The Shadowed Throne (25 page)

If Oeka had become as all-powerful as Rakek had suggested, then the implications could change everything. Unless it was just hearsay . . . but griffins weren't given to exaggeration. Especially not when it came to another griffin's being stronger than themselves.

Saeddryn sped up. And broke into a run.

E
ven though Senneck was in Malvern now, and enjoying the comforts of the Eyrie, she had been doing the very opposite of what she would have done under normal circumstances. Although she was desperate to know absolutely everything happening in the Eyrie, she stayed away. Away from the half-breed Queen and, more importantly, away from the repulsive thing that Oeka had become. The little creature revolted her but frightened her as well. She understood by now just how deeply Oeka could see into the minds of other creatures, and she would not let that happen to herself. Not again.

Senneck didn't know just how far Oeka's power could reach. Five wing-beats? Ten? Fifty? There was no way to tell.

A crippling paranoia had taken hold of her. She had seen the execution of the human, watching from a perch well out of sight. She knew full well that if Oeka looked into her mind and found disloyal thoughts there, then she would do the same to her. It could happen in an eye-blink.

Senneck hid away in her nest and brooded obsessively. Did the twisted little monster already know? Had she already sensed what she, Senneck was thinking, and decided to bide her time? How long would it be until that fatal blow came?

Still, Senneck didn't lose her courage. She ate and slept as much as she could, determined to build her strength, and when she was awake, she kept her thoughts as vague as possible, focusing on irrelevant things and using them as walls to hide what Oeka should not see.

Mostly, she thought about Kullervo and the coming fight. She was desperate to leave for Warwick, but she couldn't. Not yet, not on her own. She had to wait until the half-breed fool had made her plans and assembled whatever fighters she would send.

Someone would come and tell Senneck when the time came to leave. Or so she hoped.

After two days of rest, she noticed things beginning to happen in and around the Eyrie, and gladly went to investigate.

She already knew the location of the Hatchery, home to the unpartnered. Unlike the one where she had grown up, this Hatchery occupied one of the Eyrie's towers. Today, there was something going on around it. Griffins flew here and there, going in and out via the openings in the walls, and from her vantage-point, Senneck could hear the racket they were making. Odder than that, when she looked closer, she noticed that many of the unpartnered now circling over the tower sported red marks of some kind on their bodies. Blood? No, the patterns were too similar.

Puzzled, she took off from her perch and flew toward the Hatchery. Unwilling to go inside, she landed on a ledge jutting from the adjacent tower and watched more closely. Picking out an unpartnered from the flock, she watched him until he perched nearby. She saw that the red marks were stains on his feathers. They ringed his neck and spread onto patches on his back and belly. Odd, but there was something familiar about them, too.

Unable to decide what they could mean, she flitted over to another ledge, this one on the wall of the Hatchery. From there she called out.

“You!”

The male looked up sharply. “Did you speak to me?”

He was bigger than her, but she refused to duck her head to acknowledge his greater strength. “Why do you have red stains on your coat, youngster?”

She was being rude, but the younger griffin obviously thought she was too old and pathetic to bother with. “They are war plumage, old hen. The unpartnered are going to war!”

Senneck was surprised. “What griffin will lead you?”

The other griffin cocked his head scornfully. “The great Kaanee, of course.”

Senneck remembered
that
particular traitor. “The one who chose a dark human as his own? What mighty leaders you unpartnered have.”

The youngster took offence at that. “Watch what you say, old one. It is said that a griffin much more powerful than you mocked him for his choice long ago. He severed the fool's head and crushed it with his talons for all to see.”

Senneck snorted in disgust and flew away. She had never seen griffins as arrogantly contemptible as these. With luck, they would all die on Warwick's walls.

Still, at least if they were going to be there, the city would be certain to fall. Senneck decided to go and find this Kaanee at once.

The confusion made it easy to slip into the Hatchery. There were no floors inside; instead, the tower was lined with nests and perches set into the walls that left plenty of room for flight. Unpartnered were everywhere, arguing and mock-fighting with each other, anticipating the bloodshed to come.

