The Shadowed Throne (27 page)

Rakek wandered around restlessly, looking for a place to settle down. Aenae hadn't returned.

“Now.” Saeddryn turned to Arddryn. “I don't know how long we've got, but wait here. Once I'm through that door, block it up with the benches an' don't lift them away for anything.”

“But aren't you going to stay with us?” said Arddryn.

Saeddryn smiled, a soft smile that made her look much younger. “There's still work I have to do. I'll come back an' join ye when I'm ready. No need to worry; they're not here yet. Nerth, are ye ready?”

He nodded sternly. “Got my sickle, an' that's all I need.”

“I trust ye.” Saeddryn came to him and hugged him. She whispered something in his ear and kissed his cheek before she let him go.

Arddryn started toward her. “Mother—”

Saeddryn ruffled her hair. “I'll see ye soon. Be brave, an' don't ever give up.” She went to the door, and through it, pulling it shut behind her. As it closed she looked back through the gap. “Block it properly. Don't open it for anything, not for
anything
, understand?”

The door closed.

W
aiting.

For Arddryn, that was all the battle for Warwick was. She stayed in the chamber with Nerth and Rakek, not knowing whether the enemy had come yet or how close the fighting might be. Saeddryn and Aenae didn't come back.

Arddryn hadn't wanted to talk to Nerth, but after a long, long silence she couldn't bear it any more.

“What's going on out there? Where's Mother?” She asked the question without looking at him or Rakek, appealing to the empty seats around her.

“Don't know,” said Nerth. “Can't hear a thing. Can ye?”

“No, nothing. We're too deep in the tower. I just wish I
knew
!”

“We'll know eventually,” said Nerth.

“That's not the point!” Arddryn sat down, head in her hands. “I wish I was out there. I should be fighting with everyone else.”

“I always thought ye didn't much like fighting,” said Nerth with a grin.

“I don't, but this is different. This isn't
playing
, this is real. I don't want to die, or let Mother die. She's always telling me to be a real Taranisäii, and now she won't let me!”

“Ah, well, if I were yer dad, I'd let ye fight. But with Lady Saeddryn, it's different,” Nerth said sagely.

“Different how?” Arddryn looked sulky. “She just doesn't trust me. She treats me like a little kid.”

Nerth cackled. “I tell ye, Arddryn, ye may be a Taranisäii, but yer as silly as every other girl I ever did meet.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

“Listen to her!” said Nerth, apparently to the ceiling. “Her mother puts her in charge of leadin' a whole city, an' she thinks she's not getting any respect out of her!”

“That's not what I meant,” said Arddryn. “She talks to me like I'm
stupid
.”

“Maybe that's 'cause that's how ye act sometimes,” said Nerth.

“Wh—how
dare
you speak to me like that?”

“I speak to people the way I reckon they deserve to be spoken to. I'm too old to do it any other way.” Nerth pulled out his sickle and flicked it back and forth, with surprising grace and skill. “Ye do yer mother a disservice, Arddryn. She's tough, aye, an' hard sometimes. Hard lives make people hard. An' though I don't agree with it, she put ye here for what she thought was a good reason.”

“What reason?” said Arddryn.

“T'keep ye safe,” he said simply. “Because she can't bear the thought of losin' ye the way she lost her mother.”

“She didn't care that much about Dad, did she?” Arddryn's pain twisted into a sneer.

“Damn right she did. Maybe she didn't always get on with Lord Torc, but she loved him right till the end.”

“She betrayed him.”

For the first time, Nerth looked uncertain—even ashamed. “It was somethin' she never stopped regretting. Torc understood that.”

Arddryn shuddered. “I wish I'd never known about it. How could she—and with
him
? He was horrible. Just being near him made me feel sick inside.”

“He did that t'some people,” Nerth muttered. “I dunno if—”

Something hit the other side of the door, hard. Arddryn screamed and nearly fell over her chair to get away.

Rakek was at her side in an instant. “It could be nothing—”

Another thump, and another, and the muffled sound of scrabbling hands.
“Help!”
a voice screamed from outside.
“Hel . . .”

The door shuddered in its frame, rattling the benches piled against it. The voice had gone silent.

Arddryn breathed deeply. “Oh, gods.”

“I think it's gone,” said Nerth.

Thump. The door shook under the impact. As if that was a signal, two other doors began to jerk against their hinges as something massive beat against them. Arddryn heard the scraping of talons and frustrated snorts and hissings.

