The stories of the buffalo swirled in Green’s head as she ran with the herd. Dusthoof ran ahead of her, darting to the left and right and sometimes running in a circle around Green, urging her on. Green did her best to keep up.
In the days since that first night, the stories had been different. Instead of tales of ponies, there were tales of brave buffalo warriors, or wise buffalo sages who led the tribe in times of crisis. The night before the elder had even spoken of a time before the buffalo came to this land, when the entire plain had been filled with water. Fish and all sorts of strange creatures used to swim here.
Green didn’t know if it was true, but it had been a nice story. She imagined what the plain would look like filled with water, where the tall grasses that waved in the breezes would instead be waving fronds. The high noon sun would scatter when viewed from underwater.
Then the shriek of an eagle tore through her fantasies. Her legs locked in fear, and she tumbled head over hooves, sliding and falling into the long grass.
“Greenie!” Dusthoof wheeled around, urging her to her feet. “Are you okay?”
Clouds scudded overhead, a tapestry of white over a background of blue. She couldn’t see the gryphons, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. She got to her feet, her gaze swiveling from Dusthoof to the larger buffalo as they raced by. One slowed. “Stay with the herd!” he called. “You small ones especially.”
His words sent anxiety spiking through Green like lightning. “Why would he say that?” she asked Dusthoof.
“Eagles,” Dusthoof said with a snort. “They can’t get me, though. I’m not that small!”
Eagles. Just eagles. “What about gryphons?” Green asked.
“Gryphons?” Dusthoof looked at the sky. “You mean the eagles with lion’s tails?” Green’s heart squeezed. “They don’t eat us. I guess they could, since they’re huge, but I’ve never even seen them land. Are they smart? Maybe we can ask the Elder about gryphons, and get a story.”
Green’s hind legs trembled. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to.”
“You scared of gryphons?” Dusthoof said, her ears flicking back and forth. “Why? You can just burn ‘em up with your fire, like you light every night. No gryphon could ever get you!” She jumped up and pranced in a circle. “Don’t be afraid! Now c’mon! We’re falling behind!”
She darted ahead, and Green stayed still, staring after her.
“Green!” Dusk caught up, startling her out of her stupor. “Stay with the herd! You heard it too, right?”
“Was it…was it a gryphon?” Green asked, forcing herself into a trot and matching Dusk’s speed. Even after all the days of traveling, he wasn’t very fast.
“Yeah, it was a gryphon.” Dusk craned his neck to look up, his wings shivering against his back. “Be careful. I think…I think I recognized him.”
Green almost fell again, and she relaxed her muscles with effort. “Aren’t we safe?”
“With the buffalo, we should be, but only if you stay close.”
Green opened her mouth to ask if he would fly to see if the gryphons were hiding above the clouds, then shut it again. If he flew, and the gryphons were there…could they snatch him out of the air? Probably.
Anger kindled in her chest, along with anxiety. Of course Dusk couldn’t fly. They’d never be free, not if the gryphons had chased them this far.
Another eagle shriek split the sky, and Dusk’s eyes narrowed. “Go on, Green, keep running.”
Green nodded. With a deep breath, she darted ahead, trying to run as fast as Dusthoof while staying within a hairsbreadth of the thundering hooves of the buffalo. Dusk darted into the thick of the herd behind her, and ahead through gaps in the running shapes she saw flashes of Amber’s light brown coat as she galloped toward the front of the herd.
Green ran faster, wincing and laying her ears flat at another screech. Where was Dusthoof?
A feathery form arced overhead, and Green squealed, dashing directly underneath the belly of a larger buffalo. The buffalo reared, tossing its horned head toward the diving gryphon, and the gryphon pulled up with a squawk.
“Be careful, little one!” he said, lowering his shaggy head to face Green.
Her flanks heaved. “They’ll kill us!”
He narrowed his eyes, then lifted his head and gave a bleating bellow. “Predators! Bunch up!”
The call was repeated, the run slowing as buffalo began to gather together. Soon the racing tribe had formed into a slow moving, almost continuous mass, with only the largest buffalo at the edges. There was still no sign of Dusthoof through the thick of bodies.
