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Authors: K.J. Taylor

BOOK: The Griffin's Flight
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Olwydd and Nolan glared at each other.
“It’s not his fault, Taranis,” said Nolan, looking away. “He’s come straight from some peasant village over the mountains; how would he know anything about what’s goin’ on in the rest of the world?”
Olwydd half-rose at that, raising his fist. “Why ye little—”
Arren pushed him back. “Stop it! Do you want to get us all in trouble? Nolan, don’t talk to him like that.” He turned to Olwydd. “I’m afraid Nolan’s right about there being no slaves in Eagleholm. There haven’t been any there in about twenty years. But”—he couldn’t stop himself from giving Nolan a sour look—“it’s
not
because of some unrequited love story, I’m sorry to say. It’s because Eagleholm was nearly bankrupt, and they couldn’t afford to go on supporting a thousand-odd slaves, so Riona sold them all to refill the treasury. And I know that because I heard a griffiner say so. As for Arren Cardockson …” He shrugged. “Looks like nobody has any idea.”
“
I
do,” came a voice from the doorway.
It was Caedmon. The old man limped into the room. “So,
there
you are,” he said, looking pointedly at Olwydd and Prydwen. “I had a notion ye’d be in here, filling this poor lad’s head with yer nonsense. I warn ye right now, if yer lookin’ to talk him into another escape yer going to have me to answer to.”
Olwydd bowed his head toward him. “Not at all. We’re here for a little storytelling, that’s all.”
“He’s speaking the truth,” said Arren. “Right, Nolan?”
Nolan nodded a little sullenly. “I told ’em they shouldn’t be here, but they wouldn’t listen. But we’re just talkin’.”
“About Arren Cardockson,” said Caedmon.
“Well, I was
hoping
someone would be able to tell me who he is,” said Arren, affecting an air of slightly contemptuous frustration. “But I’m not having much luck.”
“And so it should be,” said Caedmon. “That’s not a thing we’re permitted to talk about.”
“And who is going to stop us, old man?” said Prydwen. “Yerself, maybe?”
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Arren snapped. He stood up. “Caedmon, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. Would you like to sit down? Something to drink?”
Caedmon inclined his head graciously. “I’d appreciate it. Thank you, Taranis.”
Several men moved aside to give the old man room to sit down, and Arren passed him a cup of water. “So,” he said once Caedmon was comfortable, “what’s this all about? Can you at least tell me who this person is and what he’s supposed to have done?”
Caedmon looked reflectively at the fire. “I s’pose there’s no harm tellin’ some of it. I heard the story up at the tower myself, so I know the tale the griffiners are telling.”
Arren tensed. “And what would that be?”
“This man,” said Caedmon, “Arren Cardockson—Olwydd was right. He is a Northerner. His true name is Arenadd Taranisäii, and he is one of the freed slaves of Eagleholm who stayed behind. But there’s more: Arren Cardockson was a griffiner.”
Several people made incredulous noises.
“Oh,
come on
,” said Annan. “One of us? A griffiner? Next thing you’ll be sayin’ he lives in a castle in the clouds.”
Caedmon shrugged. “That’s what I heard. A Northern griffiner. Not like to have been popular at the Eyrie, I’d say. He was a griffiner, and his griffin died. Some say he killed her; others say it was illness or an accident. But after that he lost his mind. He broke into the Eyrie late at night and murdered Lady Riona in her bed, along with most of her councillors, an’ then he set a fire and fled. No-one knows where he went, but most say it was northward, to kill Lady Elkin at Malvern.” He shook his head. “That’s all I know, but whatever else this Arenadd is, he’s a murderer.”
“No,” said Prydwen.
Everyone stared at him.
“No,” Prydwen repeated. “I tell ye, no. Arenadd Taranisäii is no murderer, and no madman. He’s a hero.”
Arren had taken the condemnation in Caedmon’s words like a physical blow, but even so he baulked at this. “Since when is a murderer a hero?” he snapped.
