battle. When I have a chance, I’ll inform his retainers and write a letter of condolence for them to take back to his kin.”
“What about Captain Fezim, the sun priestess, and the wizard? And Vandar Cherlinka and the Griffon Lodge? They all ventured forth to find and destroy the undead too, but they haven’t returned.”
Bez shook his head. “I wish I knew, but we saw no trace of them. It’s unfortunately possible the undead killed them before the
The rasping cry of a griffon split the frigid air. A number of the creatures were circling within their invisible cage, a weave of magical compulsions constraining them to a certain patch of hilly ground. The bell jar-like space was as huge as Yhelbruna and her sister witches had been able to make it, but it was still obvious the magnificent creatures hated their confinement, and even knowing that she’d acted in accordance with the will of the Three, seeing their restlessness gave her a twinge of guilt.
The hathran currently watching the beasts wore a white robe trimmed with green and a silver mask with a single short horn jutting from the center of the forehead to signify her devotion to the Forest Queen. Dispensing with decorum like everyone else this morning, she hurried to greet the procession with the several berserkers Mangan had assigned to attend her striding along behind.
“We all saw the skyship and heard the thunderclaps,” she said. “Is it time?”
Yhelbruna supposed that with Mario Bez right beside her, the only courteous answer was yes. Still, some grudging impulse made her say, “We’ll find out,” instead.
She glanced around, but as she’d expected, the particular griffon she sought wasn’t one of the few on the ground. She peered up at the creatures soaring and circling overhead until she made out one that gleamed like gold in the sun.
She pointed to it. “That one is the leader. Control him, and you control the pride. Well enough to take them south, anyway.”
The beast master nodded. “I understand.”
“I hope so. I imposed my will on him when Vandar and I found him in the High Country, and my magic has controlled him ever since. I’ll have to loosen my bonds so you can create yours.”
“That shouldn’t pose a problem.”
“One more thing. The golden griffon is a telthor-a spirit animal, and sacred to the goddesses. I understand the requirements when one lays an enchantment on any creature. Yet even so, it would be blasphemous for you to use a spell that inflicts pain or reflects a lack of reverence.”
Sandrue pulled the bronze sickle from the loop that attached it to his belt and hefted it for her inspection. “My lady, I understand that among your folk, the men don’t study spellcasting. But I wouldn’t have this instrument if I weren’t an initiate in mysteries comparable to your own.”
“So let’s get on with it,” said Bez.
With an effort of will, Yhelbruna thrust the nagging reluctance out of her mind and so achieved the pure intent magic demanded. She locked her gaze on the golden griffon and chanted while shifting her staff from side to side in choppy mystic passes.
As the incantation proceeded, the completion of each rhyme removed another bit of compulsion from the golden griffon’s mind like she was picking stitches out of a piece of sewing. The invisible cage would still confine the telthor because that was an enchantment she and other hathrans had laid on the ground itself, but in other respects, he was becoming increasingly free to act in accordance with his instincts.
Or rather, he would have if she were the only person working magic. But to give him his due, Sandrue started conjuring exactly when she would have chimed in herself, and brandishing the sickle, murmuring contrapuntally, he replaced her coercions with his own.
She finished her working, and he finished his own a few breaths later by slashing the sickle through the air, pressing the flat of the curved blade to his lips, and then touching it to his heart. Then he screeched like a griffon himself.
The pride leader answered, furled his wings, and swooped toward the ground.
People cringed or cried out, partly because a dangerous animal was plunging down at them, but also because, once he came close enough, it didn’t take a hathran to recognize how marvelous he was.
It wasn’t just the golden plumage, unique as that was among the brown- and bronze-feathered kindred. It was the blazing sapphire eyes and his hugeness. With the possible exception of Aoth Fezim’s steed-the product, Yhelbruna had gleaned, of arcane tampering over multiple generations-she’d never seen a griffon so manifestly graced with preternatural strength and vigor.
The telthor lit in the snow fifteen paces in front of Yhelbruna, Sandrue, and the people clustered behind them. The blue eyes glared, and for a moment, like mice frozen in front of a cat, no one moved or made a sound.
Then Sandrue smiled and said, “You honor us, hunter. What’s your name, I wonder?”
“Whatever I decide to call him,” said Mario Bez.
Sandrue hesitated, plainly torn between the wish to avoid irritating his commander and the need to assert his own esoteric expertise. “Such a special creature already has a
“Fine,” said Bez. “Puzzle it out and let me know. Meanwhile, is it safe to approach him?”
“It should be,” Sandrue replied.
“Good.” The sellsword captain eased forward. “Griffon, we’re going to have some wonderful times together. People tell me your kind relish horseflesh. Well, we’re going to lands where horses-”
The golden beast crouched as though poising himself to spring. At the same instant, Yhelbruna had a sudden sense of bonds slipping and dropping away. Overhead, other griffons called to one another.
Registering the change in the pride leader’s stance, Bez halted. “Is it still safe?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the beast.
“No,” Sandrue said. “Back away-”
With a snap of his wings, the golden griffon pounced.
Bez leaped to the side. Yhelbruna rattled off the first words of a spell.
Splashing up snow, the golden griffon thumped down beside the sellsword captain and spun toward him. Bez was snatching for his rapier but didn’t have it out yet and likely wouldn’t be able to dodge again with the huge beast right on top of him.
But as the golden griffon started to snatch with his talons, Yhelbruna finished her incantation and jabbed her staff at the beast.
Discernible even in the sunlight, seeming for an instant to set the snow on fire, glare burst into being around the griffon, and the telthor faltered and screeched. Likewise caught in the effect, Bez was probably just as dazzled but had the presence of mind to retreat, finish drawing his sword, and point it at the beast. A coating of frost flowed into existence from the base of the long, narrow blade to the point.
A second griffon hurtled toward the folk on the ground. Melemer snarled grating words of power in some demonic tongue, and a javelin made of red-hot iron shimmered into being in his hand. Gripping it without apparent discomfort, he cast it, and it streaked upward and completely through the plunging animal’s wing. The griffon screamed and leveled off.
Apparently Bez had recovered enough of his sight to make out what had just happened. “Curse it, no!” he bellowed. “Don’t hurt the beasts!” Meanwhile, though, he kept his rapier pointed at the golden griffon and drew his dagger as well. Little flares of lighting arched and crackled up and down the smaller blade.
Understandably, with more griffons orienting on the folk on the ground, folk they suddenly felt free to treat as enemies and prey, nobody else was much more inclined to heed Bez’s command than he was acting in accordance with it himself. The Iron Lord whipped out his sword, and his honor guard did the same. Homely, mannish Olthe lifted her battle-axe.
Not that any of it was likely to matter very much. Mangan and his warriors were formidable, and Yhelbruna assumed that Bez and his underlings were too. But they hadn’t been prepared for this, and the griffons had them considerably outnumbered.
The golden griffon pivoted in her direction, and she chanted another spell. The creature crouched and spread his wings, but before he could spring, she reached the end of her incantation, jabbed with her staff, and a huge spider web flickered into existence to cover the beast and hold it to the ground. The mesh appeared a strand at a time but all in the blink of an eye, as though an invisible arachnid were weaving it fast as lightning.
