Dryvern
"So the war is going to move from cold to hot? That's what you think?" The larger gryphon spoke to the smaller's back as they moved on foot along one of the many trails that led up the side of the mountain. The sounds of the ocean began to overpower the sounds of the base camp. Eike and Kac were on their own time today; the camp was growing at an impressive pace due to a lot of hard work, but even on their days off these two kept their old training habits, above and beyond what most of their peers would do.
Their hooked, predatory beaks and clear eyes showed a good deal of promise and intelligence; this had been spotted by their superiors and had led them to their current assignment. Their feline hind legs and flanks showed the striped hides of hybrids, coming from crossed clans; their feathers showed a similar haphazard pattern that spoke of no fixed, recognizably dominant strain.
Therefore to prove themselves, they found the need to work twice as hard and be at least that many times as efficient and proficient as other gryphons with the advantage of purer blood. As they became aware of this, the pair began stealing away as often as they could to train on their own; separately at first, until coincidentally they had found each other out in the wilderness.
"Found them," said Kac. He ignored Eike's question about current events, and pointed to some packs full of rocks hanging in a tree. It was hard to spot the tree or the packs from the trail. He led his larger companion off into the brush, and with a quick flutter both gryphons were in the tree, strapping on their heavy loads.
"I think we should try to go over the mountain," Eike said. "I heard that patrols were last out that way three weeks ago, and they spotted some horns while they were there."
"The dumb ones," Kac grunted as he tried to keep his balance on the tree branch, getting accustomed to his new center of gravity. "Those horns weren't speakers. They're as much like the minotaurs as those little wild mock gryphons around here are like us."
"So conventional wisdom says; but can you imagine a better cover for a minotaur? Unlike the mock gryphons, those bovines are just as big as a 'taur. I'd bet six feathers that a small squad of 'taurs could not only blend into a big herd, but gently direct it to wherever they want to go." Eike's tail lashed back and forth and his ears went flat. "They'd seem harmless until the last minute," he muttered as his claws began to show.
"Dreaming of being the hero who brings back the critical data on troop movements, are you? You know minotaurs like fighting with weapons. How would they lug those big axes around while walking on all fours?" Kac dropped from the branch and pumped his wings furiously to gain altitude with the load of rocks fastened to his midsection with an elaborate harness.
Eike followed; flight was very strenuous in the thinner air near the top of the mountain even when unencumbered. The exertion proved too much to allow for speech as they soared back and forth, looking for thermals or fortuitous gusts of wind.
The communicated with glances toward each other, indicating changes in direction. With not a small amount of pride, they made it over the second highest peak of the range of mountains, which as of yet had no official gryphon name. On maps stolen from minotaurs, it was labeled as one of the "Oceanwall Peaks". For the first time, they saw the plains to the west of the mountains with their own eyes. It was also unnamed, save for the name that the 'taurs gave it: "Axolo Preserve," whatever that meant.
Though near exhaustion, gliding down the side of the mountain was much easier work that climbing to the altitude needed to pass over it. They continued on, wheeling back and forth and scanning the horizon. They knew from the stolen maps as well as crude maps that scouts from their own side had made that another range of mountains lay even further west. But the other range was too far away even for them to see. Kac's eyes fixed on a very green patch that, as the pair moved closer, resolved itself into a very large forest. There seemed to be some of the much smaller mock gryphons flitting around there; without the power of speech and with very little in the way of intelligence, they were viewed more as pests than anything else.
Eike called out excitedly, almost sounding like one of the mock gryphons when they spotted something they wanted to attack. Kac remembered to bring up the unfavorable comparison in jest later, when he had more breath in his lungs. He scanned the ground: there was a herd of the speechless horns.
"Too far to tell if they're not speakers," Eike panted. "They're so shaggy! Or maybe they're wearing clothes? Some sort of hides on their backs?"
"Only one way to see," answered Kac with a rather feeble voice. Being smaller, this was taking quite a bit more out of him than his friend. He was also less than enthusiastic about making their way over to the herd, as he did not put much stock in his companion's theories.
