Here's the first chapter of Griffin Ranger #3. I don't have a publication date for this yet, but probably later in the year, maybe early fall. I'm still unsure if I'll be running another Kickstarter, but Ill be sure to post about it if I do. This chapter hasn't been copy-edited, so please excuse any typos.
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The insects were bad that night. The rain had finally stopped, and every bug in the jungle was using the brief dry spell to do all the business they’d put off during the day. The night was alive with their chirps and buzzing, while clouds of mosquitoes and gnats swarmed everywhere. Water dripped from the overhead greenery, saturating the forest floor Harrell crouched on. A column of leafcutter ants marched over his outstretched talons, treating them as just another obstacle. The biggest ants carried pieces of foliage hacked off from the bush he was hiding under, while tiny ants clung to the cuttings, antenna waving. The moving river of leaves and ants continued down the dirt trail, rustling through the litter, until they vanished into the gloom.

At least the leafcutter ants ignored him. The first night of this stakeout a swarm of army ants moved through the area, which sent him running like his tail was on fire. But it was the mosquitoes that were the worse. They were everywhere. They couldn’t penetrate his feathers, fur or the scales on his talons, but he made sure every vulnerable bare spot was slathered with repellent. Even that didn’t stop the bugs from trying, the high-pitched whine of their wings a constant annoyance any time he stopped moving. And he hadn’t moved for a good three hours.

The dark of the Isthmus jungle at night was deeper than anything Harrell had experienced. The canopy blocked out the moonlight, and this far in the lights from the construction site didn’t penetrate. In the distance the faint Ka-Chunk, Ka-Chunk of machinery driving pylons into the ground told him what direction to go when it was finally time to head back. This was his third night, and still nothing. Maybe the informants had it wrong—maybe they weren’t going to come at all.

Harrell shifted, trying to get feeling back in his hind legs. He wanted to leave, but Ranger Chark was adamant that the stakeout continue until dawn. Fifty yards down the trail, closer to the construction site, another ranger lay in wait. She was Lareen, a giant brute of a jungle griffin. Normally she’d be at the Flight Festival with the other adults, but last year she’d had complications while egg laying. The medical savants saved her and the egg, but at the cost of her reproductive organs. Bitter and angry, she happily volunteered for this job, while her long-suffering mate was stuck back at the roost with their chick.

Was that something? He tried to listen through the hum of mosquitoes. It was hard to distinguish the normal sounds of animals moving through the forest floor from footsteps on the trail, but he was certain he’d heard something different. This trail was the only way down to the construction site from the jungle—if they were coming, they had to take this route. The only other way was along the rail tracks, which would either leave them dead from being hit by a rail-runner, or caught by the night workers.

He adjusted the night-vision goggles strapped to his face. Not only did they allow him to see in the blackness, but they protected his eyes from the mosquitoes. Normally he wasn’t delicate about being bitten by insects, but the mosquitoes here carried the shaking fever. The griffins and hanz native to the area had some resistance, but it was deadly to any Northern Continent griffin like himself. The entire Isthmus was crawling with horrible parasites. The shaking fever was the worse, but there was yellow-eye fever, nasty intestinal ailments if you made the mistake of drinking the water, sand-fly rot, fly larva that burrowed into the skin, and a hundred other things.

That’s why the longtooth workers so valuable. Not only were they stronger than two or three herders put together, they were completely immune to both shaking and yellow-eye fever. Coming from the jungles and savannas of Tropica, the heat and insects didn’t bother them. They preferred to work at night, which meant construction could continue 24 hours a day. The only problem was that herders and wolfen hated the giant cats, and refused to work with them. Harrell and the other griffin rangers working security along the canal were constantly breaking up fights and defusing confrontations.

Most of the canal workers knew enough not to attack the longtooths outright, but local herder adolescents had no such qualms. They didn’t try to kill the big cats, but harassed them. They made a game of seeing who could touch one, or steal something without getting caught. But their games grew violent, and last week one of them actually sliced off a longtooth’s stubby, black-tipped tail. Then the pack ran away into the night, yipping and holding the tail aloft in victory.

