The Shining Wyrm

3.4

Jewel was extremely grateful that she managed to convince the various kinder that no, she would not be taking any of them on a flying ride.

But when the subject was broached, Muriel did think it was a splendid idea to give her some exercise for the day.

Not that it was at all strenuous since she was leaving off the weighted harness. No, Jewel took to the air to demonstrate for the crowd.

Father had caught word of the idea and promptly declared to make a show of it with Zephyrvam.

Jewel could not blame him, the fair was a delightful splash of color from high in the air.

Sailing high above the courtyard and the fort. Sweeping in the amber of the evening setting sun, high enough to catch more of it then the deepening shadows of the valley did.

From up here, she could even see the tents that had been setup just outside the village for those that could not arrange lodgings with the town.

The peasantry and staff had crowded on the walls, squeezing into place between the many raised beds that held the manor’s herb gardens.

Jewel sailed a lazy loop through the sky while she waited for Father.

Doing loops and flaring her wings wide so that the sun could catch and shine on those below. The braids that had been done all the way down her mane were coming loose. The stems of wildflowers breaking in the catch of the wind.

Spreading petals, leaves and vines in the air.

She thought the way they glittered around her was something like stars in the golden light of the setting sun.

At last rising on powerful wings, pulling at the latent warmth with its great billowing flaps rose the black pelt and plumage of Zephyrvam. And astride him, in the practiced crouch of a Gryphon Rider, was Father.

It was so nice he could join her today, Although Jewel thought half the reason was that if Father had to hand out one more care package to the peasantry he might have exploded from boredom.

She was just glad to give him an excuse to properly fly. Only Father really understood what was so delightful about flight and even then he could only do it while practically tied to Zephyrvam.

It was a special thing between them. Jewel hoped that she would get to share it with Alexander when he got his own Gryphon.

But for now, only Father could join her in the sky and Jewel could not deny how much Gryphon and Lord were one when in flight.

Right down to the black leathers of Father’s proper armor.

Very few saw the proper kit of a Gryphon Lord up close except his squires and the stablehands.

Any quarry or enemy would be dead before he got so close to even see him or very shortly after.

And of the rest?

Most would only witness the pageantry where he dressed in a full surfeit of shining plate that Jewel was certain had never seen a single battle in the three generations since it was commissioned. The overly polished metal was just too suspiciously thin.

It was light enough for short hops, sure, and maybe a little gliding but it demanded a posture from Father that was unnatural and rode heavy on poor Zephyrvam’s shoulders. She could see how he struggled to not tip over when Father had to wear the stupid shining affront for a show. It left him seeming far clumsier and was fit only to make an entrance for ceremonial events.

But whenever Father really wanted to fly? With actual altitude or speed? When he needed to make use of the prowess that earned him a place as a Gryphon Lord? When on great hunts across the countryside with his peerage? Or to sally and fulfill his military obligations to the Countess?

Then he dressed in his proper armor.

Where in the shining show trash he was a man sitting upon an uncomfortable beast, when properly kitted he became Gryphon Lord in truth.

All black leather, stiff enough it creaked when he bent his limbs but fitted tight and secure by numerous ties and belts, letting it hug close to his skin and not shake at all in the torrents of the wind.

The helm was a family tradition: each Gryphon Lord kept a master armorer just to craft, maintain and refine their personal preference. A working of wood and molded leather shaped specifically for each Gryphon Lord.

Jewel had come to understand it helped to cut the wind in flight so it did not overly blow into the eyes. For herself, she simply blinked with her inner eye whenever dust or bugs got in there.

But her eyes were significantly harder and less sensitive then Father’s.

So the all-concealing armor of the helm. Dark with a stiff gorget to hold his head straight and unable to turn lest it be whipped about in turns or spun clean off by wind.

The other leathers were also shaped specially. At the shoulder, forearm, back, thighs and hips.

Meant to slice through the wind like an arrow and hold Father close to Zephyrvam. When the two of them moved at speed or in a dive Father practically all but disappeared into the Gryphon’s plumage between the wings.

She was more agile than the Gryphon in flight, buoyed from within at every inch and measure of her flesh in Wyrmflame that could push her any way she desired.

But the Gryphon was by far much faster even though it held no inner fire.

The manner was similar and familiar but it was external entirely to the Gryphons body, using the natural currents within the air that so mirrored her Wyrmfire rather than producing them himself.

His flight was made out of great voluminous flaps, soaring glides and a light frame. Jewel could feel those wings, stretching farther than the beast was long in dark shining feathers outward and gripping the air in greedy scoops.

And the way it caught and held the echo of the air’s own flame reached almost a dozen times further still beyond the reach of each wing. Extending it into heaving biting gusts that all pushed the Gryphon aloft.

The air around Father and Zephyrvam in flight could howl harder than the fiercest storms through the gryphon’s mastery of wind. Or be utterly stilled but for the sheer rush of speed when it glided in the hot updrafts of the plains.

