The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

She is like me but not like me, thought Liath. I cannot assume that she thinks as I do, or that our goals match exactly. We are allies, not sisters.

“I pray you,” she said aloud, wishing she had asked Sorgatani more questions about the centaurs. With Sorgatani, she had felt so entirely comfortable; she had felt that no comment might be misconstrued, only explained or expanded on. She had felt understood, in harmony. “I pray you, I mean no insult if I have spoken of something that you consider taboo.”

“We are as we are, and as you see,” said Li’at’dano finally. “That you are otherwise is a mystery to us. It is the great weakness of humankind.”

“I don’t understand you, but I ask you, forgive me if I behave in any manner that goes against your ways. I must go after my husband. If there are any who will accompany me, I would appreciate an escort. I do not know where his camp lies.”

“You have an escort already.” Li’at’dano pointed toward the western slope. “The beast fears and desires your heart of fire.”

The griffin paced on the grassy hillside, keeping well out of range of the centaur bows. The rising sun gilded her feathers and she shone, her wing feathers shimmering as the light played across them, her beauty all the more striking because she was so huge and so dangerous and wild. Her tail lashed the grass; she was disturbed and anxious.

“God help me,” murmured Liath. Yet there was no way but to go past her, not if she wanted to follow Sanglant.

“West and north,” added Li’at’dano helpfully. “You can see the smoke of their campfires. Do not make us wait long. We must move quickly. The wheel of the heaven turns no matter what we do here on Earth.”

“I know.” She turned back to meet the shaman’s gaze, which appeared to her cold and steady but not hostile, simply quite another thing from the look of humankind. “I could have remained with my kinfolk, beyond the heavens,” she said at last. “I could have turned my back on humankind entirely, but I did not. These are the chains that bind me to Earth. I cannot escape them now, nor do I wish to.”

Li’at’dano nodded, an acknowledgment but not, precisely, comprehension. “It is not our way. I will not interfere with your customs, because you are not mine to command. Go quickly.”

Go quickly.

Suddenly the fear that something awful had happened to Sanglant and her daughter overwhelmed her. She had journeyed so far; what if she lost him now?

As soon as the griffin saw Liath coming, she padded away, tail beating the grass like a whip. Liath followed her; no question that the beast knew where she was going, and Liath saw traces of a trail—not an actual path cut through the landscape but the evidence left by the passage of a small party some time earlier: broken stems of grass, beads of blood dried on glossy leaves; a spot where someone had lain down to rest. These minute signs reassured her, but they made her wonder.

“Why do you lead me?” she asked aloud. “Why does this path interest you? What do you seek?”

The griffin swung its huge head around to stare at her, its amber gaze unwinking. It ducked its head down and with a shudder unfolded its wings to flash in the sun like a host of swords before furling them along its body. They moved on at a brisk pace. Liath had to run to keep up with the griffin’s strides.

She began to suspect the worst when, soon after, they reached a place where the ground was churned up by the trampling of many feet, where the soil had been ripped up by the force of claws digging into the ground.

Sanglant had, after all, been hunting griffins. Yet he was far too weak to kill one. There wasn’t enough blood, only drops visible here and there. If he had been torn to pieces by the griffin, then it had not taken place here, and if he had slaughtered the griffin, a field of gore would have marked their struggle.

Her breath came in ragged gasps as she sprinted, seeing the smoke of their campfires just over the next rise.

The griffin bounded to the crest of the hill and paused there, shining in the midmorning sun to scream its rage as a challenge. Adrenaline hammered through her as she bolted forward, hoping she had not come too late. When she crested the rise and saw the unexpectedly large camp laid out in an orderly fashion below her, when she saw—and how could she miss it?—what Sanglant had done, she began to laugh or else, surely, she would have cried.

3

“THERE’S a griffin on the hill, my lord prince!” Even Captain Fulk, pushed to his limit, could sound frightened sometimes. “God Above! And a woman walking with it. She has a bow.” The hesitation that followed these words was so heavy that Fulk’s astonishment seemed audible. “Lord have mercy!”

“My lord prince,” said Heribert softly. Joyfully. “It is Liath.”

Sanglant had never known it could hurt to open your eyes, but it did. Everything hurt. Breathing hurt. The sunlight hurt, but he looked anyway at the dazzle of light on the eastern slope. It was hard to see anything with the sun so bright and the beast that paced there so very large and fierce-looking, its wings gleaming ominously as it stretched them wide.

It screamed a challenge. Horses whinnied in fear, and he heard men shouting. In response to that cry the silver griffin strained and fought against the ropes and chains that bound it, but the soldiers had done their work well. One rope snapped, but the others, and the chains thrown over its deadly wings, held. Surly darted in to grab the thrashing rope and with the help of several of his fellows tied it down. No one got hurt this time, although it had been a different outcome hours ago when they had walked the hobbled, hooded griffin into camp and staked it down.

“What do we do, my lord prince?” asked Fulk, still nervous. Horses stamped and whinnied, not liking the approach of the griffin one bit despite the calming work of their grooms.

That griffin did indeed look fearsome. Its iron tang drifted on the breeze. It had, no doubt, come to rescue its mate. But what on earth was Liath doing walking beside it as though it were her obedient hound?

“Where is Lewenhardt? We’ll need every archer. Spearmen set in a perimeter, in staggered ranks. Double the guard on the horses if you haven’t already.”

He rested on a couch his soldiers had dragged out into the center of camp so that he could lie close—but not too close—beside his captured griffin and talk to it, when he didn’t doze off. It had to become accustomed to him.

He gritted his teeth and made an attempt to stand, but he did not have the strength. Hathui and Fulk and Breschius moved to help him, but he waved them away impatiently.

“Let her come to me. I need not move.”