The Dark Age Chronicles: The Fall of Night.
Flight

“Are you ready?” Nurilahasked. Ihloden sat astride the griffin.

“Sure,” he said his voicecoming out an octave higher. The Griffin shrieked and tossed its head. “Pleasedon’t do that,” he groaned holding on tighter.

Nurilah reached up and patted his leg. “Youwill be fine. Just trust the griffin and most of all trust yourself.”

He nodded. It had been ahard two weeks getting to this point. Washing and repairing the armor, makingadjustments and then learning how to decipher the griffin’s emotional speak inorder to saddle it. Then there was the one sour point where he had to lie againto his family telling them he had stayed to hunt for Nurilah while she wasdoing some repairs on her house. To make it worst, after he had told Nurilahwhat he had said, she decided that she did have repairs to do on her house andhe had to help. Then out of guilt he went home every night instead of takingthe easy way out and sleeping at Nurilah’s house. He even did anything hismother or Shila asked without complaint. It was two weeks of horror for him andbliss for those around him. But it made him feel better.

He sighed and relaxed hisgrip. The griffin turned its head back to him and a wave of assurance washedover him. He smiled, “Thank you for that vote of confidence.” He then tookseveral deep breaths and let the last one out noisily. Ihloden reached up andpuller the helmet over his face. It was rather like a half-mask, the upper halfcovering his head with only eyeholes and tapering down to a point like a beak,over his nose. Surprisingly the eyeholes did not obscure his vision. He leaneddown, almost lying flat against the Griffin’s back. “Alright,” he said slowly,“I am ready.” Nurilah nodded solemnly and stepped back.

The Griffin nodded to himand then to Nurilah. It leaned forward onto its forelegs. He felt it raise andset its hind legs on the ground. Ihloden felt his stomach clench and his heartbegan beating wildly. The Griffin suddenly tossed it head up and shouted, “Eml-aheirdr ieterh eml slf uin!” Then it sprang up into the air.

Ihloden felt his stomach reach his feet thencome flying back up. The sky came rushing up to meet him with the sound ofbeating wings. He heard someone shout and he looked down to see Nurilah wavingwildly from the ground. She was growing smaller as he watched. He looked outinto the air as the Griffin banked and flattened out into a steady line offlight. He looked at his hands holding tightly on to the Griffins feathers thendown again towards the trees, unable to make his mind accept that he wasactually above them. He took another deep breath and looked up towards the sky.The Griffin let out a loud screech and tossed its head. He felt the movementvibrate through its body. He felt the muscles move under the feathers and fur.Then it hit him, he was flying. He was actually flying.

“Oh my….” He said, hisbreath coming faster and faster. The Griffin tilted its head back toward himthen it gave a short screech. “Oh no you don’t” he shouted, “Griffin no!Griffin!!”

The Griffin did not listento him. It went into a dive and several spins. Ihloden felt like his stomachwent into several new locations. Then he found himself laughing. He realizedthen that he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t going to throw up. In fact he was feelingquite at home. He was home, in the air, with his Griffin doing crazy anticstrying to scare the daylights out of him. It felt insane to be feeling likethat. But it felt right. He leaned down and kissed the Griffin’s back. “Do thatagain,” he said, his voice sounding choked. A wave of surprise washed over him.“You heard me,” he said louder, “Let’s do that again!” The Griffin screechloudly as he screamed, “Woohoo!!!” and went into another dive.

Ihloden felt like his heartwas going to explode with joy and exhilaration. He and the Griffin low divednear Nurilah, the force of their pass flattening the grass. He heard her laughand shout, “Get something for dinner will you?”

“You heard the woman,” hesaid to the Griffin, “Let’s hunt shall we?” The Griffin turned to glance at himand a questioning feeling washed over him. “I am sure,” he said, swallowing thelump of doubt that suddenly popped into his throat. The Griffin nodded and then gave anotherscreech and lurched up into the air. Ihloden gasped as his mind and body wentthrough the dizzying joy of flying up into the sky. They slid into as easyflight and Ihloden took the time to settle his nerves. The sky was quiet andthe flapping of the wings was strangely soothing as he gazed into the blue air.He then gazed down and spotted the small shadows of deer moving about in thewood below.

“Griffin, I see them,” hesaid. A Wave of assurance rolled over him, then the Griffin banked sharply downand dove softly toward the area. The griffin then low passed and screamedloudly. The deer bolted and headed for the inner parts. “No, The other way!”Ihloden shouted. The Griffin swung back hard. Ihloden slid violently in thesaddle. He slid back into the seat as the Griffin trashed the tops of the treeswith its fore claws. The deer bolted towards the clearing. The griffin gave ashort shrill and headed up into the air. Ihloden kept an eye on the deer asthey headed up into air. Then there was beautiful moment as the griffin madethe turn in the air to dive. It felt like time stretched and they moved in slowmotion. Then Ihloden felt fear in the split second they moved into the diveposition. Then a wave of supreme exhilaration filled him. He heard the Griffinscream and he heard his own voice join it, as they struck down through the air.The wind whistled loudly in his ears.

The sky was moving past himin a blur, yet he was still able to follow in the movement of the deer as theyran. The Griffin’s wings were tucked into its side against his legs; he saw theway the wind coursed through the feathers, out of the corner of his eye. He sawthe deer reached the edge of the forest. They were already at the tree line. Hesaw the deer leap out of the trees into the air; dark fur turning light brownin the bright sunlight. Then a feeling of such ferocity filled him that healmost bit through his tongue as he clenched his jaw. The griffin’s wingsstruck open and it dropped like a stone onto the leading deer. Ihloden couldfeel the deer trash under the Griffin, and strangely he could feel the claws ofthe griffin snapping shut inside the deer. The griffin then closed and snappedits wings open again, in a split second knocking two more deer into the ground.As the deer skittered to get up the Griffin pounced on them; the eagle clawsslicing cleanly through the necks of both deer. The rest of the deer boundedaway out of the clearing and back into the wood.

Ihloden sat in the saddlebreathing hard as the Griffin screamed a triumphant shrill. It was surrealseeing the Griffin strike like that. It was even more surreal that he knew thathe had been part of it. He had for a few seconds merged with the Griffin,feeling in a very personal way, the exact way it felt. It was a pure sharingbetween the two of them. He realized his hands were shaking. The Griffin pickedup the deer and dropped them next to each other. It then looked back to him. Helooked back at the Griffin. In that moment he felt something he had never feltbefore. A closeness that was almost a union. His breaths were taken in the samerhythm as the Griffin and the tenseness of his body was the same as theGriffins’. The air around him seem silent; void of all noise. It was in thatspace that the words the Griffin had screamed came back him, and now he knew whatit meant. Eml-ah eirdr ieterh eml slf uin! My Rider and I are one.