by Tracy Lane
She squeezed his hand tighter so that a jab of current slid up his arm and zapped him. He gasped, then looked at her. “How did you do that?”
She slipped her hand from his, suddenly missing the feeling of power that came from his touch. She shrugged innocently. “This is new to me as well,” she said, pulling forward but secretly proud that she’d been able to focus and force the power where she wanted it to go.
He scratched his arm absently, looking at her with a new respect. They fell in line, waiting for Lutheran to catch up before continuing around the latest obstacle and farther, faster, up the mountain still.
They walked all day, inching forward until, looking back at the dusk-filled horizon, it seemed as if they hadn’t gone very far at all. Lutheran’s breaths were ragged things by now, sweat covering the front of his shirt, his cheeks flushed red from the effort.
“We should rest now,” Aurora said, pointing to Lutheran as he leaned, head down, against a rock.
Kayne followed her eyes and nodded sympathetically. “You’re right,” he said, looking almost relieved at the thought of a forced rest. He looked around and spied a nearby outcropping surrounded by trees. There was a spring, for water, and a small cluster of trees for privacy.
“Here?” he said, his voice implying he wanted her advice.
She nodded though, truthfully, she would have dangled from the edge of a cliff if it only meant taking the weight off her legs for a moment. She watched as Lutheran struggled toward the clearing, Kayne reaching out to help him up the last few steps.
She saw the young saplings that called to her and got an idea. “I’ll gather the firewood,” she told Kayne as he helped Lutheran onto a flat rock, then joined him, taking a load off his own tired feet. But Aurora did much more than that.
Once Kayne got a fire going, thanks to joining with her hand and the quick little spark of light she helped shoot from his fingertips, Aurora sat on a petrified tree stump and used her father’s knife to carve crude but helpful walking sticks.
It took awhile, and while she worked Lutheran and Kayne both ate from their meager stores. Some dried strips of wild Squeaker she’d managed to hunt down before their journey up the mountain, a few berries she’d stored for the trip, fresh water from the nearby stream.
She noted how they both shared, evenly, and put her portion on a large leaf for later. Nodding and smiling to herself, she bent to her work and did not stop until she was finished.
“For you,” she told Lutheran, handing him the longest, sturdiest walking stick.
He looked better rested now, full of fresh water from a nearby stream, and his color back to normal. He stood, if reluctantly, and used the stick to walk a few steps.
“Perfect,” he said, tiredly, winking knowingly at her as he tested his weight on the stick. “This will help an old man keep up with you kids,” he said, adding, “or try to, at least.”
“And for you,” she said, shyly, to Kayne.
He stood and gripped the freshly carved branch carefully, almost… respectfully… in both hands.
“Thank you,” he said, before placing the tip end gently into the ground. The shaft fit perfectly in his hand, the height just about right, coming to just below his shoulder.
Any shorter and it would be useless, any taller and it would be burdensome. He, too, followed Lutheran around the small fire, both of them grinning as they engaged in a short-lived race.
“I’m walking faster already,” said Lutheran, just before sitting back down and admiring it from the seated position.
Aurora chuckled and tested hers last. It was shorter than the other two, but then so was she. It felt just right in her hand, a quick sense of support as the climbing seemed to be growing harder, and steeper, with every step.
“We should set them by the fire,” she instructed, gathering all three before the others could resist. “To dry them out and make them stronger.”
Lutheran nodded appreciatively. “I see your father has taught you well,” he said, sitting back on the rock he’d claimed. “He’d be proud.”
Kayne and Aurora shared a private look. “I hope so,” she said quietly, poking the fire with a random piece of kindling leftover from her work.
Lutheran settled back, staring above. The sky was growing dark, the fire glowing brightly, but the danger was just above. Every few minutes, as if to remind them, one of the giant beasts hooted as if to remind them that danger was just out of reach.
Aurora shivered and sank back against a fallen log. She knew the night would be long, and filled with little sleep.
35
Lutheran snored and turned fitfully, kicking Aurora with his gnarled toenails poking through his ragged socks. She shivered and sat up, judging from the rim of light circling the horizon below that there was still another hour or two before dawn. She sighed.
There would be no more sleep for her this night.
She saw Kayne, hunched over the fire, warming his hands slowly, almost absently. She shivered, but not from the cold. He looked so handsome in the firelight, his long hair framing his face, his large eyes made more luminous by the glow of the flickering fire.
Something stirred in her as she sat up from her place of rest, something more powerful even than the white-hot glow that surrounded their fingers when they held hands.
“Still keeping watch?” she asked quietly as she crept to his side. He was perched on a rock, large enough for two, but she found herself inching closer to his side.
“Not much to see at this hour,” he said, more quietly still. “Mostly…” he confessed, avoiding her eyes, “… I’ve been watching you sleep.”
She nearly gasped, but instead inched closer. “Have you ever kissed a girl before, Kayne?”
He glanced back at her, then down at Lutheran, still sleeping. He shook his head and reached for her hand.
