Inside the Aerie, the majority of the staff and volunteers seemed to be heading to shelter in the canteen, but Erin, Leslyn, and Kaleit went straight to the keets’ apartment. The other new recruits were all there ahead of them, every keet except three already released from their cages. This was remedied as quickly as Erin could manage, for Phoebe, at least.
The little gray keet moved to jump straight into the girl’s arms, but dropped to her belly and cowered as a wyvern flew directly over the Aerie, its roar shaking the room. Riderless griffins throughout the Aerie responded with deafening battle calls.
Erin flinched as another booming roar vibrated in her ribcage like the loud music of a concert back home on Earth, but was soon recovered and hunting for wrapping for Fee. Everything in the room seemed to have been taken by others, so she contented herself with crouching and holding the keet’s face in her hands, comfortingly stroking Fee’s fluffy cheeks.
Emotions were running the gamut among the recruits. Some of the them were crying and hugging their wrapped keets, either calmly or bordering on hysterics. Some paced around like their feet were on fire, their confused keets skittering back and forth with them. A few huddled in corners in a daze, either holding their keets or seemingly so far gone that they’d forgotten the poor creatures were there, ignoring the babies’ nudges and questioning trills.
Arlis was sitting beside his red baby against a wall, an arm around its shoulders and the keet's head resting in his lap. Erin spotted the small female soldier with the large red keet pacing, and the thin, anxious man with his keet as well, to her surprise. Kaleit stood still with his arms crossed, staring distantly in a vaguely meditative stance while black Zabor weaved about his legs. Leslyn had shed his shirt and wrapped it around Valiant, hugging the little animal with the keet's head tucked up under his chin.
Erin envied him that, but had little energy to spend dwelling on it. She was about equally perturbed by the memory of Kaleit's hand wrapped around her wrist, which she gave only slightly less energy to thinking about. Gosh, he was so annoying.
At least his quick actions had ripped her out of her fearful stupor, giving her some semblance of self-control back. She was strangely calm. Empty of feeling, really, now that she thought about it. Somehow, it reminded her of being underwater, or in that dull, senseless trance for a while after waking up too early. The thought of disappearing into that quiet void was tempting, but there was just too much noise.
The wyverns thundered overhead again, and several of the keets screeched and hid their faces.
"So what happens now?" Erin asked, directing the question to the room as a whole.
"We wait until the Guard runs them off," the waifish soldier answered.
"If they run them off," a man said. "I'm of the mind we're just waiting here for the inevitable. One is bad enough, but two wyverns?
"As well as all those dracats," the thin fellow added. “We lost at least five men in the first wave.”
"It's not as if they’re invincible," Kaleit said of the wyverns, looking up from his reverie. "All it takes is the right number of bolts, enough pitch and fire, or, if we’re lucky, we lure them out over the ocean and blind them, and let nature take its course.”
“We? That’s rich.” That had come from the first man who spoke after the woman. He stepped up to Kaleit and nodded toward Zabor. “Gonna ride up on that and show us how it’s done, Captain?”
“Yes, this is an excellent time to pick a fight,” was Kaleit’s sardonic reply. “It really helps the situation.”
That surprised Erin. She’d expected him to simply draw back his fist and “let nature take its course.”
“You do speak as if you’ve been there to fight them yourself,” Leslyn spoke up. "Maybe you should enlighten us as to your credentials."
“Maybe I haven’t fought them,” he allowed, “but I’ve certainly been there to watch the Guard do their job a few times.”
The smart aleck was about to say something else when something crashed into the roof of the Aerie with a sickening crunch. Those who were sitting down were on their feet in an instant, joining the rest to stare in shock toward the awful sound of a grown griffin keening in pain.
As the cries slowly began to quiet, Erin became aware of other griffins screaming. She went to the doorway and leaned out into the corridor. Echoes of many shrieks and clarions came from either direction and were renewed as another unfortunate animal slammed into the roof—whether griffin or dracat, Erin couldn’t be certain. One griffin’s clarion turned into a peal of utter rage, and from the sounds of clattering metal, was rushing the bars of its enclosure.
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She turned to find Arlis beside her, his doe-like eyes so wide as they searched the corridor that they seemed almost alien.
“I think that’s Wrath,” Erin said. “Her apartment’s right around the corner.”
“I think so, too,” he replied.
Even when the skies had quieted and the other riderless griffins started to calm down, Wrath continued to fight her cage and got them all worked up again. Other recruits joined the two at the doorway, some concerned, and some irritated by the continued ruckus.
“Can’t we do something to calm her down?” snapped the smart aleck from before. “She’s upsetting the keets, as well as every other griffin in the Aerie.”
