Skyborn

by Cameron Bolling

  As soon as she could speak, she did.

  “Pahlo?” she called, though her voice sounded far away. Her ears were still ringing.

  She tested her limbs. Her fingers curled in one-by-one at her command, and her arms shifted and shook, scattering tiny bits of rubble. Her right leg gave the same results. Her left was less prompt. She looked down.

  Below the kneecap, her leg bent at an angle it surely shouldn’t have. Bone stuck out, pure white, a beacon of shining sunlight amidst a pool of blood as dark as the night around her. The shape of her leg was lost, crushed flat with shreds of skin clinging to the remains. The boulder had struck her and dragged it against the wall, grinding it to a pulp. She leaned her head back and clenched her jaw as the pain, delayed by the stunned confusion and adrenaline, finally exploded within her.

  Only halfway through her scream did she remember she meant to look for Pahlo. Gritting her teeth, seizing as wave after wave of pain slammed against her, she shook the stars from her vision and looked to where the boulder rested.

  Pahlo’s body lay there. He looked nearly unrecognizable, just the same as her leg, though no part of him had been spared from the blow. His legs hid completely out of sight, buried beneath the boulder. Smaller chunks of rubble scattered the ground around him. His chest held nowhere near the form it should, reduced to a flattened mess of shattered ribs and torn-up skin and fabric. An entire lake of blood surrounded him, deep crimson and seeping rapidly into the dirt.

  No question concealed the truth from her eyes. Pahlo Dirin was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Despite it all, the night felt almost tranquil. A warm summer air blanketed the world, and when Oleja looked up at the sky, visible as only a strip between the two ledges above her, she could almost imagine she lay on the ground back in the canyon—back in her village, enjoying a simple evening by the fire alone to sit and think and plan some fantasy wild beyond her capabilities.

  She was in over her head.

  A sob shook her body, the first of many. No tears came—she didn’t have the water in her body to produce them. The jolting movements pained her. She didn’t care enough to stop them. Every glance she stole to where Pahlo’s body lay only renewed the force of her sobbing.

  Stars twinkled above, unaware of the great tragedy unfolding below. Perhaps once she might have looked to their company as that of friend or kin—Oleja, skyborn. But the truth behind her skyborn heritage brought nothing but the knowledge that rather than being born of a village of dirty mining slaves, she came from a village of dirty cattle-tending slaves. No blessing of the sky and sun and moon and stars coursed through her veins, leading her to her fated hero’s seat. She had found her fate—doomed to die at the bottom of a hole from one of countless forces she had no hope of overcoming, all of which would be all too happy to steal away her life—the life of the girl who always thought herself so high above them.

  And those forces counted many in number indeed. For one thing, food and water still ran low, but that was hardly out of the norm nowadays. Lying at the bottom of a crevice carried little chance of finding more of either, and with what she had left, dehydration would probably kill her within a few days. At least if she died, she wouldn’t need to worry about food. She could go longer without eating than without drinking water, so at least she knew hunger couldn’t kill her.

  She also faced the fact that a lot of her blood no longer resided inside her body where it belonged. Even if she had more bandages, no amount of cloth could fix her leg. She needed proper medical attention, the sort that came rarely in the middle of the desert. The closest thing she could come by was a vulture, who would happily take a good look at her leg for her, no doubt. Blood loss could kill her—perhaps faster than dehydration, even. She couldn’t say how much blood she’d lost so far, only that it was “some,” and that “some” is more than “none,” which is the proper amount of blood to lose.

  Adding to the pile, and certainly not the least of her problems, was Honn. Though he had made no appearance since the tower, he lurked out there somewhere, and he could only be so far behind. Her present situation made any option of countering his advance fairly impossible. With her leg—broken, to understate matters—she could neither stand and fight him in one final showdown nor continue in her flight.

