The Shadowed Throne (13 page)

K
ullervo didn't hear Laela's half-screamed yell of dismay. His ears were full of wind, and he was far too excited to be paying much attention anyway. He soared up and over Malvern, loving the feel of the wind in his feathers. The lands of Tara spread out ahead, inviting him to explore. He forgot all about his promise to Laela and set out.

Beyond the city were green fields, split by a winding brown snake of road. Other griffins flew here and there, straying beyond the city walls, but Kullervo ignored them. He could see the distant shapes of forests far in the distance, and he struck out toward them.

So this was the land his father had ruled. From the stories he had heard during his childhood, he'd always thought they would be snowbound and freezing. But though the air was cold, the landscape itself didn't look much different than the many others he had seen in his life. Above, the sky was grey, threatening rain, but he thought it made everything look silvery. Timeless.

Beautiful.

With a griffin's shape came a griffin's senses and instincts. They included a strong sense of direction. Kullervo knew how to find North—any child could do it. But as a griffin it was different. The four directions were so important in his mind that he sensed them rather than sought them out and found himself keeping to a northward course without even thinking about it. He had been able to change his shape for some years now, but this was only the second time he had flown any great distance. Despite that, he found himself obeying other instincts—noting landmarks below him, constantly checking both sky and land for any threat. And for prey.

As time passed, he saw villages, and cities built around the river. Mentally, he ticked off the places he recognised from the map. Wolf's Town, not far from the place where the river forked. Warwick, dark and walled. Fruitsheart, off in the distance by a huge lake.

It took him most of the day to reach Warwick, and though he was tempted to land there and scout things out, he was still determined to see the First Mountains before he did anything else. Besides, he was tired out and going into a potentially dangerous city now was a bad idea.

He landed in a nearby forest instead. He was hungry, but there was no food about, so he drank from a pool and slept, safely, in the branches of a tree.

Next morning, he awoke, desperate for food. Fortunately, Laela had told him that Warwick's lands were full of sheep, and he had taken that into account while planning his journey. Keeping a safe distance from the city itself, he visited one of the farming villages in the hills around it and filched a sheep from an unattended flock.

The griffish side of him was more than happy to eat it raw. In this shape, the hot, bleeding meat tasted wonderful, and Kullervo savoured every piece.

Re-energised, he flew on before the sheep could be missed, moving straight on toward the mountains, which were already looming large on the horizon.

He reached them just after midday. But when he arrived, it was to find something unexpected.

At the foot of the mountains, there was a tower. No city—not even a village—just a solitary tower, tall and solid, thrusting into the sky like a pointing finger.

Kullervo flew straight to it and circled around, examining it with fascination. It looked like a griffiner tower, but there were no doors at its base, and only one opening, right at the top. The whole thing was made from dark grey stone, flecked with silver mica, and as far as he could see there were no other signs of civilisation for miles around.

Once he was certain it was safe, he landed on the tower's flat top and rested. The stones were flat and well joined, warm from the sun even though a cold wind was blowing down from the mountains. He found a hole in the centre, with a ramp leading down. It was huge, obviously made for griffins, and he cautiously went through it.

It led to an enormous, round room, one so big that it obviously filled the entire top level of the tower. The solitary opening he had seen earlier led into it, but there was no way down to a lower level—just the ramp leading to the roof and the one arched exit meant for a griffin.

The room had no furniture but was instead meant to be a gigantic griffin nest, with straw and dry grass piled everywhere. There was an oversized, rounded water trough, fed by a pipe from the roof. It gleamed in the light from the opening.

Kullervo went closer and clicked his beak in astonishment. “Gold! It's gold!”

He tapped the shining trough, and, sure enough, the yellow surface dented slightly under his beak-tip. Not just gold but pure gold.

Fascinated, Kullervo explored further. There were no fresh scents here—no sign that anything had lived here recently other than the odd bird. He found bones scattered among the nesting material, most of them cracked into pieces. At one time, at least, a griffin had lived here.

