Pledged in Blood - Chapter Thirty (Patreon)

*****

Chapter Thirty

Games

*****

Later in the evening, the four of us sat around a fire, just outside the cavern. The sun had long since set, and plunged the world into darkness. The night sky was clear, smothered in uncountable stars, an ocean of blackness and infinite glittering lights. With no clouds to hold in what little warmth the sun brought during the day, the temperature plunged from cold, to frigid. At least the fire’s warmth kept the worst of the chill at bay. We’d built it close enough to the cavern entrance to try and warm the space, though we did not want to fill our shelter with smoke. For now though, I was happy enough just to sit alongside the crackling flames.

I found myself oddly at peace. Perhaps it was the fatigue wrought by a long day of flight. Or maybe it was the lingering comfort provided by Nesh’s words, and Sparrow’s tender gestures. Whatever the case, there was little sorrow in me, and less anger still. I knew well enough such things would soon return, but for now I was happy just to feel…peaceful, for a little while. Melakar was gone, and would always be gone, but Nesh was right. We had shared a long life together, and I had many cherished memories of him. Those could never be erased. For now, at least, it was enough just to know I’d loved him. 

It helped that I did not have to spend the night alone with those memories. Were I to curl up on my own, back in my own lair, the pleasant nostalgia of remembering lying alongside him in the warm sun may have turned back into the bitter emptiness that came with knowing he’d never again be at my side. Instead, I was able to lose myself in the simple enjoyment of conversation and friendship. It seemed strange to consider the gryphons friends, but more and more, that was what they were becoming. We were growing to understand one another, little by little, and with that understanding came something deeper. Something more meaningful and important. Where once Sparrow spat hatred at me and called me a demoness, now she brushed her feathers across my wings in a time of need. And where Blue Jay sought to spill by my blood, now he sought a different sort of combat.

Blue Jay sat across the fire from me, alongside Sparrow. He’d been molding an immense ball of snow between his forepaws for a while, and now hoisted it, poised to hurl it through the air. “I’d wager you an entire barrel of ale I can land this right between your horns.” 

“If you throw that at me,” I said, snapping my teeth at the gryphon. “I’m going to bury you in a snowdrift.” 

Blue Jay tilted his head. “What if I throw it at Nesh?” He perked his ears, flashing the human a grin. 

Nesh scooted closer to my side. “You’d damn near take my head off with that thing!” 

I stretched a wing to curl it around Nesh. “This vassal is under my protection…An act of war against him is an act of war against the Valley of Gods Blood and Earth Flame!” I arched my neck to glare down at the gryphon. “I will retaliate.” 

Blue Jay clicked his beak, and slowly turned his head towards Sparrow. 

She flattened her ears, glaring at him. “I am not having a snowball fight with you.”

“Oh.” Blue Jay’s wings sagged in mock disappointment. Then he straightened again and gave a mischievous chirrup. “In that case, it should be easy for me to win!” 

Before Sparrow could stop him, Blue Jay turned and dumped his immense snowball atop her. It plopped onto her head with a wet thump, and half-melted snow cascaded down her face and neck, streaking her gray and brown feathers with white. Sparrow gave a loud, high pitched squawk, fluffing up and shaking herself. Some of the snow fell from her and splattered the ground around her paws. More of it dripped from her beak. Blue Jay burst out in warbling, birdsong laughter, jumping to his paws and backing away. 

“Oh! Direct hit!” The gryphon crossed a foreleg over his chest and bowed his head. “Victory is mine!” 

With slow, deliberate motions, Sparrow pushed herself to her feet. She lifted a forepaw, and wiped melting snow from her eyes, then tossed her head to shake more of it away. “I’m glad you enjoy the snow, Kraas.” She shook out her paw, hissing. “Because we’re about to drown you in it!” 

“You can’t drown in snow.” Kraas flicked his tail, ears splayed. “You’d have to melt it first, otherwise you’d be choking…wait.” He blinked, tilting his head. “We?”

Sparrow offered me a sly, sidelong glance, her ears perked and beak slightly open. “We have a truce, do we not, Dragon?” 

