Erin soared!

  She followed Lady Sarah in a tight circle around the settlement, the wind tugging at her coat and blowing her hair across her face. She cursed herself for not tying it up. A lesson learned, she reasoned, and one she would not forget.

  The cold wind was bitter, and she shivered with it growing colder the higher they rose. Still, she would not have landed right then, even had she been sitting frozen like a block of ice, so thrilled to be in the air was she.

  For years, she had learned how to care for the gryphons, cleaning their roosts and tending their needs. She had seen riders from afar, distant and aloof, and dreamed of the chance to fly knowing that it would never happen.

  There were too few gryphons, and too many riders waiting. Mostly from good family stock, with wealth and privilege beyond her reach. She had resolved to care for the beautiful creatures as best she could, pushing aside that dream of ever being more than their caretaker.

  Now she was flying!

  She fought the urge to drop the reins and spread her arms, glorying in the feeling, as a soft giggle escaped her at the notion.

  Looking down, there was no dizziness nor fear as she watched the settlement and its people going about their business. Few looked up, accustomed as they were to seeing Lady Sarah fly above each day, and Erin marvelled at their lack of wonder, a wonder she had never lost.

  Greyquill banked left, wings extended as she soared on the air currents, and Bright followed, heading out over the palisade and the farmlands beyond. Lady Sarah sat with her back straight, keeping the pace even, saving the gryphon’s energy for when it might be needed.

  Below the farmers were hard at work, tending their animals and crops, while doing the hundred other small chores that were needed to be done each day. Each farmhouse sat surrounded by around twenty acres of land, the standard allotment for each settler family willing to work it.

  Erin lost count of the farms, instead focusing on staying close to Lady Sarah as she flew.

  East to west, and then a short distance north before returning, west to east and back again. They crisscrossed the land, approaching ever closer to the tree line.

  It was on the last run that something changed. Erin noticed it immediately, Lady Sarah hunching forward over her saddle pommel, pressing her knee against Grey’s side and swinging her in a tight spiral above a farm.

  Erin stared down, trying to see what had caught Sarah’s attention and then it hit her. No smoke rising from the chimney, nor animals in the paddocks.

  Sarah’s arm stabbed down, and Erin waved, acknowledgment.

  Flying swiftly, Grey spiralled down, losing height rapidly as Erin followed. She landed in the small farmyard, and Erin came down beside her with a thump, the landing less smooth, jarring her teeth.

  She patted Bright’s shoulder before leaning back and stretching. Her back ached from sitting in one position for so long. Something she would need to get used to, she guessed.

  Sarah climbed down from the gryphon and waved for Erin to do the same. Unbuckling the harness, Erin slid from Bright’s back and stood, holding his reins.

  “He’ll not fly without you,” Sarah said, letting her own reins drop. Grey stood obediently, chirping at her and lowering her head for scratches. Lady Sarah obliged as Erin released her reins and ran her hand down Bright’s neck before crossing to where Sarah waited.

  “Where are they?” she asked, lifting her chin towards the farmhouse. If a gryphon had landed in her parent’s yard, all the family would have come out to gawp.

  “A good question.”

  Lady Sarah approached the door and reached for the handle. Erin gulped and gripped the small knife on her belt. Sarah glanced back and arched her brow. “There’s no need for that.”

  “How can you know?”

  “The Shadowbeasts only come at night,” she said, and pushed open the door. She stepped inside as Erin stared after her, heart racing.

  Steeling herself, she kept a tight grip on her knife hilt anyway and followed Sarah inside.

  All was in ruin, the furniture smashed to pieces, the crockery and earthenware pots broken, shards scattered about the floor. The food had not been eaten, yet had still been thrown about, ripped into pieces and ruined.

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  Blood covered every surface.

  The back door hung from its frame, great gouges in the thick wood, while bloody handprints stretched out across the floor. Thick bloody tracks crossed the floor, leading to the back door.

  Erin gagged and spun, heading out into the daylight and gulping down deep breaths of air.

  She waited there for several long minutes until Lady Sarah finished her inspection and came back out to join her. Sarah looked upon Erin with something close to pity before her face set like stone and her eyes turned hard.

  “Ralph and Anna Risley, lived here,” she said. “They had two children, three years of age and a babe in arms.”

  Erin swallowed back the nausea.

  “What happened?”

  “He was a fool,” Sarah snapped. “Hiding here from them, rather than coming into the safety of the settlement.” Her hands formed into tight fists, and she shook, with anger. “There will be almost thirty of them when they next attack.”

  Erin shook her head, forcing back the urge to lose the contents of her stomach. She didn’t understand.

  Lady Sarah exhaled a soft sigh and released her fists, holding back her anger. She glanced at Erin, managing a rough grimace that was almost a smile.