All the longtooths walked off the job, refusing to go back to work until the perpetrators were caught and punished. The rangers tried, but the local herders wouldn’t give up the culprits. Relations between the native herders and canal security were already tense, so ranger Chark took a different tactic. He warned they would meet any further attacks on the longtooths with lethal force, then told the rangers to leave the village alone. It took some convincing to get the longtooths to return to work, but they agreed when he told them about the plan to set a trap for the herders.

Which was how Harrell ended up stuck on the damp jungle floor in the middle of the night, under a dripping bush, with ants walking over him. The Flight Festival was in full swing, and most of the adult rangers were away attending it. If the rogue pack was going to strike again, this was the best time. Informants among the locals said they were planning another raid, but didn’t know which specific night. Harrell wasn’t looking forward to hurting or killing the young herders, but they had due warning about the consequences, and rangers didn’t give empty threats.

Finally, soft panting penetrated the whine of mosquito wings. These herders were good—not talking, avoiding puddles that would splash, stepping as quietly as they could manage. Besides mosquito repellent, the ranger hanz had also doused him and Lareen with some strong-smelling plant oils that hid their scent from the herder’s sensitive noses. If any griffin smell got through, hopefully they’d just dismiss it as something from one of the day workers.

He turned his head just enough to see down the trail. The goggles made everything an eerie gray, with the approaching herders blazing bright in the surrounding foliage. They wore dark tunics, and the herders with white patches on their fur blackened it with mud and dirt. They moved on two legs, slowly, in single file. The herders were counting on the griffin’s reluctance to work at night, and the darkness to hide them. It was a good plan—except they didn’t know about the night-vision goggles, or that there were two experienced adult rangers not at the festival.

Remaining absolutely still, Harrell watched the pack file by. There were ten of them, a few so small they looked barely out of puphood. The larger ones held knives. That didn’t worry him, confident he could strike before a counter-attack. And even if one got him, the chances of a herder-sized knife doing serious damage were low. His job was to chase them to where Lareen lay in wait. They’d chosen this site for the ambush because the jungle was so thick on either side of the trail the herders would be unlikely to scatter and lose themselves in the dark. While they had better night vision than a griffin, that night the black jungle handicapped even them.

The last herder passed Harrell’s hiding place, head constantly swiveling, checking to see if anyone followed them. The herder’s nose flared, and Harrell knew he smelled something unusual, but was having trouble separating out the scent of griffin from the plant oils and million other odors hanging in the humid air. Harrell would not give him that chance.
Sending a silent apology to the hard-working leafcutter ants he was about to disrupt, Harrell bunched his hind legs, digging his claws into the dirt, and launched onto the trail.

He spread his wings as soon as he was clear of the brush, screaming as loud as he could. That was as much to alert Lareen as it was to scare the herders, and it worked for both. Harrell was an enormous griffin, and the herders yelped and tripped over each other trying to get away. The ones in the lead tore down the trail, while the pack alpha tried to rally them.

“There’s only one!” He barked. “We can take him! Get back here!”

The rear herder had fallen in the mud and as Harrell stomped on him there was the snap of bones breaking and an agonized yelp. One of the other youngsters turned back to help and Harrell smashed him away with a wing, focusing on the leader. Too late the herder realized he was facing a serious attack, not a mock charge meant to scare. He turned to run just as Harrell crashed into him, sending them both down into the muck of the trail. Talons closed over the herder’s chest, pinning his arms and keeping him from using the knife.

Behind Harrell the herder he’d stepped on whimpered in pain, while the other lay in an unmoving heap nearby. A blow from a griffin’s wing could knock someone out, or break a neck. He’d check which one it was in a moment.

“Okay! Okay!” The herder turned his head in submission. “You got me. Let the others go.”

