| |
––––––––
TRAVELING BETWEEN THE wings of a gryphon on a cold, black night is not something guaranteed to calm the nerves. I felt the power of Ironwing’s loft and the steady beat of those enormous wings when she wasn’t simply riding the currents in the night air. There was little reason for fear under such circumstances, and yet I found myself struggling to remain calm. I couldn’t really see the peaks and crags through which we flew, east and north of the aerie, but I could feel their looming presence. Imagine moving through a dark room, eyes wide but sightless, and not knowing when your nose would smack into a wall. It felt a lot like that, along with a cold wind that took my breath away.
There came the feeling that we were gradually losing altitude, the sense that we were tipped slightly forward and sliding downhill. The Abbey is a large and very old converted fortress perched on a high cliff, normally only accessible from below by an agonizing set of switchbacks carved into the mountainside. Ironwing banked to the left and, through shadowy masses of mountain slopes, I glimpsed for just a moment a small cluster of lights. I realized our escort was taking us briefly deeper into the forested highlands behind the Abbey, which made perfect sense. Gliding in from the open lands to the east of the mountains, our approach would be detected, especially if the Regent’s forces included manticores. And I was assuming by that point that this would be the case.
The backdoor approach would shield us from many sorts of watchers, manticores not being as maneuverable as gryphons, and therefore not fond of the chaotic winds between close-set peaks. You take any advantage the enemy gives up, however small.
We could still be spotted. The Regent surely had the means, and Trey’s devices were set to warn us if Alvehn wards of some sort were in place. He would signal, and we would retreat, and come up with some other sort of plan. But no cry came from the gryphon he rode, and our party banked again and wove a path between outcrops and slopes, to the place the gryphons believed would give us our best chance of gaining access to the Abbey.
My eyes behind the round goggle lenses seemed to be growing more dark-adapted, and the shapes of slopes and cliff faces were a little more obvious. It takes about half an hour for someone with average vision to adapt to dim light as much as possible. This told me that the long, cold flight hadn’t been that long at all. I could just make out four of our escorts ahead and below, circling on silent wings as if inspecting something. One of them rose suddenly to the same level as Ironwing, and the human half of that Sky Guard pointed back down several times. The gryphons formed a short-lived descending gyre, and in another moment we were on the ground.
I slid down the offered foreleg and managed not to step on Ironwing’s foot in my dismount. I’d been pretty good at this, once upon a time, and it pleased me that the skill hadn’t yet faded. No one spoke. I set my hand to her hooked beak, and a moment later she pressed her head briefly against my chest. Then the gryphons all lofted and vanished into the dark.
“You’ve made an impression, my friend,” Trey said, standing close enough that the merest whisper could be heard.
“Well, you know the gryphons,” I replied with a shrug.
They really are like that, quick to accept, equally quick to turn on you if they believe you’ve given them cause. They are such amazingly swift judges of character that I often wonder that an empathy bridge was ever necessary. Of course, that bridge was built more than a thousand years ago, and the effect was supposed to accumulate from generation to generation. If I’d pursued that thought at the time, what followed would have been a very different adventure. But with Trey giving my arm a gentle tug, I turned toward the dimly visible path on which we’d been set. Sid was crouched in front of us, gently sweeping the ground with her right hand, as if reading something in the gravel and grit.
“No one has passed this way in a very long time,” she whispered. How she could know that was beyond me. There’s a reason the skills and perceptions of the Island warrior class are the stuff of legend. I trusted her judgment, or instinct — whichever it was. “You know the way from here?”
“I have no memory of this place,” Trey admitted. “But the Abbey will be downhill from here. Come, I can see in this dimness better than either of you. I'll lead.”
Sid fell in behind him, leaving me to bring up the rear. As I started walking along the pale grey ribbon of the path, I found my left hand straying to the whistle that dangled from the lanyard around my neck, stroking it as if touching a token for luck. I suppose I was doing exactly that, since that whistle would be our only means of escape. I tucked the thing under my clothes, and for a moment it was a spot of icy cold clearly felt even through the armor.
We walked with as light a tread as the soft boots we wore would allow on gravel, but might just as well have been silent. The wind moaning over the rocks and cliffs would cover anything short of the clank of steel on steel, and if that sound rang out in this high place it would be because any hope of concealment had already been lost. We squeezed through a tight space between fallen boulders, and found ourselves in a gap between the tumbled stones and the back wall of the Abbey. There was just space enough for the three of us. Trey was at the wall, running his hands over the ancient, fitted stones, seeking the entry we were told was concealed there. I couldn’t make out what he found or did, but after a moment he seemed to disappear into the wall. Sid was gone a moment later, and once again, I followed.
The secret entrance — no, seriously, what else should I call it? — led us into a dank passageway that was darker than the night outside. I felt the door close behind us and paused a moment to run my hands over it to locate the latch that would allow us to escape that way, should it be necessary. Once assured that I could reopen the door, I turned from it and, maintaining the previous order, we worked our way along the inner back wall of the Abbey. From Trey’s almost invisible hand I caught the merest glimpse of pale blue light, and knew he was scanning the area for wards. If Edren had the place fully staked out, we’d be bailing out immediately. But Trey moved on.
Which didn’t mean we weren’t walking into some sort of trap. I took Trey’s apparent ‘all clear’ with a grain of salt.
On my left was the wall that joined Abbey to cliff. To my right, beyond the moist stones that were so close they rubbed my elbow, were storerooms, if memory served. If we could get into one from this passage, we would have access to the Abbey, and no one would know we were there. I trailed my fingers along the wall as we went, though it was a sure bet Trey’s more sensitive touch would find what he sought. We moved in silence, with not so much as the scrape of a boot sole to reveal us. Sid stopped and froze; I did the same. Trey had paused to give something a closer examination. After a minute or so, I heard the faintest scrape of stone on stone, and then only for a moment. After a pause, it repeated, and then a glimmer of light entered the passage. The light dimmed and brightened twice, telling me my companions had gone through the opening Trey had found. A moment later I was with them. Sid was on point, sword drawn and ready as she slowly turned and examined the room. Trey was beside the door, and when I was clear of it he very carefully pushed it closed again.
We were in.
