Vandar smiled. You didn t tell me the journey was nearly over, he replied.
Because I didn t know this was the spot until I saw it, she said.
What can I do to help? he asked.
For now, stay out of my way and be quiet, she replied.
Vandar did his best to comply while the hathran walked around and around the summit. Alternately silent, chanting, and sometimes crooning, she stopped periodically to swirl her bluewood wand in figures like intricate knots. She was asking the help of the local spirits. And, one by one, they flickered in and out of view: an enormous raven perched on an outcropping. A doll-sized man of living stone. A ghostly wolverine.
When Yhelbruna had finished her preparations and consultations, she beckoned to Vandar with an imperious twitch of her wand. He joined her beside the jutting piece of granite where the raven spirit had appeared.
Give me your hand, she said.
When he did, she turned it palm up and brushed the tip of the wand across it. The rounded bluewood slit his skin like a razor. Though it didn t hurt and it would have shamed him to flinch even if it had he caught his breath in surprise.
She dabbed at the welling blood, using her wand like a paintbrush to daub symbols on the outcropping. Though stylized, some were less cryptic than the Raumathari runes. Vandar recognized the rose of Chauntea, the eyes and stars of Sel ne, the unicorn head of Mielikki, and a beaked, winged, four-footed beast that was presumably his lodge s totem.
Yhelbruna waved him away when she had finished writing. Then she lifted her face to the sky and started singing a song punctuated by rasping shrieks similar to his own battle cry, only even more bloodcurdlingly realistic. The power she was raising sent concentric ripples running out from her feet through the snow, as though it was a pond disturbed by a pebble.
She sang the spell three times through and started on a fourth time before anything answered. Then a speck appeared above the peaks to the south.
Flying fast, it beat its way toward the humans on their mountaintop, while Vandar gradually made out the details of its appearance. The lashing wings. The eagle head with its golden eyes and curved beak, a match for the raptor talons on its forelegs. The leonine hindquarters and tail, where bronze-colored feathers gave way to tawny fur.
It floated and wheeled above the mountaintop, seemingly inspecting the humans. Then, one or two at a time other griffons came to join it. Yhelbruna explained to Vandar that she was calling these beasts from the south, where they d found easy prey near the mines of Tethkel. They had devoured mules, goats, sheep, and even men, prompting the locals to ask the hathrans to put an end to the slaughter.
At first, the dozens of soaring, circling beasts were a glorious confusion, but gradually Vandar observed differences. The one currently ascending had dark brown plumage with scarcely a hint of bronzy gleam. One that kept swooping particularly low was mostly fur it only had feathers on its wings and head. A third was missing the tip of its tail.
Whatever their traits, they were all magnificent. Vandar studied them, rapt. He wanted them like he d never wanted anything before.
The creatures savage strength spoke to the deepest part of him, the part that had first drawn him to the griffon totem and the Griffon Lodge. But there was even more to it than that. Though his lodge held a place of honor, it was by no means the largest or most prestigious in Rashemen, nor was he the land s preeminent warrior. But the creatures soaring overhead could change that. One day, they might even make their master the next Iron Lord, when Mangan Uruk went to join his ancestors.
Vandar had been reasonably sure from the start that Yhelbruna meant to give the griffons into his care. He was both the obvious candidate and the one man she d ordered to accompany her on her quest. And surely last night s chance encounter had confirmed the wisdom of her choice. Grinning, he asked the Goddesses to bless the stinking Thayans and all their despicable schemes. For thanks to them, Yhelbruna had seen with her own eyes just what a stalwart hero he was.
Once again the hathran, her voice grown hoarse, reached the last line of her song. She swept out the arms of her voluminous cloak so that she looked like she was spreading wings of her own. She screeched her loudest scream yet.
As one, the griffons plunged toward the mountaintop.
If they were diving and swooping to kill the humans who d dared to summon them, they would easily succeed. Not even Yhelbruna s magic could fend off so many powerful beasts all at once. Yet Vandar laughed and raised his empty hands in welcome, because he had no doubt the witch was in control. How could it be otherwise when the griffons were his destiny?
And as he d expected, the beasts simply landed in the snow. Many turned their heads to glare at him, but they made no move to attack.
With its wings half furled, the biggest griffon of all alit right in front of Yhelbruna. Some of its feathers were more gold than bronze, painting streaks of brightness through its pinions, while its eyes were as blue as the clear sky above. They stared into Yhelbruna s face, and she peered steadily back.
Vandar wondered how he d missed seeing the striped griffon before, even among such a throng of them. For it was plainly the leader, and that meant, although all the beasts would belong to the lodge, the spirits must surely intend that one to be his own special steed.
Fascinated, he hurried closer, weaving his way through the lesser griffons. Constrained by Yhelbruna s enchantments, they allowed him to pass unmolested when one snap of a beak could have nipped off his head, or the flick of a talon could have spilled his guts in the snow. The closer he approached, the more majestic the blue- eyed griffon appeared, and when he came within arm s reach, it finally turned his head away from Yhelbruna to regard him.
He reached out a trembling hand to stroke the feathers on its neck. Yhelbruna pivoted and whipped her wand across his fingertips. The startling burst of pain made him snatch his arm back, and, possibly agitated by all the sudden motion, the griffon let out a screech.
Vandar rounded on Yhelbruna. What s wrong? he demanded. The beast is mine, isn t it? That s why I m here.
You presume, said the witch in her makeshift mask. You re here because I had a use for the affinity in your blood. I don t yet know who s meant to claim the griffons. We ll all have to wait for the Three to speak.
ONE
As he and his companions flew in from the south, Aoth Fezim studied the snow-shrouded town ahead: a collection of sturdy lodges with steep, crested roofs. A massive castle of stone and iron rose in their center, towering over every other structure and looking far more well to use an unkind word civilized. Aoth supposed there was a reason for that. Although the Iron Lords had occupied the pile for as long as they d been the warlords of Rashemen, it had started out as a Nar keep, and maybe the architectural style was still more Nar than otherwise.
It felt a little strange to behold Immilmar, the capital of Rashemen, or most any part of the northern lands. Thoughts of the place had often occupied him since his youth. Commoners of Thay, such as Aoth, were of Rashemi stock. Although he d been born into the pale, lanky Mulan aristocracy, mischievous nature had given him the darker skin and short, burly frame of a member of the lower orders. As a result, he d endured childhood taunts and brawls, and the Red Wizards had never seen fit to induct him into one of their arcane orders.
Later, as a war mage in Thay s legions, Aoth had fought the true Rashemi along his country s northern border. But until his journey to Immilmar, he d never seen more than the southern edge of Rashemen not before the War of the Zulkirs, and not in all the decades since.
You still aren t seeing it, said Jet, speaking mind to mind. You re too busy picking at your memories. Pull your head out of your arse and look where I m looking.
Considering that they shared a psychic link, and that the familiar was actually using his master s eyes at the moment, that wasn t difficult. Jet often availed himself of Aoth s sight, because the same magical storm that had
