It was maddening to guess how it was going from sounds blown to her through the tangled briars that hid the trailhead above. She stood on a broad ledge halfway between the town and the River Bonnett. It was reachable only by the track down from the heights or up from the river. Here she had flat dirt and room to fight. The river’s edge was all tumbled stones, where it would be too easy to break an ankle.
Kel got a coil of thin, strong rope and took it down the trail from the top of the bluff. Using spikes to anchor it, she stretched the rope at knee height across the trail, six feet above her guard post. It would bring any fugitives tumbling onto the ledge, where she would be ready for them.
She kept her fidgets to the occasional walk to the edge of her post, where she could look at the swift, cold Bonnett thirty feet below. When she caught herself at it, she felt sheepish. You act like the edge is going to creep up on you till you fall, she told herself sternly. Now stop it!
The morning she had climbed down the frail, rusted outer stair on Balor’s Needle had marked the end of her fear of heights, though she still disliked them. Looking at the Bonnett from her ledge was like wiggling a loose tooth with her tongue—it was silly, but she had to remind herself that she would no longer freeze in panic at the sight of a drop. She also wanted to be sure her body would remember that a cliff lay only ten feet behind her.
The battle sounds grew louder. She smelled smoke: had the bandits set the fields on fire? If she climbed to the top, she might see. Her orders were to keep quiet and mind her post. She ought to be like Jump. He crouched at her feet with the patience of the born hunter, ready for game to be flushed. The sparrows were among the briars above, preening, sunning, and doing whatever birds did when bored.
Suddenly they zipped down the bluffs past Kel, screeching the alarm. Gravel rattled down ahead of whoever was on the trail. Kel settled her hold on her glaive and checked her stance. She heard scrambling feet . . .
Was that a child crying?
Someone shrieked. Stones flew as the fugitive hit Kel’s rope hard enough to rip it from its anchors. A centaur skidded onto the ledge half on his side, tangled in her rope, brandishing a short, heavy cutlass.
Kel, hidden by a large boulder where the trail met her ledge, lunged into the open, driving her glaive down. She halted her thrust a bare inch from a squalling girl tied to the centaur’s back by crossed lengths of rope. A cool part of her mind noted that this was why no one had shot the centaur: they had feared to kill the child.
The centaur hacked at Kel with his cutlass as he wallowed, fighting to get to his feet. Kel’s moment of panic—had she cut the girl?—ended. She jerked away from the sweep of the enemy’s blade and cut the rope that held the child. “Jump!” she yelled. The dog leaped over the fallen immortal, seized the child’s gown in his powerful jaws, and dragged her free.
“Get her out of here!” Kel ordered him. The centaur heaved himself to his feet and backed against the stone, cursing breathlessly. She ignored what he said: she had one eye on Jump, who towed the shrieking child back up the path, and one eye on the centaur’s blade.
The immortal sidled, trying to find room for his hindquarters as he fumbled to yank a saddlebag over his head. He tossed it to one side, out of the way. Its contents thrashed and squealed like a large, frightened animal.
The centaur chopped at Kel, trying to draw her away from the opening where the trail continued down to the river. Kel blocked his cutlass, keeping herself between him and escape. There was nowhere for him to go on her right, unless he were mad enough to try that thirty-foot leap to the foaming, rock-studded river. If he ran that way, she half-thought she’d let him go. It would be a quicker end than hanging.
The centaur groped at a heavy leather belt around his waist with his free hand. He yanked out a throwing-axe.
My luck, thought Kel. He comes the way no one’s supposed to come, and he can use weapons in both hands.
He hurled the axe. Kel dodged left, still between him and escape, and stepped in with a long slash across his middle. He blocked it with his cutlass and hacked down at Kel’s head. She caught the blade on her weapon’s hard teak staff, angled the glaive, and rammed the iron-shod butt straight into the spot where the creature’s human and horse parts joined.
The centaur went dead white, uttering a gasping whine. His eyes rolled back in his head. Kel swung the glaive’s blade around, placing it where the centaur’s jaw met his neck. She pressed until a drop of blood ran down the razor edge.
“Yield for the Crown’s mercy,” she ordered.
