A Blue Hero

The Blue Hero

Mount Gryphus jutted out of the forests of Willoughby like the middle finger of an enraged god. No other mountain stood beside it; no hills surrounded it. The lonely crag reached out of the forests and into the heavens above.

An ancient bald eagle soared along a foamy cloud that clung to the mountain's middle. She watched the progress of a speck that slowly climbed up the mountain. As she flew closer and closer, she learned that two specks ascended. A sort-of shiny speck had a drab speck dangling underneath it.

The old eagle was quite literally bald, for she had endured a long molting season which, strangely, always seemed to make her curious about out-of-the-ordinary things. She flicked her sparsely feathered tail and glided even closer to get a better look.

She flew along the top of the cloud, being careful not to get her wings wet from the mist. The two specks took shape as she closed. The shiny one became a gargantuan knight in brilliant armor, stubbornly, impossibly climbing the side of Mount Gryphus while wearing his helmet and black iron gauntlets.

The eagle noticed a chain attached to the back of the knight's armor. Her eyes followed the chain down to the second speck: another man, far smaller than the first.

The first shiny man had a gargantuan build, but this puny man seemed helplessly dangling. The first man had draped himself in invulnerable armor, this man was clothed in simple, dull, lamb's wool. His white hair had once been formed into a meticulous comb-over, which now rapidly unraveled by the mutinous wind into a something not unlike a coxcomb. He swung like a marionette from the chain attached to the knight's back. In turn, the chain was attached to a locked hook on the puny man's leather belt.

Most importantly, his skin had a bluish tint.

"How much further, sir?" the Blue dangler croaked.

The eagle’s curiosity was satisfied in seeing that what occurred here was simply the dreadfully boring affairs of Man. Surely, they would be the fodder of the majestic griffon that dwelt at the top of the mountain, as were all men who dared climb Mount Gryphus. She flicked her tail once more and returned to hunting rabbits.

"Silence, bluish dog!" answered an oddly squeaky voice somewhere within the iron helm.

"But Sir Blepharon," he pleaded, "I must know when to start preparing my enchantments."

The knight abruptly stopped his ascent and looked down upon his slave. With an obscure jerk of his neck, the lid of his iron helmet opened, revealing a boy's face. The gargantuan Sir Blepharon, you see, had seen no more than fifteen summers. His physique was chiseled like that of a hero of legends, but his face was not so precocious. Those cheeks quivered with baby fat. A single, almost majestic, eyebrow looked like a blonde caterpillar crawling across his forehead.

Most importantly, his skin had an orange tint to it.

Blepharon thought highly of his ancient Orange heritage—although he was not quite so orange as his father, Lord Favashi. As he looked down into the face of his dangling Blue slave his barrel chest swelled in pride. The ancestors of these sorcerous Blues once owned all of the forests below, until they fell before Orange might, that is. Now the Blues exist only to serve as scullery maids and assistants to their Orange overlords.

Sir Blepharon looked up and squinted.

"We shall make the summit by mid-morning, slave," he proclaimed. It was only a guess, for both he and his slave knew the extreme extent of his myopia. "I must then read to the griffon the Orange King's Order of Execution. This whole thing is going to be by the book. I'll have none of your Bluish lawless ways. After the Order is read, you better have your enchantment ready."

The Blue simply nodded. Sir Blepharon jerked his neck once more and down came the black lid of his helmet. The ascent continued while the Blue enchanter prepared a weapon suitable for a knight to slay an extremely magical griffon. The difficult task was made especially so, dangling from a chain attached to a knight climbing a mountain.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew a story about griffons, but try as he might, he could not remember how it went. He dismissed the thought, pulled out a club from his sling bag, and began his enchantment.

The fingers of the slave's right hand twisted in a series of grotesque gestures aimed at the club in his hands. He muttered the same magical words his forefathers had used upon their own weapons in that vain attempt to combat the foreign Orange conquerors. The enchantment concluded in a sudden flash.

The Blue found himself staring at the club. The long, simple cylinder of dark metal, now glowed in a vaguely orange hue. (It was illegal, by the Orange King's edict, to make Blue enchantments.) He gripped the club's handle so hard that his knuckles turned white. It would be so easy, he thought. One, maybe two whacks with this club and the fat brat knight would tumble down the side of the mountain.

