Chapter 66 - The griffon war.
Chapter 66 - The griffon war.
Beverly
We worked through all the evidence, and it was sad to look at the photographs of my mother’s body, but I told myself not to see it as her. It made it just a little easier to look at as I zoomed in on one of the wounds. The wounds were all huge. Like someone had taken a hot knife and cut deep lashes into her skin. I could actually imagine the claws of a griffon digging into her skin and that was when I had to put the photographs down.
From the little evidence my brother was able to gather, we had to agree that there was only one thing that could have killed our mother. But why? My dad contacted the capitol to find out through his sources if they knew of any grudges the griffons might have against us, while my brother checked in with other allies and they both came back with nothing.
That left us with only the witches and I took a deep breath before calling the high priestess. They had done so much for me while I was there, and I didn’t even stay to complete my training. Although she said that she understood, I still felt awful about leaving like that. I explained the evidence we found, and she instantly agreed with our finding that it had to be the griffons.
She did, however, have some clarity as to why they probably did what they did, but it was only a suspicion. Until we had concrete evidence, we couldn’t make a move. The high priestess believed that the griffons were probably scouting our territory and accidentally came across our mom. They were very prickly creatures, according to her, and were easily offended. She also shared that the griffons had actually grown by leaps and bounds in numbers recently, which meant they needed more territory.
“They probably didn’t attack because they wanted to take your territory, but they are definitely coming for you. Probably sooner now that they know you know they were there.” She sounded worried, and her words weren’t very comforting! Even though the last war didn’t happen recently, it felt like it did. I didn’t even fight in it, and I felt as if I had lived through each moment. The high priestess pledged their allegiance, and it looked as if my brother was finally coming back to us.
All it took was for us to believe him. Now that we have more information, we could prepare for war. We had no idea when they would attack, but we were sure they were going to. While my brother and father went around the castle to make sure we were protected if we had to hide, I checked out the library. We had never fought creatures like the griffons.
Our pack was friends with the old dragons, which were the closest thing to griffons we could think of. We needed to prepare our warriors with any and all information we could gather. The high priestess sent us some of the books they had on griffons and the huge task of preparing for war against an unknown enemy started. New defenses had to be put up all around the castle and the warriors had to know how to fight without getting slaughtered by the huge claws.
The tension hung thick in the air as the warriors started training with their new weapons and I watched from the library window. It saddened me that we were facing yet another war. Why? Why did supernatural creatures always feel this need to destroy something that was different? I hate that most about us. All of us. It was as if we just couldn’t live without killing!
We were the complete opposite to what the witches were trying to teach everyone. That was why they were so damn hard on me when I first arrived. After we had been preparing for nearly two weeks, the alarm suddenly sounded in the dead of night. All around the castle, people ran either for cover or to the walls to fight. I saw the fear in the eyes of both warriors and their families.
We were facing yet another fight for our survival and nobody knew what the outcome would be. After the loss of my mother, my father and brother refused that I fight, and I had to make sure the weaker ones in our pack were taken care of. The shrill shriek of a griffon echoed through the air and everyone looked up even though we couldn’t see anything from our position deep in the castle.
I could only imagine the battle that was going on outside and as soon as the first of the wounded were brought in to be taken care of, I knew my imagination probably wasn’t far off. The wounds were ghastly, and the warriors weren’t healing as fast as they normally did. That was because griffons had poisonous claws. Whenever they scratched someone or something it died.
That was why our strong mother didn’t make it back to the castle. Her wounds were very great and, since we didn’t know what attacked her, she didn’t get the antivenom. We, thankfully, had it now and the warriors were treated the second they came into the makeshift hospital. It was the worst sight I have ever seen! The safe place we found for our weaker members quickly turned into a blood-stained hospital.
I was beginning to think we were going to lose when my brother carried my father into the hospital. I administered the antivenom the moment I saw the huge gash on his shoulder and my brother left him with me. He rushed out, and I sent a quick prayer up to the moon goddess to save us. We were strong, but from what was happening around me, I wondered if we were strong enough.
The battle raged on well into the morning and I felt horrible sending the wounded warriors back out to fight, but they had healed enough to fight again, and we needed every person who was capable. It was like a never-ending revolving door of injured kept coming and as soon as they were able to, we sent them back out.