Even as he snarled a reply the centaur kicked out with his forelegs, ramming Kel back. Her right side was on fire; her left thigh hurt so fiercely she thought she might faint. Instead she clung to her glaive and staggered to her feet.
The immortal charged, cutlass raised, and nearly speared himself on Kel’s blade. Kel silently thanked the Yamani armsmistress who had bruised her all over to teach her one simple rule: never drop the weapon.
Pain made her weak—she tried to ignore it. Her main attention, her serious attention, was on the foe.
He spun and kicked, his back hooves showering her with rock and dust. Kel shut her eyes just in time. She whipped her glaive in a sideways figure-eight cut to keep him back until she could see. Warm blood trickled down her cheek where a stone had cut her. The sparrows shrieked. Kel knew they were at the centaur’s face. Terrified he might kill them, she opened her eyes. The creature roared his fury, shielding his face against the birds, forgetting his cutlass as he spun, wildly hunting for an escape route.
Kel lunged, sinking the eighteen-inch blade deep below the centaur’s waist and yanking up. His belt dropped, cut in two; his forelegs buckled. Kel pulled her glaive free as her foe went down, clutching his belly. Blood spilled around his hands. From the stink, she knew she’d hit his human intestines.
He would die even if a healer could be found. No healer could save anyone from a belly cut. The foulness in the intestines spread, infecting all it touched. Kel gulped hard and cut the centaur’s throat, a mercy stroke. Blood sprayed, spattering her with drops that burned. He was dead when she lowered her glaive. His eyes never left hers. Even after he died, they were still wide, still fixed on this human who had brought him down.
Kel braced her glaive on the ground and hung onto it, swaying, her ribs and leg on fire. Her stomach was in full revolt over the mess she had made of the centaur—Kel swallowed rapidly until she defeated the urge to vomit. She prayed that no more fugitives came her way. She wouldn’t be able to stop them.
“Jump?” she called softly, not wanting to attract attention from the battlefield above. “Jump, where are you?”
She heard a scrambling noise on the trail, and a human whimper. The dog walked onto Kel’s ledge with the rescued toddler’s wrist held gently in his teeth.
“Guard the path,” Kel ordered. “Don’t let anyone take us by surprise.” Jump wagged his tail, freed his charge, and trotted back the way he had come. The little girl ran over and clutched Kel’s injured leg. Pressing her face into Kel’s leather breeches, she began to cry.
Pain made Kel turn gray; sweat rolled down her cheeks. The girl clung to Kel’s bad leg with all of her strength, sending white-hot bolts of agony shooting up Kel’s thigh. Using the glaive for support, she gently pried the toddler’s arms open and lowered herself onto a stone. Once down, she pulled off her tunic and wrapped it around the girl, listening to the sounds from above. Either the battle was moving away or it had ended: she heard a handful of horn calls, and no clanging metal at all.
“We’ll be fine,” Kel told her companion. The girl curled up on the ground, sucking her thumb, with Kel’s tunic for a blanket. She was asleep almost instantly. For a moment Kel looked at her own thumbs, thinking it might be reassuring to do the same. But centaur blood was on her hands. Also, the thought of the teasing she would get if anyone found her doing it kept her from tucking her thumb into her mouth.
A shrill, quavering shriek reminded her
of the centaur’s leather pack. Looking at it, she saw the pack thrash. Something was alive in there. Kel carefully got to her feet, moving like an old lady. Using her glaive for a crutch, she hobbled over until she could grab the pack.
“Calm down,” she told the occupant, lurching back to her seat. “It’s all over.” Settling the pack on her lap, she opened the buckles that held it shut and thrust a hand inside. Later she would wonder where she had misplaced her common sense. She had known too many animals in her life to grope blindly for one. All she could think was that pain and exhaustion had betrayed her this once.
The creature in the pack took exception to her hand. It clamped a hard, sharp beak on the tender web between Kel’s thumb and index finger. Kel yanked her arm free. The creature hung on, emerging with Kel’s hand. It was an orangey-brown bird, its feathers caked with dirt and grease. Blood welled around its beak as it held onto Kel. She didn’t want to hurt the thing, but she did want it to let her go!
