The Sorrow Anthology

by Helen Allan

  “You are a very bad Winged One,” Sorrow snorted, shaking her head and walking towards the stairs.

  “No, I’m a very good one,” he said, following her down and using his wing to brush her backside.

  “Hey, hands off, buddy,” she turned to look up at him, her eyes laughing, revealing her mock anger.

  “It wasn’t my hands,” he winked.

  Sorrow shook her head and continued walking down the stairs.

  “I need to go home,” she said, as they neared the bottom.

  “I was afraid you might say that,” he sighed, “but yes, of course, I will return you to Landfirst as soon as I have reported to my superiors.”

  “And, just as a matter of interest,” she added, trying to sound disinterested, “they don’t wear clothes, and I couldn’t help but wonder, from a medical perspective of course, how, I mean, where are Angel genitals?”

  His laughter echoed down the stairwell loud and raucous.

  “From a medical perspective, you say?”

  “Yes, I am a doctor you know,” she said, trying to sound firm and professional.

  “They have them,” he chuckled, “they are just covered in feathers, but they are there.”

  She couldn’t help it; she had to know.

  “And yours? Are they, you know…?”

  “Well that is something you will have to find out for yourself,” he leant down, murmuring into her hair, his breath warm on the back of her neck, “fly with me later Sorrow, I promise you have only had a taste of the feelings I can give you once aloft.”

  She shivered and stepped down the last step, turning to stare at him, incredulous.

  “You do it in the air?”

  He winked.

  She shook her head, laughing. “Alas,” she mock sighed, “that is one medical investigation I will have to delay. After all, you have to leave now to report to your superiors, and I must take a bath after our long flight, soak my smooth, pink body….”

  “Evil,” he sighed, “you are truly evil.”

  Her laughter followed him as he pointed to her door and continued down the hall towards the sky window exit.

  The floor-length white fur coat, although against her principles, was the warmest thing she had ever worn, and she had to admire Raphael’s taste as she pulled the hood over her hair and looked at herself in the mirror.

  They were journeying today back to Landfirst, her role in Winged politics now complete, but this time she was taking no chances that she would freeze to death on the flight.

  “I’ve already told you a hundred times,” he said in answer to her sigh as she looked at her reflection and hugged herself, shivering at the thought of the trip. “You will be in my arms, warm, and this fur will protect you from the windchill.”

  “Yes, but the altitude sickness,” she grimaced.

  “I will take the long way round, through the mountain pass, we will skim mostly over the treetops – we don’t have to rush and cross the mountain tops as we did on the way in here.”

  “This pass,” Sorrow frowned, “is it defended?”

  “Of course,” he smiled, “we are not stupid, Sorrow. And since you have given us more information about a possible influx of these Gharials, we have called up all our reinforcements to prepare for battle and enlisted thousands more. We are well defended here and will be ready, should they breach the portal. My superiors agree with you the Gharial gate should be blown the first chance we get.”

  Sorrow nodded.

  “Very well then, I’m ready.”

  She had already said her goodbyes to his sister, Gabriel. She knew she would miss the companionship of another woman, and she would miss this city. Gabriel would escort them only as far as the edge of the mountains, and Raphael would drop Sorrow off on the outskirts of Landfirst and return to prepare with his people for war.

  “And you won’t change your mind and stay?” he asked, one last time, “at least until you have sampled the delights of my body?”

  Sorrow laughed.

  “No. Idiot. I need to get back to Etienne and organise the defence of the town. And since you plan to come down with your squadron I also need to prepare the Chosen for the sudden appearance of a huge flock of people they still view as the enemy.”

  “Yes,” he murmured, coming up behind her and looking at her in the mirror, “that won’t be easy, Sorrow. It may be impossible. I want you to know that if we have to fight them to get to the portals, well, you already know how that is going to pan out. I don’t want you on the opposite side of my weapons.”

  Sorrow sighed. This earlier discussion had been at the forefront of her mind too.

