Chapter 22 #3
No. Perhaps when I was younger, I might have entertained hopes, but the years had made me cynical, the queen’s purpose damnably clear.
Instead, I tried to plan my best escape route.
If I grabbed the knife, could I make it back to the trees without being pursued?
The canopy and undergrowth there seemed too thick for an enormous avian predator to penetrate.
The shadows shifted, the sun crossing over the cliffs. I was running out of time.
Stepping into the sunlight, I felt as though I had been painted with a target bright as blood.
And yet nothing descended upon me with talons flashing death.
I kept walking, reaching the nest. I climbed as quietly as possible, my heart stopping each time a branch broke underfoot.
It was impossible to stay entirely silent.
Finally, I pulled myself into the nest, ducking low and searching the sky again.
Still nothing. And yet the massive golden eggs—the size of plump toddlers—were warm to the touch, as though a devoted parent had left only recently.
They seemed to hum slightly, an eerie sensation.
I pried the queen’s knife free and carefully peered over the edge of the nest. Might I be fortunate to sneak away so easily?
Movement from the opposite side of the cliff caught my eye, and my heart plummeted.
The creatures to whom these eggs belonged hadn’t been prowling the skies.
Instead, in a patch of sun-warmed sand invisible from the direction I had approached, a pack of them reclined like lazy lions, a horribly apt comparison.
For although I hadn’t given much thought to the word griffin, save from ludicrous adventure tales and the exaggerations of locals, the monstrous beasts were suddenly very real and very close.
The size of elephants, the griffins were an awful chimera of feline and raptor, with the powerful hindquarters and whipping tail of a lion and the cruel talons and head of an eagle.
One beast rose slowly to its feet and stretched, muscles rippling below the skin.
The griffin looked as though it had been designed solely to kill, its black eyes flat, its razor-sharp beak large enough to snap off my head.
And there were six of them. Two appeared to be male; they were larger than the others with gold-and-black-feathered crests around their necks.
The females, however, looked leaner, meaner, and far more alert.
A second griffin rose, fluttering out an enormous pair of glittering wings, and I abruptly sat back down, pressing into the wall of the nest in a futile effort to hide.
In all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a moment of such pure dread.
This wasn’t a test, it was an execution.
How long until one of the griffins came to perch on their eggs and found a strange creature?
I doubted the flock (the pride? The murder?
Oh, God, why was I pondering the semantics of this right now?) would completely abandon their offspring to go hunt.
Besides, they didn’t need to hunt. Lunch had just jumped into their nest.
Despairing, I peered through a crack in the twigs.
The forest was farther away than I liked and if these creatures moved like lions, who was to say the trees and undergrowth would even stop them?
There might be no protection at all. My hand went to the empty leather thong around my neck.
Time after time I’d been tempted to summon the peri, to beg help I knew he was forbidden to grant.
Now I was in a situation where Khayzur’s very presence might distract these predators and the feather was gone.
No, it was stolen, by someone I thought I could trust.
I am going to die here. Would Lab truly execute my crew if I didn’t return?
Or might she claim that I had abandoned them, the selfish, lying pirate running away rather than facing the truth.
Perhaps she would pluck out those she found useful and cull the rest, taking what she could from them until they were left mad husks like Hasan.
Oddly enough the realization calmed me. There was no agonizing choice to make, a weighing of various risks.
When, not if, I was discovered by the griffins, they would kill me.
My dearest companions, the men who had followed their nakhudha to this island, would then pay a brutal price.
So, I might as well try to escape. Try to seize the sliver of a chance we might all survive.
And my best chance of doing so was before the creatures noticed me.
I surveyed my options again. I was fast, faster than any human ought to be, but doubted I could outrun these beasts.
I needed a place to hide, to possibly sneak away.
Directly across from the pack of dozing griffins, a jumble of boulders was heaped together.
Here and there, black hollows beckoned. Caves or something like it.
Most appeared too narrow to admit one of the beasts, too narrow to admit me.
But there was one, about the height of my head . . .