As they approached, they stayed high enough for the sounds of their labored breathing and wingbeats to be too faint to reach the herd. However, they were noticed; there was a loud lowing and a lot of snorting, and the herd began moving into a defensive ring. Many pairs of eyes focused on the two gryphons as they circled the herd.
"No arrows," panted Kac. "No shouts to attention. They're not speakers."
"But they shouldn't be used to being hunted from above; the little wild gryphs are too small to take them." Eike was slowing down; he was barely able to find the breath to speak while pumping his wings to remain in their circular holding pattern.
"Trees," Kac said, and began descending further. Eike followed, heading for the closest wooded area: a long stretch of denser and denser woods, one of several connected to the large forest that stretched off to the north.
They moved slowly over the treetops, seeming to skip on thin air and occasionally treading on the uppermost fragile branches and leaves, which swayed as though only the wind had struck them.
Both were showing obvious signs of strain. "Eike," Kac called ahead. "Let's just find a tree big enough, and perch."
"It'd be good to work on balance even while tired. If you spot a good tree, Kac, let me-aha!" Eike quickly changed direction and made for one of several enormous trees; perhaps the biggest one for miles. It wasn't the tallest, but it definitely had a tremendous presence. Even its upper branches were thick enough to support both of them.
Eike landed first, followed quickly by Kac. The latter stayed right where he was, exhausted; Eike carefully stepped along the large branch, making his way to the huge trunk of the tree. "This thing's a monster," he said. "Though it doesn't look like it from the air. I bet this is the oldest tree here. And it stinks, doesn't it?"
Kac clicked his beak in agreement, nervously looking around. "Are you sure that smell is the tree?" They stayed still for a moment, beaks open. They watched, listened and inhaled the strong, almost sweet scent. "I guess it is the tree. It reminds me of a perfume gone wrong, or a poorly spiced meal."
The bolder, bigger gryphon arched his back, digging his talons into the bark to scratch it as well as stretch out. "The weighted harnesses were a good idea, but they're pretty rough on your back on a flight like that."
"I'm taking mine off," Kac replied. He sat up, fumbling with the buckles parked on his shoulders. "Just for a little while, until I've..." he trailed off.
"I'm leaving mine on, "Eike said as he turned to look at his friend. Kac's expression was hard to read; he was frozen to the spot, staring almost directly above Eike's head. Reflexively, he looked up. "What's up there?"
The spell seemed to be broken; Kac shook his head and clicked his beak. "From this angle, that lump up there looks...well, come here. Look at it."
He backed up, flapping his wings a little to keep his balance, as his harness was halfway off. Eike padded along the branch until he reached the spot where Kac had sat, and turned. "Rather startling, I can see why you were staring. It looks like a...well, I don't know what. A giant reptilian nightwinger, or something, but..."
He jumped, flapping furiously; standing vertical takeoffs were difficult enough for a bigger gryphon like him, even without weights. He landed on a higher branch, closer to the object of interest. "It's part of the tree, Kac. It's a warped piece of bark that pokes out of the trunk. I wonder if a branch broke off from here a long time ago, and this covered over the hole?"
"It looks more like something was stuck there, and the bark grew over it," the smaller gryphon said. "It just startled me, is all." He started to say something else, but all he managed to get out was a choked gurgle. Above Eike was another one, one that was much greener, and was moving. Living eyes were looking back at him. The eyes then focused on his friend. Before Kac could say anything else, the green beast dropped from its perch silently and swooped toward Eike, tackling the gryphon as he was turning to look back down. The pair fell past Kac; Eike shrieked in surprise and anger, while the winged attacker hissed.
Kac lost his balance and fell, but the half-removed harness checked his fall as it became entangled in branches. The weights on the other end of the lines swung around the branch and hit the gryphon on the side of the head. He dangled motionless; he was unsure what was happening, where he was, and for a time even who he was.