Then a wrenching squeal tore through her ears. She looked up to see Dusthoof hanging limp in Rikarr’s talons. Green’s heart leapt, churning icewater through her veins. Two more gryphons hovered next to him.
“Stop!” Chief Grass Song bellowed. The rumbling of dozens of cloven hooves ceased at once, buffalo all around her gasping in fear or bellowing in anger, as the enormous gryphon held Dusthoof between his talons.
Rikarr’s lionlike tail waved in midair, a cruel dance. “I apologize,” he called out. “This child,” he said as he hefted Dustoof’s limp form in one talon, “was not my target.”
“Let her go immediately!” Chief Grass Song shouted, stomping the ground. Dirt churned underneath the cloven hoof.
“Certainly, that can be arranged.” Rikarr flew higher, Dusthoof still in his talons. The small buffalo was still, her eyes closed, and her head lolled. Green stifled a whine of fear, and she stumbled forward, legs shaking. Part of her wanted to hide underneath the largest buffalo she could find. Another wanted to scream to Rikarr to let Dusthoof go.
And a third part of her despaired. This was it. If they didn’t die, Dusthoof would. There was nothing she could do.
“Green!” Dusk hissed, appearing at her side. Grass scattered as he darted into the thick of the herd, toward the Chief. Green forced herself to follow.
“Come now. Let us talk about this.” Rikarr pointed to Dusthoof with an outstretched talon, the sun glinting off the metal tips. “Your young calf will not be harmed. The last thing we want to do is harm any of you.”
“Then let her go!” Amber shouted. Green’s heart flipped. The earth pony stood next to the Chief, snout thrust high. “That little one has nothing to do with this!”
“You’re right.” Rikarr’s wings flapped slowly, his tail twitching. “She does not.” His gaze roved the herd, and Green almost fell when it settled on her. “Chief of the Buffalo, I deeply regret that this calf was caught in the middle of this. If your tribe were not huddled so tightly around those ponies, she would not have been in the way of my strike. How fortunate for all of us that she was not hurt. I ask only that you turn those three ponies among you over to us. Then we will gladly return your calf to you.”
The enormous Chief buffalo kept staring at the sky, where Rikarr hovered with lazy flaps of his enormous wings. Amber was whispering something, hissed words of be careful and don’t listen to him.
“He’ll kill her and us if you do what he says,” Dusk shouted, and the Chief swiveled his head. Green quailed under his gaze. The buffalo’s eyes were narrowed, the whites tinged red.
“Tell me who this creature is, and why he is chasing you,” he growled. “Why is one of our young ones in danger?”
“They’re—”
“Those ponies down there are fugitives,” Rikarr called. “I am a gryphon of my word. Turn them over to us, and your calf will be returned unharmed.”
“We aren’t fugitives!” Amber shouted up to the gryphon. Green’s stomach twisted, and she almost expected one of the three to dive down and strike her immediately. “We won’t be slaves again! We’ll die first! Kill us if you have to, but let her go!”
“So you agree then,” Rikarr said. “Excellent. Step right out here and we will return her.”
“Amber, don’t!” Dusk hissed.
Green’s breathing was loud in her ears, and her vision fuzzed yellow, white spots dancing in flecks in front of her eyes. There was nothing they could do. Dusthoof…
Dusthoof hadn’t been scared of the gryphons. Amber was brave. But they were powerless. They all were. Just like her mother and father. They would die.
Rikarr hovered, tilting his head. Then he barked a command to one of the other two gryphons with him, a gryphon with a chipped beak who took Dusthoof from Rikarr as though she were a sack of gems that the earth ponies dragged from the mines. The chipped beak reminded her of Talisk, but this gryphon was much bigger.
“No one is being killed!” Chief Grass Song bellowed. “Return her immediately!”
A large shape appeared behind Green. “Are you afraid of them, little one?”
Green turned. The gray furred elder nodded at the sky. “Why not light the fire, like you do every night?”
Green blinked, the words not settling. Light the fire. It wouldn’t work. Her parents had failed, and now they were dead.
