The Shadowed Throne (8 page)

Touching it made her feel sick. She knew how many murders this sickle had committed. But still, it was her weapon by rights, just like the Kingdom. Queendom.

Sickle in hand, she returned to the audience chamber.

Oeka was there, with Kaanee. “And here is the Dark Lady!” she said, sounding almost cheerful.

Kaanee's tail swished. “If your eyes were not blue, I would think that you were your father,” he said.

Laela grunted. “Yeh look like yeh had some exercise, Oeka.”

The small griffin was breathing hard, and her feathers were ruffled. “I have learnt. Now speak, Laela. What have you and Kaanee's human planned?”

“We're sendin' griffiners to the cities,” said Laela. “They're gonna try to catch Saeddryn, or at least they'll take her kids in. Iorwerth's organisin' that already. Kaanee—I got somethin' to ask yeh.”

“I am listening.”

“The Throne,” Laela said bluntly. “I want yeh to go there. Choose another griffin to take with yeh, but you're the one I want.”

“You think the traitors will have gone there,” said Kaanee.

“Yeah, I do. It only makes sense. An' you're the best one to go catch 'em, Kaanee.”

Oeka huffed to herself.

“I'd send yeh, Oeka, but we need yeh here to lead, don't we?” Laela said.

She looked pleased. “That is true. Kaanee, do as my human commands.”

“I cannot,” said Kaanee.

Oeka bristled. “You refuse to obey me, Kaanee?”

“I cannot do as I have been told,” the older griffin said calmly.

“Why not?” said Laela.

“Come, and I will show you why.”

There was an archway in the wall, added during Arenadd's time to allow Skandar to fly straight into the audience chamber. Kaanee went to it, shouldering aside a tapestry, and stepped onto the little platform beyond.

Laela came to join him, and saw immediately what he had meant. The sky had turned slate grey, and a huge bank of pure white cloud had drifted in over the horizon.

“There is a storm coming, and a strong one,” Kaanee said. “No griffin can fly far.”

As if to emphasise the point, thunder growled over the city. Lightning flashed not long afterward.

“Damn it!” Laela stomped back into the audience chamber. “The ole slag's gonna get an even bigger head start on us now. Here's hopin' she gets struck by lightnin' along the way.”

“Aenae left before dawn,” said Kaanee. “He will reach safe haven before the storm strikes.”

“Great. If anyone needs me I'll be down the practice yard, killin' straw dummies.” Laela stormed out. Oeka followed at a more leisurely pace.

T
he storm drew in while Laela practised. Down in one of the courtyards between the towers, a patch of dirt had been fenced in and equipped with archery targets and dummies made from bundled straw. It served as a decent enough training yard.

So far Laela had been taught more about hand-to-hand combat than archery, so she went to work on the dummies with her sickle. It still felt clumsy in her hand; she had had plenty of lessons, but not as much practice as she really needed, and she'd never used a weapon in a real-life fight before.

Not that she really had practice on her mind.

Thunder crackled, louder and louder. Lightning flashed on the sickle, and Laela launched herself at the nearest dummy. Ignoring any notion of strategy or using the moves her father had taught her, she hacked at it with all her strength. The sickle caught on the bindings holding the straw together and flicked out of her hand.

Laela gave an incoherent yell of rage and started to kick the dummy. Above, the storm gathered its power, and the wind and the icy rain gave her a feeling of invincibility. She kicked the dummy again, harder, then started to punch it.

Laela might not have been an expert swordswoman, or an archer, but if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was throw a punch.

Oeka arrived during the midst of her tantrum. She came on foot, thanks to the storm, and stood by the base of the nearest tower to watch. The wind had picked up alarmingly and kept lifting her wings away from her back, but she ignored it and stared blankly at the raging Laela.

Eventually, when the Queen of Tara stopped to rest, Oeka came toward her. She stumbled a little when the wind hit her, but went straight to the dummy. Ignoring Laela completely, she rose onto her hind legs and tore the straw head off with her talons.

“Show-off,” Laela growled.

“There is no shame in showing strength,” Oeka said. “Be calm, Laela. This upstart can be beaten.”

