Erian flushed. Behind him, Senneck dug her talons into the wooden floor and hissed very quietly, so quietly that Kerod probably didn’t even hear it.
“She wants to make sure that—well, we’ve only just become partners,” said Erian, hastily stopping himself in mid-sentence. “You know how it is.”
“Yes, I remember well enough,” said Kerod. Another grin. “Takes a while for you to get bored with each other.”
Senneck seemed to have decided that she was embarrassing her partner, and abruptly stepped away from him. “I think I have done enough here for now. Erian, do you wish for me to stay longer?”
“Oh. No, Senneck, I can do this on my own now. You can do what you want.”
“Good,” she said briskly. “Eekrae”—the other griffin had woken up and was looking at her now—“I feel in need of some fresh air. If your offer still stands, perhaps we can fly together after all.”
Eekrae got up. He was a slim griffin with a slightly scrappy look, his grey and brown feathers tousled. “I would be glad to,” he said. “More than glad.”
If Senneck had been human, she would have smiled thinly. “Good. Let us go, then. Erian, I shall see you this evening in our nest.”
Erian smiled at her. “Have a good time, Senneck. I’ll have some food ready for you.”
The two griffins left, tails swinging behind them. Once they were gone, Erian felt himself relax, though up until that moment he hadn’t been aware that he was tense. He sat back.
“Well, then,” he said to no-one in particular.
“She’s very tough on you,” Kerod observed.
“What? Oh. Yes, I suppose so.”
“It’s only to be expected,” said the old man. “When a griffin first chooses a partner, she tends to be very fussy in the beginning. Like a mother with chicks. That’s why it’s mostly females who do the choosing, see. It’s like a mothering instinct. They get attached to you. But at first they take it a bit too far. And she’ll be wanting the best for you, of course. New griffiners have to prove themselves right away. Show their mettle, so to speak.” He cackled. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry if I was you. She might be pushing you hard now, but if I’m any judge she’ll have other things to worry about soon enough.”
Erian scratched his ear. “Like what?”
“I mean that she’s got a proper home now,” said Kerod. “A nest. And everyone knows what griffins use nests for.”
“I’m sorry?” said Erian, mystified.
“Good gods, boy, don’t you know anything about griffins?” said Kerod. “Where did you grow up, anyway?”
“Uh, Carrick,” said Erian, wishing he could have said something else.
“Carrick? Never heard of it. Well, look,” Kerod said, and shrugged, “when a male griffin invites a female to go flying with him—”
Erian started, so violently he broke the stylus in half. “What?”
“Calm down, it’s natural enough,” said Kerod.
“Yes, but …” Erian tried to imagine Senneck submitting to a male, especially one as scruffy looking and eccentric as Eekrae, and failed. “You mean Eekrae … ?”
“A little slow on the uptake, aren’t we?” said Kerod. “He likes her, obviously, and she finally said yes to his invitation, so—”
“So she’ll lay eggs?”
“Maybe, maybe not. There’s no promise it’ll come to anything. Plenty of times griffins mate but the female doesn’t lay, or the eggs aren’t viable. But if I were you, I’d take it as a good sign. If Senneck feels enough at home here to be thinking about breeding, it means good luck for both of you.”
Erian rubbed his head. “So what happens if she lays eggs? I mean, where will the chicks go?”
“When they’re old enough they’ll have to leave,” said Kerod. “They’ll live in one of the roosts, unless they choose humans to move in with.”
Erian tried to think, but his mind refused to accept what Kerod was telling him. “Good gods,” he managed.
22
Choosing
A
renadd and Skade walked back toward his campsite, with Skandar leading the way. Skade kept her distance from Arenadd, still uncertain and a little afraid, but as they were negotiating a rough patch of undergrowth he reached back and took her hand. She held on to it for the rest of the way, until they reached the little clearing where a fire was still smouldering.
Arenadd let go of her hand and added more fuel until the fire was burning brightly again.
“Here, sit down,” he said. “Come on. You look exhausted. I’ve got some food.”
Skade took the undercooked meat and raw potatoes he gave her, and tore into them without a second thought. Part of her felt slightly ashamed and urged her to stop and ask all the questions burning on her tongue, but her hunger overrode that and she bolted the food down without even tasting it.
Arenadd ate nothing. He sat on the other side of the fire, with Skandar lying peacefully behind him and watched her, his pale face concerned. “You look so thin.”
Skade swallowed the last bite. “I survived well enough. What you taught me helped me find food.”
Arenadd moved closer to her. “Skade, what happened? Where were you, really? I don’t understand any of this.”
“I do not understand, either,” said Skade. “How did you come back here from Herbstitt so quickly? And where did all those slaves come from? And why are they following you?”
Arenadd waved a hand. “Let’s start at the beginning. You went into the cave. I followed you immediately afterward.”
“What did you see in there?” said Skade. “May I ask?”
Arenadd thought briefly of the mist, the threatening voices and the inexplicable sense of dread. “The spirits didn’t want me to come in. They were trying to frighten me away. That was when I dropped my sword. But I got in anyway. I don’t think the spirits are that powerful, you know. They couldn’t physically stop me getting in; all they could do was get into my head, try and scare me. Anyway, after that I saw …”
“Saw what?” said Skade.
“I saw Eluna,” Arenadd said simply. “My dead griffin. But she wasn’t …
her
. She spoke, but it sounded like many voices, not one. She said she was the dead, and—”
“Do not tell me what they told you,” said Skade. “It was between—”
“Between me and them, I know,” said Arenadd. “But I don’t give a flying turd about what they think and want. They told me to go away. I asked them to help me, but they cursed me, said terrible things, told me I was evil. They got inside my head. Made me remember things.” He paused. “The night I died. They made me relive it. I felt the same pain I felt then, and after that—” He shrugged with exaggerated care. “The next thing I knew I was outside in the rain and people were grabbing me and shackling my wrists together. I can’t have been in that cave for more than a few heartbeats, but it was night when I came out.”
