by Ian Irvine
Maelys, taken by surprise, fell off and heard the line creaking as her weight pulled on it. If it gave, all her troubles would be over. Her head hung just above the whirling feather-rotor and if it struck her she’d die.
The knot pulled so tightly around her waist that she could scarcely draw breath. The flappeter was falling, the feather-rotors now driving it down. They stopped then spun the other way, whereupon Rurr-shyve let out a cry, its pain setting up sympathetic echoes in Maelys’s mind.
The damaged feather-rotor slowed; the other one sped up to compensate and the flappeter flew on, upside down. Perhaps Rurr-shyve wasn’t game to try another manoeuvre in case the injured blade gave. She wiped her brow, then noted the thin legs unfolding, the hooks and barbs extending. They couldn’t get her from here, but once the beast turned right-side up, leaving her hanging beneath, they’d have her.
She sheathed the knife and locked the thong over it so it wouldn’t fall out. Gripping her lifeline in both hands, she watched the flappeter carefully. Nish’s eyes were on her but he was too weak to help.
The lower rotor reversed; Rurr-shyve doubled up its long body and twisted so as to come upright. As it rolled, she heaved on the lifeline with all her strength, slammed into the saddle and clung desperately to it. But she couldn’t stop to get her breath; she had to do it now, else sooner or later Rurr-shyve would rid itself of her.
Scrambling up its neck, she whipped out the knife, raised it high then stabbed it into the valley between its skull and the protuberance. The knife cut through the horny scales, sank in the length of her little finger and stuck. Rurr-shyve let out a shivering peal of agony that reverberated up and down her nerve fibres. Maelys hung on with her thighs, snatched out the legged amulet with her free hand and thrust it backwards through the wisp-controller. Pressing down on the knife, she shouted. ‘Stop, Rurr-shyve! Stop or be severed.’
The flappeter went still, apart from a thrumming of its folded legs against its lower body and a quivering of the discs on its tail, then hovered on its spinning feather-rotors. She could feel the great muscles that drove them clenching and contracting between her thighs.
Who are you, little Maelys? The voice in her mind was far more menacing this time.
She raised the knife. ‘Wh–what do you mean?’
I only took you on because you had the same aura as Rider Hinneltyne. Lacking that aura, I would have torn your head off and sucked your brains out through your nostrils.
It pronounced the last word as nossstrrillllsssss, and Maelys shuddered. ‘But you offered me his contract.’
No, I asked if you were taking it on. But his aura is gone now. You deceived me, little Maelys. Only people with a talent for the Art produce an aura, and every aura is unique, so how could you have Hinneltyne’s then, and now none at all?
‘I have no idea,’ she said, feeling as though she were sinking ever deeper into a pit. ‘I know nothing about auras and I don’t have a trace of talent.’ Yet if that were true, how had she commanded Rurr-shyve, and how could she hear its mindspeech now? ‘All I did was break my crystal –’
And killed my rider! Rurr-shyve hissed. You broke the bond between us: you hurt me cruelly as you severed his contract. And without his aura, your contract is null.
‘What are you going to do with me?’ she whispered, understanding nothing save the dreadful peril she was in. The balance of power between them had shifted again and she couldn’t see how to get it back.
I don’t know, little Maelys. It cocked its head as it hovered, slyly observing her. I can’t say how long it will take.
‘What … do you mean?’ She sounded like a mewling kitten. She had to take control and she had to do it now.
To learn all I need to know about you – all you’re good for …
It was playing with her mind and she had to stop it. She pressed the knife down again, hard enough to hurt. ‘But you did take the contract on, Rurr-shyve, and you can’t repudiate it now that a bond has formed between us.’
Rurr-shyve spun in a tight circle, so fast that she felt dizzy. How little you know about contracts – or flappeters.
This time she jammed the knife right in, and gritted, ‘Turn around. Head west until we’re out of sight, then north for Hulipont. Any diversion, any tricks and I’ll sever you.’
It was probably too late, but there was still a chance that poor Cathim had held out, or had died before revealing the destination. If she could reach Hulipont quickly there was still a tiny hope for Nish, and her family.