She pulled closer to Rakek. “Night God help us.”

“Do not be afraid,” he said. “They cannot get in. If they do, I shall kill them.”

One of the enemy griffins left after only a few attempts, and the other gave up a short time later. But the other one, the first to come, stayed. The scratchings grew louder, and soon Arddryn could hear splintering wood. One of the benches near the top came loose and fell down off the pile.

Rakek ran to the door, wings raised, and stood hunched in front of it, already spoiling for a fight. “Come through here, and die!” he called.

There was a brief pause in the thumpings and scratchings before they resumed, harder than ever. A deafening crack split the air, and a hole appeared, the tip of a beak thrusting through the wood.

Arddryn backed away toward Nerth, groping for her sickle. “What do we do? Nerth, do something; just tell me what to do!”

He took her arm. “It's all right, it hasn't got through yet—”

The attacking griffin kept up its attack, focusing now on the hole. Its beak hooked in and out, ripping pieces of wood away until the hole was almost big enough for its head to fit. It stopped for a moment to look, and Arddryn glimpsed a blue eye glaring through at them.

“I am coming for you,” a voice called mockingly. “You, little chick, you will die first.”

Incensed, Rakek flung himself at the hole, scrambling over the stacked benches. They fell away under his talons, and he tumbled backward. A bench landed on top of him, but he got up, thrusting it away and scrambling for the door.

Nerth started forward, horror-struck. “Stop, idiot!” he yelled. “Get away from there!”

Rakek wasn't listening. He pushed the benches away and attacked the door, trying to get at the other griffin.

Nerth gave Arddryn a shove. “Get over there! Stop him!”

She pulled herself together, and ran. “Rakek, don't!”

Outside, the enemy griffin threw her whole weight against the door, and broke it apart.

With a scream, she charged over the pieces and leapt straight at Rakek.

Nerth appeared at Arddryn's side, pulling her away. “Get back! Girl, move! Tip that table over an' hide behind it,
now
!”

She obeyed, ducking behind the wooden barrier. Nerth stood in front with his stick in one hand and his sickle in the other. He was breathing hard. “Don't worry, girl, Rakek can do this. He's strong.”

Arddryn looked over the edge of the table and felt sicker than she had ever done.

The griffin fighting Rakek was female, long-bodied, and long-legged, her bony form bloodied in several places. She was bigger than Rakek, and fast.

Rakek attacked her recklessly, his red-brown form darting this way and that to avoid her talons. He called out taunts and threats, trying to provoke her, but she fought silently, unmoved and ruthless. She aimed a blow for his head, with her beak. Rakek avoided it and bit for her throat. She was too tall for him, and he missed but left a gouge in her chest.

The female pulled back and reared up onto her hind legs, talons spread wide. Rakek took his opportunity and sprang, straight for her unprotected belly.

She dropped the instant he moved, and her talons came down. They hit him square in the back. He pulled backward, but her talons had hooked into him and would not let him go. She took her opportunity and smashed the back of his skull with her beak. Rakek's whole body shook under the blow, and he made an awful, howling noise.

The female unhooked her talons and drove her beak into the back of his neck, shaking it violently.

Arddryn heard a dull snapping sound, and saw her partner go limp.

That was when she screamed.

Nerth took a step back, and bumped into the table.
“Shit!”

The enemy griffin stepped over Rakek's body. She didn't run, or hurry at all. She only walked, slowly and deliberately, body low to the ground. Stalking.

Arddryn could only see Nerth's back. He was shaking. “Nerth, don't—”

Nerth said nothing. He squared his shoulders, lifted his head high, and bellowed. The bellow carried him on, straight at the murderous griffin, his sickle pointed for her eyes.

The griffin raised a paw and knocked him away. The blow looked slight, even gentle, but it sent the old man tumbling across the room. He hit the floor and rolled several times before coming to rest. He didn't get up.

Arddryn had stood up without even meaning to. She didn't know where her sickle was. Everything felt very far away now. The room seemed to fade, and she couldn't see Rakek's body, or Nerth's. The thought crossed her mind, the mad thought, that she couldn't be hurt now. Not now, when she felt so frozen.

As if in a dream, she stepped out from behind the table and raised her hands to the griffin. “You don't have to kill me.”

The griffin said nothing.

