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  Einarr’s Choice

  The fat ptarmigan Einarr had stalked for the last quarter mark burst from the brush in a rage of cackling squawks when two large male gryfons blundered through the woods. The banks of the Nightrun River on the Sun Isle were proving rich in smaller game and Einarr took his free afternoons to refine his skills there when the huntresses didn’t need him.

  Usually, it also gave him time to be alone. Apparently that was not Tyr’s intention for him that day.

  The two approaching gryfons hooted and laughed after the small bird. The autumn sun flashed off of the gaudy bands that weighted their forelegs and necks. Einarr had no such favors from the king. He wasn’t sure he wanted any. The king seemed to bestow favors on the loudest braggarts of the pride, and if that was the company, Einarr didn’t want it. He had wondered, since his failed hunt for caribou in the White Mountains, if a different kind of king would reward different kinds of behavior.

  He wondered if it mattered.

  “Windblown slugs,” he muttered, jumping up from his cover in the brush to watch his mate’s supper fly away.

  “Language, young hunter!” called a familiar, mocking voice. “You wouldn’t have gotten within a wing’s reach anyway.”

  “I was in a wing’s reach!” Flushed under his feathers, Einarr glared as Halvden and his second, Vald, trotted through the underbrush. The fat brush bird would’ve been a nice delicacy for his pregnant mate, and he could have proven his skill at more refined hunting. “Are you patrolling for rabbit and fowl now? I know they’re frightening, but really not so bad, once you—”

  “Big words from a little gryfon,” Vald said. He was Einarr’s age, but larger, a full-blooded Aesir.

  Shard didn’t need to be large to be strong, Einarr thought, lifting his head defiantly. The thought of the wiry gray gryfon who had been a friend, who was still alive, who had challenged even mighty Sverin, lit an ember in Einarr’s chest.

  “Not that it’s your business, hunter.” Halvden strolled past him, bumping him hard to one side. “But if you must know, survivors from the ambush last summer said the wolves arrived and left from the direction of the Nightrun. So the entrance to their secret tunnels is somewhere in the area. If the tunnels even exist. I think it’s some kind of witchery, myself. Anyway, the Guard are searching along the banks today.”

  “I wish you luck then,” Einarr said, his hackles prickling. “It’s a long river.” He didn’t like being alone near Halvden, who was known for bullying, nor Vald, who seemed to be taking his new position as Third Sentinel for all it was worth.

  Third Sentinel. Whatever that means. The new ranks and titles only gave them more reason to strut and preen, as far as Einarr had observed. It didn’t make them more responsible, or more useful. If anything, it made them worse. He stepped aside before Vald could push him too.

  “There’s a series of rock cliffs a league down,” Einarr told Halvden. “It seems a likely spot for a cave. I would check there.”

  Halvden looked downstream, apparently bored by the idea. “I didn’t ask for your advice.”

  A glint of blue caught Einarr’s gaze from the direction Halvden and Einarr had come. He glanced furtively in that direction, but saw only a pine jay dart up from the bush. Nothing else moved, no more gryfons joined them.

  “We might as well look,” Vald said, trying too hard, Einarr thought, to also appear as unconcerned as Halvden.

  “Perhaps.” Halvden cast a look around, as if he knew a great deal more than anyone else there. “Oh, Vald, I learned something new today.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, how do you tell the difference between a hunter and a crow?”

  “I don’t know,” Vald said, eyeing Einarr slyly.

  “One eats vermin,” Halvden said, “the other is a bird.”

  Vald laughed, slapping talons against the fallen leaves. “Oh, Halvden, what do you call a young gryfon who wishes he was in the King’s Guard?”

  “Why, I don’t know,” said Halvden. “What?”

  “A hunter.”

  They exploded in laughter and headed off, Halvden hitting Einarr in the face with his tail as they left. Einarr stood, shaking with anger, but locked to the ground.

  A scuffle overhead made Einarr look up, and he saw a raven peering down at him. It bobbed its head at Einarr and he blinked, looking quickly away. Some said Shard had spoken to ravens.

  Maybe they carried news for him.

