Dante

by Guy Haley

  The climb was slow. At the top, the boys had to assemble their angel’s wings and don them, and this caused frequent halts. The line of youths snaked out across the valley as the line backed up. The camp roused itself and the noise rose, becoming feverish with excitement. Turn by turn Florian and Luis walked around the spine of rock. Sometimes the steps were cut into the body of the stone, so that there was a low ceiling overhead, sometimes they would ride out over natural protuberances. A frieze wound its way around the wall of the stair. Millennia of trailing hands and harsh winds had worn the carvings to vague shapes. Only one faceless figure, that of Sanguinius, stood out by dint of his wings and frequent appearances.

  The drop grew. Luis saw people gathering around the canyon edge, cheering every time a boy launched himself from the pinnacle. His heart hammered with nerves. The height terrified him, even with the rock beneath his feet. The wind seemed to want him, plucking at his clothes mischievously. The roar of it through the canyon grew louder and louder the further out they went on the jutting pinnacle until Florian had to shout into Luis’ ear.

  The pinnacle leaned out over the canyon, and soon Luis had his first look down into its depths.

  The floor was lost in shadow, the sun shining so rarely upon it that dirty ice lurked between the talus slopes cloaking the lower reaches. At the very bottom an orange river flowed, threadlike and insignificant within the valley it had made. This was the first river Luis had ever seen. The wonder of it was overshadowed by the terror of the drop, much as the river was overshadowed by the scale of its canyon. His stomach flipped, his head swam. He fought the sudden, terrifying urge to throw himself off there and then. Clammy sweat beaded his forehead under his scarves.

  Florian steadied him. ‘Careful, salty. You don’t want to fall without your wings.’

  Desperately, Luis fumbled his father’s goggles on. They were so old and scratched as to be practically impossible to see through, and the yellow tint to the aged plastek made the world unreal. He found this helped. His heart steadied. He had to bury his fear. He could not fail now.

  Noon came and went. As they got higher, the view of the boys flying away improved. They fell so fast that they streaked across the eye, arms outstretched, whooping madly. When they hit the river of wind, they were snatched away. More than a few misjudged the speed of the current, and were rushed to their deaths against the cliffs. Luis distracted himself from the buffeting wind and horrendous fall by examining the flyers, gauging what technique was successful and what was not, the set of their feet and arms, the way they moved their bodies to fly out to the centre of the canyon. The boldest boys snatched themselves up before they hit the torrent of air, rising on the treacherous eddies coming off the Wind River to swoop over the crowds before diving into the canyon and racing off towards their destiny.

  The shadows lengthened. The pinnacle narrowed. The turns of the stair came more frequently, and became sharper. Manoeuvring the bone poles around the corners became difficult. The whole line of boys was halted as one youth fell screaming past the crowds at the base, his half-assembled wings furled round him. Fear became so constant that Luis ignored it. By the time they reached the last turn his heart beat slowly. Dread was as normal as breathing. He could cope with that.

  The top of the pinnacle was a level platform twenty yards across. If he could have stood in the middle, then Luis would have felt safe, but the pinnacle was crowded with boys attempting to assemble their wings. Arguments broke out as poles were laid over one another, or a boy felt his space to be violated in some other way. Luis and Florian waited for room to be available, hurrying over as soon as a boy had his wings on his back and moved to the canyon edge. He spread his wings without hesitation and leapt. Others stared down for many seconds before jumping, seized with terror at what they must do.

  ‘Watch me,’ urged Florian. He set down his wing spars and pulled out the leather panels from his backpack. With deft twists, he set the poles into each other, making a pair of long, curved spars which were hinged by thongs in the centre. He had two shorter poles and one long straight one left over. He set them to one side. The longer pair he put side by side, outstretched, and began to lace the leather onto the wing bones. ‘These spars are made from blood hawk wing fingers – very light,’ he explained. ‘Follow the knots I’m making. It goes on easy once you know how. These grooves take the thongs, stops them from coming loose. Make sure they’re tight. If they come undone in flight…’ He grinned his black-toothed grin. ‘You don’t need me to explain it to you.’

