Windswept

by Derek Alan Siddoway

  “The traders go there,” Chel insisted. “They bring weapons and tools from the mathre cittal to barter for furs with.”

  Ivan gave an exasperated sigh. “I hate to break it to you but those traders are Maizoron. They’re from farther north and west, the sunshine lands. They make buildings out of clay and have large farms and plantations — those stories they tell you about the Mother of Cities are just so you’ll want their goods. There are no living cities and no people between the Endless and Maizoro.”

  “I know what I know,” Chel said. She frowned and put her hands on her hips. “What about the horse people, then?”

  Now it was Ivan’s turn to frown as they all looked at him. “Okay, yes. Technically you’re right. There are a few nomadic tribes that wander this basin. So what? Even if we do come across them we’ll be flying. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  A few days later, however, Eva spotted a group of a dozen riders off in the distance. As they drew closer and rose out of bowshot, the horsemen spotted them. Some shook their fists and one of the more brazen riders loosened an arrow at them. It arced harmlessly well beneath the gryphons and struck the ground. Even so, an uneasy feeling gripped Eva and she pushed them even higher into the sky, nudging Fury to faster speeds.

  In minutes, the horsemen disappeared behind them. Before they landed to water a few hours later, Eva insisted they scout around and make sure they were the only ones in the area. But even after making certain they were alone, the leery feeling of being watched never left her. They’d made a habit of taking a rest around midday, napping while one or two of the gryphons went hunting. This time, Eva insisted they continue flying once everyone had a drink.

  Around early evening they came across another tower ring perched on a small hill overlooking the badlands. Although a few hours of light remained, Eva called a halt for the day. She knew she was being paranoid, but if anything were to happen, the tower ruins looked like the most defensible space for miles.

  “I told you, there’s nothing to worry about,” Ivan said, grumbling as he swung out of Belarus’ saddle that evening. Fury clawed at the pale earth between the stones, annoyed he’d missed his noon rest. It wasn’t until Eva jerked his reins and shouted his name that the gryphon held still for her to dismount.

  “Nothing to worry about?” Eva said. “They attacked us!”

  “One arrow doesn’t quite make a battle,” Ivan said. “And we were well out of range. They don’t have a chance of catching us even if they follow.”

  Taking a long pull from her canteen, Chel swished some water around in her mouth and spat. “They are people without honor, who raid and kill for sport.”

  “And how does that make them different from the Juarag?” Sigrid asked. Chel rose and walked toward Sigrid, stopping an arm’s length away.

  “They do not needlessly kill like the horse people.”

  “Oh yeah?” Sigrid said. “I’ve sure seen a lot of corpses along the frontier outposts and homesteads that would beg to differ.”

  The two girls took a step toward each other until their faces almost touched. Although Sigrid was almost half a head taller than Chel, the Juarag-Vo girl didn’t back down. As Sigrid reached for her knife and Chel tightened the grip on her hatchet hanging at her belt, Eva forced her way between them and pushed the pair of angry women apart.

  “Enough!” Eva said, locking eyes with Sigrid. “We have plenty to worry about without fighting one another.”

  Sigrid shoved Eva’s hand away and stomped off toward the fire Ivan had just finished. Chel watched her go, tracking every step Sigrid took.

  “Let it go,” she said. “That’s just how Sigrid is sometimes.”

  Chel shrugged. “She does not concern me.”

  They ate in strained silence around the meager fire. Every time the brush crackled in the flames and threw shadows on the broken tower walls, Eva expected to see attackers pouring out of the darkness. But as the night passed, it proved to be as safe as any other on their journey thus far. Although the gryphons were calm, as sure a sign as any that no danger lurked, Eva couldn’t shake the feeling they were being watched. When it came time to sleep, she insisted they post a watch.

  “Not it,” Ivan said as soon as the words were out of Eva’s mouth.

  Sigrid shot him a dirty look. “I’ll take the middle watch and the mighty Scrawl here can have last.”

  “Guess first is mine,” Eva said. Chel looked at her as if expecting to be assigned as well. “You can sit up with me if you want.”