Eike put up a good fight, but whatever was attacking him had a much larger wingspan. In addition, his assailant was behind him; the gryphon's claws were not of much use. He tried to pump his wings to get away, but the creature had wrapped his huge wings around them both, using its own body like a net. Nipping at the wings several times, the gryphon seemed to only fasten his beak on branches instead as they fell past the blurry trunk of the tree.
Suddenly he felt a pinch, along with the stab of needle-like teeth in his neck. His vision blurred, becoming fuzzy. Things seemed less urgent than they did a second ago; he couldn't move, and didn't feel a need to. Strong branches cradled him and lifted him higher to safety. He was laid carefully across the very branch where he and his friend had perched, almost in the same spot Kac had spotted the strange protrusion of bark. Looking down, he could make out the form of a strange spinning bundle of wings, claws, fur and feathers slowly rotating under a branch. "Like a gryphon spider," he tried to say, but his beak scarcely moved.
His harness disappeared; he watched it tumble down at incredible speeds, as though gravity had suddenly increased. The sounds seemed to take forever to reach him as the weights smashed through small branches and bounced off of bigger ones. For a moment, he forgot how he had been carried back up to this spot; but then he felt someone poking around under his tail and between his legs.
"Hey," he tried to call out and struggle away, but he made no sound and didn't actually move. There was a wiggling pressure between his legs: curling, probing and exploring. He was penetrated by what felt like a clever tongue, or tentacle. He managed to squawk indignantly. Whatever it was delved deeper and deeper into his body; he watched the swinging bundle beneath him for several seconds before realizing it was Kac. "Wake up," he thought to himself as he blinked, trying to focus. "Wake up and get this...thing off of me." His thoughts seemed to be in slow motion; he couldn't hear his voice. Slowly, he lost consciousness.
Meanwhile, Kac slowly regained his wits. A short distance above him, Eike was on his belly across the large branch they had first found, and the thing was behind him. It covered him, shielding most of his friend from view under its thick leathery wings. They were colored like the leaves of the tree. "It could have watched us fly in and stalked us for quite some time," Kac thought to himself.
Watching the monster over his friend, it slowly became obvious to Kac that it was the source of the scent they had noticed. If it had moved much, they probably would have detected it in the still, green cavern-like space made by the outer leaves. It hadn't stalked them; they had blundered right into its claws.
He tried to move, but found that his forelimbs as well as his wings were pinned to his sides by what remained of the weighted harness. He was helpless, dangling from the tree's branch and free only to watch what went on.
The creature began humping Eike somewhat obscenely, groaning and muttering to itself. "Lucky, lucky find," it said aloud in a rasping voice.
"What are you doing!" Kac called out before he realized he was speaking to a type of being he had never seen before; the amazement that this strange denizen of the tree could speak at all sank in, immediately followed by a realization that the creature might have forgotten all about him if he'd kept quiet.
It stopped what it was doing, turning slightly to look at Kac. "I'm finishing my work," it said. "I thought this was my last day; I was ready to enjoy the sun one last time. I was too weak to hunt through the herd of axolos for suitable hosts for the last three spawn. I've saddled so many of the axolos already, so there was no harm in letting the last three join me as I sank back into myself."
Kac slowly rotated away from the creature and his friend, and he heard it continue forcing itself on his prone and seemingly unconscious friend. "Will Eike recover? What's wrong with him, did he hit his head?"
"No," came the strained voice of their attacker. He grunted, and sighed with relief. "I bit him. He's semi-conscious; let's call it drowsy. He can probably hear us but he can't move."
The bundled gryphon rotated back to face the other two, and observed the tree creature acting is though its mouth was full; it had pulled away from Eike, revealing an enormous phallus that was slowly withdrawing from Eike's rear. It writhed and curled like a tentacle or a snake. It, or rather, he (since Kac couldn't help but think of it as male now, having spotted that organ) gripped the branch, and swung down to hang from underneath it. Kac noted that it had small legs and grasping feet, and a pair of wings with small claws on them; there were only four limbs instead of six like a gryphon. It licked and spat over Eike's talons, leaving behind a substance that looked like sap or amber, coating the gryphon's claws and adhering them to the bark and to each other. "Now he won't fall again," the creature said.
