by Mark Cole
Brahm shrugged. “The pillar be high, an’ the sightlines good. They could’ve seen us comin’ with their big ‘scopes. We’ll know more when the cat comes back.”
Caitlyn stumbled around the bend on the pillar in her human form. She called her other form primal and had not changed into it since they left the Wraith Marshes. It shocked Terra and Brahm that she was still able to turn into her original body. They had never heard of a changeling able to change from their birth form to anything other than their human form.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked when he saw tears running down her cheeks. Caitlyn collapsed into his arms and cried, her face buried in his chest. Alex looked to Terra with concern as he stroked the weeping woman’s hair. “It’s all right, Caitlyn,” he soothed. “You are safe now. We’re all here for you.”
A few moments passed before Caitlyn could stop crying. “I went part of the way up the pillar to Highwind Point, and I didn’t hear or see anything. So, I decided to go the rest of the way up…” she trailed off and tears welled up again in her golden eyes.
“And?” Terra asked.
“The children,” she choked out. “They’re… I can’t… It’s… You have to... Follow.”
The three that hadn’t gone up exchanged glances and followed the changeling. She wouldn’t say anything as they went up the steep climb. About two-thirds of the way up, the smell of blood and rot hit them like a hammer. The last third was climbed at a run.
They froze as they came level with the top. It took a moment for their minds to comprehend the macabre sight. Brahm swore, and Terra vomited noisily.
“Who could do this?” Alex asked quietly in disbelief. He stumbled toward the nearest of the hundreds of spikes planted in the ground to either side of the road. Flies buzzed around the infant’s corpse that had been impaled upon the top. He felt something deep inside himself begin to swell as he drew near it. Tears welled in his eyes at the stolen life.
He reached out a pair of shaking hands, and as carefully as he could, he lifted the baby girl off of the spike. The force inside himself grew stronger. “Who could do this?” he whispered as he slumped to his knees. He knew the answer. “I WILL KILL HIM!” Alex screamed as he felt something inside himself snap.
A roar of wordless rage accompanied the flow of unknown power Alex felt running through him. Life had been stolen from this child, and it wasn’t fair. It must be undone. His howl grew louder as he pushed as much of this energy into the ruined form small enough to fit in his hands. His sword screamed warning, but he ignored it.
“He’s going to kill himself!” he heard a woman shout over his screams as his vision began to darken. Alex became light-headed but fought through it. He would fix this. He must.
Something crashed into him. Alex slammed onto the ground face first. He cradled the baby carefully beneath himself, keeping it from further harm. It must be undone. Strong hands grabbed his hair and bashed his face against the ground. His vision blurred; the power in him disappeared.
He stopped yelling and shook his head. He rolled over onto his side, the rotting infant’s corpse still in his hands. “Why?” Alex asked.
“Azreal wanted to send us a message.” Terra looked at the tiny body in his hands. She knelt next to him and gently took the girl from him. “I’m so sorry,” she told the baby. “I’m sorry you had to die for something you knew nothing about.” Tears dripped to the bloody stone ground.
She looked at the hundreds of corpses of infants and children lining the road to the center of the town. “We’ll search for survivors. There may be one or two,” she said as she placed the corpse on the ground. “Then we will gather the dead and burn them as is their custom.” She stood and held her hand out for Alex to help him stand. He nodded and took her hand.
The four walked down the road to the center of town. The impaled corpses grew older the farther they walked. Some of them were human, some pixie, and a large number were the baby bird forms of the Changelings of the Wing. None were more than a handful of years old. The smell grew worse with each step, but they forced themselves to continue.
The center of the town looked as if thousands had been run through a meat grinder. Whole bodies were rare. Most had been gnawed on by sharp teeth. It seemed only one group of people had not been completely ripped limb from limb.
The pregnant women had been rounded up into a small building at the side of the square. Spears had been run through their stomachs. Alex felt Terra’s rage like a burning sun. He wished he could feel anything other than numb disbelief. Nothing he had ever seen or been told could have prepared him for this.
