The last band, with Hytanthas and Nalaryn, waited until the others were gone from sight among the boulders and rock walls before setting out. Although the mountains were unfamiliar territory for the Kagonesti, they knew a successful hunt began with a quiet departure. Hytanthas was happy to follow their advice. He was a city elf, born and raised in Qualinost, although for most of the past ten years, he’d lived in the field on one campaign or another. War he knew too well, but hunting was a mysterious art.
The Kagonesti fanned out ahead of him and his Bianost followers. Periodically, a Wilder elf would pause to examine a stone or an outcropping of lichen. When one stopped, all stopped, even those not in a direct line of sight. It was a startling thing to witness. Hytanthas and his followers found themselves watching the Kagonesti instead of looking for traces of griffons.
Ahead of Nalaryn’s people, a series of sawtooth peaks rose, each one higher than the last. Narrow tracks wound between the sharp pinnacles, some of the trails barely wide enough for a single elf. Hytanthas was forced to divide his followers into smaller groups, the better to filter through the rugged landscape. One band he gave to Vanolin, the second to Geranthas, and the third he led himself.
The last of the Kagonesti disappeared among the sun- washed rocks. When none reappeared immediately, the volunteers grew anxious. Hytanthas reassured them.
“They’re still there. We just can’t see them.”
He was nervous too, but thought it better not to let the townsfolk know. He braced his bow and carried it ready in one hand. The other hand he rested atop the quiver of broadheads bumping against his thigh. That made him feel better.
An hour passed. The morning sun climbed higher in the sky, its brilliant light barely warming the high bluffs. Vanolin’s band veered right around a grouping of jagged boulders. Geranthas’s people paced Hytanthas until a hulking, wedge-shaped ridge rose between them. Geranthas led his party around the left side, while Hytanthas circled the other way.
With no warning, a Kagonesti female appeared in front of Hytanthas. He flinched.
Hazel eyes crinkling in amusement, she put a finger to her lips. He remembered her name was Laurel. “Our chief would speak with you,” she whispered.
She led Hytanthas toward an impossibly narrow opening in the rocks. At Laurel’s request, he signaled the Bianost elves to wait for him there.
Laurel entered the fissure. She moved with astonishing ease and swiftness, bending and bowing to avoid sharp protrusions. Hytanthas’s clothes snagged and ripped. Dirt fell into his eyes. He felt like a great blundering human. All elves were not created equal, he decided.
Abruptly, they emerged in the open, but in deep shade cast by a ledge projecting overhead. Nalaryn and one other Kagonesti were there. Nalaryn gestured with his chin, directing the young warrior’s gaze upward.
On a pinnacle sixty feet above them was perched a fortress. Slabs of stone, some as long as an elf, were laid in courses, like the logs of a human cabin. Gaps in the walls showed tufts of tawny fur and white feathers: a griffon’s aerie.
There was no sign of activity. The occupants must be out hunting. Hytanthas started toward the pinnacle. Nalaryn put a hand on his chest, halting him. In the quietest whisper he could manage, Hytanthas said, “I must check. If the nest is old and abandoned, it’s no use to us.”
“It is not old,” Nalaryn said. He lifted his nose to the wind and bade Hytanthas do likewise. “The griffon is away, but the aerie isn’t abandoned.”
Nalaryn never said a thing unless he was absolutely certain. Hytanthas grinned in triumph, and they went to bring the news back to camp.
One by one the hunting parties returned, breathing heavily from their exertions in the thin air. Kerian’s group had been unsuccessful. The single nest they’d found was obviously long abandoned. The royal warriors had better luck. In the western approaches to the Skywall Peaks, they found an entire colony of griffons. Fifty-two aeries were in plain sight, and there could be more on the range behind. When menaced by a pair of wild griffons, the guards drove the animals off by clanging swords on breastplates. They saw other griffons battling in the sky, fighting with beaks and forelegs.
“Forelegs only?” asked Alhana. “That’s mating combat.”
The talons of a griffon’s eagle forelegs were dangerous, but not nearly so lethal as the more powerful leonine claws on its hind feet. Forelegs were used for sparring, not serious combat.
The guards described the griffons as having golden-brown plumage, except for a few of the larger males, who had head and neck plumage in black and bronze. The more observant warriors estimated the beasts at eight to ten feet in length, with wingspans of twenty feet.
“Those aren’t Royal griffons, but Goldens, a different breed.”
The royal cavalry of old Silvanesti traditionally rode the larger, white-plumaged griffons, which had come to be known as the Royal breed.
“Can Goldens be tamed?” Kerian asked.
Alhana said, “I don’t see why not. They’re smaller, but fierce fighters and superb flyers. In the archives, they’re said to be swifter in flight than Royals, though less hardy.”
In the midst of their discussion, Hytanthas’s party returned. He and Nalaryn related their discovery of the aerie. Nalaryn confirmed there was fresh evidence the aerie was being used. The news brought Alhana to her feet.
“A female! This is wonderful! She’ll be in her mating season. We must capture her first. We won’t need to scale every peak in the range to take more.” Hytanthas asked why. Alhana blushed, and it was Kerian who enlightened him.
“We can use the female to lure male griffons into our net traps.”
The ancient method of capturing griffons consisted of baiting a trap with a live goat or sheep covered in strong netting. When a griffon swooped in to take the bait, its legs would become entangled in the net. A female griffon would make even better bait, albeit for a different reason. When a would- be swain became trapped, elves would spring from hiding to rope it and tie down its wings.
“The head must be hooded very quickly,” Alhana warned. “Griffons will fight to the death-their own, or yours-as long as they can see an enemy.”
Among the Bianost elves were weavers and riggers. Geranthas promised to get them working on nets and lassoes, Vanolin offered to set others to making hoods. The two elves hurried away, and Alhana called after them, “The hoods must have drawstrings at the bottom. Long drawstrings!”
A shadow detached itself from between tall boulders. It was Porthios. Neither Kerian nor Alhana noticed his arrival until Hytanthas hailed him.
Alhana began to tell him what had been discovered, but lie stopped her with an upraised hand. “I heard,” he said. “We must capture the female immediately.”
Kerian pointed out the problem. The construction of ropes and nets, even with the best will in the world, would take time.
In reply, Porthios reached behind the boulder towering next to him and hauled out a thick hank of coiled fiber. “I have rope. And a net.”
Kerian stared. “How? Where did you get it?”
“I made it.”
Excitement erupted. Porthios, Kerian, Hytanthas, and the Kagonesti made ready to depart, to capture the female griffon.
Alhana would have sent a company of guards with them, but Porthios declined her offer. The warriors would be much too noisy for the plan he had in mind, he said.
Porthios handed Alhana a scrap of parchment, asking that she dispatch elves to locate the items listed. She assured him she would see to it, and see to the swift completion of the efforts of the Bianost artisans. Even as she finished speaking, he was moving rapidly out of sight. Kerian and the rest followed.
They covered ground quickly, slowing only when Nalaryn led them into a narrow crevice between two enormous boulders. Kerian unbuckled her sword belt and slipped sideways into the crack. At its end, she found
