Windrunner's Daughter

by Bryony Pearce

  “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “You don’t know our ways.” Wren gnawed at her lips. “You should go back to Avalon.”

  Raw set his jaw and Wren dragged her hands through her hair. “Just … do what I do. Don’t speak unless you really have to. I’ll have to think about who we say we are and why we haven’t Run to Vaikuntha before.” She opened her second pouch and put it her lips. “Yuck.” She threw it down. “Tastes like garbage.”

  “Stick to the sweet ones then.” Raw picked her discarded packet up. “Who knows when you’ll get to eat again?”

  “Tomorrow,” Wren said firmly. “As soon as the sun gets high enough to warm the thermals we’ll take off. We’ll be in Vaikuntha before noon.” She looked at the corridor outside the kitchen, at the lines of closed doors. “If this is residential, do you think there’ll be a bed?”

  A distant hunting cry came through the floor. Raw ignored it.

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  Raw had to force the door, the power was barely enough for him to get his fingers through. Wren stood peering into the gloom. Then the corridor lights cycled on again. Sure enough she could see a low cot made up with a mouldy foam mattress and a foil blanket. On the wall was pinned an ancient picture; a smiling trio standing in front of a forest of greenery.

  “Dead-Earth.” Wren pointed. She held her wings close and wedged her way through the opening. Raw followed.

  “What’re you doing?” She glowered at him.

  “There’s not enough power to open another door. And do you really want to be alone?”

  Wren was about to say she was perfectly happy by herself when yet another eerie wail reverberated through the factory. “You’d better stay.”

  Raw nodded. “I thought you’d say that.”

  “But there’s only one bed.” Wren fidgeted anxiously.

  Raw pulled his hair down over his scarred cheek. “I’ll take the floor. It’s not a problem.”

  “Not the floor.” Wren pulled the disintegrating mattress from the cot and dumped it by the door. “This’ll be less cold to sleep on.” She looked at the cot. Beneath the mattress thick plastic was pulled taut over struts. “That’ll be fine for me.”

  She tested it carefully, bouncing her fists on top to make sure it would take her weight; then she climbed on, wrapped her wings around her shoulders and pulled the foil blanket to her chin.

  Raw watched her from behind his dangling wave of hair; then he sat on the mattress and leaned against the wall. Finally he sighed. “I’ve got observances to make.”

  “So make them.” Wren rolled over, turning her back on him. Her breath fogged her mask and she was soothed to sleep by the soft murmur of Raw’s prayers to dead-Earth, the originals and the deified Designers who had started to terraform the planet.

  Chapter eight

  Wren woke to the flickering of lights. She was curled up in the exact same position in which she had fallen asleep and her legs and arms were numb, like blocks of wood. She tried to stretch and roll over. Pain spiked through her; electricity that curled fire around her muscles and cramped her fingers until they went into spasm. She cried out.

  From the floor Raw groaned as her cry woke him.

  Wren rolled from the cot to land on the floor in a tangle of wing and blanket. Beside her Raw moaned again, his own limbs shaking as he tried to sit.

  “It hurts,” he gasped.

  “That’s why we offer massage when a Runner comes in.” Wren forced her cramping fingers into the rock hard muscle of her thigh. “To prevent this from happening.” She winced as feeling started to come back to her legs.

  “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know. Morning?”

  Raw staggered as he tried to get to his feet. “No way to know unless we go and have a look. It feels warmer.”

  “The room’s small. Could just be our body heat.” Wren managed to get to her knees, then her calf seized and she rolled again, clutching it.

  Raw had dropped to the floor and was leaning on his hands. His wings flowed around him like sand. All she could see was his hair as it hung down over his face.

  “How are we going to take off like this?”

  “It’ll pass.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “Give it time.”

  “How much time?” Raw groaned again.

  “Get moving.” Wren trembled as she tried to stand again. “It’ll help.”

