,” said Erian. “Could you, perhaps, explain how he managed to break into the Eyrie last night and commit murder?”
The brown griffin had been listening. As Bran started to speak, she came closer to him, hissing and lashing her tail. Bran backed away slowly. “Please, my lord, I ain’t done anythin’.”
“Don’t play stupid with me,” said Erian. “You know something about this. I refuse to believe it was a coincidence that your best friend could escape from prison when
you
happened to be on guard duty there. What were you thinking? That he would just leave the city? You didn’t think that, perhaps, releasing an insane blackrobe would have consequences?” He was getting closer, reaching for the sword that hung from his waist.
Flell put herself in the way. “Erian, no. It wasn’t Bran’s fault. He was the one who arrested him in the first place. And he wasn’t on duty that night anyway.”
“Is that true?” Erian demanded.
Bran nodded. “If yeh ask the commander over at the prison district he’ll show yeh the roster, my lord. I was on duty that day, but off at night. He was still there when I left.”
“Well, then how did he escape?” said Erian. “You”—he pointed at Bran—“
you
told us he fell more than five hundred feet from the edge of the city, and yet
somehow
he looked to be in perfectly good health when I saw him last night. Explain that, if you can.”
“I
don’t know
,” said Bran. “I only told ’em what I saw. I saw him shot with arrows, and I saw him fall. I nearly fell, too, tryin’ t’catch him.”
“He would not have thanked you,” said Erian. “And nor would anyone else. Could he have survived the drop? What was underneath? Did he fall into the lake?”
“No, my lord. There was nothin’ but bare rocks down there. He must have … I dunno what happened. I went down there an’ looked for his body after the sun came up, and there was nothin’ there. But I found the spot where he must’ve landed. There was blood on the ground.”
“And that’s all you saw?” said Erian.
“Yes, my lord. That’s all.”
Erian looked blank. “But how is that possible?”
“I don’t know, my lord.”
The brown griffin had returned to her partner’s side, and now she nudged him with her shoulder.
“Ae ee, kraen aee o,”
she rasped.
Flell looked at her.
“Kre ae oe aa?”
The griffin shivered her wings.
“Ae a’ai, kroe an ee—Kraeai kran ae.”
“Kraeai kran ae, a ee ai o?”
said Erian.
Bran looked on uncomprehending, wondering if he should leave.
“Magic,” Erian said at last, reverting to the human tongue. “Evil Northern magic.”
“But blackrobes don’t
have
any magic,” said Bran, unable to stop himself.
Erian gave him a withering look. “Don’t you have something more useful you could be doing?”
“Erian, don’t talk to him like that,” said Flell. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“No, no, he’s right,” said Bran. “I’m sorry. See yeh later, Flell. My lord.” He bowed to Erian and the brown griffin, and left.
Erian watched him go. “Why do you waste your time with him, Flell?”
“He’s a good man,” said Flell.
“Like your pet blackrobe?” said Erian.
Flell slapped him in the face. “How
dare
you?”
Instantly the brown griffin sprang forward, hissing. In spite of her much smaller size, Flell’s griffin moved to protect her, and for a few tense moments the two of them confronted each other, occasionally making threatening almost-charges before backing off.
Flell scooped the chick up in her arms. “Thrain, no. Erian, control your griffin.”
Erian put his hand on the brown griffin’s neck. “Senneck, calm down. It’s not worth it.”
Senneck subsided, casting sulky looks at her partner while still keeping an eye on Flell.
She did not look intimidated. “You’re forgetting your place,” she said coldly to Erian. “I am Rannagon’s full-blooded offspring. You are a bastard. Being a griffiner won’t change that, any more than it stopped
him
from being a Northerner—not even a griffin can change what is in your blood. Never let yourself forget that.”
Erian gave her a look of barely concealed fury. “No,” he said, through gritted teeth. “I will not. And neither should you.”
Flell glared at him and stalked off.
Senneck watched her go. “Do not let her upset you, Erian,” she said. “You did not choose to be illegitimate. It was your father who was disgraced, not you. But she—her time will come soon enough. When the world finds out what she did.”
“I should send her away,” said Erian. “Our father would have, I’m sure. I owe it to her to ensure that the world doesn’t find out.”
“Why bother?” said Senneck. “It was her folly, not yours. You owe her nothing.”
“But she’s my sister.”
“Yes, a sister who mated with a blackrobe and will bear his child. You would be well advised to disown her.”
Erian watched her as she walked among the rubble, trying to catch up with the retreating Bran. “No,” he said. “She’s suffered enough.”
“And so has this city,” said Senneck. She looked up at the griffins flying overhead, and sighed. “You came to me too late, Erian Rannagonson. You and I could have risen to rule this city and its lands. But Eagleholm cannot recover from this. Our allies will turn on us soon enough. We have no option but to leave.”
“But what about the other griffins?” said Erian. “The ones without humans—what will happen to them?”
“They will find a way to secure their own futures,” said Senneck. “We know what must be done. Look.” She raised her head, pointing her beak eastward.
Erian followed her gaze, and thus it was that he was one of the first to see the huge shapes that arose from the roof of the hatchery.
“B
ran!”
Bran turned. “Oh. Hello, Flell.”
Flell caught up with him. She was pale but looked in control of herself. “I’m sorry for how Erian acted. He’s not—well, he’s arrogant.”
Bran snorted. “Yeh don’t say? Wasn’t he brought up on some farm somewhere?”
“Yes, near Carrick. But our—he had special tutoring from a griffiner in the town. That’s how he learnt griffish. He was brought up believing he’d be a griffiner himself one day.”
“So he got his wish,” said Bran. “Lucky old us.”
“He means well,” said Flell.
There was silence for a long time. Bran was avoiding Flell’s gaze.
“You saw him, didn’t you?” she asked softly.
Bran glanced briefly at her, and then looked away. It was all the answer she needed.
“I saw him, too,” she said.
Bran stopped dead.
“What did you see?” said Flell.
“I saw him at his parents’ house,” Bran almost whispered. His eyes, turning toward her, were full of fear. “Went there before I went looking for him. To tell ’em what happened. To say sorry. An’ I—we heard him callin’, and he came in through the back door. He—he—”
“What, Bran?” said Flell, putting a hand on his arm. Beside her, Thrain stirred uneasily.
“He still had an arrow sticking out of him,” said Bran. “He hadn’t even noticed it was there. I saw him pull it out and throw it away like it was a thorn.”
“But how?” said Flell. “How? He can’t be alive!”
“I dunno, Flell. But it was him. He wasn’t a ghost. His parents could see him. He recognised me. He shouted at me to get out an’ never tell anyone I’d seen him, so I—I ran, and that was the last time I saw him.”