The Flight of the Griffin by C.M. Gray Read Free Book Online Page B

food ready for an evening meal. They had decided to eat up on deck and Pardigan was still below cutting bread, when he noticed the table. There, sleeping as if nothing had happened was the cat - her head propped on the book.
    ‘Where did you come from?’ he gasped.
    The cat lifted its head and regarded him sleepily. ‘Oh, you’re back. You’ve had a visitor,’ it purred. ‘Not a very nice man at all. I’m glad to see you had a tidy up.’ It rose and stretched as if it had spent the afternoon sleeping in the same position. ‘He was looking for…things, but didn’t find anything, he got very upset. I think you’ll find his calling card on the back of the mast there.’
    Pardigan turned to look at the mast and at first couldn’t see anything. Then at the top, near where it went through the roof, he saw a black mark. He clambered up onto a chair to get a better look.
    ‘It’s a spell,’ purred the cat. Pardigan froze.
    ‘It’s a listening spell, really quite clever. It lets whoever set it know when you return, so he can listen to what you’re saying.’ Pardigan crouched on the chair, not daring to move, and stared at the cat. The cat stared back at him. ‘Don’t worry, I stopped it working. He’ll think the boat is empty and you’re still away.’
    ‘You...stopped it working?’ said Pardigan.
    ‘I did,’ purred the cat and went back to sleep.
    A little uncertainly, Pardigan decided to look at the spell mark a little closer. It was the outline of a hawk burnt into the wood - he reached out to touch it.
    ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ the cat purred, opening an eye. ‘He may have left traces of something very nasty for you to touch…I would have.’
    Pardigan slowly pulled his hand back and got down. ‘I bet you would have,’ he muttered under his breath.
    ‘There’s a good boy,’ purred the cat.
    ‘Where did you go during all this?’ asked Pardigan.
    ‘I went…away, you wouldn’t understand, so don’t even try.’ She curled back down, returning to sleep.
    ‘There you go insulting me again,’ muttered Pardigan and he went off to tell Quint.
    They cast off at daybreak and slipped out of port into open sea, both boys feeling that they were being watched, but both very glad to have some water between them and whoever their uninvited guest had been.
    ****
     

    Chapter 4
    A Hunter's M oon
    The trip up the coast to Sterling Port took the boys three days, during which they were blessed with good weather and good winds all the way. Sailing gave immense pleasure to all of them, but it was Quint who truly revelled in it. As the wind became stronger he made his way to the very front of the boat and stood on the bowsprit, where he indulged himself in shouting and laughing into the face of the sea.
    Spray covered him, bursting in a rainbow of colours time and time again as he held on, bracing himself against the pounding of the waves that tried to dislodge him. Several times he had to grab for the safety rope to stop being washed over by a particularly big wave but simply laughed, loving every moment. Eventually, he dripped his way back to Pardigan at the helm.
    ‘Oh, Pardigan, you just have to try it, it makes you feel so…so…alive!’
    Pardigan excused himself from the fun on the grounds that he didn’t want to be speaking with the fish anytime soon.
    On the second night of the journey they entered a protected anchorage to rest and get a good night’s sleep. They caught some fish for their supper and slow roasted them above glowing coals. The mouth-watering smell made their stomachs rumble and they ended up eating them while they were still hot enough to burn their fingers, cramming bits of fish into their mouths as they laughed at each other's efforts. After eating, they sat back contented, gazing up as the stars began to appear.
    Quint was thrilled to spot ‘sea fairies’ in the water as every wave that formed a crest glowed an eerie greeny blue in the starlit night.
    ‘Its small creatures