Finding Kaanee was easy enough—down at the bottom of the tower, a knot of unpartnered had gathered around a griffin that Senneck recognised easily enough—if not for his appearance than for his age and the confident way he stood. His human was beside him, with a few others, using rags dipped in red water to stain the feathers of the griffins who pushed in to demand it. Kaanee only stood there and watched. Very regal.

Senneck's thin frame helped her now. She squeezed past the bulky bodies of the jostling unpartnered, nipping rumps and shoulders where she had to, until she reached the clear space around Kaanee.

“What do you want?” he said immediately.

Senneck paused a moment, looking him over. He was brown, tawny, and darker than herself, and his eyes were yellow. Younger than her, but not by very much, he looked like a griffin in the prime of life. The power he wielded made him seem even more solid than his stocky frame suggested. Briefly, Senneck wished she were younger. This one would have made an excellent mate.

She bowed her head to him. “I have heard that you are preparing to attack the traitors at Warwick. I wish to go with you.”

“Are you one of the unpartnered?” he asked.

“I am,” said Senneck, sadly reflecting that this was more or less the truth now.

“Go to my human, then, and be marked. We will fly out soon.”

“I do not understand why they must be marked this way,” said Senneck. “I have never seen a thing like this before.”

“This is the first time we have done this,” said Kaanee. “The traitors will have griffins with them, and we must know each other or we will attack our friends.”

Senneck chirped to herself. “A wise idea. I will be marked, then.”

Kaanee's human, overhearing her, came over and wiped the cloth on her feathers without asking permission. Senneck nearly attacked him out of sheer reflex, but stopped herself and lowered her head to let him do it. The red water felt cold when it trickled through her feathers.

Once the human had finished, she left the Hatchery and returned to her nest. Someone had left food, so she ate it and settled down to rest, facing the exit. When the unpartnered flew out, she would be ready to follow.

She found herself looking forward to the assault on Warwick. It had been a long time since she had last had to fight. Too long.

As she lay there on her nest of straw, sunlight warming her face, she thought of Erian.

He had never been a human much interested in thought and planning. He had always been meant for action—usually hasty, foolish action, but action all the same.
His
great love had always been fighting. He had been good at it, too, with the long metal talon he called a sword. If he were here now, he would be as excited as she was, or even more so.

Senneck imagined him there with her, pacing back and forth with his sword in his hand. She could almost hear his complaining voice.
I want to leave now! Can't we just go ahead? Why do we have to wait for that lot?

“Because we cannot always charge in, little human,” Senneck said aloud. “Not the way you did through your whole life.”

She heaved a sigh, and the ghostly image of the yellow-haired boy pouted and disappeared.

Senneck closed her eyes. It did no good to dwell on the past. She had spent too many years thinking of it, and it was time to move on.

She thought of Kullervo instead. Another human, more or less, not much older than her Erian had been. And, though they were so different, she thought that in a way they were very much the same.

How odd that she would find herself looking out for the son of her human's killer. But, then, Kullervo was nothing like his father. Gentle where Arenadd had been vicious. Stoic when Arenadd had been self-pitying. He was as humble as Arenadd had been power-hungry, and as messy as he had been vain. No wonder the world saw fit to trample him into the mud at every opportunity.

Senneck's tail twitched. “I will find you, Kullervo. I will take you out of that cruel place and make you safe again. I failed to save my Erian, but I shall not fail you. I promise it.”

P
ain shuddered in Kullervo's back and limbs as they tied him down. He didn't struggle, not now. Fighting back only made them hurt him more. He had come to understand that a long time ago, or so it seemed.

There was no way to tell how many days had passed. In all that time there had been beatings, and starvation, and questions, questions, always questions. When he would not answer those questions, more beatings came, and worse. He had tried to make the change more than once, despite how weak he had become, but he couldn't do it. Something blocked him, inside, and the change refused to happen. Once, feathers sprouted on his back and wings. They ripped those out, one by one.

Now, though . . . what now? They never told him what they were going to do.

