The Dark Man managed to stop himself swearing in surprise. This was not the Gryphon that he and Gorgrael had made!
Gorgrael peered at the Dark Man slyly. “I lost another of the SkraeBolds in the WildDog Plains, Dear Man. With its decomposing flesh I made another Gryphon. Only larger, more powerfully built. More intelligent.”
“And it breeds?” the Dark Man asked, his voice harsh.
“As do its pups,” Gorgrael said, more than pleased at the Dark Man’s surprise. “As do its pups.”
He turned back to Timozel. “I will give you one of this creature’s pups as your own. Go on, pat her head, scratch the back of her neck, she likes that. With one of these creatures as your mount you will be able to sail the thermals as easily as do the Icarii.”
As Timozel bent down to the Gryphon fawning at his feet, Gorgrael took the Dark Man by the elbow and led him away a few steps, talking quietly.
“Perhaps there is something I should tell you, Dark Man.”
Hearing the perverse pleasure in Gorgrael’s voice, the Dark Man knew the news was going to be bad.
“Dear Man, I know you planned that the Gryphon should stop breeding after the second pack was whelped. I know you planned that the numbers of Gryphon would be limited.”
Months ago Gorgrael and the Dark Man had created a Gryphon, a creature with the head of an eagle, the wings of a bird, and the body of a great cat. The Dark Man had infused deep enchantments into the making of the Gryphon; the single female had been created pregnant, and soon after she had been created she had whelped nine pups. And these nine pups had been born female and pregnant. After four months they too whelped, each bearing nine pups. But the Dark Man had thought he had manipulated the enchantments so that the breeding would stop there. He wanted Gorgrael to have a powerful air-borne force – and the eighty-two Gryphon created in this fashion would surely be that – but he did not intend that the breeding should continue.
“But the breeding has continued,” Gorgrael hissed, and he felt the Dark Man twitch under his hand. “Already I have seven hundred and twenty-nine. And soon they will whelp. Each will whelp nine pregnant pups. Do you know how many that will be, Dear, Dear Man?”
The Dark Man was silent, almost overcome with horror.
“Over six and a half thousand. And in another four months those six and a half thousand will whelp – almost sixty thousand pups. And in four months those sixty thousand will –”
“Stop!” the Dark Man cried, and jerked his arm from Gorgrael’s grasp.
“And not to forget, of course, the second Gryphon I created. She and hers have generated eighty-one Gryphon. In just over a month those eighty-one will become seven hundred and –”
“Yes, yes!” the Dark Man spat. “I understand!”
“No,” Gorgrael said very, very softly. “I do not think you do. I am the Destroyer, Dear Man, and I plan to destroy. Whatever pretty enchantments Axis can throw my way, I will still destroy Tencendor. With the Gryphon-breeding as they do, in less than a year there will be five-hundred thousand of them in the skies of Tencendor, Dear Man. Think of it. Five-hundred thousand. So what if my comely brother can stab one or two here or there? Or his army forty or fifty thousand? Even if one escapes, one, that one will breed nine, and those nine will whelp nine each, and … I need not continue. Even if one escapes, within two years at least sixty thousand will repopulate the skies of Tencendor.”
Behind his hood the Dark Man stared at Gorgrael, appalled.
“So you see,” Gorgrael said, “even if Axis destroyed me in battle, I have planned that he shall have nothing left to enjoy. Not even Axis can counter the virulence of the Gryphon. Eventually there will be nothing left of this green and pleasant land except the shadows of Gryphon wheeling and shrieking through the sky. They will blot out the sun and they will destroy and destroy and destroy until there is nothing – nothing – left!”
Oh Stars, thought the Dark Man, and felt the plans of three thousand years crumble to dust about him.
Gorgrael grinned triumphantly. At last he had bested the Dark Man. And if he could do that, then Gorgrael knew that he would best Axis.
Gilbert had known from the moment the Corolean transports disgorged their traitorous pirates into the seething mass that was the Battle of Bedwyr Fort that Borneheld was all but dead. Borneheld and his armies had failed to protect the Seneschal, and had failed in their supreme duty to Artor.
Not only would the beautiful Tower of the Seneschal now be overrun by Axis and the Forbidden, but Gilbert had realised that Carlon itself was lost. Sooner or later, Axis would seize the capital of Achar as well.
Gilbert had understood very clearly that his future lay as far away from Jayme, Borneheld and Carlon as he could get. He also knew that the future of the Seneschal and the Way of the Plough probably rested with him. Jayme had proved useless in massing the not inconsiderable resources of the Seneschal against Axis’ forces; now the Brotherhood lay scattered among the ruins of Achar.
So Gilbert had backed silently away from Jayme and Moryson as they stood atop the parapets of Carlon, and sped down back stairs and corridors until he reached the home of one of his many cousins within the city. There he had begged a horse, clothes, supplies and a purse of gold coins and had ridden out of Carlon not five minutes before Borneheld and Gautier, fleeing from the battlefield, had ordered the gates sealed.
He rode hard and fast south, turning east after two days (fording the Nordra late one night and almost drowning in the process) to begin his long trek across the southern plains of Tare. He was not completely sure where he was going; he had a vague compulsion to travel east, perhaps to Arcness, maybe then north to Skarabost.
Each night Gilbert would pray to Artor for guidance. Surely Artor would not desert him or the Seneschal in this, its hour of greatest need?
It was now the third week of DeadLeaf-month, almost a month after the Battle of Bedwyr Fort, and Gilbert sat morosely by his tiny campfire, considering his future. It did not look very promising. From what he had heard from the occasional passing trader, many of whom had been returning to Nor from Carlon, Axis had destroyed the throne of Achar and had proclaimed himself StarMan of Tencendor. Gilbert snorted. StarMan of Tencendor? A gaudy title for the rebirth of an evil world.
He shivered in the cool night air and pulled his cloak tightly about him. Since he had escaped from Carlon he had not been able to travel very far; currently he was, at his best estimation, somewhere in the northern regions of Nor, or perhaps western Tarantaise.
He fingered his purse. He had carefully hoarded his coins, bargaining fiercely in the markets of the small towns he had passed through for food and supplies. He travelled as a minor nobleman – an easy disguise to assume since Gilbert had originally come from one of the nobler families of Carlon – because in these eastern territories, where Axis’ armies and the Forbidden who travelled with him had already passed, it would not be very wise to be seen to be a Brother. Gilbert had also heard from the few merchants he had encountered that the names of old gods were now mouthed with increasing confidence across eastern Achar.
He leaned forward and prodded the bread he had baking in the coals. He had no life but that he had built for himself in the Seneschal. A young man, not yet thirty, Gilbert had risen quickly through the ranks of the Brotherhood. Six years ago Jayme had appointed him as his junior adviser, and Gilbert was not ashamed to admit to himself that his eye rested on the throne of the Brother-Leader itself. Jayme was old, as was Moryson, and who better to succeed Jayme