  “Hah,” Raw spat and he finally looked at her. “Guess it’s not all fun being a Runner, after all.” Then he clutched at his shoulder. Even Wren saw the muscles twitching beneath the silver material that lined them.

  Wren used the wall to climb to her feet. “I’m going to eat something. Follow when you can.”

  Wren squeezed through the opening and into the flickering light-dark of the corridor. She lurched to the kitchen and, after some swearing, managed to stretch high enough to pull down a fruit pouch. She swallowed it down, the pain of her cramped and aching muscles almost over-riding her sense of taste.

  Then she leaned against a cabinet as she silently pleaded for her legs to come back to life. Raw was right, if they couldn’t Run, they wouldn’t be able to take off. They could stay here another day, until they both felt stronger, but Wren had promised her mother that she’d be back in three. If they remained in the factory her mother would be a day closer to death and Wren would have achieved nothing.

  She tossed her pouch on the table and clenched her fists, wishing there was something to strike. The opening door made her look up. Raw stood in the entrance, still shaking. His jaw was set and his scar deformed his face in the half light. Automatically Wren leaned away from him and he quickly jerked so that his sandy hair flopped over his face. He stepped close, reached past her without looking her way and snagged a pouch.

  “After this we should go to the roof,” Wren mumbled, awkwardly.

  He nodded, still without looking at her.

  “We should at least see what time it is,” Wren pressed. “We don’t have to take off straight away, we could rest up there for a couple of hours even, until we’ve loosened up.”

  Raw muttered his obligation and turned from her to remove his mask. His back moved as he drank and then he threw his empty pouch onto the floor. He replaced his mask. “Let’s go then,” he muttered.

  Wren followed him to the end of the corridor, where dust motes floated in the stale air, lit by the faint blue light of the glow tubes. She stumbled through them like a drunk, making whorls in the atmosphere. Raw had stopped at the door. He pressed his ear to the metal.

  “I can’t hear anything,” he said eventually and before Wren could speak, he put his palm on the reader and the door cycled open.

  Wren tensed her abused muscles, but nothing sprung through the door towards them. Raw stepped into the stairwell, his footsteps echoing in the silence. Once more the opening door triggered the lights and they clicked on, taking the stairs from darkness to pale blue light.

  Wren shivered as Raw leaned over the rail and looked down. Then he carefully leaned back. Beneath his scarring, Raw’s face was white. “There’s something in the stairwell.” He spoke so quietly that at first Wren couldn’t make out his words. Then her eyes widened and she clutched her fists to her chin.

  “Creatures?” she barely mouthed the word.

  “Must be.”

  “You can see them!”

  “Only movement. They’re right down at the bottom."

  “They can’t climb the stairs, or they’d have been waiting for us to come out.” Wren spoke too loudly, the Creatures stirred and their cry echoed around her. She clapped her hands over her ears.

  Raw grabbed her arm and shoved her towards the stairs. “Run.”

  “They can’t climb,” she gasped again, as Raw pushed her ahead of him. Her legs could barely take her weight, and she collapsed as she tried to take two steps at a time. Wren grabbed the rail and sagged. “You’re n
ot thinking.” She wrapped her arm around the rail. “Slow down.”

  Raw tried to pull her free. "Listen.”

  Wren tried to quiet her breath, but all she could hear was the slithering and wailing of the creatures below them. “They’re no closer.”

  Raw grabbed her face and, as she tried to fight free, he pushed her cheek and ear into the cold wall. “No,” he hissed. “Listen.”

  Furious, Wren tried to kick him, but he held her against the concrete until she calmed, and then she heard it: the rattle of debris, the dragging of great bodies through stone.

  Her eyes widened. “They’re in the walls?”

  Raw nodded. “Now, will you run?”

  “How are they in the walls?” Wren half screamed at him, as though it were Raw’s fault. “I said we should have stayed in the upstairs room.”