They walked back out of the building to find a pale, bony old man wearing brown leather with feathers sewn on it staring at them with empty black eyes. The four rushed to him. He raised his right hand and pointed at them. “They killed us. All of us. Because of you,” he said pointing at Terra. His hand drifted over to point at Alex. “And you.” He collapsed in the dried blood and died.
Terra sadly shook her head. “No, Winglord Steelfeather. Not because of us.” Brahm knelt to see if he could help the leader of the Changelings of the Wing. “It’s no use,” Terra said. “The spell Azreal used killed him after he gave us his message.”
“I’ve go’ to see if I can help,” Brahm said gruffly. “There’s been too much death here already.”
Terra looked around. Alex felt her rage grow with every turn of her head. “Don’t let this crush you, Alex,” she said, anger clear in her voice. “He’s done this before. Five years ago. Every town he swept through was like this.” She clenched her fists. He could feel the pain on her palms from her fingernails. “Every person dead is one more reason he will die,” she said in grim commitment.
Alex nodded and forced himself to feed his sadness into the glimmering flame that was his rage. Slowly, he began to feel again. The strange power did not come, and he couldn’t sense it at all.
“Seems like it was three or four days ago from the amount of decay,” she said, looking around.
The others nodded. They had all seen more death in their lives than anyone should have to.
“Alex and I will begin to gather the dead,” Terra said. “Brahm, go with Caitlyn and search for any survivors. Be careful, Azreal may have left behind an ambush force.” The two set off.
The husband and wife walked back to the entrance of the town. Terra lifted the baby from ground. Alex pulled another down from a spike. “Let’s put them in the center of the town,” she said. He nodded. The sun began its downward descent from high before they talked again. Alex carried a small child as Terra carried an eaglet. They were the last ones from the spikes.
“We need to talk about what you tried to do, Alex,” she said as they set the small corpses with the rest.
Seven hundred thirty four, Alex thought, finishing the count. Over seven hundred children slaughtered… He looked at her, the hatred clear on his face. “Seven hundred, Terra. He had seven hundred children killed.” He looked around at all the bodies in the center. “Seven hundred children, and tens of thousands of others.”
“Millions can be laid at his feet,” she said. “He will pay for his crimes. But, we need to talk about this.”
“We have more work to do,” Alex said as he walked to the charnel, which held the dead pregnant women. She followed him, talking as they walked.
“You could have died, Alex. You could have drained yourself dry. Death can’t be healed.”
“I know,” he said softly. He touched the Guardian’s Blade before she could ask.
“I didn’t recognize the energy you were using. Brahm didn’t even know what you were doing, but he can’t see magical power since he has none. Alex, you are a wizard. You have to be careful. You could kill yourself trying to do something you aren’t capable of.”
“If I was a wizard, would I be able to feel this magical power you are talking about?” Terra said he would. He searched himself for it, but he found nothing. “I don’t feel anything.”
; “What happened?”
Alex shrugged. He bent down to lift a pixie that had been run through. The spear had been driven in with such force that it protruded from her back. “I don’t know. It was just suddenly there. It screamed for release. I felt like I could bring that little girl back to life.” He turned and walked out of the room, carrying the woman. Terra lifted five of them on beds of Air and floated them out behind him. “I failed.”
“Alex, I’m so sorry,” Terra said. “It isn’t possible. You didn’t fail.”
He put the dead pixie woman next to one of the baby pixie corpses. He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever power I felt is gone now. I won’t try playing God again.” Terra put a gentle hand on his back.
Caitlyn and Brahm returned. “There’s no’ a single living thing except fer the bloody flies.” Terra nodded. The four continued to move bodies until well after dark. There were too many to carry them all in one day. Not willing to sleep near so much death, the four went walked back down the pillar to wash in the nearby river, eat a silent dinner, and sleep.