  Florian worked quickly, assembling the wings faster than many of the others. Once complete, he reversed his backpack, so that the chest straps were at the rear. These, Luis saw, formed the anchorage for the wings. He laced the panels together, tying them to the bones, then began to lace the edges of the wings to each other, testing them for tension and strength. ‘These laces and leather panels might look flimsy, but they all work together,’ Florian explained. ‘The tension has to be right, though.’

  Then, with the remaining poles, he made a sort of tail. The short poles made up either side, the last long pole connecting the tail to the wings.

  ‘There, all done.’ He folded it up and moved it over. ‘Now let’s do yours.’

  A shadow fell over them. ‘Don’t you know what you’re doing?’ asked an incredulous voice.

  ‘I do. Leave us be,’ said Florian.

  ‘Not wise to speak to me so,’ said the boy. He was bigger than anyone else on the platform and unusually well muscled. Other boys with the same clan marks were putting his wings together for him. ‘Who are you to speak to me in such a way?’

  ‘Flat Desert clan,’ said Florian. ‘I’ll talk to you how I please.’ He continued lacing up Luis’ wings.

  ‘What about the scrawny one?’ said the other boy. He had an arrogant manner, though there was good humour hiding behind it.

  ‘I am of the Salt Waste roamers, Irkuk’s clan,’ said Luis.

  The boy snorted. ‘A salty in the mountains! So you made it this far? Impressive. Not like you salties to take the quick road. Well done. You’re too little though – the angels will never take you.’

  The boys accompanying him finished his wings. The big youth checked them over, grunting in annoyance when he found a loose thong. When he was satisfied, his followers assisted him in strapping on his wings, and he spread them wide. ‘I am Lorenz, of the Clan Ash. Do I not look like an angel already?’

  His toadies laughed, and quickened their efforts to climb into their own wings.

  ‘This goes here, and there. Tie it like this,’ said Florian. Luis moved around his own spread wings. He knocked a spar, raising laughter from the assembled boys.

  ‘Don’t say that this little salt chipper has never been on wings, that he has never flown before!’ said Lorenz.

  Luis’ expression revealed the truth. Under the peeling skin of his sunburn, his cheeks burned.

  ‘Then he is gonna die, eh?’ Lorenz stepped back to the edge of the platform and crossed his arms over his chest, furling his wings about himself. ‘For you, my friend, this is going to be a big leap of faith.’

  He fell backwards, uttering a long drawn-out scream. Luis leapt up with a gasp. All the boys moved closer to the edge.

  The flyer swooped upwards at great speed, borne aloft on the vertical winds created where the river hit the pinnacle. Steadying himself on the currents, he darted back and forth overhead in a near hover, laughing at his own skill.

  ‘See you in Angel’s Fall, if you make it!’

  He dived down to the canyon in a long, graceful swoop, and was borne away by the Wind River.

  ‘He’s a cocky one.’ Florian pointed at the wings. ‘We’re finished. It’s our turn.’

  Lorenz’s friends turned to their own fates now their leader was gone, leaving Florian to help Luis into his wings. His hands gripped straps sewn to reinforced panels. His feet were set into loops attached to the tail bones. Florian told him to spread his arms, and he
laced the wings into place.

  ‘What about you?’ asked Luis.

  ‘There’s a way to do it yourself. I’ll be fine. Remember, push back with your feet to flex the spine and change the shape of the wings. Dip your arms to turn. Don’t, for the love of the Great Angel, try to flap your arms. You glide, you got that? No flapping! If you stall, get your arms out, face down. Stay on your front.’

  Florian opened Daneill’s pack on Luis’ front and loaded it with food and water. The last item that went in was a water bottle plugged with a clay cap, from which protruded a hollow bone. ‘Drink from this when you need. You will get thirsty. Don’t be tempted to stop –you won’t be able to get airborne again. If you need to piss, do it in your pants. Now, are you ready?’ Florian slapped him in the chest, exposing his black teeth.

  Luis nodded mutely. His heart in his mouth, he approached the edge of the pinnacle platform. The edge was smooth and treacherous. The movement of his feet was restricted by his wing rig, and he nearly fell when he spread his wings and the wind caught them. He tottered. Lorenz’s last couple of cronies tittered. Their contempt steadied him. At his feet the world opened. The crowds were watching him. He was not a frightened boy to them; he was a lone silhouette on the edge, an angel in the making.