Harrell planned to bring the alpha back alive to face justice, but as he was about to let the herder up there was a metallic flash. A metal tag with symbols stamped on it hung in the herder’s left ear, attached through a tiny hole punched in the cartilage. Harrell couldn’t read the symbols, but he’d seen them before, at a place he never wanted to think of again, but revisited over and over in nightmares. And there was no way this young herder could have legitimately come by that tag.
The herder knew something was wrong when Harrell grew still, sucking in his breath.

“How dare you..” It was just a whisper, barely heard above the whimpers of the injured herder and the buzz of insects. And in the gloom the alpha spotted Harrell’s distinctive white forehead and shoulders, plumage no other griffin on the Isthmus wore, and realized the terrible mistake he’d made wearing the tag on a raid.

He opened his mouth to plead for his life, but never got the chance.

“How dare you!!” Harrell screamed and sank his talons into the herder as deep as they would go. The herder shrieked and kicked as Harrell tore into him, ripping him apart, tearing off limbs and finally his head. The alpha’s agonized shrieks and howls were enough to dissuade the others from heading back to help, and as they fled down the trail they ran directly into Lareen.

Branches and brush crashing, griffin screeches and wails of pain told him when the jungle griffin made contact. The noise didn’t last long, and soon the only sounds were insects and Harrell’s breath blowing through his nares. When he stopped shaking with rage and adrenaline, he stalked over to the other two herders. The one he’d trampled shrank back as he approached, whining, eyes rolling white with terror. Harrell thrust his head close, beak inches from the herder’s face, peering at his ears. They were bare—no tags.

With a snort he turned to the other one. He poked it with a talon, but it didn’t move. A moment’s study confirmed it was dead, probably from a broken neck. The ears on that one were unmarred as well.

Wet footsteps and splashing announced Lareen. Two herders walked in front of her on all fours, ears down and tails tucked tight against their bellies.

“Where are the others?” Harrell asked.

“Two ran into the jungle. The others aren’t moving. Didn’t bother to check if they were dead or not.” Lareen studied the pieces of the alpha herder. “You sure didn’t leave it to chance with this one, huh? Good job.”

Harrell showed her the alpha’s head with the metal tag. “Did any of them have one of these in their ear?”

“Oh- those. Dumb pups.” She tossed her head, black crest feathers flaring. “One of the pups I left back there, I think. These two are clean.”

“Can you walk those two back to the holding area?” Harrell asked. “I’m going to fly over to headquarters and let Chark know what happened.” He glanced at the wounded herder in the mud. “I guess I should let the clinic workers know about this one, too.”

“Yah—maybe they’ll even get to him before the jaguars or boas do.” Lareen cackled with amusement as the herder whimpered.

“Please, rangers,” A youngster with short brindled fur spoke up. “Let us carry Jot back. Don’t leave him here.”

Lareen glared at them. “You better not let that slow you down. I’m starving and I need a shower to get this blood off me. If you want to take him with us, move it!”

As the two herders hustled to get their injured companion out of the muck, Harrell ran down the trail, wings spread to gather enough momentum for take-off. The trail was so narrow his primary feathers touched the vegetation on both sides, water splashing as he built up speed. A push from his hind legs got him airborne, and he quickly rose over the canopy, leaving the bugs, blood and death behind.

I shouldn’t have lost control like that. Harrell clenched his talons. While he was within his rights to kill the herders, he didn’t have to. He already had a reputation for intolerance of anything having to do with creatures beyond the gate, and this would not help.

He banked right, the lights from the construction site and the distant twinkle of the worker dorms lighting his way back. He followed the trail from the air to where the longtooths labored in the Long Cut. The canal trench was so deep it took him a moment to pick out the working figures, loading shattered rock onto conveyor belts that would take it out of the canal to waiting rail-runner cars.

“Hoy, ranger!” A small male brown griffin, a species native to the Isthmus, flew up to greet him. He was a sub-adult apprentice, providing a last line of security in case any herders got past Harrell and Lareen. “Success?”