For four days, they collected bodies and placed them in the center of Highwind Point. They overflowed into the buildings that bordered it. A heavy rain had fallen the night before, cleansing the ground of blood. The four arranged the bodies in as close a perfect circle radiating out from the exact center of the town they could. They stood outside the ring of corpses as the sky began to lighten on the fifth day since their arrival.
“After the pyre, are we going to use that Silverwing to fly to the Changelings of the Claw in the Icethrone Castle?” Alex asked as they waited on sunrise. While checking the tunnels below for bodies, Brahm and Caitlyn had discovered a massive dock that opened into the air. All of the berths were empty save one. The end berth held a ship lashed in place on wooden supports.
Terra nodded. “I should be able to use the control device and pilot it there.”
“Should?” Brahm and Alex asked simultaneously. Terra glanced at them.
“I didn’t mean…” Alex said at the same time Brahm said, “I do no’ think crashin’ would be fun.”
“We’ll talk about that later,” she said as the sun began to peak above the horizon. Facing the rising sun across the square, she began the funeral rites of the Changelings of the Wing.
“It is said that the first changelings were born from the tears of the moon,” she recited. “The moon looked down on the land and was sad to see so many animals hurting one another. She decided to give them the gift of wisdom and charge each of them with a duty.” Shimmers of heat began to rise in front of them as she used her powers as Nexus to draw heat from everything around.
“Luna charged the great bears who became the Changelings of the Claw with the protection of the icy tundra and seas north of the Great Range. She charged the hunting cats who became the Changelings of the Fang with the protection of all the land south of the Great Range. To the dragons that became the Changelings of the Scale, the deep bowels of this world. Last, she charged the great birds in the sky with the protection of the firmament, the place she makes her home.” Steam rose as the heat grew enough to begin flashing the rainwater into vapor.
“And now, we go to her. To be with Luna for all time. Home in the sky.” The air grew hot enough to ignite, and a massive whirlwind of flame, over a quarter mile wide, roared into life. The blazing heat almost drove them back in pain, but they stood their ground, honoring the fallen with their steadfastness. Brahm began to sing a dwarven lament in a mournful baritone.
“The Hammer falls,
and all things end.
Forge the blade,
and start again.
My friends rest here,
among the dead.
Unto the breach,
we all were led.”
The heat grew, forcing them back a step they wished not to give. Stone melted and earth cracked under the great pillar of flame. Brahm sang louder, his gravelly deep voice gaining force with each word.
“The Hammer falls,
the fire burns low.
Forge the blade,
pump the bellow.
Fear not the night,
nor the shadow.
Unto the breach,
we all must go.”
Stone and sand and earth burned white hot and melted to glass. The flames blazed. The shape of them changed, and something began to rise from the red hot earth. Brahm sang at the top of his lungs.
“The Hammer falls,
the sparks leap high.
Forge the blade,
fear no’ to die.
Last duty calls,
but do no’ cry.
Yer names live on,
in Mother’s eye.”
The sun had just come free of the horizon as Brahm finished the dirge. The inferno began to lessen. The shape that had risen in the whirlwind was difficult to make out through the slackening flames. The blaze spun its way into the sky. Everyone but Terra gasped at what was left behind.
A glass eagle looked up toward the sky with its wings wrapped protectively around an empty nest. The huge statue glowed orange from the heat of its creation. The ground around the statue was a glowing bowl from the glass having been sucked up to make the statue. Waves of heat made the twenty-foot tall eagle shimmer in the early morning light.
Caitlyn walked to the very edge of the vast searing bowl of glass and held out her hands. A soft hissing sound issued from the statue and the ground surrounding. Everything began to cool. Glass clarified, and the heat waves stopped. She stood for a few moments longer then collapsed to a knee.
Alex ran to her and helped her stand. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Caitlyn nodded weakly. “Just tired. Never put a preservation on something so large,” she panted. “But now, as long as no one dispels it, you could hit the statue or the bowl with a sledgehammer, and it will not chip. The elements will not wear it down. It will always look as perfect as it does now.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “That sounds difficult. I thought you said you didn’t have much magical power.”