  Her flight—her coward’s flight. Why hadn’t she fought him while she stood at least a sliver of a chance? She knew the answer, of course: fear. Her own fear had kept her on the run. No prospect of victory sided with her now. Now the question was only a matter of how quickly he planned to end her or drag her away.

  Though the mountains were now in view—at least, they were before she landed herself at the bottom of the crevice—they had seemed so dauntingly far when her leg still functioned, albeit painfully. Now her only choice was to crawl or drag herself across the ground. Death would catch her before she ever reached the first whiff of a slope, let alone the peaks she wanted so badly to summit.

  No—she had no chance of getting food or water, no chance of bandaging her leg and getting herself back on her path to the mountains, and no chance of besting Honn. This was her end, right there, at the bottom of the crevice. She looked over at Pahlo again and her throat seized. A fresh wave of sobs gripped her, though whether they were for him or for herself—or both—she couldn’t tell. A sinking hopelessness weighed upon her, trying to pull her down into the earth, deep underground, and she hated it. She failed.

  The peaks of the sobs fell away into another valley of shaky breathing and she pulled herself into a sitting position. Everything ached. Bruises would paint her skin if they got the chance to bloom before her body went cold. Scrapes crisscrossed her limbs in a web of red, but they felt like a gentle caress compared to the roaring pain creeping up from her twisted and mutilated leg. The muscles of her thigh still shifted at her whim, but it became immediately clear that she should never attempt it again. She clenched her fists and sunk her teeth into her lip, which dripped more blood onto her tongue. Great; releasing more blood from her veins was exactly what she needed to do.

  When the sweeping pain of her folly dissipated, she took a few steadying breaths, shrugged off her belongings, and then, ever so slowly, began to push herself across the uneven rocky ground to Pahlo. He lay on the stone with eyes closed. Blood speckled his face, seeping from gashes on his cheek and forehead and spattered there by the impact of the boulder when it landed on top of him. Despite the blood and the paleness of his skin, his expression almost looked peaceful. She had to look away for a moment as she fought to maintain her composure. Steeling herself, she returned her gaze, and then hauled herself closer.

  His body lay half-buried under the rubble, pinned beneath so much weight that, even if she wished to, she wouldn’t be able to free him, as the boulder was simply too large. She looked upon his face one final time. Blood and dirt caked his long dark brown curls. Grains of sand glittered in his eyelashes. His lips parted just a sliver, but no breath passed between them, nor would it ever again. The image of him lying there rooted itself deep into her mind with a strength that she doubted her ability to pry out no matter how long she lived—which wasn’t looking to be too much longer.

  “You will be remembered as a hero as long as I draw breath,” she said, and then with a heave she shifted a stone up and onto him. Repeating the process until no part of him remained visible, she buried him as best she could.

  She leaned back against the crevice wall, heavy breaths making her chest rise and fall. Gratitude washed over her for the fact that she still drew breath, no matter how much longer it lasted. Because of Pahlo, she was alive. If not for him, she would be the one buried beneath that boulder, never to rise again. The gratitude took a step aside as guilt emerged to join it.

  Alongside the guilt surrounding Pahlo’s death, Oleja blamed herself for a million other things. How many times had she thought to abandon him and go off on her own? It had been the first item on her agenda the moment she saw him, and found a home am
ong her most recent thoughts of him as well, giving her cause for debate after he caught up to her following her flight from the tower. He only ever wanted to help, and she only ever wanted to leave him behind. All because she thought she was better off working by herself. Alone, she’d be crushed beneath the rubble, and there wouldn’t even be anyone around to see her final moments or know her fate. She continued to draw breath not just because Pahlo had taken the force of the boulder and sacrificed himself for her, but because he had been with her at all. He was right—she needed other people there to help her. She just wished it hadn’t taken his death to make her believe it. Ude would be so disappointed. He always tried to tell her the same, but she never listened to him either. Stubbornness ran too deep within her.

  One truth among all others settled like a sharp stone in her heart. One she could hardly bear to admit.