A single spark flickered between them as he clung to her, guiding her up and away from the fire. He led her inside a small strand of trees, close enough to leap to the rescue should disaster strike Lutheran, but far enough away for privacy.
“Have you ever kissed… a boy?” His voice was curious and slightly jealous. She liked that—a lot.
The air was chill but her skin grew warm as she inched closer to him. “Yes, but… never a squire. Is it much different?”
He chuckled nervously, uncomfortable being so close. He backed up a little, but found a sheer rock wall behind him. There was nowhere else for him to go.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never kissed a squire either.”
She bit her lip, admiring his all the more. “I’m worried,” she whispered. “Our touch is so powerful, what will it be like when we kiss?”
His blush was visible even in the pre-dawn darkness. “Only one way to find out,” he said.
She kissed him then, softly at first, the faint flicker of electricity sizzling between her teeth. She found she liked it and, grunting, he must have as well. His hands found her waist as she pressed him back into the rock, sighing as she ran her fingers through his hair.
The power was intensifying but she dare not open her eyes for fear that they might be levitating off the mountain in a clear white power bubble.
She smelled smoke and he gasped, pushing her away. “Look!” he said, pointing to a small brushy pine sapling that had burst into flame.
“Did we do that?” she gushed, stripping off her leather jacket and using it to beat down the flame.
Kayne chuckled, admiring the single line of scorched earth that extended from where they’d been standing to the now smoldering sapling.
“You tell me,” he said, pointing it out to her. It couldn’t have been any clearer had he drawn it with chalk.
“Oh my,” she said, biting her lip. It was still warm from his touch, from their power. “And Lutheran?”
Kayne looked beyond the few remaining saplings to see the old man still snoring, grumbling in his deep sleep. Before he could answer she leaned against the rock and dr
ew him down toward her.
“Let’s try it again and see if we can’t control ourselves this time,” she sighed, eager to taste his fiery lips once more.
“That’s the problem,” he grinned, inching closer as his eyes met her own. “The last thing I want to do right now is control myself!”
36
Morning broke and, with it, their tender moment. Lutheran awoke, sitting up with a snort, scratching his graying hair – and other various body parts – before stumbling into the bushes to relieve himself as loudly as a waterfall belching spring runoff over the rocks far below.
“I…” Kayne stammered, inching away from her side. “I mean… well, we…”
“We better…” Aurora agreed, nodding and licking her lips to make sure his taste still lingered there. “I mean… we should…”
Lutheran returned to find them standing, awkwardly, blathering like idiots, all doe-eyed and sappy. One clap of his hands, plus a confused expression, was enough to get them moving in the right direction. There was a quest to carry out, after all.
Romance would have to wait.
They broke the camp quickly, dousing the fire with water from the nearby spring and looking up at the orange sky piercing the dark veil of night. Aurora was shoving her sleep tarp into her pack when Lutheran handed over her walking stick.
“You might need this,” he said, gravely, looking up into the sky. Her eyes followed, registering shock at what she saw. Above them, circling menacingly, the Hooters had drawn closer since the sun rose. Now Aurora could see the cracked claws of their talons, the dark feathers under their massive bellies.
They flew in a widening circle, drawing ever closer as they sailed like giant blimps through the sky, swooping and hooting as if they knew it frightened the mortals clustered below. The circle of feathers and talons and beaks and red glowing eyes narrowed at the bottom, like water flowing down a drain.
Their hoots were more like screeches now, filling the dawn sky with an almost painful reverberation that echoed all along the mountain range and forced them to cover their ears. Kayne flinched and walked closer, protectively, looking at her with intense eyes.
“Do you trust me?” he asked as she clung to her walking stick desperately, certain a Hooter’s lethal talon was about to reach down and yank her from the mountain ledge at any moment.
“You I trust,” she gasped, looking above them as one Hooter’s talons scraped a nearby tree, raining leaves and bent, gnarled twigs down upon them. “Them… I don’t!”
Kayne had slipped his squire’s cloak from his pack and slid it onto his thin, wiry frame. The shimmering white material seemed almost to sparkle in the early morning sun.
She’d grown accustomed to his humble farm dress, the tight fitting tunic and even tighter breeches. Suddenly, enrobed in his satiny finery, she was reminded of just how different they were. Of how far he’d come from Mage City to protect her.
And where he might be going if they survived this quest.
“Kayne?” she asked, nervously, as Lutheran waved his stick in the air to fend off any winged attackers who might get too close. Little good it would do. The Hooters were giant, massive. Aurora and Lutheran were like field mice at this point.
“Uhhm…Kayne?”
But Kayne had turned from her to face a sheer cliff wall, hidden by a ring of sparse greenery. His cloak was up now, covering his handsome face and long, blond hair, but she could hear him whisper various words and phrases as he held his hands against the sheer cliff wall.
“Oh spirits of Nature…” he began, a soft glow covering his fingertips as he continued.
“Open your wondrous arms…
Appeal to your charms…”
Now the glow was a little brighter.
“Morgis we seek…”
It sounded like a spell.
“Listen to the words I speak…”
Now, his hands glowed brighter still.