“And they caught you,” Skade said softly.
“Yes.” Arenadd’s face twisted. “Those spirits—they didn’t just refuse to help me. They gave me to my captors, let them get me.”
“And they took you to Herbstitt,” said Skade.
“Yes. They didn’t realise who I was; they were out looking for a runaway slave, and I was there, so they dragged me back to Herbstitt. The man in charge there knew I wasn’t one of his, but he decided to keep me anyway. He had me branded and put in with the other slaves. I was there for a month or so, but after I escaped and Skandar found me we decided to go back and free the slaves. So we brought them here with us.”
Skade looked bewildered. “But how is that possible? For all that to have happened—how can you have been gone a month?”
“I don’t know,” said Arenadd. “How long were you in that cave?”
“Only a short time,” said Skade. “I thought it must have been one night; it was dawn when I came out. And you were not there, and neither was Skandar. I waited for days, hoping you would return, and now you have.”
Arenadd frowned. “Hmm. That’s odd. Skandar?”
Skandar raised his head.
“Skandar,” said Arenadd. “How long were you gone? When did you come back from hunting?”
The griffin appeared to think about it. “Not fly far,” he said. “Tired. Fly east. Catch good food, big food. Eat, fly back, bring food for human.”
“Was it night-time by then?”
“Yes. The Night Eye open.”
“Was it raining?”
“No. No rain, not for days,” said Skandar. “I wait. Waited one, two, three days. No food, so I fly away. Come back to look, but you were not there. Come back many times, but nothing. I did not go back any more. I think you have gone, so I look for you. Find human, watch human, eat cow. But humans not see,” he added proudly. “I come at night, stay away. Like you said. Then I find you, near singing hill. Dig you up. You dead, but come alive. Magic! Magic human.”
Arenadd scratched at the scars on his neck. “Gods. That means if Skandar had come back that night, but it wasn’t raining and I wasn’t there, I can’t have been in the cave for only a short time. I must have been in there for a month or so without even knowing it. And you too, Skade.”
Skade looked thoughtful. “I think that explanation makes sense. Spirits, after all—they have a different time from our own.”
“So, they didn’t cure you, either,” Arenadd said bitterly. “Some help they were.”
Skade shook her head. “We were wrong, Arenadd. Spirits cannot help us. I do not think they even had the power to do so. The old stories claimed they had all the magic of every griffin that has ever died, but magic is something that belongs to life. To nature. And they are not part of nature; they are what has passed beyond it.”
“Well, then what use are they?” said Arenadd.
“They can do only what they did, which is to look into the future and into our minds, and advise us.”
Arenadd spat into the fire. “Advice! That’ll be the day.”
She looked at him seriously. “Did they tell you to do anything, Arenadd? Anything at all?”
“Yes, actually,” said Arenadd. “And a lot of good it’ll do me.”
“But what was it?” said Skade.
“Exactly the same thing people used to shout at me in the street. ‘Go back to the North, blackrobe.’ ”
“Then that is what they want you to do,” said Skade.
“Hah. And why, exactly, should I care about what they want?”
She shook her head. “I, too, was angered by the advice they gave to me, but now I think that it is the only thing I can do.”
“Why?” said Arenadd. “What was it?”
Skade hesitated, and then shook her head again. “No, I will tell you another time, perhaps. Is that all the spirits said to you?”
You are not cursed. You
are
a curse
. “They said … I don’t know, I think that was all they said.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes. No. Wait. I remember, they said something else, something about looking to my own pagan ways if I wanted help.”
Skade looked upward. “Perhaps they meant that the moon could help you. It is your race’s god, after all.”
“No,” said Arenadd. “Theirs maybe, but not mine. I already tried turning to the moon for help, Skade, and it doesn’t care about me any more than Gryphus or those cursed spirits of yours.”
“Why, have you prayed to it?”
“Yes,” said Arenadd. “I prayed to it once, while I was in prison. I begged it to save me. That was the night before my last day on earth. The night after that I turned into … into
this
.” He thumped himself in the chest, on the spot where his heart had once been.
Skade opened her mouth, then closed it again and sighed.
“Skade.” Arenadd moved closer. “Will you—will you do something for me?”
“What is it?” said Skade.
He touched her hand tentatively. “Will you kiss me again? Please?”
Skade looked uncertain. “Arenadd, I do not understand. Our pairing—our mating—it is over now. We were not meant—”
“That doesn’t matter now,” said Arenadd. “Just kiss me. Please. Like you did before.”
Skade hesitated a moment longer but then leant forward and kissed him lightly on the mouth. Arenadd tensed expectantly for a moment, but nothing happened. He kissed her in return, hesitantly, and she, once again seized by an energy and a passion she did not understand, pressed herself against him and kissed him as she had done before, lingeringly and lovingly.
They parted only reluctantly, and Arenadd touched his neck in a way she had become very familiar with. After a few moments’ silence, he sighed. “Nothing.”
“Why did you ask me to do that?” said Skade.
“Skade.” Arenadd took her hand. “When you kissed me before, I felt my heart beat. Just once. You made it happen; I know you did, but I don’t understand why.”
“But how can that be?” said Skade. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure, Skade. Surer than I’ve ever been in my life. You made my heart beat. It hurt so much, but … it felt so wonderful.”