The Shadow Companion - Laura Anne Gilman [45]
Ailis smiled and handed Newt the map, and walked off, trusting them to follow her. He unrolled it and scanned the markings quickly.
“That’s…”
“Uh-huh,” Ailis said.
Newt handed the map to Gerard, and hurried to catch up with the serving girl.
“Do you know how long it will take us to get there?”
Gerard looked at the map, and muttered a curse. The area marked, their destination, was a familiar one. A cave in the far northern highlands; the cave where they had found one of the pieces of the talisman that had broken Morgain’s sleep-spell.
That cave was home to the dragon Gerard had promised to return and fight, on the day he was made a knight.
“How are we going to get there?” Gerard asked, his voice rising in dismay. At least it didn’t crack like the first time they had encountered the dragon, and his voice had still been changing.
“Maybe we won’t even see the dragon. Maybe whatever we’re looking for is outside the cave.” And maybe this was all a cruel joke on Morgain’s part, sending them there. He wouldn’t put that past her at all.
“It’s going to take us forever to get there,” Newt said, echoing his thoughts.
“Don’t you two trust me?” Ailis asked, waving in passing to one of the knights standing on the perimeter of the camp, as though the three of them were simply out for an evening’s walk. Hopefully the fact that they were not leading horses would cause the guards to overlook their saddlebags.
“I hate it when someone asks me that,” Newt said to Gerard. “Don’t you?”
“We’re not walking,” Gerard guessed. “Ailis…”
His half-formed suspicion about the cause of Ailis’s earlier smile was correct. There, crouched in the shadows cast by the afternoon sun, his stunning golden feathers glinting in the light, was Sir Tawny, the griffin Ailis had befriended during her stay in Morgain’s keep.
“Morgain’s sending us to do her business,” Ailis said. “She won’t mind if we borrow him for a little while.”
“We’re going to…ride that?” Newt looked like he wasn’t sure if he should be nervous or excited.
“Unless you want him to carry you in his claws all the way.”
“I don’t think so, no,” he said, shaking his head. “Riding will be…fine.”
Ailis laughed at him, going forward to greet the griffin. The great beast’s head, shaped like an eagle’s but as large as a draft horse’s, ducked to meet her, allowing her access to the feathers tufted over its ears, keeping the fiercer curved beak from her soft flesh.
“We’re going to ride that…” Newt’s tone had gone from disbelief to awe. There was a makeshift rope harness attached to the creature’s catlike body, with knotted loops where feet and hands could be inserted for gripping, but otherwise there was no saddle, no reins, no way to stay on or control the winged beast.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Gerard said.
As it turned out, Gerard was fine, straddling Sir Tawny’s neck, staring down at the villages they flew over, trying to estimate the size of each one by how many rooftops he could count, while Ailis clung to the other side of the griffin and whispered in his ear, encouraging him to fly just a little longer, just a little farther, there was a good boy.
Newt, clinging to the rope harness, wondered if closing his eyes was better than keeping them open, and tried not to throw up on the poor, patient griffin’s feathers.
“Look at that!” Gerard called out. “Over there!”
“No,” Newt moaned, refusing to look.
“It’s all right,” Ailis said, the wind carrying her words back to him. “We’re here. Hold on…”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Newt asked, then gulped and turned a deeper shade of green as the griffin banked and folded his wings, going into a steep descent, right into the side of a mountain. Even knowing that there was a plateau there, where they had left their horses during the first visit, didn’t make Newt believe they were going to land as anything other than a splat against the rocks.
“You can open your eyes now,” Ailis said in his ear, while trying to stifle her laughter. They were safe and on solid ground.
“I hate both of you,” Newt said as he opened his eyes, pried