But the Blue magus shrank back when he remembered two things. First, the chain would ensure that he too would tumble down the mountain should he whack
Blepharon with it. Second, he had forgotten that the Orange people had long since broke him, and broken men do not contemplate the deaths of their masters.

The Blue suddenly realized that the knight had started to pull him very quickly to the top of Mount Gryphus. How long, he wondered, had he been musing over the death of the brat? Sir Blepharon, already on top of the mountain, pulled the chain so hard that the mage actually soared like a fish being violently pulled out of the water. Landing on the mountaintop knocked the wind out of him. It took many moments before he could get up and appreciate the spectacle of his location.

Far below, the cloud stubbornly clung to Mount Gryphus like a bubbling mass of sea foam. Beyond the cloud spanned the endless forests of Willoughby. Monarchal oaks seemed tiny from the mountaintop view. He could see an eagle lazily gliding above the trees, a feathery speck lost in all that green. He felt a slight sensation of vertigo, so he tip-toed away from the edge of the summit.

The knight fumbled through his pack, looking for something. The lid of his helmet opened and a string of foul curses fell from those orange, boyish lips. The top of the mountain was flat and forested with quietly blooming apple trees, as if the Lords of Hue and Fate broke the tip off and planted a little garden. It was not a very big mountaintop, perhaps the size of a cottager's plot. With a sinking feeling, the sorcerer knew the griffon lurked within the heart of the grove, very close.

In his imagination, he saw a griffon's huge eye suddenly open, framed in apple blossoms.

The young knight gave a triumphant yelp. He yanked the Orange King's Order of Execution from his pack and slowly, reverently, unrolled the parchment. Facing the grove of apple trees with the scroll close to his face to compensate for his nearsightedness, he began to read the Order:

"Ahem. Griffon of Gryphus Grove!" he began, but then the lid of his iron helm rebelliously closed with the sound of a requiem bell. His curses echoed within the helm. He then jerked his neck in that strange way that made the lid pop open almost magically.

"Griffon of Gryphus Grove!" he bellowed again in the deepest voice he could muster. The sound resonated off the mountain top. The boy spoke as if all of Willoughby could hear. "Thou art charged by the Lord of the Orange, seventh incarnation, with the murder of uncountable innocents. Those poor mortals who came to Gryphus Grove sought only the magical properties of the apples therein. But thou," Blepharon's voice gained a sneering quality at this point, "But thou slewest and thou slewest. Peasants, generals, maidens, poets, even nobility. None were safe from thy beak nor thy talon. The mountaintop is awash in blood. For this, thy life is forfeit."

Sir Blepharon dropped the scroll and turned at last to his slave. "Now," he whispered like a boy with a butterfly net, "give me the sword you enchanted."

The Blue ceremoniously fell to one knee and presented the enchanted club. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. He stood in that position for a few moments, wondering why Blepharon didn’t take the club. While he waited, his mind wandered back to the old story about griffons, but he still could not remember it.

"What's this?" snapped Blepharon.

Opening one eye, the sorcerer looked up and said: "It is thy weapon, O great one."

"This is not the weapon I requested." "Yes, my master, it is. This is the weapon thou hast
requested. Behold! A weapon suitable for griffon slaying—"

"Impudence! Do you think me your equal?" asked Blepharon. The last word dripped with sarcastic
fervor. "Do you think me your match in battle? Might versus magic, eh? We all know what happens when magic is matched against might, do we not, slave? You are nothing. And nothings do not talk back to their masters."

Sir Blepharon snatched the club away from his slave and held it up close to his helm to properly examine it. It did have a pleasing orange radiation to it. There sprang a chubby smile somewhere underneath the iron helm.

"It does not have the elegance of a sword," he said softly as his slave bowed his bluish head in supplication. "A sword is an extension of the knight. It is everything a knight should be: sharp, deadly, elegant, invulnerable. But a metal club. What is aclub?"

The sorcerer, even as he groveled, wanted so desperately to answer that question. He wanted to say: "A club is antiquated, blunt, cheap, and dense; everything a knight actually is."

Instead he said, pointing to the grove, "Listen, O great one! The griffon is coming!"

There came a rustling from the apple grove. A nightmarish roar erupted somewhere within. Sir
Blepharon gripped the club with both of his iron gauntlets and waited, not bothering to move away from the edge of the mountain. His slave, still attached to the chain, desperately wished he could move further away from the cliff's edge.