Oh, God, I know the last time I came before you like this, I promised to end my adventures if you saved me.
And I failed, my fate seemingly written in a manner I hadn’t expected.
But I swear . . . if you get me out of this mess, I shall endeavor to wrap up these Transgressions and retire for good.
I’ll found a masjid, I’ll build a home for orphans.
Just please don’t let those things eat me.
The soft scratching of the griffins’ talons was growing louder, a curious chirpy growl from the other side of the nest. I was out of time. Clutching the makeshift club in one hand and the queen’s knife in the other, I vaulted out of the nest and sprinted for the rocks.
The surprised roars and squawks that erupted in my wake were loud enough to rip the sky, to threaten my bowels. I didn’t look back, didn’t chance a gaze at the pack as I fled past them, my focus only on the rocks. I jumped for the ledge . . .
I was not fast enough.
A blow like a hammer struck my side, one of the creatures bowling me over.
I fell hard, the air dashed from my lungs, and rolled, trying to protect my head as the griffins shrieked and kicked, claws and talons tearing at my clothes.
If I stilled for a second, I would die. Instead, I thrashed, missing a torn throat, a lethal gutting with every desperate movement.
Screaming, I struck out wildly with the club.
Trapped beneath one of the creatures, flashes of sky and feathers were all I could see.
Finally, I made contact and with a roar of pain, the griffin jerked back just enough for me to roll away.
I dashed to my feet, running for the caves again. I pulled myself into the hole.
Talons raked my back, seizing my calf. The creature attempted to drag me out, but I held fast to the rocks, howling in pain.
It felt as though I was about to be ripped in two, my back and leg aflame.
We struggled, bestial sounds tearing from my throat.
Death seemed better than this, a quick surrender.
But I’m a stubborn old woman and with a wail and a pop in my back that I was going to regret, I bent into an awkward painful knot and slashed at the creature’s leg with the queen’s knife.
It shrieked but withdrew, the agony of its talons leaving my leg as excruciating as they had been plunging in.
Gasping for air, in so much pain that stars were exploding across my eyes, I dragged myself as deep as possible into the cave.
Trouble was, it wasn’t a cave, and it wasn’t particularly deep.
The griffins roared and ripped at the hold, beaks and talons plunging and snapping for me and getting perilously close.
I leaned against the rock and tried to catch my breath, to take stock of my situation.
I was hurt. Badly. More badly than I wanted to think about, blood soaking my back and running down my leg, my body ablaze.
Here and there, griffin feathers, shed from the fight, stuck to my skin.
How long would the creatures wait? Was there any chance they would leave an easy meal and possible threat to their eggs alone?
Perhaps, but not in the few hours remaining between now and sunset.
The horrible, selfish thought came to me that I could try and wait them out.
Might I sneak away in the night? Wait a day, two, when they grew tired and bored?
I didn’t have days, however; I barely had hours.
If I missed the queen’s deadline, I knew now, in my very marrow, that she would kill my crew.
I had angered and humiliated her. She wanted me dead or she wanted me useful, and if I chose to be the craven pirate of her accusations, she would make sure those I loved knew it, before murdering them in a brutal way.
The griffins were still scrabbling at the hole; I shifted, hissing in pain and considering my options. I had my club and the queen’s knife, and if I was only facing two of the creatures, that might suffice. But six? I could not kill six griffins in close combat before they overpowered me.
If I had a bow . . . I glanced around. There were a few fragments of bone scattered among the stones, and as my vision adjusted to the dim light, I noticed more and more. Had they been unfortunate locals or had Lab consigned other foreign castaways to this fate?
More important . . . had any of them left weapons?
I crouched, exploring as best I could. A few crevasses snaked out here and there among gaps in the rock and I crawled and clambered into their depths, praying for an exit, a tunnel—being disappointed at each turn when they abruptly ended or the space became too tight for me to fit through.
Sunlight shafted in through even narrower gaps, adding to the feeling that I was in a pen, awaiting a butcher.