Wing Magic

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  I wanted what they wanted. I wanted it just as badly. But this was all wrong. The wrong way to do it. The dumb way to do it. It should be organized and planned, not this fomenting free-for-all.

  We reached a square and I could tell by the way Retger was eyeing the other side that we needed to cross it, but it was packed with people.

  Something smashed. A bottle, perhaps.

  There was a long scream in the background and a burst of light overhead. I glanced up to see a bright seagull spirit bird swoop from overhead. It sank into the crowd, snatching someone up in his talons. He soared upward and dropped the man, letting him fall into the crowd as screams lifted into the air. He was already wheeling to do it again.

  We’d been heading west into the square, but now, in the very direction we wanted to go, the people were being driven forward by a double line of Claws and a pair of Wings with grim expressions. The spirit seagull dove again, snatching someone new from the crowd. While a second seagull plunged into the crowd beside me and grabbed the face of a man of about forty. His clothing was well-made and his beard oiled. The scythe in his hands dropped first, as he clawed at the bird and then the screams started. The bird was trying to lift him up by the face, its spirit wings glowing an ominous sunset red. The wings flapped, spirit feathers spiraling away, bright and choppy looking. He was too heavy for the size of the bird, but though he fought, it kept him pinned in place, his feet just inches from the ground. And then the man went limp and the bird dropped him.

  My gaze shot to the Wings. One of them swayed – a wrinkled man with a grim face – but he quickly recovered his balance and the bird shot out again.

  “We need to get out of the square!” I warned.

  Retger nodded, trying to work his way south, but the crowd had the same idea and we were caught up in the rush of bodies as they pulled us with them. I could barely catch my breath, barely even see faces as we were pushed and squeezed and battered. Pain flared in various places – knee, shoulder, gut. I clung to Retger’s hand like a lifeline. My hand was growing clammy as we tried to make our way southwest across the tide of people headed south.

  I caught Zayana’s eye and her lips compressed grimly. People – I realized – were looking at her. Noticing her court dress, worn and frayed as it was. Noticing her Imperial features and long sleek hair. She did not have the look of a Far Stones girl, hacking her living from the Forbidding and the rock. She carried herself with grace like she was always dancing and kept her chin high like she was balancing a jar always on the crown of her head. And right now, that wasn’t good.

  “Hunch!” I called to her.

  But she shook her head, confused.

  “Retger!” I called over the constant wall of sound. “Retger, look at Zayana.”

  He met my eye, puzzled, and then looked over at her. His face lit with understanding at the same moment that I heard a whispered, “High’un” from someone nearby.

  The word echoed, bouncing from one set of lips to another.

  Zayana shrank closer to Retger and he pulled her in tight with one arm, releasing my hand to draw his hidden short sword with the other. His eyes were narrowed and deadly, a few curls escaping the leather thong around his forehead. He was ready to strike.

  I watched the tip of his short sword with worry. In this crowd, it almost kissed the backs of those in front of him. One wrong stumble, one twisted step, and someone could be skewered.

  “High’un” was echoing again and now “sword.”

  The pressure around me seemed to increase as more bodies pushed me against Retger. I could feel the emotion of the crowd in the air like the greasy feeling before a lightning strike. Anxiety and violence hung over them like a fog. My hand itched for my own sword and it was all I could do not to draw it.

  There was a roar behind us and a new clash.

  I glanced over my shoulder and froze as a pillar of flame burst up into the air from the square where we’d been only minutes before. Someone shoved me from the side, and I stumbled, falling to one knee. I scrambled up again, hearing my name called.

  “Aella?”

  But before I found my feet, I was shoved again. I clawed up, tugging at my cloak. Someone was standing on it. My vision was filled with snatches of people and things as I was pushed and shoved, knocked and jostled. I tugged again, more desperate, and suddenly my cloak was free.

  Straightening, I looked for Retger and Zayana. Gone. They were gone. I spun, looking, and saw them. Somehow in stumbling, I’d been pushed toward the west side of the street while the crowd had propelled them to the south.

  I caught Zayana’s eyes and saw her try to point to me, but Retger was tensed, sword tip pointing a pair of men who were screaming in his face. I tried to move along the wall of the stone building toward them, but someone hit me from behind and my face smashed against the stone.

  I took another step, wiping blood from my crushed nose, holding Zayana’s gaze for one more minute, and then my vision was lost as my bees poured their news into my mind.

  Not now!

  But I had no control over it. An image seared across my mind. Alect fighting the Forbidding. Raquella was down. He slashed the darkness above her head, reaching for her. She screamed and the tentacles of Forbidding wrapped around her.

  “No!” he screamed at the same moment that my own mind screamed the word. But she was gone.

  His sword was fast and sure as he struck and struck against the tangle. My breath caught as I watched, hoping, believing he could do it. There was an arm! He cleared another tentacle away, but a new one snatched for him and it was all he could do to sever it.

  “Please,” I begged. “Please.”

  He launched himself at the mass around her, wrestling with them with blade and sheer will power.

