Cormorant Run

by J. C. McKenzie

  Cora’s family had lived inside the royal palace at one time. Now they took up a small brick building on the edge of town. At least they had a place to live, which according to Jack, wasn’t something every resident could boast nowadays.

  “What do you want?” Cora asked.

  “I want to make sure you understand the importance of your mission.”

  Cora frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Things haven’t just changed for you.” A brief look of pain streaked across her expression.

  Well, maybe it was pain. Maybe it was indigestion. Sasha wasn’t prone to making emotional displays or having feelings.

  The princess stepped onto the threshold of Cora’s room, crowding Cora’s personal space. Cora refused to budge or allow the princess entry into her home.

  “If anything happens to my brother, you and your father will pay,” Sasha said.

  Did she think Cora didn’t know that already? Why in bloody bird hell would she make a special trip down to Cora’s slum to point out the obvious? “I’m well aware of the consequences of failure. Did you come here to add to my stress, or do you have something more helpful to say?”

  “If you don’t come back with Ronin, you may as well not come back at all,” Sasha said instead of answering her question. She paused to peer over Cora’s shoulder, scanning the room for something. “What happened to you?”

  Funny, Cora wondered the same thing. The cold regal woman standing in front of her was not the same person as her childhood friend. Cora blinked at the princess.

  “All those years ago,” Sasha prompted.

  Ice travelled along Cora’s skin. Images of an angry ocean and large jagged teeth flashed in her mind. Is that why Sasha had come? To try to dig into Cora’s past? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The attack at Hadren’s Keep. You went missing for a week. They found you washed up on the shore nearly dead.”

  Cora ground her teeth. She knew exactly how they found her. Half-drowned and incoherent.

  “How did you survive?” Sasha narrowed her eyes and leaned in as if her question would somehow cause Cora to spill all her secrets.

  The sad thing was, there weren’t any secrets to spill save one. And Cora would take it to her grave. “Luck, I guess,” she lied.

  Sasha scowled, probably detecting the lie as soon as it left Cora’s mouth. Without another word, the princess turned from her position in Cora’s doorway and walked down the hall, leaving a sense of foreboding in her wake.

  Cora wasn’t one to prescribe to signs or omens, but if Sasha’s visit and Ronin’s attitude were any indication of the trip ahead, Cora was in for an unpleasant time. She just hoped she survived.

  8

  “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”

  William Arthur Ward

  Cora clasped her custom travel sac to her back and let the wind wash over her face. The bag nestled snuggly between her wings didn’t rub or impede her range of motion. It had been a birthday present from her mom.

  She saw her father this morning, sharing Ava’s warning and then sharing a moment of silence. Not one for prolonged goodbyes, Father had held her briefly in his crushing hug and told her to come back to him. Their farewells were always the same—short but full of love.

  Cora stepped up beside Ronin who intently glared at the clouds above.

  “A storm is moving in,” Cora said. “Can we delay a day or two?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “How did you arrange this meeting without going through my father?” She toed the loose gravel and watched the small stones fall off the cliff edge.

  “We did,” he said.

  So, the last message had been from the royal house as she suspected. “But not all the time. How else?”

  “Waystations.” He named the rocks that acted as little hops, skips, and jumps to cross the Carrion Channel. They led to the Waystation Access Point, or Wap, on the Isle of Man. Considered neutral territory, there was an unspoken truce and understanding that sapavians kept to the north side of the constructed wall and the humans remained on the south.

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” she asked. “Anyone could’ve intercepted the message. The Waystations are filled with scoundrels.”

  His brows lifted. “Scoundrels?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He grunted and buckled his pack in place. He’d actually listened and left his shiny breastplate and embellished boots at home, opting for black leather pants and vambraces, and a breastplate with matte black metal and leather trim. He looked just as powerful and lethal.

  And arrogant.

  Ugh.

  He peered off the cliff edge and sneered. He wasn’t afraid of heights, she knew that much. As an eagle, he was accustomed to soaring at higher altitudes than she was. Rumour had it, the eagles snuck out at night to mate during their cartwheeling—joining in the act and plummeting to their death but breaking from the free fall at the last moment. The cartwheeling in public was all hugs and kisses, but according to some spicy gossip, eagles liked to do it in the air.

  Cora had never worked up the nerve to ask anyone if it was true.

  But the height couldn’t be why Ronin scrunched up his face and eyed the ocean below with distaste.

  “What is it?” she finally asked.

  “I don’t like flying low.”

  “Well, go ahead and fly high. If the dragons and thunderbirds don’t get you the moment we leave the protection of the Eyrie, the scoundrels who pirate the clouds will. And if you somehow miraculously survive, go ahead and announce your arrival to the humans with bells and whistles since you apparently have a death wish.”

  He scowled harder in response.

  She stepped forward and jabbed his metal armour. “We fly low and in tight formation. If I shout anything, you do it. You don’t ask why. If I change direction, you follow. You don’t hesitate. I’ll answer whatever questions you have on the other side when we safely arrive. Until then, keep your mouth shut and follow orders. Got it?”

