Song of the Sword

by C. R. Grey

  “I have an idea of how to get on without being seen,” said Bailey. “It’s going to take a little practice, though.”

  They had covertly hidden some supplies from the tunnels in their rucksacks and coats: some dried fruit from Digby Barnes’s stores, a spare dynamo lamp, and of course, Bailey’s tiger claw and three of Tremelo’s new amulets. After leaving the tunnels, they’d skirted the edge of the forest, keeping their ears sharp for any Dominae who might be searching the woods. Now, as they passed so close to the Walkers’ wheat fields, Bailey felt heartsick. Somewhere close by, his mom and dad might be hearing the rumors of a boy and white tiger wanted by the Dominae. Did they know that those rumors were about the boy they’d raised as their own? Were they worried about him?

  They trudged along back roads, heading northeast from the forest to the rigi tracks. To board at an actual stop would be far too dangerous—instead, Bailey led them a few miles away from the nearest town to a switch-track point, where the cargo rigis would need to slow their speed in order to pass through safely. Here, they paused to rest and plan behind a sweeping ridge of bushes that grew along the tracks.

  “Okay,” said Bailey, steeling his nerves. “Here’s my idea.”

  He watched his friends’ faces grow slack with disbelief and nervous fear as he described how they’d get onto the rigi. He knew it was dangerous—but as Tori had said, they couldn’t very well go to a station and buy tickets.

  “We could get hurt—or killed,” said Gwen.

  “Do you have another idea?” asked Tori with a bite in her voice. Gwen didn’t respond.

  “We can do it,” said Phi. “It’s just like Scavage.”

  “Right!” said Bailey, eager to grasp onto someone’s hope. “Exactly.”

  “Some of us didn’t make the team, remember?” said Hal.

  “Don’t worry,” said Tori. “We can go together.”

  “And we’ll practice,” said Bailey. “Just to make sure.”

  An hour later, after they’d taken turns running and jumping over a pile of abandoned shipping pallets by the switch track, Bailey sensed an anxious energy from Taleth. She wasn’t alone, either—Tori’s snakes slithered up her leg from the grass where they’d been sunning and into the beaded pouch she wore across her back.

  “I think the rigi’s coming,” Tori said. “We’d better get ready.”

  “We need to space ourselves out, hide in the bushes as it comes,” Hal said, indicating their position along the tracks. “Bailey, you’ll need to jump on first, in order for Taleth to follow. Then we’ll all hop on.” They were all nervous about what they were preparing to do, but a kind of excited, electrified energy ran through them, making them bold. They moved silently into the bushes, several yards apart.

  Soon enough, they could hear the chug of a cargo rigi approaching. Bailey breathed deeply as the dirigible appeared on the horizon, and then the chugging engine below it. Cargo rigis weren’t as tall as passenger rigis, with only one story of boxcars and slabs for transporting heavy goods. The engine slowed as it neared the switch track ahead, and Bailey took off running in the direction of a boxcar with an open door.

  As he ran, he was painfully aware of how tired his legs were. They felt as though they might buckle underneath him, and he kept his eyes trained on the ledge of the boxcar door as he raced forward. He grabbed the ledge, and jumped, holding on to the side of the door for his life. His right leg swung over, and he pushed himself up, tumbling through the opening and breathing heavily. He didn’t have time to grasp his bearings—the others followed close behind. Looking out, he could see them running too, and his heart beat wildly. The jump had been even harder than he’d thought. His chest burned from where he’d dragged himself up onto the ledge, and his arms ached.

  Taleth was next: she leapt for the ledge and sank her claws into the floor. Her back paws gave way and flailed. But with a huff of breath, she threw her right paw forward, grabbing at the floorboards of the car. Bailey wanted to help, but didn’t know how—he couldn’t take her paws or she’d rip him to shreds, and she was far too heavy for him to pull. He felt her struggling, felt the frenzied motion of her tail lashing in the wind. She scrambled, snorting with the effort as she tried to pull her giant body into the car. Her massive claws dug into the floor of the car, one in front of the other. She strained her muscles and heaved herself on board, making Bailey scramble backward to leave room for her to land.

