The Shining Wyrm

6.2

Jewel and Zephyrvam would launch into the air together.

The Gryphon’s wings threw out the tangible shimmering tingle of fauxfire first. Wreathing the air all around him in it. Stretching past and between the branches of trees and the leaves. Rippling around Jewel like the thin film of oil that came to cover her baths if she laid still within them long enough.

She dipped her head low to stop breaking the thin layer as it furled outward further and further. While he prepared to launch Jewel was filling her own Wyrmfire out within her wings and body, thrumming with it all along her scales, setting her mane to wave and twist in the currents that flowed through it and the skin between her wings.

Zephyrvam’s grasp of the wind was tight and overwhelming. Wings snapped upward high and the film of his flame shot up with them like a piercing arrow, the leaves and grasses all throughout the surrounding woods shook and air rushed to follow it. Whirlwinds of orange and amber leaves torn loose from the branches of the woods spun under and around them both.

She could feel the canopy extending straight up into the air, bracing and tracing beyond every feather. Tautly running under them and along the Gryphon’s sides. Seeping up into his head and funneling in through the planes of his metal harness.

Father was preparing himself, legs slightly bent but his hips over Zephyrvam’s actual saddle. Bracing over the cushioning that would soon be shooting up to meet him.

Underneath the ornamental metal he still had the bracing of a Gryphon Rider’s armor. More than that besides in fact as he had padding and reinforcement to further protect him that would have been anything but useful in battle.

It made him stiff and unwieldy at anything but gesturing with ceremonial spears or posing and waving.

Then Zephyrvam took in a chest filling breath. Air whistling through his neck as his flame pulsed, drawing himself full and spinning off more and more flows of reinforcing ephemeral fauxfire through the air down his wings and sides.

Jewel braced herself as well, but it was with the intensely tightening roiling bands of her Wyrmfire running along her body and spine, through her tail and down her legs and wings.

And then they were off, the wings came down and the Gryphon’s claws were already tearing up the road, throwing him forward even as a torrential maelstrom of air was thrown down and over Jewel.

She thrust herself upward and through the film, spearing only a whisper of air through it with her passing before she was sailing up and away to the left. Moving out of the wake of the Gryphon’s wings in time for the next wingbeat to tear up into a squalling howl of air that threw dust, leaves and random scraps of twig and seed.

Another flap and another, in five Zephyrvam had torn all the leaves from the trees around them. In twelve he was carrying father aloft over the tree line and drawing up to level with Jewel.

That was her one skill over a Gryphon.

She might struggle to match them in speed or endurance.

Her Wyrmfire ran dry long before a warkitted gryphon lord could.

But Jewel could lift herself silently and with not a whisper of wind out of place compared to the spiraling explosion that followed her Father and his steed.

The take off was always the most intense, the time close to the ground when building the lift and the speed.

Air billowing out to frame the normally invisible reaches of Gryphonwings. Now alight in the late day sun with a corruscating whorl of amber, red, yellow and orange. Four acres of forest stripped bare before their time to let leaves fall.

Now carrying up to chase Jewel and her father into flight, like banners across the sky announcing their ascent.

Slowly spiraling off in rivulets of crimson, gold and amber as they catch the sun half set against the fringe of mountains Jewel had never seen before and did not yet know the name.

And then when finally free they both caught the high autumn wind.

A chill cold that she understood now all too deeply was biting her Father.

Scraping at him despite his armor and padding against it.

His ceremonial armor did not allow him to lean forward enough to hide from the torrent of wind as Zephyrvam flew.

Flapping harder and far more constantly then he normally would have.

Their Speed too was perhaps two thirds normal. Easily in Jewel’s normal wing pace rather than straining her to the limit.

Father made the gesture in gryphon cant and Jewel acknowledged him.

They were climbing further up so as to make what would be a stately glide into the courtyard of Fortress Kaeketeh. Which meant more heavy beating of wings from Zephyrvam when normally the stately beast would have already been coasting.