“I have no weapon,” said Arddryn. “I won't attack. Take me prisoner instead. My name is Arddryn Taranisäii, and there's a reward for whoever brings me to Malvern.”

The griffin stopped.

Hope swelled in Arddryn. “Keep me here and wait until your leader comes. You can hand me over to him and tell them I'm your prisoner. I won't—”

“You are not the one,” the griffin said abruptly. “You are only a youngster. Where is the elder one? Where is Saeddryn Taranisäii?”

“My mother isn't here,” said Arddryn. “I don't know where she is. She and Aenae went out to help with the defences and never came back.”

“You do not know where they have gone?”

“No.”

The griffin lifted a paw and shoved her onto the floor. Arddryn's head hit the floorboards hard, and she groaned. “I told you, I don't know—”

The griffin's talons wrapped around her chest and began to squeeze. “Tell me where she is.”

“I don't know!”

The talons squeezed harder. “Tell me where she is.”

“I said I don't know!”

Harder, and harder, until the tips began to draw blood. “Tell me where she is.”

“I don't know!”

The talons closed, until Arddryn felt her bones crack. She screamed out something that made no sense, breath gurgling in her chest.

“Tell me!” the griffin screamed. “I will find Saeddryn, and she will die at my talons, now tell me where she is!
Tell me!
”

Arddryn said nothing. Her eyes bulged, and her fingers scrabbled uselessly at the floor.

Senneck tightened her grip even further. “Tell me!”

Arddryn opened her mouth and coughed up blood.

Senneck let her go, but it was already too late. The girl flopped out of her grip, eyes glazed in an empty stare.

“Shhhhhyaaaa!”
Senneck rasped out a griffish curse, and turned away. Her guess had been wrong. The traitor could be anywhere.

She ate some of the dead griffin to give herself some energy, gagging at the foul taste. When she had had her fill, she lay down to rest and lick her wounds. She had gathered a few, but she wasn't badly hurt. She had it in her for one more fight.

But how to find Saeddryn and Aenae? It was chaos outside; how could she ever hope to get to them? And Aenae . . . how could she fight him? Any son of the dark griffin would be massive and powerful. To fight him in the air would be suicide.

Her only hope of winning against Aenae would be to fight him at close quarters, somewhere his size would hamper him. But where? How?

Senneck glanced back at Arddryn's body, and her eyes narrowed as something occurred to her. It would be a risk, but it could well work.

Finding Saeddryn herself would be difficult and dangerous, but perhaps there was a way to make Saeddryn come to her. If she used the proper bait.

L
uck and sheer rage had freed Kullervo, but they only lasted him so long. He evaded the guards as long as possible, but there was no hope of escaping that way. There were locked doors everywhere, and he was exhausted and in pain. Before long, he had begun to stumble, his hurt legs refusing to bend the way they should. Breath burned in his lungs.

Helpless fury filled him. He had thought he was free, but there was no way out of this place. He was lost, guards were closing in, and, any moment now, they would have him. The only thing he was certain about was that he would never go back to that cell. He would fight back until they killed him. He would take death rather than spend one more day in that place. It was his choice to make.

Not much of a comforting thought.

He turned a corner and spotted a door that was open. There was no-one on the other side, so he ducked inside and shut the door behind him, hoping to hide until the guards had gone. The door didn't have a lock, so he wedged a chair under the handle and turned to look around. Cupboards lined the walls. A storeroom?

Kullervo began wrenching the cupboards open, pawing through the contents. Food! He stuffed bread into his mouth, nearly choking on it in his haste to swallow. In other cupboards, he found spare blankets and tied a couple around himself in place of clothes. Outside, he heard footsteps coming closer. He froze and dove behind a cupboard, but the footsteps went past without pausing.

Kullervo growled to himself and finished his food while he went through the last of the cupboards. He needed a weapon.

There weren't any, of course. Nobody would be stupid enough to keep weapons in a prison and not lock them up.

The gods hate me,
Kullervo thought.

He broke a leg off a handy chair instead, and went to the door to listen. No sound of anyone around. Should he stay here longer or make a run for it? The guards would be back the moment they realised he must be hiding.

Kullervo sighed and took the chair away from the door. He couldn't stay. Not unless he wanted to be cornered. He turned the handle and peeked out into the corridor. Everything looked quiet.

He slipped out and went back the way he had come, moving as silently as he could.

Ahead, he caught the sound of leather brushing against stone. He tensed and prowled forward, raising the chair-leg. The sound seemed to be coming from around a corner. Closer . . . closer . . .

