Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles

by A. J. Norfield

  Raylan had scrambled up the scaffold as fast as he could. Now on the top, he turned around, expecting to see his brother a small ways behind him. Instead, he saw Galirras take off, as a ghol’m rushed in slamming his fists into the ground. His brother was stuck behind two ghol’ms and an increasing number of enemy soldiers.

  Raylan looked at his brother, trying to find a way to get back to him. At that moment, he saw Gavin turn around, triggered by a sound he heard. Raylan followed his gaze to find Corza’s warhorse running straight at Gavin through the crowd.

  The exhaustion kicked in at a disastrous moment for his brother. Too slow to dodge the incoming attack, Corza hit Gavin square across his head with a metal rod. His brother spun around and landed on his knees. Raylan saw his brother slowly rock back and forth on his knees, dazed by the blow.

  Corza circled around and calmly dismounted. Slowly walking up to Gavin, he unsheathed the dagger that was hanging on his belt, horizontally, behind his back.

  Galirras tried to get close, but one of the ghol’ms was constantly blocking him. The other seemed to shield the High General from any incoming projectiles, as it jumped straight into the path of a fired arrow.

  Galirras felt desperation set in. He needed to save Gavin, for Raylan. The dragon felt Raylan’s panic flow into him. He felt a nervous shudder go down his spine, for a moment, when he felt himself inhale deeply and give a roar unlike anything ever before. It was not a loud, far carrying roar. Instead of stretching it out and giving it air, Galirras’ roar seemed to be sucked into place right in front of his widespread mouth. Pushing all air inward, Galirras condensed the air in a ball of pressurized air. He had never done anything like this before. He was not even sure how he knew what to do.

  As he felt the pressure in the ball increase, he strengthened the shell of spinning air around it. He reached the point where he could not put more air in the ball. Instinctively, he pushed it off with a focused burst of air. A shockwave pulsed out from where his windblast hit the ball.

  The spinning ball launched forward, straight for the High General’s location. Immediately, a ghol’m moved to intercept, crossing both its arms to block this unknown projectile. As the ball hit, the confined air broke through its containment and exploded outward, with force. Several soldiers near the ghol’m were swept away by it, crashing into the ground more than fifty feet from where they began. Shards of stone flew around as part of the ghol’m’s arm shattered on impact.

  Corza shielded his head behind his arm, moving a few steps to get away from the debris flying around; he was shielded from most of it by the ghol’m’s large body. Gavin, who had been kneeling more to the side of the ghol’m, immediately got knocked over from the force of the blast. Trying to push himself up again, he could do little else but lay there, exhausted and coughing.

  “Wow! Impressive!” Corza shouted up to the dragon, as he slowly clapped his hands. “But you’ll have to do better than that. Archers, I have had enough. Please pluck this annoying creature from our skies…alive, barely…preferably!”

  Happy to finally have an authorized target to engage, the archers on the plaza loosed their arrows at once, forcing Galirras to hastily retreat to a greater height. He saw Corza move in on Gavin. The High General dragged him to his knees again and there was nothing Galirras could do.

  “Corzaaaa! You leave my brother alone, you hear me!” shouted Raylan, as he felt his panic and anger spike.

  “What’s that, boy? Brother you said? I can barely understand you…” said Corza with a smile. “Don’t you wish you’d given me the egg, now?”

  Spellbound, Raylan watched as Corza walked behind his brother and pulled his head to the left with his hand.

  “Raylan, get out of here. You’ve got to warn the people back home.”

  It was all his brother could shout, as Corza lifted his Roc’turr and plunged it in the right side of Gavin’s chest. Raylan saw Gavin’s mouth open, in shock. Corza yanked the blade out and shoved Gavin away.

  “NOOOO! Gavin, no. Nonononooo!” Raylan’s voice left him as he fell to his knees.

  The world slowed to a crawl as Raylan saw his brother topple forward. Colors and sounds disappeared from the world, till nothing but whiteness surrounded them; red blood sprayed from Gavin’s chest, forming a beautifully horrifying contrast against it.

