37. Bait
Bait
The snares were set and the poison was made. It was time to strike.
「Quest Added: Gryphon Hunt」
Kain rose early, long before the sun had begun to grey the sky, and went out to Roan. He had left the horse with food and water the night before, and now he cinched the saddle down and climbed up. Ghost looked up at him as he started to ride out, plainly puzzled.
"I've just got an errand to run," Kain called back to it. "Meet me north of town."
He couldn't say whether Ghost took the meaning or not. Some days the wolf seemed to follow his every word. Other days it seemed no more than a wolf like any other.
Kain rode out of the barn, pulled the satchels down off the fence, and turned north.
He came up on Royce's farm with the sky still dark, and as he drew rein the front door opened.
"I was afraid you'd forget, and I'd have got up early for nothing," Royce said.
"I don't forget things." Kain swung down. His sword hung at his side, the weight of it settled and familiar after the drilling. Royce's eyes went to it and missed nothing. "Appreciate the help."
"I hate to lose another lamb, but I take it it's needed." Royce shrugged. "Sam paid me for it already, so it's yours. Come on, I'll get you set up."
Kain led Roan around the side of the house toward the barn, the heavy timber of the woods standing close around the place. A young sheep had been tied to the barn doors across the yard. It bleated as Kain came up, and he nodded. "That'll do."
"You going to do it here, or out there?" Royce asked.
"Out there. I can't have it catching the smell here and coming for your place instead." Kain looked the sheep over. "Tie it on to Roan."
Royce took the sheep's lead and made it fast to Roan's saddle horn. Kain checked the knot was snug and climbed back up while Royce gave the sheep a pat on the head.
"I don't rightly know what you're about, but I hope it works," Royce said.
"You and me both," Kain said.
"Then you don't know if it'll work." Royce got that far before Kain held up a hand.
"I try never to get ahead of myself."
"Well, I'd like to go on living, so I'd take it kindly if you aimed a touch higher." Royce grinned. "If I wind up dead, let me at least be happy a day or two first."
"You'll live," Kain said. "I'm sure of that much."
Whether the town came through was another matter. Folk might take fright and run, but he was fairly sure most of them, all of them maybe, would come out of it unharmed.
He rode out to the main road and back toward Tillamore, down through the woods until the ground rose into the hills. There he turned off toward the ridge, angling for a spot a little north of the dead tree.
They had argued over baiting it deeper into the forest, but there was no getting close to the nest with a live sheep in tow, not without the gryphon knowing it. The sheep seemed to sense what was coming. It pulled against Roan and the rope and got nowhere for the trouble.
Kain took no pleasure in it, but there was nothing to be done.
About halfway to the tree, Ghost came out of the hills to meet them. The sheep went skittish at the sight of it and darted on the rope, and Ghost drew off and took to herding it along instead of spooking it worse, and Kain was glad of the help.
At the dead tree they turned and angled north, to a small clearing where a few gryphon feathers still clung to the high branches of a pine. The gryphon knew this ground. That was the thing that mattered.
Kain drew up and swung down, then led the sheep to the foot of the tree where the feathers hung and drew his knife.
"Sorry." He paused. "With any luck, you'll be the last."
One flick of the knife opened the sheep's throat, and he held it by the head as it went down. It kicked a while, trying to run from a thing already done, and then it went still.
Ghost padded closer as Kain set to the work. He slit the belly open and drew out the intestines, then went back to the saddlebags. He took down the poison he had made so carefully over the past days and packed the most of it into the cavity.
With the cavity full he pushed the intestines back in as best they would go, then opened several more cuts across the body. Thick gloves on, he worked the poison down into the wounds, into the meat of the thing.
The smell of blood and fat rose up thick, enough to cover the poison under it, he hoped.
When he was done he stripped off the gloves, dropped them by the carcass, and kicked them in under it.
They were soaked with blood and gore, and he wanted the gryphon smelling the sheep, not the man who had handled it.
Then he drew off, Roan and Ghost with him. A hundred feet back, then two hundred. When he judged it far enough he slipped into the brush and set to building a blind.