  Ivan, Sigrid, and the gryphons soon drifted off to sleep, the emptiness of the night punctuated by Sigrid’s snorts and snores as she twisted in her blanket, oblivious to the world. To get out of the light of the fire, Eva climbed onto a section of the tower wall just taller than herself and settled down on the wide, flat stone. Chel joined her but neither of them spoke, each wrapped in their own thoughts as they gazed out into the darkness.

  “Tell me more about my father,” Eva said several minutes later after she’d worked up the nerve to broach the conversation.

  “I have already said he is very brave,” Chel said. With just the two of them alone, she seemed more willing to speak about Aleron. “But many times he is…sad. Once, he told me about a woman named Marien. I could tell he loved her very much. He has never taken a woman in our tribe. Sometimes he would stare off into the west and it was like he was in another place. I knew he was thinking about her.”

  “She was my mother,” Eva said in a soft voice. She reached up and touched the Wonder stone beneath her tunic but at the moment its warmth on her skin provided little comfort.

  “I did not know my mother,” she said to Eva. “She died when I was very young. My father blamed me for her death and often beat me because of it.”

  “So you ran away?” Eva asked.

  Chel shook her head. “As I grew, other…misfortunes happened around me. They were accidents, but I always seemed to be nearby when they occurred. People in my tribe began to call me cursed and banished me when I was still a small child. That is how I became Juarag-Vo.”

  “Oh.”

  Eva felt sick and ashamed of herself for being jealous of Chel. But as another long silence passed, Eva felt more like she was sitting with an old friend, who she hadn’t seen in a long time.

  “What will you do when we return to your tribe?” Eva asked.

  Chel shrugged. “They are not many of us left now. When I was little, other outcasts, other Juarag-Vo would find us on the plains, but we are so far north and the land is so unsafe that no one comes. The ones we have are those strong enough to fight and run when the Smelterborn come. The rest are all dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” Eva whispered. She hesitated, then wrapped an arm around Chel. The other girl started at her touch but then relaxed.

  “We must find him, Eva-lyn,” Chel said. It was the first time she’d spoken Eva’s name. “We will go to Aleron and my people will not have died for nothing.”

  Her throat thick, Eva could only nod as silent tears ran down her face.

  Chapter Nine

  Eva woke to the sound of Ivan’s shouts blended with foreign screams that sent a chill running down her spine. She kicked off her blankets and leaped to her feet. Sigrid and Chel did the same nearby, everyone scrambling for their weapons, while the gryphons swiveled their heads in search of the danger.

  “Down there!” Ivan yelled from his perch on the wall.

  Eva scrambled up beside the Scrawl. In the early morning light, a half dozen horsemen thundered up the hill toward them. Hoofbeats pounding on the hard ground behind them told her more approached from the east as well. They’d be surrounded in seconds.

  “Get ready!” Sigrid shouted. As Eva and Ivan leaped to the ground, Sigrid grabbed a spear and tossed another to Chel. Eva swallowed and drew her own sword. At the same time, Fury and the other two gryphons leaped into the air where they could be most effective. Eva wished she was up there with them.

  The three of th
em gathered in the center of the tower, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Through a gap in the wall, Eva saw the horsemen drop their reins and reach for the quivers hanging from their saddles.

  “Ivan, cover us!” Sigrid shouted.

  The horseman nocked arrows to their bows. Eva glanced at Ivan. The young Scrawl stared at the riders, unmoving. They were well within range. No one had shields.

  “Ivan!”

  Eva’s yell seemed to yank him out of his stunned stupor and, as the riders drew back, Ivan shouted a string of words, and glowing runes sprang up across his body. Just in time, a gust of wind swept the arrows aside. Eva flinched as the shafts scattered around them, clattering off the rocks of the tower.

  Seeing the summoned wind knock their arrows aside, the horsemen cursed in an unknown tongue and reached for crude swords. The tower entryway was wide enough for two riders to pass side by side, although some stone blocks had fallen over the opening. Eva guessed the riders were adept enough horsemen that the short barrier wouldn’t be much of a defense. Another section of fallen wall behind them presented the same problem. Even so, the large blocks gave the riders pause and they circled their horses outside, shouting and brandishing their weapons.