  Tears ran down Raylan’s face, his mouth opened with no sound coming out anymore, his eyes spread wide unable to look away from the scene. As Gavin’s body hit the dirt, his blood mixed with the blood of their slain enemies. His head did not even bounce up once when it hit the ground. The entire body was like a bag of flour falling off the wagon.

  On the airship, Xi’Lao let out a scream and sank to her knees, sobbing. The ship had been bobbing in the air, deciding—by itself—to leave or stay. But without the ropes tying the ship down, the green vapors in the balloon began to win against the pull of gravity. Slowly, the vessel moved skyward, away from the scaffold, increasing in speed with every passing moment.

  The remaining members of their group, that were on deck, had seen Galirras flash by and cut the ropes. Now, they found themselves watching the scene without a word, unwilling to believe they had just lost their leader.

  The world came rushing back in as his brother’s body remained motionless at Corza’s feet. Colors…sounds…voices…he actively tried to push them out, refusing to acknowledge the reality…but there was nothing Raylan could do as he felt them force their way back into his head. Behind him, Galen, Richard, and even Sebastian, were calling out to him.

  “Raylan, get up!”

  “You need to get up, Raylan!”

  “Raylan, hurry. The ship is leaving.”

  But Raylan refused to hear them. Their voices distorted into monotone sounds, carrying no meaning. The world before him looked wet from his tears, as the silhouettes behind him started to slide away, still calling out to him. My fault…it’s my fault. I wanted to steal a ship...I killed him…

  Somewhere in the distance, Raylan registered the movement of the scaffold, as soldiers moved up it, toward him. The airship drifted off, further and further, making it harder and harder to jump the distance. Kevhin and Rohan shot any person with a rope and any archer they could spot and reach. Despite this disastrous turn of events, they had no intention of letting up and wasting their one chance to get away.

  “Raylan, can you hear me?”

  The voice was familiar. He felt he knew the voice…deep inside, Raylan knew he cared about it…cared enough for him to be reached by it.

  “Raylan, come back to us. We need you. I need you.”

  …it had helped him once before…in a dark well.

  “Raylan, please…I am sorry. There was nothing I could do…”

  Why would this voice have to do anything...it’s my fault…my fault alone, thought Raylan.

  “You need to get up, Raylan. They are going to get you, if you do not get up, right now. GET UUUP!”

  Raylan looked up, startled. He felt he was waking up from a dream...or a nightmare. Galirras circled around up high, looking down at him, nervously. He jerked his head around to check the airship. Richard and Galen looked back at him, around the corner of the cargo doors, the ship already too far from the scaffold to make any attempt to jump aboard.

  “I can’t make that jump, anymore. Do you see another way out?” said Raylan to his eyes-in-the-sky.

  “I…I do not know…wait. There! The horse…quickly, the horse on your left side below the scaffold. Hurry! A ghol’m is coming.”

  Raylan saw him, too. One of the ghol’ms moved his way, even as soldiers were nearly at the top of the scaffold. He heard a horse whinny, but did not see it, yet. He took off to his left, as Galirras had said, and looked down. There!

  The soldier had been a part of Corza’s group of mounted men, assisting in securing the airship. Now that the ropes were cut, he was ordering his steed around amongst the wounded, giving orders on what to do.

  Looking behind him, he s
aw the ghol’m bring back his arm, ready to smash the entire scaffold.

  “Jump!” howled Galirras, in his head.

  And that’s what he did. He jumped, not sure if he would land where he had hoped. Behind him, the scaffold shattered, as the ghol’m rushed into the side of it, there was nothing left to stand on. The Doskovian soldiers crashed down to the ground, some of them even tumbling over the ghol’m.

  Raylan, more or less, crashed behind the mounted soldier, hitting the back end of the saddle. The warhorse immediately bucked, from the shattering scaffold behind him and the unexpected passenger. Holding tight to saddle and rider, Raylan knocked the rider out of balance and pushed him off, barely able to stay on the horse himself. Somehow, he managed to swing his leg into position as the horse stomped between the wounded soldiers around him.