I cocked my head, easing my wings back to give Nesh room to slip away. “We do, yes.” 

“In that case, your truce-partner humbly requests your aide in defending her sovereign territory from this cruel and unprovoked attack!” Sparrow flourished her wings and dipped her head down. “Will you come to my aid, Dragon?” 

“The terms of our truce are quiet clear.” I pushed myself up to all fours, uttering a playful snarl. “I am required to come to your aid.” 

“Oh, shit.” Blue Jay backed away from both us.

“Oh shit, indeed.” Nesh laughed, scrambling out of danger zone. “Just don’t break each other’s wings! Or anything else, for that matter!” 

In a single, smooth motion, I bound across the fire, near enough for it’s heat to tickle and tease my underbelly. It was all Blue Jay could do to steel himself for impact before I crashed into him, upending him off his paws. He coughed from the impact, and tumbled through the snow, wings tucked. The impact carried me with him and we rolled through the snow together, battering each other with our forepaws. 

“Pin him down!” Sparrow called out from nearby. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, rolling up a massive ball of snow, and apparently content to leave the hard part to me. “I demand revenge!”

“Hold still, gryphon, and this will go quickly!” I tried to get a good grip on him, but he proved as skillful at mock battles as he had in our real fights. 

Just when I nearly had him pinned to his back, Blue Jay snatched my forepaw between both of his. He twisted it to the verge of pain, then pulled it sharply across my chest. Before I truly realized what was happening, instinct bade me to follow his uncomfortable guidance or risk having my wrist and thumb digit broken. The movements shifted my weight and as he yanked one foreleg behind the other, I started to lose my balance. At the same time, he pressed both his hind paws to my belly, and shoved me to the side with all the strength he could muster. Despite outweighing him, he still toppled me over, and I crashed onto my side in the snow. 

Blue Jay scrambled back to his feet, dancing away from me and warbling laughter. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Dragon!” 

Hissing, I returned to my own feet, shaking my paw out. “I forgot about all your little tricks.” 

Blue Jay lashed his feathered tail, offering an open-beak grin. “I’m just glad they work on dragons, too! I trained against other gryphons, after all.” 

A snowball suddenly exploded against the side of his head, splattering wet snow in all directions. Blue Jay yowled and stumbled to the side, rubbing his head. “Ow!” 

“Play fair!” Sparrow snapped her beak at him.

“I am playing fair!” Blue Jay snapped right back at her. “She’s bigger than me!”

“Fine, then!” Sparrow turned her attention to me. “Play dirty!” 

I tilted my head, lifting my frills. “You want me to seduce him?” I curled my paw around a handful of snow.

“Wait…” Blue Jay froze, gaping at me, his beak hanging open. “What now?”

As soon as he was as distracted as I hoped, I hurled my pawful of snow directly into his face. The gryphon yelped and staggered backwards, grabbing at his eyes. “Ah! You got me in the eyes, damn it!” 

“Then we’re even!” I took a few quick steps towards him, reevaluating my plan to get him pinned. 

“I didn’t blind you!” Blue Jay stumbled around, trying to blink the frigid stuff from his eyes and clear his vision. He turned himself towards the sound of my paws crunching against the snow. “That was her!” 

“Yes, but we’re friends now!” Sparrow spoke up in my place, making her voice loud enough to help cover my approach. At the same time, she stomped towards Blue Jay, adding extra crunching footfalls to mask how near I was getting to him. “Isn’t that right, Ella?” 

Though I wasn’t sure just how strong our friendship was yet, we had built at least the foundations of trust. For now, that was good enough for me. When Blue Jay’s ears swiveled towards Sparrow, I threw myself sideways against the gryphon. I didn’t hit him too hard, just enough to leave him stumbling and off balance. Before he could fully recover, I decided to use one of his tricks against him. I thumped my side against his once again, and this time, reached under him. I snatched his far foreleg, and yanked it towards me across his chest. At the same time, I pushed my hips against him in the opposite direction, forcing him to flop over onto his side.

