their stock,” said Rannagon. “They must’ve moved them far enough to get them out of her range. I wonder why she didn’t just move further into the mountains. Griffins aren’t usually stupid enough to risk stealing.”
Elrick ran a hand through his greying hair. “Unless she had something here to make her want to stay.”
Kaelyn glanced at him. “You mean she was nesting?”
“Maybe. We should have a scout around, anyway, just to be on the safe side. Can’t let her chicks starve to death.”
He finished stripping the feathers from Saekrae’s wings, with Kaelyn’s help, while Rannagon took out a knife and cut the end off her tail for a trophy. Once they were done and the feathers had been rolled up in cloth the three of them returned to the open, remounted and flew back up to circling height.
Rannagon leant forward to talk to his griffin. “What d’you see, Shoa?”
Shoa scanned the ground for a time. “Nest,” she said at length, and circled down toward it. The others had also spotted it and Elrick climbed down off Keth’s back and into the nest. He poked through the nesting material while Rannagon and Kaelyn, lacking the room to dismount, looked on.
“Anything?” said Kaelyn.
Elrick straightened up. “Nothing. Just a few bones and some shell fragments.”
“Stillborn?” said Rannagon.
“No, they’re too well developed for that,” said Elrick. “Have a look.”
He tossed a small bleached skull to Rannagon, who caught it and turned it over in his fingers. The delicate bone at the base of the skull had been broken, and the dark coating was peeling away from the beak; the whole thing was about the size of his fist. “Hmm. I see what you mean. I’d say it lived for a few weeks at the very least.” He dropped it back into the nest.
“There’s another one here,” said Elrick. “It’s in better condition.” He pocketed the other skull and a few pieces of shell before climbing into the saddle. “I’ll take it back for Roland. He was nagging me to bring him something. All right, let’s get going.”
Kaelyn sighed. “Poor little things. They must have starved to death.”
“Yes, it just isn’t good territory here,” said Rannagon. “Not with humans so close. Maybe one griffin could’ve survived, but not with a nest full of chicks. It’s almost sad how animals try to breed even when it’s just not practical, isn’t it?”
“Life holds on where it can,” Shoa interrupted. “Humans are the same.”
“You’re right, as always,” said Rannagon, scratching her neck.
She closed her eyes and crooned, but then abruptly turned away and took to the air again, forcing Rannagon to grab hold of the harness on her neck to avoid falling to his death.
Elrick chuckled as Keth followed more sedately, and the two griffins flew up and out of the valley. Kaelyn’s griffin paused to poke his beak into the nest. He nosed at the cold litter and the pathetically small bones of the dead chicks.
“What is it?” Kaelyn asked.
He raised his head again and snorted. “A smell. It does not matter.” He flew off before she could ask any more questions, and as the two of them soared upward and away from the nest, neither one saw the pair of silver eyes that watched them balefully from a branch.
The black hatchling did not move for a long time after the strangers had gone. Instinct had made him leave the nest and hide on a branch beneath it, but once the danger had passed he didn’t know what to do next. After sitting on the branch for some time, motionless but for the twitching of his tail, he crawled out along it and climbed back into the nest. His foreclaws were strong and knew instinctively where to grip, and he heaved himself up over the side and tumbled into the bottom of the nest. It was cold and he could smell the sharp, alien scent of the intruders. But he curled up amid the soft tufts of fur and feather that Saekrae had used to line it, and waited.
Night came. After a while the moon rose. The black chick slept, almost completely invisible in the gloom, his head tucked under his wing.
He woke up shivering the next morning. Without his siblings to snuggle up against, the nest seemed a lot bigger and colder.
The black chick roused himself by flapping his wings, and looked around for Saekrae. She wasn’t there. He stumbled around the nest looking for her, but he could not see her anywhere. She was neither