  ‘When you’re ready,’ said Florian.

  ‘No point delaying,’ said Luis. But he couldn’t jump. He thought it several times, his muscles tensed, but something in his limbs rebelled and rooted him into place, five thousand feet above the rusty river.

  ‘Get on with it!’ shouted someone behind him.

  ‘Go on, Luis,’ said Florian. ‘Jump!’

  A scream of defiance built in Luis’ throat. He couldn’t keep it in, and it burst from him. Once it was out, he had no choice but to go.

  It was easier than he had expected.

  He fell like a stone. He was still yelling, but the wind snatched the sound away from him. It tugged mercilessly at his spread wings, threatened to rip his father’s goggles from his face. The edge of the canyon rushed at him, the crowd going from a single mass to individuals.

  Why aren’t I flying? Why aren’t I flying? he thought in a panic.

  Though his mind became blank, his body was not ready to die. His feet kicked back. The spine pole connecting wings to tail flexed. Leather thongs running from the tail spars strained, pulling at the ends of the wings and bending them. The wings filled out. He angled his arms upwards, though to do so was like trying to lift the world. Suddenly, he was ripped up out of his dive. Wobbling madly, he drove straight at the crowd on the edge of the cliff. Their cheers turned to panic, and they ran back from the edge. In the nick of time, Luis tilted his arms and went rushing away towards the centre of the canyon. There the main stream of the river of wind grabbed him hard, threatening to turn his graceful bank into a deadly tumble. He managed to correct himself, and he was away, chasing after other winged boys at a hundred miles an hour. The roar of the wind dropped as he matched its speed.

  He strained his neck to look behind him and got a brief view of the hanging valley, but the motion upset his flight, and he faced resolutely forwards after that.

  For an hour, he flew rigid and scared. After a while he detected differing notes to the wind’s song, strange slappings where it encountered bluffs or shoulders in the rock, hooting where it passed through storm-worn arches. These sounds affected the invisible flow of the air, and he learnt quickly what they meant. The wind gave the air a sense of solidity, so much so that Luis could fool himself he was not high above killing stone, but sliding belly first down a sand dune. He began to experiment, twitching his arms and feet, sending himself into wide curves, or up and down. As his experiments became bolder, he discovered that if he were to dive quickly then climb smoothly, he could increase his speed, or that if he rose up high he would slow so that it seemed he hung there, the world spread out beneath his belly. Once he almost stalled himself doing this, but Florian’s instructions ran through his mind, and he recovered. Soon he was overtaking other boys, or chasing them down the quickest streams of air.

  He was flying, like an angel. He laughed at the joy of it. Even if he were turned away by the angels, at least he would have the memory of this to take to his grave.

  Minutes of joy turned to hours of tedium. Keeping his arms and legs braced made them ache. He could not relax, and slowly but surely the discomfort became tortuous. Performing turns and dives alleviated the ache, but at the cost of tiring his limbs further. Soon his muscles sang with agony. The day crawled by. Thirst bothered him. He found he could not reach the bottle on his chest without sending himself into a dangerous dive. He snatched a sip or two, but large, refreshing gulps remained tantalisingly out of reach.

  The canyon curved off its northern path, turning to the north east. The wind currents became erratic as they encountered the turn, breaking into choppy vortices reflected back off the cliffs. For a few moments Luis’ pains were forgotten as he fought his way through. A pair of boys ahead got into trouble, tossed up and down until they were pushed into a long glide yards above the canyon floor. They were forced down and landed awkwardly.

  The wind buffeted him, and he dropped lower and lower. He feared the same fate awaited him. With a final effort, he pushed the leading edge of his wings upwards. They juddered along his arms, the leather flapping. Then he punched through the turbulence, leaving the grounded boys far behind. For the next half an hour he expended much effort in regaining height, and remained wary of the lower reaches for the remainder of his journey.

