The Griffin's Flight (75 page)

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Authors: K.J. Taylor

BOOK: The Griffin's Flight
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“I’m going to Eitheinn to find Skade, and then I’m leaving,” said Arenadd. “I am not going to live here for one more day.”
“But why go?” said Skandar. “This home. We come here, live, you say.”
“Yes, I know. But I can’t stay here. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Why?” said Skandar. “Why you not want to stay?”
I took part in a human sacrifice and then a god told me to kill Flell, and Arddryn wants me to marry my cousin and start a war. Other than that, I love it here
. “Skandar, we’re getting mixed up in things we shouldn’t. If we don’t get out of here now we’ll never be able to leave.”
“What things?” said Skandar. “Where we go?”
“I don’t know. Listen, Skandar—it’s Arddryn. She’ll only let me stay here if I do what she tells me, and I don’t want that. I didn’t come here just so that I could be made use of. I’m nobody’s tool.”
“But I do not want to go,” said Skandar, almost forlornly. “This home. My home. I am happy.”
“I’m glad you are,” said Arenadd. “I really am, Skandar. I wanted to repay you for all you’ve done, by giving you back the home I took away from you. I’m not going to do that to you again. So if you want to stay here, you should.”
“But if I stay, you go, I will not see you,” said Skandar.
“Yes, Skandar. I’m sorry.”
Skandar shoved at him. “Not want. You stay. Stay with me, Arenadd.”
“Skandar—”
“Not want,” the griffin repeated. “You my human. You … my friend.”
Arenadd softened. “You’re my friend, too, Skandar. We’ve come a long way together, haven’t we?”
“Stay,” said Skandar.
“Skandar, Arddryn wants me to fight a war,” said Arenadd. “Do you know what that means? She wants me to fight griffiners—hundreds of them.”
“I know,” said Skandar. “Hyrenna say. Other human, wrong human—our land, our territory, we drive them out.” He hissed. “We fight. You, me, fight together.”
The sun was beginning to come up. “Well,” said Arenadd, “I have to go to Eitheinn anyway—you know, the village. Arddryn wants me to go and talk to Saeddryn. Do you want to come?”
“I come,” Skandar said immediately. He bent his forelegs and lowered his head. “Come.”
Arenadd got on his back. “Let’s g—”
The rest of his sentence broke off into a yelp of surprise as Skandar leapt into the air. It had been a long time since Arenadd had ridden on his back, and the take-off nearly unseated him. But he managed to steady himself, and Skandar flew upward, levelled out and made for the village at a leisurely pace. Arenadd knew the griffin had insisted on coming partly out of fear that if he went there alone he would not return.
In a way, though, he was glad. The thought of leaving the gorge without Skandar had been a painful one, almost as much as the thought of leaving Skade behind. Deep down, he knew he couldn’t allow himself to abandon either of them.
His spirits rose higher as Skandar did and he could see more and more of the lands below them. They began to move southward, and the gorge fell away behind them like a bad dream. He saw Taranis’ Throne become a circle of pinpricks against the snow, and the more it diminished the greater his sense of relief. Even the memory of the previous night’s vision felt less real and frightening now. It couldn’t have been real.
Gods don’t talk to people,
he told himself sternly.
They don’t care about what we do, and they don’t come down and command us to do things. And I’m nobody’s creature. If she wants something done, she can do it herself. I don’t care
.
He reassured himself with thoughts like these for much of the rest of the flight, until Eitheinn came into view; he straightened up, trying to look past Skandar’s head. They passed over the village and then circled around, and Arenadd was soon able to see Saeddryn’s home and the barn attached. Skandar must have seen it, too, because he landed in the street close to it.
Arenadd scrambled off his back and dusted himself down. “Well, here we are again! Shall we—?”
He stopped abruptly, as he saw something that bothered him. Frowning, he turned to look around at the houses, trying to discern the thing that looked different.
Nothing much had changed on the outside. The houses were as tiny and simple as he remembered; the dirt street was slick with snow. And yet something was different.