  The thought of that gave Einarr an odd sense of hope, and strength. He hadn’t told Sverin that he’d seen Shard, hadn’t told anyone. He clung happily to the news that his own father and brother lived, and remained silent.

  He watched as Vald and Halvden strutted through the brush, down toward the clear area nearer the riverbank, exchanging jokes and thinking up new insults for male hunters. He didn’t understand why, for as far as he knew, hunting was as hard as patrolling, and it had always been done this way—the males hunted in winter when the females couldn’t.

  Einarr thought of his mate, sweet Astri, working so hard to feed the pride, of Thyra, of Halvden’s mate Kenna. He was sure Halvden only meant to mock male hunters, but it insulted all of them. Einarr knew he’d been lucky to get away from the encounter without a fight. He should just take his chance to leave.

  The memory struck him of Shard, lock-talon with Sverin as they fell toward the sea.

  “I have one,” he called.

  Both gryfons stopped, looking over their shoulders at him.

  Halvden narrowed his eyes. “You have what?”

  “A joke,” Einarr said. “I have one. What do you call a sentinel whose mate hears of his jokes about hunters?” He waited, anxious, but anger spread through him like heat.

  “What?” Vald demanded.

  “Hungry,” Einarr said.

  Before he could flee, Halvden crashed back through the woods. He slammed Einarr to the ground and locked talons around his neck. Einarr coughed against the grip, one wing bent and pressed against a rock.

  “But Kenna won’t hear of it,” Halvden warned. “Will she.”

  Einarr gurgled an answer and Halvden loosed a lion’s growl in his chest.

  “I didn’t catch that.”

  Einarr’s first instinct was to give in, to let Halvden have his moment of pride and then get on with his day.

  The raven above cackled and hopped to another branch, calling raucously through the golden birch. Something in Einarr turned. What if Shard could see me? If the raven was spying for Shard, Einarr wanted him to give a good report.

  Drawing a tight, shallow breath against Halvden’s grip, he twisted his own hind quarters sharply and jabbed a paw into Halvden’s stomach. Halvden coughed and his grip loosened enough for Einarr to squirm and roll to his belly.

  Vald bounded in to help Halvden. Einarr flung a wing out to strike the orange gryfon’s face. He caught Vald straight in the eye and shot forward, but Halvden lunged after him.

  “You muddy little—son of an exile! Brother to a coward and the son of a traitor!”

  Starlings and whatever small animals were left fled the woods in a scuffle of wings and calls. Einarr stopped hard, dug his hind claws into the earth and kicked dirt into Halvden’s face. The big gryfon fell back, swearing and shaking his head.

  “Who’s muddy now?” Einarr taunted. Too late he saw that Vald, recovered, had circled around. The orange gryfon crashed into him from the side and they rolled, clawing and kicking. They bumped into a boulder, Einarr pinned on his side, crushed under Vald’s weight. Halvden, eyes red from dirt, shoved through the underbrush. He cuffed Einarr’s head so hard that lights exploded before his eyes and he heard a bright ringing. Vald jammed a foot into his belly for good measure and Einarr gasped, shaking his head.

  “Hold him,” Halvden rasped. “I think I’d like some copper feathers to line my nest. And we’ll see how well you hunt birds with a broken wing.”

  “Halvden,” Vald said uncertainly, though he held Einarr pinned. “We should ge
t on with our work. It was just a joke—”

  “I said hold him!”

  Einarr squirmed with an animal shriek as Halvden’s talons closed on the muscle near his wing joint.

  “I think that will do, Halvden.”

  The voice, not Vald, stopped Halvden, though the talons pierced Einarr’s skin.

  Einarr blinked dizzily, still reeling from Halvden’s blow, and saw a patch of blue striding forward through the trees. The flash of color he’d seen before. It was a gryfon.

  It was Caj.

  “Let him up,” he barked at Vald, who couldn’t obey fast enough. “What’s all this? I thought we were patrolling for wolves, not each other.”

  Einarr fell over onto his belly and forced himself to stand. Halvden mantled before Caj, all humility.

  “We…were…this runt—”

  “A spar,” Einarr cut in, his voice rough. He shook leaves and dirt from his wings and looked Caj in the eye. “We met in the woods and I challenged them to a spar.”