  Gwen, Tori, Hal, and Phi were now running alongside the train. Taleth jumped aside as Bailey reached his hand out the door to help Gwen. Up she came, and then Tori, who cursed loudly as soon as she was safely on board. Hal needed both Bailey and Gwen to grab his arms and pull him on after he couldn’t swing his leg up, and he groaned with pain from his shoulder. Then it was just Phi. Carin flew overhead as the rigi began to pick up speed. Phi ran faster, and grabbed a handle on the side of the boxcar as the rigi sped forward. It began to drag her along, and she screamed.

  “Phi!” Bailey yelled. He reached his hand out as far as it could go.

  “Hold on to him!” Tori shouted, and she grabbed Bailey’s waist and motioned for Gwen to grab on to her. With their help, Bailey extended his arm and upper body out of the boxcar door. The wind began to whip by, and he could hear the awful churning of the wheels below them. Phi was grasping the handle with both hands, her legs dangling below.

  “Swing yourself forward!” Bailey shouted.

  Slowly and fearfully, Phi released her right hand from the handle and grabbed the edge of the doorframe. Bailey grasped at her jacket.

  “Now just put your hand on my shoulder,” he said. She did, and Bailey backed up. As Phi let go of the handle with her other hand, she fell slightly, causing Bailey to stumble. She screamed, but they kept ahold of each other. Tori and Gwen pulled behind him, and they all landed in a tumbled pile on the boxcar floor.

  “Ants alive,” said Tori as she leaned against Hal. Bailey saw him stiffen up for a split second before he put his arm around her shoulder.

  “You okay?” Hal asked.

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “I just jumped onto a moving rigi and saw my life flash before my eyes. But, yeah, I’m okay.”

  “Let’s never do that again!” Gwen exclaimed, sitting up.

  Phi was still holding Bailey tightly, as though she was afraid to let go. He squeezed her so hard he was sure she’d feel his pounding heart through his chest.

  “It’s okay; we’re okay,” he said into her curly hair.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, loosening her grip.

  Tori and Gwen crawled over and peeled Phi away from Bailey, collapsing onto her in a giant pile of hugs. The exhaustion hit Bailey, and all of a sudden, he just wanted to close his eyes and sleep. The girls separated. Tori joined Hal where he sat holding his shoulder against a stack of crates. Phi and Gwen sat down, arm in arm, next to Bailey.

  “I’ll keep watch,” said Phi. “You two can sleep.”

  Bailey didn’t need to be told twice. As the girls used a loose tarp as a blanket, Bailey curled up into a ball and closed his eyes tightly, willing sleep to come quickly. Taleth, purring with relief, eased down next to him. The rougher fur on the back of her neck was bristly against his cheek. He heard the comforting screech of Carin, Phi’s kin, circling the boxcars. Lulled by the steady shaking of the rigi, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time in many weeks.

  When he woke, Phi was sitting up, looking out at the sky. It had dimmed to a purplish sunset blue.

  “Did you get a chance to rest?” he asked her. Everyone else was still sleeping.

  Phi shook her head. “I couldn’t sleep. And anyway, Gwen took the entire blanket,” she said with a smile. “I should’ve gotten used to it after all the camping we did in the Peaks, but she’s a hog.”

  Bailey peered over to Phi’s other side, where Gwen had wrapped herself tightly in the crunchy tarp. She frowned in her sleep.

  “She okay?” Bailey asked. Something had been troubling her.
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  Phi nodded thoughtfully. “She’s having a hard time, but she’ll be okay, I think.”

  “And you? Are you going to be okay?”

  Phi shrugged and looked away. “Back there, I was scared you might let go….”

  Bailey sat up. “I would’ve never let go!”

  “I know that, Bailey,” she said, meeting his eye. “Of course I know that. I just meant, what if you couldn’t help it? I wished more than anything that I could fly at that moment. That I could save myself if I needed to….”