Jewel kept out of the poor dear’s way, slipping ahead of the wake that scooped and drug air. Soaring closer in formation then was normally proper, but this was not for hunting or practice for war that they flew.

This was for pageantry and parade.

And as they pulled into the sky Jewel was struck by the shining splendor flatness of the wide water!

Supposedly it was a River.

She had seen small ponds, brooks and even the distant glimmer of rivers to the north from the skies of home before.

But the site of Kaeketeh was upon something that Jewel only realized was a river when she turned her head to look up and down its banks as they swam and turned between the hills.

Wooden craft (Boats?! Rafts?! Who knew!) moved along it far into the distance in either direction. Making flows, as much a current as the water they rode. All coming or going to the near side of this great expanse of water.

All converging to the thing that she could only surmise was Kaeketeh. It lanced into the gentle waters from the nearest bank and she finally grasped a portion of the vastness that was a city that nearly housed Ten Thousand.

She could already see the whole of it along the bank. The Fortress Kaeketeh stood tall with narrow windows and wide open patios sufficient for a Gryphon(or dragon) to make landing.

Larger than the entire courtyard and keep of Fort Rochford combined and by far more busy then she had ever seen her home.

Tall canvas banners tall enough to make out from the air (probably) even with Father’s eyes made a vibrant bloom of the keep.

The structure's pale white stone stood upon a paved island with vibrant dappled color of spring green gardens. Out of season against the orange, amber and yellow of the woods at the far banks of the river. All of it perched far into the waters on the end of stone bridges. Dangling like the prize Jewel of the rest of the buildings that made up the Fortress and City together.

Next came a flat wall, stout and thick, a working of narrow slot windows and bristling spears, hanging with further banners and signs of footmen far in excess of those that they had brought from Rochford.

Symbols and Houses Jewel could not quite place among those banners. She was sure they might have been mentioned or described and maybe even one or two seen when she was very young but not standing out with the importance she now felt.

Next was another fortress, a structure of many towers and tall buildings, all made with pale looking walls and sturdy dark timber framing. Sitting on foundations of stone.

Clay tiled roofs on every structure.

Surrounded by a sturdy but lesser wall compared to the bulk which stood between the keep and them.

And then last of all was a wide spear of stone streets and wooden platforms. The wood was strange, like aborted bridges thrown out in all directions into the river, except along the route that the stone bridges took straight and sure as an arrow from the keep.

Which bore one final wall taller than the last but not the first, separating it from the last sprawling expanse of buildings by five different gate houses.

And here, Jewel decided (barring any other instruction), was where the Fortress ended and the City began.

The buildings quickly changed to match closer to those she had already seen along her journey. More like the Temple in Rochford or the larger houses they had taken lodgings in. A bustle of structures like brick and stone beads at the throat of the opulence that was Kaeketeh.

From there the streets became packed dirt, the roofs quickly turned to thatch and then as it did in her own home’s village the shift came from dense packed inhabitation to sparse homesteads and open fields, mostly stripped from harvest or being tilled over for a winter planting.

Continuing along on the shores of the river to the north and south banks were more strange partial wooden bridges and houses with strange little wooden pails she would never have guessed were buoyant if not for the few men and women in them out on the river throwing equally strange sheets and blankets out into the water or pulling them in.

Washing perhaps? But why go so far out into the water for it?

All of it was there before them, splayed out from the sky and shining in the sinking sun.

Reflecting back at them from the waters like a trembling mirror.

Jewel was so taken with the view that Zephyrvam had to shriek to get her to look over to him and spot Father’s flight cant.

It was time to begin their glide.

As was proper of his daughter Jewel took up position in his wake, riding the chaos and rivulets tumbling and twisting off of the Gryphon’s widely splayed wings without any apparent loss in grace.

Which was an absolute lie of course, Jewel had to spend years learning how to ride that chaos without ending up flopping through the air like a loose braid in the wind.

And down they went.

As Jewel and her father began their descent upon Kaeketeh.