Father pulled up ‘alongside’ her. Which was still quite the distance. It was customary for Gryphon Lords to not grow any closer than for the ‘wing’ that extended past the feathers to barely brush. The absolute limit before the steeds risked interfering with one another’s lift.

And if the Lord was fit of eye and trained well, this was just close enough to see the posture and gestures of one another.

He raised his fist in greeting. Leaning back a bit from Zephyrvam. Securely fastened to his mount.

It was less a saddle and more extensions of the riding armor itself. In flight every ounce was dangerous for the rider and the steed.

So instead of bulky tack he rode more tied to his mount then riding it.

The weapons favored by the Gryphon Lords were likewise far lighter than some tapestries showed.

No massive horse cutting swords, great mauls or halberds to be had here.

Most of them would interfere with the wings of their mount anyway.

And if you were close enough a sword or spear would even help? The wings, claws and beak of a Gryphon were far fiercer than anything father could wield.

No, GryphonLords fought with a great and terrible bow and arrow.

Father’s own bow was a family artifact! Hart Lightning! Taller than Alexander and thrice over Father’s age his elder. Honed from the horn of some long dead monster.

A lesser man’s spine would break on the pull of its draw and it loosed arrows longer than most men’s legs and big around as Father’s thumb.

Jewel had only seen Father fire it once and it had been sudden death striking dead a bear from a seemingly empty sky.

The animal had been driven into the ground and half the arrow skewered into the loam.

Father however was armed with his bow only as custom today.

He was not intending to use it.

No, the show of martial power was for her today?

So he was saying with his wide gestures.

A circular twist with a forearm, wide and open, easy to read for another human rider in vision obscuring kit just barely at this distance. But it was clear as can be to Jewel.

Truly, she could have read Father’s gestures from thrice this distance, but he would have been unable to discern her reply from much farther.

Hands striking in a cross thrice over on the far side of him from her.

Then twice on the side nearer with a wide cut to mark and denote a modification.

All paced with the tempo of the Zephyrvam’s beating wings.

She swooped and bobbed, then tumbled onto her back so he could read the more precise gestures she gave with her own arms. They had to work out a few variances in the Gryphon Lord’s cant to accommodate her own posture and mobility in flight.

“We swoop them low! Twice from the sunriseward! Together?”

She replied.

“Together! Wing to Wing?”

A few more wide and easy to read gestures as they idly paced themselves in circuits around the demesne for the crowd.

“Wing to Wing! Then you pass Wyrmdoom, in narrow, the fallow field.”

Most of these gestures were not Gryphon Lord cant proper but special gestures for her, decided between them in advance, adjustments and combinations of the other gestures. Jewel wondered that whenever her peerage in eggs hatched if they too would be taught this particular cant so to coordinate with her and the Gryphon Lords.

She agreed with the flourish of affirmation and then as one flock of two they peeled upward. Zephyrvam holding back of course, Jewel was still not able to match him in speed. Although the Gryphon delighted in coddling her almost as much as his rider. They ascended at the greatest pace she could manage.

Then an arcing twist in the air and the two of them descended, Father vanishing into the shelter of Zephyrvam’s plumage and Jewel laughing inaudibly in the roar of the air.

The wind shrieked and howled around them as they swooped by over the heads of the Peasantry. The distant forest boughs wild and tumbling, tossed in their wake and quite a few hats and less secured clothes blown back or clear free of their owners into the yonder in her and Father’s passing.

And of course as agreed she and her Father rode the rush back up into a rising arc before tilting back over themselves and parting a bit, still ‘wing to wing’ but the Gryphonnow separated enough for safety as Jewel began her sweep.

Wyrmfire already filled out in all her body from the way she had scooped it while they dived.

Jewel’s lips parted and Wyrmdoom sprayed in blinding white fire before her. The gesture was a mix of the rapid cutting signal for a beast too terrible to face, and a desperate strike of final mortality witnessed.

The fallow fields did not burn as tinder and torch might. They were annihilated.

It was like there was the gray dusting of ash found in a hearth after a long night burning but it was better to say that the fallow fields of shrubbery, weed and grass did not burn, But were wrought utterly undone in the glare of her passing, so swiftly that nothing remained in wholeness enough after to catch a flame.

A few sparse guttering embers sparked briefly in the gray desolation left behind. But for the most part all was reduced to dust in what had once been two plow furrows going down the entire acre of fallow fields.

The popping of cracked stones splitting from the heat tickled her ears as Jewel pulled up to shed speed and then joined Father and Zephyrvam upon the yet untouched fields in full view of the crowd on the wall.

The old coot of a gryphon rearing and giving a piercing shriek of triumph and congratulations that Jewel could not help but echo in her own roar.

Naturally, the people cheered, of course.