Cormorant Run

by J. C. McKenzie

  Cora picked up her bag, swung it in place between her wings and with one more look at the fading horizon, she crouched down and launched into the darkening sky. Her black wings caught the wind and she soared up and over the treetops. A dull ache vibrated through her injured wing with each push of air. Not enough to impede her flight, but persistent enough to annoy her. She might have to rest sooner than she’d like, and she’d have to fly low.

  Over the land.

  She cringed.

  At least the trees would camouflage her as much as they would the angry mob of sapavian hating, arrow-toting humans who probably prowled in the shadows.

  The cool air pressed against her face and ran down her flying leathers.

  Inland.

  Fucking inland.

  If Ronin lost track of time knocking back brews with the boys, she’d kill him.

  If he were already dead, she’d find a way to revive him and kill him all over again. How dare he die and endanger her and her father’s lives. He should’ve taken her.

  As the almost imperceptible treetops blurred below in the fading light, the dull ache of her injured wing bloomed into a full, brain-numbing throb. She grit her teeth and pressed on.

  There! The clearing loomed ahead, marked by giant red cedars positioned like the points of a compass.

  She swooped down and hugged the treeline. If they had spotters, she had a better chance of blending in with the night. She needed to blend in. Be stealthy, like some sort of sky ninja. With her injury, she couldn’t maneuver in the air as well as she liked and had no ambition to play, “Dodge the Arrow.”

  With her heart pounding, she drew her short dagger. The matte onyx blade wouldn’t reflect the moonlight like her long dagger, allowing her to maintain near-invisibility in the cloak of darkness.

  Where the hell would she land?

  She couldn’t circle the clearing multiple times and look for signs of life. Not unless she wanted to act as a dart board for arrows.

  She pursed her lips. Was she being too paranoid?

  Better to be overly cautious than dead.

  What should she do? She couldn’t land in the middle of an open field like some sort of turkey, fattened and stuffed for the oven.

  She scanned the trees lining the approaching clearing. Her gaze snagged on the dark outline of the tall red cedar.

  That would do.

  The red cedar in the northern position would block her from anyone’s view in the clearing and was large enough to support her weight.

  Cora drew close to the top and pulled her wings back and out. At a near stall, she reached out for the rough bark. Once she wrapped her hands around the large branches, she pulled her wings in and clung to the tree. Gravity tried to pull her down, but she held on, moving with the giant tree as it swayed from her landing.

  Now the tricky part.

  With her breath caught in her throat, Cora pulled her wings to her back as close as possible and scaled down the tree, branch by branch. The rough bark bit into her hands, the needles stabbed her skin and the sharp cedar smell burned her nose.

  Her spine tingled and her scalp prickled. Climbing trees and frolicking on the ground with no open sky was unnatural. Only humans did this crap for fun.

  When her feet landed in the soft dirt below, the tingling sensations eased.

  Where are you, Ronin? If you have me mucking around on the forest floor for shits and giggles…

  She surveyed the field from the edge of the treeline. The grass in the middle was trampled in a large circle with a path of more trodden grass leading to the other side of the clearing.

  Had he walked through the clearing on his own to meet someone at the forest’s edge? Or had he been dragged?

  The tingling sensations returned. Ronin might be a giant brute of a warrior, but he moved with grace, finesse. The pattern of broken grass blades suggested a struggle.

  Cora cursed under her breath and picked her way around the clearing. Pain continued to throb through her injured wing. Maybe she should rest it.

  She’d be no good to Ronin if she found him and exhaustion made her collapse.

  Her lip curled up from her teeth in a silent snarl.

  And Ronin was no good to her dead.

  She pressed on.

  Metal glinted near the base of the southern cedar, catching a sliver of moonlight. Cora narrowed her eyes and ducked behind a tree.

  A lookout.

  Placing one foot in front of the other, she clutched her onyx dagger and made her way slowly around the clearing. She’d never make it all the way to the spotter without him hearing her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t one of those stealthy warriors from her bedtime stories.