Prydwen gave him a look with more venom than a bag of snakes. “Shut that mouth of yers before I shut it for ye, yer soft-headed Southern slave. Ye know nothin’. What Arenadd did was for us, all of us.” He glanced appealingly at the others. “Don’t ye see? It was justice. Lady Riona was in the North, did ye know that? Her and her brother.” His face darkened. “I know of him. Rannagon. Lord Rannagon, the bloody bastard. My grandfather told me he destroyed three villages, all on his own. Sent his soldiers in, killed everyone and burned the buildings to the ground. But did
he
get called a murderer? No, an’ I’ll tell ye why. Because he was a griffiner, that’s why, an’ when the griffiners are the ones dolin’ out justice, what chance is there that they’d condemn one of their own? So it was left to Arenadd to do justice on him, an’ on the rest, too. Justice for the dead.”
Arren didn’t know which was worse: that he was being called a villain or that he was being called a hero.
The others were looking uncertain. “Well,” said Nolan, “I don’t see how it’s any of our business either way.”
“Of
course
it’s our business,” said Prydwen. “We’re his people, all of us. Even ye. What he did was for us.”
“I’ll bet,” Arren muttered.
Prydwen stood up. “Arenadd Taranisäii is a hero, an’ I name ye traitor if ye deny it.” He gave the assembled slaves a disgusted look, and spat. “I tell ye, ye make me ashamed to be a Northern man. Once I thought ye were my brothers, but ye’re too craven to even love yer own homeland. I’m glad ye’re in chains. Ye’re what ye make of yerselves, and I say ye deserve to be slaves. All of ye.”
14
 
Breaking Chain
 
E
very day, Arren and his fellows were woken up at dawn by the screech of the griffin at the temple—heard but never seen—and marched out to the wall to resume their work. Arren spent the first few days mixing mortar, until the supervisors decided he was ready to move on to something more strenuous. He was re-assigned to the quarry, where he had to help cut and haul blocks of stone.
Soon he was longing to return to the buckets. Mixing mortar had been tedious and tiring, but quarry work was backbreaking. Every evening he returned to the slave-house bruised and sore, his fingernails broken and his robe covered in stone dust. His wounded back couldn’t take the strain; the lash marks opened and re-opened, becoming encrusted with thick, dirt-filled scabs. Inevitably several of them became infected, and Nolan and Caedmon had to clean them out with a stinging paste of crushed griffin-tail, which eventually did its work. The infection cleared up and the wounds healed, little by little, until he could lie on his back again. But he knew, even without the benefit of mirrors, that the wounds had left deep scars behind.
His hand was little better. The branding iron had killed off a large patch of skin and destroyed the flesh underneath. It itched and burned appallingly and wept thin, watery blood. He didn’t dare scratch it, because that caused the kind of pain that made him think he was going to faint, but after a time the itching died down, and he lost all sensation in the back of his hand. That was when the worst part came. The dead skin had already sloughed off, and now the flesh underneath did the same. It stank of decay, and once it was all gone it left a deep, bloody wound behind. Arren did his best to keep it clean, packing the hole with griffin-tail and then covering it with a scrap of wet cloth, and fortunately it didn’t become infected. But it took a long time to begin healing.
By the end of a week or so—Arren had soon lost count of the days—the gap in the wall that he and his fellows had been working on was completely closed and the top levelled out. But there were other gaps elsewhere and other places where the wall needed reinforcing, so Arren’s squad was moved to a different spot, and the work continued.
A month dragged by. Arren worked without complaint and did as he was told; he never answered back, never looked a superior in the eye, never lagged or hesitated. He did his best to behave in the slave-house, too; when squabbles erupted he kept out of the way and never flared up or showed aggression toward anyone. It helped keep attention off him and stopped others from thinking of him as a troublemaker or untrustworthy. He hoped that the guards would notice and that, sooner or later, they would relent and take the irons off him. As for Olwydd and Prydwen, he stayed away from them as much as possible, knowing that being seen in their company would only raise suspicion. They obviously shared that view and made no attempt to talk with him again, but he knew they were watching him; they were waiting, like him, for a signal.