  The Winged government, in direct opposition to the wishes of the Angels, had determined that they would need to take control of the time gates and defend their planet in the event of a Gharial attack when the portals opened in a few months. This would mean Winged moving into the Landfirst township– something they all knew would not go down well.

  Sorrow had agreed to try and broker an accord prior to them coming in. She had been given one week to convince the Chosen to agree, or it would happen regardless. Grimacing now, she leaned back into Raphael’s chest and closed her eyes, opening them as her resolve hardened.

  “I’m ready,” she said, looking him in the eye, “and when the time comes, if the time comes, Raphael, our guns will be pointing in the same direction. You have my word.”

  11

  Gabriel and Raphael talked as they flew side by side towards the towering mountains in the distance, and Sorrow listened quietly and considered how she was going to approach brokering peace with the Chosen. She determined Calarnise might be the only option, the woman who lived, essentially twixt the worlds of the Gods, the Winged and the Chosen, as had generations of acolytes before her – she might be the key to bringing some sanity to the discussion. Deep in thought, she almost missed what Gabriel said until she heard Raphael curse.

  “Swing back, get reinforcements,” he ordered, his voice deep and brooking no argument.

  “I’m on it,” Gabriel said, swishing so fast in the air it blew Sorrow’s hood back from her face, the cold wind biting into her skin.

  “What is it?” she shouted to Raphael as he began to fly higher, his wings beating hard.

  “Gharial,” he barked, “many of them, making their way through the pass; it looks like our guards are being overwhelmed, a battle is raging below.”

  “Well drop,” Sorrow shouted, “why are you climbing?”

  “We can’t risk you, Sorrow,” he shouted back, “there are too many of them. Gabriel will call reinforcements from the closest garrison; they will only be an hour away at most.”

  “An hour might be too long,” Sorrow frowned, still shouting, “what else do you see?”

  “I see a human, some Earthborn, one or two, and some Chosen, most are lying dead,” he shouted back, “the few left are badly outnumbered, they are, wait, they are shielding a Winged soldier, he must have been shot from the sky. They haven’t got a hope in hell; the Gharial are regrouping and preparing to charge.”

  “It must be Etienne,” Sorrow shouted, “drop, fucking drop.”

  “You don’t have a weapon,” he growled, and I can’t fire with you in my arms. We will be just target practice for them.”

  “Get me near an Earthborn, a dead one.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it, go low, drop me near the dead.”

  Raphael began to drop slightly but then appeared to straighten and head up again.

  “Raphael,” she screamed, “drop me now.” Seeing he was not going to listen, she lifted one arm and punched backwards, underneath her armpit, straight into his chest as hard as she could.

  “Oomph,” he faltered, his wings still for a minute before righting himself.

  “Do it! Drop me now.”

  “Hold on,” he gritted, squeezing her tight and spinning headfirst into a freefall.

  Sorrow screamed despite herself and closed her eyes, open
ing them only as she hit the ground hard and rolled up against the body of a dead Earthborn. Rale, she knew him from training, but he was barely recognisable, his face covered in a red growth that almost completely obscured one eye.

  “Christ,” she muttered, leaning over him and pressing the button on his suit. It snapped open immediately and, still laying on the ground to avoid detection, she moved to squirm into it, but saw it too was covered with red on the inside. The growth was the same red as blood and looked like it pulsated with a life of its own.

  “Uh, nope,” she changed her mind instantly, her plan to put on the suit discarded along with her belief that as an Earthborn she was safe from the miasma. Instead, still wearing her fur, she picked up Rale’s weapon and, using his and other bodies as a low shield wall, began firing into the, now running, lines of Gharial. She smiled with satisfaction as they fell, struck by her laser chainsaw from the side and by shots from above coming from Raphael. But there were at least three dozen of them, and from her vantage point, she could see the remaining Chosen were dropping like flies.

