Chapter Twenty-Eight: Fatal Spiral

Hours passed at the cliff’s edge. There were a couple blurs down in the valley that might’ve been prowling gryphons. Or maybe they were just large birds?

“Krragghhhh!”

A cry went out across the canyon. Every neck craned to see. A shape that was too large to be any bird went soaring over the distant cliff, almost too fast to see. And then in the blink of an eye, it was gone again.

“Well? Is it what you thought it’d be, Osmund?” Sakina asked from beside him. Her curls fluttered in the wind, her chin still pointed skyward. “Observing gryphons.”

“I…I don’t know. Truthfully, I didn’t expect there’d be so much waiting.”

What then had he expected? Swarming monsters loosing a cacophony of bloodthirsty screeches as they sized up the party for their next meal?

“The attacks happen fast,” his companion sighed. “They were rare in the beginning. Sudden, but rare. Everyone in the village believed it to be one sick animal. And maybe it was, at first, but…”

“But whatever it is, it’s spreading,” Osmund finished for her, turning back to the canyon below, trying to layer the detailed illustrations he’d seen in books over those formless swirling shapes. “So you have to act fast before they’re all sick, right?”

“Right,” Sakina agreed. She sounded very tired. “Oh, it’s so very dreadful. The people of Kaliany celebrated their neighborly relationship with the gryphons all these years. Now, they don’t even know if killing the diseased will be enough to save them.”

Cemil approached them on Anaya. He’d been nearby, but not so close that it’d been apparent that he had been listening. “What do you propose if not killing the ones who attack humans?” he asked of her.

“Isolation. Study.” Sakina was staring down her prince. “Treatment, if possible. Killing only if we have to.”

“And how might we capture one?” Cemil pressed. He was earnestly asking, but Osmund detected a hint of frustration.

“You can leave that to me. What I need are for your horsemen to distract it.”

“So what do we do now? Wait for one of these infected gryphons to drop out of the sky in front of us?”

Now, Osmund was clueless about a lot of things. But he’d be the first person to tell you that phrasing a sentence that way was the same as raising your voice to the heavens and begging for trouble!

He had begun to hope that they might soon write off the day as a waste and a disappointment, and head back to town for food and rest. But then, it happened.

As if on cue, another loud cry grabbed every eye among the formation of soldiers. At first they only saw the clouds as a wayward wind kicked up the dirt. There. A massive winged shape, dark against the glare of the sun. It was bearing down towards them.

The wait was over.

“Gryphon!” Cemil whipped Anaya into motion. “Get it on the ground!” he bellowed. “Move!”

Osmund didn’t need to be told twice. Keeping his terrified eyes on the monster in the skies, he urged Banu into a sprint, and the chestnut horse was more than happy to obey.

The Meskato soldiers scattered like ants before their pursuer. The gryphon smashed heedlessly through an incoming volley of fire; arrows whirred and bursts of ice and light like magical harpoons clipped the animal’s wings and haunches. In a heart-stopping lurch it went nearly smashing to the ground, thrusting out its wings barely in time to re-take the skies.

“It’s coming back for another approach!” came the distant call of Cemil’s voice. Osmund’s heart raced like a prey animal. “Ready your arms!”

With so many targets, the enraged gryphon picked one at random, closing in as if to pluck the unfortunate man out of the saddle. This time a well-aimed frozen bolt caught it beneath the wing, a blur almost too fast to see. It let out a shriek that seemed to echo throughout the canyon, and hurtled out of the sky, toppling clumsily to the earth, displacing young trees and a layer of topsoil in a wreckage of debris as it dragged to a stop. It thrashed. Not yet dead.

“Tire it out!” Sakina’s cried over the din as she urged her mount forward. “Don’t kill it!”

The flailing beast staggered to its feet, beating its wings in mighty agitation. Time itself seemed to freeze in his terror, and so in a second that lasted an eternity Osmund got a first long look at the monster. Its long, hooked beak was an oversized eagle’s, with talons to match. It carried its stout body on four powerful legs, and its feathery mane resembled a lion’s in shape. But, there was something else.

There! On the right side, as it moved, though the feathers made it difficult to see. An injury? A deformity?

The soldiers saw this weakness, and used it to their advantage. They goaded the creature on its vulnerable side, then provoked it in its blind spot. The gryphon whipped its body back and forth madly. Osmund was reminded sickeningly of the wyrm, which was strange; in shape, the two creatures were completely unalike.