  She had never cared for Pahlo in anywhere near the capacity he cared for her. He followed her from the eclipser camp, helping her throughout her journey because he so desperately wanted to see her succeed in her ambitions. He tracked her down after her flight from the tower, hardly sleeping in an effort to catch up with her, bearing more weight than he needed in order to deliver to her the rations to stave off her slowly encroaching death. Not once did he stop and give up on her or her quest to save their people. Even when it came to the point of throwing his life on the line to protect hers, he did it without hesitation. He did exactly what he told her he intended to, and what she told him not to, but she had argued against his interference thinking of her own pride, not of his wellbeing. Everything he did for her, she took for granted, and returned the favor with wishes to leave him behind. Now that he was dead, she could not claim to have cared deeply for him. She did not deserve to be the one crying beside his grave. She could not call herself his friend. Sure, she never wished an ill fate upon him, but neither had she cared overmuch for his success. She stole his moment of glory and heroism out from under him right from the start, and she could never return it to him, especially now.

  If anything, she cried because he did not deserve the fate he received, and that was all. And now she pitied herself more than she did him. She couldn’t even bring herself to wish that it was her beneath that pile of rubble. She didn’t, and it only made her angrier at herself. Soon her turn would arrive, and no one would be there with her as she died. Just as she deserved.

  She leaned her head against the rough stone and tilted her gaze skyward. A tiny wisp of a cloud drifted across the patch of sky visible between the two edges of the crevice—a sight all too familiar. Not only her first, but soon it would be her last as well. At least in between she got to see the rest of the sky, if only for a short time. How long ago did she leave the village? It felt like ages. With her head still swimming, she gave up hope of figuring it out.

  Perhaps Ude sat back there in the village, looking up at the same sight as her, the same sky above his head. He thought her dead—at least if he bore some wisdom, and he liked to believe he did. Though death hadn’t found her the day she escaped, she’d meet it soon. She may as well have died that day in his mind—he’d never know anything different. Maybe if she had listened to him in the first place, she could’ve pulled off her plan the first time and never landed herself in this mess. Now her record contained: failing, fleeing like a coward, and dying in a ditch. Even after failing, Tor had stood tall and faced the consequences of that failure. Oleja only ran. Some hero she turned out to be.

  Though she tried to avoid it due to the pain and nausea it brought on, she took a moment to look over her leg again. The break was about six inches below her knee, clear by the fact that at that point it bent grotesquely off to one side despite the clear lack of a joint there when last she checked. Skin hung in shreds, ground away from the boulder pinning it between the wall and itself while it slid. Sand clung to the exposed, blood-dampened flesh, and in some places sharp pebbles found a new home imbedded in the soft tissue. Her boot still protected her foot, but removing it would—in the best-case scenario—cause her to black out, and in the worst, pull the entire foot off with it. As a result, she had no way to know the state of her lower shin or foot, but given her inability to feel anything in the region besides excruciating pain, she guessed it looked no better than the rest of the leg. A trail of blood ran from where she landed after her fall to where she sat now beside Pahlo’s grave. Looking at her leg—bent at such an angle and leaking so much blood—made her lightheaded. Pain came in bursts. She felt the blood drain from her face—probably off to escape out her leg, which promised to do no one any favors, least of all the blood, destined to pool uselessly on the ground if it did so. She looked away once more. If she searched for some beacon of hope, her mangled leg made a bad place to look. It provided nothing but a reminder of her impending death.