Even as the gryphon collapsed, I kept moving. I straddled him, shoving his beak into the snow and pinning one of his forepaws to the ground. Then I dropped my haunches down against his hips to pin him down, curling my tail around his hind legs. Blue Jay wriggled and struggled, and I was careful not to trap his wings between us or put too much pressure on any of his joints, but I knew he wasn’t going anywhere now. 

“There, that’s better.” I arched my neck, smiling down at the squirming gryphon. “This seems familiar, don’t you think? Me, sitting on you, using as a pillow? Going to have to change your name to Pillow after all, at this rate.” 

Blue Jay tried to reply but the snow I’d buried his beak in muffled his retort. 

“Oh?” I tilted my head. “Is that right? You don’t say.” I turned my attention to Sparrow, who had built herself quite the snow boulder during my scrap with her counterpart. “One adversarial gryphon, captured and pinned as requested. You may proceed, truce-partner.” 

Sparrow offered me an exaggerated bow. “Your assistance in this time of need shall never be forgotten.” 

Blue Jay wriggled and gave another muffled complaint. 

Ignoring him, Sparrow hefted her great, frozen monolith. Large as it was, she had sit back on her haunches to grasp it in both forepaws. She hoisted it as high as she could, and then hurled it down at Blue Jay. The giant snowball exploded across him, completely burying his head. I burst into rumbling laughter at the way his indigo shoulders just vanished into a mound of stark white. Little cascades of snow rolled down the sides of it when he squirmed and wiggled. 

“It looks as if he’s been decapitated by a tiny avalanche!” I kept him pinned in place even through my laughter. 

“That it does!” Sparrow laughed with me, then turned away, flicking her tail. The feathers on the end of it brushed the snowy mound. “That’ll teach him to ambush me! Alright, mission accomplished, Dragon. I’m going back to the fire.” 

“Yes, that does sound pleasant.” I rose from the gryphon and stepped away from him in a quick, smooth motion, not wanting to give him a chance to retaliate before I was prepared. 

No sooner was I off him than Blue Jay leapt to his paws and jerked his head up from its icy prison, sending snow flying in all directions. He gave his head a violent shake, then dropped onto his haunches to rub his beak between both front paws. Blue Jay worked his beak a few times, squawking and warbling. 

Sparrow settled down near the fire, and I returned to my previous spot just across from her. I gave Blue Jay a cursory glance. “Problem?” 

“M’beak’sall’umb!” 

I glanced down at Nesh as he added more wood to the fire. “What the hell did he day?” 

The flames illuminated Nesh’s face with a warm, flickering glow. “I think it was something about his beak being numb.” He set another log across the fire, and embers popped and crackled, swirling into the air in red-orange whirls. 

“Ah!” Sparrow swiveled her head around to gaze at the male gryphon over her shoulders. “Maybe that’ll finally shut him up for a little while.” 

Blue Jay dropped a forepaw from his beak to grasp himself between the hind legs, making what I assumed was a very rude gesture among gryphons. 

Sparrow only tilted her head, staring at him. “You know, I know what you’re reaching for, but I just can’t quite see it.” She shrugged her wings and returned her attention to me. “Must be the chill in the air.” 

Even Nesh laughed at that. He shook his head as he rejoined me at my side. “Oh, now that’s just cold. No, wait, I didn’t mean-”

“Yes, Nesh, from the looks of it, it is quite cold.” I curled my wing across his back, gently shepherding him into my warmth. 

Nesh rested against the outside of my hind leg, laughing sheepishly. “I meant cruel. Cruel was the word I was looking for.” 

“When you least expect it…” Blue Jay finally returned to the fire, huffing as he dropped onto his haunches between Sparrow and I. He glared at me, snapping his beak, though the mischievous amusement that shone in his firelit eyes belied his anger. “You’re getting a snowball right between the eyes.” He flicked a wing open to smack at Sparrow with it. “So are you!” 

I only smiled at him, bowing my head in acceptance of his challenge. “Very well, I shall look forward to your no-doubt feeble attempt at revenge. An attempt which I shall return ten fold upon you.” 