Then Sakina moved. Out from her hand shot a dazzling beam of pure sun—a light construct. In a few mystifying moments, the light resolved itself into the shape of a chain, and snaked its way around the gryphon, entangling at once its legs, its wings, and neck before fastening itself to the earth below.

The gryphon continued to wrench its body around in terrible efforts, clawing the ground and shrieking, but it was clear the battle was over.

Oh heavens, it was over.

A roar of victory went up among the soldiers. Osmund’s pulse continued pounding away in his throat, heedless of their triumph. The skirmish might’ve lasted a minute or fifteen. Relief only came once he turned and saw Cemil putting away his weapon. Today, at least, he hadn’t needed to use it.

One by one the soldiers on their mounts approached the scene. As soon as Banu trotted in range, Osmund’s nostrils flared, and he fought the urge to gag. An instinctive look at Cemil revealed that the Meskato prince was looking back at him with the same troubled expression.

“Beastie fuckin’ stinks,” one of the soldiers put it, rather succinctly. (Osmund noticed Nienos and the other mercenaries clearing the air with exaggerated gestures.)

“What is that awful smell?” Sakina wondered, looking stricken. She was drawing near the animal on foot. “An infection? Cemil…”

Cemil dismounted and moved to join her by the creature’s side. Osmund did the same, ignoring the roiling in his stomach. “██████ tissue,” Cemil said gravely, before they’d even reached the wound. “A wyrm attacked Osmund and I near Şebyan. It had the same smell, and the pattern of decay was too…advanced.”

Osmund didn’t need a dictionary to know the general shape of the missing word. He looked sharply up at him. “Does that mean…these creatures were rotting, even while they were alive?”

Cemil didn’t answer right away. He took out a knife and carved delicately into the black wound. Osmund looked on in fright. “There,” the Meskato prince said. His voice was faint. “No reaction. No blood. Here, at least, the animal is already dead.”

With a hard swallow, Osmund observed the gryphon’s injury again, though he really didn’t want to. He saw it now for the true horror that it was, exposed bones against rotted, retreated flesh.

“You mentioned a wyrm before?” Sakina pressed. She had one hand extended just above the gryphon’s uninjured neck, where its feathers were ruffled by dirt and battle. Almost touching, but not quite. “That doesn’t make sense, Cemil. How might a disease spread across such distance, and in such unrelated creatures? What could be the connection?”

“We can’t rule out a deliberate act,” Cemil said, the lines of his neck and jaw tense as he wiped clean the sullied knife. “It’s possible someone is using magic to torment these poor beasts. Though I can’t imagine to what end.”

Hardly aware of himself, Osmund moved until he could gaze upon the creature’s face. Its mouth—beak—hung slightly open, and its head had stopped its desperate thrashing. Now, it only blinked up at the sky. Though it reminded Osmund of the falcons he so resented, he felt a surge of pity for it.

“Is there nothing that can be done?” Sakina whispered, echoing his own thoughts.

Cemil continued studying the injury. His gaze traveled from the base of its wing, all the way down to its back leg. How it was even still moving around was a mystery; the tissue all the way down its flank was a wasteland of death. “There is no hope,” he murmured.

“None at all?”

“You know there are limits to what healing magic can do.”

Osmund felt in his manner the pain he was keeping out of his voice. Maybe just a small portion of it. “The beast’s suffering is great.” The Meskato prince’s hand was making for the sword again. “I’ll do it quickly.”

“No.” Sakina stepped forward, her face transformed by unhappy resolve. “Let me.”

Obligingly, the others retreated a few paces from the creature’s bound body. Osmund’s gaze traveled back to its single visible eye, still blinking up at the sky, its animal expression unknowable. Does it want this release from life? he wondered. Or does it still wish to try and fly until its body fails?

“Osmund,” Cemil said, and beckoned him near. The Tolmishman was the last to step away from the condemned creature. I’m sorry, he wanted to say, though he wasn’t sure why.

Sakina raised an arm. She was summoning another light construct, which resolved into the shape of an immense greataxe. Upwards it sailed, weightless, mirroring the motion of its summoner’s arm before descending in a fatal spiral upon the unsuspecting creature’s neck.

Osmund looked away at the crucial moment and felt the pressure of another hand over his own.