  Archers were already moving in, as well as some soldiers with spears; he needed to get out of there.

  “Which way?” he called out, in his mind.

  “Left. Your left. Go north, out of the harbor!”

  Raylan finally got a hold of the reins and wasted no time spurring the horse into action. The large steed felt incredibly powerful, completely different from his own horse who he had gotten to know so well over the last months.

  The horse had metal armor on its head and chest. As its hooves thundered across the ground, Raylan steered it north. Any soldier in the way would get to know the full force of an eighteen hundred pound warhorse on the move.

  As a salvo of arrows took flight, a windblast from above crushed them into the ground. Galirras made nosedives all over the place, attacking any long-range soldiers he could find, completely disregarded his own safety. Suddenly, he felt two sharp pains in his side.

  No time to check…

  The airship was slowly turning as Sebastian explained how to pull out the side sails. They had dragged him onto the main deck, where he was resting against the handrail while shouting what they needed to do.

  As Raylan sped off on the horse, Galirras tried to make sure neither he nor the airship fell prey to the arrows. Luckily, the cloth on the side of the airship stopped a number of arrows from reaching the balloon. Following the path the arrows took, Galirras quickly took out the archers, before they could release arrows again.

  The speed of ascension was ever increasing, as the airship moved higher and higher, out of the harbor. Galirras flew close to them, whenever possible, pushing them with his winds as much as he could. By the time they cleared land and drifted off over the ocean waters in the bay, Raylan had reached the edge of the plaza. He rammed past the last of the soldiers blocking him. He dodged arrows and swords he had never even noticed. Frankly, he had no idea how he was able to pull it off.

  Had Raylan’s thoughts been clearer, he might have realized that the sheer size of the Doskovian army had worked in his favor. With the Doskovian armor he still wore, not every soldier knew he was an enemy needing to be stopped. There had simply been no time to inform them.

  But Corza had no intention of letting him go. Speeding past the last line of soldiers, Raylan looked over his shoulder and saw Corza and the remaining riders in hot pursuit, for the second time, in these cursed lands.

  With the airship now out of range of the archers and climbing steadily, Galirras tried to get closer to Raylan. But the chase had led them into the forest, where Raylan could do little else but ride as hard as possible, for as long as possible. The path he was on was steadily climbing. He suspected where it would lead, but there was no way to go around it. His horse was breathing heavily, quickly tiring from the steep climb.

  “I’m sorry, little one, there’s nowhere for me to go…” he said to Galirras, as he noticed the dragon’s dark form slide across the treetops.

  “No! Do not say that. Keep going.”

  “They’ll catch me eventually, my friend. There is nowhere to hide…nowhere to run…”

  “It does not matter, just keep climbing! As fast as you can!”

  “You don’t understand, Galirras, it’s going to be a dead end…the cliff……it won’t have a way off.”

  “Yes, it will! Just keep going, keep going even if the path does not go on. When I had just hatched, I trusted you with my life…now trust me with yours…”

  Behind him he heard the shouts of his pursuers. They were planning to run their horses into the ground, if that would help them catch him. Raylan had no idea what Galirras was talking about, everything was still happening in a cloud of haziness.

  At moments the climb was so steep his horse almost had to jump to get up higher. The path made a number of sharp turns, allowing Corza and his men to get dangerously close. Arrows thumped into trees next to him, as he ordered the horse to go through the next turn. The horse’s hooves skidded and slid on the loose gravel of the path. At one point, the horse’s hind leg kicked loose a boulder, starting a small avalanche of tiny stones. The boulder barely missed one of the riders in pursuit, as Raylan heard a waterfall of curses follow him up the hill.

  Raylan felt the pressure mount inside his ears from ascending the hill at such speed. As he neared the top of the path, the forest opened to rocky ground, at the edge of the cliff. He was headed straight for a pointed overhang. On a normal day, the view from such a place would have been amazing; now, it only made it painfully clear it would be the end of his escape. As Raylan saw the dark bay water looming…way…way down.

