—
Even before the unification of the griffons under King Grover and his famed Idol of Boreas, the griffons were a belligerent race. They loved to fight, and they loved anything shiny they could get their claws on, whether it be coin, gold, or even the wayward polished rock. Disparate flocks regularly got into fights as soon as they encountered one another, brawling over trinkets and baubles and hoarding everything they could get. It was because of this griffon culture that they never stayed within the same place for too long, even with bags laden with loot. After all, a settlement was a target for the other flocks, an easy way to invite unwelcome guests to their coffers.
However, the strongest of the griffons had no such worry. Tempest Warlord Gale was the most fearsome of the griffons, famed for claws that could cut down trees in one swipe and wings that could conjure up a tornado with a single stroke. His flock was the most powerful in the area by far, and weary of the constant travel, they settled into the mountain that would later become Griffonstone, enjoying a life of leisure without hauling their winnings everywhere. The weaker flocks were forced to stay on the move if they wished to avoid Gale’s gaze, for he was the undisputed king over a cowering and broken kingdom.
But the belligerence and the greed of the griffons were very well entrenched. Gale, too proud of his own reputation, sought the lion’s share of every bounty his flock brought in, and while the total hoard of his flock was immense, a vast majority of it belonged to Gale, leaving the other griffons with what they believed were meager leftovers.
They got tired of it. After a particularly large haul was broken down into a mere anthill of shiny rocks for the other griffons fighting alongside Gale, they hatched a plan. Under the cover of night, they banded together and entered his home. They ambushed him while he was still asleep atop his fortune. His famed claws were torn from their sockets, kept as trophies for all present, and his powerful wings were plucked and broken, rendered forever useless.
Once they had brought Gale low, they tossed him off the mountain, sneering and jeering at him and confident that he would never be a threat to them.
Deprived of his most powerful tools, rendered flightless and clawless by those he had once flown with, Gale was overwhelmed with vengeance. Despite his broken and bruised body, he worked quickly, creating new weapons from the scraps he could find in the forests below his former home, some of which he himself had disposed of before his fall.
While Gale had numerous physical advantages before his fall, he was no stranger to the tools the other races boasted, having met them often while scouring for further riches. A hard, broad shard of metal secured tightly to a hardy branch became an axe, and before long, he had managed to fashion two of the brutal weapon.
The night following his betrayal, he began to climb. Where he could not find hoofholds to climb up on, he used his axes, digging deep into the mountain face and hauling himself up slowly and surely, inching towards his treasonous flock, driven by a seething, single-minded rage.
And the next night, after an entire day of non-stop climbing, he reached his destination. His bellow curdled the blood of his former flockmates, and they woke, each of them soaring into the air to combat him. Greed for the gold they had so recently claimed had blinded them to the danger.
Even clawless and flightless, the Griffon Warlord was still a force of nature. His axes, though blunt and made with only the most rudimentary of materials, flew in a whirlwind around him. Against his entire flock, each of them aiming to strike him true, he held his ground, and in his battle trance, he even pushed them back. Though he faced four or five at a time, he swung his own weapons even faster. He was a demon, and for each of his enemies that he managed to stun with a powerful blow, he rained down ten more in a mere second after.
He flowed through combat, weaving around the attacks of his foes to strike them in vital areas and bludgeon them down. When they flew, they found his aim impeccable, throwing whatever he could grab to bring them down to the earth they confined him to. So strong, so potent was his rage, that not even stone could turn his blades. His blows tore down the mountain, flattening the top and burying his former treasure under rubble.
—
With a fearful squawk, the last of the griffons tore off in the opposite direction, his wings flapping desperately to get him up into the air.
Gale, dripping with blood and laced with lacerations and cuts, his feathers having accumulated a thick layer of grime and dust, let out one last howl and flung his axe at the retreating figure. The weapon’s construction finally failed, and the stone that made up the axe head flew free from the haft, striking the final griffon betrayer in the head and causing him to plummet into the forests below.
Then, silence. It was eerie how quiet it was compared to the tumultuous thundering just moments before, but it seemed a calm finally descended, both on the site of the battle and to Gale’s fury. He collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily and propping himself against one of the large broken stones. The ground glittered, interspersed equally with riches and rock, stained with blood and blanketed with disheveled feathers.
I stepped out, my hoofsteps echoing loudly in the quiet. The exhausted griffon immediately raised his remaining axe and pointed it at me, though his arm slumped and he dropped his weapon when he got a good look at me.
“You… You no griffon,” he said, chuckling grimly. “Good. I worry I miss one.”
I made a show of looking around at the carnage, though I had long since known the extent of the damage. “Griffon, tellest thou me,” I said slowly, watching through the cerulean curtain of my mane as his good eye focused unsteadily on me. “Why dost thou murder thy flock? What couldst warrant such unrelenting fury that thou wouldst forsake even thine own life?”
He snorted, his head going limp, too tired to stay upright. “No innocents. No agony too much for traitors.”
I shook my head and watched as his breathing grew steadily shallower before finally ceasing altogether. What pitiable creatures they were, so vulnerable to treachery. A massacre such as this was just further proof as to the value of our unity and the true sanctity of the hive that prevented such meaningless waste. We would never know betrayal, and it was unfortunate that no other being could know that same wholeness, that same solidarity, that we knew.
These griffons, they sought only their own gain rather than the gain of the flock, and for that, they cast one of their own from their unity. For that crime, they suffered the vengeance of their abandoned hatchmate and paid the ultimate price.
I trotted off and took to the skies, the buzz of my wings the only sound present.
I snorted.
Betrayal was nothing more than a mere tool with which we may manipulate others, but within the hive, it was heresy.
The hive would forever be loyal to the queen, and in return, I would forever be faithful to the will of the hive.