PROLOGUE

In our beginning there is yenlin, the slow forming within the shell. Those who are yenlin are the responsibility of all. At the time of yenlin, the unhatched is neither talon clan nor claw, and cannot be held on bond-oath or attached to a feud.

The Griffin Creed, as written
on the Silver Death Peak by
Fionovar the Red

The scent of blood was threaded through the sky like a red ribbon; slippery and quick, but unmistakable.

Flayn tossed his head towards T’vor to see if his partner had noticed it, but T’vor was already folding his wings, his long sleek head bent towards the ground. They were on the very edge of official griffin territory here; the mountains had become foothills, and the human territory of Brittletain lay to the south, although most griffins preferred not to acknowledge that name at all. Directly below was a clear patch of ground, bare save for grass, snow, a handful of trees. T’vor landed with a shuddering thump, scattering dirt and snow, and Flayn dropped down neatly next to him.

‘Blood,’ said T’vor, unnecessarily.

Flayn let his beak hang open for a minute, tasting the air on his tongue. It was an unusually warm day in the deep winter, and he could smell many things at once: pine needles, snow melt, lichen, the sharp scent of T’vor himself. And over and under it all, blood, and also violence. He snapped his beak shut.

‘Human,’ he said. ‘And…’

He stopped as a shriek rent the air around them. T’vor took an indignant step back, while Flayn felt all the feathers on his neck stand on end. The noise was piercing and shrill, awful. Belatedly, he realised that something was moving on the very edge of the clearing. He had missed it initially because it was so close to the ground – only the smallest prey or inedible things were so close to the dirt – and now he padded over to it, T’vor close at his shoulder.

‘What is it?’

At first he took it to be a bundle of something, perhaps of the clothes that humans liked to press around themselves, but looking closer he saw that it had a small, round face, soft and bare, and tiny clasping hands. The hole in the middle of the face was wide, the eyes scrunched up with the power of its call.

‘It’s a cub,’ he said. He lifted his head and looked around. Humans didn’t usually let their cubs out alone, especially not ones this small, but he could see nothing else moving in the dripping forest. ‘The smallest human.’

‘It is yenlin?’ T’vor dipped his head down to the snow and quickly wiped his beak across it, first one side and then the other, cleaning it and making it shine, black like old river ice. ‘We’ll take it back for T’rook. She is long enough out of yenlin to eat hot meat.’ Seeing Flayn hesitate, he snorted with impatience. ‘Hurry up, it is noisy. I tire of it. Pull it in half and we shall each take back a piece. Then you shall not be the favourite with her, as you usually are. Or eat it now, if you must. Just make it quiet.’

The shrieking seemed to double in volume, as if the cub knew what they were talking about. Flayn settled his paw on the thing’s chest, easing out his claws slowly, and to his surprise the cub took hold of his claw with one fist, almost as though it were trying to push him away, or greet him. It would be a good treat on a winter’s day like this, a quick hot beakful of blood and flesh, a few rubbery organs. The bones wouldn’t be up to much, not in a thing this small, but they would add to the texture. Instead, Flayn leaned down to look more closely at its furious face, and then addressed it carefully in the dialect of Brittletain.

‘Are you lost?’

T’vor squawked with amusement. ‘As well ask the cow if it enjoys the sun before you eat it.’

‘It’s strange, though.’ Flayn looked around again, at the dark trees and the dirt. Where T’vor hadn’t scuffed it with his talons, he could see that the snow was marked with prints – the footprints of humans larger than the yenlin cub on the ground. ‘Human cubs are not normally left alone in the cold. And the smell of blood does not come from it. Where are the humans that laid it? Are they dead nearby?’

This had T’vor’s attention. A human cub might make a good meal for their hatchling, but a pair of humans would represent a significant amount of meat for all of them. The big black griffin lowered his head and opened his beak, scenting the area around them, and after a moment he stepped into the line of trees, beyond the screaming yenlin cub. Flayn watched as T’v