  He smirked and saluted.

  Ass.

  Without another word, she launched from the cliff’s edge and dove toward the thrashing surface of the ocean.

  Ronin cursed somewhere behind her.

  Before she hit the churning water, she unfurled her wings. The updraft of wind licking off the surface of the water pushed against her wings and she leveled out above the cresting waves. Sea spray splattered her flying leathers.

  “Show off,” Ronin growled somewhere above and slightly behind her.

  Sure enough, the big lug had pulled up sooner, a lot sooner, and now angled down toward her.

  “Do you always—“

  “Hush!” she hissed. “The monsters hear us. No more talking unless necessary.”

  He snarled at her, raising his lip and showing his teeth, but luckily his mouth remained shut.

  This would be a long trip. She hoped for all their sakes, he stayed quiet and kept up.

  9

  “What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.”

  Werner Herzog

  Rain hammered against Cora’s back and wings. She swiped her soaked hair from her face and pushed forward.

  “Is it always like this?” Ronin drifted closer, looking no less god-like despite white hair plastered to his skin and his drenched clothes. He looked like the God of Thunder swooping in to rain vengeance on his wayward follower.

  Was it always like this? Did he not remember a few hours ago when she asked him to delay the trip? Yup, he still struggled with memory retention.

  “Do you always talk when ordered not to?” she bit out through clenched teeth. Now was not the time to strike up a conversation. The Sea Beast had stirred. Cora felt his energy rising and vibrating in her bones.

  Ronin said something, but she tuned out his deep rumbling and focused on the beast. H
is hunger was so strong, it was palpable. Her stomach rumbled. The feeling intensified, growing stronger.

  And stronger.

  And closer.

  And closer.

  “Up!” she yelled. With a strong pump of her wings, she strained upward.

  The bird-brained prince gaped at her.

  Argh.

  She swooped down, gripped a fist full of his hair and yanked.

  Up! Up! Up!

  “Up!” she screeched again, straining for the angry sky.

  Ronin growled but listened, angling upward, and beating his powerful wings.

  The tension from pulling his hair eased as he caught up to her.

  “Stop pulling my—”

  “Move!” she hissed and let go of his hair. The energy pooled in the depths directly below them. The monster was too close.

  And too hungry.

  “Move!” She beat her wings frantically. It wasn’t enough. They weren’t going to make it.

  The Sea Beast burst from the ocean. Only his gaping mouth with rows of sharp jagged teeth and the dark depths leading to his empty stomach were visible. An ambush attack from below. The giant monster thrust upward from the ocean, driving his toothy mouth closer and closer toward them.

  Ronin cursed.

  Cora veered to the side, still angling upward. The monster moved with her, following the change of course.

  Why fight, little one?” His creepy gentle voice spoke in her mind. Come with me. Feed my soul.

  “Never!” she yelled over her shoulder. She changed direction again and dove toward the ocean, streaking past the Sea Beast’s long scaly neck.

  Ronin shouted something. Whatever. As long as he kept moving up, he’d be fine.

  The monster screamed in her head.

  She leveled out before crashing into the waves. With a pump of her wings, she used her momentum to swoop up toward the dark clouds again.

  Lightning shot through the sky followed with the crack of thunder. The ocean raged below. Too big to maneuver as quickly as Cora, he wouldn’t catch her now. The Sea Beast fell back into the water with a giant splash.

  Cora swiped at the cold sweat now mixed with the rain pouring down her face. She flew to where Ronin hovered near the clouds at a safe distance from sea level.

  “What did you yell at me back there?” Ronin hollered over the crash of the waves and thunder.

  She hadn’t been yelling at the prince, but she could hardly admit to talking with the Sea Beast. She shrugged. “Trying to direct you out of danger.”

  “Danger? That was more than danger.” Ronin glanced at the sea again. “What the fuck was that? Was it the…?”

  She nodded. “You finally met the infamous Sea Beast, Channel Monster Number One.”

  “Number One?” His brows shot up. “How many more will we meet?”

  She shrugged. Every trip was different, but over the years she tended to run across less nuwaps each time she crossed.

  Hundreds of years ago, before the nuclear revolution, scientists had begun to experiment with altering the human genetic code, enhancing it with other animal DNA to make super humans. The result were called scipers—scientific experiments. The scientists never refined their pursuit of perfect humans, and their tampering with the genetic code left it temperamental and unstable. DNA sequences once highly conserved with few errors, began passing on more and more mutations. This led to rapid radiation and divergence from the original scipers. A number of new species evolved, including the sapavians.

  Then the nuclear apocalypse happened.

  Nuwaps, or the nuclear warped, were the result of uncontrolled radiation from the nuclear explosions on scipers with volatile DNA. Sapavians emerged from the nuclear cascades relatively unharmed or altered. Not all scipers could boast the same result. Some lost all touch with their once present humanity.

  During the nuclear cascades and radioactive fallout, humans survived in bunkers on algae and bottled sunlight. When they finally poked their heads out, decades later, they arguably suffered no adverse changes as a species save their attitudes. Or maybe that was always an issue. Hard to tell.