  Once again, and with the same level of slowness, she shifted her position and dragged herself back over to her things. Rummaging in her bag, smearing the contents with the blood that coated her hands—hers or Pahlo’s she didn’t know—she withdrew her waterskin and took a small sip. Why she continued to ration it, she couldn’t say. Part of her wanted to just down the last of it in a few big gulps and enjoy that one final moment of bliss where moisture coated her mouth and her tongue did not feel like a great slab of sand. Perhaps it was because she had one last choice she could make: whether to let dehydration kill her or wait for Honn to arrive and do it himself. Unless blood loss came in to challenge those two, it was one or the other, and since she knew neither how much blood had vacated her body in favor of the ground nor how much she could lose before it became lethal, she focused on the other two for the moment. If those made up her final options, she chose Honn. Having him arrive at the edge of the crevice only to see her lifeless corpse half-cooked under the sun would be embarrassing at the very least. Killed slowly in a ditch by the forces of nature—no, she much preferred to meet her demise on the wrong end of a blade. Or a crossbow bolt. She wouldn’t be that picky.

  It just seemed more honorable that way. The last shred of heroism she could attain. Besides, she didn’t even know whether or not dehydration would kill her before Honn reached her, so even if there was no choice truly, at least this way she felt as though she made some decision. The freedom to choose her end mattered most, whether hollow or not. If for no other freedoms, she escaped the eclipser’s rule for the ability to decide her cause of death—a consolation prize for all of her effort that died right alongside her.

  She looked up at the night sky. There was nothing left to do but wait for Honn to come and kill her.

  All the distance she traveled meant nothing in the end. Just as always, she sat imprisoned at the bottom of a hole, fully at the mercy of the eclipsers, and there was not a single thing she could do about it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  When Honn arrived, she’d either meet an immediate death or a delayed death. In the case of a delayed death, the delay would only be as long as it took to get back to the village and eclipser camp. Not much of a way to spend her final days—bound, dragged along behind an eclipser hunter—but she had been through worse. If he wanted her alive, at least he’d provide food and water.

  She could not say which option she hoped for. A quick death might be nice, or at least less demeaning. Easier for Honn too—if he toted around her corpse, he wouldn’t be able to hear every last nasty thing she had to say about him, which she’d be all too happy to share given the chance, nor would he have to worry about keeping her alive long enough for the return journey. A corpse had very few needs, and food and water never found rank among them.

  But if he kept her alive, giving her the sustenance she needed, she retained her hold on the slim possibility that she could find a way to best him and slip free after using him to bring her back to health—or as close to health as she could get in a short time. Even if fortune continued to keep its distance, perhaps she would still be taken before the leader of the camp before her execution, giving her the opportunit
y to share some of her grievances with them.

  She tried to push the hopeful thoughts of escape from her mind. They did her no favors. Even if an opening presented itself, she was in no shape to take it. This marked the end of the line for her, and soon Honn would arrive to seal it.

  The ledge of the crevice loomed above her, still as the night. She imagined Honn coming up to it and looking down to see her lying there in pain and defeat. Chances looked high that such a sight could be one of the last she ever saw—him, standing there above her.

  How comical would it be if, in his approach, the lip of the crevice gave way beneath him just as it had her? He’d plummet down, landing atop her, killing them both. What a twist of fate.

  Wait.

  She couldn’t stand and fight Honn in a duel—not in her prime, and definitely not now—but she could lead him into a trap using herself as the bait. No honor came from such a plot, but the time for honor had passed. It was time to survive.

  If she weakened the ledge, she could send him hurtling down into the crevice. It would kill him if luck favored her, or leave him heavily injured even if it didn’t, but either ending made him an easier adversary than a fully-healthy eclipser soldier in armor she couldn’t penetrate wielding weapons she had no hope of deflecting. Sure, it wasn’t a full plan, but it gave her something she could do—a fight she could put up in her final moments. It wouldn’t get her out of the desert or fix her leg, but it was better than giving up. Anything was better than sitting there and waiting to die.

  She studied the crevice wall. About a foot below the top cut a receding gash in the stone that ran parallel with the top ledge and continued down the length of the crevice in both directions—no more than a foot deep, but its presence had put her where she lay now. The hollow looked natural, some product of ages of erosion. It would have to be bigger. No one spot guaranteed collapse as far as she could tell—and though Honn weighed more than her, this was no time for guesses and gambles. If she planned to act, she had to do it right.