But what griffin would be great enough to have a roost like this?

The afternoon sun, drifting downward to shine through the opening, gave Kullervo his answer eventually.

Shadows appeared on the wall opposite the opening, cast there by the light. Kullervo looked upward, and saw the words cut into the stone. They had even been inlaid with silver.

SKANDAR'S TOWER
.

Kullervo chirped to himself, in amazement. “The Mighty Skandar! This was his place! So . . .” He turned, looking again at the golden trough, the mouldering nest and the shattered bones. “So this was . . .”

He lay on his belly, and made a wheezing noise.

“So the great King Arenadd made this place for his partner. Another home, by the mountains. They must have been his favourite place. How many times did he come here? Did they come together, to be away from Malvern? Were they . . . happy here?”

A hiss escaped from Kullervo's chest. He stood up, his tail swishing from side to side. With a loud scream, he smashed his head against the water trough. The gold dented and cracked, and he struck again, and again, until a piece of it broke away.

Not seeming to notice the blood welling in his eye, Kullervo bounded toward the wall and reared up, setting his talons into the words that stood out there.

He snarled, and pulled downward with all his might. His talons curved and snagged on the stone, leaving rows of ugly scratches that tore the silver out of the carving.

Kullervo turned and stalked out, up the ramp, and out of the tower.

The cool air calmed him down. He scored his talons through his chest-feathers, and impulsively took to the air. Flying would make him feel better.

He circled for a time, until his heartbeat had slowed. But the joy and excitement of his journey was gone now, and he set out toward the mountains without ceremony, wanting to finish what he had set out to do and be done with it.

On a wide plateau, not far into the mountains, he found Taranis' Throne. Thirteen dark stones jutted out of the snow like jagged teeth, forming a circle around another stone. This one lay on its side, flat-topped like a table. Kullervo landed on it and peered around at the stones, taking in the elaborate spiral carvings cut into them.

The stones were weathered, pitted and smoothed by the wind. To Kullervo, they looked as if they had stood there since the beginning of time itself. They were sacred, these stones, and his griffish senses picked up the feeling of magic in them and the earth they ringed.

Soon, Kullervo began to feel uneasy. The silence in the circle became oppressive and threatening, and the stones seemed to rise higher, making bars of shadow on the snow around the altar where he perched.

His fur stood on end.

Kullervo flew up and out of the circle as quickly as he could. He went in search of Taranis Gorge instead, but it proved a little harder to find. The plateau dropped away on three sides, and there were plenty of valleys around it. Which one was the gorge he was meant to find?

Confused, he landed on a mountainside ledge and put his bundle of possessions down in front of himself. The map was still there, tucked securely under the belt. He gripped the bundle in his talons and tugged at the map with his beak. The leather kept slipping free when he pulled on it. After several tries, he pierced it with the tip of his beak and yanked it free, pinning it down before it could blow away.

Fumbling with his talons, he unfolded the map and held it open, peering at the lines and text on it. The griffish side of him found the map perplexing and couldn't grasp the concept of reading the place-names on it. No griffin could read, or had the ability to learn how.

Using human-like abilities now was hard, but Kullervo had practised. He concentrated hard, ignoring the griffin's insistence that the marks meant nothing, and wrestled the meaning out of them. There was the circle—
Taranis' Throne,
he repeated mentally.
Circle means stones. Throne.
And there, to one side of it, a dark mark and a label.
Gorge. Mark there . . . means Gorge. To . . . West. Sunward.

Kullervo turned to face west, and let himself relax. The map had told him what he needed to know.

He did his best to put the map back, but it quickly proved to be impossible. Griffin talons were simply far too clumsy to manage it. Irritated, he lifted the bundle in his beak and took the map in his talons. One forepaw would now be hampered, and he hoped he wouldn't run into any danger. If he did, the map was lost.

