An Entanglement of Griffins Free Sample Chapter

Lark Sutrio had been meaning to visit the forest near her new home. Crashing her air flitter into it wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

Pure luck led her to a clearing for her unplanned descent. The lanky, weather-hardened pines could have caught her flitter like an emergency airlock’s last-chance net. Climbing down six-meter-tall trees wasn’t a skill she’d picked up while living on interstellar trader starships.

A tickle in her nose made her sniffle and swear. Something hard had smacked her face during the terrifying landing. Ever since, her nose had been bleeding intermittently, making her mouth taste metallic and irritating her already queasy stomach. Adrenaline after-effects still sent erratic pulses to her jangled nerves and made her hands shake.

From the inside, the flitter seemed repairable, as long as she ignored the giant burn hole in the right rear quarter. Mid-size personal utility flitters could take some rough use, but nothing she could afford would outrun a high-speed pursuit or have enough armor to withstand energy beamers.

The bulk of her cargo now littered half a kilometer of formerly pristine forest. Most had been destined for the recycler, but she planned to return to clean up the mess when she could. Living on a planet had responsibilities she took seriously.

Determined focus helped her stack the few crates she hadn’t lost, with the organic goods in the middle and the heavier stuff around it. She pulled the holdfast strap as tight as she could, ignoring her stiff neck, sore side muscles, and possibly cracked rib. Maybe she could retrieve her groceries before hungry wild animals discovered it.

“Sure, Lark, and maybe you’ll grow wings.” Talking to herself made her feel like she had a friend, albeit a snarky one. Her laugh turned into a pained wheeze.

Leaving the side entry open felt wrong, but it had been a struggle to pry the warped cargo doors apart to begin with. She’d never get them closed now.

“Prrrr-eet-eet?” The griffin’s soft trill sounded like a question.

Rilya sat on top of the backpack, watching Lark’s activities with interest. She looked like a large four-legged bird with an outsized head and long tail. She — or at least her ancestors — had been genetically engineered to be a pampered pet. The designers meant her to look like a pre-Flight mythological eagle-lion hybrid. The ostentatious crown of feathers and rounded golden yellow beak made her both adorable and winsome. Her splinted broken wing kept her grounded, but she wouldn’t have gone far, anyway. She didn’t care for the great outdoors.

In moments like these, Lark was deeply grateful for her minder talent to connect with the minds of animals. It gave her an edge when handling the griffins, but it was a two-way link. She reached out with a thread of talent to reassure her companion. Though Lark had tried not to share her fear and anger, some of it had probably leaked through anyway. Unlike the dozens of traditional breeds of griffins in the regular galactic pet trade, her amazing Nova Nine griffins were both highly communal and empathic. And all hers were telepathic. In range, they could sense what their flock mates were thinking and make group decisions.

A sound like a sudden sharp breeze came from the second griffin behind her. A subtle wave of his excitement pinged her senses.

She couldn’t help but smile as she turned to face him. “I should have named you Noongar, for the famous galactic explorer.”

Intrigue infused the fleeting thoughts of the adult rock griffin. Flecken had stayed with her and Rilya, but impatiently. The forest outside the flitter beckoned with fresh sounds and scents. Unlike his flock mate, he had a keen taste for adventure.

It was only chance that she’d brought the two griffins. Rilya needed supervision while she convalesced or she’d try to fly too soon. Flecken needed enrichment the way cats needed sleep. Lark had thought they’d be safe in the flitter for their trip to the large southern city and back.

And she had to admit she’d needed their emotional support. The downside of embracing her independence was living alone. The upcoming medical appointment rekindled spikes of anxiety that her brain balancers were supposed to manage, but sometimes didn’t.

She admitted feeling relief when she discovered the appointment had to be rescheduled, even though she was already halfway there. However, that circumstance had also put her back at the farm hours early, in time to interrupt a home invasion, leading to her current predicament.

She and her griffins were alive, but not safe. No time to drag a branch onto the flitter’s roof for visual camouflage. The flitter’s emergency beacon should be pinging the planetary network and sharing the crash location with the appropriate response organizations. Meaning her attacker could likely find her location, too.

She squinted consideringly at the backpack where Rilya sat. So far, she’d packed the flitter’s med kit, emergency water and extra meal packs, cargo hooks and cable reels, and a couple of low-power hand tools. Combat wasn’t her style, but learning ambush tactics had kept her alive.

Nothing like the sudden lack of communications tech to remind her how far out in the wilderness she’d chosen to live to keep her griffins under wraps. The harsh landing had scraped the flitter’s comms hub completely off. The percomp on her bruised wrist must have taken a hit, too, because it refused to ping anything – not the planetary net, not the orbiting satellites, not even the southern continent’s traffic control system. From copies in its memory, it begrudgingly dredged up a recent geomarked topographical map and told her that yesterday’s weather forecast promised no rain.

On the plus side, she was tolerably outfitted for an impromptu hike in an unfamiliar forest. Rugged boots, durable pants, padded long-sleeve tunic, and hooded, multi-pocketed vest made her look like a working farmer, not the hobbyist her suppliers had initially assumed. They’d also guessed she was raising heirloom chickens. She hadn’t told them otherwise. She’d even acquired a small domestic flock as camouflage.

Until she secured officially registered genetic profile certificates for all four phenotype breeds of her griffins, it was best to keep them out of sight. In her experience, the galactic pet trade had an overabundance of the crazy, the unscrupulous, and the egregiously greedy.

After one last look around the flitter, she slid the backpack onto her shoulders, then helped Rilya situate herself on top and sink the talons of all four legs into the fabric. The still-growing griffin and her wing splint only weighed two kilos, so the extra mass wouldn’t be a problem. Her long, flexible tail wrapped around Lark’s left shoulder and down across her chest like a feathered sash with a decorative fan at the end.

At Lark’s signal, Flecken launched like a rocket through the side doors. His ghost-gray feathers wouldn’t be good camouflage in daylight in a pine forest, but he was falcon-fast. Opportunistic aerial predators would have a hard time catching him.

Lark’s talent allowed her to sense all animals nearby if she worked at it, but she didn’t have the time or energy to concentrate. For whatever reason, the assholes who’d shot her flitter hadn’t followed them down to confirm the kill. She wasn’t going to stick around long enough to find out why not.

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