  And then it was gone and my vision returned only to realize I’d been pressed into an alley by the flow of people. I was halfway down it, pushed along by a less dense crowd here. I turned, meaning to run back to the street where Retger and Zayana were, but strong hands grabbed my arm.

  “Not back to the street, girl, there’s fire there!” an older man said.

  I glanced behind us and saw he was right. Dark smoke billowed behind us.

  “My brother,” I gasped.

  “The alley comes out on Colonization Road. It runs parallel to Chigger Way. You can follow it south and find him there,” the man said hurriedly as we scrambled down the alley, chased by smoke and screams.

  I gasped and choked, unable to take a breath, my mind still struggling to comprehend what I’d just seen. Had Raquella been killed? Or would Alect get to her in time? Anxiety left bitterness in my mouth at the thought.

  I followed the older man, hoping he was right, but when we reached the next street, it was obvious I’d never make it south to the next alley.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The way was blocked by a double line of Claws. So close as I was to their advance, I could see the citizenry attacking, lobbing rocks the size of my fist or chunks of masonry. Screams filled the air along with battle cries as the Claws stabbed and hacked, never stopping in their march forward, even as they left a slick of blood and fallen bodies in their wake.

  I tensed as I tried to decide what to do. I could join the fight – though that seemed crazy. Just because I agreed with the rebels didn’t mean I thought this would work. If I’d learned nothing else from Karkatua, I’d learned how quickly the innocent were swept up with the guilty in a house-to-house fight in the city and I would never choose to risk children like this.

  I could return to the inn like Retger had suggested. Likely, he and Zayana were already fighting their way back there to meet up with me. Which meant they’d have a stronghold to stay safe in – no matter what I chose to do.

  Given the way this fighting was going, any library was at risk. There were already fires. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a group of men swinging a long bench at the barred door of a brewery. Who knew if the monastery would still be standing after toda
y? And that meant getting there and finding the information that would lead me to the general had to be the top priority.

  The street was maybe four cart-lengths wide. The crowd was less dense here as people either fled the Claws or attacked and were mowed under the churn of their feet. If I chose to cross, and if I wasn’t fast, I’d be rolled under, too.

  I took a big breath and darted across the street, dodging projectiles and furious bodies as they smashed forward into the Claws. The rebels wore no uniforms and had nothing in common except for the same fury that filled every set of eyes. A fury I shared.

  A cry of “Freedom!” pierced the air and “War and Wings!” followed, but I kept my gaze forward, my heart thundering in my chest like a galloping horse. Why hadn’t we brought the horses? Even though they were slower, they would have given us an advantage. My breath was raw in my throat. I skidded on the slick cobbles and had to leap over a fallen huddle that had once been a man.

  I was mid-leap when the vision hit. I tried to push it away. It did not budge. Instead, I willed my feet to keep running even as my vision was snatched away and my mind went to where my bee hovered over the shoulder of Osprey.

  He was cursing. Loudly.

  Below him, Os glowed his steady purplish-white. Ivo was crouched on the bird in front of Osprey. His harpy eagle – golden and strong but not strong enough to carry him – flew beside Os and a little behind him.

  Osprey and Ivo were bent down, eyes tracking the ground as they circled the city.

  “They sprang too soon,” Ivo was saying, an aching sound to his words. “Haven’t they been listening? The other cities aren’t ready yet. We have no real leader, no general for the militia we’ve been raising. No way to win this. They’ll be slaughtered.”

  “And we’ll lose a key city,” Osprey said as Os banked, circling Glorious Ingvar. From here, it was easy to trace patterns in the streets below. Walls of blue met with ragged lines of figures throwing projectiles or attacking in ones or twos. Lines of bright orange fire snaked down streets as they leapt from building to building. Smoke curled up and then was snatched by the wind and pulled inland. It looked as if a hand had raked itself through the smoke as one might rake soil.

  And then the wide, yawning blue sea met my eyes – choppy and raging as it smashed itself against the rocks. Small ships bobbed in the cerulean waves beside white flecked foam. Some were in a scatter pattern, spreading out from the city, but one long line of ships sailed toward Glorious Ingvar.

  “There. He comes,” Osprey said, pointing to the ships. “Faster than I could have wished. And meanwhile, she’s down there somewhere in that tumult.”

  “You’re sure of that?” Ivo asked. “Perhaps they skirted the city. Perhaps she was too smart to go into the city, knowing you’d be looking for her there.”

  “They didn’t.” Osprey jammed a toothpick between his teeth, his lip twisting upward as he studied the ships in the distance.

  “If you hadn’t found them in the Forbidding outside the walls, I would never have guessed they could make it this far so fast.” Ivo shook his head.

  “You doubt me?”

  They turned the corner of Os’s circle and started to fly over the west side of the city again. I caught a glimpse of something below them – a bronze fountain. An oriole! I tried to see more, but my bee jittered too much to get a good view of the streets surrounding it.

  “Of course not. I merely wonder how it was done. I do think you’re obsessed with her.”

  “I’ve been forced to obsess over her. You know that.”

  Ivo coughed, long and harsh, but it didn’t change his worried look. “It’s not just that.”

  “We talked about this last night. There’s only one way to end this that I can tolerate, but not before I’m certain she has a chance.”