Rurr-shyve said no more, but Maelys could feel the creature’s rage in every thump of the rotors. Its breathing had taken on a raspier squelch, its underside gave off visible pulses of the stinkbug stench which had burned her nose earlier, and its tail kept curling out as if to sweep her off. It hated its creator, but it hated her even more, and if it ever got the chance it would make her pay.
However, Rurr-shyve did what she’d demanded. It turned, steepened the angle of its feather-rotors and climbed away from Morrelune, west up the slope of the mountain. Once the lights of the palace disappeared, Rurr-shyve turned north.
She experimented with the wisp-controller. Raising or lowering her palm compelled the flappeter to climb or descend, while right or left motions directed it to starboard or port. It didn’t want to obey, and she could sense its resistance all the time, but for the moment it seemed to have no choice.
Flying the flappeter proved to be exhausting, both physically and mentally. Even when she wasn’t actively directing Rurr-shyve, Maelys could feel the mental strain of the bond between them, and she had to concentrate every minute.
She was quite desperately tired now, for it could not be long until dawn, and every bone and muscle ached. Even so, she could not relax in case she went to sleep. Her bitten finger was swollen like a sausage and her myriad bruises throbbed. She had splinted her broken finger as best she could, using strips of leather and a piece of bamboo, but it hurt all the time.
Nish was sleeping again. She extracted a couple of biscuits from her pack by feel and nibbled at them as they flew north. She’d been too busy to notice the cold since the flap-peter appeared, but now it struck her to the bone, and the higher Rurr-shyve climbed the worse it became. If she’d been riding a horse it would have helped to keep her warm, but this creature was as cold as a corpse.
Maelys pulled her coat around herself, envying Nish the fur-lined leathers and his being able to sleep. Remembering the mittens, she pulled them on, which helped, and drew the collar up around the back of her neck.
Her eyes slipped closed; her head drooped. She raised it drowsily, realised that she’d almost fallen asleep and shook herself. If she so much as dozed the flappeter would turn back. Her lids drooped again. She was so tired that not even the cold could keep her awake. She pinched her arm, twisted and looked around.
And jumped, for a pair of bulbous green eyes were shining behind her. She blinked, rubbed her eyes and looked again. Nothing. She was imagining things. Nonetheless, she turned Rurr-shyve sharply, just in case.
Nish let out a wail and began to struggle against the cords holding him in his saddle. As Maelys turned to see what the matter was, with a thapper-thapper-thap another flappeter shot past, so close that she felt the icy blast from its feather-rotors. It had come out of nowhere and disappeared the same way.
Leaning forwards, Maelys tapped her knife on the protuberance, then thrust the amulet through the wisps and said, ‘Fly, Rurr-shyve. Fly for your very life.’
She felt a tingle of alien laughter and Rurr-shyve sent, My life isn’t in danger, little Maelys, but it put its head down and the feather-rotors spun a little faster.
Dread made pinpricks across the backs of her hands. How did it know her name? Because Nish had said it earlier. And Maelys had also mentioned Fyllis. The two names would be enough to identify her family, so she couldn’t let Rurr-shyve go at Hulipont. Would she have to kill it too? How quickly her sheltered life had changed.
‘Perha
ps not your life,’ she lied to the beast, ‘but your consciousness is at risk.’ She raised the knife.
Rurr-shyve blasted a pungently green, eye-stinging mist at her. She covered her eyes until it had dispersed, then looked back nervously. It didn’t seem possible that they could have lost the other flappeter so easily, though she could see no sign of it. She checked the angle of the moon through the filmy cloud. They were still heading north, at least.
Rurr-shyve broke into clear air and suddenly there were flappeters all around. She could see their big green eyes shining wherever she turned, four or five sets of them, and there was no way this injured beast could outrun them. ‘Go down!’ she yelled over the icy wind, expecting Rurr-shyve to refuse.
Down? Away from Hulipont?
She hesitated, but only for a second. If she headed directly for it they might guess the destination. ‘Yes, away. Go low; see if you can find some fog.’
