Meanwhile, Skandar had finished his grooming and loped over to him. “We go now,” he said shortly.
Arren flung away the remains of the apple. “Yes, you’re right. Wait a moment.” He found his sword and strapped it on, and stuffed the last few apples into his pockets.
Skandar fluttered his wings. “Now go. Call your mate.”
Arren blinked. “What?”
“Mate,” Skandar repeated. “Your mate. The female. Call her.”
“How do you know?”
Skandar clicked his beak. “I am not stupid. I know mating. Even human mating.”
Arren grinned despite himself. “How did you realise it?”
“You groom each other,” said Skandar. “Hunt together. Sleep together. Mates do that.” He drew himself up. “I had a mate.”
“You did?” said Arren. “When?”
“Long ago,” said Skandar. “Before you came. In the mountains. I live there, alone. No mother, no brothers or sisters. And then one day my mate comes. Yellow, like the sun. She did not tell me her name. She was looking for me. For a male. We mated, many times, on a mountain top, and then she show … showed me humans.”
Arren was staring at him with something close to astonishment; this was the most Skandar had ever said about himself before. “Showed you humans? Where?”
“Human nests,” Skandar explained. “I did not know humans; she showed them to me. She said—” He paused. “Said things. I did not understand them all, but she said ‘Find a human.’ ”
“Find which human? What for?”
Skandar shook himself irritably. “She said I must have a human. Find a human, not let go of it ever. I did not understand. She flew away, and then I watched humans. Wanted one. Picked them up, took them home. Talked to them.” He hissed to himself. “Stupid human. I talk, they say nothing. Looked for one who would speak. Did not find one. Eat the ones who did not speak. Good food.”
“And the griffiners found out about it,” said Arren. “And they sent me to stop you.”
“You come,” Skandar agreed. “I see you. Want you. You different. Look different. But you”—he made a little hacking sound in his throat—“you fight me.”
“I’m sorry, Skandar,” said Arren. “But you were trying to—”
“Brave!” Skandar said sharply. “You brave! Brave human. You talked. Stronger than me. Hated you. But wanted you.” He looked at him proudly. “My human.”
Arren couldn’t help but feel flattered. “I haven’t been as nice to you as I should have, have I?” he said.
“Nice!” Skandar repeated in contemptuous tones. “What nice?”
Arren patted him on the beak. “Nice means kind. Friendly.”
Skandar sighed and looked away. “You did not want the white griffin to die.”
“No,” Arren said quietly. “I didn’t.”
“Did not want to fight her,” said Skandar. “Wanted you, not her. She came at me. Hit my talons. Too fast.”
“I know you didn’t mean to kill her, Skandar,” said Arren. “I mean, I’ve … forgiven you for it.”
“White griffin,” Skandar said abruptly, “she tell me help you.”
The sudden change of topic threw him off balance. “What, Skandar?”
“The cave,” said Skandar. “Sleep near it, after they speak. White griffin came.”
“You met another griffin?” said Arren.
“No.” Skandar shook his head. “Not real. Sleep-picture.”
“Oh, a
dream
,” said Arren. “You dreamt about a white griffin?”
“Yes. White griffin come. She say go back to you. Go back to human. She say find both human. Dark human, silver human. Not leave them. She say you bring great change, make good home for Skandar. Make all world better.”
Arren shivered. “Skandar, what—?”
“Arren?”
It was Skade, returning from the stream.
Arren pulled himself together. “Hello.”
The silver-haired woman had her hands tucked under her arms for warmth, and still looked a little unsettled. “Shall we go now?” she asked.
“Yes,” Skandar interrupted. He came toward her, tail swishing. “We go,” he said. “Now go. The cave waits.”
“Hang on,” said Arren. “Shouldn’t we cover over the fire before—?”
“No,” said Skade. She was breathing heavily. “We are going now. I will not wait any longer.”
Arren didn’t have the energy to resist. He got onto Skandar’s back and held on while Skade got up behind him. Once the two of them were in place the griffin took off in a series of quick, rough wing beats and they gained the air. The sun was still rising and the sky was mushroom grey, tinted with pink on the horizon. The wind tingled with ice.
Skandar turned northward and set out on the last push to the cave.
S
kandar flew through the morning, moving steadily straight toward the mountains, big and craggy and bare, capped with snow. They were much bigger than the Coppertops, where the black griffin had grown up, and far colder. Beyond them lay the North. Arren felt nervous inside when he realised that, though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because he was seeing the Northgates for the first time. They looked so huge and so inhospitable, and the prospect of trying to pass through them frankly scared him.
Skandar didn’t seem bothered. He flew unhurriedly, wings and tail angling to keep him stable in the air, like a griffin who knew exactly where he was going. Arren, leaning over slightly to look past his head, couldn’t see anything that might be the place they were trying to reach; he hoped Skandar knew what he was doing. There were plenty of mountains within striking distance now, but none of them looked like the twin mountains Skade had described. At least, not as he had imagined them.
The sun was well up by the time they cleared the last of the hills and were among the mountains themselves. The trees were much sparser here and the ground rocky. Arren had scarcely registered this before Skandar suddenly leant to one side, nearly tipping him off. He flung himself forward, wrapping his arms more tightly around the griffin’s neck, while behind him Skade clutched at his robe to anchor herself as Skandar made a wide circle in the air. He beat his wings a few times and then began to fly lower, still circling. He was coming in to land.
Skandar made a short, stumbling run as he landed, slowing himself by digging his talons into the ground. It helped to make the landing gentler on his passengers, who slid off his back.
