Prophet of the Dead

“I’m more worried about Jet’s part of the plan.”

“Because he hasn’t healed?”

She sighed. “It’s difficult to answer that. He’s done all the healing the Keeper’s light could promote, given that I wasn’t able to tend him until days after he was injured. But he should take more time to rest. Are we sure this is a wise idea?”

Aoth grunted. “It’s difficult to answer that. Taking on undead and dark fey, we’re likely to need all the strength we can muster.”

“But will it even work? Yhelbruna said the Three would incline the wild griffons to serve those who defeat the undead. So far, no one truly has.”

“Which means that at this point, goddesses and spirits don’t figure in, and in the absence of their prompting, the griffons will act in accordance with their nature. That’s to follow the leader of the pride, and if Jet defeats the golden beast, he’ll be the leader.”

“But the golden beast’s no ordinary griffon. It’s a telthor.”

“And Jet’s the product of enchantments I cast not just on him but his bloodline going back for generations.”

“I’m not concerned because I underestimate him. It’s because I care about him and know you love him.”

Aoth snorted. “If I ever said such a thing to him, he’d mock me forever after. But you’re right, I do, and I argued when he broached his scheme on the journey back from the Ashenwood. But maybe he needs this fight to test himself. He doesn’t want to go on living except in the knowledge that he’s still as strong as ever.”

Cera frowned. “That’s foolish and arrogant too.”

“For a human being, maybe, but that’s not what he is.”

“No,” she said, trying to banish worry from her tone, “he’s the mighty, fearless creature who fought Tchazzar and Alasklerbanbastos, and obviously, he’ll be fine. So we’ll stop fretting over him and conclude our reunion properly.” She lifted her hand from his and glided her fingertips down his stomach.

The golden griffon was soaring high above the hilly ground north of Immilmar. Jet flew in at a higher altitude still. It would be foolish to cede the advantage of the high air before the duel had even begun.

As he made his approach, he felt an impulse to take stock of his wings and see if they were aching even a little, but he thrust the urge away. Whether he was hale or still impaired, it was too late to worry about it now.

A prickly sensation, almost stinging but not quite, danced over his body, and the blueness of the sky brightened and darkened from one moment to the next. He’d experienced the same phenomena on his previous visit. He was crossing the intangible barrier the hathrans had established to contain the feral griffons. Fortunately, because the original spell hadn’t targeted him, it had no power to keep him out.

Their feathers bronze and brown in the sunlight, common griffons flew toward him. They might well remember seeing him before, and on that occasion, he’d fled from them, or so they would have believed. They likely expected him either to do the same again or set down on the ground in submission.

Instead, he shrieked a challenge that caused the wild griffons to assess his attitude, size, and manifest strength anew. Then they all veered off in various directions, declining a confrontation and in the process clearing an expanse of empty air between him and their golden leader.

The king griffon was even larger than Jet, and no scarring or bald patches marred his plumage and pelt as they gleamed like polished metal in the sun. Now that his followers had failed to dominate the newcomer, he deigned to take notice of Jet himself. Opening his beak, he gave a piercing scream of his own to demand deference.

Jet simultaneously circled right and climbed even higher, the start of a corkscrew path that might allow him to plunge down at the golden griffon from above and with the wind at his back. His actions conveyed his defiance as clearly as any cry, and, pinions beating, blue eyes glaring, the other beast began maneuvering too.

Perhaps because he’d been restlessly flying around and around his invisible cage for so long and knew the space inside so intimately, the gold beast almost immediately found a fast-flowing updraft. The vertical current flung him upward, and in a moment, he possessed the high air. Jet realized he had little hope of reaching the same height swiftly enough for it to matter even if he exerted himself to the utmost.

But it might serve him well to pretend that was what he was doing. So he beat his wings and climbed like a dunce while the king griffon made a lazy-looking circle and positioned himself to dive.

The gold then hurtled downward. Jet kept climbing as if he had yet to perceive the threat or as if he were suicidal.

When the telthor had nearly plunged into striking distance, he gave a scream intended to petrify his prey. Jet, however, took the shriek as his cue to raise one wing, dip the other, and, with the agility Aoth’s prenatal enchantments and a lifetime of aerial combat had produced, dodge out from underneath the gold’s talons.

The gold plummeted through the space he’d just vacated, and now Jet was the one who held the high air and had his talons positioned to stab and seize. He furled his wings and dived after his foe.

The griffon chieftain zigzagged, trying to evade. Steadily closing the distance, Jet compensated as necessary and reached to catch the muscles bunching between the gold’s wings.

An instant before Jet’s talons could strike home, the telthor dodged a final time. Instead of plunging down on his foe’s back, Jet caught the middle of his right wing. Well, that ought to be good enough.

Jet’s aquiline claws clenched in flesh. He raked with his leonine hind legs and lowered his beak to bite. Then the pinion to which he clung lashed with startling violence and flung him off.

Jet snapped his own wings in an effort to close and grab hold once more. But he was too eager, lunging before he’d quite recovered full control of his body. Jet couldn’t dodge when, flinging blood, his foe’s faintly striped golden wing flapped and struck the side of his head.

The blow slapped Jet sideways and stunned him for an instant, and when he looked for the gold, the creature was no longer in front of him. He cast around and located his opponent just as the telthor swooped in from the right.

The gold’s talons stabbed into Jet’s back, then, one foot at a time, released and grabbed anew as he shifted his orientation. The telthor likely wanted to align himself in such a way that he could snap his beak shut on his opponent’s neck.

Jet lashed his wings, tucked his beak down against his chest, and flipped himself and the gold upside down. They tumbled earthward like a stone.

Probably still trying to bring his beak to bear, the griffon chieftain clung to Jet for a moment longer. Then, however, he sprang away to keep himself from slamming to the ground along with his foe.

Jet wrenched his body into the proper attitude for flight, resumed beating his wings, and pulled out of his fall. But in the process, he once again lost track of the gold.

Instinct screamed that he should veer to the right. He did, and, talons outstretched, the telthor hurtled past him.

Jet raced after the gold, and now it was the griffon king’s turn to dodge back and forth. Jet managed to claw the end of a wing anyway, and then the gold spun away from him.

The telthor started to climb away from the wide-eyed, upturned faces of Cera, Jhesrhi, Vandar, Yhelbruna, and the other humans standing in the snow. Jet climbed with him, and, as they spiraled around one another, peered to see how much harm he’d inflicted.

Lots. An ordinary griffon might not even be able to fly with wings so torn and bloody.

Whereas Jet was in better shape. The gold had torn up his back, but the initial strike hadn’t had the momentum of a long dive behind it, and in the moments thereafter, his adversary had been more interested in turning around to use his beak than continuing to rip with his claws.

I’m winning, Jet concluded. I’m stronger and faster than a stinking telthor, and I’m tearing him to shreds. The realization filled him with exultation.

But the gold wasn’t ready to concede defeat. Blue eyes blazing, he screamed his rage.

And that, Jet decided when his surge of savage satisfaction subsided, was unfortunate. He’d kill the gold if necessary, but he didn’t actually want to. Should he survive, the telthor would be one more attacker to send against