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Hunched low and unable to see over the grass, he heard the beating of wings and so kept still just as mice freeze when the shadow of a hawk passes overhead A silver griffin--not the one that had carried off Liath--flew upriver not a stone’s throw fros had faded, then followed its trail By keeping to the tallest stands of grass, the occasional screen of shrubs or a narrow rank of such trees as could survive alongside the river, he kept out of sight Where the river made a broad bend, the slope of the land rose on the riverside but fell gently away to the east to forround had been worn away to expose a wide, flat rock The silver griffin lay draped along the war on its paws and its wings folded back over its body Its tail flicked up and down, up and down, as though its bodily repose concealed a restless heart

A scan of the landscape revealed only grass, the spearlike tops of a trio of lonesoray rock outcrops thrust up here and there throughout the grass He heard no birdsong, only the sigh of the wind He was alone with the griffin He took a step, and a second, as he shifted his grip on the spear and edged sideways

His keen hearing saved hiriffin

The scrape of its footfall rang out like a screa up the spear to protect hiround and the spear shattered under the force of her swiping claw She was immense He jabbed his knee up into her belly That beaked head sewed around to get a better look at him He clawed desperately at her throat, but each time he closed his hand, each time he scrabbled for purchase at her neck as he tried to squirm away out from under her, her feathers cut him Blood streamed from his hands from a score of fine incisions She reared back her head and struck

He jerked sideways, but not far enough Pain ripped through his chest and his vision hazed His bleeding hands flexed irip, but their feeble grasp closed on nothing, only air, and even that weak h his body until he could neither think nor ony blinded him He could only wait for the deathblow

He could only wait

A flash of heat and fire exploded around hi? Or was he already dead, ascending through the spheres toward the cold bright eternity of the Chaht?

I don’t want to die

I’ heat that washed over hihts

The shadow of the griffin ht scalded his face and olden-brown hair fallen all untidy over her shoulders It needed co He loved to comb her hair That steady stroke in the lush thickness of her hair was one of the few things that could soothe the restlessness that ate at him

"Pray God I ah she could not possibly be kneeling beside hio, left his to say to her, hoarded up over theand rancid and others painful and sweet