They had taken him into a big room with plenty of light, where there was a table. Then they had taken his clothes off and made him lie face-down, tying him in place. Lying with his face pressed into the wood, he wondered what else they could possibly do to him. Rape, now? Was it going to be rape?

He closed his eyes and tried not to think of that.

The thud of a door, and a guard's voice. “He's ready, milady.”

“Good. You can go now. Yes, all of you.”

The door opened and shut again, then there was silence. Kullervo heard footsteps, coming to his side, and the woman's voice again.

“Kullervo. Can you hear me?”

He said nothing.

The woman moved closer, and he heard her hiss shock between her teeth. She fiddled with something by his shoulder, and the rope holding his head down loosened. He lifted his head and looked dully at her.

She was finely dressed and looked very pale. “Kullervo,” she said again. “Do you remember me? Please just say something.”

Kullervo coughed and dropped his head onto the table. “Griffiner,” he mumbled. “From before.”

“Yes, that's right. My name is Lady Morvudd.” She touched him and pulled away when he flinched. “It's all right; I'm not going to hurt you. Sweet Night God, what did they do?”

“Hurt,” Kullervo spat the word out clumsily. “I can get better. Not going to die.”

“You didn't talk, did you?”

His eyes closed. “Don't know anything. Just an ugly monster from an egg, that's all.”

“You're not ugly,” Morvudd said softly. “You're very special, Kullervo.”

He sneered at her.
“Freak!”

She recoiled. “Your teeth—”

The sneer faded from Kullervo's swollen face, and he stopped speaking.

“They're not going to hurt you any more,” Morvudd said. “You're here now because I'm going to examine you. I want to try to learn more about you. Just lie still.”

Kullervo said nothing. He lay there and thought of Laela, and Senneck, and let her do whatever it was she wanted. She was lying, anyway.
She
was the one here to hurt him now.

Morvudd moved around the table, muttering to herself. She touched his wings, lifting and flexing them, massaging the flesh to feel the shapes of the bones and joints. Every so often, Kullervo heard a faint scratching as she wrote things down. She felt his spine, too, and the muscles on his upper back, before she moved on to his tail. It hadn't been tied down, maybe because it was damaged. A guard had stomped on it, and now it had gone stiff.

Morvudd felt her way along it, from the base toward the tip. When she reached the swelling halfway along, Kullervo cried out. The tail wrenched out of her hand and smacked her hard in the face. Kullervo heard her yelp, and hissed to himself.

“I'm sorry,” she said a moment later. “I didn't mean to hurt you. I won't touch it again.”

She inspected his legs, instead, showing particular interest in the bones and how they moved. She didn't say anything until she reached his feet, and happened to flex one of his toes.

“Holy night!” she let go immediately. “Claws.
Retractable
claws! I didn't know you had . . .” There was a frantic scratching from her pen. “Do you still have talons as well? Let me see your hands . . .” His left hand curled into a fist when she tried to examine it. “Please could you relax? I need to see—”

The fist clenched harder. “Leave me alone,” Kullervo growled, slurring through broken teeth. “Don't touch.”

“I'm not hurting you, am I? I'm trying to be careful—”

“Leave—me—alone,” his voice rose. “Let me up. Let me get dressed.”

“I'm not finished yet,” said Morvudd.

“I want my clothes. I want to get up.”

“Look,” she said, in kindly tones. “This is important. You're a creature unlike any other, Kullervo. Every scholar in Tara would want to read about you. All I want to do is
learn
.”

He began to pull at the ropes holding him down.
“I—am—not—a creature!”

“I didn't mean it that way,” Morvudd soothed. “You're special, Kullervo, very special. Neither man nor griffin, but both, and your ability to change shape is—”

But Kullervo was beyond listening now. Muscles bulged and rippled weirdly along his back and shoulders, and he began to fight against the ropes, twisting and bucking. A snarl burst out of his chest, and his hands contorted. Morvudd backed away, opening her mouth to call for the guards, but her eyes went straight to Kullervo's hand, and widened.