The Flight of the Griffin is now available on Amazon kindle!
They become the Magician, Thief, Priest and Fighter when a magical book guides them upon a quest that pits them against magic, demons and ‘The Hawk,’ an evil hunter of men.
Join a race against time to find three crystal skulls that must be brought together, while all the forces of Chaos try everything to stop them!
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Chapter 1
An uncommon evening
The floorboard creaked under
the sole of his felt boot - a calculated risk whenever entering a sleeping
man's room uninvited.
A
breeze fluttered the loose linen curtain, and the sleeper stirred at the
welcome respite from the hot sticky night. The prowler slowly exhaled the
breath that was starting to burn in his lungs, every sense tingling, receptive
to any change in the room or a sound from the street below.
The
sleeper, thankfully, continued to sleep.
The
street under the second-storey window was silent, the night given up to the
occasional rounds of the city watch and those set on a darker business, the
never-ending cat and mouse game that went mostly unappreciated by the law-abiding
citizens of the sleeping city.
The
summer had been one of the hottest people could ever remember, taxing the
energy of the city’s inhabitants to the limit. Several of the more elderly
citizens down at the port could be heard explaining that, ‘in their day’, the
summers were often this hot, and indeed often hotter. Of course, these were the
same group who would entertain the regulars at the portside taverns with tales
of goblin hordes, ferocious sea serpents or the time the winters were so cold
that the seas had frozen solid.
‘A
man could have walked from here to Minster
Island without ever
seeing a boat or even getting his feet wet,’ was a much-repeated reminiscence.
Whatever history really concealed, it was a hot summer, and this, a
particularly humid night.
Pardigan
watched the now softly snoring form and, moving his foot from the traitorous
board, crept towards the cabinet that he knew held his prize. It was an elegant
cabinet - its construction given over to more than mere function. Gracefully
curved legs supported drawers and shelves that were fronted by a scrollwork of intricate
designs. He inserted the blade of his knife between the edges of the middle
left-hand drawer and felt for the hidden catch. If the information Quint had
given him was correct, the false front should spring open. A prickle of sweat tickled
his brow and he wiped it absently away. Glancing over to the still-sleeping
form, he applied a little more pressure on what he hoped was the catch.
Nothing.
The
merchant stirred, smacked his chops, exhaled wetly and then returned to snoring.
Pardigan tried again.
Most
people hated the fat merchant, known for his cheating ways and vile temper, so
he and Quint had set about the business of planning the robbery with great
enthusiasm. The break had come quite by chance when Quint had met the
apprentice of a cabinetmaker who’d been happy to talk about the merchant, and
the cabinet he’d helped his master build for him.
‘The
shame of it is that the true beauty of the cabinet will never be appreciated,’
the apprentice had moaned. ‘Such a cunning mechanism my master contrived to
conceal the hidden safe-box, nothing of the like have I seen before, nor I fear
will I ever see again.’ He had been all too happy to describe and even sketch
the piece for Quint who, of course, had shown great interest, marvelling at the
skill of the cabinetmaker and, naturally, his gifted apprentice. Several
glasses of elder ale had kept his new friend’s throat well lubricated, an
investment in tonight’s escapade that they had both placed huge hopes in.
Up
until this point, the information seemed to be good; the cabinet did indeed
look like the sketch that he and Quint had spent so much time studying.
Pardigan’s hopes had soared when he’d first set eyes on it as he was slipping
over the windowsill. Right up until now, that is as his frustration grew. Because
the Source damned catch simply wouldn’t shift - if catch it was. Pardigan was
beginning to wonder if the real catch hadn’t been poor old Quint, whom the
apprentice had conned into buying several glasses of elder ale on another
blisteringly hot day.