“We got most of them. Lareen’s taking the survivors to the holding area. A couple got away, but I don’t think they’ll be coming back.”

“Chark’ll be happy to hear that!”

“Keep an eye open for the ones that ran into the jungle. They might turn up here.”

“If they survive the snakes and jaguars, maybe.” The local griffins were very familiar with the hazards that lurked on the jungle floor.

Harrell turned and flew west towards the Endless Ocean. He followed the Long Cut, passing massive digging machines and rail-runner cars loaded with dirt and rock, destined to be dumped into the harbor near the canal’s mouth. That late at night most of the machines were idle, only the rail-runners and pile-drivers working. Greenies operated the large equipment, and they didn’t like to work at night. Skilled hanz ran the pile-drivers overnight, getting the supports needed for the canal’s locks in place. During the day griffins and greenies would take over, working on the enormous gates—work that would be too dangerous for non-flying people to risk.

When the distant lights of Canal City peeked over the horizon, he turned right again, heading towards the ranger headquarters. The tall black-rock tree that held ranger Chark’s roost was visible a mile away, surrounded by smaller trees that held the roosts of other high-ranking rangers. The tower holding administrative offices, additional roosts and meeting areas stood apart from the trees, allowing easy air access. One-story buildings sprawled out from the tower in a roughly circular shape for a hundred yards. The thin spire of a communications tower rose over the tree’s canopy, flashing red lights warning about support lines. Harrell had flown in so many times he could avoid the hazards surrounding the ranger’s station without having to think about it, steering toward the tower’s lit landing platform.

He landed with a thud, not as graceful as he would’ve liked. Now that the rush of battle had worn off, he realized how exhausted he was.

One of the hanz working with Chark came out to see who was there. She took one look at Harrell’s drooping wings and bloody talons before ducking back inside to tell Chark. Normally Harrell would’ve been wearing a barkbox to communicate with the base, but for this stake-out he brought nothing except the goggles. They couldn’t risk the herders being alerted by the creaking of a harness or a barkbox crackling at the wrong moment.

Chark appeared at the entrance. “Come in! Come in! I can see you’ve successful night, yes? I want to hear all about it!”
Harrell dragged himself after Chark. The head of Isthmus security was one of the local species — a skinny, red-faced griffin with stark black and white plumage. He was half the size of Harrell and the giant jungle griffins, but what he lacked in size he made up for in endless energy. Harrell doubted Chark slept; spending his days flying up and down the canal, supervising the rangers on duty, while doing tedious bureaucratic chores at night. While Harrell admired Chark’s work ethic, he found being around the red-faced griffin exhausting.

Harrell stooped to let the hanz remove his goggles. “We intercepted 10 young herders on the way to the work site. At least two of them had knives.”

Chark clicked his beak, leading Harrell into the lounge area. Harrell followed, pressing his wings tight against his body and trying not to look up at the ceiling or the walls next to him. At least the lounge wasn’t too bad—there were several ceiling-to-floor windows covered with mosquito netting, which offered a quick escape outside. That time of night no other griffins were around, the entertainment unit on the wall black and silent.

Chark continued to chatter, oblivious to Harrell’s discomfort indoors. “Let me get you a spike drink, yes? So then what happened? Did Lareen see any action? She’s been getting pretty restless lately. Killing something would do her good.”

“Lareen caught two alive that she’s taking to the holding area. She said she killed four, and two escaped. I killed two, one wounded.” Harrell stood next to a lounge, not wanting to get it filthy. He just wanted to go back to his roost, shower off the blood and dirt, and collapse in a nice comfortable nest.

“Pity, pity. But we warned them, yes we did! Locals aren’t going to be happy about this, though.” Chark got a drink container out of the cooler. Harrell didn’t like the stuff before, and now that it was spiked with a stimulant and had that bizarre fizzy carbonation, he liked it even less.

“None for me, please,” He held up a talon. “I’ll never get to sleep if I have any now.”

“Why don’t you relax—rest for a moment!” Chark motioned towards the lounges.