  Bailey remembered the contraption Phi had made with Tremelo’s help. How she’d built that intricate machine with its tarp wings, and how she’d crashed it during the thunderstorm. Before he could say anything more, she stood up. Gwen woke from Phi’s sudden movement. Tori and Hal stirred.

  “We’ve got to hop off soon,” Phi called out. “We’re coming up on the final stop, and we don’t want to be seen near the station.”

  Taleth rose and stretched, lashing her tail. Bailey sat up too, and looked out the open door of the car. The southern Plains were as flat as a long harvest table, and just as brown. Unlike the dry, grassy hills of the Plains surrounding the Jackal’s compound, these eastern Plains were pure desert.

  “Do we really need to worry about the station?” he asked. “Who would be out this far?”

  “Better safe than sorry,” Phi said. “I don’t know how it works down here, but up north, there are usually bands of traders waiting at the last stop to divide up the shipments—or just steal them.”

  They waited until the train began to slow. One by one they sprang from the open car doors. The kids each landed with a rolling thump in the sand, followed by Taleth, who sprang gracefully and landed on all fours. The train chugged on, leaving them sprawled on the ground and gasping from the adrenaline.

  They decided to circumvent the station and then follow the miles of abandoned rigi tracks that lay unused beyond the final stop. It would be dangerous—many traders and thieves made their homes out there—but traveling by night meant less chance of being seen. After bypassing the station, which was a single one-room building with a lone swinging gas lamp on a hook, they walked along the tracks for what seemed like many miles. The sky darkened, and Bailey could see more stars overhead than he’d ever seen in his life. He was glad to still be wearing his coat, too—the temperature dropped sharply after the last bit of sun disappeared.

  The desert was silent and cold, and Bailey felt a little like he and his friends had been placed in another world, as though the rigi had carried him out of his own plane of existence and set him down in a place of possibility, where perhaps the Reckoning hadn’t happened at all, and the kingdom around them was at peace. Or maybe the night air was only playing tricks with his tired mind.

  After many hours of trudging in silence, a line of pale light streaked the sky ahead.

  “The sun must be rising,” said Hal. “It doesn’t really seem like we’ve walked all night, does it?”

  “Time flies,” murmured Tori.

  Phi stopped in her tracks and placed a hand on Bailey’s arm.

  “That’s not the sunrise,” she said. Bailey heard a wavering note of fear in her voice. He followed her gaze out toward the horizon. The band of pale-gray light, like a cloudy dawn, grew larger. It was as though the night sky above them was a dark-blue curtain in the process of being slowly raised. Then he heard the wind.

  “It’s a sandstorm!” said Phi. “Run!”

  Mesmerized, Bailey stood in place. He’d never seen anything like this before: the strip of gray cutting across the bottom of the sky grew larger and seemed to glow with a greenish, eerie light. It would bury them alive, leaving no trace of them on the ground’s surface.

  “Bailey, come on!” Phi pulled at his arm. The others were running full tilt away from the approaching storm. Bailey ran with them, holding Phi’s hand.

  Gwen and Taleth were in front. Suddenly, they stopped short, and Bailey felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle—Taleth was panicked.

  “Stop!” shouted Gwen, holding out her hands to catch Tori as she sped up to her. When Bailey reached them, he understood why: they were standing on the edge of a deep ravine, a steep drop that plummeted down, down into a canyon below. The kids turned to watch the sandstorm growing larger and closer—only as far away from them now as the length of a Scavage pitch. Bailey could feel the wind picking up, and whirling twisters of sand were visible only a few feet away.

  “What do we do?” Bailey asked.

  Tori cried out suddenly—one of her slim, black snakes had fallen to the ground and was winding its way to the cliff’s edge. Tori crouched, trying to catch it, but it slipped over the edge.

  “Look!” she said, pointing. The snake wound its way along a narrow path of rocks, and then disappeared into the wall of the cliff.

  “Come on,” said Tori. “There’s something down here.” She eased herself over the edge, wincing as she stretched out her toes to feel for the foothold. The she dropped onto the rocks jutting out from the cliff.

  “Yes—it’s a cave!” she called up.

