GLORIAE
Gloriae cut the sky.
She lashed her riding crop, and her griffin shrieked, flapped her wings, and drove forward. The wind howled, biting Gloriae's face and streaming her samite cape.
"Fly, Aquila," Gloriae called to her griffin over the wind's roar. Her riding crop flew too. "Fly hard."
As Aquila flew, Gloriae narrowed her eyes and scanned the lands below. Hills, copses of trees, and farmlands stretched into the horizons. Hearth smoke plumed from a distant village, and a fortress rose upon a mountain.
"Where are you, Kyrie?" Gloriae whispered, willing her eyes to see through every tree, into every barn, down every road. He was down there somewhere. He would travel north, travel to Hostias Forest where they whispered that Benedictus still roared. He would stay off the roads, sneak into barns for food, and sooner or later she would find him.
"You cannot hide for long," she spoke into the wind, and her lips pulled back from her teeth. Men often called her smile a wolf's grin, and Gloriae felt like a wolf, a huntress, a creature that lunges and kills and digs its fangs into flesh. "I will find you, Kyrie Eleison, and I will not take you alive. No, Kyrie. My father wants to capture you, to parade you as a freak, but not I." She caressed the hilt of Per Ignem, her sword of northern steel, which hung at her side. "I will make you taste my steel."
When Gloriae remembered the last time she saw Kyrie, she snarled. She had nearly drowned that day, but she had pulled herself from the roaring water, had survived, and now she hunted again.
Soon she flew over the village. If you could call it that, Gloriae thought. It was merely a scattering of cottages around a square. It was a wretched place, the houses built of mud and cow dung, the roofs mere thatch that no doubt crawled with bugs. Gloriae wrinkled her nose; she imagined that she could smell the place's stench even in the sky.
She turned her head to see the three griffins she led. Lord Molok flew alongside two riders of lower rank, men whose names Gloriae hadn't bothered to learn.
"The village below," she called to them and pointed. "We seek the weredragon there."
They nodded. Gloriae tugged the reins, and her griffin began to descend. The cold air lashed her, and Gloriae pulled down the visor of her helm. Peasants scurried below, fleeing into homes and closing the doors. Gloriae smiled her wolf's grin. Did they think their huts of mud and dung could stop her, Gloriae the Gilded, a maiden of the blade?
She landed her griffin in the village square, sending pigs and chickens fleeing. Gloriae snorted. Pigs and chickens? Truly this was a backwater; just the sort of place a weredragon would hide, cowering in the filth of beasts and the hovels of commoners. Gloriae drew Per Ignem, and its blade caught the light. She craved to dig this blade into Kyrie, to let weredragon blood wash it.
"You reptiles killed my mother," she whispered inside her visor, her jaw tight. "I was only three, but I know the story. You killed her. You ate her. You burned our towns, and poisoned our wells, and drank the blood of our children. Now I will wet my steel with your blood, weredragon. I am Gloriae the Gilded. You cannot hide from me."
Her men landed behind her and dismounted. Lord Molok gazed upon the village silently, face hidden behind that black, barred visor. His lieutenants drew blades and awaited orders.
"Into the inn," Gloriae said, gesturing with her chin toward the building, a scraggly place of wattle and daub. "We will ask there."
She walked ahead, leading them, and kicked open the inn's door. Her boots were leather tipped with steel, and the door swung open easily, revealing a dusty, shadowy room where commoners cowered. The air stank of ale, sweat, and grease. If she hadn't been wearing a visor, Gloriae would have covered her nose.
"Who runs this sty?" she demanded.
A wiry man hobbled forward, bowing his head. He wore an apron and held a mug and rag. "Welcome to our town, fine lady! May I offer you some bread and butter, mayhap some ale or—"
"Still your tongue before I cut it from your mouth," Gloriae said, glaring at him. "Do you think I've come for the dung you try to pass off as food, or the piss you serve as ale? I come seeking somebody. A boy."