  “They’re burrowers,” Raw closed his hand around her elbow, drew ahead and began to pull her after him. “They can’t climb the stairs, but they can …”

  “Burrow through concrete? They can’t get through rock. None of the colonies would be safe if they could.”

  “The walls won’t be solid inside, they’ll be filled with some kind of insulation. Easy as sand.”

  “Then they can’t get through the wall to reach us.” Wren’s legs were quivering jelly now.

  “You’re right.” Raw halted suddenly as the lights flickered above them. Wren bumped into his back and stood panting on the step below. “They shouldn’t be able to get through. So what are they doing?”

  Wren watched him silently. Now he had drawn her attention to the slithering in the walls, it was all she could hear. She clenched her fists, staring from side to side as though the concrete would burst open at any second, and sprout teeth.

  “They’re driving us,” Raw said eventually.

  “Driving us where?” The warmth Wren had rediscovered overnight, fled, leaving her chilled from top to toe. Then she answered her own question. “The saboteurs - the explosions. We didn’t see any sign downstairs, perhaps the bombs here went off-”

  “In the living quarters.” Raw finished. “Somewhere up here there are holes in the walls.”

  Wren froze, as though another step would take her in reach of one. “We didn’t see any on our way down” she whispered finally. “Did we?” She remembered entering the building, exhausted, in the dark. They hadn’t been looking for gaps in the walls. Shadow still clung to every corner, even in the stairwell. “Did we?”

  Raw groaned. “We could have missed something, we didn’t know to look.”

  “So they could be waiting in the top room.”

  “Or somewhere else. I don’t know.” The sounds around them intensified and Raw shivered. “They want us to go up.” He looked up at the stairwell curving around and out of sight. “So wherever the hole is, it has to be above us.”

  Wren closed her eyes. “What are our choices?” Her heartbeat slowed and her breathing grew more deliberate as she thought. “We can go back to the corridor we came from – that was safe - but we can’t stay there forever, there were only about ten food pouches: we’d starve. We can’t go down, that takes us towards the ones in the stairwell. And if we go up …”

  “We end up in their trap.”

  “We might,” Wren conceded. “Or we could move fast enough to get past them. It’s our best chance.”

  Without another word, Raw started up the stairs once more.

  The glow tubes burned with their low blue light, on and off, light and dark, almost in time with Wren’s steps. Just above her she could see Raw’s wings flapping around his legs, billowing slightly with each step, as if the air could take them even in here. As she climbed, she kept one hand on the rail and wrapped the other around the growing knot in her stomach.

  The sounds in the walls grew louder, almost anticipatory. Wren could imagine them speaking to one another.

  “How intelligent are they do you think?” she whispered.

  Raw did not answer.

  Then, two floors up, the sounds abruptly stopped. Wren climbed higher and a wail curled down the stairwell. She froze and backed downwards. The cry halted.

  “Raw?”

  He was standing with one hand over the palm reader. “It sounds quiet in there,” he murmured. “No Creatures and there could be more food in the kitchen, enough to last us until they give up and leave.”

  “Don’t open the door.” Wren caught his elbow. His hand halted bare millimetres from the reader.

  “Why?” Raw glowered at her.

  “You said we were being driven. If its quiet in there it’s because that’s where they want us to go.”

  “Or because they aren’t in there.” But Raw didn’t move. “You think they’re that clever?”

  “I don’t know.” Tension thrummed through Wren’s body, like the flickering lights overhead. “You’re betting your life that they’re not.”

  “And if we keep going?” Raw looked up. “You’re betting our lives that they are.”

  “They’re hunters,” Wren bit her lip. “The safest place has to be where they don’t want us to go.”

  “That would make sense if they were people.” Raw exhaled. “But they’re not.”

  “No, they’re not.” Wren withdrew her hand from his. “You decide.”

  Raw looked at the door again, then up the stairs. A susurrus hummed from the ceiling as if the Creatures could sense Raw’s hesitation and were hurrying him.

  Raw stepped back from the door. “Up,” he said.