Arren behaved himself, but he wasn’t passive by any means. Every waking moment he was aware of the danger he was in and of the need to escape. He never let himself relax; he kept his distance from the guards as much as possible. He was tempted to rub dirt on his scar, but he didn’t dare; someone would see him do it and would ask questions.
That was the main reason he soon began to despair of having any chance to escape: he was never alone. Waking or sleeping, day or night, there was always someone there. He was watched by guards every moment when he was outside at work. The rest of the time it was the other slaves watching him, and though he liked their company, he knew they wouldn’t hesitate to betray him if they saw him trying to run away. And, he eventually conceded, he didn’t want to hurt them, either. They didn’t deserve to suffer on his account, and he knew that if he ran, then they would be punished.
He thought about it constantly, brooding over the problem while he cut and hauled blocks of stone to build a wall for his enemies, a defence made necessary by a conflict he had started. There had to be a way to get out of Herbstitt unseen without casting suspicion on the others. But whatever that way was, it refused to come to him, and time was running out.
One day, nearly two months after his capture outside the spirit cave, Arren was helping Nolan wrestle a large stone block into position among its fellows at the base of the wall when a shout came from somewhere behind him. He glanced up automatically, and the block lurched in their combined grip.
“Come on!” Nolan gasped. “Don’t drop it, damn yer!”
“Sorry.” Arren took a few extra steps sideways, then he and Nolan lowered the block on top of a stack of its fellows. Once it was down, he straightened up and rubbed his back, groaning. “Argh, godsdamnit—what?”
Nolan gazed past him. “Hey, will yer look at that, then?”
Arren looked. They weren’t far away from the town’s gates, which hung open. A large wagon had just been driven through them and had come to a stop not far away. Arren squinted at it, confused. There was a kind of cage built over the wagon, and inside there were—
“Oi!” Caedmon had seen them and came over, scowling. “What d’ye think yer doin’? This ain’t a puppet show. Get back to work!”
Arren shook himself. “Sorry, sir.”
Nolan had already taken the hint and was walking back toward the quarry. Arren lagged behind him, chains rattling.
“Looks like the new lot have got here,” said Nolan, glancing over at the wagon. The governor was there with a couple of guards, talking to the driver. “Not before time, either,” he added sourly.
“New—?” Realisation dawned. “Oh. Those new slaves who were supposed to be here by now.”
“That’s right. Looks like there’s a lot of ’em. Hope we got the room.”
Arren sighed unhappily as they walked toward the side gate that would take them to the quarry. More slaves would mean the work would go faster, and escape would become even more urgent. Still, he was curious to know about them and where they had come from. Perhaps, he thought hopefully, there would be someone among them who could help, someone else who wanted to escape.
By the time he returned from the quarry, carrying another huge block, the wagon had been driven over to the slave-house and the occupants had been unloaded and taken inside.
“They’ll be restin’ the day out,” Nolan observed. “None of them’d better take my hammock, or I swear they’ll be sorry.”
Arren grinned. “Don’t worry, Torc will make sure they don’t.” The boy was in the slave-house that day, cleaning and repairing things with the help of a couple of other slaves who were injured and unable to work.
Noon came, and the boy reappeared as if by magic to bring them lunch, which as well as the usual bread included a basket of green apples. “They was brought into the tower, but the governor didn’t want them,” he explained. “We get ’em ’cause he’s in a good mood now the new lot are here.”
Arren took one gratefully. “So, have you talked to any of’em yet?”
“Yes, sir. They was sent here from Wylam, sir, but they came through Eagleholm lands on the way. One of them said they was delayed there because a griffiner wanted to look at them all. He said he looked at all of ’em and asked their names an’ such.”
Arren’s blood ran cold. “I wonder why?”
“Looking for someone maybe, sir,” said Torc. “But that’s why they’re late.”

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