Rurr-shyve went into a vertical dive, dropping so fast that the wind tried to tug her out of the saddle and she had to whip a bight of her safety line around the saddle horn. Not far above the mountainside they plunged into mist, where Rurr-shyve levelled out and streaked away west. She wondered how it could fly safely in such conditions. Did it have additional senses, like a bat? Could other flappeters track it the same way?
She didn’t see the pursuit again, and after half an hour of winding flight the mist disappeared and the sky began to grow light ahead of them. Rurr-shyve continued but, as dawn broke, four flappeters spiralled down out of the sky, their riders pointing crossbows at her.
Again Maelys froze; she just wasn’t used to thinking on her feet. The mist had gone and the sky was free of cloud. There were mountains all around, their upper slopes bare rock and patches of ice and snow which offered no concealment. The flappeter gave a coughing grunt which appeared to indicate amusement.
‘Forest,’ said Nish.
‘What?’
‘Tell it to head for the forest.’
She looked where he was pointing, down into a deep valley winding between two towering peaks. The valley bottom still lay in darkness but a smudge on the lower slopes must be forest, stretching further than she could see.
‘Go down to the forest, Rurr-shyve,’ said Maelys.
It kept on until she tapped the flat of the knife on its scaly hide, then peeled off and dived, sending a spasm of sympathetic pain though her elbow at the strain on its injured rotor blade.
‘Where does that valley lead?’ she asked over her shoulder.
‘I don’t know,’ said Nish. ‘This isn’t my country. But flappeters don’t like flying through forest.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too easy to get hurt – or killed.’
‘I wouldn’t think your father would care about that.’ The instant Maelys spoke, she wished she hadn’t mentioned Jal-Nish.
After an uncomfortable pause, Nish said, ‘He’d order his riders into any danger and they’d have to obey. But flappeters aren’t so easily swayed. How can Father reward them; or punish them, for that matter? He needs them too much. They’re difficult to create, he’s only got a few and they’re sensitive to each other’s pain.’
‘How do you know?’
‘In the lowest level of Mazurhize there was nothing for my guards to do, and they talked about every topic that wasn’t forbidden. Father liked people talking about flappeters – his most difficult and fearsome creation.’
Nish was right about their sensitivity. Maelys could feel the pain of Rurr-shyve’s damaged rotor blade all the time now, and its brittle loss at Hinneltyne’s death still nagged at her.
The light was growing stronger now, extending down into the great valley and touching the canopy of the looming forest. Spindly, windblown trees were scattered across the upper slopes, but further down they became giants. She saw no sign of habitation: no clearing, track or dwelling.
Rurr-shyve was straining, tiring. Its triple hearts were going thump-thump-thump, its feather-rotors creaking and, worryingly, a hot inflammation was growing at the site of the dislocation, which was stretching and contracting with every whirl of the rotor. The splint was working loose and sooner or later must give.
The sudden dive had taken their pursuit by surprise, allowing Rurr-shyve to gain ground, but the other flappeters were rapidly catching up. The leading beast was not far behind and its rider, a small, wiry man with a leathery countenance, was leaning sideways, half out of his saddle, pointing a crossbow around the feather-rotor stalk at her. The bow wavered back and forth but, with an irritated gesture, he thrust his hand through the loop-listener and urged his beast on.
‘He’s afraid he’ll miss and hit Rurr-shyve,’ said Nish. ‘Or me.’
‘But he’s happy to kill me,’ Maelys said dully.
‘If that’s what his master has ordered. Father rewards those who serve him well, but any failure, any mistake, any unfortunate accident incurs his wrath.’
The other three flappeters were spreading out to come at her from all sides. ‘I’m doomed, then.’
‘I see it as a weakness,’ said Nish. ‘His servants live in terror of making a mistake but, for most of them, that fear outweighs the hope of reward. It doesn’t encourage them to show initiative. They follow orders and, when something goes wrong, the most cunning blame someone else.’
The wiry rider leaned out on the other side, the crossbow wobbling back and forth as he tried to find his target, but again he put it away.
‘I don’t suppose there’s a crossbow in the saddlebags?’ said Nish.