There was no-one around. No-one tending the fields. No sheep in the pens.
“Where
is
everyone?” said Arenadd.
Skandar stirred. “Smell. Something smell.”
Arenadd scuffed at the ground by his boot and saw something else odd. “There’s charcoal under the snow here. Someone’s been burning something.” A deep foreboding began to stir inside him. “Come on,” he said. “We have to go and see Saeddryn.”
He hurried toward her house, with Skandar following. The door was hanging partly open; one hinge had been broken, and snow had blown in through the gap and piled up on the floor inside.
Arenadd shoved it out of the way. “Saeddryn! Saeddryn, are you—?” He stopped dead just inside the door, staring in horror.
The place was in ruins. Some of the furniture was missing; the rest was broken into pieces. Snow had fallen down the chimney and clogged up the hearth, and the cupboards were open and empty. The bed in the corner had been torn apart, the flagstones on the floor levered out.
“Oh no,” Arenadd moaned. He turned abruptly and ran back through the door, shoving past Skandar. Ignoring the griffin’s offended hiss, he scrambled toward the barn and through the door.
The barn, too, was deserted, its contents gone or destroyed. It looked as if it had been deserted for weeks.
Skandar pushed his way in. “Gone!”
Arenadd suddenly felt dizzy. He sagged against the wall. “Oh gods. Oh dear gods. No. Skade.”
“Smell in here,” said Skandar. “Griffin smell. Human smell. Old.”
Arenadd straightened up. “Come on,” he said. “We have to see if there’s anyone left in the village. They can tell us what happened.”
When they emerged from the barn, they found that there were people still there. A handful of them had congregated outside the barn and were waiting. All of them were old, and fear and anxiety made them look still older. They regarded Arenadd and Skandar dully, keeping well back.
Arenadd went toward them. “Please, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m a friend.”
One man ventured a little closer. “Who are ye?” he said, speaking Cymrian. The sound of it took Arenadd by surprise. He himself had been speaking Northern, so used to it by now that he hadn’t even thought about it. It was strange to hear Cymrian again.
“What happened here?” he said, in Cymrian, the language feeling clumsy in his mouth.
The man rubbed a hand over his face. “Griffiners,” he mumbled. “Dozens of ’em. Guards, too, lots of those. They came here one night, before dawn. No warning, no sign, nothing. No-one had any chance t’run or hide. They went into everyone’s houses, woke ’em up, started askin’ questions. All sorts of questions. Do ye know griffish, have ye ever been up to the circle, have ye ever seen a griffin up here—if they didn’t like the answers they got, they hit people.”
Arenadd swore. “What did you tell them? What did they find out?”
“I dunno,” said the man. “It was all such a mess.”
“And Saeddryn? And Skade? What happened to them?”
“Saeddryn didn’t—she was the only one knew where t’find the people what lives up in the mountains. Ye an’ the others what lives up in the mountains. Her an’ Rhodri an’ Talfryn. They was there when the griffiners went to her house. Rhodri got free an’ ran in t’help her get away, an’ Talfryn attacked the bastards. Some of his friends helped. They all died. Talfryn attacked a griffin, got his head half tore off—after that everyone went mad.” The old man’s face twisted in anguish. “They just started killin’ people. Everyone started tryin’ t’run or fight, an’ the griffiners an’ the guards tried t’stop ’em, but the griffins started killin’, an’ no-one could stop them.” He looked up at Arenadd and added, quite matter-of-factly, “Most of the village is dead.”
Arenadd’s stomach twisted. “But Skade. And Saeddryn. What happened to them?”
“Saeddryn an’ Rhodri tried t’fight back,” said the man. “They was cornered, an’ Saeddryn got her sword—once they saw she had it, they went for her. She was captured. Rhodri, too, an’ some others the griffiners could protect.”
“And Skade? What about her?”
“They took her, too,” said the man. “Went in an’ dragged her out of the barn. She started bitin’ an’ screaming at them, an’ they put manacles on her an’ took her away with the others.”
“Where did they take her?” said Arenadd.