“Putting a preservation on something was the only thing I ever excelled at.” Her eyes took on a distant cast. “I’m stronger now after… what the sprites did to me.”
“I want to see it closer,” Alex said as he stepped down into the glass bowl. Its rippling texture, like rounded steps, made walking easy. He heard the click on steps behind him and knew the other three followed. The walk up the center rise the statue was on proved a little more difficult due to the steep angle, but together they all made it up to the small flat circle that was the base of the sculpture.
The detail and sense of vitality Terra had been able to instill upon the eagle was amazing. Alex ran his fingers along one of the wings. He could feel the individual fibers on each feather. He put his arm around her.
“This is amazing,” he whispered.
“I just did what I could. These people deserved better than this.”
He nodded. “If we had been here…”
“Then we would’ve died with ‘em,” Brahm said. “Four would’ve made no’ one burnin’ lick o’ difference.”
Alex let out a frustrated breath. “I know. I just wish there was something we could have done.” He walked to the front of the statue. The eagle’s wings wrapped protectively around a small, empty nest of glass. “What’s supposed to go here?”
Terra reached into the bag at her waist and pulled out an Eye of the Stars. She placed it in the nest. It clinked softly when she set it down. The air hummed for a few moments. The Eye turned the same shade of blue as the sky. She stepped back.
“What did you do?” Alex asked.
“I cast a spell that will prevent anyone that isn’t a Changeling of the Wing from touching it. And the first one that does will have it attuned to him.”
“What if a demon, or something else gets hold of it?” he asked.
“They will die. Very painfully. It will repulse anything from this realm, and
kill anything that isn’t from it.”
“If you could do this, why didn’t you earlier? Like when we were still in Starfall?” he asked in exasperation.
“Three reasons,” she said. “First, I had only attuned one there, and I wasn’t sure how the process would differ between each people. Second, I’m not entirely sure this will work. Third, it has been a long time since I was around any Changelings of the Wing, and I’m only pretty sure I got the initial part of the attunement right. I’ve invested it with enough power to complete the process, but if I was off in the beginning it won’t be enough to make it work.
“The Eye will shatter if it isn’t able to attune correctly. This is a shot in the dark. I’m not even sure there are any of the Wing left. But if there are, they deserve at least a chance at revenge.” Alex and Caitlyn nodded their agreement.
“That they do,” Brahm said. “A fleet o’ blasted Silverwings goin’ against the Obsidian Tower would’ve made the battle a mite bit easier. A number o’ them were no’ in their berths. Some could’ve made it out.”
“I hope so. Let’s get ready to go,” she said as she turned away from the statue and navigated down the rise.
“Ok,” Alex said. “Can you tell me what exactly a Silverwing is now? Other than it flies with magic?”
“Brahm, you’ve actually flown on one. Will you explain it to him? I’m going to be sick if I keep talking,” Terra said. Her morning sickness had returned with a vengeance since they arrived and was not willing to pass again.
“Sure,” the grizzled Dwarf said. He lowered his voice so just Alex could hear. “Alrigh’, the first thing ye need to be knowin’ ‘bout the blasted Silverwings is the durned things’re just like boats. ‘Cept instead o’ bein’ on water, the flamin’ things fly. And none too smooth either. Flamin’ things buck and kick more than a wild horse.”
That doesn’t sound so bad, Alex thought. Sounds a lot like a boat. Brahm continued.
“So, there ye are, holdin’ on fer yer flamin’ life, when suddenly, the person usin’ the bleedin’ control device loses their blasted concentration, and ye drop five hun’erd feet through the air. Just about now yer startin’ to think that maybe this weren’t such a good idea, but one o’ the three other blasted people that’re with ye just to use the bloody control device catch the ship, and the flamin’ thing doesn’t softly level out. No, the durned thing just stops fallin’, and ye get to kiss the deck all hard like.”