  He turned and pounded up the stairs as the Creatures wailed. Wren raced after him, her legs shaking with each step.

  Thuds against the concrete made the walls shudder and there was a scraping sound like that of teeth against rock.

  “They can’t get through,” Raw shouted. “Keep going.”

  Wren realised that she had faltered to a stop. She shook herself and pushed on. It felt as if she was running through a near solid barrier made up of noise and terror and she found her arms swinging widely in front of her as though to push it aside.

  Then they were at the top of the stairs.

  “This is where we came in.” Raw was standing in front of the reader, his palm spread. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Do it,” Wren just wanted to be out of the stairwell. Her fear was suffocating, she wanted it over, one way or the other.

  Raw slapped the reader and from the ground floor, Creatures screamed.

  Jerkily the door cycled open and Raw slid through sideways, pulling Wren after him. She slapped it closed and they stood in the room, panting. Shadows swirled around them as the glow tubes softly burned into life. Was the darkness deeper in the far corner? Was that a hole in the wall?

  Wren sprinted for open window, kicking puffs of dust as she gripped the ladder and swung outwards in one smooth movement. She looked down and her eyes widened. The sand, which seemed strangely close to her feet given the length of the stairs they had climbed, was moving as far as the eye could see. Creatures must have converged from across the whole desert.

  Her fists turned to ice and refused to open.

  “Move it, Wren. I can’t get on the ladder till you’re off it.”

  Wren looked up and her heart sank like a rock fall. “Oh skies.”

  “What is it?” Raw grabbed and shook her leg. “What’s the problem?”

  “It’s not morning,” Wren spoke with a shuddering voice.

  “But its light out.” Raw strained past her.

  “It’s not morning,” Wren repeated. “It’s midday, or near enough.”

  “Midday?” Beneath his scar, Raw paled. “But that means -”

  “There’s a dust storm coming,” Wren swallowed as sand began to swirl upwards from the boiling mass. Wind caught her hair and wings and snatched them outwards.

  “But we can’t stay here.” Raw yelled. “I can hear them - they’ve found a hole. They’re widening it. They’re comin
g.”

  Almost without thinking, Wren started to climb the ladder. It groaned with her weight and the sudden rage of the wind that pulled her as she tried to hold onto it.

  She dragged herself onto the roof top and lay flat. Raw was swinging out onto the rungs even before she could call for him.

  He stared at the ground, just as she had done, then climbed.

  She caught his hand and helped him onto the roof. He flattened himself next to her and his eyes swept the desert. “Now what?”

  “If we stay here the storm will blow us from the roof.” Wren was pale as ice. “But we can’t take off, that would be suicide.”

  Raw groaned. "Which way will the storm come?”

  Wren’s wings lifted from her back, almost pulling her into the air. Raw flattened them with a strong arm as Wren pointed. “The storm should sweep across this way, from Deimos, towards the South.”

  “And which way do we want to go - which way is Vaikuntha?” Raw shouted to be heard over the rising gale.

  Wren pointed towards a curving hillside. “That way.”

  “It’s not that far, is it? We were nearly there yesterday.”

  “Yes, but-”

  “Then you know what we have to do.” Raw caught her chin and turned her to face him. As her eyes met his, he automatically tried to tug his hair over his face, but the wind pulled it back, exposing him to her gaze. He looked like a winged demon, his mask hiding his grinning lips. “We have to outfly the storm.”

  Chapter nine

  “Are you insane?” Wren wrenched her face away.

  “It’s the Creatures or the storm,” Raw growled. “If you don’t want to fly, you might as well jump off the roof now and be done with it.” He grabbed her again and pointed to the churning sand. “Go on. They might be distracted enough fighting over your body that I can get away.”

  “Stop it.” Wren kicked him hard and he flinched and released her again. She stared; the dust had already risen to knee height. Soon it would form a wall. She blinked particles from her lashes and pulled her goggles over her eyes.