  We’ve must have climbed over a thousand feet, thought Raylan to himself.

  “I’m sorry, Galirras, this is it…there’s no more road. I’ve got to stop…”

  “No! Keep going, even if the ground stops. Keep going. Trust me,” the dragon said, forcefully.

  Raylan saw his friends across the bay, flying the airship toward open waters. He smiled…they deserved to make it. He was happy they had made it.

  “Okay…okay…I trust you,” he said, giving into the inevitable, more than understanding what the dragon meant.

  With shouts following him out of the forest, Raylan spurred his horse to its top speed. The warhorse, bred to ignore his own fears and to follow commands in disregard of his own instincts, sped up and headed straight for the edge of the cliff.

  The final few yards suddenly went by at an incredible speed, as the warhorse pushed off and left the solid rocky ground of the cliff, for good. Corza and his men slid to a halt, trying to keep their mounts from falling over the edge. The stream of curse words sent after him, by Corza, were lost on Raylan. Raylan was in his own world. He had never so intensely felt the promise of freedom.

  Chapter 18

  Aftermath

  As Raylan and the horse tumbled forward, Raylan felt himself lift out of the saddle. The horse dropped away from under him, plunging toward the sea. He found himself weightless for just a moment longer as the momentum of the jump continued, but then gravity caught up with him and showed its inevitable influence.

  Raylan did not even bother to move. He was tired…his mind numb. As he fell, head first, toward the water, he saw Corza and his riders come out of the forest, just before the edge of the cliff removed them from sight. He closed his eyes, and felt the wind run through his hair, as he silently fell down to the water.

  “I’m sorry, brother…you were right. I’ll be able to apologize to you, in person, soon. I’ll see you in a bit…” he quietly whispered.

  But a gush of wind announced a different path. As Galirras moved in, Raylan felt the push of air next to him. The dark shape of the dragon blocked out the first rays of sunlight coming over the mountains in the east. If Raylan had not known Galirras as a close friend, he might think a demon was coming to drag him to the underworld. It would have been a very eerie sight indeed.

  As Galirras’ dark silhouette engulfed him like a monster from the deep seas, Raylan smiled with sadness more than happiness.

  I’m sorry, brother. It seems I’ll be a little while longer…

  Galirras carefully closed his front arms around his friend and pulled him close.

/>   “I got you!”

  With a sudden yank, Raylan felt the force of a sharp turn push his guts down to his toes. He felt the tip of Galirras’ claws puncture his arms as the dragon’s scales scuffed against his skin. Blood seeped out of the small wounds on his arm, but Raylan welcomed the pain. It meant he felt something…that he was alive.

  His flying friend turned away from the cliff, skimming the water close enough for Raylan to feel the wet drops from breaking waves. The warmth of the dragon’s skin against his front was a strong contrast to the cold water splashing on his back. It felt like he, literally, hovered between life and death.

  Galirras beat his wings strongly to gain altitude again, moving away from the cliff and harbor.

  “We got company. The large airship that was following me tonight just entered the bay ahead of us. The other airships are launching, too. The first have already taken to the air.”

  Raylan did not say anything. He felt light-headed from the flight as he turned his head around as far as he could. Peering around Galirras’ arms, he spotted the harbor. His eyes were wet from his tears while the wind against his face did its best to dry them at the same time. The morning sun announced itself over the hills already, but he still saw the lights of torches and lamps all across the coast. Everyone was flowing toward the water. Sails were being raised all over the bay. He saw four or five airships, leaving their docks and quickly gaining altitude. It seemed like a strange and faraway world, something that could not possibly exist.

  He looked up and saw Galirras’ neck stretch out in front of him. Raylan felt the muscles move under the scales. The powerful strokes of his wings made the dragon’s entire body wave and flow, like a gust of wind playing with leaves.

  In the distance, beyond Galirras’ head, he saw their freshly liberated airship rapidly coming closer. He saw shapes on deck, but the bumpy ride—and his tears—made it impossible to see who it was.