“Are you volunteering?” Kaleit shot back. “I’m sure a loving embrace will do the trick.”
“Sure, I’ll do it. And you can eat a nice heaping serving of griffin scat, Captain. Who put you in charge, anyway?”
Erin stifled a snicker at that, but she didn’t miss the way Kaleit’s eyes flashed dangerously. The heckler was clearly well on his way to his own heaping helping of something unpleasant.
The restful moment of humor was blown away like a leaf in the wind as a third body hit the roof somewhere in the distance, and this time, Erin heard a portion of the ceiling begin to collapse. The creaking, crumbling sound instantly made her feel faint, and she held onto the door frame for support. She was breathing heavily and sweating bullets by the time they heard the roof fall in, just seconds later. Her shoulder twinged and ached where the lamp had fallen on it years before, even though her body was completely unscarred in that world.
Wrath was in a complete frenzy now, squealing and roaring and beating the bars of her enclosure like something possessed. Every time she let out a clarion, the other griffins answered her back in an unholy chorus of screams and ear-piercing whistles.
Erin straightened, wiping the sweat from her brow. She turned to Arlis, who looked right back.
“I think I know what she wants,” they said in unison.
“Let’s go, then,” Arlis said, and stepped out into the corridor.
“Hold on,” Kaleit said, reaching for the boy’s shoulder. “Go where?”
“We’re going to let Wrath out.”
“Is that so?” The tall one shot a scathing look toward Erin before pulling Arlis back into the keets’ apartment. He took the boy to the middle of the room in the midst of all the keet cages, looking for all the world like he’d arrested Arlis and was about to throw him into one of them.
“What did he just say about Wrath?” the waifish woman asked.
All eyes were on the two boys at the center of the room. Kaleit released Arlis’ shoulder and gestured for him to speak. “Go on, tell them.”
Erin squinted at Kaleit, not trusting that invitation for a second. He was probably trying to make fun of Arlis.
Arlis, on the other hand, was not so cautious. “Wrath wants to help fight the wyverns. I can let her out myself. It’ll just take a second.”
“The Aeriemaster will skin you alive,” the woman gasped.
“If Koben doesn’t do it first,” Leslyn added sharply. “Do you know what we went through to capture her and get her here? She’ll fly away and we’ll never see her again. If she doesn’t decide to join the wyverns, that is.”
“Shame on you,” Erin said, though she felt a pang of guilt even as she did it. She’d absorbed so much griffin culture and gossip that the reprimand had been almost entirely automatic.
Leslyn glared at her, eyes narrowing to pointed slits. “She’s dangerous. You have no idea how cunning she is. Even if she helps now, will she let herself be caught again? What if she uses this chance to hurt more people in her lust for blood and revenge? She's no longer bound by the same rules she had when she was assigning these keets to us.”
“Coward,” Kaleit said, but Erin swore he’d looked unusually sympathetic for a second just before. At any rate, there were some notes of agreement either way in the murmuring of the other recruits. Kaleit said nothing else, but looked around the room, seemingly waiting for other opinions.
With a glance toward the small woman, the skinny man took a step forward, signaling his intent to speak. “Have you all noticed how the other griffins are responding every time Wrath makes a clarion?”
“I did notice that,” Kaleit said. “What about it?”
“It’s odd, but… it almost seems as if she’s their captain, calling them to battle.”
“She is their captain,” Arlis readily agreed. “She’s the biggest and smartest griffin in Nilvar, and they all know it.”
“Maybe, if we release all of them, they’ll stay here and work together,” the man continued. “They could be an immense help.”
“Or they could get in the way, with no riders to guide them and keep them in formation.” Kaleit said, looking around the room. “I’m telling you, the Guard can handle the wyverns.”
The thin man nodded, but didn’t stand down just yet. “That may be, but even if the Guard takes care of them, they’re like to destroy the entire Aerie first, and all of us with it. We should at least give the griffins the opportunity to escape with their lives, if nothing else.”
As if to illustrate the man’s assertion, another griffin crashed into the Aerie, followed almost immediately by two smaller collisions that must have been dracats. As the recruits looked around at each other, Erin could see by their faces that most of them were already in agreement.
Facing the direction of the crashing sounds, Kaleit’s eyes had gone distant. “We should take a vote,” he finally said. “We’re risking a lot either way. We’ll do it silently, heads bowed and no looking around. No one should be pressured to vote except by their own conscience.”
For once, no one disagreed. One by one, the recruits bowed their heads and waited for the signal.
“All who vote to free Wrath and the other griffins, raise your hand.”
Having instantly cast her vote to set them free, Erin peeked to see who else agreed.
With a few stragglers who changed their mind at the last second, everyone had raised their hands, except one person...
...Leslyn.