Dylap

by A. C. Salter

  Peter clambered to his feet, neck craned back as he stared up in awe, face reflecting the green light.

  “If only I had a camera,” he muttered.

  “What’s a camera?” Figit asked, giving the phenomenon a cursory glance. She seemed bored as if the sight of the strange fluttering curtains above was something she saw with regularity.

  “It’s a device for taking pictures,” Peter explained. “Capturing the image before you and recording it to a digital memory to be printed on paper.”

  “Earth magic?”

  Peter shook his head but Jaygen cut in before he answered. “Yes, Earth magic,” he said, feeling agitated at having been awoken from his dreams of her.

  “If I remember my science lessons from school, the aurora has something to do with the Earth’s magnetic field in the polar regions, reacting with the radiation from the sun,” Peter offered.

  Figit frowned, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “More Earth-born madness. It’s the wedding vail of Diana, god of the moon. It helps guide the luna moths as they traverse the night between the world and the big silver disk.”

  Peter snorted, placing his hands on his hips. “Vail of Diana? Luna moths? And you think my explanation is madness.”

  Jaygen caught movement in the troughs of the wavering light. A shadow that danced with the flowing greens, rising and falling as if riding the ghostly current. “Look,” he said pointing it out.”

  “What is it?” Peter asked.

  Figit’s ice blue eyes rose to the shadow before she grinned. “Luna moth.”

  Impossibly large wings fluttered beneath the light, catching the troughs to ascend with the peaks. They emerged through the transparent vail like a ray from the sea, gliding up to the stars and revealing a thick elongated body that sparkled as if made from stardust. Long antennas protruded from a bat like head, triangular ears swivelling over bright eyes which took up most of the face. Below the orbs was a pig like snout which sniffed before its mouth opened to trumpet a long sad note, much like whale song. Almost lazily its wings gathered the air to bare it higher, disappearing into the glowing light to re-emerge further along.”

  “There’s another,” Peter exhaled excitedly, his smile widening.

  Jaygen couldn’t help but smile himself as another moth floated alongside the first. Two glistening giants riding the flowing vail to the moon. They both sang the sorrowful tune as they swam in and out of the waves, spoiled by the screech of the scraw-harpy as it swooped in to land on his shoulder. She glared at the moths, sharp beak opening before snapping shut.

  “I don’t think Fluffy likes them,” Peter commented, his gaze never leaving the moths until they floated from view, followed moments later by the vail which dissolved to nothing, leaving a cold empty sky full of stars. “Actually, I don’t think Fluffy likes anything other than Jaygen.”

  “Stop calling her Fluffy,” Jaygen said as he raised his arm for the bird to hop onto. “Circle about,” he whispered to her. “Make sure we’re not been tracked.”

  The scraw-harpy leapt from his arm and flew back the way it had come, rising into the night. He watched her until she vanished from view, then caught Figit watching him with deep curiosity.

  “How did you come by the bird?” she asked. “Scraw-harpies aren’t easy to train.”

  “Scraw-harpies are impossible to train,” Jaygen said. He settled back on the sack, placing his sword back onto his lap and closed his eyes, willing the dream of Fieri to return.

  “We stumbled across Fluffy last year,” Peter explained, realising that Jaygen wasn’t in the mood for talking. “She was caught in a trapper’s snare, all tangled up and hurt. Her leg was bleeding badly from struggling and one of her wings was broken.”

  “You released and nursed her back to health and now she feels indebted to you?”

  “Not to me. She damned near pecked my face off when I neared, but him,” Peter nodded towards Jaygen, “Soothed her with a whisper and fed her with scraps of meat. He made a splint for the broken wing and carried her on his shoulder for weeks until it had healed.”

  “So, he has got a soft side,” Figit said. Jaygen pretended to be asleep, feeling her stare upon him and wishing they changed the subject. “As mean as he seems, he has a caring nature. Why else would the two of you feel indebted to him. If he kills Winter, that will be three of us.”