Yet the Blue's fear melted into curiousity. His wizardly mind could not help but reflect upon the true nature of such a beast, and he found himself eager to see it. Most people believed in those days that the Northern Willoughbean Griffon was some sort of unholy hybrid of an eagle and a lion. Yes, griffons flew about on the wings of giant eagles; and yes, they had the rippling, muscular bodies of particularly large and shaggy-furred lions. But the sorcerous slave knew that the griffon had been the original creature, not the other way around. Eagles and lions were merely reflections, or halves of the whole creature.

In the grove, white blossoms fell from the trees like humongous snow flakes. The slave heard the beat of gigantic wings. He felt the wind on his face, but still could not see the griffon. Vortices of apple flowers twisted and danced around them. His heart leapt into his throat. He looked over to his armored master, and saw the knight give the club a few practice swings.

The Blue again thought back to his studies in Eldritch Zoology. There existed an old story to these beasts. Why should I remember it only now, when one is about to kill me? he thought grimly. He could suddenly see the actual page as clear as daylight in the annals of his memory, written in Old Willoughbean:

And lo, in that verdant, endless Garden of Eon that existed at the dawn of time, the first griffon cubs formed like flowers in the upper boughs of the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge. The Lords of Hue and Fate created the griffon litter to serve the first Blues, who dwelt within the Garden. The gods created them, as they created us all, with a specific task in mind. Theirs was to help the Blues resist the dooming temptation of mystical knowledge.

The first litter was composed of hundreds of griffons. One perched upside down from each fruit. Each fruit, a griffon guardian, and each griffon guardian, a fruit. Indeed, in those days before time began, the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge became alive with the flutter of golden wings, and the sound of lighthearted purrs echoed across the Garden of Eon.

Alas, the griffons proved unready for their sacred duties, as many of us are when the tests of the gods come.

A Demoniacal Serpent—who dwelt within a dark bole of the same tree—slithered up the trunk and bit the strongest cub square in the beak while he slept upon his ordained fruit. And lo, this griffon flew off, peeping in pain and fear.

Upon seeing the Serpent's horrific visage and the defeat of their best, the rest of the litter flew off in wave after golden wave. With the griffons gone, the Serpentine agent of Darkness tempted the first Blues with the Fruit of Forbidden Knowledge. And they did eat. The Blues soon became the most magical and the most accursed people of the world.

In the years to come, most of the griffons split into two parts: for within each griffon, as within each man, is one part leonine earth and one part aquiline heaven.

A few, however, forever remained griffons. And these became the guardians of magical groves. Whether this is a curse for ultimate failure, or if they do this by some strange choice, is a matter of cabalistic debate...

The slave had little time to muse upon this old story. The griffon leapt out of the grove and landed directly in front of them.

The beast’s physique was truly a magnificent sight to behold, like nothing the Blue had ever seen. This griffon was a female, a gryffoness. Her coat of pure white feathers and fur dazzled the human eye like the moon-fire invocation of the Sultana of Lauhmess.

The gryffoness eyed the two intruders with pale, lidless eyes. Her talons like scimitars of marble dug effortlessly in and out of the hard earth. She looked at the charging Sir Blepharon and her pale beak stretched into a resounding roar that all of Willoughby must have heard. Her breath smelled like sour apples. She unfurled wings like the sails of a galleon and met Blepharon's charge with a feathered backslap of a wing.

The powerful wing slap sent Blepharon spinning back into his slave. The two toppled together dangerously close to the edge of the mountain. The Blue could feel one of his ribs crack from tumbling head over heels with the heavily armored knight. He grunted and curled into a little ball of pain. Blepharon immediately leapt to his feet without a word and picked up the club, which glowed an even brighter orange.

Wings still unfurled, the griffon waited. She growled and crouched down as if ready to pounce. With a howl of rage, Blepharon again charged her, swinging his club wildly. The Blue sorcerer could not get up in time. Blepharon dragged him across the hard earth. Sir Blepharon screamed a battle cry like he was quite insane.

The gryffoness again waited until screaming fool got close, then suddenly grabbed his helmeted head with her ivory beak. Stunned, the young knight watched in horror as she spat his beloved helmet off the side of the mountain. The gryffoness prepared to rend the knight limb from limb with her talons.