‘I wouldn’t know how to shoot one anyway. I’ve never –’ She bit her lip. ‘I’d never harmed a living person, before today.’
‘I was good with a crossbow, once. Have a look.’
You’re closer, and you’re doing nothing! She bit down on the flash of irritation and felt backwards in the bags, not daring to take her eyes off Rurr-shyve. She encountered clothing, food packages, a hatchet and rope and, finally, tucked into a side pouch that she’d missed earlier, the wire and stock of a crossbow plus a lumpy bag of quarrels. She handed them to him.
Nish steadied the bow on his knee and began to turn the crank. He gave it three turns, jerked it a bit further, then stopped, looking up at her with such chagrin that she felt for him. He was too weak; there wasn’t enough tension in the wire to send a quarrel from one end of the flappeter to the other.
‘Look where you’re going!’ he snapped.
She turned hastily but there was no obstacle ahead of them, and if there had been, Rurr-shyve would have avoided it without any action on her part. Three of the flappeters were close behind but slightly above, and couldn’t fire for fear of hitting the feather-rotors. The fourth beast had gone out to her left, diving until it came level. Its rider was the wiry man who’d been aiming at her before, and she saw his savage grin, for she’d done exactly as he’d expected. He fired at her face.
Rurr-shyve jinked left again, the quarrel whirred past her left ear and the rider cursed. She jerked her hand to the right and Rurr-shyve shot directly into the path of the fourth flap-peter, which darted upwards to avoid her, forcing the others to swerve wildly. Maelys dropped her wrist; Rurr-shyve put its long neck down and laboured for the trees.
She took it low and fast down the steep slope, which was dotted with trees between a series of great out-thrusting buttresses of stone. Unfortunately, the concealing forest was too far away. Three flappeters were still following and she wasn’t going to make it.
‘Give me the bow, quick!’ she hissed.
He handed it forward, somewhat reluctantly. ‘Have you ever used one, lad?’
‘Of course not!’ She held it as she’d seen him do and wound the crank. She managed two full turns then, forcing hard, another half turn, and a quarter, until the wire creaked. Maelys passed it back. ‘Will that do?’
‘How did you do that?’ he muttered.
She’d shown him up and he didn’t like it. ‘Is it enough?’
&
nbsp; ‘It’s good. Nearly as good as I –’
‘Can you – can you hit one of the riders?’ More killing.
‘I could have, once.’
A mad plan came to her. ‘See that great rock stack down there?’ It was the size of a small castle, with half a dozen jagged pinnacles on top, but she’d seen a narrow cleft between the uphill side and the mountain slope. ‘I’m going to fly in low on the uphill side, dart through the cleft and, once we’re hidden from view, turn suddenly and come at them over the top.’
‘What if the cleft doesn’t go all the way?’ he said faintly.
She didn’t answer, knowing if she thought it through she wouldn’t have the courage to attempt it. ‘As soon as we turn, be ready to fire.’
He looked back. ‘They’re only a few seconds behind.’
‘Ready?’
‘I’m ready,’ he said hoarsely.
She squeezed the amulet hard and thrust her wrist through the loop, down and to the left. Rurr-shyve went hard left and she felt a sharp pain in her elbow at the stress on the rotor blade. She was gambling that the other flappeters wouldn’t take the risk of following through the cleft; that they’d turn at the last minute and go around. They’d better. She could feel Rurr-shyve’s resistance. It didn’t like the look of the narrow passage, and nor did she. One mistake and they would die.
There was no choice and risks were meaningless now, but she could sense its fear. She tightened her will over Rurr-shyve, forcing it to obey the contract. They raced down, just skimming the slope, swerving around trees and over small outcrops. She flicked a glance over her shoulder. The other flappeters were closer. She tilted Rurr-shyve a fraction, heading directly for the cleft. She daren’t look back now.
‘What’s going on, Nish?’ she gasped.
He didn’t answer. Then finally he said, ‘They’re going the other way.’
‘Yes!’ She curved Rurr-shyve down, fighting its impulse to avoid any situation that could injure it. The cleft was narrower than she’d thought; the feather-rotors were going to smash into the rock!