“Ella…” Nesh reached up and poked at my belly. “Are you threatening to have a snowball fight with a gryphon?” 

“Certainly not.” I arched my neck, and unfurled my wings, adopting the most regal pose I could manage while seated. “I am merely declaring the certainty that any retaliatory strike will be met with overwhelming force.” I snorted, tossing my head. “Dragons do not have snowball fights.” I finally allowed a smile to play across my muzzle. “We have snowball wars, which I will win.” 

Nesh held his hands out towards the fire’s warm. “I’m genuinely surprised and impressed that you even know what a snowball fight is.” 

I folded my wings back to my body, gazing down at him. “It is not a challenging puzzle to solve, Nesh, the explanation is in the name. Besides, I was a hatchling once, you know.” 

“Is that something dragon children do, then?” Nesh picked up a stick, poking at the fire with it. More embers crackled and lofted themselves towards the stars. “Snowball fights?” 

“Not as such.”

I gazed out across the dark horizon. Beyond the flames, the snow looked like endless gray sand, stretching towards an infinity of stars and darkness. It had been a long time since my son Vevarek had been a playful hatchling, and far longer still since I myself was one. But I still had vivid memories of taking Vevarek to play in the snow, and watching him romp in it with the other little hatchlings who remained. 

Some of my own childhood memories were nearly just as vivid. “When Melakar and I were young, we never snowballs, but we did play fight in the snow with the other younglings. We’d wrestle and fight and try to shove each other’s muzzles into the snow, or bury one another in it.” Another memory rippled through my mind, and I laughed and shivered at the same time. “Or surprise someone with a pawful of snow shoved into their most sensitive areas.” 

“Oh, Lord.” Nesh pinched the bridge of his nose, laughing. “I should have known.”

“Do humans not do such things?” I smirked at Nesh. 

“Well…” Nesh glanced away, his face reddening. “If someone’s getting snow shoved somewhere, its usually into their face. But…maybe a time or two, into the trousers.” 

“You see?” I rumbled my amusement, hugging him against me with my wing as if to warm him up. “Not so different.”

“I suspect what you’re talking about is a bit more…” Nesh waggled his fingers. “Intense, shall we say?” He patted my wing membrane. “Mostly what we’d do is just throw snowballs at one another. Sometimes we’d even form teams, and build forts and walls out of the snow.” 

“Oh!” I thumped my tail, grinning. “We did this as well, we used to call the game, Snow Empire. Each side would build a fort, and then we’d try to conquer each other’s lands. Whoever’s fort lasted longest won.” 

Blue Jay gave a happy chirrup, ruffling his feathers. “We used to play a game like that when I was young, too! We called our version Raiding Day, though. We’d team up with the other fledglings, and one said built a fortress, like you said. Only in our case, they had to had some fake valuables there, and the other team had to try and conquer it. So it was more of an attack and defense game, and whoever had the artifact at the end of the day was the winner.” Blue Jay held his paws up, warbling. “Now, when I say artifact, it was usually like, a trio of shiny rocks, or some old bones, or something.” He settled his paws, and flattened his feathers back down. “Though as far as hurling spheres of snow, that was something I learned from humans.” 

I licked my nose, nodding. “As did I. It was old vassals of ours that taught Melakar and I about snowball fights. I will admit to enjoying them, though they were hardly fair. Melakar and I could only lob our projectiles at the humans, lest we worry about injuring them. But the humans could throw them as hard as they wanted at us!”

Nesh chuckled, fiddling with the buttons on his coat. “I hope you two dragons didn’t team up on your poor human friends. Now that would be unfair. Besides, I rather doubt that a human could really hurt a dragon with a snowball no matter how hard they through it.” 

“I thought the same, until I took one directly to my nose.” I scrunched my muzzle, a sting of sympathy pain running between my nostrils. “And until Ayrah struck Melakar in the balls with one. Poor male flopped over like a felled tree.” Blue Jay and Sparrow both squawked raucous gryphon laughter. Even Nesh chuckled as he shook his head, grimacing in sympathy. I laughed with them, slapping a forepaw against the snow. “She swore to him it was an accident…and then she winked at me when he wasn’t looking.”

