Chasing Wings

by Hanna Dare

  “I don’t have spare swords to blunt and I don’t trust you with anything with a sharp edge.”

  “Hey,” Tris protested. “I was doing well.”

  “Oh, you’re wonderful swinging at nothing,” Marius said snidely. “Blocking nothing too.”

  Tris sighed and picked up the practice sword.

  Marius stamped his boots over the dew-covered ground as he loosened up, swinging his wooden sword in wide arcs. The morning fog had lifted but mist swirled over the tops of the pine forest, making their dark green shapes look pale and ghostly. Tris had been at this house for nearly two months and this far north the grip of summer was starting to relax, bringing with it a coolness that didn’t fade, even at midday.

  Tris adjusted his stance and leveled his sword at Marius. He squinted his eyes in a way that he hoped looked challenging. He probably looked like what he was — a shepherd, far from home, with a toy sword — but he supposed everybody had to start somewhere.

  “Well? You waiting for an invitation? Come at me,” Marius said. “And watch your footwork.”

  Tris tried to keep his feet moving the way they were supposed to but somehow he was always two steps behind and at the receiving end of Marius’s sword.

  “His lordship’s in a bit of mood,” Marius said conversationally while Tris tried clumsily to dodge his blows. “Muttering to himself and pacing. I’m starting to wonder if this job is nearing its end.”

  “Really?” Tris felt hopeful that his words had gotten through to the Earl.

  “Always a good idea to clear out before the boss snaps completely. Things tend to get messy then.” Marius gave Tris a considering look. “If I do move on soon, you could come along.”

  Tris was so surprised that he dropped his guard completely and earned a hard smack to his side. Marius followed up by hooking one of his ankles. Tris slammed into the ground.

  “You see what you did wrong there?”

  “Pretty much everything?”

  Marius nodded. “That’s right.” He offered Tris a hand and pulled him to his feet.

  Tris kept his sword pointing down, wanting to catch his breath and also to make sense of Marius’s words. “So do you mean I’d be working for you?”

  Marius nodded. “It’d be a sight better than sticking around here. Dragon hunting’s not a way to make a steady living to be sure, but there’s always work out there for someone who can handle a sword. Or, someone to stand behind a man who can handle a sword.” He shrugged. “You’re reliable and usually not too stupid, so I’d be willing to take you on as a kind of apprentice. On a trial basis.”

  “Thank you,” Tris said sincerely because he knew that Marius was giving him a considerable compliment. “It’s just…” He thought of Ormur, but Marius mistook his hesitation.

  “You’re not loyal to the old man, are you?”

  “The Earl? No, but I feel sorry for him sometimes.”

  Marius rolled his eyes. “You feel sorry for everyone. That’s why it’s so easy to take advantage of you. Take the brat in the cell, for instance—”

  “Ormur.”

  “Oh, he’s told you his name, has he?”

  Tris shrugged, trying not to blush. He had outgrown the round cheeks that the grannies loved to pinch on market day, but not their tendency to betray his every emotion. He thought he had controlled his face, but Marius still quirked a dark eyebrow at Tris.

  “He’s playing you.” Tris started worrying that Marius somehow knew what had happened in the cell last night. “He’s working your sympathies. Don’t fall for the ‘oh, poor me’ act.”

  “How is it an act?” Tris demanded. “He’s locked in a cell with no way to prove himself.”

  “He could turn into a dragon. That’d settle things right quick.”

  “But he’s not a dragon!”

  Marius smirked at Tris’s insistence. “You’re so sure about that, are you?”

  Tris took a breath and spoke what he knew to be true. “I don’t think he is what you and the Earl say he is. After all this time? And hating that cage so much? He couldn’t be.”

  It was hard, giving up the secret hope that Ormur would finally transform and reward Tris for his faith, but some things were more important. They’d connected last night. Enough for Tris to really see him. There was no plan or deeper quest. Ormur was simply a scared and lonely man in an impossible situation.