  Rising from the ground, a gun in each hand, she charged the lines of Gharials from the side, just as two Winged Ones rose from those she had thought were dead and joined her. Together they fired round after round as they ran. One Winged soldier caught an explosive in the neck and disintegrated, the other continued on with her. She overtook the Gharial and reached Etienne and the survivors just as the enemy did with a loud crunch of body meeting body. The fighting degenerated into hand-to-hand combat and Sorrow needed to use all her martial arts training to dodge and weave away from the Gharials’ snapping jaws. Jabbing and stabbing with the short knife she had taken from the fallen Earthborn, she fought systematically with strength and precision.

  At some point she realised two things; Raphael was beside her, and the Gharials were sick, very sick. Many dropped their weapons and fell dead after just one blow or stab from the knife she wielded, others seemed to fall apart under her hands. Finally, panting, she realised she was standing amid nothing but the dead – not a single Gharial had survived their charge, her hands ran red with miasma and green Gharial blood.

  “You,” Raphael panted, coming to stand by her side, “are amazing.”

  “Thanks,” Sorrow grinned, grimacing at the goo and blood covering his normally beautiful, pale feathers, “you are too.” She turned, wanting to reassure herself that Etienne was safe when she realised she and Raphael were the only two standing – no one else lived.

  Raphael, noticing this at the same time, holstered his weapon and walked towards the nearest Winged. Felled from the sky by well-aimed lasers, most lay crumped, a mess of broken wings and limbs. Silently he began to turn them over one by one looking for signs of life.

  Sorrow, tearing her eyes away from the carnage, spun and looked to where she had last seen her friend. From under a Gharial, she saw a long, muscular leg in tan-coloured jodhpurs and a black boot. Throwing her knife aside, a choked scream escaping her lips, she ran to where Etienne lay and holding her breath in fear, pushed the body of a Gharial off his torso. As he opened his eyes, she let out her breath and raised her eyes to the sky in thanks before reaching down and pulling him to his feet. Embracing him tightly she squeezed him hard, ignoring his attempts to pull away, as she whispered into his ear.

  “Etienne, thank God, I thought you were dead.”

  “And I thought you were a flying polar bear,” he laughed, stepping back and pushing the hood from her hair, “mon Dieu, Sorrow, you dropped from the sky like a furry vengeful angel.”

  Sorrow burst out laughing and embraced him again.

  “You crazy French man, what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere with a handful of sick Earthborn?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “Jesus,” Sorrow exhaled loudly, leaning down and putting her hands on her knees for a second as the adrenalin began to run out and she realised her legs were shaking, her heart still racing from the fight and the run, “I really thought you were dead.”

  “Not yet,” he grimaced, stepping back and wiping down his blood-stained shirt gingerly. Green Gharial blood covered him almost from head to toe, “but I fear it won’t be long mon amour.”

  “What? Are you hurt?” She straightened up quickly and studied him from head to toe.

  “No,” he said quietly, raising his eyes to hers.

  “Then?”

  “Well, there is the small matter of this,” he said matter-of-factly, raising his shirt to show his stomach covered in a red, crusty, pulsating growth.

  “Oh fuck.”

  “Yes, my sentiments exactly.”

  “We have to get you to the town, to the infirmary, what the hell were you thinking coming out here into the wilderness when you are ill?”

  “I was thinking,” he smiled, cocking his head to one side and looping her hand through his arm to lead her off the battlefield, “of rescuing you, ma cherie, before going to the great paradise in the sky which, we have both ascertained, actually does not exist.”

  “No,” Sorrow said, pulling him to a stop. “I won’t let you die, Etienne, I’ll find a cure. We have to get back to the infirmary, to the regeneration tanks.”

  “My dear girl, while it is true my organ is larger than most,” he raised his eyebrows up and down comically, “I’m afraid my heart is only one, singular, which, we both know, means I cannot be regenerated.”

  “No,” Sorrow shook her head at him, “but I can. Maybe in the tank I can hear more of the collective memories of the Gods and see if I can figure out what this disease is, and any clues to finding a cure.”

