Page 24 of Queen’s Griffon (Swords & Tiaras #2)

Chapter 23

Griff

Entering his childhood home filled Griff with nostalgia. There was the banister he used to slide down. The door to his father’s study—a place he’d been banned from entering when his father wasn’t present. The dining room only used when his father entertained important guests—most of their meals were taken in the general cafeteria. The parlor where they would sit by a fire while his father grilled him about school.

“You grew up here?” Simhi craned to look around. “It’s nice.”

“Even nicer when it was clean,” Griff remarked, his boots kicking up dust and disturbing cobwebs.

“Doesn’t look like the raiders ever got this far,” Monty said as he glanced into the parlor for a peek. “Furniture is intact and there’s knickknacks all over.”

“Given the hazards getting here, I’m not surprised,” Griff murmured, staring around, the surrealness of actually being there discomfiting. He’d never thought he’d see his home again.

The paintings of his ancestors still hung on the wall flanking the stairwell, the glass crusted. Griff wondered how his old bedroom fared. But he’d not come here to reminisce about the past.

He strode into his father’s office and stopped dead. A wave of sorrow hit him seeing the large desk, still scattered with paper, but the chair behind it empty.

“Look at all the books.” Simhi had no such qualms as she stepped inside and ran her finger over the spines in the bookcase.

“Verlora believed in preserving knowledge,” he stated. “This is nothing compared to the library that was lost.” A building destroyed by lava bombs. They’d passed it on their way. It caused a pang to know the books, some of them centuries old, were forever lost.

“Anything useful, you think?” Simhi inquired sliding out a book titled Irrigation Techniques.

“Probably, but we’ll have to worry about grabbing those later.” After they saved Avera.

“Looks like someone was reading when it happened.” Simhi pointed to a large gap on the shelf, and for some reason, Griff frowned.

“Those were the historical texts of Verlora’s beginning.” Not something he’d ever read and, as far as he knew, his father didn’t either. Griff approached and crouched to eye the spot, then over his shoulder at the desk. The books weren’t there. Could be they were gone before the volcano erupted.

He rose and began rifling through the papers on the desk, random jottings and mathematical equations. Useless stuff. As he slid aside a page of numbers that made his brain hurt, he paused at the sight of a sheet filled with handwriting. His father’s. And at the top of the page, his name.

Griffon, my son, I don’t know if you’ll ever get a chance to read this. I hope you managed to escape. I pray every day that you did. So many died when the volcano exploded. Even more in the years that followed.

Years? Griff rocked on his heels and his expression had Simhi exclaiming, “What’s wrong?”

“My father survived the initial cataclysm.” He waved the letter. “He wrote this for me years after.”

“What?” Simhi blinked. “But the air, wouldn’t it have poisoned him?”

Griff paced, clutching the missive. “If he were outside breathing it for too long, yes, but there are places underground where it might not have been as dangerous. Where people might have sheltered while waiting for it to settle.”

“So where is he?” Simhi glanced around as if Griff’s father would pop out suddenly.

“I don’t know. Let me see what else the letter says.”

Griff scanned the rest of it.

We’ve done our best to survive, but it isn’t just the dwindling food stores that are an issue. We unleashed something that day, and it’s my fault. My actions killed thousands. I’m sure you’re wondering what happened, but it boiled down to the fact I’d grown tired of Basil and his obsession with those stupid rocks he brought back from Daerva. He kept claiming they were powerful and ancient and wouldn’t talk about anything else. He spent his days in the lab, trying to crack them, to figure them out. I tried to talk him into setting them aside. Concentrating on something else, but he insisted he was close to figuring out their secret.

The day before everything happened, Basil came to me and told me he finally knew what was missing. He asked for a few pints of my blood. I called him crazy, asked him how my blood could do anything when even our strongest acids didn’t leave a mark. He mumbled something about ancient rituals and magic. I gave it to him, hoping he’d see how insane his request was. Only the next day, when I went to visit him, he insisted he needed more. I’m afraid I lost my temper. I told him I’d had enough with his fixation on the rocks, and I grabbed the one he’d been working with and, like a child with a ball, I ran away with it. Before Basil could catch me, I threw it into the magma.

Everything that happened next was my fault. Turned out Basil was right. That stupid bloody rock wasn’t a rock. It caused the volcano to erupt, and a dragon was born.

Yes, I said a dragon, which I know is hard to believe but, I swear, it’s real, and just as vicious as the stories made them out to be. I’m the only one it hasn’t threatened. It doesn’t help that it’s larger than normal, which sounds strange. After all, dragons are supposed to be big. However, a crop growth accelerator we were working on in one of the labs got eaten by rodents which in turn led to this modification being introduced to the ecosystem of Verlora. It’s not just the rats and dragon that have become abnormally large. Bugs, bats, snakes… Many of the animals that survived the blast have been changed, and now we are besieged. We cannot leave the buildings lest we fall prey to their hunger. We barricade against them but that is only a temporary measure for we are running low on supplies. There aren’t many of us left, but we still must eat. Hence why I’ll be venturing forth to try and find some edibles. Basil says I’m crazy, that we can survive on cave mushrooms. I’d honestly rather die than eat another one.