Laela was panting. “That so?”

“Sooner or later, he will come to Malvern,” said Oeka. “And when he does, I shall break his mind like an egg.”

“Yeh can do that?”

“By that time, nothing shall be outside my power.”

“Let's hope. Thing is—” Laela broke off and ducked her head as a spat of rain hit her. The dusty ground underfoot turned dark in quick patches, and an instant later the real downpour had started. Oeka ran for cover at once, leaving Laela to snatch up her sickle and follow.

Sheltering in the doorway to the tower, Laela peered out. The parts of her hair that were still dry whipped around in the wind. The rest stuck to her face. She pulled it away and looked out at the storm. “My gods, look at it. I ain't seen one this big in yonks.”

“It is nature's reminder,” said Oeka from behind her, where it was completely dry.

“What d'yeh mean, Oeka?”

“Our magic comes from nature,” the small griffin explained. “We alone, of all creatures, have the gift to control that magic. Even the cunning human does not have that gift. But when nature rages, it is a reminder to us that for all our magic we can never be as powerful. If there is a storm in the sky, even one that is too weak for danger, a griffin will not fly.”

“Sounds like nature's a god to yeh,” said Laela.

“No.” Oeka snapped her beak. “There are no gods. Nature
is
, and demands nothing. Death is the punishment for those who will not give it caution.” Moving carefully, the small griffin came to Laela's side and looked out at the sky. “See, there,” she said.

Laela followed her gaze. “What're we lookin' at?”

“There is a griffin in the sky,” said Oeka.

“What? Where?
Flyin'?
Now?”

“So I can see.”

It took a long time, and the darkness made it difficult, but eventually Laela spotted it. A winged shape, not too far from the Eyrie, struggling to fly. So she assumed—the wind threw it around, whipping it this way and that like a cat playing with a feather.

Laela cringed. “Poor thing ain't got a chance.”

“The fool who flies in a storm dies,” Oeka said coldly.

“Now that ain't nice,” Laela snapped. “For all we know, he couldn't find shelter in time. This thing came on fast.”

“Not so fast that he could not have gone to ground,” said Oeka. “If he must die, then so be it.”

“Let's hope he ain't carryin' a message for us or somethin'. C'mon, let's go up higher an' get a better look. I want somethin' to eat, anyway.”

They headed into the tower and upstairs. The dining hall had a large window, and Laela opened it to look out while the servants brought food. She saw the poor griffin again eventually—closer to the Eyrie now, and, incredibly, still struggling to reach it.

“He's gonna get struck by lightnin' at this rate,” Laela murmured. “Poor bugger.”

When the food arrived, she carried it over to the window to eat it, unable to resist being caught up in the anonymous griffin's survival. More than once she saw the wind grab the poor creature and hurl it off-course so violently she thought its wings must have been broken. But every time, the griffin doggedly righted itself and kept on coming. Eventually, it came close enough that she could make out talons and feathers, and she began to hope that maybe it could reach the Eyrie after all.

She was wrong.

The griffin passed over the outer wall and came in among the towers. Then another gust hit it in the flank and, with terrible ease, slammed it into the wall of the nearest tower.

Scrabbling and flailing at the stonework, the griffin slid downward, then fell away, straight downward. For a moment, Laela thought it had recovered when the wings peeled open, but they only slapped uselessly at the air until the griffin had fallen out of sight.

“Poor bastard. Poor, poor bastard.”

Oeka looked up from her lump of raw meat. “The fool has met his end?”

“I dunno.” Laela turned away from the window. “He was still movin' when he fell. I think he might've survived. I better send someone to look.”

“Do not waste your time,” Oeka said, and went back to her meal.

Laela ignored her and summoned a servant. “There's a griffin what just fell at the bottom of the livin' quarters tower. Go let people know, will yeh? I want someone to go see if he's all right an' bring him inside.”

“Yes, milady.”

T
he worst of the storm had passed by midafternoon, but the rain kept going steadily. None of the griffins in the entire Eyrie would agree to even go outside, no matter what they were offered in the way of rewards or threats.

