* * *
Diam rubbed her eyes. She was tired. She was feeling the long nights much more keenly now. Perhaps she should think about leaving the Institute, returning home, finally writing her book.
Mlo tapped on the doorframe. “Anything before I go?”
Diam nodded. “Yes. Disable the light in #45. It was turned on briefly. I doubt there was a consequence, but you never know.”
Mlo laughed. “Why do you like that one so much? Granted, it’s pretty, but do you really think any life form can grow in a vacuum?”
Diam shrugged. “I know, but you should sit and watch it. It’s very calming. And those tiny bits of light are moving, breaking apart and coming together. Something is happening there. I wish I knew what.”
Mlo shrugged. “Whatever you say. I’ll disable the switch. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Diam said, and thought again of her book.
Then she thought of Project #45 and smiled to herself. So pretty.
About Marijon Braden
Marijon was born and raised in New Jersey, which may help to explain her attitude towards charlatans and idiots. She started writing stories at an early age, her first literary influences being Walter Farley, author of the ‘Black Stallion’ series, and Carolyn Keene, of ‘Nancy Drew’ fame. That’s probably why her earliest efforts involved a young girl detective who solved crime on horseback.
She had a very happy childhood, did well in school, and was a fairly obedient daughter until she went away to college. The original plan was to major in journalism. She wrote for the college paper until she realized that wasn’t the kind of writing she wanted to do when she grew up. So she switched to education. That was not, perhaps, the smartest move.
Then, life happened. Jobs, rent, husband, baby, another husband, another baby, until she found herself a stay-at-home mom, about to chew her foot off if she had to watch one more episode of ‘Barney.’ So, she started to write again.
She still lives in New Jersey with her husband, daughter, two cats and a very spoiled cocker spaniel. Her older daughter is off in Oregon, fighting the good fight for the homeless. She loves to cook – and eat – and plays RPG games on her Xbox when she needs to decompress (Skyrim alone cost her months of her life). During the past few years, she has lost, and tragically found again, the same twenty pounds. Life is all about trying, failing, and trying harder.
She writes in her downstairs office, surrounded by her growing collection of gargoyles. Smoke, Wings and Stone is her first YA novel.
Marijon Braden is the pen name for Dee Ernst, who writes adult romantic comedy, and has lived an almost identical life.
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Moon Warrior
H.S. Stone
Luna awoke with an ache in her skull. Her eyelids pried open through the crusted streak of blood on her face. She reached a hand to her forehead and quickly pulled back at the sting of her touch. Her fingers came away clean, signifying that the cut had closed despite its tenderness.
Pushing herself up, Luna inspected her condition. Aside from the cut on her head and scratches along her arms, she appeared to be fine. She tested her muscles and joints and found them uninjured. She considered herself lucky after the tumble she’d taken, which apparently had also rendered her unconscious.
A few feet away, her bow and quiver rested on a mound of sand. Luna counted the arrows in the quiver and, satisfied that all were present, slung it over her shoulder. The bow, to her relief, was also undamaged. She ran a finger along the polished wood and held the grip in her hand. Although she had owned the bow for less than a year, a gift bestowed upon her by her father when she turned sixteen, the familiar feel of the grooves in her palm comforted her.
Satisfied that she was all right, Luna peered up the side of the sandy pit in which she found herself. The top of the pit was taller than she was, but the slope was gentle. Stepping carefully on the sand, she planted one foot after the other, slowly ascending until she saw what lay beyond the pit’s edge.
The sand dragon that had attacked her tribe left two bodies, one human and one horse. Already, scavenging birds were pecking at the corpses. Luna rushed to the dead human, scattering the birds hovering over it with her bow. She stared into the vacant eyes of Tyal, a fellow warrior five years her senior. With no time to mourn before the scavengers returned with more boldness, Luna pulled her companion’s body toward the pit.
The pit had likely saved her from the sand dragon, she thought. She recalled the dragon’s tail flinging her away from the fight, and her last memories were of crashing against the rocky ground. The depth of the pit must have kept her out of sight, or the creature surely would have killed her too. Tyal wasn’t so lucky.
Luna rolled his body into the pit. She spied a chipped bowl among the debris left in the dragon’s wake and scooped sand with it to throw over Tyal’s corpse. After several minutes of hard labor, she covered it with enough sand to keep the scavengers from defiling his remains. She then whispered a prayer for his departed spirit.
The horse was too heavy for her to drag, so Luna left it where it lay. She circled the area once more to look for bodies and thanked the gods that she didn’t find any.
The position of the sun indicated that she’d have another three or four hours of light left. It also implied that she had been unconscious for at least two hours. Luna didn’t know how far ahead of her the tribe had traveled, but she doubted that she could catch up before nightfall. She would need water, and she would need to eat. Her water pouch had enough left in it to last her the remainder of the day, but she had no food.
Taking an arrow out of her quiver, she aimed it at one of the birds feasting on the horse. She let it loose, and her shot drove into the target. The other scavengers took to the air immediately, leaving Luna undisturbed to retrieve her arrow and the bird attached to it. She tied her dinner to her belt and headed in the direction of the rest of her tribe.
Tracks in the sand helped her follow their path without difficulty. From the number of lines winding into the distance, Luna determined that all of the wagons had survived. The warriors had driven off the sand dragon with the loss of only one human life. She grieved for Tyal, but she also knew that they were lucky that the dragon hadn’t cost them more than his life and the life of his horse.
Luna wondered where the dragon had gone. At least there were no other tracks following her tribe. Perhaps it had discovered that her people were more trouble than they were worth and left them in search of easier prey.
The ground slowly turned from hard sand and rocks to a softer sand mixed with darker soil. Along the path, Luna now saw the occasional tree or bush. Still, the wagon tracks and footprints led onward, with no sign of her people in the distance ahead. Despite her warrior training, Luna tired under the relentless sun. She rested beneath the scant shade of a short tree and took a sip from her water pouch. She gave herself just enough time to catch her breath before continuing her journey.
As the sun fell, Luna’s endurance began to wane again. She contemplated resting for the night but pressed on while she could. She drank more from her pouch until it was nearly empty.
When the light grew too dim for her to confidently make out the tracks in the dirt, she found a cluster of bushes near which to make her camp. She detached the bird carcass from her belt but then laughed in tormented irony as she realized she had nothing to make a fire with and no knowledge of how to do so with the branches and stones around her. For a brief moment, Luna considered eating the bird raw, but she decided against it. She’d rather stay hungry than become ill from eating uncooked meat. Besides, she thought, she would catch up with her tribe the next day. She could go without food until then.
Instead, Luna drank the rest of her water to keep her stomach from growling with emptiness.
Above her head, the moon was nearly full. The moon goddess was her mother’s favorite, even prompting her to name her daughter af
ter one of the moon’s many titles. Luna felt no particular affinity to the moon goddess or to any of the other deities that her parents worshipped. She prayed to the gods because she was accustomed to it and because everyone else in her tribe did so. But the gods didn’t keep drought from forcing them to leave their old homes, nor had the gods shown them new fertile grounds in the dry lands through which they had wandered for weeks.
If the gods really looked out for them, they would have saved Tyal from the sand dragon. They would have found a new home for Luna’s tribe by now. They would have kept Luna from sleeping under the stars with no food or water. They would have reunited Luna with her people already.
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