But when she saw Sir Blepharon's face, with its round, boyish cheeks and orange lips puckered in surprise, she paused. She could have finished him there and then, popping his head off with her mighty beak like an overripe apple from a bough, but for some reason she stopped. She tilted her head.

Blepharon swung his enchanted club. He aimed at her face, but being myopic, struck her full in the throat.

There was a screech of pain and surprise. The griffon jumped back and reflexively tried to knock him away with her wings, but the young knight ducked both of the feathered bludgeons and advanced. He swung randomly and rabidly, again and again, sometimes hitting and sometimes not. With each hit there was the sound of breaking bone and a roar of pain from the gryffoness.

The slave witnessed the execution of the griffon in a wave of disgust and sadness. He knew there was no future for her, no past, just one continuous and hideous present. He felt guilty for watching the deed, as he fell in love with the beautiful monster as soon as he saw her dazzling feathers and luxuriant fur.

The knight bashed her throat again and she gurgled blood and crowed for vengeance. She slashed back with her dagger-like claws, even connected, but the blow was not strong enough to penetrate his armor. The club, now competing with the cruel Sun in orangeness, began to pound pristine white hide.

The slave lay on his back, still attached to the knight by the chain. He began to weep.

"Fly away," he yelled between sobs and pounded the dirt with clenched fists, "why don't you just fly
away!"

"Too stupid," said the knight as he cracked her beak. "She's mine now."

Sir Blepharon was no longer a boy.

He broke her wing, as if worried the griffon would take the slave's suggestion. The sound of that
powerful bone snapping was as thunderous as her roar once was. Her attacks then ceased; she was beaten. She fell. The slave wanted to turn away, he was so terribly ashamed for watching. One of her leonine back paws tried in vain to claw at the knight. He pushed it aside like a naughty child's hand as he closed in for the death blow to the head. The slave hid his head in his hands. There was a thunderous smack, but she did not die. The blue slave looked up at her face to see that she was watching him. Her once flawless beak was cracked in several places. Her eyes remained fixed on the slave, as if she was trying to tell him something. Sir Blepharon may be killing her, but she was watching him.

What is it? he thought, by all the Lords of Hue and Fate, don't look at me like that. I can't help you!

But she continued to stare at him, even as the knight continued to bludgeon her head.

"Die! Die! Die!" Blepharon squeaked boyishly with each hit.

More than anything, sorcery is a matter of perception. Many of the wise Blues of old said that vision-magick is the most telling witchery, is the most powerful. The Blue knew only a few enchantments of this type, and he used one now. He breathed deep and reached into himself for the quiet place where both his magic and his soul resided. His eyes flared in an aura of blue fire that burned away his tears. As the knight broke bone after bone in the body of the gryffoness,
who seemed to cling to her life with every ounce of strength she could muster, the slave began to
understand.

The spell burned away more than tears, but mortal ignorance as well. Momentarily. But a moment was enough.

In that moment, he understood many things. The griffon had indeed killed all who entered Gryphus
Grove. She had murdered mortal men throughout her immense life span. Even good men. Even children, which she now regretted. She, a creature the gods created as a marriage of heaven and earth, had become a monster of purpose. None would eat the fruit within her grove.

The spell created a mystical rapport between man and monster, and he could hear her speaking into his mind.

Oh yes, I deserve this little Blue, perhaps all griffons deserve this. But you must save the egg,
little Blue. Save my one and only egg so that my innocent hatchling will live.

The slave did not know how to reply to her dying plea. He did not know the extent of the magical rapport. He merely whispered the words: "I will try," while staring at her milky eyes.

And then she let go of her life. She shrieked a death-roar like an endless echoing boom of thunder
across the sky. The lions who dwelt in the forest below heard the roar and it filled them with a terrible sadness. They drooped their heads and thought of blue skies, the moisture of clouds upon
their fur, and flying to distant lands.

Not far away, the molting eagle heard the roar and was also filled with sorrow. She knew that eagles had once been complete, were once a beautiful marriage of heaven and earth. She turned away from hunting rabbits, once more gliding along the top of the cloud back to Mount Gryphus.

There, at the top, on the edge of the magical apple grove, she saw the unthinkable. The lady griffon lay there, broken, bloody, dead, the triumphant knight (that shiny speck from before!) stood with one foot on her chest, waving his club in air as if to defy the gods themselves. The Blue lay next to the griffoness, struggling to pull himself to his feet.