Kel shook her hand, to no effect. She tried to press the hinges of its beak to open it. Catlike paws armed with sharp talons wrapped around her captive wrist, gouging deep scratches where they found flesh. She pressed harder on the hinges of that murderous beak until it popped open. Kel yanked her hand free.
The creature leaped free of the pack to wrap fore- and hind paws around Kel’s mail-covered arm. Kel grabbed its curved, yellow beak with one hand to keep it shut. She yanked her captive arm free of the creature, pressed it onto her lap, and wrapped the leather pack around it to neutralize the thing. Only when she was certain it couldn’t free itself did she pick it up to look it in the eyes. They were the hot orange of molten copper. She’d never heard of an animal with copper eyes.
The creature hissed. Its body, paws, and tail were all rather feline, except for the feather covering. The head, beak, and wings looked eagle-like, though she wasn’t sure. Unlike most nobles, Kel didn’t like falconry and had never tried to learn it.
“Cat paws, cat tail, eagle . . . ,” she murmured, then stopped as the hair stood up on the back of her neck. “Oh, no,” she whispered. “Oh, no, no, no.”
The baby griffin stretched out its head and grabbed a lock of her hair. She yelped as it yanked, and dragged her hair free before stuffing the griffin into its pack. The small immortal protested its renewed captivity at the top of its lungs. Somehow the little girl at Kel’s feet slept on.
Kel tried to think as she wound a handkerchief around the still-bleeding wound between her thumb and forefinger. Griffins were protected by law, but that didn’t stop poachers. The traffic in both griffin parts and live griffins was deadly, but not because of the law. If a griffin’s parents smelled their offspring on a stranger, even years afterward, they would kill the person. Whatever made up the scent, it could not be washed off. Mages weren’t even sure the parents detected an actual smell. The fact that it stayed for years seemed to indicate the scent was magical rather than actual. It didn’t apply to those who handled claws or feathers, only to those who had held an infant griffin. This one’s parents would have to be found, and someone would have to explain to them what happened before they ripped her to pieces.
Kel put her head in her hands. She straightened instantly as pain stabbed her ribs. Not now, she thought, despairing. I don’t need this now.
five
THE GRIFFIN
Kel sat bolt upright with a gasp. In her dream the centaur had come alive again, scaring her out of sleep.
She was in the dark, cased with sun-dried cotton that carried a fishy scent. She was not hot, sweating, dirty, or in pain. Now she remembered: they had lifted her up the hill on a loading platform and brought her to a makeshift hospital. She’d warned them about the griffin before someone else could touch it. A healer had told her she’d broken bones, then given her something vile-tasting that put her to sleep. She was in the hospital now. It was night. A few oil lamps supplied the only light.
She was just wondering how the others had done when the healer brought her another dose of medicine. After that she slept well into daylight until she woke, alert and ravenous. Someone had put a metal cage beside her cot. Inside it was the pouch, the griffin, a dish of water, and a dish of what smelled like fish scraps. If the immortal had eaten, she couldn’t tell.
They must have just stuck the pouch in the cage and let the griffin crawl out, she thought, yawning. She could see the small gate in the side closest to the dishes: whoever had fed the griffin and given it water could just change the dishes that way. If the griffin didn’t mind the cage, perhaps Kel could transport it that way until she found its parents. Her hands throbbed from the mauling they had gotten from those claws. Kel would rather not let it have any more of her blood, if she could help it.
A woman brought Kel a bowl of clear broth.
“The bandits?” Kel asked her, forgetting what she had been told when the others found her.
“Captured, them that aren’t dead,” the woman replied with grim satisfaction. “They’ll face the Crown’s justice soon enough.”
Kel nodded and finished her broth. Within a few moments of handing the bowl to the woman, she was asleep again.
It was nearly sunset when the baby griffin’s squall roused Kel. She peered at him over the edge of the cot. He was flapping half-opened wings, objecting to the cage. When he saw Kel, he peered up at her through the openings in the metal.
Kel flopped onto her back. I wanted that to be a dream, she thought.
Another woman brought Kel water and a bowl of noodles in broth. Kel was so hungry she nearly inhaled the food, looking around as she ate. She counted twenty beds, most filled with sleeping men. The two beside Kel held female Riders.