  “The first night, there was just one of them,” she said, as Erin frowned. “Two men, working outside the settlement, died that night. When we went looking for their bodies, they could not be found.”

  “Elias sent armed men into the forest to search for them and, for days, they looked but no remains were found.” She raked her fingers through her hair, sighing. “On the fourth night, three Shadowbeasts attacked a company of soldiers as they returned from the search.”

  “Four men died then, but they killed all three of the creatures. That night, we buried our dead and our wizard examined the bodies of the beasts.”

  “What did he learn?” Erin asked, breathless with growing horror.

  “That they had once been men,” she said, grimly. “Twisted by dark magics, and corrupted.”

  “The missing men,” Erin said, understanding, and Lady Sarah nodded.

  “Yes. There were traces of them still, though fading fast. The fouled bodies were burned, and we thought the matter ended.”

  Erin felt her stomach twist with dread, knowing that was not the case.

  “Five nights later, three Shadowbeasts were discovered digging up the graves of the fallen soldiers.” She shivered at the memory. “We fought them, our numbers overwhelming when the alarm was raised, but they didn’t run. They were rabid in their ferocity, and it was only our ranked shot that saved us from losing more lives.”

  She began to pace, head bowed as she recounted those dark times, and Erin listened with rapt attention.

  “Wizard Higate determined they were the same creatures that we had killed once already, and that was when we learned why they did not fear death.” She looked up then at Erin. “We cast their bodies from the Edge, out into the void and the Black below.”

  She paused.

  “Four nights later they returned.”

  Erin gasped and quickly put a hand to her mouth lest the noise distract Lady Sarah from telling her that dark history.

  “We have hunted them and fought them, countless times,” she said, smacking her fist into her open palm angrily. “Again and again, we have slain them only for them to return no earlier than four nights from their deaths, no later than six.”

  Lady Sarah’s gaze was distant, her thoughts in the past, delving through dark memories of times she would rather not revisit.

  “We have scoured this island, searching for their lair and found no trace, yet still they come. Sometimes attacking head on, other times…” she waved a hand towards the farmhouse. “With each body they claim, they grow in number while we grow weaker.”

  Turning abruptly, Lady Sarah skewered Erin with her gaze. Her expression as grim, as she lifted her chin.

  “We have lost so many,” she said. “Our wizard dead, the battalion down to a bare thirty men, of which many are wounded and weary beyond words.”

  She was silent for a moment, tears shining in her eyes. She blinked them away, angrily.

  “Any night they do not steal away a body is a victory, no matter the lives lost,” she whispered. “Our dead are cast into the void where they can not be taken, their souls amongst the Lost.”

  Erin’s heart ached at the pain in the noblewoman’s voice. She was so very weary, an exhaustion cloaking her, the weight of it too much to bear.

  “You bonded with the gryphon intended for Mary,” she said, sniffing and choking back her grief. “So, her duty falls to you.”

  “What would that be?” Erin asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “I have scoured this island every day since those creatures appeared.” Her lips pressed firmly together, anger rising in her eyes, driving away her sorrow. “I have failed, and I am driving Greyquill to exhaustion.”

  And herself too, Erin thought but wisely did not speak those words.

  “You will share this duty. Together we will search until we find their lair, and then we will destroy them. Our settlement, this colony, will not last if we do not do this. Do you understand?”

  Erin nodded. There was more to the tale, she guessed, but she had not the courage to demand answers from the noblewoman. Instead, she swallowed back her questions and steeled herself as best she could.

  If it meant she could continue to fly, then she would do whatever was required of her.

  “Then we had best return,” Lady Sarah said. “Elias will need to be told of what has happened here, and he will need to send some folk to tend the farm animals.”

  They mounted their gryphons and, as Lady Sarah and Greyquill took to the sky, Erin paused a moment to look over at the farmhouse.

  Something dark and evil had taken that family, and from it new terror would arise. The very thought of it set her to quivering with fear, but she set her jaw, determined to help fight it. To help avenge those that had been taken by the darkness.

  No matter the danger.

  Pressing her heels to Bright’s sides, he leapt into the air, wings beating as she climbed higher and higher until they were several hundred feet above the farm. He banked, following Grey as she headed for home.

  It was a quiet ride back, Erin’s thoughts dark and distant. So much so that she felt little joy, only a heavy weight in her breast.

  Part of that was because she was a gryphon handler, not a rider. She had no training, nor any real skill. She had found herself thrust into the role by chance, more than design, and her growing fear was that she would fail.

  That her failure would lead to others getting hurt.

  To Bright, getting hurt.

  That could not happen, she decided.

  No.

  That could never happen. She wouldn’t let it.