  Caj watched him incredulously. Sometimes Einarr found him more terrifying than Sverin himself.

  Anyway, I did challenge them. I just lost.

  “Well I’d say you quite won,” Caj growled at Halvden. “Let me never hear a threat about wing breaking again from any of you. Back to your work. Our group has found a place downstream worth investigating. Find them. And you.” He studied Einarr up and down. “Focus on hunting. There are more important things to fight this winter than each other.”

  “Yes,” Einarr agreed, glancing to Halvden and Vald as they left, muttering. “I agree.”

  For a moment he caught Caj’s gaze, and Caj hesitated, waiting to hear what he had to say. Einarr wanted to ask if Caj had actually waited, hiding in the brush, and watched the entire fight unfold. He wanted to ask if Caj knew that Shard, his nest-son, was alive.

  But he met the hard gaze and said nothing.

  Finally he dipped his head to Caj to indicate he had nothing to add. The blue gryfon huffed and trotted after Halvden and Vald.

  Einarr stood still for a moment, regaining his breath and letting the dizziness fade. The raven was still in the trees above. It had followed the fight. It had followed him, Einarr was sure of it.

  “Tell…him,” Einarr said, wary of any other unseen Aesir listening in, “I can’t leave my mate in winter. I can’t leave the pride. But tell him I…I was glad to hear of my father and brother.”

  The raven gabbled back at him and flapped out of the trees as Einarr watched, feeling foolish. Once airborne it loose a laughing call, and Einarr could have sworn there were words within its clattering voice.

  “Long live the gray kings. Long live the Vanir!”

  “Long live the Vanir,” Einarr whispered, set his wings back, and bent to task of recovering his lost ptarmigan.

  If he were going to tell anyone about Shard, he would’ve told Caj. The blue gryfon had always seemed fair and just to Einarr, if harsh in his ways, but he was also the king’s wingbrother. So Einarr decided he wouldn’t tell anyone. Not Caj. Not his own mate. Certainly not the Red King.

  Einarr decided in that moment he would tell no one that he had seen Shard, and that the prince of the Vanir was alive and well.

  That his prince was alive and well.

  15

  A New Land

  A greatland peeked through breaking clouds below. The cragged, broken shoreline crawled out as far as a gryfon eye could see.

  He stared down, ears swiveling, eyes searching. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been flying, but a steady ache in his wings and a sharp claw in his empty belly told him it was time to come to earth and find a meal. The land swept off and away in broken hills and plains and became low mountains far, far away. In the other direction down the coast, the earth continued in a long, seemingly endless grass plain, swelling now and then into golden hills.

  He had never seen so much land that he could recall, but then, he couldn’t now recall much more than the sea. Cloud drifted under him and he banked to angle along the coastline. A herd of deer grazed among the hills and he focused on them.

  White movement caught his eye and he glanced over, staring at an albatross who watched him steadily in return. An albatross would make a stringy but filling meal.

  Ra-shard! cried the bird, a strange sound.

  He chuckled to himself and banked hard, swooping toward the albatross and swiping his talons to try and catch a white wing. The albatross shut his wings and dropped fast, repeating the same odd sound as before. Then, curving his wings like a tern, sped back out over the sea.

  The gray gryfon blinked at the empty sky. Before he could regret losing his meal, a commotion below drew his ears and eyes. The grazing deer had broken into a run across the hills. The wind sent the grass rippling in a golden wave, and from the air, he saw what caused the pronghorns to flee.

  Two gryfess hunters and a pack of eight strange, painted wolves clashed in the shorter grass where the pronghorns had grazed just moments before. Nothing about the scene was familiar, but familiar faces flashed through his mind.

  A lavender gryfess, beautiful and fierce as the sun, stalking through a dim woods.

  A she-wolf, red as autumn, laughing under the moon.

  He shook his head at the dream-things and dove toward the fight. If he helped the gryfons, they might reward him with food. Strange warnings and a sense of foreboding he couldn’t explain tightened his muscles. A strange urge seized him to pause, to examine, to even fight on the side of the painted wolves. He shook it off. In a clash between gryfons and other beasts, he would side with his own. Shoving doubt aside, he quickly scanned the fight and saw where he was needed.