She was about to put her bowl on the floor when something small and wet struck her cheek. She wiped it off, then inspected it: a ragged bit of fish skin. With a frown Kel wiped it onto a napkin. She put the bowl next to her cot; when she straightened, something wet struck her eye. Kel removed it. More fish skin.
She looked into the metal cage. “Stop it,” she told the griffin. She was impressed with the little thing’s aim. It must have taken innate skill or lots of practice. . . .
Inspection of her blankets revealed pieces of scaled skin and fish bones in their wrinkles. Kel touched her pillow and the sheets around her head, to find more samples of the griffin’s target practice. She leaned over to glare at the creature.
A large, smelly scrap hit her squarely in the mouth. Kel picked it off with a grimace and dropped it into the cage. The griffin bowed its shoulders, lifted its head, opened its beak, then spread and fluttered its wings. Kel had raised young strays; she knew begging when she saw it.
“Ridiculous,” she told the griffin. “You’ve been feeding yourself from your dish. Keep on feeding yourself.” She lay down with a thump. A gobbet of fish entrails landed in her ear. She sat bolt upright with a cry of disgust, wrenched off her blanket, and threw it over the griffin’s cage.
The griffin began to shriek. Even with the blanket to muffle it, the hall echoed. Seeing other patients sit up, Kel snatched the blanket off the cage.
The griffin opened its beak and fluttered its wings.
Kel lifted the cage onto her lap. “Little monster,” she growled. She opened the grate and reached in for the dish. The griffin lunged and clamped its beak on the tip of her index finger. Kel bit her tongue to keep from waking anyone with a scream. She fought the griffin for possession of her finger. The moment she shook it off, the griffin assumed the begging position.
Kel glared at her charge. It was still filthy, shedding feathers, its keelbone stark against the skin of its chest. It was half starved. Keeping a watchful eye on it, she took a fish off the plate. The griffin opened its beak and tilted its head back. Kel let the fish drop. In three bites the prize was gone. Once again the griffin begged. Kel fed it two more fish without problems. When she fumbled getting the next fish out of the cage, the griffin hissed and swiped at her arm, leaving four deep scratches.
“I gues
s you’ve had enough,” Kel said grimly. She closed the cage and put it on the floor. The griffin began to scream again.
Five fish, a bitten finger, and three more scratches later, the griffin stopped begging. It closed its eyes and went to sleep in its cage. This time, when Kel put it on the floor, it didn’t protest.
She was still picking fish remains out of her bed when the nurses came to light the night lamps. With them came the shepherd’s boy, Bernin.
“You look better,” he told Kel frankly, parking his behind on a stool beside her cot. “You was green when they brung you up.”
“I’m not surprised,” Kel replied. “I felt green.” Her ribs and leg were bruised, but the deep aches were gone. The vile liquid must have been a healing potion.
“The mayor di’n’t even want you here, ’cause o’ that—” Bernin pointed to the griffin. “My lord roared at ’im an’ the mayor changed his mind.” He grinned so infectiously that Kel had to grin back.
“I’d do what my lord said if he roared at me,” she admitted.
“Well, you got to, bein’ his squire, an’ all,” he pointed out. “That little ’un you saved? The girl?”
“Jump saved her,” Kel said firmly. “I just distracted the centaur.” Jump, asleep on the opposite side of her cot from the griffin, thumped the floor with his tail.
Bernin rolled his eyes at this city girl nitpicking. “Anyways, her folks is charcoal burners, caught in the woods by them bandits. They took a bunch of lone folk, them that on’y come into the walls for winter. Cowardly pukes.” He spat on the floor, winning a disapproving glare from a healer. “But the little’s fam’ly wants to show you gratitude. They wanna know what they could do.”
Kel winced. She’d done nothing to be thanked for. Jump had saved the child. She’d simply killed a centaur and almost gotten killed herself, because she had forgotten he was part horse. Any thanks would only grind it in that it was a miracle any of them had survived.
“If they want to give Jump a bone, or thank Captain Flyndan, who put me there, that’s fine,” she told the boy, smothering a yawn. “I just did what I was told.”