They all of course had to say goodbye. Molly said she knew they would see each other again, and Schmendrick told her she had the makings of a real warrior queen, only he was certain that she was too smart to be one. King Lír said to her very quietly, so no one else could hear: “Little one, if I had married and had a daughter, I would have asked no more than that she should be as brave and kind and loyal as you. Remember that, as I will remember you to my last days.”
And then the three of them rode into the wood, only Molly looking back to make sure Sooz was not following. And perhaps she would not have followed, had it not been for her dog, Malka. Malka should have been with the sheep, of course; that was her job, just as being king and going to meet the griffin was Lír’s job. But to Malka Sooz was a sheep, too, the most stupid, aggravating sheep she had ever had to guard, forever wandering into some kind of danger. What Malka did was jump up on Sooz until she knocked her down, and then take the hem of her smock in her jaws and start tugging her in the direction the dog thought she should go. This time, though, after knocking Sooz down Malka stared past her at the wood with all the white showing in her eyes and making a sound Sooz didn’t think she could make. The next moment Malka was racing into the wood with foam flying from her mouth and her big ragged ears flat back. Sooz had no choice but to follow. Lír, Schmendrick, and Molly all had a choice, going after the griffin, but Malka did not know what she was facing, and Sooz could not let her face it alone.
Sooz ran and walked and ran again, following the hoofprints and the dog tracks, when all of a sudden the forest exploded a little way ahead of her. Malka was howling, and Schmendrick or the king or somebody was shouting, although she couldn’t make out the words. Underneath it all was something that wasn’t loud at all, a sound somewhere between a growl and that terribly soft call, like a child. Then just as she broke into the clearing she heard the rattle and scrape of knives, as the griffin shot straight up with the sun on its wings. Its cold golden eyes bit into hers, and its beak was open so wide you could see down and down into the blazing red gullet. It filled the sky.
And King Lír, astride his black mare, filled the clearing. He was as huge as the griffin, and his sword was the size of a boar spear. He shook it at the griffin, daring it to light down and fight him on the ground. But the griffin stayed out of range, circling overhead to get a good look at these strange new people. Malka screamed and hurled herself into the air again and again, snapping at the lion’s feet and eagle claws, but coming down each time without so much as an iron feather between her teeth. The last time she leaped the griffin swooped and caught her full on her side with one huge wing, so hard she couldn’t get a sound out. She flew all the way across the clearing, slammed into a tree, fell to the ground, and after that she did not move.
Molly told Sooz later that that was when King Lír struck for the griffin’s lion heart. Sooz did not see it; she was flying across the clearing herself, throwing herself over Malka in case the griffin came after her again. She did hear the griffin’s roar when it happened, and when she could turn her head she saw the blood splashing along its side. Lír threw his sword into the air, caught it, and charged in for the kill, ignoring Schmendrick who was standing by yelling, “Two hearts, two hearts!” until his voice split with it. Sooz didn’t know what happened right then; all she was seeing and thinking about was Malka, feeling her heart not beating under her own. Malka, who guarded her cradle when she was born; Malka, on whose ear she had cut her teeth.
King Lír wasn’t seeing or hearing any of them. There was nothing in the world for him but the griffin. When it flopped and struggled lopsidedly in the clearing, he got down from his black mare and went up to it, and spoke to it, lowering his sword until its point was on the ground: “You were a noble and terrible adversary—surely the last such I will ever confront. We have accomplished what we were born to do, the two of us. I thank you for your death.”
And on that last word, the griffin had him. It was the eagle, lunging up at him, dragging the dead lion half along. King Lír stepped back, swinging the sword fast enough to take off the griffin’s head, but the griffin was faster. The dreadful beak caught him at the waist, shearing through his armor the way an axe would smash through pie crust. There was blood, and worse; she could not have said if the king were dead or alive. Sooz thought the griffin was going to bite him in two.
Schmendrick could do nothing, since he had promised Lír that he would not intervene by magic. Sooz was not a magician, though, and she had not promised anyone anything. The griffin did not see her coming. She had a big rock in her left hand and a dead branch in her right, and the griffin looked up fast when the rock hit it on the side of the neck. It didn’t like that, but it was too busy with King Lír to bother with her. She threw the branch as far as she could, and as soon as the griffin looked away she made a big sprawling dive for the hilt of the king’s sword. She knew she could lift it because she had buckled it on him, but she couldn’t get it free; he was lying on it and was too heavy. She kept pulling on the sword, while Molly kept pulling on her, and the griffin lifted her up and threw her on top of the king, his cold armor so cold against her cheek it was as if his armor had died with him.
Griffins do not speak, as dragons can (but only to heros, Lír had told her). But as the griffin looked into her eyes, it was as if it was telling her that although it would die, it had killed them all, and it would pick their bones before the ravens had his. The people would remember it, and what it did, when there was no one left who would remember her name. So it had won. And there was nothing but that beak and that burning gullet opening over her.
And then there was. Sooz thought it was a white cloud, only traveling so low and so fast that it smashed the griffin off King Lír and and away from Sooz and sent her tumbling into Molly’s arms at the same time. Molly held her tight, and it wasn’t until she wriggled her head free that she saw what had come to them.
They didn’t look anything like horses; Sooz didn’t know how people got that idea. Schmendrick was on his knees, with his eyes closed and his lips moving, as though he was singing. Molly kept whispering, “Amalthea…Amalthea…,” not to Sooz, not to anybody. The unicorn was facing the griffin across the king’s body, dancing with its front hooves, and with its head up. Then it put its head down.
Dying or not, the griffin put up a furious fight. It wasn’t a bit fair, though, and Sooz did not feel sorry for the griffin. With its last strength the griffin flung itself on the unicorn, trying to rake its back and bite down on its neck as it had with the king, but the unicorn reared up, flung the griffin to the ground, whirled and drove its horn straight into the eagle heart.
Schmendrick and Molly raced to King Lír. He was still alive, barely. He did not know them, but he knew Sooz. As he looked past her he saw the unicorn, and his face was suddenly young and happy and wonderful. All you could see in the unicorn’s dark eyes was King Lír. Sooz moved aside so she could get to him, but when she turned back he was gone. She was nine, almost ten; she knew when people were gone.
The unicorn stood over King Lír’s body for a long time. Sooz went off the sit beside Malka, and Molly went with her. Schmendrick stayed by the body of the king, quietly talking to the unicorn. Sooz couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could tell he was asking for something, a favor. Unicorns can’t talk, either, but after a while it turned its head and looked at him. Schmendrick walked away.
Sooz and Molly talked about Malka, each trying to comfort the other. Sooz did not notice the unicorn until the horn came slanting over her shoulder. The horn touched Malka, just where Sooz had been stroking her, and Malka opened her eyes. It took her a while to understand she was alive, and it took Sooz longer. She only started crying when Malka licked her face.
When Malka saw the unicorn she did a funny thing. She stared at it for a moment, then made a bow or curtsy, in a dog way. The unicorn nosed at her, very gently. It looked at Sooz for the first time; or maybe Sooz looked at it for the first time. What the unicorn’s eyes did was to free her from the griffin’s eyes. The unicorn had all the world in her eyes, all the world that Sooz was never going to see, and it didn’t matter any more because she had seen it and it was beautiful.
None of them saw the unicorn go. Sooz heard Schmendrick tell Molly: “A dog. I nearly killed myself singing her to Lír, calling her as no other has ever called a unicorn—and