  “Go, go!” shouted Phi. The storm was on them—sand whipping around, stinging their faces and arms. The kids followed Tori, scrambling over the side of the cliff, holding fast to the rocks, into the safety of the cave. Carin overshot the cave entrance and met resistance in the wind as she turned around and tried to come back, flapping her wings hard as her feathers streamed. Eventually, she lowered and dove into the cave, her talons clutching into the leather on Phi’s arm. Only Taleth remained, her massive paws at the edge. She was scared. Bailey could feel it. He closed his eyes and tried to think calm thoughts as she turned around and lowered her hind legs off the cliff, pawing at the air as her front legs hung on. Everyone moved back.

  “Come on, Taleth,” Bailey whispered. She slipped lower and lower, but it was too dangerous to grab for her, and he had to trust. Then in one graceful move, she threw her weight into the cave, landing with a thud. Bailey collapsed on top of her.

  Once they were inside, the wave of sand came pouring past the opening and across the howling ravine. Phi sat next to Bailey and Taleth, and Bailey’s hand found Phi’s again.

  “You saved me back there,” he told her. “Thank you.”

  “We’re even now,” she said. He thought how they’d never really be even; she’d always saved him, even before she really knew him, back when the only saving he needed was from Taylor Quindley’s barbed taunts.

  She smiled and squeezed his hand. Bailey wanted to hug her, or maybe even kiss her, but he didn’t dare move. He just watched the way she shrugged her curly hair off of her thin shoulders, and he felt himself blushing.

  He heard commotion farther in the cavern, and saw a spark of light.

  “It looks like the others have gotten a fire going,” he said. “Let’s go warm up.”

  Phi nodded and let go of his hand. He tried to hide his disappointment as they walked to join their friends and kin, ignoring the howling of the wind and the raw pelting of the sand outside. It felt as though they were sitting in the middle of a raging war, with Nature doing battle against itself. Bailey shuddered. At least for now, he and his friends were safe. But when the storm cleared, another war waited.

  THE FOX DASHED THROUGH the woods, panicked. Leaves and twigs swatted her nose and eyes, the wind whistled in her ears, created by her own furious running. Her kin was just ahead, always just out of reach—she couldn’t catch up. She couldn’t stop him.

  He was afraid. Tremelo was afraid. The fur on her nape stiffened. She could feel his dismay as he struggled with the ropes binding his hands. She sensed the wetness of his own breath building behind the cloth gag fitted around his mouth. I’m coming; I’m coming: the refrain beat along with her quickly pounding heart.

  Go back.

  But she ran harder, the pain intensifying in her tender paw.

  Go back, Fennel.

  She kept running, ignoring him and his insistent t
houghts.

  Go back. Lead them to me. Help them find me.

  With a dismayed bark of alarm, Fennel stopped running. She panted for fresh air in her burning lungs. Her ribs and her paws ached. She shook herself violently. He was afraid, but he wanted her to leave him.

  She took a deep, cold breath and let out a high-pitched howl. In the deep woods, she heard it echoed back to her by other foxes who had sensed Tremelo passing through the woods, and sensed his fear along with hers. The echoes followed her, almost taunting her, as she raced in the direction from which she’d come.

  When she reached the tunnels again to search for help, she found no one.

  BAILEY WOKE TO WHAT he believed to be morning—but no light shone from the entrance to the cave to prove him right. He and his friends had all been huddled together for warmth, and when he stood up he shivered. The entrance through which they’d come the night before was dark, entirely blocked off by a wall of sand and rocks. Taleth rose, stretched, and padded after him to investigate.

  Bailey pushed aside some of the rocks, only to have more tumble after them into the cavern entrance. He felt a heavy shifting as some rocks fell on the other side of the pile. A small pinprick of light broke through. He kept trying until he could pull his shoulders to the outside.

  The ledge outside the entrance was entirely destroyed—the only few feet that remained were obstructed by heavy rocks that had fallen from the cliff’s edge in the night, toppled by the powerful sandstorm. And below was a drop that would easily kill them. He craned his neck to look up to the cliff top—too far and too steep to climb. They couldn’t get out the way they’d come.