Three men sat in the back of the tavern. Two were thin peasants, but the third was taller and broader than a peasant, his clothes finer, and he bore a sword. He'd been a knight once, perhaps; maybe a follower of Osanna's old, corrupt kings. This one was trouble, Gloriae knew. She would keep on eye on that shadowy corner.
The barkeep bobbed his head and whined, drawing Gloriae's attention away from the burly man. "Yes, my lady," he said. "I understand. But there is no boy here, as you can see." He tittered. "We are but simple folk, and—"
Gloriae stepped toward him, reached out a gloved hand, and clutched his throat. "You talk too much," she hissed. She raised her sword above him. "A boy with blond hair. A weredragon child. If I find that you've seen him, barkeep, and fed him your gruel, I will have you beg for death."
A chair scraped behind, and Gloriae turned her head to see the burly man rise to his feet. He had not drawn his sword, but his fingers lingered near the hilt
"Sit down, drunkard!" Gloriae told him, her voice filling the hovel.
The man gave her a long, hard look. He did not bow his head nor lower his eyes. "There was no boy," he said, voice low. "And you may refer to me as Taras, not drunkard."
Gloriae shoved the barkeep away, and he fell to the floor, gasping and clutching his neck. Gloriae stepped toward that burly man, that Taras, her sword drawn. Her fellow griffin riders stepped behind her.
Facing Taras, Gloriae pulled off her helmet. She tucked it under her arm and shook her hair so that it cascaded down her back. The barflies gasped, and even Taras narrowed his eyes. Gloriae smiled thinly. Men often gasped when they first gazed upon her green eyes, her golden locks, her legendary beauty.
"Whoever you are," Gloriae said softly, a crooked smile finding her lips, "you will obey me. Sit down."
Taras gave her a long, hard stare... then sat back in his chair.
"Good," she said to him, voice sweet. "Now, you say there was no boy, yet you bear a sword. Why do you need weapons here, if no weredragons terrorize your village?"
Taras still stared into her eyes, something few men dared. He had brown eyes, eyes that were tired but still strong. "I followed Osanna's old kings, and I worshiped her old Earth God. Your griffins killed our king and our monks, stripped our temples bare and crowned them with Sun Disks. Why do I bear a sword, my lady? It is not Vir Requis that I fear, but—"
Gloriae backhanded him, putting all her strength into the blow, and his blood stained her white leather glove. "You will not speak that name here," she hissed, voice trembling with rage. "You will not speak the name they gave themselves. They are weredragons; that is what you will call them. They are murderers. Do you work for them, worm? Did you hide the boy?"
She tried to backhand Taras again. He reached out and caught her wrist.
"I hide nothing," he said, glaring, and rose to his feet. He towered over her. "I know who you are. You are Gloriae. You are the daughter of the usurper, and you are no rightful ruler of Osanna. The old dynasty and monks will return, Gloriae the Gilded, and—"
Gloriae pulled back from him and swung her sword.
He was fast. He had expected this. Eyes still cold, he leaped back, drew his blade, and parried.
Gloriae kicked the chair at him. It hit his chest, tangled against his sword, and Gloriae swung her blade. The steel cut Taras's shoulder. He grunted, fell back, and Gloriae lunged with a snarl. Before he could recover, she shoved her blade into his chest, driving it through him and into the wall behind.
She stepped back, watched him die, then pulled Per Ignem free. Taras slumped to the floor, and Gloriae placed her helmet back on.
"Would anyone else like to cause trouble?" she asked, aware that she was smiling wildly, that her chest rose and fell, that her blood roared. When nobody spoke, she nodded. "I didn't think so." She looked at her men. "Torch the place; it stinks of old piss."
She walked out of the inn, snarling, as her men tossed logs from the hearth onto the floor. When she smelled smoke, she laughed and mounted her griffin.
"Kyrie Eleison was never here," she called to her men; they too were mounting their griffins. "And if he ever does come this way, well... there will be no place left to hide."
She dug her spurs into her griffin, and once more she flew, the wind in her eyes and the sky in her lungs.