  High above them, the gryphons waited on, circling and screeching madly. Eva held up a fist, the signal for Fury to continue holding. Until the riders were engaged, she didn’t want the gryphons swooping down into arrow range.

  “Were you asleep?” Sigrid snarled at Ivan. “How did they get so close before you noticed them?”

  “I was not!” Ivan yelled back. “I was just resting my eyes for a moment and next thing I knew they popped out of the dark. I don’t know where they came from.”

  “Where they came from?” Sigrid said, voice incredulous. “There’s nothing around us for miles, you should’ve seen them ages ago!”

  “Shut up, both of you!” Eva said, mind racing. She’d been in small scrimmages with the Juarag before but always in the air, and always with a dozen or more Windsworn at her side. This was a completely different story, and she knew there was a good chance one of them would be seriously wounded, if not killed. An old, familiar stinging clenched her stomach, and she fought the urge to throw up.

  Sigrid looked at her and nodded. “Don’t think, just do.”

  Throat tight, all Eva could do was nod. At the same time, two riders burst into the crumbled tower ring. Shouting to keep from sobbing, Eva swung her sword forward and was met by one of the curved blades of the riders. She stumbled back under the blow, hand ringing but managed to hold onto her weapon. Sigrid lashed out with her spear, catching her rider in the side. He toppled off the side of his horse just as three more riders fought their way through the gap. The dark-haired girl stumbled backward as the fresh horseman trampled their wounded comrade beneath their mounts.

  Eva fought her way next to Sigrid, placing their backs to one another. In the confined space and at the disadvantage of being on foot while their attackers were on horseback, it was all they could do to defend themselves from the blows raining down overhead. By now, the circle was filled with riders. A gust of wind kicked up and Eva felt a searing heat on the side of her face as Ivan unleashed another conjuration. Horses screamed and went wild, kicking and fighting to get out of the circle, throwing a couple of the riders in the process.

  Chaos ensued. Horses bucked and reared and flailed all around them, their riders forced to jump clear as they surged toward the gaps in the tower wall.

  “Fury!”

  Eva screamed for her gryphon as a man with long, bedraggled, black hair growled and lunged at her with his sword. Instinct drove away terror. Eva twisted to the side, using her own blade and the attacker’s momentum to knock his blow aside. Before he could recover, she reversed her swing and slashed the man across the throat. Gurgling, the rider dropped to the ground.

  Eva stared, aghast. The man died at her feet. Her sword dropped from her grip. She was only dimly aware of the gryphons dropping like lightning into their midst. Her sickness and fear returned sevenfold and she staggered to the ruined wall like a drunk. Leaning against the cold stone, she expelled the contents of her stomach all over the ground and her boots.

  Chel rushed to Eva’s side. For some reason, Eva couldn’t stop focusing on the splatters of blood across the girl’s face. The Juarag girl shouted something over the sounds of gryphons screeching and men and horses dying, but to Eva it sounded all muffled and distant. Chel shouted again, and this time Eva understood.

  “It’s okay, Eva-lyn. It’s over!”

  Bracing shaking hands on shaking knees, Eva glanced around the inside of the tower at the mess of death. About half of the riders were dead, the rest scattered into the badlands with their horses. Smoke filled the air, along with the cloying stench of what Eva told herself was only burnt horse. Sigrid walked among the bodies and paused to put a dying horseman out of his agony. When the task was done, she wiped her knife on his leather vest and stood up. The man lay still at her feet.

  Eva shuddered and looked at the dead horsemen she’d killed with her sword. He stared back at her, mouth open, eyes dim. Another wave of sickness overtook her and doubled over, but there was nothing left to come up.