The brush did the most of the work. He added a few branches over the top and behind, and cut an armful of sharp-smelling weeds to lay over his scent. When the blind was made he tossed Roan's reins up over the horse's back.
"Time you went home." He slapped Roan on the haunch, and the horse set off at a trot across the hills.
He turned back, crawled into the brush, and lay down where he could see the carcass clear. Ghost slipped into the blind beside him and lay down, its body pressed alongside his own.
Its fur tickled his cheek, and after a moment it leaned its weight against him, and the heat of it took some of the morning chill off.
They settled in to wait. The sun came up not long after, throwing long warm light across the open ground. Off to the west the whole of Tillamore lit up as it caught the sun, and the light came creeping over the hills and the fields toward him.
The smell of dirt and grass turned over on a rising wind. Kain didn't move.
The skills for the hunt were the same ones the farm asked of him. Preparation. Waiting. Harvest.
He had done it before, and here he was doing it again. The preparing was behind him, and now there was only the waiting it out.
Flies began to gather over the carcass, a swarm of them, the buzz of it carrying even this far back. He wondered whether it would be enough to bring the gryphon in. If it wasn't, he would be starting over from nothing.
He was out of tricks, and making more poison would take weeks.
The sun crawled up the sky. The grasses on the hills bent and waved. Bees worked through the bushes in front of him, and no end of other small things crawled past on their own business.
One strange insect looked so like a twig that he took it for one until it moved. Sow bugs and ladybugs came and went, and now and then a worm pushed up out of the ground, looked the world over, and dug itself back down.
It was peaceful enough, and he watched the small life come and go, but he never once let the bait slip from his eye. That was why he was there.
Ghost didn't stir either, lying still beside Kain. The sun reached its peak and started down, and in time it stretched long and touched the hills. Still Kain waited.
His stomach complained, but he was long used to that. He could be patient. He could wait.
The sun went all the way down and the twilight came on, and Kain kept to the blind through it. Then he heard something, far off.
He couldn't see much in the failing light, but he looked up as a great shape passed over him. It was his first true look at the beast. A moment later it banked and glided down into full view.
It was bigger than he had let himself picture, even so. The lion's body of it ran long and heavy through the hindquarters, and the eagle wings, spread wide to land, reached out farther than a wagon was long. The front talons raked at the air.
It seemed to know the sheep couldn't fight back, because it didn't come down in the killing drop Kain knew it had in it. It only glided in and set down, and the weight of it came up through the ground.
As it folded its wings, Kain took the measure of it. The thing was magnificent, there was no other word. Its feathers glowed and its fur ran golden-brown and sleek, and it stood there soaking up the last red light of the day.
It raised its head and opened that hooked beak, and Kain held still. He still meant to kill it. But a year on the farm had taught him to look hard at a thing before he took it out of the world.
The gryphon paused, sniffed at the air, then bent and tore into the sheep. It took hold of a back leg, wrenched, and ripped it free, and swallowed it down whole.
"Come on," Kain breathed. "Come on."
Beside him Ghost stiffened, the hackles rising along its neck, but it held its ground. The gryphon had to eat a good share of the sheep to take in enough poison to matter. After the first leg it stopped and cocked its head to one side.
Kain froze.
Then it bent and tore in again. It ripped through the bowels and the intestines and dug down into the cavity where the most of the poison was packed. It took the second leg, and after that it went to work on the ribs and the spine.
It was an ugly thing to watch, a creature pulled to pieces like that. It was also the thing he had come for, every torn mouthful carrying the poison down into it. With one last crunch it cut through the spine below the shoulder, spread its wings, and beat up into the air.
It left the head and one front leg and not much else, and the rest had gone down its gullet. As it flew off Kain backed out of the blind and rose to his feet, watching it climb away toward the ridge, wings spread and steady.
Then he saw it. One wing twitched, just once, out of its rhythm. It wasn't much. It was something. The bait had been taken.
◇ ◆ ◇
Kain walked home and didn't reach the farm until late into the night. The moon had set, and for all the stars were out, it was near pitch dark.
He came inside weary, and ready, both at once. He had lain still all day in the blind, and now his senses had come up sharp, and his hand kept finding the hilt of his sword.
His body was braced for a fight that hadn't come yet.