“Seems a sound strategy in a snowball fight.” Sparrow turned her head to nip at Blue Jay’s wing feathers. “Something you’d best keep in mind, if you make good on your threats.” 

Blue Jay narrowed his eyes, glaring at her. “You wouldn’t. It’s beneath you.” 

Sparrow turned her beak up. “It’s not unprofessional if it’s an accident.” 

“And it’s not an accident if you do it on purpose!” Blue Jay poked her with a single digit. 

Sparrow only shrugged her wings. “You’d never know for sure, would you.” Smiling, she turned her attention towards me. “You know, I actually had a lot of snowball fights with other gryphons growing up. I’m sure we picked it up from the human children, but in the gryphon quarter I grew up in, it was quite common to see dozens of young gryphons all running about, trying to pelt each other with snowballs.” 

Nesh leaned towards the fire, warming his hands again. “That honestly sounds adorable.” 

“Of course, as we got old enough to fly, strategies started to change.” Sparrow stretched her gray and tan wings out as if to illustrate. 

“You started aiming for the balls?” Blue Jay nipped at her wing tip. 

Sparrow took it in stride, batting his face with her feathers. “Not on purpose. No, what I meant was, the first gryphons old enough to fly started carrying armfuls of snowballs into the air with them, and hurling them down the rest of us.” 

Nesh clapped his hands, laughing. “Oh, that’s delightful! Like a sky-crawler doing a bombing run!” He patted my scales. “Alright, Ella, that settles it. At some point I’ve simply got to see a dragon in a snowball fight. It’d be perfect for the book on your species I want to write! I could get illustrations drawn. Oh…Oh!” He clapped is hands. “You could do it in Tivos, if there’s snow there. Show the people your playful side! That would help endear you to them, surely.” 

I only grunted. “Dragons do not play for the amusement of humans. If and when we indulge in such trivial activities, it is solely for our own amusement.” Despite my halfhearted protests, it felt good to feel…playful…again. I could not remember the last time I had felt that way. It must have been since before my fight with Melakar. I doubted the mood would last, but I was happy to have it while it was here. “However, if I do wage snowball war upon the gryphons, I will expect you to join us.” 

“Yes!” Blue Jay thumped a paw against the snow. “You can join Avalek’s team, Nesh.” Blue Jay unsheathed a talon to gesture between himself and I. “It’ll be Team Wildlings versus Team City Birds.”

Sparrow squawked. “I am not going to be on any Team City Bird.”

“No, you’re right.” Blue Jay shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense with Nesh. Team City Dweller!” 

“That’s not what I meant.” Sparrow gave a low, frustrated growl. “I’m not a damn city bird!” 

“And if anything, Nesh will be on part of my army.” I patted Nesh’s head. “He’ll be my master of strategy, and…and…mender of bruised noses.” 

Nesh playfully shoved my paw away. “Don’t I get a say in this?” 

I made a point of ignoring him, and instead, glanced at Blue Jay. “You say that a lot about her. Why do you call her city?” 

“Because she’s from the city.” Blue Jay stretched a hind leg out to make a show of inspecting his back paw. “I should have thought it obvious.”

“He means it as an insult,” Sparrow said, chittering in annoyed tones. “It’s a deragotory term among gryphons. It means someone who has gone soft, who has…adopted a human means of living, who’s adapted their culture, forgotten their own. That sort of thing.” She ground her beak. “I am not a city bird.” 

“It has different meanings depending on who you ask.” Blue Jay withdrew his hindleg, shifting his weight. “It often simply means, someone who was born and raised within a city, like a human, rather than in a wild clan, like a gryphon.” 

“I assure you, I was raised like a gryphon.” Sparrow squawked, fluffing up every feather she had. “I am a damn gryphon.” 