“What’s with your boyfriend?” Lutheran grunted as another Hooter flew closer, so close they could see the rabid red-yellow of its wagon wheel sized eyes.
“I mean, shouldn’t you two be holding hands and spitting out power balls by now or something??!”
Aurora was too scared at the moment to be insulted, or amused. Instead she merely nodded, nervously inching toward Kayne, whose back was still facing them. And the giant, winged, circling, approaching Hooters that threatened them from behind.
Aurora stood her ground, shoulder to shoulder with Lutheran, their walking sticks their only protection now. Without Kayne’s touch, all she had was her mortality, her flesh and blood, skin and bone.
She had no idea what Kayne was doing, or why he was doing it at that very moment, exactly. But she had learned to trust him over their travels and she had to believe he thought whatever he was doing was for the best.
Then, a thought struck her: maybe she could have power on her own? Maybe she was enchanted? At least, enchanted enough to cast a spell, or a little flicker of fire, that would help save their lives?
She tried, with all her might, to summon a spark of power, a hint of white light, even so much as a flicker, with her own bare hands. Nothing happened, not even close.
Instead the air grew chill and windy with the beating of the Hooters wings as they circled dangerously close to their severe mountain ledge. And then, the inevitable happened as they shifted their tactics, from an air to a ground assault.
They landed, one by one, in a great giant “whoosh” of wind and feathers and leaves and branches and the humid, warm stench of their vile Hooter breath.
They encircled the cloistered clearing, giant talons clinging to the sheer cliff walls as they beat their wings to steady themselves, fighting with their own kind for purchase on the tiny rock outcropping.
The wind rose, saplings cracked and toppled and Lutheran clung to her, if only to steady them both and prepare for the worst. It was like standing in the path of a great and violent storm, with the crashing of leaves and twigs instead of rain.
Up close, the Hooters were rabid and depraved creatures, with giant sores oozing from between their matted feathers. Where they weren’t an ugly yellow, their eyes were a violent and bloody red, their massive wings scaly and cracked like their giant, sharp beaks.
A ghastly smell, inhuman and tinged with the scent of death, wafted from their leathery hides with the beating of each wing, forcing Lutheran and Aurora back if only to keep from retching and losing what little dinner they’d had the night before.
One inched farther forward than the rest, finding level ground beneath its claws, wings at its side, beak low and snapping like the clap of thunder and lightning combined.
Aurora and Lutheran fought it back as best they could, shouting and shoving their walking sticks in its face, but it was a pitiful effort–and they both knew it.
So did the massive, evil birds.
The Hooter merely opened its beak and snapped, once, twice, as if laughing at them, the brittle sound echoing off the sheer cliff wall at their backs. The others beat their wings, just in the background, blowing leaves and grass and dirt in their eyes as if to make the humans’ surrender complete.
“Kayne!” they both shouted now, Lutheran and Aurora desperate for a little magic to help them survive.
“Help!”
“Kayne!”
“Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”
It came, at last, the magic they had hoped for.
But in a most unexpected manner…
37
At last, with the Hooters beating their wings at his back and Aurora and Lutheran inches away from the jaws of a puss-dripping Hooter, Kayne spoke the last line of his spell:
“And crack your artifice,
Deep and wide;
To let the innocent
Come inside.”
With those last few words, the cliff wall in front of him broke in two, granite crumbling as a sheer wall slid open, revealing a calm and quiet clearing just inside the jagged
edged walls.
“Hurry!” Kayne spat, just as the first Hooter bit Lutheran’s walking stick in two. “Hurry before it closes again and we’re left here, defenseless, against Kronos’ minions.”
Aurora was just turning when Kayne yanked her through, shoving her into the clearing with surprising strength. She stumbled, righted herself and looked back, only to find Lutheran close behind, waving his half-stick at the beaks darting forward at his back.
Kayne felt the wall trembling behind him as the closest Hooter darted forward, its crusty beak open, leathery red tongue oozing green slime from raw, open sores as it tried in vain to taste of Kayne’s enchanted flesh.
It hooted and squawked, trying to force its way in behind them. Kayne held out a hand to form a ball of power, watching it flicker pitifully in his palm, when suddenly he felt a double dose of electricity surge through his veins as the ball doubled in size immediately.
Aurora was there, at his side, clutching his free hand with her own trembling fingers and using their entwined courage to help release twice the power from Kayne’s single spell.
A ball of light formed quickly, sizzling and white with the vaguest hint of blue, and firing without pause. It struck the Hooter square in the nearest eye, puncturing the vulnerable surface and spraying the granite wall with a flood of thick, yellow fluid, like the yolk from the world’s biggest, nastiest egg.
It smelled of sulfur and rot and angriness and death. The Hooter squealed, in great, gasping breaths that barked and belched, backing away with great beats of its leather wings just as the door in the mountainside slid shut, tearing away one his massive claws.
The wall sealed tight, shutting off the Hooter’s cries, the decapitated claw withering into a former shell of itself, shrinking down to its original size now that its source of black magic had been, quite literally, cut off from its power source.