“I had hoped it would not come to this, but I will use any means necessary to take those ponies.” Rikarr flew in a slow circle, his shadow flitting over the herd. Larger buffalo shifted, groups here and there tightening around smaller forms and moving away from Green.
“Be calm, little one,” the elder whispered. “Your magic is there. Just use it.”
“If you do not give them to us, we will assume you are protecting these criminals,” Rikarr announced, resuming his hover between the other two gryphons. “We will then be forced to toss this one aside and resume our hunt.” he gestured to Dusthoof, who was still gripped in the scarred gryphon’s talons. “And though I hope I’m wrong, given your tendency to get in the way, she probably won’t be the last.”
His voice was like claws tightening around Green’s neck, and it didn’t let up. “Your herd has…” His sharp yellow gaze roved the ground. “Ah. Seven young calves, one less than a month old. Would you really put them at risk to protect these three ponies, who aren’t even of your herd?”
“You won’t get them!” The Chief snorted. “We’ve been protecting our youth from eagles like you for generations!”
“All evidence is to the contrary,” Rikarr said, pointing to the gryphon who held Dusthoof. “Now. I will give you until she wakes to decide.”
The Chief stamped his hooves, turning to the rest of the herd. Growls and rumbles resonated in Green’s body, and despair tightened her throat. Dusk met her eyes, his gaze lost.
There was nothing they could do. The Chief knew it.
“What will you do to them, if we give them to you?” the Chief called. Dusk hissed in a breath.
“Dusthoof is brave,” the elder whispered. “You can be too. Stories of unicorns say they can bring down lightning, and play with the stars.” The elder’s voice gained the singsong cadence of a story. “Why should you listen to these gryphons?”
Green took a breath. Dusthoof had mentioned stories of gryphons. Her parent’s stories played in her mind.
Dusthoof had also said to burn them up.
She would probably fail, just like her mother had. But she had to try. For Dusthoof.
“Come now. I truly don’t want to hurt any young buffalo. All I ask is that you not interfere with my work,” Rikarr called.
“Light the fire, little one,” the elder whispered.
Green closed her eyes, picturing Rikarr in her mind. The slow beating wings, the long lion’s tail that ended in a small curl, and the cruel yellow eyes and sharp beak. The one who had killed her mother, and maimed her father.
Light the fire. Just like lighting the fire.
But this wasn’t lighting a fire. Not at all.
Magic gathered in her horn, a pressure behind her head like a hammer striking stone. Power doubled, then doubled again, a steady thrum of strength that heated her forehead and brought blinding pain.
She opened her eyes through a haze of red. Rikarr hovered in midair, his gaze focused elsewhere. His beak moved, but she couldn’t hear the words.
Dusthoof’s voice echoed in her mind. Burn em up.
Burn them. Burn Rikarr.
She wondered if that was what her mother had thought.
Then spiraling flame leapt from her horn, a rush of energy and anger. Through red and yellow and the sound of crackling, she saw Rikarr’s eyes widen and heard his wings flap as he climbed.
Too late. An inferno of spiraling flame engulfed the group of gryphons, at the same moment a furry form dropped from the sky. The Chief and Amber lunged forward, the earth pony staggering under the weight of the falling calf as she caught Dusthoof across her back.
Another form fell moments later, a flaming mass of feathers. Its talons were not covered in metal, and its beak was scarred. Smoke and heat exploded outward as the firestorm died, and two winged forms arced away.
Green staggered, energy leaving her all at once. Then the elder was there, a soft mass of fur that gave her support.
Dusk jumped up, spreading his wings. “You were right, Rikarr!” he shouted at the retreating gryphons. “She is dangerous!”
Green pushed herself back up on shaky legs. At the same moment light flashed on Green’s flank.
A small picture of a burst of flame had appeared over the green fur. Green smiled.
“See, little one?” the elder said. “You have nothing to fear.” Ahead of them, Amber nudged Dusthoof to her feet. The little buffalo met Green’s eyes from across the field. She was safe.
She had done it. She hadn’t killed Rikarr. But Dusthoof was safe. For now…they were safe.
Dusk turned to her, eyes bright. “Green, with you, with your power, we’ll make it! We’ll make it to Equestria!”