The gnome caught his arm-with both hands. “No, wait! There’s something I haven’t told you yet,” he said. “Baelar’s griffon is missing from the eyrie. I think Kier took it.”
“What makes you say that?” Torrin asked, startled.
“Just… Opel acted strange when I asked him why the boy wasn’t helping him muck out the eyrie. He claimed not to know where Kier was, even though those two are as tight as rogues. And he paused to think a moment when I asked where Baelar’s griffon was.”
“Smite me with a hammer, Gimrick!” Torrin exploded, shaking off the gnome’s hands. “When will you ever learn to put the most important point first? If Kier has taken the griffon, he’s in real trouble!”
“I’m sure he’ll put the griffon back. No harm done.”
“You’re not thinking this through, Gimrick. When Kier returns to the eyrie, they’ll think he’s trying to break the quarantine. If he doesn’t heed their warnings to land, he could be shot down!”
The gnome glanced out across the East Rift, blanched, and grabbed the railing. “Kier may not have taken Baelar’s griffon, of course,” he sputtered. “Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps Baelar is on duty.”
“Did you check?” asked Torrin.
“Well no. I thought maybe you could-”
Exasperated, Torrin charged down the stair, shouting at those coming up to get out of his way. When they saw the look in his eye, they flattened against the wall, letting him pass. He entered the corridor at the bottom of the stair and hurried to where the Peacehammers kept their mounts.
As Torrin barged in, Opel, the mucker, whirled, scat-shovel in hand. He gaped at Torrin and backed up a step. “I don’t know anything!” he cried.
Never breaking his stride, Torrin bore down on the fuzz-bearded boy. “Clearly you do, Opel, or you wouldn’t have opened your mouth just now. Out with it. Where’d Kier go?”
Above, the griffons shifted on their iron-rail perches, their nails scraping against the metal. One screeched, and a downy golden feather drifted down from above. The shovel shook in Opel’s hand, and he refused to meet Torrin’s eye.
“A new earthmote rose out of the Underchasm,” he whispered, cocking his head toward the balcony. “It drifted over the Rift this morning. Kier wanted a closer look.”
“The fool!” Torrin shouted. He grabbed Opel’s shoulders. “How long ago did he set out?”
Opel flinched. “Not long,” he said. “Just after lunch.”
Torrin rushed to the balcony and peered out. He could see the new earthmote in the distance to the northwest, partially obscuring the spire of rock known as Sadrach’s Splinter. A small moving dot to the right of it, near the edge of the Rift, might have been a flying griffon. If that was Kier, he was already well beyond the city walls. And he was going to need Torrin’s help getting back.
“Fetch me a saddle,” Torrin ordered.
“You can’t!” Opel said. “These are Peacehammer mounts!”
“Do as I say,” Torrin commanded. “Now!”
A guilty Opel rushed to obey.
Torrin grabbed a bridle and climbed the ladder to the nearest griffon’s perch. The enormous creature gave him a sidelong look and flared its wings. It clearly wasn’t used to being approached by someone so tall. Fortunately, it didn’t snap at Torrin. Its lion’s tail lashed back and forth behind it, sending up a cloud of dust that smelled of straw, feathers, and fur.
“There, there, birdie,” Torrin said soothingly as he lifted the bridle into place. “We’re just going for a nice little ride, you and I.”
“Her name’s Mischief,” Opel said.
“Wonderful,” Torrin said under his breath. “Just what I need-more mischief to worry about.”
“Careful what you say,” Opel called up from below. “She understands every word.”
The griffon glared at Torrin, but allowed him to slide the bridle over her head and buckle it. Opel, meanwhile, labored up the ladder, weighed down by a heavy, padded saddle. Torrin plucked it from his shoulders and lifted it into place atop the griffon’s back at the spot where her lionlike hindquarters met her eagle chest and wings. He reached under the griffon’s belly for the strap and cinched it tight. Then he swung up into the saddle and fastened the restraining straps over his own thighs. He’d never ridden a griffon before, but he had ridden horses-including some very spirited mounts. Controlling a griffon, he was certain, couldn’t be that much different.
“Release her,” he ordered.
Opel unbuckled the bands around the griffon’s forelegs, setting it free.
“Away!” Torrin ordered. “Fly!”
The griffon edged her way along her perch in a series of quick hops, out over the balcony. Then she unfolded her wings, crouched slightly, and sprang into space. Torrin’s stomach lurched as the griffon first dove, then climbed sharply upward with powerful strokes of her large, golden wings. He tugged the reins and nudged the griffon’s foreflank with his right knee, trying to get her to turn, but the beast didn’t respond. Perhaps he was being too gentle. He tried again with a stiffer yank on the reins. The griffon responded, turning to the northwest in a smooth bank.
“That’s it, birdie, now you’re-”
Without warning, the griffon swerved straight up, leaving a startled Torrin clinging to the saddle horn. “What are you doing?” he shouted. He kicked the creature’s flanks. “Stop! Level out!”
The griffon wasn’t responding. Instead of leveling out at the top of her climb, she did a loop that wrenched Torrin’s hands from the saddle horn, nearly flinging him off. Dangling upside down, the straps across his thighs the only thing preventing him from falling to his death, Torrin fought to reach the saddle horn again. The iron mace that hung from his belt cracked against his head, causing him to see stars.
Then the loop turned into a dive. Torrin was hurled backward with such force that he nearly vomited. The dive was so steep that the rush of air tore tears from Torrin’s eyes and sent his hair pluming out behind him. Then, with a swoop, the griffon was flying level again. The beast let out a laughlike scree.
“All right!” Torrin shouted. “I understand. You’re the boss. And… I won’t call you ‘birdie’ again.”
Scree. The griffon’s neck feathers ruffled, then flattened again.
Torrin tried a gentle tug on the reins. That time, the griffon responded smoothly.
Within just a few moments, Torrin was over Eartheart’s wall. The guards atop its towers looked up as he sailed over them, and trained their ballistae upon him as soon as he was outside of the city limits. He waved to them, but instead of waving back they began pointing and shouting. But there was no time to worry about that.
Torrin flew toward the new earthmote. He could no longer see the dot that might have been Kier’s mount. If that’s where the boy was headed, he would likely have already landed atop the mote.
Torrin flew past the edge of the East Rift and out across the Underchasm. The East Rift itself was several hundred paces deep, but the Underchasm was far deeper, plunging to the very depths of the Underdark. The enormous sinkhole, easily the size of a small kingdom, stretched nearly one hundred leagues north to south, and was almost as wide. Narrower canyons splintered outward from it like cracks around a footprint in dried mud.
The Underchasm had formed when a vast expanse of the dwarf lands, weakened by spellfire, had collapsed into the Underdark below. Earth motes drifted above the leagues-deep chasm, throwing long shadows that stretched all the way back to East Rift.
As Torrin flew, he tried to decide what to do once he had found Kier. The best course of action would be to fly back to Hammergate, the town just outside Eartheart’s walls where Torrin had grown up. It had become more of a “foreign quarter” for the tallfolk who’d been drawn by Eartheart’s prosperity, and it was not subject to the quarantine. Kier could stay with Torrin’s parents while he waited his turn at the temple.
Torrin glanced back at Eartheart and saw that another griffon had taken off from the city. The flutter of a yellow-and-red striped cloak told him who rode it: a Peacehammer, one of the elite city guard. They, it would appear, were still allowed in and out of the city. And that one was headed straight for Torrin. Thankfully, Torrin would reach the earthmote long before the skyrider intercepted him. After that, well… surely the rider would listen to reason, and understand why Torrin had been forced to borrow one of the griffons.