I hope you are well-fed and cared for wherever you ended up. It’s been almost five years since I’ve seen you. How big you must be. I only wish I could have seen the man you’d become. Told you how proud I was of you.

I doubt I’ll ever be able to leave Verlora. The moment I set foot outside, the dragon appears. As if it waits for me. It’s always watching. If you see it, hide and pray, for it shows no mercy to those caught in the open. It’s hungry. Intelligent. And seemingly indestructible. We’ve tried harpoons and ballistae, they just bounce off its hide. We even tried poisoning some of the rats and leaving them out for it to eat. But it’s like it knows and avoids those we tainted. We’ve been scouring the historical texts to see how they were vanquished eons ago but have yet to find an answer.

I’ve rambled long enough, especially considering you will likely never get a chance to read this. But if you ever do, I love you, son. Forgive me for destroying everything.

Griff let the letter fall from his fingers. Simhi snatched it and read it quickly, exclaiming, “Holy shit, Cap. There were survivors.”

“Were,” he repeated, emphasizing the word. “This was written five years after the explosion.” He waved a hand at the dusty desk. “I’d say it’s obvious my father never returned after.”

“You don’t know that for sure. Could be he’s underground.” Simhi tried to offer something positive.

“Maybe.” A flat reply. “It’s my fault he and the others were stuck. I waited too long. I let my fear and conviction that nothing could have survived keep me away.”

“You can’t blame yourself,” Simhi said softly. “There was nothing you could do back then. You were but a child.”

“I was, but others weren’t. And what of when I got old enough? I let what happened to Vinmo and the others keep me from coming. Perhaps if I’d not been a coward?—”

“You’d be dead too,” Monty interrupted. “Come on, Cap. Give yourself a break. Verlora is deadly.”

“We made it this far,” Griff pointed out. “Thieves have obviously been coming for years.”

“And dying, too,” Simhi added. “The danger is very real. We might have made it this far, but who’s to say if we’ll make it back.”

The reminder he might have doomed Simhi and Monty had Griff slumping. It added to the guilt pressing on him. Sorry, Father.

“Speaking of danger, where’s this secret passage?” Monty rubbed his hands. “Never fought a giant rat before. Think we’ll meet some?”

“You’d better hope not if they’re the size of those bugs,” Griff riposted.

“The letter mentioned snakes, too.” Simhi shuddered. “Nasty things.”

“Wonder what else has been supersized. Your dad didn’t mention giant people in his letter,” Monty pointed out.

“He didn’t, and the skeletons we came across were of the normal-sized variety. Could be this growth stimulator doesn’t affect all living things.”

“Pity.” Monty stared at his groin and Simhi snickered. “Bigger doesn’t make it better. It’s all about skill.”

“Anytime you want me to show you…” Monty offered with a grin and Simhi snorted. “Not that desperate yet, pretty boy.”

“If you’re done flirting,” Griff interjected.

“Flirt? Never!” Monty exclaimed.

“No way!” Simhi huffed, red-cheeked.

The pair protested and Griff bit back a smile. They’d been doing this dance for a while. Eventually they’d figure it out. In the meantime… “The access corridor that leads to the lab networks is through this bookcase.” He strode to it and pressed the knob situated higher than a little boy could reach. Touching it made him think of his father, probably the last person who’d gone through the passage.

The bookcase moved without issue, surprising given the amount of time since it probably had last been used. Beyond loomed a dark tunnel.

“We’ll need some light. Let me go see what I can find.” Monty went off looking and Simhi prowled through the papers on his father’s desk as they waited.

“Your da sure did like numbers,” she stated. “Pages and pages of them.”

“He was very good at math.” Unlike Griff.

“How does playing with numbers fix anything?” Simhi scrunched her nose.

“Depends on the problem.” He leaned over her shoulder to read a few lines before murmuring, “These were calculations to determine how long before the land became arable again. And those”—he pointed to another sheet—“show the rate of growth in some rats who imbibed some of the growth accelerator.” He didn’t mention the fact it happened fast, as in over the course of a few months.

“Found some lanterns,” Monty crowed, returning with a pair dangling from each hand. “Here’s to hoping the oil in them is still good.”

They lit, and while a bit smoky at first, provided the light needed to enter the tunnel. A tunnel quiet and empty unless the giant mounds of rat shit counted.

Griff kept his weapon at the ready as did his companions.

A good thing because they were attacked at the first intersection.