The Griffin's War (Fallen Moon Trilogy) by K. J. Taylor

Author:K. J. Taylor [Taylor, K. J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2011-02-21T23:00:00+00:00

22

Raising the Banner

Senneck laid her eggs in a hut close to Erian’s, three days after they had arrived on the Island of the Sun. She had built a nest inside the abandoned building, dragging dead branches and clumps of grass inside and arranging them in a crude circle. She did this alone, ignoring Erian’s offers of help. As her time drew near she had become less communicative, preferring to spend most of her time alone, generally sleeping in her nest.

Erian, realising he wasn’t wanted, occupied himself with his own affairs. He gathered dry grass and made it into a semblance of a bed in his own hut—though the sand on the floor was already comfortably soft—and took planks from the other huts to try to shore up the roof and make it waterproof. He gathered fruit and vegetables from the wild gardens for food, but, quickly consumed by a desire for meat, he soon went after something more substantial. He hadn’t hunted in a long time, but he was confident in his skills, and he spent the best part of a day trying to make a bow. That was something he hadn’t done for an even longer amount of time. He found a vaguely suitable piece of wood and sat in the sun for ages, whittling it into the proper shape. He used a strip of leather from his pocket to make a string; it wasn’t really strong enough, but he managed to make it hold. After that he made a few arrows, and this time he had a stroke of good luck. During his search of the village, he had found a good number of stone arrowheads, left behind buried in the sand. He used those to make the tips and fletched the crude arrows with leaves or feathers Senneck had shed.

Hunting with his makeshift new weapon proved to be hopelessly impractical, but the goats were unused to any sort of predation and were surprisingly placid. This was probably the only reason why he eventually managed to catch one, but catch one he did, and he spent a gruesome evening skinning and gutting the beast, ready to share it with Senneck. She accepted his offering with a brief chirp of gratitude, and he left her in her nest and went to enjoy his own helping.

When the day finally came for Senneck to lay her eggs, she came to wake him at dawn.

“My eggs will be laid today,” she said briefly. “Do not enter my nest.”

“I won’t—”

“Do not,” she repeated. “Not for any reason at all, Erian. Laying is a matter of absolute privacy for a griffin, and not even my human may witness it. And if that does not convince you, be warned that the process will awaken my wild nature. If you disturb me, I will attack to kill.”

Erian nodded dumbly.

“I will see you tomorrow, perhaps,” Senneck said, almost breezily, and left without another word.

The day that followed was agonising for Erian. He did his best to keep

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