Kullervo flattened himself against the wall by the corner, and not a moment too soon. A guard stepped into view, and Kullervo hit him with the chair-leg as hard as he could.

“Hey—!” Taken by surprise, the man staggered back, grabbing for his sword.

That buried griffish instinct rose up in Kullervo, and he leapt, talons swiping for the man's throat.

The man screamed and punched him hard in the face. Kullervo fell backward, hitting the wall. When he landed, pain exploded in his back. He tried frantically to get up, but his legs wouldn't move properly, and every movement made the pain worse. That was it. The guard had him now. He curled up pathetically, trying to protect his head, and waited for the end.

Nothing happened.

He risked a look up and saw the guard lying a little way away, unmoving.

The pain in Kullervo's back subsided after a while, and he dragged himself to his feet, staring fearfully at the guard on the floor. The guard was breathing, just barely, but his throat was leaking blood all over his tunic. His sword had landed near the wall.

Kullervo picked it up and limped away.

S
aeddryn and Aenae fought side by side, down in the streets. Aenae had wanted to attack the invaders in the air, but he couldn't do it with Saeddryn on his back, and there was no question of leaving her alone. There was fighting enough on the ground.

Saeddryn killed an enemy soldier with a blow from her sickle and ran along in Aenae's wake as he charged down Warwick's main street, scattering the human fighters in his path. The big griffin killed almost anyone who came too close to him and his human, and Saeddryn had been fairly safe for most of the time. Most of the unpartnered avoided Aenae altogether.

“We have t'get back to the tower!” Saeddryn yelled, rather half-heartedly. Aenae either didn't hear her, or wasn't listening at all, because he ran on without pausing. He was leaving her behind.

Ahead, a griffin burst through a window and launched itself at Aenae. He rose to defend himself, and the other griffin recklessly attacked.

Saeddryn caught up, stopping at a safe distance. An enemy soldier, running past, saw her and stopped. He peered at her and grinned. “High Priestess Saeddryn?”

Saeddryn bared her teeth at him and beckoned with her sickle. “I'm the one who knows the way to the Night God. Come closer, an' I'll show ye.”

The soldier already had his sword in his hand. “Thanks kindly, old woman. My wife keeps sayin' how she wants a new house. Yer head should be enough to get us one.” He ran at her.

Saeddryn sidestepped his first blow, and aimed a blow at his outstretched arm. Her sickle bounced off his padded leather armour, and she hissed a curse and bounded backward when he swung his sword for her chest. Still grinning, the soldier brought his sword down on her arm. She pulled away at the last moment, but the blade bit into her flesh. She gritted her teeth as blood wet her arm. “Damn ye!”

The soldier closed in. “C'mon, hag, can't ye put up a better fight?”

Saeddryn struck, straight at his grin, and blood splattered over the ground.

“Argh!”
The soldier staggered back. The grin was gone, and so was the end of his nose. His hand went to the wound, and he stared dully at Saeddryn.

She darted forward and killed him with a ruthless upswing.

Aenae appeared behind her as if by magic, bloodstained and panting. “Come. Our nest is in danger.”

“What do ye mean—?” Saeddryn looked up, and panic tightened in her throat. Smoke had begun to billow from the sides of the tower. “Oh no.”

“Quickly, get onto my back,” said Aenae.

Saeddryn almost vaulted over his neck and onto his shoulders. He was still wearing his harness, and she held on tightly as he took off.

Aenae spiralled upward around the tower, avoiding the unpartnered. From his back, Saeddryn could see the smoke coming from several different openings in the building. In one or two places, flames were visible. It took her a few moments to notice something odd: that all the fires seemed to be coming from only one level. She thought quickly, trying to guess which one it could be, and her heart wrenched. The council chamber!

Aenae chose an opening in a level below the smoke, and landed just inside.

Saeddryn almost fell off his back. “The council chamber is alight—quick, we have t'get Arddryn out of there!”

Aenae snorted briefly and ran off up the corridor. Saeddryn followed, and all her exhaustion seemed to fall away in an instant—the instant she thought of Arddryn—and fear began to eat at her. She hadn't thought . . . the council chamber had seemed safe enough, and Arddryn . . .

Oh, Night God, what have I done?

They returned to the door, that last door that they had left by not so long ago, and Saeddryn groaned aloud. “No.”