  Marius stuck a twig between his teeth and chewed on it thoughtfully. “He was poked at a bit when I first got him here, your Ormur. A few pinpricks to see if he would change shape, but nothing. The Earl took some of his blood, but I guess it wasn’t right for his purposes. I’ve suggested that we go at him a bit harder and see what happens.”

  Tris stared at him in alarm. “What do you mean harder? Are you talking about torturing him or something?”

  He scoffed at Tris. “I’m sorry, did I offend your delicate sensibilities? Are you going to swoon?” Marius continued in a milder voice. “You really want to see him go free? Then let’s settle the dragon question once and for all. I yank out a tooth or two and then, if there’s nothing more to show for it than a bit of blood, he walks out of here. You’re friendly with him. Put it to him that way so he won’t make a fuss. Likely the Earl will give him some coins for his trouble before sending him on his way. Sounds like a fair bargain.”

  Tris’s mouth dropped open, as shocked by Marius’s reasonable tone as the actual words he was saying. “No, it’s not! Rip out his teeth? That’s not right.”

  Tris hadn’t realized he’d brought his sword up until Marius came at him with sudden speed. He barely had time to block Marius’s sword with his own, the wood cracking beneath the force of the blow. Marius kept coming and Tris backed up until his feet caught and tripped. He fell backward, landing hard on the ground.

  This time there was no friendly hand to pull him to his feet. He looked up to see Marius pointing his wooden sword at him. His eyes were cold.

  “Who do you think decides what’s right? Kings and earls and men with swords.” Marius dropped the practice sword, showing his teeth in a humorless grin. “Grow up, kid, this is how the world works.”

  Tris came into the prison chamber and closed the door behind him. He leaned against it, breathing hard. Ormur gave him a curious look from behind the bars.

  “I’m getting you out of here,” Tris said.

  “So you keep saying,” Ormur said in a bored tone. He examined the back of his hand. “And yet here I am.”

  Tris pushed himself off from the door and walked around the small room. “It’s happening tonight.”

  A spark of interest kindled in Ormur’s eyes, but his manner was still carefully disinterested. “You have a plan?”

  Tris realized Ormur didn’t want to get his hopes up. He tried to put as much certainty as he could muster into his own voice. “Get the key and get you out.”

  “That’s… a bit bare bones. Are there any more details you can share?”

  “Just be ready.”

  He gestured at the small cell. “I’m sure it will take me ages to pack.” Ormur regarded Tris suspiciously. “Why the sudden rush of enthusiasm? I’m not going to let you fuck me for getting me out of here, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Tris was too anxious to blush or to be anything but blunt. “They’re going to pull out your teeth.”

  “What?”

  “Marius thinks if he… hurts you enough that’ll convince the Earl that you are who you say you are. Proof that you’re not a dragon.”

  “Or maybe he just wants an excuse to hurt me.”

  “That could be true too.” Tris hesitated. “Do you want to do this? Escape, I mean?”

  Ormur stalked up to the bars and grabbed them with both hands. “What are you talking about? You said you’d get me out. You swore it, Tris.” Anger and a bit of fear twisted his face. That last pulled at Tris’s chest. He stepped close to the bars, thinking to clasp Ormur’s hands but the other man moved back and wrapped his arms a
round himself.

  “It could go worse for you if they catch us trying to escape,” Tris said. “So it has to be up to you. Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

  Ormur met his eyes. “I like my teeth. There are plenty of things I plan to bite. So get that damned key.”

  “Tonight,” Tris promised and hoped the force of his sincerity would see them through.

  Tris stole a bottle of brandy from the Earl’s sideboard and went to Yonah’s cabin after supper. The groundskeeper willingly accepted the offer of a drink and didn’t notice that Tris nursed a single cup while Yonah polished off the entire bottle. There was no card-playing — just Tris urging him on, and the man rambled about lost loves and opportunities until his voice grew slurred. It was like one of those long ago nights listening to old Jack ramble, and he felt a bit guilty to leave the man snoring in his chair — but Yonah’s cabin was close to the stable and Tris couldn’t risk him hearing the horses.