  She crouched behind a thicket of bushes. Now closer, and with the moonlight helping, she could make out the man’s profile.

  She’d have one shot at this. One attempt.

  If she messed this up, she’d die, leaving Ronin to his current fate and Father to a public execution.

  Not acceptable.

  Gripping her dagger, she leapt, launching over the bushes and diving forward. As if flying over water instead of sun-hardened soil and grass, she snapped out her wings and caught the wind enough to float over the ground. No footsteps, no sound. Silent like an owl. Deadly.

  The man turned when the gust of wind from her wings hit the side of his face. Too late, she was already on him, with the sharp edge of her blade pressed against the soft tissue of his neck.

  “Where is he?” she asked, keeping her voice low. Though she hadn’t detected any other lookouts, that didn’t mean there weren’t any.

  The man sneered and raised his chin, jutting it out in defiance.

  Cora wasn’t a killer by nature, but she wasn’t above it. She’d kill if needed. No one crossed the channel and kept their halo squeaky clean. Hell, no one kept a halo at all.

  She pressed the dagger forward. Blood pebbled along the edge.

  The man winced and raised his arm to point down the trail from the clearing and his lookout position. When Cora glanced down the path, the man shifted under her blade. She turned and pivoted in time to avoid the dagger the man had thrust upward to gut her. As she stepped behind him, she ran her dagger across his neck. Blood soaked her hand. The man gurgled and dropped the weapon. He slumped against her. She caught his body with two arms around his torso and lowered him to the ground. He wasn’t light and she wasn’t graceful. The body thumped on the dirt and grass. His hair spread out and covered his face. The wound she’d inflicted gaped open and blood coated his jawline, neck, and the leather jerkin. She took a life.

  Cora squeezed her eyes shut and took a number of deep breaths. Her hand shook but she forced herself to kneel and clean her dagger. Then she checked the man for supplies and money. She didn’t know what the future held, but she might need human coins.

  She’d killed someone and now she looted his corpse.

  Deep breath. Save the panic attack for later. Ronin needs you.

  The scout didn’t have a lot, but Cora pocketed the money before turning toward the trail. She gulped. Walking would be cumbersome and place her in a vulnerable position should she run into humans. Flying wouldn’t eliminate the danger, because she’d have to fly within arrow range to follow the trail, but she had to do something.

  Cora trusted her wings more than her feet, even injured and away from the shore. Decision made, she launched back in the air and started tracking the path from above. She had to find Ronin, and he better be alive. If she failed, everything she loved was forfeit.

  13

  “He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him.”

  Dutch proverb, definitely not Cora Cormorant

  It took the rest of the night for Cora to catch up to the party of human warriors who’d captured Ronin. The sky had lightened to a dark blue, but the sun hadn’t crested the horizon yet. Bound and gagged, Ronin rested against the tree he was chained to, head tilted back on the rough bark. His chest rose and fell eve
nly. Still alive. Guess she wouldn’t have to revive him to murder him all over again. His white hair had fallen from his face, revealing the dark bags under his eyes, his swollen jaw and cut lip.

  In addition to shackling his arms behind him, the humans had pulled his wings back to cover the tree trunk and wrapped a rope around Ronin, his wings, and the tree. Ronin’s wings were stuck in the extended, bent-backward position. Ouch.

  Somehow, captured and vulnerable, Ronin still managed to scowl at his captors around his gag and glare at them from behind his dishevelled hair as if they were pesky ants under his boots.

  Condescending and self-righteous to the end.

  Cora passed the campsite and found a tree to scramble down to the ground. As soon as her feet touched the spongy moss on the forest floor, dread raced along her spine. She shivered. Closed off from the sky and ocean, walking on the ground wasn’t a comfortable feeling for a cormorant. Knowing a gang of human warriors rested mere feet away wasn’t a comfortable feeling for any sapavian. She couldn’t take them all on in a fight or defend herself. The key to Ronin’s release was stealth.