  “First kill?” Chel asked, placing a hand on Eva’s back to steady her as she swayed and retched. Eva gave a weak nod and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  They’d told her it would probably be like this. Told her since Drill Master Cross first put a sword in her hand and made her life hell learning how to use it. In the fights she’d been in on the frontier, Eva had somehow managed to avoid killing anyone, although Fury had ripped into his fair share of Juarag raiders. She’d thought it wouldn’t have been any different when it was her sword instead of his claws and beak. It was, though. As different as night and day, life and death.

  “Everyone okay?” Sigrid asked, sheathing her knife. She looked over at Eva, who waved a hand and straightened her back.

  Fury called out in concern and bounded to her side. Streaks of blood — horse or human Eva didn’t want to know — coated his beak and head feathers. Eva drew in a sharp breath when she saw an arrow lodged in his wing, but soon realized it was only tangled in the outer feathers — a minor injury given the intensity of the fight. With trembling hands, she reached up and pulled the shaft through.

  Sven had a long, shallow cut in his side, but seemed no worse for the wear. He started rooting at the guts of a dead horse, soon joined by Belarus. Eva clenched her teeth and looked away. A thought struck her.

  “Where’s Ivan?”

  A groan sounded against the far wall near the gap in the tower base.Her own sickness forgotten, Eva rushed to Ivan’s side. The Scrawl lay slumped against a weathered block of stone, clutching a long cut on his right arm. Blood seeped through his fingers and dripped on the ground. Ivan’s face was ashen, a stark contrast to the dark blue rune markings across his head.

  “Damn…barbarian,” Ivan said through gritted teeth. “Lucky cut…shouldn’t have been messing around.”

  “Let me see.” Eva lifted Ivan’s hand away and winced as the blood started to flow down his arm. The cut didn’t go to the bone, but it was still deep.

  While Chel searched the corpses for anything of use, Sigrid and Eva did their best to clean and bandage Ivan’s wound. Cutting strips from a spare cloak, they wrapped his upper arm tight, but without any needle or string to stitch the cut, the blood continued to seep through the bandages.

  “Ow!” Ivan hissed as Sigrid tied the last strip of cloth in place.

  “Oh, be quiet,” Sigrid said. “Maybe this’ll teach you not to doze during your watch.” But as she spoke, Eva saw the look of concern cross Sigrid’s face

  Eva helped Ivan to his feet and together they navigated their way out of the tower. Passing by the dead, Eva focused on the sky above to avoid looking at the bodies. It didn’t help that all three gryphons were gorging themselves on the dead horses after days of lean hunting on the barren plains. Outsid
e the tower ring, Eva heaved a long sigh, swallowing back the taste of bile.

  “Can you ride?” she asked Ivan.

  The Scrawl boy nodded. “You might have to help me up into the saddle though.”

  Eva stared off into the badlands. Unbidden, an image of the man she’d killed popped into her vision, the look of surprise on his face as her sword sliced through his throat and he sank to the ground. She’d always known this day would come, but it had never seemed real, never seemed so…final. She wondered if she could have done something different, maybe wounded the man instead of killing him. Maybe —

  “Eva!”

  Sigrid’s voice drew her from her haze and she blinked, muttering an apology.

  The dark-haired girl placed a hand on her shoulder and forced Eva to meet her eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m…I’m good,” Eva replied, trying to force the dead man’s bewildered expression out of her face. She glanced down at the ground and made to move to help Chel pick up their camp. But Sigrid squeezed her shoulder, holding her in place until she looked back up at the other girl.

  “It was either you or him,” Sigrid said in a soft voice. “He would have killed you without thinking twice about it, Eva. If they’d taken you alive, who knows what they might have done. They attacked us. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Eva nodded and winced as her sour stomach stabbed at her. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They gathered their scattered belongings and took to the air as fast as they could manage with their wounds. Airborne, Eva watched Ivan and Chel across from her on Belarus. Chel rode behind him, occasionally reaching up to steady the Scrawl as he teetered in the saddle, clearly exhausted from the amount of rune magic he’d conjured and the loss of blood. Eva knew it was her fault he’d been hurt out in the middle of nowhere but was grateful Ivan had been with them. The attack would have gone a lot differently without the Scrawl’s aid. She just hoped he’d be okay