  Tris had stashed his travel bag outside Yonah’s door, along with the sword Marius had loaned him. He took both out to the stable and set about saddling his horse and Marius’s. The gray mare tossed her head and stamped warningly at Tris’s unfamiliar touch, but he spoke to her in a soothing whisper and managed to get the saddle on without getting kicked.

  Tris went back into the mansion and began wrapping up some cheese and dried venison, working quickly and silently in the moonlight coming in from the kitchen’s lone window.

  He must not have been as silent as he’d hoped because a flickering light appeared behind him. Tris turned to see Helda standing in the doorway, holding a candle in an iron holder in front of her. She was in a long nightgown with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders and was looking at him suspiciously.

  “Oh, hello, Helda,” he said brightly. “I was hungry, so I was getting a snack to take up to my room.” She eyed the large bundle Tris had prepared, her mouth pursed. “Very hungry,” Tris added.

  He was very glad he had left his other things out in the stable, but still it had to be obvious he was planning something. He took a step forward. She wasn’t a kind woman to be sure, but she had mostly treated him decently. Tris had to think that meant some essential part of her was good.

  “Helda, you know that in the back of the house the Earl is holding—”

  She raised a hand sharply. “I don’t want to hear it. It’s none of my concern.”

  “But—”

  Her eyes were hard. “One more word and I start shouting to wake the house. Go back to bed.” She flicked a disapproving glance around the kitchen. “I’ll clean up this mess and put everything back where it’s supposed to be and we’ll speak no more of this.”

  He nodded and walked past her to the back stairs, eyes downcast, like a little boy caught with his hand in the jam jar. He held onto the bundle of food, though, and on the stairs he stopped on the landing before his attic bedroom. Helda had the room below him — she’d complained a few times when he’d paced about in the night — and dressed in her nightgown she hadn’t been carrying her customary chain of keys.

  The fine chain was hanging on a wooden peg just inside Helda’s bedroom door. Tris left the chain but unhooked the ring of keys from it, hoping that she wouldn’t notice them missing until morning. He didn’t think she’d have the key to Ormur’s cell, but he knew she had the one that opened the door to the Earl’s study.

  Marius had a room on the third floor, but not on the servants’ side. He turned in early on nights when there wasn’t a card game, because he liked to get up at dawn to hunt, so Tris wasn’t worried about encountering him as he prowled through the house. It was important to get a good head start. If he and Ormur made good time on their ride out they might be close to the town of Rivermouth by the time they were discovered missing. And without the horses it would take a long time for anyone to follow them.

  Tris was never more aware of the many creaking floorboards in the house as he crept through it with his ring of stolen keys. With every step, his heart was in his throat. His nerves felt close to snapping by the time he reached the Earl’s study.

  He tapped lightly on the door. If the Earl was there, he was going to rush in frantically and claim that Ormur had collapsed. He had to make it urgent enough that the Earl wouldn’t wait to summon Marius but would grab the key to the cell and go with Tris. Once the Earl was there, the plan got vaguer and involved Tris locking the Earl in the cell, hopefully without too much pushing or shoving of the old man.

  Mostly, Tris was hoping the Earl had gone to bed.

  There was no answer to the knock and Tris held his breath as he jangled his way through a half dozen keys on the ring before finally getting the door open. The door creaked, of course.

  Tris stepped inside to find the room dark and completely lacking in earls. He let himself noisily sigh in relief. Tris set the lantern he was carrying on a wide table the Earl worked at and set about locating the key.

  He tried to think about where the Earl would keep something so important — though the whole room seemed filled with expensively bound books and half-filled scribbled sheets of thick paper that had been tossed aside without regard for their cost. He opened a few drawers and small carved boxes. There was what looked like a human skull on a shelf, propping up a sheaf of rolled parchments, and Tris gingerly lifted it up and looked inside. It was empty and he set it back down quickly, wiping his hands on his pants as though he might have grave dust on them.