Arren rubbed his own back and looked around. They were on a nondescript patch of ground, where the only decorations were a few tufts of grass and the remains of a long-dead tree. They were at the base of one of the mountains at the very edge of the Northgates, and the ground was covered in the shattered remains of rocks that had fallen down its sides. It was no place to camp, and no place to find food, either.
He looked at Skandar. The griffin had sat down on his haunches and was preening himself, apparently unconcerned. Skade, meanwhile, had wandered off and was rather disconsolately poking around.
Arren groaned. “Well, this is wonderful. We’re lost.” He couldn’t resist glancing quickly at Skade as he said it, in the hope that she would say something to contradict him.
She limped toward him, wincing as the stony ground hurt her feet. “I think we should ask Skandar about that,” she said. “Skandar?”
Skandar glanced up at her. “Skade?”
Skade hesitated and then bowed slightly to him. “Is this the place where you found the cave?”
The griffin yawned briefly. “Yes.”
Arren stared at him, and then at the mountain. “Where?” he said. “I can’t see anything.”
Skandar pointed his beak toward the mountain. “There. See, there, Two. One, two.”
“It looks like just one to—”
Skade nudged him heavily in the side. “No, look up,” she said. “Skandar is right.”
Arren did. There was another mountain almost directly behind the first, but slightly taller, giving the impression of a double peak. “So?” he said impatiently. “There’s dozens of damn mountains here. It could be any of ’em. Anyway, I don’t see any caves here, do you?”
Skade turned to Skandar. “If this is the mountain, then where is the cave, Skandar?”
“There,” the griffin answered, looking at the base of the nearest one.
Arren moved closer to it. The only thing that Skandar could be indicating was a heap of boulders at the base of the mountain, by a dead tree. It was slightly higher than Arren was tall, and looked dangerously unstable. He kicked it as hard as he dared. “You mean it’s behind these?”
“Don’t know,” said Skandar. “Cave here, before. Now, not here.”
Arren kicked the heap again, and swore. “Godsdamnit! A godsdamned rock fall!
Now
what are we going to do?”
Skade examined it. “Perhaps we could move them?”
“Oh, but of course,” Arren sneered. “I used to lift boulders twice my weight all the time back home, didn’t I tell you?”
She gave him an irritated look. “Sarcasm will not help, Arenadd.”
He calmed down slightly. “All right. Then what will?”
Skade was running her hands over the stones. “I don’t know, perhaps we could make a lever of some kind? A push from the right direction could make them all fall.”
“Maybe.” Arren sighed. “I don’t know, Skade. We’re both tired and neither of us has been eating enough. I don’t know if I’ve got the energy for it.”
“Oh? You cannot summon up the energy to do something toward making your heart beat again?”
The sharpness in her voice stung him. “No, I didn’t mean that—look,” he said hastily, “we’re tired. I suggest we rest a little while first. Have something to eat, think it over.”
She paused a moment and then nodded. “Agreed.”
Arren took the last of the apples out of his pockets, and the two of them sat by the dead tree.
Skandar had finished his grooming and loped over to them. “Food?” he said hopefully.
“Sorry, Skandar,” said Arren.
Skandar shook himself. “I go hunt,” he said. “You stay here. Come back later.”
“A good idea,” said Skade.
Apparently satisfied, Skandar flew away. Arren and Skade watched him go in silence.
“Well,” Arren said eventually, swallowing a mouthful of apple, “I suppose we could break a branch off this tree, maybe see if that would work.”
Skade nodded. “I will be willing to try it. I am not going to give in when we are this close.”
“Yes.”
Skade picked up the last apple. “Do you want this?”
Arren shook his head. “You have it.”
“Thank you.”
There was silence while Skade bit into it.
Finally, Arren looked up. “Skade?”
“Yes?”
“Skade, I—” He paused, trying to hold on to his courage. “About last night.”
She tensed. “Yes?”
Arren gave her an agonised look. “You don’t … mind, do you?”
Skade lowered the apple. “What do you mean by that?”
“It’s just that”—he twisted his fingers together—“I don’t know if I should have said it. I felt bad hiding it from you. I thought maybe you were better off not knowing, but there are some things that shouldn’t go unsaid when—well, I just couldn’t stop myself from telling you. It felt like the right thing to do.”
She didn’t reply immediately, and he watched her, almost feeling pain in his anxiety.
“I do not know,” she said at last. “If you thought it best to tell me, then so be it. But my advice to you—you have been a good mate,” she said. “And a good friend. I have enjoyed your company. I cannot repay you, but I can offer my advice.”
“What advice?”
“This curse,” said Skade. “If the spirits are not kind and you are not healed, or if we do not uncover the cave, and the curse remains, then you must never tell another living soul about it as you told me. If the world were to find out—”
“Yes. I know. But it won’t.”
“But what if I were to tell someone?”
Arren stared at her. “You wouldn’t!”
“I might. You should have made certain of it before you told me. But no, I will not betray you. In return for all you have done for me, Arenadd.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
Skade gave him the same impenetrable stare he had come to know so well over the last few days. “You go under a Southern name when you have made yourself an enemy to every Southerner in Cymria. Do not keep trying to pretend you are one of them, Arenadd Taranisäii. You will only suffer for it, even more than you have already done.”
“Yes, but—”
“You should never be ashamed of what you are,” Skade said softly. “I thought you would know that already. You have taught that lesson to me yourself.”
Arren shivered. A cloud had covered the sun, and suddenly it seemed much colder. “I suppose you’re right, but what have I got to be proud of?”