Finder's Bane - Kate Novak [41]
In the stable below, four griffons lay sleeping with their heads tucked beneath their wings. Each one was shackled by a chain running from a ring in the floor to a heavy iron band about one of its front legs.
Joel tiptoed past the beasts over to the hole in the floor that the griffon riders used as a doorway to the Temple in the Sky. He peered down. A few torches twinkled on the roof of the Flaming Tower, but it took his eyes some time to adjust to the rest of the dark landscape below. Far to the south, a dark ribbon glittered in the moonlight.
"That should be the River Tesh," Holly said, pointing out the body of water to Jas. "We'll want to head upstream, toward Daggerdale," she explained.
An awful squawk rose from behind them, and they whirled around. Walinda had approached the griffons and awakened them. She held a bucket of chopped meat in her hands, but the creatures were too alarmed by her strangeness to accept food from her. They snapped at the priestess's face with their beaks. Walinda backed away hurriedly. Were it not for the chains on their legs, the griffons might have torn her apart in moments.
The creatures' shrieks and cries echoed through the chamber, and no doubt rose up the staircase. Walinda held up an iron symbol of Bane's hand and intoned some unknown words, but the griffons' clamoring only increased. The priestess looked annoyed, but she continued chanting her spell just out of reach of the creatures' beaks.
Holly rushed to Walinda's side and yanked her away from the griffons. "Stop it," she ordered. "You're going to bring the whole house down on us!"
Walinda spun angrily on the paladin. "We need to subdue these creatures to escape," she retorted.
"No we don't," Holly argued. "Jas can carry us one at a time."
"She would drop me the first chance she had," Walinda said, tossing the bucket of meat at the griffons.
"Like that," Jas agreed, snapping her fingers.
Joel approached the winged beasts, singing the calming spell that had worked so well on Butternut, but to no avail. The griffons were immune to any magic that affected ordinary beasts. They continued shrieking. Joel stepped back. "We've got to get out of here fast," he murmured, "before they send someone to check on the griffons."
Walinda tugged at his sleeve. "I cannot trust Pigeon Girl with my life. You vowed to help me escape from here," she reminded him.
"Poor Banebitch," Jas taunted. "She can't get down from this rock."
"You don't get down from a rock, you get down from a goose," Joel retorted automatically. Then he remembered his vision and the wings he'd found. He drew the golden talisman out of his tunic pocket and held it up for the others to see.
"Ahh… a feather token," Jas said. "Haven't seen one of those in a while."
"What does it do?" Holly asked.
"You throw it to the ground," Jas explained, "and you grow wings. You can use it only once."
"I can carry you," Joel said to Walinda, "and Jas can carry Holly."
From somewhere above them came human shouts.
"To the hole! Hurry!" Jas shouted, grabbing Holly's arm and pulling her in that direction.
Joel followed, with Walinda right behind. At the edge of the hole, he hesitated. "I just throw it to the ground?"
"The floor will do," Jas explained. "It would take a little too long to get to the ground.
Joel threw the talisman to the floor. The wings shattered with a tiny flash. Then a golden light blossomed from the broken magic item, bathing Joel's body in a rich radiance. When the glow had faded, Joel had a pair of great butterfly wings jutting from his back. They were yellow, with black striations, fully three times the size of Jas's.
"There's something else I should explain about these magical wings," Jas said as she shouldered Walinda aside to stand before Joel.
"What?" the bard asked.
Jas put her hands on the bard's chest.