Douglas Niles - The Kinslayer Wars

“Come, my griffons! Answer the call of your master!” And come to him they did.

The flock, dramatically spellbound, swirled around him and settled toward places of vantage on the towering ridges nearby. One of these approached the elf, creeping along the crest of rock. Sithas saw a slash of white feathers across its brown breast, and his spirits soared in sudden recognition.

“Arcuballis!” he cried as the griffon’s head rose in acknowledgment. The great creature lived and had somehow found a home with this flock of his kin!

The proud griffon sprang to Sithas, rearing before him and spreading his vast wings. The elf saw a gouge along one side of Arcuballis’s head where the giant’s club had cracked him. Sithas was surprised at the joy he felt at the discovery of his brother’s lifelong steed, and that joy, he knew, would pale compared to Kith-Kanan’s own delight.

The others, too, moved toward him—with pride and power, but no longer did they seem to be threatening. Indeed, curiosity seemed to be their dominant trait.

By the gods, he had done it! His quest had succeeded! Because of his elation, the distant war seemed already all but won.

The dire wolves attacked suddenly, bursting from the concealment of trees that grew within a hundred feet of the cave mouth. Kith-Kanan and One-Tooth had planned their defense, but nevertheless, the onslaught came with surprising speed.

“There! Hounds come!” shouted the giant, first to see the huge, shaggy brutes.

Kith-Kanan seized his bow and pulled himself to his feet, cursing the stiffness that still impaired the use of his leg.

The largest of the dire wolves led the charge. A nightmarish brute, with murderous yellow eyes and a great, bristling mane of black fur, the beast sprinted toward the cave, while others of its pack followed in its wake. It snarled, curling its black, drooling lips to reveal teeth as long as Kith’s fingers. The dire wolves had the same narrow muzzles, alert, pointed ears, and furcoated bodies and tails of normal wolves. However, they were much larger than their more common cousins, and of far more fearsome disposition. A dozen erupted from the trees in the first wave, and Kith saw more of the dim gray shapes lurking in the woods beyond.

The elf propped himself up against a wall. With mechanical precision, he launched an arrow, nocked another, and fired again. He released a dizzying barrage of missiles at the loping canines. The razor-sharp steel of the arrowheads cut through fur and sinew, gouging deep wounds into the bristling canines, but even the bloodiest cuts seemed only to enrage the formidable creatures.

One-Tooth lumbered forward, his club raised. The hill giant grunted and swung, but his target skipped to one side. Whirling, the dire wolf reached with hungry fangs for the giant’s unprotected calf, but One-Tooth leaped away with surprising quickness. Instead of lunging after the giant, the monster darted toward Kith-Kanan as a snarling trio of its fellow wolves took up the assault on the hill giant.

The elf smoothly raised his bow and let fly another arrow. Though the missile scored a bloody gash on the beast’s flank it didn’t seem to appreciably affect its charge. One-Tooth whirled in a circle, clearing the menacing forms away from himself, and then swung desperately, knocking the rear legs of one large monster to the side. The wolf crashed to the ground and then sprang away. The wolves began to circle One-Tooth. Kith-Kanan shot at yet another wolf, and another, dropping each with arrows to the throat. A wolf turned from the giant, loping toward the elf, and Kith brought it down—but not before driving three arrows into its chest, and even then the beast didn’t stop until it had practically reached him.

Once again they came in a rush, a nightmarish image of snarling lips, glistening fangs, and gleaming, hate-filled eyes. The elf shot his arrows one after the other, scarcely noting the effect of one before the next was nocked. The giant bashed at the shaggy beasts, while they in turn tore at his legs, ripping gory wounds with their fangs.

The packed snow around the cave mouth was covered with gray bodies, and great patches of it were stained crimson by the spilled blood of the slain wolves. One-Tooth stumbled, nearly going down amid the viciously snarling attackers. A wolf leaped for the giant’s neck, but the elven archer killed it in midair with a single arrow to the heart.

Then Kith-Kanan reached for another arrow and realized he had used them all. Grimly drawing his sword, he pushed himself away from the wall and limped toward the beleaguered giant. He felt terribly vulnerable without the rock wall behind him, but he couldn’t leave the courageous hill giant to die by himself.

Then suddenly, before Kith reached the melee, the wolves sprang away from the giant and darted back to the shelter of the trees, leaving a dozen of their number behind, dead.

“Where go hounds?” demanded the hill giant, shaking his fist after the wolves.

“I don’t know,” admitted the elf. “I don’t think I scared them away.”

“Good fight!” One-Tooth beamed at Kith-Kanan, wiping a trunklike wrist below his running nose. “Big hounds mean, too!”

“Not so mean as we are, my friend,” Kith noted, still puzzled by the sudden retreat of the wolves just when their victory had seemed assured. Kith-Kanan was relieved to see that One-Tooth’s wounds, while bloody, were not deep. He showed the giant how to clean them with snow, meanwhile keeping his eyes nervously on the surrounding pines.

He heard the disturbance in the air before One-Tooth did, but both of them instinctively looked up at the sky. They saw them coming from the east—a horizon full of great soaring shapes, with proudly spread wings and long, powerful bodies.

“The griffons!” Kith cried, whooping with glee. The giant stared at him as if he had lost his mind while he danced about the clearing, waving and shouting. The great flock settled across the valley floor, squawking and growling over the best perches. Sithas came to earth, riding one of the griffons, and Kith-Kanan recognized his mount immediately.

“Arcuballis! Sithas!”

His brother, equally elated, leaped to the ground. The twins embraced, too full of emotion for words.

“Big lion-bird,” grunted One-Tooth, eyeing Arcuballis carefully. “Rock-nose bring home.”

“Bring home—to your village?” asked Kith.

“Yup. Lion-bird hurt. Rock-nose feed, him fly away.”

“The giants must have taken him with them that night they first attacked us,” Kith-Kanan guessed. “They nursed him back to health.”

“And then he escaped, and found the flock in the wild. He was with them when I finally discovered their nests,” Sithas concluded. Sithas related the tale of his search and the discovery of the flock. “I left the nestlings and several dozen females who had been feeding them in the valley. The rest came with me.”

“There are hundreds,” observed Kith-Kanan, amazed.

“More than four hundred, I think, though I haven’t made an exact count.”

“And the spell? It worked like it was supposed to?”

“I thought they were going to tear me apart. My hands were shaking so much I could hardly hold the scroll,” Sithas exaggerated. “I read the incantation, and the words seemed to flame off the page. I had just finished the spell when the first one attacked.”

“And then what?”

“He just landed in front of me, as if he was waiting for instructions. They all settled down. That’s when I saw Arcuballis. When I mounted him and he took to the air, the others followed.”

“By the gods! Let’s see the humans try to stand against us now!” Kith-Kanan practically crowed his excitement.