  When humans discovered what survived the radioactive fallout, they made it their societal mission to eradicate all the scipers, whether warped or not. They found only mild success and a lot of resistance.

  “Surely, you know what lurks in these waters,” Cora said to Ronin.

  “Of course, I know what’s been spotted out here, but reading and experiencing are two different things.”

  “He’s the only one of his kind. At least in the channel.” Too mean and hungry, he would be unlikely to cohabitate, even with a mate. “But as you know, there are other monsters in the channel.”

  “What else should I expect?” he asked.

  She almost lashed out with a comment that he should’ve asked before they left, but then she recalled her behaviour from yesterday. She clamped her mouth shut. He had asked. He had tried to find out all this information before, and because she was pissed off with how things transpired in the meeting, she’d hoarded the information.

  “What else?” he asked again.

  She glared at him, more out of anger for her own actions than his. But still. What did he not understand about keeping quiet?

  “Thunderbirds.” She scanned the clouds. “Usually, the beast is first. They sense each other somehow and the birds are too dumb to keep their distance. Instead, they hover nearby and try to steal the meal or pick up the leftovers. Keep your eyes open. They’re strong, but slower and can’t maneuver as quickly.”

  Thunderbirds were a distant cousin of sapavians. Once created as weapons, the nuclear cascades had turned them into mindless killers. They survived solely on instinct, killing, and consuming whatever they could find.

  She nodded toward their destination and set a path. Ronin fell in line with her, easily coasting with his giant beautiful wings.

  “You could have told me sooner,” he said.

  He was right. She could have, but what would the knowledge have changed? He still needed to listen to her. “I haven’t been attacked for the last three crossings.”

  He glanced at her and frowned.

  That’s right, big boy. Make the connection.

  “You think it’s me?”

  He got it in one. “They can detect life energy somehow. We’re a bigger target together.”

  “You want to split up?”

  She shook her head. He wouldn’t survive without her. Whatever had happened that night years ago had changed her—made her into something different, something more…something like them.

  She angled back toward the ocean’s surface. Ronin’s eyes widened.

  “Split the difference,” she said, holding her finger to her lips. Halfway between the threats from above and the ones below, they might have a shot at surviving.

  Ronin looked like he’d explode with questions, but instead of breaking the silence, he nodded.

  Not even halfway across the channel, this would be a long ten-hour flight. Cora’s wing muscles already burned from her previous trip and her evasion tactics from the Sea Beast left her weary and dreaming of her bed at home.

  More lightning streaked through the sky, the branches of electricity burning a path through the gray.

  They’d attack soon. They always did. The Sea Beast’s energy trailed behind them, keeping pace, and tracking their progress. Did he sense her like she sensed him?

  One day, little cormorant, you won’t get away, his voice vibrated in her skull.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. That couldn’t be good. He was talking to her in coherent sentences now.

  Maybe she should say something back?

  She focused inward, reached for his energy, and formed words in her head. Would this even work? What do you want?

  The Sea Beast’s energy pulsed, but he remained silent.

  Well, now she felt stupid, thinking thoughts at some deranged sea serpent intent on eating her. He probably couldn’t hear h
er.

  I want…

  Thunder rocked the night, drowning out his voice in her head.

  “Move,” she hissed, diving to the right just as thunderbirds broke from the cloud cover, lightning fast. Sharp talons snatched at the air where she’d been seconds before.

  A deranged off branch from the evolutionary tree to sapavians, the thunderbirds appearance alone revealed their origin. Created by scientific experimentation and twisted during the nuclear wars that started the apocalypse, thunderbirds retained very little of their human features. They had snarling, malformed humanoid faces with black bulging bird eyes. Instead of a mouth and nose, their features had fused together over time to form something like a beak. They had tiny forearms about half the length of Cora’s and massive wings.

  “Slow?” Ronin barked, diving out of the way of a thunderbird twice his size.

  “Slower.” She swung to the side, and another bird flew past.

  In a deadly game of chase and evade, Cora and Ronin dodged, ducked, and dove out of the way. Six thunderbirds continued to pursue them through the lightning streaked sky.

  “There are too many.” Ronin cursed and drew his sword.

  He was right.

  And wrong.

  “Ronin! No!” She turned toward him, now facing all six thunderbirds as they barrelled toward them. He hovered in the middle of the sky, the light flashing off his sword, like a defiant hero defending some hopeless twit.

  What in the bird-loving hell was he thinking?

  She put her chin down and shot toward him, unsheathing her dagger as she flew through the air.

  The thunderbirds screeched; their calculating gazes triumphant.

  Cora barrelled into Ronin, knocking his large muscled body out of the pathway of imminent death. At the same time, the surface of the ocean broke open. The Sea Beast burst from the waves below, opened his enormous mouth and engulfed all six of the thunderbirds in one gulp. He twisted and slammed back into the water like a breeching whale. His toothy mouth curled up at one end.