Laela had to settle for picking out who would go—with Oeka's help, of course—and giving them their orders for when the weather cleared. After that, the two of them spent more time with Iorwerth, making plans and choosing strategies.

Despite all that the time felt completely wasted to Laela, and as the rain pounded stubbornly on the Eyrie roofs, she felt herself growing more and more frustrated. She had Oeka and a pair of bodyguards, but without Ravana, she felt vulnerable in a way that showed her just how much she had come to rely on him. Oeka wasn't much help either; she was so calm and apparently unconcerned about the situation that she only succeeded in making Laela angrier—and more so because Laela knew full well that complaining about it would just start an argument she would lose.

Toward nightfall, she gave up on trying to make herself feel better and slouched off to see if she could find out what had happened to the griffin that had been caught in the storm. It was partly idle curiosity, but it should keep her mind off things as well.

Finding the griffin wasn't easy. She headed for the storage tower, stopping everybody she met along the way to ask if they knew anything. Nobody seemed to have a clue, until a guard she spoke to said, “I helped bring it in, milady.”

“Alive?”

“Yes, milady. I think its leg was hurt, but it walked inside more or less.”

“Where is it now, then?”

“We put it in a spare storeroom, milady, just t'rest. It's down on the bottom level, milady.”

“Ta.” Laela put her hands in her pockets and headed downward. Another guard along the way confirmed the griffin's location and led her to it when commanded.

The injured griffin's temporary home was indeed a storeroom, one used for old crates. Discarded packing straw was piled everywhere.

Laela wrinkled her nose as she entered. “Smells of cabbages in here. Thanks anyway—off yeh go.”

The guard left, and she took a torch from the wall in the corridor and went into the storeroom. Oeka, spitting like a cat at the stench, refused to go in after her.

The griffin lay curled up in the straw with his back to Laela, but he stirred and lifted his head when she came closer. Yellow eyes gleamed and blinked slowly.

Close to, Laela could see that the griffin was indeed male, his jet-black ear tufts damp and limp. The rest of his feathers were mottled grey and reminded her of the sky outside.

Laela bowed slightly to him. “Hello. I've come to see if yer all right.”

The griffin's head had lowered again. For a moment, he looked as if he were ignoring her, but then he began to move. Slowly, painfully, one front paw folded under his chest and the other grabbing at the floor, he dragged himself around to face her.

Laela hurried around him to compensate. “There's no need to move. Yeh can see me here.”

The griffin watched her silently. Now that she could see his face properly, she thought he looked very odd. His forehead, just behind the beak, bulged upward, and his skull was rounded rather than flat-topped like a normal griffin's. His beak, greyish pink in colour, was unusually small and matched the slender forelegs.

“My name's Laela,” Laela told him regardless. “Queen of Tara.”

The griffin's eyes closed, and he made a sound like a sigh.

“I saw yeh hit the tower,” Laela persisted. “I sent people to bring yeh in. Are yeh all right?”

Finally, the griffin spoke. “Thank you. I'll live.” The voice sounded odd; it was slower and richer, less flat than an ordinary griffin's.

“That's good,” said Laela. “Now listen. I wanted to ask yeh, what were yeh doin' comin' here, an' in a storm, too? Is there news yeh got for me?”

The griffin looked her in the eye—such an unusual thing for a griffin to do that Laela actually took a step back. “I was trying to find this place, and the storm caught me by surprise.”

“Yer lucky, then,” said Laela. “But why were yeh tryin' to come here anyway? Do yeh have a human?”

“No.” The griffin paused. “But I did come here to talk to you,
Aee-ya
.” This was how all griffins pronounced Laela's name.

“What about?” she said at once.

“What is this fool saying?” Oeka's harsh voice interrupted. The little griffin sauntered in, stepping delicately around the grubby straw.

The grey griffin raised his head and looked warily at her. “My name's
Kee-ya-oh
,” he said.

Oeka rose up and smashed her talons into his face, hard enough to draw blood.

“Hey!” Laela made a grab for Oeka, but quickly changed her mind. “What was that for?”