  The mountains on the eastern side of the Wind River diminished and became hills; those on the other stayed tall, but turned suddenly west to march into the desert, leaving high table lands behind them. The canyon’s eastern edge softened and dropped. The west remained a mighty cliff, topped by a plateau riven with gullies.

  The day had been old when Luis departed, and the sky darkened. Deep red evening light turned the land to blood. The Wind River weakened. Luis slowed. He risked looking back. A train of winged boys stretched away into the canyon. Florian could have been any one of them.

  Thin screams had him looking forwards once again. For a second he thought that some of the youths had turned on their fellows, for the canyon ahead was full of black, wheeling shapes diving at each other. Then he saw through the failing light that some were men, and some were birds.

  ‘Blood eagles!’ he said. A flock of the giant raptors was plunging from on high, stooping on the fragile angel’s wings and sending boys spiralling to their deaths. They left the meat for later, smashing passing youths out of the sky in their frenzy to take advantage of this seasonal glut.

  Helplessly, Luis drew closer to the aerial brawl. The raucous screeching of blood eagles and the screams of dying youths rent the air. The birds were everywhere. Their graceful bodies were bigger than grown men. Four powerful talons sprouted from their feet, and these were but the least of their armoury. The majority of their heads were dominated by huge beaks, long as swords. The lower portions fitted into a slot in the upper, snug as the blades of shears. They were blunt tools, for crushing bone, and weighty because of it. Long, wattled crests the colour of blood sprouting from the back of their skulls counterbalanced these brutal natural weapons. Though their beaks made them appear ungainly, they were nimble flyers, and far more agile than the gliding boys. The blood eagles powered themselves upwards with beats of broad wings, turned and fell again, wings bent, claws outstretched, pouncing on the steady flight of youths. For every ten youths felled, only one or two were making their escape.

  Luis was horrified. To die here, a victim of mere chance…

  ‘Emperor, if you truly do watch over us all, aid me now,’ said Luis.

  He forced his angel’s wings into a sharp bow, and by leaning towards the cliffs went into a steep turn. He flipped his wings up, catching the wind directly. The Wind River blasted him sideways. His speed increased; he turned into a long spiral, wheeling around and around upwards, and although the r
iver carried him towards the massacre, by the time he was near the eagles he had gained three hundred feet in altitude. Levelling out, he half folded his wings behind him like the eagles did and pointed himself at the ground. He dropped, meteor fast, and hurtled into the middle of the attack.

  Eagles with limp bodies in their talons rushed by. He jinked to avoid a bird tearing at a wing rig. Another boy fell screaming past him. The ground raced at him.

  A screech came from behind. An eagle was on his tail. Flicking out one wing, Luis swerved violently to the left, then the right, risking a stall. His flight was slowed by evasion, and the eagle shot past him, screaming angrily. Luis waited for it to spread its wings, braking over the muddy trickle of the river, then spread his own and set them level.

  He sped past the enraged raptor, skimming the canyon floor.

  He rolled a little from side to side, searching the sky through the dirty yellow of his goggles. There were no more eagles. He looked back. The eagle chasing him was shrinking rapidly behind. Several of the birds appeared to have abandoned their hunt and were circling to the ground, to tear at the dead and wounded with their beaks.

  Ahead the canyon was turning into a broad valley. Evidence of a much bigger river marked the floor. The worn remains of walls emerged from the dunes along the ancient banks. The orange river he had followed from Angel’s Fall was pathetic in the bed, and was becoming thinner and thinner as it sank into the sand.

  The wind was dying, spreading out as the canyon relaxed its grip. Luis needed to gain height before he lost forward momentum. All of the boys who had passed the eagles’ gauntlet had lost height and were attempting to do the same. He looked enviously up at the black specks of those who had managed the feat. He ignored the boys who crashed into the sand and shouted for help.

  If he could keep going until Firstnight abated and the rush of the nightwind came, he might gain altitude. Luis forced the wings into a sharp curve with his aching legs. He aimed arms numbed by lack of movement skywards. The wings lifted him up, but his speed died. He was going to stall. He pitched forwards, and he gained speed again, but lost height. Four times he tried this, moving in a series of sharp swoops closer to the ground. By now he’d come some miles from the eagle’s attack.