  My vision returned to my body, like the snapping of a string and I gasped.

  I was slumped against a wall, my clothing wet and clinging to me. I’d made it across the street – which was nearly empty now except for the slumped bodies of those hacked down by the Claws. Here and there, a blue-jacketed body joined the heaps of civilians, but the death was mostly on one side – the side of the citizenry. They must have left me for dead, too.

  The clash of weapons and shouts of orders could still be heard with the marching of boots as they continued up the street, heading north.

  I struggled to my feet, shivering in horror when I realized my clothing was wet with blood – and not my own. I caught a glimpse of something down the street. More blue jackets. Reinforcements.

  Swallowing down bile, I darted into the nearest alley headed west. I didn’t dare get caught by the second sweep of Claws. This time, they might stab me to make sure I was dead.

  The alley was empty except for discarded items and things broken in the passing of so many feet. I scrambled along it, my feet shaky under me. I was worried about Retger and Zayana. And my wristband was burning hot again. But I was committed now to finding the Oriole fountain and the library in the monastery before it burned or was smashed to pieces.

  I stumbled over another body and I turned to the side, vomited, and then kept running.

  I just had to press on and not lose my head.

  Relentless, Aella. Be relentless.

  The alley came out to a winding street littered with debris. Two buildings were on fire here. One had a sign with a grinning pig and a cleaver – a butcher, obviously – and the other had a pair of carts sticking out of the open side. A city carter. Two people who would lose everything they owned. And what would they do tomorrow when their businesses were in ash and their families destitute? Most people in cities lived above their businesses – like a miniature homestead in a densely populated place. With no coin for food and no roof over their heads, the very first night would be a bad one, and every night after would only get worse. You couldn’t start over with no supplies, no food, no clothing – with not even a weapon to carve your way through the Forbidding. They’d be smashed into poverty in the blink of an eye.

  Had the rioters even thought of that when they lit these buildings on fire? Was that poor sprawling corpse in front of the butcher’s shop the owner of the place?

  I shook my head to dislodge these thoughts. But it didn’t work. I could imagine building a place like this – hour by hour, day by day, spending the chunks of time that made up a life to build a business. All that life-time invested was gone now. If the owners still lived, then their years had been plundered. Almost better to be beaten than to have that taken. At least you could recover from being beaten in a few weeks. You could never recover these years. And you’d have to spend those hours all over again to build it back.

  I hurried down the street, huddling against the buildings to avoid the roar and rush of the flames. My skin tingled painfully at the heat as I hurried along.

  Shouts and cries filled the air as neighbors scrambled to pull their things out of homes and businesses before the flames spread, or to toss water on the roaring inferno. It all felt like not enough. A hundred people fighting these fires would not be enough. And this was just one fire on one street. I looked up at the sky and my heart felt sick. The smoke gathering above the city spoke of dozens of fires just like this.

  My eyes stung with the smoke and I clenched my jaw and pushed west. There was a square here. Good, maybe there would be a street heading directly west. I pushed out into the square and gasped.

  Every way out was blocked by overturned carts and furniture. People scrambled to push them in place, blocking the paths to the west and south. I hurried through the square toward the west barricade but just as I reached it, someone grabbed my arm.

  “That’s a pretty jacket you’re wearing, girl. Red. Embroidered. Draws the eye.”

  It was a young man about my age, face streaked in soot and sweat, but not bad looking. The leather strap around his head held back longish wheat-colored hair and his upturned nose had a playful tilt to it, but his eyes were hard.

  “It w
ouldn’t fit you,” I said shortly, pulling my arm from his grasp.

  “It doesn’t fit you, either. At least, not if you want to live in our streets.”

  “I’m just passing through,” I said shortly, plunging toward the barricade.

  A man’s head popped over the tangle of carts and broken furniture. His voice was laden with anger when he spoke.

  “No one passes into our street without our say so. We stand for the people.”

  “Great,” I said shortly. I was running out of time. “I’m one of the people. Let me through.”

  The boy my age grabbed my arm again, pulling my jacket up around the wrist. “Don’t see a Wing here. Do you love the Empire of War and Wings, girl? Are you one of their pretty little playthings?”

  I had my short sword out in a flash and against his ribs. I was feeling very stabby.

  “Playing at revolutionary, are you?” I hissed. “Playing at standing up to the Winged Empire with your broken furniture and lighting your neighbors’ shops on fire? Does it make you feel like a man?”

  His face darkened and I realized that the street had gone quiet, all eyes on me.

  Forbidding take it!

  “What are you doing in our neighborhood?” He shifted his weight as if to indicate that he was changing the direction of the conversation.

  I could try a lie, but what was the point?

  “While you fools light your own city on fire and get your own people killed,” I said through gritted teeth, “I’m busy working for the real revolution and we need information from a monastery in this city. I was on my way to get it when you all went off and decided to have your little mock-revolution ahead of time.”

  “Ahead of time?” he growled. “This has been years in the making.”

  “Yes,” I said coolly. “Imagine the horror the real revolutionaries are feeling right now as they watch you burn their carefully laid plans in the ashes of your city.”