  Cora’s wings trailed along the path, being skewered by random branches, and bruised by rocks.

  Progress was slow. Cushy, sound-absorbing moss didn’t cover the entire forest floor. She took her time, fully aware of the rising sun and her dwindling time.

  Her heart punched against her ribcage. Her breath consumed her hearing—how did they not wake up from her ragged breathing?

  Each step felt like it took an eternity to make.

  Ronin shifted his weight and glanced over his shoulder. She quickly reached forward with her wing and trailed her black feathers on his face and shoulders. She didn’t dare say anything or shush him. Ronin wasn’t stupid—pigheaded and arrogant, sure, but not an actual turkey, though she liked to think of him as one. He’d know silence was key to their survival, too.

  Ronin’s shoulders relaxed and she made the final steps to reach the back of the tree to access the ropes and chains binding him. She pulled the gag loose first, letting it fall around his shoulders before moving to a better position to tackle the locks.

  She stepped down on a branch. The wood snapped. Loudly.

  Cora froze.

  Ronin stiffened.

  One of the men in the clearing rolled over and grumbled in his sleep. About twice as wide as Cora, with arm muscles as thick as her waist and hands larger than her face, he intimidated her from his bedroll.

  Stay asleep.

  Cora waited. The sky continued to lighten. She supressed a growl, crouched down and extracted pins from one of her pockets to pick the lock on the shackle around one of Ronin’s wrists. They really didn’t want him to escape. Most of this was overkill.

  Unless they expected her.

  The men began to stir, shifting on the ground, rolling over, grumbling, in that hazy pre-waking moment before they had to greet the day.

  “Hurry,” Ronin hissed.

  Right, like she wasn’t aware of impending doom. The reminder was so helpful. She’d snarl at him, but the additional sound would only make matters worse.

  The lock clicked open. Cora carefully returned her pins to the inside pocket of her flying gear and slipped the shackle off Ronin’s wrist. He immediately brought them to his lap and started rotating his hands.

  Cora glanced at the restless sleepers. They didn’t have time for her to remove the other shackle. Instead, she gathered the chain that linked the two wrist shackles and placed them in Ronin’s open hand. She stood, shook her legs out to prevent the cramp threatening her muscles and drew her blood-crusted dagger to start working through the thick rope binding Ronin’s body and wings to the tree. Her blade sliced through the course material and the rope fell to the ground.

  Cora glanced at the men. Still asleep.

  Ronin stood slowly, refusing her offered hand and gingerly folded his wings forward. He winced. Everything about his movement looked stiff and painful.

  She jerked her head toward the path she’d taken to reach the campsite. It headed in the wrong direction, but anywhere except here was preferable. And sneaking through the campsite was just a bad idea.

  “My sword,” Ronin whispered.

  She glanced around the campsite and spotted the weapon a few feet away from the circle of sleeping men. If it were her choice, she’d leave the stupid thing here, but it was the Sword of Eyrie. King Edgar had gifted the family heirloom to Ronin on his twentieth birthday in front of the entire kingdom. She’d witnessed the celebration amongst the market crowd, no longer important enough to garner an invitation to the private ceremony that took place afterward.

  She had to get the stupid sword. It meant something to Ronin.

  With sweat trickling down her face and her throat raw from sucking in the cold morning air, Cora made her way to Ronin’s sword, tiptoeing past the warrior with gigantic hands.

  The sword rested in its sheath against the base of a large red cedar. Fingers shaking, Cora gripped the hilt and swung the weapon into both arms. God, this thing weighs a ton.

  She picked her way back to Ronin’s side, ducked under his wing and latched the sheath to his belt.

  Ronin stared down at her fiddling with his belt, the corner of his mouth tugged upward. If they were anywhere else, if death weren’t sleeping a few feet away, she’d bet money he’d say something completely inappropriate right now.