  “Surely if the combined brains of the Gods, and there are several thousand according to Calarnise’s bible, could not discover a cure and preferred to simply separate themselves from the ground-dwelling folk, then you cannot think you might discover one?”

  “Are you saying you think they are smarter than me?”

  “Heaven forbid,” he laughed gently, “I have every faith in your prodigious brain, ma mie, after all, you are the daughter of Megan, a most talented young woman, and Amun, the self-anointed God of Gods. I am simply saying that I am at peace with my fate. This has been coming on for several months now; I have watched many of the Earthborn succumb to it – I know what to expect.”

  “Well, expect to eat your words. Wait, Earthborn have died?” Sorrow bit her lip, turning to her friend, her eyes full of worry. “Is, is Judgment ok?”

  “Judgement is in prison, where he belongs,” Etienne said, pausing to turn his face and cough.

  “Prison? Why?”

  “Because he is the enemy.”

  “Etienne, what are you talking about?”

  “I had him arrested the moment he returned from your walk without you. But it wasn’t just because I suspected he had murdered you,” Etienne paused to cough again, “I had been doing some investigation, I tried to tell you before you left that day. Calarnise delivered what she thought was your battle suit; she’d had it repaired. But it wasn’t your suit, Sorrow; she had just assumed it was because it was different to all the others.”

  “Different how?” Sorrow frowned, “and what does this have to do with Judgement?”

  “It was red.”

  “Shit.”

  “Oiu.”

  “You think Judgment is actually one of the leaders of the Gharials?”

  “I don’t think, I know,” he said firmly, “he confessed, tried to say he had changed. Although he threatened to kill the entire garrison if I didn’t let him out of jail to come and find you.”

  “But you didn’t….” Sorrow left the last word hanging.

  “No. He is still in jail. The only reason I haven’t ordered his execution is because I know you and he have,” he paused, “a relationship.”

  “You did the right thing,” Sorrow said, letting out the breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding.

  “I hope so,” he said quietly, looking up as Raphael walked over to join them.

>   Striding towards her Raphael ignored Etienne, who carefully disengaged his arm from Sorrow’s and stepped away.

  Etienne watched, amused, as the birdman wrapped his wings around her and seared her lips with a passionate kiss.

  Forgetting Etienne was watching, Sorrow bent into the lean, long body of the man holding her, her own body stirring automatically to his tongue’s sensual exploration of her mouth.

  Feeling her response, he broke the kiss and looked into her eyes intently.

  “To the nest?”

  “No,” she breathed, pulling back and smacking him lightly on the chest, “you idiot.”

  “No harm in trying,” he laughed, offering Etienne his hand, “I’m Raphael.”

  “Etienne.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t have any objections to being flown back to the township, rather than slogging it back on foot?”

  “You guess right,” Etienne smirked, as Raphael’s sister landed, a large contingent of Winged soldiers behind her.

  “My sister, Gabriel,” Raphael nodded as she approached.

  “En chante,” Etienne bowed, turning aside and giving Sorrow a quick wink.

  Sorrow shook her head and snorted as Gabriel giggled, spread out her wings and held out her arms.

  12

  They landed softly in the darkness on the rooftop landing pad of the infirmary and, saying a brief goodbye, Raphael and Gabriel turned immediately and left; Raphael promising to return in three days and wait for her on the roof, to further plan the defence of the gates.

  As they flew she had filled them in on the regeneration tanks. Both had heard the Gods used such things but thought them science fiction. Neither had ever seen a tank or heard of anyone using one.

  Etienne swayed as Gabriel let him go, and Sorrow immediately pulled his arm around her shoulders and led him towards the stairs.

  “Hang in there, my friend,” she said firmly, leading him clumsily down step by step, “Calarnise will be inside.”

  “And she will cry,” he sighed, “it is all she has done since I first revealed the red growth to her. She says I have a week at most.”