Firebrand

“I’m afraid so,” Alton replied with a smile.

The cats sat on their roost looking down upon the human beings who assembled to gape at them.

“Welcome back, Mister Whiskers,” Alton said. “Who is your friend?”

“Meep.”

She was a shiny black short-haired feline with a regal demeanor.

“I wish you could speak the common tongue so you could tell us all about your travels.”

Mister Whiskers simply groomed his paw and otherwise ignored him. Just looking at them now, even considering their gryphon forms, he wondered if they’d be of any real use in defending the towers, or just provide Merdigen with amusement. It was rather remarkable that Mister Whiskers had returned at all.

The two appeared content to sun themselves on their roost, the newcomer crouched and gazing into the forest, and Mister Whiskers sprawled on his side working on his other paw. Alton decided he would join them and take a look into Blackveil, after all.

He climbed the ladder, feeling a little shaky as he always did. The man who had pushed him into the forest, an operative of Second Empire, was long dead, but the betrayal, and memory of waking in the forest, still loomed large.

The repairwork of the breach stood only ten feet high. The rest of the wall to either side appeared to soar to the heavens. It looked and felt as solid as the granite base of the wall, but it was magic, the lost art of the D’Yers.

When he was up far enough to look over the side into Blackveil, he stopped. No need to climb atop it. The incessant mist wafted on the other side, and he could see little but the ghostly shapes of spindly, black tree branches beyond.

The new cat had tensed when he climbed up, but Mister Whiskers stretched and sauntered over to him to butt his face with his head. Alton sneezed. The allergy had not miraculously gone away during Mister Whiskers’ absence.

The forest was as calm and quiet as ever, but Alton didn’t like it. It was too quiet, he thought. The kind of quiet that presaged storms. There was no telling what was going on in the rotten heart of the forest. What if the spirit of Mornhavon had recovered from whatever injury Karigan had caused him when she broke the looking mask? What if he was preparing an all-out assault?

Both of the cats stared into the mist with him, and suddenly, Mister Whiskers started chattering as though he watched a bird. The black cat looked intently in the same direction, her hackles raised.

“What is it?” Alton asked.

A fetid stench preceded a black shadow that hurtled toward him on great wings. He fell back off the ladder as an enormous creature brushed over him. He hit the ground hard, maybe blacked out for a moment, his breath slammed out of him. Shouts went up from the encampment.

A huge avian creature circled above. It had a long reptilian neck, and black oily wings, and cruel talons clenched beneath its body. Alton knew such creatures well. One had killed a young noble lady in this very encampment, and another had wounded Dale. The Eletians called such creatures anteshey.

Arrows were loosed skyward, but the avian veered on a wingtip away from them and screeched. Two other winged creatures pursued, one tawny and one raven black. They pumped their wings aggressively to catch up with their quarry. The avian craned its head around and screeched its defiance at the gryphon pair.

“Hold your arrows!” someone shouted. Alton thought it might be Corporal Mannis who gave the order, and he approved. Arrows might hit the gryphons instead of the intended target.

Mister Whiskers roared and he flapped his wings harder, his mate right behind him. They skimmed the canopy of the woods beyond the encampment, tearing off treetops and scattering birds as they went. They ascended higher into the sky and stooped into dives. The aerial maneuvers were incredible, and the gryphons did not waver in their pursuit. He watched mesmerized, still lying on his back as the gryphons closed the gap, stretched out their forepaws, and grabbed the avian.

The creature screamed, dove and rolled, and reached back with its fearsome beak to snap at its assailants, but the gryphons pursued undeterred. The black one simply caught the creature’s head in her jaw and twisted. After that, the gryphons played with their prey, tossing it back and forth between them through the air.

When they started to tear the creature apart, Alton climbed to his feet and ran for cover beneath the awning of a tent. First, oversized blue-black feathers drifted down; then bigger pieces, hunks of meat, a stray talon, fell to the ground. When it began to rain entrails, other wall personnel ran for cover, as well.

Mister Whiskers swept low and dropped the avian’s head at Alton’s feet. A present? Maybe Merdigen had been onto something, Alton thought, when he had suggested so long ago that they needed kittens to help protect the towers. He smiled, hoping for large litters.

TO NOT LEAVE

Nightmares clawed at Zachary in black shapeless forms. He kept fighting, kept striking with his sword, but he could not kill the entities, he could not quell the dark.

An awakening. He was surrounded by blurry stone walls, and he shook uncontrollably. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked between chattering teeth.

Donal’s head seemed to float over him. “You are ill, sire, your wound poisoned. So it has been for others of our warriors and prisoners who were wounded by the dark ones.”

“Am I dying?”

Donal did not reply immediately. “Destarion and Varius are doing everything they can. We’ve also sent for Enver.”

The nightmares returned in the shape of ice fists wielding ice daggers. Karigan was clutched in the grip of a giant slee. Zachary tried running through hip-deep snow to reach her, but he could not seem to fight his way through to cross the ever-expanding distance between them.