The next morning, Beet informs me that Griffin left before sunrise.
“Why? Where did he go?” I ask.
“Hunting.”
I know for a fact that the freezer is still packed with meat. Maybe he’s hunting for the community.
An hour later, I’m even more confused when he appears at the door, calling for me. He’s carrying a dead deer over his shoulders. I follow him through a winding climb along a rocky path. After half an hour, we emerge from the trees onto a promontory over the lake. Sarah and a few other villagers are already here. They pulled carts along. One of them contains what looks like the body parts of a buffalo. The severed head is turned toward me, its glassy eyes unseeing.
I have a bad feeling about this.
Griffin drops the dead deer at the end of the promontory, then helps the others with the rest while I watch. Once all the corpses and body parts are piled up, they all run towards the forest. Griffin pulls me along with him behind a bush, farther than the others.
A few seconds later, I hear the beat of wings. Giant wings. I’ve only seen her in pictures, and they don’t do her justice. She’s magnificent and terrifying. The Roc looks like a bird of prey, except one that only exists in nightmares. Her feathers are as black as night, and her head and neck are bald. The top of her head and down to her spine are covered in spikes. She looks like a hybrid between a bird and a dinosaur. And she’s gigantic. The trees and branches bend as she lands, raising a cloud of dust. She’s perched on the sides of the promontory. Her blue beak dives into the meat we brought as an offering.
Are they feeding her every day to ensure that she lets them live on her territory?
I’ve never heard of such an alliance with an old god.
“Stay very quiet and calm,” whispers Griffin in my ear. His breath tickles my skin. He’s kneeling behind me, and I can feel the heat radiating from him. I shiver.
There is no way on earth I would move right now and inform the Roc of my existence.
But one of the villagers, the man farthest from us, screams suddenly and falls away from his hideout. There’s a snake latched onto his forearm.
Sarah’s face is enough to tell me that this is bad. She raises her hand, as if to grab for him, even though he’s thirty feet away.
The Roc’s head snaps up, and her yellow eyes narrow at the now visible villager. With one terrifyingly swift motion, she steps up and stretches her neck, closing her beak around the man. He dies without making a sound. She makes quick work of him before returning to the dead buffalo and deer. There is fresh blood on the rocks.
I guess the agreement only works as long as you don’t offer yourself on a platter. She might be appeased, but certainly not tamed.
I shake from the adrenaline coursing through my veins, and Griffin’s hand settles over my back, anchoring me. The Roc is a force of nature, and I’m glad I can lay eyes on her, but my body still wants to escape.
She flies away with the remaining meat in her blue talons, taking it to her nest. I fall against Griffin, letting out a long string of insults. Sarah and the other villagers look grim. They just lost a friend. Personally, I would have let the snake eat my entire arm before letting the Roc see me.
When night comes, they light a pyre for the man who died. There is no body to burn, so they give a few of his belongings to the flames. Griffin and I pay our respects, then we say our quick goodbyes. The villagers have given us back the crates, filled with food. We’re ready to go.
Laura watches Griffin with longing, and right as he’s about to enter theBeetlebefore me, she gets a hold of his arm. He freezes.
“Please, Griffin,” she says. “Can I come with you? I can be of great help in a home. I can clean, cook, and entertain you.”
Hey!I think.I’m already doing that!
“I want to follow you on your travels,” she continues. “And…” she pauses. “And I wish to be with you. You must get lonely on the roads. And I’m lonely here.”
I try my best to keep my expression neutral, even if I’m a little annoyed. This is none of my business. For a heartbeat, I think that he might say yes. After all, that’s the deal I offered him two weeks ago, minus the whole Iwant to be with youpart. And he did let me in.
“Sorry. Not interested,” Griffin says bluntly. Then he enters theBeetlewithout a second glance.
I hide my smile as best as I can before getting in and closing the hatch behind me. I should not rejoice in someone’s failure and disappointment. But I’m only human.
We leave Yellowstone under the cover of darkness, leaving behind the Roc and her little menagerie, and I’m not sorry.
6
Oliver.
“The Revival Project was a fool’s idea. A desperate attempt at regaining control over the world we reigned over for centuries. Even if it succeeded, and they built an army of mutated soldiers, what could they have done? Did they expect their soldiers to face the gods on a daily basis? To fight them for lands? Even the nukes our armies threw at some of them weren’t enough to kill them. They just went dormant again to heal, and came back stronger. Their skins are too thick, their bodies too strong. All that it did was render entire territories too radioactive for human life and the reason why New York is now a no-man’s-land.