Aenae went in first, just a little way. He stopped and turned back to look at her. “They are dead.”

Saeddryn followed. “What—?”

A thump came from behind her, very soft. She stopped.

Aenae looked past her. “Saeddryn, come to me, now!”

She ran to him immediately, slowing and turning when she reached his side. Her grip tightened on her sickle.

A griffin had dropped into the doorway, blocking it. Female, earthy brown, and strangely . . . familiar?

The griffin's blue eyes fixed directly on Saeddryn's face. “You remember me.”

Saeddryn had seen the red dye on the creature's body, and that was all she needed to know. “Where is my daughter?”

The brown griffin's stare didn't waver. There was a gleam in her eyes. “You remember me, Saeddryn Taranisäii. Remember me, from all those years ago.”

The fear bit at Saeddryn again, black and all-consuming. “I think . . .”

The brown griffin began to hiss. “I am Senneck. Senneck, hatched at Eagleholm, partner to Lord Erian Rannagonson, who was killed by
Kraeai kran ae
at Malvern. I am Senneck, and I remember you, who stood by the cursed one's side and helped him to destroy my home.”

Saeddryn bared her teeth. “
Senneck!
I remember ye now. Why are ye here? Why are ye even alive?”

Senneck yawned and stretched, mocking the both of them. “I have come to kill you, scum of the North, and you, son of the dark griffin, you as well. See, I have begun by killing your daughter, Saeddryn.”

“No!”
Forgetting the danger, Saeddryn looked frantically around the room. Her eye found the grisly tableaux left there for her to see.

Rakek's remains, partly stripped, lay by an overturned table not far from where Nerth had fallen. Arddryn's body rested against her partner's, the head slumped backward.

Saeddryn took a step toward the huddled bodies, stopped, and retched. She turned away, back to look at Senneck. Her mouth moved, but she said nothing. Her eye stared at the brown griffin, and there was nothing there in her face but bewilderment.

Senneck kneaded at the floor with her talons. “As my chicks were taken from me, so yours will be taken from you. When I am finished here, I shall go to Fruitsheart and kill your son. A son for my son, a daughter for my daughter. But no death shall please me as much as yours, Saeddryn.”

Aenae opened his wings. “Move away, Saeddryn. We have heard enough of the old hen's ravings.” He charged.

Senneck took a step backward and braced herself.

Aenae crossed the room with terrifying speed, all his strength aimed straight at the older griffin. For a heartbeat, as Senneck watched him come, she thought she saw another griffin there—not Aenae, but the Mighty Skandar himself, bearing down on her in all his fury. Panic swelled in her chest, but it was too late to move. Too late to do anything other than what she had planned to do.

She opened her beak and unleashed her magic.

A light filled the chamber, pulsating, green as grass. It enveloped Aenae, stopping him mid-charge. Saeddryn yelled something, some incoherent thing that might have been her partner's name.

The light faded slightly, and a cracking, grinding sound echoed off the ceiling. It died, too, with the light, and there was Aenae . . . or what Senneck had made of him.

A stone statue stood in the chamber, grey dust falling from its sides. Aenae, son of Skandar, frozen in an attitude of rage and fear.

Beyond him, Senneck faltered and nearly collapsed. She coughed, the sound dry and thin.

Few people could have had Saeddryn's presence of mind in that moment.
She's weakened herself!

Forgetting everything and all danger, she ran past the stone griffin and hurled herself at Senneck with all her might. Nothing mattered then, not grief, not fear. Revenge was the only thing left.

The sickle hit Senneck on the head and neck, opening ugly gashes everywhere it reached. Senneck rasped and ducked her head, protecting the vulnerable underside. With a scream of frustration, Saeddryn took her by the beak and pulled, wrenching at her head to make her expose her throat.

Senneck finally recovered and jerked her head upward, butting Saeddryn away.

Saeddryn stumbled, but she didn't fall.
“Curse ye!”
she bellowed, and lashed out one final time.

The sickle hit Senneck's beak, so hard that it left a long groove behind. The blade broke.

Senneck made an awful, hacking sound, almost like a laugh. “Fool,” she said. “To think that you could have a hope against me.”

Saeddryn hurled the remains of the sickle at her. “I curse ye, Senneck, I curse ye in the Night God's name! I curse ye to die and fall into the void forever.
Kill me!
”

Senneck said nothing more. She brought her talons down, and tore Saeddryn Taranisäii apart.