“I don’t think the cleaners would appreciate that. I really just need to wash and sleep. I promise I’ll scratch up a full report tomorrow.”

Chark took a big swallow of the spike drink Harrell had refused. “No need to rush. Since you’ve been doing this stake-out for three nights, I’m giving you three days off. I want you to go to the Flight Festival and enjoy yourself.”

Harrell opened his beak to protest, but Chark cut him off. “Nah nah! You’ve been with us over two years, and never took time off to go to the festival. I insist you go! Even if you don’t find a nice female to spend the time with, you must sample the food and see who’s there. I understand your Northern Continent festivals are pretty dreary affairs compared to ours.”

Harrell fluffed his nape feathers. “Not dreary. Serious. We take our Flight Festivals very seriously.”

“Dreary. Serious. Same thing. I still insist you go! I’ll get ranger Sleark’s apprentice to cover your shifts. Oh—that reminds me!” Chark stamped a foot on the floor and screeched: “Mareenie! I need you to call up the corpsers to bring back some bodies! They’re on the trail leading to the longtooth work area!”

“Yes, ranger!” The hanz’s voice filtered back from some other room.

Harrell decided not to say anything about one of the bodies being in pieces. “Lareen can guide the corpsers to the right spot. Can I go now?”

“Yes yes, if you’re that tired.” Chark waved him away. “Have fun at the festival. And remember—I’ll want to hear all about it when you get back!”

Harrell gave a quick bow before hurrying out before Chark changed his mind and asked for a detailed report. Right now he just wanted to sleep.

He dropped off the landing platform into a long glide towards one of the nearby roosts. Although he was technically just another ranger working security, his age and experience got him a prime tree roost near headquarters, rather than in the dorms the apprentices and lower-ranking rangers had to stay in.

The showers were located near the base of the large fig tree that held his roost. Although he was used to bathing in a pool to get clean, his time here had taught him the joys of a nice hot shower. He sat under the spray, letting it rinse off the blood that stained his talons, wash away the mosquito repellant and plant oils, and dissolve the dried mud that clung to his fur and feathers. He was too tired to use the cleanser bar that sat in a bowl near the controls and decided he’d forgo a thorough preening until tomorrow.

It was so nice he’d almost dozed off when the 15-minute chime rang. He could stay there longer, of course, but no more hot water after 15 minutes. Pushing the button to stop the flow, he shook himself to get as much water off as he could. In the constant humidity of the Isthmus, getting completely dry could be a lengthy task. Not wanting to use the lift and risk waking the three other rangers who had roosts in his tree, and too soggy to fly easily, Harrell took the long trudge up the stairs the hanz used.

His roost was the lowest one. It wasn’t fancy—a landing platform, a nest room, and a small attached space for personal items. Like everyone else, he ate at the commissary, and had no hanz living with him. Hanz periodically came to clean, and if he needed help with his equipment, he went to the ranger station. But he was happy just to have a private space. This much-coveted roost was one reason Chark could talk him into staying on there.

Sliding open the door, he stepped in and moved the mosquito netting into place across the doorway. He kept it open except during the worse storms, because he couldn’t stand being in an enclosed room any more. Being anywhere without a clear path to the outdoors made him panic. He could control it with an effort, but tried to avoid getting into those of situations if he could.

He didn’t bother turning on a light, tapping on the small room fan with a claw. That should help dry him and keep the heat from getting too stifling. A couple of chemical insect traps hung on the ceiling to take care of any mosquitoes or biting flies that slipped in before he closed the netting. He had dried meat bars in the storage area, and he almost grabbed a few to snack on before retiring. But the call of his nest was too strong, and he dropped into it with a sigh, belly first, hind feet hanging over the edge. Using the nest while he was this wet risked mildew on the cover, but he was beyond caring.
Harrell quickly fell asleep, listening to the insects, frogs and night birds, the distant ka-chunk, ka-chunk of the pile driver blending into his own heartbeat.