He looked at Kac the way the gryphon might have sized up a collection of beads and trinkets, searching for which was the best. He was being judged and measured by this stinking tree creature.
"Who are you," the gryphon nervously asked as he began to spin away again. His tail twitched as he heard the thing move across the branch, and hop to a closer perch.
"I'm Aurecht. I spring from the anchor of the forest, who shelters the grasses where the axolos graze. She charges them with dispersing her young, and during the right season she produces me to choose which of them shall do it. She shelters the small gryphons as they nest in her heights. I will shelter you if you desire it; I have saddled your friend with two seeds, which means I have one left for you. He's the stronger of you two, but I may have expected too much from him. You two are much smaller than an axolo."
"What is the anchor of the forest? Is it this tree?" Kac struggled against the bands of the harness. "You mean you came from the tree?"
"You may call me a dryvern." A hooked claw fiddled with the harness just over Kac's shoulder. "As I said, today was my last day before sinking back under the embrace of the bark. It's lucky for me that you two came. One of you wouldn't be enough; I saddle the axolos with five or six if they're very strong." Aurecht paused to examine the knots that held Kac in place. "It's strange, none of the other gryphons here talk, nor are any of them as big as you. I hope you both can survive being saddled."
Again he fell silent. Kac stayed still, but desperately wanted to flee. "You hope we...survive?" He began to struggle and writhe against his bonds, squawking and shrieking desperately.
The dryvern withdrew a short distance, watching him. "You're more tightly entangled than ever, large gryphon. Stop this, it's foolish. Stop, I'll carry you down to the ground."
Aurecht hopped to the branch where the harness was tangled, and began picking at it with his hooked fingers. Kac watched the dryvern's taloned feet as they gripped the branch; they disappeared into the bark, as if they were bark themselves.
He looked over the shoulder of the working creature, and saw the knobby protrusion of the trunk of the tree that had alarmed him just after he and Eike had landed. Its resemblance to Aurecht was very strong. Kac imagined that if Aurecht were spread out on his back, perhaps his wings would reveal a colorful pattern; his prehensile penile organ would become a pistil in the middle of a large, strong-smelling exotic flower.
There was a sudden lurch, and then they were falling together. Aurecht gripped the harness in his feet and spread his wings. The fall became a glide, around and around the tree in a careful path that avoided the larger branches. With a thud, Kac hit the ground.
"Don't struggle," the dryvern said. "That took almost all of the strength that I had. I don't need to bite you, do I? Don't struggle, and I'll carry your friend down the same way. Or, you can go up to him." He began working his jaw back and forth, and looked as if he were going to cough. He caught hold of Kac's hands and, holding them together, disgorged gold colored amber across them. It was very sticky.
"I won't! I'll stay still." Kac was suddenly afraid that Aurecht would cough up more of that sap onto his beak, sealing it shut. It was an irrational fear, as from what Kac could see the dryvern wanted both him and Eike alive. "When will he recover?"
"It will be dark by then," Aurecht said. "I will not be aware of you; as I said, this is my last day. My season is over. You must watch your friend, for there are predators here more formidable than you. This is why I didn't want to bite you. The axolos have their herd, but you have only each other, and the heights of the anchor."
As he spoke, Kac noticed Aurecht's mouth seemed to be a dead end. Aside from the teeth, which really were more like the needles found on desert vegetation, there was a rudimentary tongue that was responsible for shedding and distributing the sticky sap. Aurecht did not breathe-at least, he didn't breathe through his mouth. Perhaps he did not even eat.
Did Aurecht perch high in the tree, or the anchor as he called it, drinking in sunlight and respiring through his large wings, swaying along with the branches where he had grown? "As you say," muttered Kac as he rolled onto his stomach, resting his stuck talons before his beak. "We'll shelter above."
