Leslyn tore his eyes away to avoid seeing the rider hit the ground, searching the skies to check on the brown griffin, whose screams had become loud enough to make him flinch. It was caught and struggling between the talons of more than a dozen dracats, more and more of them joining until they’d completely halted its movement, each of its limbs bound and immobile.
A squeal of agony echoed across the plains as a trio of the swarming dracats wrestled tooth and talon with one of the brown’s wings. They succeeded in their terrible task, tearing the wing clean off of the griffin and flinging it away. Like a giant feather, it spun and tumbled through the air as it dropped.
The creatures dispersed, callously letting their victim fall.
Gasps and cries rang out all over the field where Leslyn and Erin stood. Even seasoned riders leaned forward in their saddles to watch with grim apprehension as five griffins dropped what they were doing and dove in a concerted maneuver, two more rising from the ground to assist. Others attempted to clear the space with haste while still fighting off the dracats, giving the riders room and line of sight to communicate by motions so brief that Leslyn wasn’t even sure he’d seen them.
Two of the first five headed straight toward the one-winged griffin, while the other three focused on keeping any stray dracats out of their way.
Accurate from no doubt many years’ practice, one of the two leading riders released a very wide net from her saddle and threw the opposite pair of corner stones down to a griffin below, using all of her strength. The rising griffin, a tan, caught the stones in its talons, transferred them to its beak, and turned to hand them off to its rider. That rider threw one of them to his fellow across the way, but either the thrower or the catching griffin miscalculated, and the stone fell short, leaving that corner of the net dangling in the air.
Above them, the second corner of the originator’s end had been successfully passed off and the net spread to catch the falling griffin. The unfortunate animal hit the webbing, barely slowed at all as it went down the slack slide on a direct course toward the tan griffin and rider who held the lower end of the net. With no time to evade, they were about to be knocked from the sky.
Suddenly, Leslyn recognized a familiar gray in the air, executing a dive he’d definitely seen the likes of before. He let out a shout and waved both arms at the rapidly descending griffin. “Go! Go, Liren!”
All around them, riders were hollering and grounded griffins raised their ears and wings in anticipation.
At the last second, Yardi kicked out his talons and snatched a portion close to the end of the net, tearing it away from the tan griffin. Leslyn could see his wings straining as he turned the dive into an upward swoop, taking the brunt of the falling griffin’s weight in a sudden jerk. It was just enough to catch the poor thing and keep it from slipping off the side of the net.
The gray held on long enough for two of the original five assisting griffins to latch onto the net, then took a long, gentle glide back to the ground.
It happened in less than a minute, but Leslyn had seen more than enough battle for his taste. Judging from the heaving sounds coming from Erin, she was feeling similar, and obviously somewhat ill now that the immediate danger was over. She managed to keep it all in and followed him when he ran to go to Liren and Yardi, who were coming in to land near the Aerie.
With the battle still raging on above the nearby field, they got to the pair just as Aeriemaster Gunu rode up on white Sythe. “Liren, you’re grounded for the next shift,” he called in a harsh tone. “You weren’t even supposed to be up there, unless you've been secretly training with the rescue teams—which I highly doubt. Not only that, but Yardi’s completely spent after that fool stunt. You'll be more of a liability than a help if I let you two go up."
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Yardi was more than spent. His shoulders were hunched and he held one of his wings at an odd angle, clearly in pain, but his head was lofty with pride. Liren, too, was flushed with triumph, but had the sense to bow his head and take on an appropriately-chastened expression, silently acknowledging the Aeriemaster’s order.
When the Aeriemaster went back to join the physicians and other healers who were starting to gather around the unfortunate brown griffin, Liren partially hung off his saddle to reach and palpate Yardi’s wing joint, feeling for injuries. As he resettled in his seat, he looked down and saw Leslyn on the ground by the griffin's paw. “Hey, little brother.”
“Hey. You all right?”
They were yelling to hear each other over the screeching griffins, shouting riders, snarling dracats, bleating livestock, and tolling bells. It was enough to make one feel he was going insane.
“We’re fine, aiming to jump in for the third shift, if Gunu’ll let us.”
“You’re not seriously thinking about going up again, are you? Yardi’s hurt.”
“The wing isn’t sprained, just tweaked a bit. I'll confirm it with a physician, but he should be fine after a short rest. Besides, Yardi’s job is mainly to keep us aloft and in formation. I’ll be doing most of the work with this.” He grinned and hoisted his crossbow.
Leslyn wasn’t convinced.
Liren’s smile dimmed, to be replaced with an unusually somber expression. “Listen, Leslie. If anything happens, I’m going to need you to take a message back home to everyone. And by everyone, I mean everyone. Even Thiago.”
“I’ll do it,” he said through his teeth. That was honestly one of the last things he’d rather do, but if Liren didn’t make it back safely, he really had no choice. “Isn’t there someone else you want to say goodbye to?” he asked, trying not to think about Thiago any more than he had to.
“Hm? Someone else?”
When Liren continued to look nonplussed, Leslyn nodded emphatically toward Erin. His brother looked at the girl blankly for a second before recovering with a broad grin.
“Oh, hey, lucky orphan girl.” He gave her a quick salute. “If I don’t make it back, it was nice to know you.”
“I… Yeah, you too,” Erin replied. Leslyn couldn’t quite read her taciturn response and couldn’t comprehend the offhanded flippancy of Liren’s—at least, not in light of the disgraceful secret he’d just learned about his oldest and formerly most clean-cut brother—and it irked him mightily.
In any case, lying or not about Leslyn being her uncle, the girl was still utterly moonbrained, that was for sure.
His eyes dropped to the rectangular bag she always wore strapped over her shoulder. Whatever that fortune-telling metal slab was that she'd hidden away in there, he was certain it was dangerous, maybe even the cause of her nonsensical behaviors.
“Everyone DOWN!”
Leslyn dropped to the ground.
A small band of dracats, six, seven, eight of them, had fled the fight overhead to take out their ire on less advantaged opponents, first taking a cheap shot at one of the larger griffins in the waiting unit by roughly ripping several baskets’ worth of feathers from its neck and wings with one joint swoop, but luckily drawing no blood. After that, they each caused individual havoc, diving upon unarmed civilians and grounded griffins alike.
Leslyn lost Erin in the mayhem that followed, sprinting about the Aerie grounds to stay out of the way of both the dracats and the griffins who ran or flew dangerously low in their attempts to catch the rogue beasts. They were dealt with rather efficiently, all told, but not before they fatally mauled and ate two people, dropped a third to her doom after tossing her back and forth in the air apparently for the sheer fun of it, and injured several more.
The last surviving member of the hungry rogue dracats had long given up picking on the griffins and was making yet another low sweep over the field, seeking a harmless target for its wrath.
Of course it chose Leslyn, who was quite possibly the smallest manling on the field that day.
As the youth made a run for it, he felt a hysterical urge to laugh. Speaking of wrath, after being hunted by a certain massive blue mother, the dracat seemed relatively pathetic. Nevertheless, the rush of instinctive terror sent Leslyn bolting toward the nearest griffin, trusting it and its rider to fend off the dracat’s attack. It only took a few steps to realize that he probably wasn’t going to reach them in time.
He did not expect Kaleit, of all people, to step into his path. Leslyn managed to stop just before they collided.
Without sparing a glance for the other youth, Kaleit leveled a crossbow and aimed it toward the air above Leslyn’s head. “Let me sate your appetite," he shouted.
With that, he pulled the trigger.