“Of course you are.” Blue Jay set a forepaw over hers, softening his tone. “And a damn fine one, at that. You’re an excellent combatant, a very impressive flier, a damn fine flight captain…But the fact remains that you’re-”

“I’m not a city bird,” Sparrow said, a bit of sullenness replacing the annoyance in her voice. 

Blue Jay squeezed her paw. “Were you or were you not hatched in the middle of the capital city of Diandrios?” 

“I was, but-”

“And were you or were you not raised in that city? Amidst the factories, and the smoke, and the locomotives?” Blue Jay tilted his head. “Did you grow up learning to hunt food, or did you buy things at a market? Did you ferment your own fruit and roots, or did you visit taverns and drink ale? Were you trained by your elders, or did you attend academy?”

“Oh, you live in the damn city too!” Sparrow clacked her beak, then seemed to try and shrink down into her own fluffed feathers, sulking. 

“I do now, yes, but that’s not how I was raised.” Blue Jay stretched his neck, gently preening a few of her feathers. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I don’t mean it as genuine insult, only playful, just to get under your feathers.” 

“Oh, shove your city bird nonsense under your tail!” Sparrow straightened up, but did not rebuke his preening. 

“There, that’s better. That’s the Avalek I know.” He straightened a few more of her feathers with his beak, then pulled his head back. “I’m sorry.” 

Sparrow sighed, and glanced up at me. For a moment, uncertainty shone in her eyes, raw and painful. Then she slowly turned her head towards Blue Jay, and dipped her beak. “Apology accepted. Thank you.” 

Blue Jay returned her gesture, then clicked his beak a few times, turning his gaze towards me. “Anyway, that’s the gist of it. City Bird’s just an old insult I picked up in my youth, I like to use to tease her with now and then. Really just meant a gryphon born and raised in the city, like a human. I suppose it can be a more hurtful term than I intend. Truthfully she’s got a lot more of the wild in her than half the other gryphons I’ve known in the city. But at this rate, they’ll outnumber the rest of us in a few generations.”

I curled my neck, considering it. “I had no idea so many of you had already joined with the humans.” I scratched at my neck with a wing tip talon. “Granted, until you four came after me, I did not know any gryphons lived with humans.” 

“The world’s changing.” Blue Jay tilted his head back to stare up at the stars. They glittered in reflection upon his eyes. “Changed already, really. There’s more humans now than there’s ever been. It feels like every day, one of them creates some new, world-changing invention or mechanical monstrosity. They’ve got cannons mounted on ships that fly, smoke-belching behemoths that streak across the land on iron rails, factories that forge metal at a pace you can hardly imagine. Think about the sort of weapons they used to use to kill your people, Ella, and how much that’s changed in your life time. And then realize you’ve only seen the very tip of the spear that is progress. After we’ve been to Tivos, you’ll start to understand.” 

“My clan, a few generations ago…” Sparrow tilted her head back and forth, seeking the right words. “We saw the writing on the wall, to steal a human expression. Seems appropriate. In days long past, we used to fight with humans over territory, just like you did. But…those times were gone, and those were battles we could no longer win. So we forged an irrik oro with them, a blood truce. We chose to help them guide the world’s progress, before it had a change to sweep us away.” 

Blue Jay’s voice hardened, just a little, and he gave Sparrow a long look. “Call it what it is, Avalek. We chose to become their equals, before they had the chance to make us their pets.” 

A shiver racked me, my scales clicking. When Sparrow did not voice any disagreements, I wondered just how true that was. I certainly did not want to be any human’s pet. I’d be damned if I’d ever allow my people to be forced to bow our heads and press our bellies to the ground before the humans, no matter the size or strength of their empire. I wondered then, if that was the future Melakar beheld when he visited their great cities in person. A future where dragons had a choice to submit and live as pets, or die, free and defiant. Was that what he sought to avert, through his diplomacy and his efforts to build an empire? To prove ourselves their equal, to forge for us another path, where we would always live free, in an empire of our own? 

An empire of our own. The more I thought about them, the more I believed in Melakar’s ideals. 

The more I told myself I would build that empire and protect our people, whatever it took.