The Masked Witches by Byers Richard Lee

Author:Byers, Richard Lee [Byers, Richard Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, ***Retailt***
ISBN: 9780786959822
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Zyl had alluded to berserkers cutting themselves and frothing at the mouth. But though Vandar fought like a madman when the fury held him in its sway, Cera hadn’t seen him do either of those things, and so she’d assumed the hare was exaggerating.

She didn’t think so anymore. Even though the warriors of the Griffon Lodge weren’t headed into battle at the moment, and the excitement they were experiencing was likely only a shadow of what they would feel then, a few were indeed slicing their own brawny arms and chests. Others gnashed their teeth in a gesture seemingly intended to mimic a griffon snapping its beak, a gesture that often sent spittle flying through the air. Meanwhile, the rest had other ways of acting crazy. They screeched like griffons, swept their arms wide like griffons spreading their wings, or punched their neighbors for no particular reason.

Which was to say, with Vandar having delivered his news, his brothers were raising the feral spirit they’d likely need when they reached the Fortress of the Half-Demon. Cera suspected that Jet, standing with Vandar and her in front of the crowd, was a potent source of inspiration. The berserkers might constitute the Griffon Lodge, but how many of them had ever been so close to their totem?

At first, Jet regarded the berserkers’ display with what Cera had learned to recognize as dour tolerance, an attitude of “Humans are idiots, but there’s nothing to be done about it.” Soon, however, he raised his black-feathered head high. Some of the Rashemi fell silent, and the echoing clamor inside the lodge diminished.

“What is it?” Cera asked.

“I need to get outside,” the familiar replied. He glanced at a tall mullioned glass window, surely an expensive luxury and object of pride in that rustic land. Already wincing, Cera imagined him leaping and smashing through it. But instead he turned and bounded down the length of the smoky torch-lit hall toward the double doors in the far wall. Startled berserkers scrambled out of the way, and she and Vandar scurried to keep up.

She threw open the doors. Jet leaped out into the dirty, trodden snow, and she and Vandar followed. She heard the sound that the familiar had caught even inside the noisy building. Faint with distance, the cries of other griffons mingled with the whistle of the wind.

“Is it the wild ones?” she asked.

“No,” said Jet. “It’s the ones from Aglarond.”

“How can you tell?” Vandar asked.

“For one thing,” said Jet, a grim note in his voice, “I’d recognize the call of that male with the blue eyes. Trust me, it’s the Aglarondans, and the reason they’re calling to one another is that their riders are rousing them to fly.”

“In the middle of a cold winter’s night,” Vandar said. “Folcoerr Dulsaer would only order that if he suddenly thinks he knows where to go to strike a blow at the undead …”

Cera smiled. “If Jet and I shadow them, we can find out exactly what they’re up to,” she said.

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