Free The Golden Griffin (Book 3) by Michael Wallace

you’re just making a point,” Daria said. “Fine, give me some.”
    When they were done and the griffins had settled down, Daria checked her swords, a pair of light, graceful blades, their edges and points sharp enough to pierce the armor of a dragon wasp. She checked tethers and knots, then dressed in her fur cloak and gloves.
    Soon, the two griffins and their riders were aloft. Daria led, allowing Joffa to stretch his wings as they climbed the side of the mountain. They soared over meadows and a glimmering mountain lake, scattering a flock of ducks that had settled for a break on their southern migration.
    They flew over the crest of the mountains, where it was so cold that Daria’s breath coalesced into ice crystals around the edge of her hood. Coming down the other side, they passed over the remains of an ancient hill kingdom, its ruined castles and overgrown roads only visible from the air. The Swansins had aeries hidden in this area. They were an extended family of a dozen or so adults, plus their children and griffins. They would fly out in an emergency—had fought over Eriscoba, in fact—but otherwise kept to themselves. The Swansins lived so far north that the forests beyond their lands were broken only by rocky hills and the towering thrust of the massif above and to the left.
    Autumn stained the north country with brilliant hues of gold and red. Above the hardwood forests, the middle altitudes were the rich green of pine and fir, while snow topped the highest peaks.
    Daria’s mother flew alongside and made a series of hand signals. Look up and to the left.
    A sliver of burned forest, two or three miles long and a few hundred yards wide, marked a charred wedge that stretched from the hills up the mountainside. The drier, leeward side occasionally suffered forest fires, but the burn pattern was strange. Coming lower, Daria saw that some trees had burned to charred stumps, but others had only lost their crowns, leaving the lower branches unscathed. It was as if fire had lashed them from the sky.
    Daria made her own signal. A dragon.
    She scanned for wasps and their riders. A dragon was a huge, fearsome beast, the match for a dozen griffins, but they spent most of their lives asleep, rarely rousing from a profound, almost unwakeable slumber except to feed and pillage. And to lay eggs, of course. Anywhere you found a dragon, it was generally watched by the larval form, dragon wasps, and their riders, the dragon kin. But Daria saw nothing.
    The women brought their griffins in among the charred trees to keep away from watchful eyes. The air stank of ash and smoke, and here and there the trees still smoldered. Sweat stood out on Daria’s brow. Joffa pulled higher, and she only kept him down with some effort.
    There was something else in the air as well. A hint of sulfur. A vibrating hum, like the earth itself rumbling. Daria’s heart thumped a nervous beat, like a sparrow fluttering in her hands. The dragon was near.
    She caught her mother’s eye and gave her the hand signal to look for cover. Moments later, they landed the griffins at the base of a cliff where fallen boulders had collected in a jumble. The loose rock and scree kept the slope free of trees, and therefore free of the dead, burned forest and the suffocating heat. Unfortunately, the boulders kept them only partially hidden from enemies in the air. Someone flying directly overhead would spot them easily.
    Daria and Palina hushed their griffins, coaxed them onto their haunches, and squeezed them between the rocks the best they could. The women pulled their hoods up, took to the shadows, and looked down the mountain. The rock-strewn hillside cut steeply for forty or fifty yards before it became burned trees. The stretch below them had charred to stumps and opened a view all the way to the plains, three or four thousand feet below.
    “Can you feel it?” Daria asked.
    “The rumbling ground? Yes. There must be a cave nearby.”
    “Two caves. The