Not very far away from them, in the center of the grove, a golden griffon's egg lay in the center of a nest of apple blossoms. The eagle circled, then landed on the topmost branch of a nearby apple tree and watched the two men.

"Nigh invulnerable griffon, eh?" said Blepharon in a mocking tone. "Bah!" He kept swinging his club around and around over his head. The orange aura of the weapon grew fainter.

"Sire," the little Blue said as he finally got up, wincing from the pain of the broken rib, "let us leave this place. The deed is done."

"The deed is done? The deed is done? Oh my silly Blue, you make it sound so dirty. You were right
about the club. A very suitable armament for griffon slaying, if a little slow on the death blow. I shall not doubt you next time."

Sir Blepharon took his foot off the griffon's carcass and turned around to give his slave an enormous bear hug, which was possibly the most painful experience in the slave's life. He yelped.

The knight let go of his slave and squinted his eyes in scrutiny. "Thou art wounded?" he asked.

"Yes. I think a rib is broken. Let's go," the slave croaked. He wanted to get the knight away from the griffon's nest, which he knew intuitively was in the grove.

"Not until I explore yon grove." The Orange warrior pointed with the club.

"The magic apples are not yet in season," said the Blue. Wincing in pain, he bent over to pick up a
white flower petal and displayed it to Blepharon to prove his point. The wind caught the petal and it drifted off the mountain. "Surely, sire, there is nothing but petals in the grove."

"Slave, if I did not know better, I would say you're being impudent again. Who's to say what trinkets the beast has collected over the years? It is but a little grove. We go to it. Now." He made a casual tug of the chain which still connected the two men.

The slave slumped his shoulders in acquiescence. Who am I to resist my master's will? he thought. He gave up. Blepharon would find the egg and he would destroy it and that would be the end to this nonsense. He desperately wished to be some great Indigo Warlock from the days of yore with demoniacal power at his fingertips, then perhaps he would have had the power to fulfill the gryphoness's dying wish.

But alas, he was but a beaten and broken slave.

The eagle, perched high above on the tallest apple tree, stretched her wings and watched as they walked into the griffon's magical apple grove. She screeched and rattled her perch in frustration.

"What was that?" asked Sir Blepharon, bringing up the now ordinary club to a defensive posture.

The Blue mage shielded the sun from his eyes with his hand and looked into the upper boughs of the apple tree. He saw the ragged form of the molting eagle, half concealed in the apple flowers.

"What was that?" repeated Sir Blepharon.

Suddenly, the slave had an idea.

"Why, there is another griffon sire!"

"Where? I can't see it!" cried the myopic knight.

"It is there," replied the slave as he pointed in the direction they came from, "beyond the
trees!"

"Are you sure? It sounded like an eagle's cry... not a roar as the gryffoness had done."

"Sire, it is said among the wise that a griffon screeches like an eagle while a gryffoness roars like a lion." It was a good lie; the blue mage felt quite proud of it.

"So it is a male then," said Sir Blepharon and then he let out a low whistle of appreciation. "Oh, the glory of killing a mated pair of griffons! The Orange skalds shall sing my song for centuries. Come, slave! Let us dispatch this male." He turned and began to walk out of the grove, tugging at the chain to hurry his slave.

"Sire, thy weapon is no longer enchanted."

Sir Blepharon stopped dead in his tracks. He brought the club close enough to his face that he could kiss it. True enough, there was no longer an orange glow.

"Can you enchant it in time?" he whispered. Somewhere above, the eagle screeched again as if on cue.

"Give it to me quickly and I shall make the attempt, my Lord Blepharon Griffon-Slayer," cooed the blue slave.

The knight smiled at the sound of the nickname, he gave his slave the club.

The Blue clenched the club. A wave of murderous desire swept through him. He did not have the power to enchant it again. It required tiny bits from the well of one's soul to work magic, and these tiny bits needed time to replenish, and the rapport-spell had completely drained him. So instead of a spell, he blurted out a long string of nonsense rhymes that his mother used to sing to him to put him to sleep.

This must have sounded impressive to the knight, who rubbed his gauntlets together in anticipation.

The Blue sorcerer continued to chant away in his nonsense witchery, waiting for the right moment to
strike. The eagle screeched again somewhere above.

Sir Blepharon winced and spun around, squinting into the dark of the grove.

