(eng) K. J. Taylor - Fallen Moon 02 by The Griffin's Flight

Author:The Griffin's Flight [Flight, The Griffin's]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

19

Malvern

So this was the North. During his boyhood, when he had listened to stories about it, Erian had always pictured it as a vast snowfield broken up only by bare craggy mountains and pine forests. Now that he was seeing it in reality, he couldn’t help but feel slightly cheated to discover that it looked little different from the Southern lands they had just left.

Senneck flew over hills and plains, much of it covered in farmland. There were indeed pine forests here, interspersed with a kind of spice-tree whose trunks were ghostly white. It was cold, but there was no snow anywhere.

“Obviously,” said Senneck when he pointed this out. “It is not winter. If there were permanent snow here, farming would be impossible.”

“Is there any part of the North where there’s always snow?” Erian asked.

“Further north, perhaps. We shall find out.”

One important difference he did see, however, was in the people. Northerners. They passed through several villages on their way toward Malvern, and at the first one they visited, Erian was openly shocked to see its inhabitants. Every single one of the villagers was a Northerner. There were only a few dozen of them, but the sight of them sent a chill down his spine. They weren’t all tall and thin like their murderous cousin; like ordinary human beings, they came in all shapes and sizes. But he looked almost wildly at them, and everywhere he turned it was the same: pale skin, black hair, black eyes. Many of the men wore small, pointed beards, and the women had their hair braided and occasionally decorated with crow feathers.

They wore rough peasant clothing, not black robes, they had none of the spiral tattoos or painted faces he had expected their kind to have, and they all spoke proper Cymrian, though with harsh, coarse accents. And they welcomed him humbly, bowing and scraping and looking at Senneck with awe.

Erian relaxed then and let them provide him with food and shelter for the night. These people weren’t savage warriors like the Northerners in stories. They were just stupid, frightened farmers, who looked at him as if they expected him to sprout wings or produce fireballs out of the air. Timidly they approached and asked him to heal wounds and sickness with his touch, and bless a couple of squalling black-haired brats.

Now that he thought about it, his secret fears over coming to the North seemed more than a little comical.

He confessed as much to Senneck. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was frightened inside. I suppose, after what that man”—he generally avoided calling his father’s murderer by name—“did, I couldn’t help but imagine they were all like that.”

Senneck chirped her amusement. “Lady Elkin would have my eternal respect if they were. Governing an entire realm of people who were like the Cursed One would be a task worthy of Gryphus himself.”

“Why do you call him that, Senneck?” said Erian. “You’ve been doing it ever since we met.”

She clicked her beak. “He is Kraeai kran ae.

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