Neither of the young griffin mages flanking her acknowledged Kairaithin at all. They would not, Jos knew. No griffin would speak to Kairaithin, from what he had said about flying alone. Brawny, powerful-shouldered Ruuanse Tekainiike crouched down a little; the feathers of his neck and chest, feathers that might have been beaten out of bronze and inlaid with gold by some master metalsmith, ruffled up with a stiff rattling sound. He looked brutal and dangerous, but he did not meet Kairaithin’s eyes. He was not a match for his former teacher and no one, least of all Tekainiike himself, mistook it.
Opailikiita was a question. Opailikiita Sehanaka Kiistaike… she had been Kairaithin’s student long before he had stolen Kes from the country of earth and made her into a creature of fire. Slender and small, her beauty was subtle rather than flashy. She was more powerful than she seemed to any first glance. Jos had once known her rather well. When Opailikiita turned her head to avoid looking at Kairaithin, Jos suspected it was not acknowledgment of his superior strength that made her look aside. He thought it was regret for what her old teacher had lost. Or at least some griffin emotion similar to regret; some emotion hotter and more violent than mere regret. A sort of angry grief, perhaps.
Kairaithin would not be goaded, neither by the scorn in Kes’s voice nor by the overt indifference of his former students. Perhaps he truly did not care. He said, “You understand less than you believe,” but when he took a step forward and lifted a hand, it was not to remonstrate with Kes, as Jos at first thought. Instead, he struck at her with a wholly unexpected blaze of power that burned right through her and hurled the rest of them violently aside.
Kes shredded into fire and air under that blow. She did not even have time to cry out. Opailikiita did, the harsh scraping shriek of an enraged griffin. She flung herself fearlessly at Kairaithin, who merely called up a hard wind that threw her aside, tumbling her over. Young Tekainiike, also shrieking, reared back in shock and then leaped into the air, his wings thundering as he strove for height—fleeing, to Jos’s shock, who would not have expected any griffin to fly from such a battle.
Jos had also shouted aloud in shock and grief. He had been flung to his hands and knees, for even the glancing edge of Kairaithin’s power was like the blow of a smith’s hammer. Half blinded by flying wind and whirling sand, conscious of the furious griffins above and about, he could not even crawl out of the way. He was aware of Kairaithin rearing up, of his human shape exploding to match his immense shadow, of black feathers raking the air above him; he was aware of fire cracking across the sky and of the flaming wind roaring down from the high, hard sky—
Then Bertaud seized Jos by the arm. He had been the first of them all to regain his balance, and the only one among them to make no sound. Jos had a fleeting realization that the other man might actually have guessed that Kairaithin might strike at Kes, for he had evidently been ready for it. Now he dragged at Jos, who with the other man’s help managed to regain his feet; they both ducked away from the violence of wind and fire, their arms over their faces to guard against the rushing sand.
“You knew—” Jos began, shouting over the fury of wind and griffins, but then coughed and could not continue.
He did not know what answer the Feierabianden lord might have made, for the other griffins came then, rushing down out of the storm; the harsh desert sunlight struck off their wings and flanks as off bronze and copper and gold. The ferocious light flamed on their knife-edged beaks and talons and glowed in their eyes. Behind them, the sky turned crimson with driving sand, and below them fire fell like rain from the wind of their wings.
In those first moments, Jos thought that all the griffins in the world had come to avenge Kes. Then he realized both that only a double-handful of griffins were actually plunging down that fiery wind toward them—though that seemed enough and to spare—and that Kes did not need to be avenged. Kairaithin had not succeeded in his aim.
At least not yet. A streak of white and gold fire poured itself through the wind, shaping itself back into the form of a human woman. Kairaithin, beautiful and terrible, rearing huge against the sky, the wind of his power roaring through his black wings, struck at her again. Again she shredded away into fire and wind. She could not answer him, or would not, or at least she did not. She fled. But Kairaithin used his strength to block her flight, pinning her against the Wall and dragging her ruthlessly back into shape. He meant to kill her—to destroy her—she could not match him. Jos made a wordless sound but did not know he had tried to leap forward until he found Bertaud blocking his way, the other man’s grip on his arm so fierce even Jos could not break it. He wanted to hit him. He stopped instead, leaning forward, his fists clenched.