Chapter 22 #4
I kept searching, though. And there, above my head, was another gap.
I climbed, squeezing myself through the rocks, biting back a gasp as my wounds ground roughly into the unrelenting stone, tears rolling silently down my cheeks.
My fingers brushed against something soft caught in the rocks, and I tugged it free.
Leather. A tattered piece about the size of my palm, now black with age. God only knew what it had originally been part of, but I knew it was not native . . . because with a tightening of my throat, I noticed Arabic calligraphy stamped amid scattered starbursts.
Had this belonged to someone who spoke my tongue? Who prayed in the same words, longing for a return to our world, only to end up scattered bones in this cursed land?
“To God we belong and to Him we return,” I said softly. I hoped their last moments hadn’t been entirely unbearable, that they were now at rest. Then I slipped the piece of leather into my belt and continued climbing.
Sunlight beckoned far above. I slowed my ascent, fearing my head would be ripped off the moment I poked it out.
But if I had hoped this path offered an alternative direction to flee, I was sadly mistaken.
Instead it led only to the top of the rock, a rounded expanse that rose like a small hill above the valley floor and offered no escape other than elevation—not a particular advantage against creatures that could fly.
A careful peek revealed the griffins below.
Again, I wished for a bow. This was an impossible test, devised for the amusement of an oppressor, giants set before me. I suppose I could toss rocks down upon the griffins’ heads—there were plenty lying about, in all sizes—but I doubted that would do much more than annoy them.
Then I stilled. Rocks. I retrieved the leather fragment from my pocket. Lab believed me mightier than a mortal, but it was Raksh’s voice that whispered through my mind, his yearning to make me a legend.
And there was a rather legendary way to deal with giants.
I returned to the hole, needing protection while I prepared. For once I thanked the local dress, for the thin cord at my waist would serve my purpose far better than my broad weapon’s belt. Then with the cord, the leather piece, and Lab’s knife, I set to work.
It had been a long time since I used a sling.
I knew how; I’d taught Marjana only a few years ago how to construct and use a basic shepherd’s sling.
A sling could fling a stone hard enough to hurt a leopard, and I always worried when she was out with our goats.
There were plenty of pirates and criminals who favored the sling; its precision and deadliness were easier to master than a bow, and rocks were cheaper and more plentiful than arrows.
But I’d always preferred blades and brawling—targeted shots from a safe distance were not my style.
And I’d not dared touch a sling since my transformation, fearing that the wrong person would witness me put a rock through the hull of a ship like a battering ram.
There would be no opportunity to practice.
The gap I was sheltered in was too narrow to extend my arm, let alone swing.
But that odd clarity had descended upon me again.
I would soon be dead or out of this situation and so I made ablutions with the dust I had gathered, prayed, and then climbed back to the top of the rock, as though I were one of the automatons we’d encountered back in Muziris, designed only for killing, only for speed.
One of the female griffins was curled protectively around the eggs, a male—perhaps elderly—resting in the shade while the other four attacked the cave entrance below.
Atop the rock, there was nowhere to hide.
I would perhaps have two, maybe three chances to sling the fist-size stones I had gathered before being discovered.
Jana, forgive me. I called my daughter to mind.
I had not dared do so before because thinking about Marjana—very likely to be orphaned before the day was done—would have shattered me.
Be good. Be kind. And if God does not reunite us in this world, I pray you see my face in the next.
I whispered the declaration of faith, resolving not to speak (or swear, if we are being honest) again until this was done.
Let those be my final words if that was what the Almighty decreed.
Then I swung my arm in a great arc, gathering speed, and threw.
The sound cracked across the landscape so hard it let out a deep boom, as shocking as a crash of thunder.
But the first stone flew truer than I had hoped, crunching into the side of one of the griffins.
The beast let out a wail of pain and surprise, but I didn’t hesitate.
It wasn’t their flanks I needed to hit: it was their heads.
A second shot hit the active male in his beak, and he recoiled, fluttering and shrieking.
The third struck one of the females directly between the eyes.
It was as though I had pierced her heart. The griffin’s glittering black eyes went wide and then empty, life draining from them. She fell like a rock dropped in the sea, dead upon the ground.
It was a victory that cost me, two of the alarmed griffins taking flight. In seconds, they were in the air above me, their screeches even louder than the crack of my sling. A fourth shot knocked one out of the air, but then its partner was coming for me, talons outstretched . . .
I didn’t have a chance to panic, my instincts taking over.
My pent-up frustration at being trapped here, the games of the peris, the machinations of the queen.
I was sick of feeling powerless when all I wanted to do was hit something, rip and tear and scream.
I had not truly tested the limits of my gifts, not really.
In some ways, I’d been afraid to, afraid it would reveal inhumanity, an unnatural perversion for destruction.
But I was not dying here. In an act of lunacy, I snatched the griffin by one taloned foot as though it were a wayward chicken and not a leonine beast twice my size.
Pulling, I was surprised how light it was—or how light it felt, at least, with my strength—until I dashed it to the ground and smashed its head in with the club.
One, two, three blows until it stopped moving, blood and brain and bone spraying my arms.
When another griffin flew up—the male whose beak I’d already smashed, even larger than the others and filled with pain and bloodlust—I didn’t hesitate: I sprang before it could attack, launching myself at its back and stabbing it as I rode it to the ground.
It was dying by the time we landed. I rolled off its body and flung myself into battle.
The details, Jamal, I don’t entirely recall.
Perhaps I don’t want to. I slung stones, I plunged the queen’s blade, I grappled and bashed .
. . I fought like a wild beast, in a way that likely would have terrified me, horrified me, to gaze upon.
I slew the elderly male when he rose to his feet, limping over to protect what was left of his family.
I killed the mother when she leapt from the nest, one of her hind paws nearly ripping me in two, my closest brush with death.
An eternity and a heartbeat later, it was over.
Murdered, magnificent creatures lay dead or dying around me, their lifeblood and gore coating my skin.
Only now did I realize they were beautiful.
And that they had acted in defense of their eggs, three broken and seeping fluid.
Only one egg remained, all that was left of the griffins’ presence.
Senseless slaughter, all to test me at the behest of a despotic queen.
Or perhaps taint me, because it was not only relief that flooded my body: it was horror.
Shame. The blessings of my transformation, the strength I used to defend my companions—it had been turned into devilry, the destruction of an entire family of beasts.
In a career—a life—marked by violence, this churned in my soul like little else had.
I fell to my knees, vomiting, as I shivered, energy leaving my blood.
I wanted to stay there with my grief and pain. To find absolution for this heinous transgression. But shadows shifted on the bloody sand. Sunset loomed. So, I picked myself up.
The queen was waiting, after all.