  Tris turned around and around, wondering if he could put himself in the mind of a possibly mad Earl who might also be some kind of wizard.

  He stopped and stared at the big tapestry that covered the wall behind the desk. On it, a knight in armor raised a sword against a green-scaled dragon. Tris lifted an edge of the heavy tapestry and squeezed in between it and the wall. In the place behind the woven dragon was a niche carved into the wall. Tris reached a hand inside and pulled out a heavy chain. He ducked back out from behind the tapestry, a little rumpled and sweaty from the close space, and opened his hand to see an amulet on the end of the chain — the twin to the one the Earl wore around his neck.

  Tris muttered a curse but held on to it. He might need something to bargain with if they were caught. He slipped it over his own neck for safekeeping and tucked the stone under his shirt. It felt warm against his skin, but maybe that was his guilt at turning into a thief. That, and his rising panic. What if the Earl carried the key on him? He couldn’t exactly go sneaking into the old man’s bedroom and rifling about while he slept.

  Tris dropped down in the Earl’s chair and stared at the cluttered table. There were a pair of leather slippers beneath the chair and on the table a fresh quill and inkpot were at hand. This was where the Earl sat every day and thought about dragons and magic and who knew what else. Tris put his elbows on the table and dropped his head in his hands.

  Next to his elbow was a small carved dish, the sort that his mother might use to store spare pins or loose buttons. This one held three or four small keys.

  Tris snatched them up. One of them was sure to be the key he was looking for — it had to be because he was out of ideas.

  Ormur sat up on his pallet as Tris came in and shut the door behind him.

  “Why are you carrying slippers?”

  Tris glanced down at the Earl’s slippers he had snatched up before leaving the study. “I only have the one pair of boots and I don’t know where your shoes are. You need something if we’re going to travel.”

  Ormur stared at Tris’s face. “Are we, then? Leaving this place?”

  Tris opened his hand to show him the keys, and Ormur took a sudden, swift breath. Tris knelt in front of the cell door and looked at the lock. He was conscious of Ormur getting up to stand before him and it caused his hands to shake a bit as he tried a key. It didn’t fit. Neither did the second one. He glanced up to see Ormur’s eyebrows start to rise, but then the third key slid home and clicked as he turned the metal lock.

  Tris wanted to shout in a mix of relie
f and triumph, but he kept it to a shaky exhale. With a sudden sense of ceremony, he stood and swung the door open.

  Ormur’s eyes were on his as he stepped out of the cell.

  “About time,” was all he said, but there was something in his look that made Tris’s already racing heart skip a beat.

  It was the first time he had seen Ormur without anything between them and his hands twitched with wanting to reach out. But Ormur moved past without touching him.

  Ormur made a face as he wriggled his feet into the leather slippers. He was wearing the clothes Tris had given him, the sweater soft and thick over his slender body.

  Tris cleared his throat. “You should bring the blanket. I don’t have another coat and we’re going to have to ride all night.”

  Ormur glanced at the pallet inside the cell. “I’m not going back in there,” he said tightly.

  Tris nodded and went to grab the blanket. It was strange, being in this confined space and imagining what it was like for Ormur to have been in here for all those weeks. The few objects in the room — ones that had become so familiar to Tris — looked strange from this new perspective. How had Tris looked to Ormur through those bars?

  The cell door was open and Ormur was beside it. Tris saw him look at the door and then at him. It would just take a touch to swing it shut. A turn of the key to lock it. Tris didn’t move, didn’t say anything, just waited to see what Ormur would do.

  “We should go,” Ormur said.

  Tris nodded and walked out of the room with him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tris and Ormur ran outside into the crisp night air. Owls hooted questioningly at them from the trees.

  Tris shuttered his lantern — the moonlight was bright enough for them to see their way to the stable — and he glanced back at the mansion, worried that someone would be peering at them from the paned windows. There was no one, but he fancied the house itself was watching disapprovingly.