The gorge, at least, was easy to find now. He flew low over it, watching the ground for any sign of movement. If Saeddryn and Aenae were indeed here, then Aenae would attack him the moment he got too close. The big griffin's territorial instinct would be the first thing he acted on when he saw an intruder, regardless of what he and his human had planned.

Kullervo flew back and forth several times, braced for an assault.

None came. He flew even lower, until his back paws brushed against the treetops. Still nothing—

A cry split the silence. Panic-stricken, Kullervo turned clumsily on one wing and wheeled away from the source. He recovered and turned in the air, looking quickly for the sight of another griffin coming at him.

He saw nothing, but, moments later, the cry came again. It was the harsh, piercing scream of an adult male griffin—not the customary territorial call but the much more frightening screech of a griffin challenging another to a fight.

Wisely, Kullervo didn't return the cry and accept the challenge. He flew higher, ready to flee, but didn't leave. He searched desperately for any sign of another griffin, knowing that unless he saw Aenae with his own eyes, there would be no proof that he had found what he was looking for.

The cry came a third time, and even though the aggressive griffin didn't come flying up to the attack, Kullervo finally spotted him. There, in the side of a mountain, was a cave. The griffin was standing in the entrance with his wings spread, screaming violence at the hovering Kullervo.

It was not Aenae.

Kullervo hovered uncertainly, torn between fleeing and staying to look closer. But his fear gradually receded when he realised that, despite his screaming threats, the other griffin hadn't moved. Even from here, Kullervo could see that it wasn't Aenae. He knew what Aenae looked like—he had memorised the description of him. This was a griffin of monstrous size, dark and silvery, with a jet-black beak and an enormous wing-span.

Skandar.

Kullervo faltered as the obvious conclusion arrived. This had to be Skandar. What other griffin had this coat, this massive frame? What other griffin would be hiding here, in a place the Mighty Skandar had lived before, with his human?

Kullervo circled around over the cave. Below, Skandar continued his abuse. Now there were words in among the screechings and snarlings.

“You go! Go or die! Mighty Skandar kill! Kill you!”

Kullervo knew all too well what Skandar was capable of, and what he could and would do to anyone who made him angry or disobeyed him. But he stayed where he was, kept there by the knowledge of what finding Skandar meant. Skandar must know the answers to questions Laela had avoided. Answers that could change everything. Of all the people in Tara, only Laela and Skandar had been present when King Arenadd had supposedly died. Laela refused to talk about what had happened.

But perhaps Skandar would be different.

Kullervo could taste it now—the sense of something that had defined the world for him all his life. His father. The giant griffin down there, threatening to kill him, could lead Kullervo to the man he had missed since childhood. To him, it meant more than the Kingdom or Laela, or his quest, or anything else. Even the extreme danger he was about to put himself in didn't matter.

And that was why Kullervo tilted himself downward, and flew straight toward the cave. “Mighty Skandar!” he called. “I am your servant—”

That was as far as he got. Skandar shot out of his cave like a boulder out of a catapult. He came straight at Kullervo's chest and throat, and his intention was plainly not to hurt, or drive away, but to kill.

In the end, only Kullervo's small size saved him. Instinctively, he struck the air with his wings and shot straight upward and over Skandar's head. The wind from the giant griffin's wings filled Kullervo's, and he used the momentum to fly away as fast as he could. Skandar chased him, but though he was terrifyingly fast for his bulk, Kullervo was faster and more agile, and he just barely managed to flick his tail out of Skandar's reaching beak.

Skandar might still have caught him, but before they had gone too far, he abruptly broke off the chase and flew away. When Kullervo risked turning back to investigate, he saw that Skandar had gone back to his cave.

He landed in the branches of a pine tree and gasped for breath. His mouth tasted of blood.

Fortunately, he'd managed to keep hold of his precious bundle, and he deposited it in a fork of the tree before settling down to rest. When he was calmer, he started to think.

Something didn't make sense here. Why was Skandar so reluctant to leave the cave? Even if he had chosen this as his new territory, no griffin would turn back like that if there was another male about.