The man’s voice broke. “I don’t know. I don’t know. It was a whole moon ago. They’ll be all the way t’Malvern by now. Eitheinn’s finished. They took all the sheep an’ horses, burned the crops, took whatever we had. We’re the only ones left, us an’ two babies. They stayed away from us because we’re old, but what’s the point? What’s the point in livin’ this long just t’see our sons an’ daughters die? What’s the point in seein’ this an’ knowin’ everything we spent our lives toward came t’this? If they can just come an’ take it all away.”
Several of his friends came to try to comfort him, and Arenadd felt sick. “Oh gods. Skade. And Saeddryn. Those bastards. Those
bastards
. If they’ve taken them to Malvern, they could—what Saeddryn knows—what
Skade
knows—oh my gods.”
Skandar nudged him in the back. “What happen?”
Arenadd turned sharply. “Come on,” he snapped. “We have to go back, fast.”
“Where Skade?”
“She’s not here. Come on, let me get on your back, we have to go back to the gorge.”
Skandar squatted to let him on, and took off without arguing, apparently pleased to be going back to his new home.
“What happen?” he asked as they flew, the wind carrying his voice back to Arenadd.
Arenadd leant forward to speak into his ear. “Something awful has happened. Skandar, the griffiners have been to Eitheinn. They’ve taken Skade and Saeddryn. Very soon they’ll know where we are. We have to warn Arddryn.”
Skandar snarled. “My land! They come, I kill.” He put his head down and sped forward.
Arenadd’s mind raced. It was full of horrible visions. Skade captured, dragged away to Malvern in chains, locked away in a dungeon, tortured. Skade, his love. Skade, who knew his secrets. Fierce Skade.
And Saeddryn, too. He remembered the look on the old man’s face, and thought of Arddryn. What would she do when she found out what had happened? What could either of them do?
The journey back passed in what felt like no time at all. Skandar, if anything even more agitated than his friend, made a rough landing in the gorge, which nearly threw Arenadd off his back. He recovered himself and slid off as the others came running.
“Arenadd! Where have you been?”
“Where’s Arddryn?” said Arenadd.
“Home, I think. What’s happenin’?”
Arenadd turned sharply to point at the man who had spoken. “Listen. I want everyone gathered here in the gorge. And I mean everyone. If anyone’s away, go and bring them back as fast as you can. Understand?”
“But we need to catch something for—”
“Just do it!” Arenadd roared. “Now!”
The man gave him a startled look and ran away.
“As for the rest of you, I want you to start gathering your things,” said Arenadd. “Bundle everything together. And I want someone to keep watch. Some of you climb up into the trees, as high as you can, and keep your eyes on the sky. If you see anyone coming, raise the alarm. I’m going to go and get Arddryn now, and I’ll be back soon.”
He had slipped back into the commanding voice he had used at Eagleholm when he ordered the guards, and it worked now. The Northerners ran to obey. Arenadd turned to Skandar. “Skandar, can you find Hyrenna? Someone has to tell her what’s happened.”
Skandar nodded. “I go,” he said, and flew off.
Arenadd ran out of the gorge at top speed, his hair flying. He scrambled through the track to Arddryn’s space and, finding it deserted, went straight to the cave, shouting. “Arddryn!
Arddryn!
”
She was inside, on the bed, sitting up sharply and groping for her dagger. “What? Who’s there? Arenadd?”
Arenadd grabbed her by the shoulder. “Arddryn, get up, quickly. Something’s happened.”
She caught his tone and got up as fast as she could, tousled but fully alert. “What is it? What’s happened? Have ye been t’Eitheinn yet?”
“Yes. Arddryn.” Arenadd took a deep breath. “Eitheinn’s been raided.”
Her grip on his arm tightened. “What? What d’ye mean, raided?”
“Griffiners,” said Arenadd. “A lot of them, and some guards as well. They came in before dawn, without any warning. They’ve—Eitheinn’s in ruins. They killed a lot of people, destroyed all the farms. There’s only a handful of old people left, and a couple of babies.”

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