  He must be feeling better already.

  Cora straightened and nodded toward the path again.

  When Ronin stepped forward, his leg buckled. She lunged forward before he crashed to the forest floor. Holding his heavy body against hers, his hard armour dug into her flying gear, and his breath fanning her cheek and neck. God, he was heavy.

  One of the men in the camp rolled over and stretched.

  Cora’s heart lodged in her throat. Ronin regained his balance. Slowly, they turned in unison toward the path. Ronin pulled away from her hold. They needed to get high enough to launch or reach a large enough clearing to take off. And quickly.

  She looked back at the campsite over her shoulder. The guard had settled back into his makeshift bed, a dreamy smile on his face.

  Cora draped Ronin’s arm around her shoulder and helped him stumble away from his abductors.

  14

  “Adventure is just bad planning.”

  Roald Amundsen

  Cora and Ronin launched into the sky from the giant red cedar they had climbed when a cry of alarm erupted from the nearby campsite. Men cried out and hollered, and then silence.

  The silence was far scarier.

  It meant they’d spread out to track them.

  “This way,” Cora hissed.

  “South?” Ronin’s voice sounded rougher than usual. With a shackle still locked around one of his wrists, metal glinted under the morning sunlight. His large white wings spread out to catch the wind. Eagle Clan members excelled at soaring, but he wavered every now and then, and his face had grown pale.

  “Do you want to fly over your abductors? Maybe flash them a sign or tell them which way we plan to go? Rattle your shackles? Drop them a little love note to meet us at the Cap Cliffs? Hmm?”

  “We’ll gain altitude,” he said. “They won’t spot us if we’re high enough.”

  “Not with your wings.”

  He grimaced. “My wings are fine.”

  “You’re allowed to admit they’re sore, Ronin. I’m the one who untied them, remember? They must be stiff. I know it hurts. I can see it in your face. Braving the stronger winds at the higher altitude right now is ill-advised.”

  He scowled at her and said nothing as he turned south, away from the men. Away from home. And toward the centre of Iom and the rest of the humans.

  “I take it the meeting went well?” She bit her lip.

  “Don’t.”

  Her mouth snapped shut and a flash of guilt staved her in the stomach. Then, she remembered the danger his actions had placed her in, placed her father in, and the
guilt faded away. “Oh, I think I will. Had you died my family would have received a death sentence. You should’ve brought me. You should’ve been more careful.”

  Ronin clenched his jaw and drifted away from her. He wavered less and his colour slowly returned to his face. Handsome, healthy, and still a complete asshole.

  “I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time your father attempted to kill us,” she continued, showing no mercy. He didn’t deserve it. “I guess we should be honoured to attract the attention of the king.”

  An image of her mom popped into her memory. Cora clung to the sight of her silken black hair and mischievous eyes. It had been years since she saw her mom and the memory of her had faded to the point where Cora couldn’t always recall what she looked like. This image was so clear. All the details—how she had dimples, how her nose crinkled when she was teasing, how her bronzed skin glowed under the sunshine. Cora clung to the sight until Mom’s face faded away.

  “What was the meeting about?” she asked after collecting herself.

  “None of your business.”

  “It is now. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re flying farther into enemy territory.” Not for long, of course. As soon as they put enough distance between the angry humans, they’d swing around, giving the clearing and the human’s last known location a wide birth.

  “In case you haven’t notice, I’m the heir of the Eyrie and don’t owe you anything.”

  She rolled her eyes. Except his life.

  Instead of acknowledging her efforts, though, he pulled rank. So typical. “We’re going to have to find place to hole up until we heal enough to make the trip back across the channel. You’re going to have to drop the airs, Your Majesty.”

  “I’m not a king yet.”

  Cora shrugged. Majesty, highness, excellency, eminence, grace. She never cared for labels or using them correctly, though she could if she had to. What did it matter? It didn’t change Ronin from being a royal pain in the ass.