The Enchanted Path (Book 1 of the Dreamfarers' tales)

Chapter 23 - A Lift, Please?

Much to Birch's disappointment, Dianthus gave the wake-up call to his friends at the very break of dawn.

"Come on, we gotta go," Dianthus said, nudging Cassidy softly.

"What—" she yawned, "—time is it?"

Dianthus nudged Birch too. "Time to go. Hop hop!"

"What the hay, kid!" Birch blurted out, turning away. "It's too early, go back to sleep already..."

"You don't understand," Dianthus chirped with a leap. "Wisp's back! It showed me another piece of Leirion's past!"

Those words managed to jolt Cassidy awake at once. "It did?"

"Indeed! In my vision, she was at least one year old, and Griselda was just leaving Willowglade. You know, I think we made the right decision going to the griffins," Dianthus said.

"Why, did you have any doubts before?" Birch replied sarcastically.

Did I? Dianthus couldn't say. Right after the first vision, he had been certain they were to check the griffins out, but he couldn't deny, at least to himself, that the discussion with Chief Flare did manage to mitigate his resolve. If anything, it made him pause and think...To question their route? Not yet.

Uhm? What's up there?

"Do we really have to go now?" the fawn complained.

"Well, you are not going to find breakfast here," Cassidy informed him, gesturing to the wasteland around them.

"Got it." Birch yawned and stretched his legs. "So, where do we head to, Captain?"

But Dianthus was stone still out of the shade of the rock, with his ears straight up.

"Gee, he's doing that again..." Birch commented earning a wing bump from the pegasus close by.

Dianthus ignored him and kept staring at nothing.

"In the shade," he murmured.

"What?"

"Back in the shade!" the unicorn commanded as he retreated under the rock so quickly that he stumbled and tangled his hindlegs.

"Oh, good..." he tried to free his legs from one another, but then a sudden commotion exploded in the sky right above them.

"Who's there?" came Cassidy's quivering voice. Dianthus, still with his legs tangled, felt her body shiver, pressed against his own.

"I can't tell," he said, nosing out of the shade enough to get a glimpse of the scene developing but to no avail. "Whatever they are, they're flying straight into the sun." Finally, he managed to free his hindlegs.

"Could they be griffins?" Birch ventured, listening to the battle cries and screeches scratching the ether.

"I fear we're going to discover it all too soon." Squinting his eyes against the sunlight, Dianthus could count four figures engaged in a deadly dance. Even from afar, he could determine that two out of the four were slightly smaller, but nothing more. He couldn't tell if they were all griffins either.

"I think they're done," he said after watching the two smaller silhouettes recoil under the bigger ones' assault until they yielded and flew away, croaking curses foul enough to prompt the unicorn to flatten his ears. Those surely did not sound like griffins. The other two avians, instead, started circling the very rock under which the three friends were hiding.

"They spotted us," Dianthus said sternly. "It's no use staying here."

"Are you saying we should just go out and greet those carnivores?" Birch asked with a snort.