"Where is he? Do you see him?" he whispered to his trusted slave.

With the knight's back facing him, the slave, swallowing the butterflies of fear welling up in his throat, hit the gigantic boy-knight squarely in the back of his orange head. Blepharon fell to his knees with a grunt.

The club felt good in the slave's hands, he had a sudden urge to use it like the knight used it against the griffon. He pounded his master again and again; at first his blows were weak, but they gained strength. He mostly hit his master's armor, there was a resonant ringing in his ears from the sound of metal club hitting metal armor. Twice he connected with Blepharon's exposed head; one hit broke his nose, the other shattered most of the teeth. After that, Blepharon brought up his arm to shield his face.

"Ma teef! You knocked ou' ma teef!" Sir Blepharon moaned and spat enamel. "Ah'll kill yoOOou."

He rose quickly, still shielding his face from the club. He snarled like an animal, revealing his
shattered and ruined teeth. His chubby cheeks no longer made him look boyish, but like some hideous doppleganger of a boy. The club hit him again and again, denting his armor and making terrible welts on the skin underneath.

Sir Blepharon slapped his rebellious slave with an iron gauntlet back slap. The slave stopped suddenly, and looked down at the club in his hands as if a madness had come over him. He dropped it as if surprised to see it there, and ran away.

The knight was beyond angry. He did not think. He did not wonder why his slave attacked him. He just spat out the remains of his teeth and gave chase, not even bothering to pick up the club. He no longer thought about griffons. He no longer thought about magic apples or lost treasures, he thought about tearing the little Blue apart with his gauntleted hands.

Neither did he think about the chain, which connected himself with the slave; he could have just reeled him in. But instead he ran after him, arms outstretched, fingers curled in anticipation of strangling. Through the mystical grove they ran, the slave screaming in mortal terror, the knight howling for revenge. They scrambled out of the grove, past the white body of the gryphoness whose back paw still twitched in a dim memory of life.

The slave let go of a small cry as he ran past her.

Finally, he stopped at the edge of Mount Gryphus. The knight still barreled toward him. The knight's face had been transformed into something truly horrific.

The little Blue mage found himself trapped between the enraged knight and a lethal fall. His eyes darted to and fro, looking for something that could save him. He turned to look down the cliff. Below loomed only the quiet cloud that always clung to the middle of the mountain.

He turned and looked at the nearby dead gryffoness; she appeared so innocent in death. He found himself wondering if a murderous beast could feel love.

Would she would have loved her cub?

With Sir Blepharon almost upon him, the Blue sorcerer's eyes fell on the chain, that awful chain which forever connected him with his master. And he knew then what he must do. The knight, still overcome with rage, charged him full tilt. The iron gauntlets with fingers curled in anticipation were getting closer, closer...

The Blue saluted his former master and jumped off the mountain.

A look of surprise fell across Sir Blepharon's face. He realized too late what his former slave was up to there wasn't enough time to slow down and brace himself.

The chain trailed behind the plummeting Blue like a comet's tail, and quickly became taut. The knight tried to resist the pull at the edge of the cliff. Blepharon possessed an immense strength. He could have easily resisted the pull had he not been so off-balance. But after a brief moment of wildly waving his arms, he too fell off the mountain. Orange knight and Blue slave spun strangely in a parody of flight.

***

The eagle watched as they bounced down the side of Mount Gryphus. The first impact mercifully killed the Blue, but the knight continued to howl for revenge until they reached the cloud. Somewhere within the cloud, the knight ceased howling and died, and the chain broke with a resounding snap.

A feeling of relief washed over the eagle. The cub was safe. The entire nobility of the bestial world, the terrestrial lions and the celestial eagles, would ensure that the griffon cub remained so. The griffon would become the foster child of the wilderness.

She plucked a loose feather from her tail and drifted down to the golden griffon's egg in its nest of apple blossoms. A golden egg meant a male cub formed within.

She knew nothing about griffon cubs, but she would love the griffon as she would her own chicks. She would feed him rabbits from the forest below. She would tell him of his glorious heritage. She would watch him grow older and stronger and perhaps even replace his mother as the guardian of Gryphus Grove.

And yes, she would love him.

She turned her sparsely feathered head upwards—for sheknew the souls of Man sometimes drifted into the sky—and screeched an eagle’s thanks to the desperate act of a man now free.