The fiends stopped in their tracks, jolted by the noise.

Out of the billowing vortex of fog dove the gryphon.

It wasn’t like most of the gryphons depicted in art. This one resembled the creature on the Cemarite flag: Huge wings, dwarfing those of the largest condor, sprouted from between the shoulders. Its paws resembled a lion’s, with pads and five retracting claws but with toes more like fingers. It had a lion’s head and mane, but with horns like a bull. And its eyes blazed like white fire.

The gryphon snatched four of the creatures off the ledge — one in each paw. It speared a fifth with its horns. Its powerful jaws tore all five to pieces and dropped them, quickly snatching replacements.

As it hovered in place, the wind of the gryphon’s huge, beating wings caused the three warriors to take balancing steps and lean slightly into the rush of air. Krag struck down the remaining fiends near he and his friends.

Javo lifted his visor. They broke the triangle and all faced the remarkable scene.

“The gryphon protects us?” Krag muttered. “Or will it turn on us once these vermin are gone?”

“Either way,” Turgar said, counting arrows with gloved fingers, “let it slay however many it will, before we draw its attention.”

“Look at the ground,” Javo said, pointing with his sword.

They stood on layers of mostly intact bones from a thousand jumbled skeletons, highlighted with a smattering of gold coins and trinkets. As the fiends fell dead in rapid succession, it was obvious they were now joining their parents and ancestors.

“Behold,” Krag said. “The darkness, it recedes like a scroll.”

With each slain fiend, the light from the torch stretched further, and the glow of the triplet moons seeped through the fog.

The remaining fiends fled, wings fanning out and propelling them out of the light.

The gryphon flew after them, plucking one from the sky, then another. Before it could grab a third, it was brought short with a jerk.

One hind leg was shackled to the huge chain, the ankle raw and bloody from the friction.

The huge chain rattled, jerked and swung to and fro as the gryphon caught what fiends it could. The smarter ones flew out of range, gauging how far the chain would allow their adversary to reach. As they scattered, the gryphon concentrated first on those flying toward the city, then on all others.

When the last fiend left, the night was bright enough for the three men to make out the extent of the flat outcropping they now occupied. It was large enough to build a sea-going ship upon, with room left over.

The gryphon dropped down to the surface. It stood on hind legs, facing them. As it stared at them, each had the impression they were being studied with intelligence far beyond animal. The gryphon’s face was unmistakably feline, but it spoke with a human voice, “Hast thou found what ye seek, warriors?”

“We seek you,” Javo said.

Krag recoiled in suspicion, “Do not speak to it. This unnatural creature is surely the dark work of witchcraft.”

“Some brave the cliffs of Tirshal for lust of the gold scattered near its peak,” the gryphon said. “Is it gold which ye covet so strongly?”

Javo lowered his sword, thoughtful.

Krag tightened the grip on his warhammer.

“It is you that steals the gold of Cemar,” Turgar accused. An arrow was nocked, but he didn’t draw the string, awed by the presence of the gryphon.

“Thou hast killed many in battle, valiant Gabomite,” the gryphon told Turgar. “That is no dishonor, for a warrior. But to attack the innocent for naught but the lie of a schemer: that would be a pox on thy soul.”

“You know who sent us?” Javo asked.

The gryphon blinked wearily. “I know many things.”

“Perhaps we should only clip your wings,” Krag said, voice quavering.

“Many have tried, sailor of Bruk,” said the gryphon. “Thy courage matches thy great strength, ye who hath mastered thy fear. I would rather suffer not thy bones to be mixed in with this ignoble carpeting.”

“His name is Krag, the Wrecker,” Javo said. “This is Turgar, renowned as an archer on two continents. There are songs and poems which tell of my friends already. And I am Sir Javo, a knight of the Black Lancers.”

“But thou art a son of Cemaria,” said the gryphon.

Javo removed his helmet, exposing his bronze face, hawk nose, and black mane.

“Aye.”

Knighthood was not an institution practiced in Cemaria, hence few would imagine a Cemarite inside this black armor.

“I see more than just what these eyes show me,” said the gryphon, blinking those luminous orbs again.

“And what is your name?” Javo asked.

The gryphon tilted its head slightly, and smiled. “I am Freibuzar.”

Freibuzar’s ears pricked up. His eyes probed the sky behind them.

Krag was the next to notice it: a dimming of the moonlight; movement through the air. He whirled to see a fiend flying from the direction of the city.

Freibuzar’s great wings beat the air. He shot upwards and plucked the fiend out of the sky, twisting it apart in his front paws. The two halves of the gruesome body fell on the pile of recently slain, and a purse fell near Krag’s feet, bursting apart upon impact with a reptilian skull, sending gold coins flying in all directions.

Krag squatted to examine the purse and what coins remained therein. “The truth stares us in the face, my friends.”