Aurecht mounted him, and Kac felt the wiggling organ that had been inside of his friend start to work its way inside of his own body. He winced, and then whimpered. "This may be painful," the dryvern said in his raspy voice. "The toxin also resides in the sap. Try licking your...mmmmph...talons."
Kac wondered for a moment how Aurecht was able to speak in the first place, having no real throat, but was distracted by a very painful stretch in his hole; something was being forced through the long phallic tube and into his body. The dryvern worked silently except for a creaking noise made when he rocked back and forth, and the pressure on Kac's anus become greater than the resistance he was able to summon. He cried out in pain as the large object passed into him, and continued to whimper as he felt it migrate deeper and deeper into his gut.
His beak chipped the dried sap, and the liquid inside the outer skin dribbled across his beak and touched his tongue. The experience suddenly changed as dramatically and as suddenly as if the world had suddenly swung upside-down around the tree. He was very much aware of the painfulness and the roughness of the phallic organ Aurecht used to "saddle" his victims with a spawn, or a seed, or whatever it was. But it didn't matter anymore. In fact, it was somewhat funny; a big joke, one with layers and layers that caused even more amusement the more he thought about it. He sighed contentedly and almost giggled.
He felt a small cold prickle, as though an icy talon had jabbed him in the stomach. Aurecht stood, his tentacle-like organ withdrawing with a speed that was painful. "As I said, I've saddled you with one. And one is all I have to give; it is good to so completely fulfill your purpose in life. If you live beyond the need that the anchor has for you, I hope you can feel something like this someday."
"Yes!" Kac sat up suddenly, and then winced as his backside ached. Life was still intensely amusing and almost too distracting to worry about his poor, stretched rear. "Ouch. And yes, it is!" He grinned at Aurecht, who for the first time seemed caught off guard.
The gryphon looked up into the tree, flapped his wings a few times, and then busily licked and nibbled enough of the sap from his talons to free them. "Let's go up!" It suddenly became vital that they hurried, though it wasn't concern that drove him Kac; it was a mania. He leaped up and pumped his wings enough to reach the branches, and then scaled the trunk with his claws to the prone and still unconscious Eike. He clapped his beak constantly at the pleasure of it all, and shrieked a territorial cry as he neared his friend.
Eike stirred, and in a slurred voice asked "Where is it? Where...Kac?"
Kac sat and blinked rapidly. "I'm sorry, Eike, I feel...I feel very good. But it's not the right kind of good."
"You sound drugged. Did I get bitten? Did you?"
Kac watched Aurecht below them, ascending slowly. He stopped about halfway up to them and stopped. He embraced the trunk of the tree, and stopped moving. The gryphon looked up at the old gnarled lump, then back at the dryvern below. "I don't think we have to worry about him, Eike."
The sun was setting, and Eike struggled to free himself. "Lick your talons if you can reach," Kac said. "I'm feeling more myself, but watch out. The sap seems to pack quite a kick. We should spend the night here, and fly back in the morning."
"I'm not sure I can fly now," Eike said. "I feel ravenous. And I feel very, very heavy." He sat up, blinked a few times, and grinned. "He left quite a hefty deposit!" He started laughing, swayed slightly, and then fell back on all fours. "Quite hefty, I am. No need for the training weights now."
Kac jumped and flew up to the branch where the previous season's dryvern had merged with the tree-with its anchor, as Aurecht had said-many years ago. Who knew how long a season was?
He tapped the mass with his beak, and inhaled deeply. "There's more sap in here," he called down to Eike. Scratching at the bark, he exposed something that looked remarkably like a bone. It was a bone made of wood, buried in softer wood. Yanking at it for a while, he finally freed it and fluttered back down to the other gryphon. "When we do go back, we should take some of this stuff with us," he told his friend.
"We'll be taking something back with us, all right," Eike said as he continued to rub his large protruding gut. He closed his eyes and crooned.