  “Nobody owes a debt to me,” Jaygen growled. “You’re free to leave when you want. But please be quiet.”

  “Is he always this tetchy?” Figit mumbled. Jaygen sensed her shifting closer to Peter, like two conspirators wanting to plot against a third.

  “Not always…”

  Jaygen rose to his feet, throwing the sack over his back. “I’m going for a walk,” he said.

  “We’ve been walking since the autumn,” Peter said. “Don’t you want to rest?”

  “I do, but it seems I’ll get none with the pair of you chatting like two old washer women.” He put them behind him as he stormed away, pacing several strides towards a lone tree before he caught the scent of wood smoke. A moment later the scraw-harpy swept down to land on his arm, intelligent eyes glowering towards the forest.

  “We’re being followed,” he said, gesturing for Peter and Figit to rise. He couldn’t see the smoke in the darkness, but caught the flickering glow of a camp fire a few feet inside the tree line.

  “Jack?” Peter asked, stamping life back into his feet.

  “Possibly,” Jaygen replied as they began to amble towards the mountain once again.

  “Or another team of bounty hunters,” Figit added.

  “Either way, we need to be gone before daybreak. We won’t be hard to pick out on the plain come the morning.”

  They trudged through the snow for the next few hours, Jaygen hoping for a storm to cover their tracks, but it had been a clear night turning into a clear morning. He glanced back as the sun hit the way they had come, marking out the dark trail they had left and making shadows of the men that followed it. He counted eight. Small dots emerging from the forest. Small enough to fit in his thumb nail from this distance, but close enough to reflect the steel they carried.

  “We need to make for the rocks at the base of the mountain,” he told Figit, the girl having kept to a punishing pace already, Peter struggling to keep up, hissing with every other step. “We’ll lose them there.”

  “You’ll lose me,” Peter complained, wincing.

  Jaygen put an arm around his friend’s back, taking some of the weight from his blistering feet. “No, we won’t. Now stop grumbling, we’re not that far now.”

  The foot hills of the mountain were steeper than they appeared from the plain. Several frost crusted spurs sweeping down from the range of white peaks, the tallest looming above them as they began the climb. They kept to the rocks, stepping over any patches of soft earth and snow, leaving nothing for their pursuers to find.

  “Skirt around the lower portion, pick a path though the gullies and keep from view until we reach the other side,” he said, pushing Peter ahead of him.

  “No,” Figit replied, fixing him with a blue glare as she nodded higher. “Our way lies near the summit. I can feel her. Winter is close.”

  Jaygen paused, hands reaching for his sword. “She is here?”

  Figit gave a single nod as she began to ascend, her lithe form making easy work of the terrain. She hopped from boulder to rock before using the branch of a frozen tree to swing onto a ledge.

  “You’re next,” he told Peter, readying himself for an argument. Instead, Peter clenched his teeth and followed the girl, mimicking her moves – albeit, in a clumsier manner. Jaygen glanced behind him, shading the sun from his eyes to glance across the plain. The bounty hunters had grown into bigger dots, smudges in the shape of men. One of them riding a pony and what looked like a rifle slung around his back, long barrel bobbing with the motion. They didn’t come at speed, they didn’t need to. Knowing that they would have them pinned at the mountain allowe
d them an almost leisurely stroll. Jaygen heard the shriek of the scraw-harpy as she glided on the thermals that rose to the peak. If it came to a stand, they would fight. It was only eight men. He had faced bigger numbers before and no matter how Peter would attempt to persuade him otherwise, there would be blood spilt. Most probably eight men’s worth. Making a sling from two ends of the sack, he tied it over one shoulder and across his torso, then leapt from boulder to rock and swung across the tree. He didn’t care how much blood was spilt on this mountain, just so long as some of it was Winters.

  Winters End will be published in the summer. To keep up to date, please check out my newsletter and claim yourself a free book while you’re there: http://eepurl.com/cGXLk5