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Now I have learned to be proud
Hovering over the wood
In the broken mist
Or tumbling cloud.
W.B. Yeats, ‘The Hawk’
In fact, it had been really easy to overpower the sleepy macaque guarding Shrii’s cage. TerTaWa had undertaken that task, to keep Patah from any temptation to throttle him. While the gibbon gagged the macaque and put him in one of the empty basketwork cages, Kupo got to work setting Shrii free. When her furry face peered through the intertwined twigs, the griffin thought at first that he was simply dreaming of seeing the loris. After all, he hadn’t eaten for days. But then he saw TerTaWa. And Patah. Kupo was so relieved to see Shrii unharmed that her usually nimble fingers could hardly open the bolts. When she finally succeeded, Shrii’s limbs were so stiff from captivity that he could hardly force them, agonisingly slowly, out of the basket. But seeing Patah, TerTaWa, Kupo and all the others free, safe and sound made him so happy that he forgot his aching joints and nudged them affectionately in the breast with his beak. It had been terrible to stare down at Kraa’s throne day and night, waiting helplessly for his own execution. But it had not been the fear of death that had troubled Shrii most during those endless hours. It had been the certainty that all those who had trusted and followed him had paid for it with their freedom or their lives.
It cost Shrii all his remaining strength to climb up to the branch from which the basketwork cage hung. All his muscles ached, and at the first attempt he could hardly manage to spread his wings. But the anxious faces of his rescuers spurred him on to try again. He must fly! It was the only possible way of escape. Even if he might meet the other griffins up in the sky. Flying. How he had longed to feel the wind in his feathers! But would his weakened wings bear him up? A griffin’s body is as heavy as it is powerful.
Shrii unfolded his green wings for the second time. The joy of being free again drowned out the pain.
‘Fly south!’ TerTaWa told him quietly. ‘Tchraee and the others are usually hunting in the northern mountains at this time of night!’
Shrii nodded. And raised his head, listening, when a furious roar rose to their ears from Kraa’s palace nest.
‘Fly, Shrii!’ chirped Kupo.
‘Alone? But what about the rest of you?’ Maybe he could carry them in spite of his painful limbs. He had to try!
A hoarse screech responded to Kraa’s roar. Kupo, horrified, clung to Shrii, and TerTaWa and Patah exchanged a glance. They all knew that voice. Tchraee. Of course. He often flew ahead of the others.
More screeching rang out from the distance, echoing through the night. They were coming.
‘Climb on me!’ Shrii called to his rescuers.
But Patah was already beckoning to the other macaques to climb quickly down the tree, away from the dreadful screams cutting through the night. Only TerTaWa and Kupo climbed on the griffin’s back and ducked down between his wings. The voice of Tchraee had rekindled Shrii’s anger. It gave him strength. The strength of the lion as he took off. The strength of the eagle as he soared into the air. And yes, his wings, painful as they were, carried him away. He left the cages and Kraa’s palace far below him, and broke through the canopy of leaves, flying out into the wide night sky that sprinkled starlight on his wings.
Free!
His keen eyes could already see the shapes of the other griffins in the distance. But suddenly he sensed something above him. A presence that he had never felt before. Shrii looked up – and there they were. Powerful and strange, shining like the silver light of the moon.
Shrii forgot the other griffins.
He forgot that he was escaping.
He forgot Kraa and his days of captivity.
Dragons!
His mother had often told him about them. Tales of the times when dragons and griffins had flown side by side. Protectors instead of plunderers, light instead of darkness.
The dragons had also seen Shrii, but night made the green of his wings seem darker, and they took him for one of the other griffins. Tattoo bared his teeth, and even Firedrake lowered his horned head, ready to attack. But suddenly the huge wings below them showed green in the moonlight, and Winston let out a cry of joy.
‘That’s Shrii!’ he called. ‘They’ve done it! He’s free!’
TerTaWa and Kupo waved to them from Shrii’s back, and Ben was so relieved to see the young griffin flying over
the treetops, uninjured, that he flung his arms around Sorrel’s furry neck, although he knew that she hated to be hugged.
But there was another task yet to be carried out tonight.
‘TerTaWa!’ Ben called down to the gibbon. ‘How about Twigleg? And Lola? Have you seen them? Do they have the feather?’
TerTaWa and Kupo exchanged a remorseful glance.