  A young, tawny huntress the color of the sand coast fell under the attack of three painted wolves. He shot down like a falcon and slammed against a big male wolf, shrieking a battle cry.

  More dream things flashed before his waking eyes, blinding him briefly from the fight.

  Twin wolves sprang at him in attack, angry eyes, heavy fur, snarling with fangs and claws bared.

  He and the big wolf rolled down a hill, tearing the earth and flattening the grass as they struggled to snag the other’s ears, eyes or throat. The others who had ganged up on the smaller gryfess followed them, snarling.

  He tore free of the big male and fanned his wings open wide in a threat display, hackle feathers lifted, beak open in a low, dangerous hiss. It curled into a lion growl in his chest, reverberating in the earth under them.

  The big male wolf padded off to reconsider him, head low. Large, rounded ears lifted as the other two wolves joined, circling. A female with a keen gaze muttered commands in a low, growling warble.

  They weren’t like wolves he knew he’d encountered before. He had never seen anything like them. They stood shorter than Silver Isles wolves, their sleek coats patterned in broad, rangy spots and swirls of pale brown and white. Slather hung off their dark muzzles. Their blunt jaws lay open in exhausted pants. They lifted large, rounded ears toward him, then laid them back in threat, eyes glittering darkly.

  Silver Isles, he thought wildly, distracted by his own odd memory. What am I remembering? Large, lanky wolves, with heavy coats for long winters, pointed ears, long muzzles, feathers of friendship tangled into their fur. The wolves of home.

  Home.

  “Wait!” he shouted as the big painted wolf lunged in to attack. “Earth brother—” he fell and rolled out of the way, muscles leaping into practiced action. He had fought wolves before. The other two skittered forward, heads low and jaws snapping for his open wings.

  He fought, dizzy with the sudden awareness that he was missing something, that he was lost, that he had a Name he could not remember, that this was not his home.

  The female wolf ran in barking, and latched jaws onto his heel. Hot pain seared up his hind leg and he writhed around, swiping talons toward her face. She leaped back but followed her males in again to attack. The three converged on him, fangs clamping on his tail feathers, heavy paws w
ith sharp claws raking across his shoulders and chest. A younger male lunged for his throat.

  Something ripped the wolf off of him.

  A new gryfess joined the fight, catching the wolf’s shoulders in her talons and dragging him off with heavy beats of her wings. The wolf yelped as he broke free, tearing his own fur to escape, and the gryfess landed hard, flinging open her wings in warning.

  The wolves retreated and he, straining to remember himself, stood back to back with his new gryfess ally.

  The wolves lunged in again, though they seemed more hesitant now that he was not alone. His body fell into practiced fighting movements—defend, attack, flare a wing to block a wolf from leaping at the gryfess beside him. Her haunch pressed to his, their tails lashed together—it was as if they’d fought side-by-side their whole lives and he was grateful for the help.

  The rest of the pack streamed down the hill and they couldn’t break out of the fighting to fly. Moving liquidly together in defense and attack, they shrieked warnings and held each other’s backs.

  Words came to him, rich, guttural words that echoed the growling of the wolves.

  “Hunt brothers,” he snarled as a young wolf darted in at his side. His gryfess partner hissed and slashed her talons to warn him away. “Earth sisters, stop this!”

  The keen-eyed she-wolf fell back, jaws closing to a growl as she lifted her dark, round ears toward him. Through the dust and what strands of grass remained standing, he saw comprehension in her eyes.

  Before she could answer, if she would have, a harsh, gleeful singsong voice called from high in the air. “Filthy painted poachers, muddy dogs, attack my kin? I’ll line my nest with your pelt!”

  The she-wolf’s gaze shot upward. Most of the wolves scattered as two more large gryfesses thudded to earth only a leap’s length away. Now facing four enraged gryfesses and himself, the wolves barked and howled to each other and scrambled to retreat.

  The she-wolf caught his eye briefly, bared her fangs, and whirled to run through the grass, growling for the others to follow. The newly arrived gryfons chased them a moment, taunting.

  Then it was quiet.