A Whisper of Wings (11 page)

“Aaaaaah he’s too young! He’ll not dare to make a move on me for a dozen years or more. Who’s going to follow a mere hatchling in his twenties?”

“He’ll do for you one day! You just watch that little snake. He’s not the fool ye take him for.”

An unpleasant silence settled, and the Queen of the Vakïdurii sullenly went on with her sewing.

A sigh hung on the air behind them. Latikai turned and glared; way back in the clearing, the dreamy-eyed young hunter wandered through the grass. A look of dawning disbelief still lingered on his face.

Pah! Now there was a strange one. An honest soul, but about as addled as they came. He was young, and therefore unimportant. He was a commoner, and therefore expendable. He was honourable, and therefore gullible…

…and there lay the beginnings of a plan. King Latikai looked at the boy and rubbed his hands together.

“Torvara my love, we need the makin’s of a very special Jiteng team; a team designed to lose! They must play their blessed little hearts out, never even suspecting that they haven’t got a chance.”

The King eyed the vapid youth who fluttered off into the trees.

“Aye, a brand new jiteng team - and I think we’ve just found ourselves a captain…”

***

Rain spilled down through the leaves, spattering the ground with countless stars of light, and the ïsha of the forest seemed to take a grateful breath. Shadarii looked out upon the holy Mother’s face and gave a smile.

One week later, and still the stranger’s kiss burned on her lips; a week of dreaming, and still his eyes shone in her mind. Had it really happened? Sometimes the memory seemed so unreal, and then she would see those eyes before her - feel the warmth of him against her tingling fur…

He had been real; he had to be!

How to find him? Where had he come from? The whole village buzzed with gossip about Zhukora and the raiders. Now Zhukora had taken her angry followers far off into the forest, and her absence had only made the days seem sweeter. Shadarii no longer cared about her ruined lifepath. Worry melted in the face of her beautiful new dreams.

A voice droned somewhere in the background; young Kïtashii and a clutch of other pre-pubescent girls sat listening to deportment-mistress Teenahu. The teacher smoothed her perfect hair and shot a dark glance at Shadarii.

“… The secret of the ‘wandering brightness’ school of flower arrangement is simple enough in principle. Like all true arts it is the interpretation that adds depth to the meaning. The seemingly random combination of sharp edge and softer texture… Shadarii, are you paying attention?”

Shadarii idly rolled her head to view her teacher, blinking dreamily. Teenahu wrinkled up her muzzle with a snort.

“Shadarii, this is for your benefit as much as anybody elses! Since you know so much, perhaps you can show us how it’s done!”

Hmmmm? Shadarii reluctantly dragged herself back into the present, reaching out towards the pile of fresh cut flowers. Unseen by the others, a blossom simply floated up into her hand. Shadarii buried her wet black nose within its fragrance and breathed in the sweet perfume.

Teenahu huffed impatiently.

“Shadarii, wake up! What’s the matter with you girl? You’ve been acting like a dizzy fool all week!” Teenahu’s long white hair glinted. “Now do you know how to make the flower arrangement or don’t you?”

Shadarii moved without any hurry; her hands dipped amongst the flowers, plucking out a strange array of blooms. Finally her slim black fingers fell away. The flowers were perfectly arrayed in simple, subtle patterns; it was an utter masterpiece.

The girls sighed in wrapt appreciation, and Teenahu’s ears fell down flat.

“Hmph! Yes, well innovation is alright in its place. In any case, I see you have grasped some of the basics.”

Shadarii buried her nose deep in the bouquet and sighed; for once the world of worries seemed so very far away. She rose and danced out into the rain, her face turned up towards the gentle sky. One by one the deportment class came out into the mist to watch and marvel.

Far off in the bushes, a pair of ice-blue eyes watched Shadarii in malicious silence. A white tail stirred, then slowly sank into the shadows and disappeared.

***

The dawn burned cold and bitter in the forest mists. Zhukora breathed in its beauty and felt the life flow through her veins. Her hunting group ranged the forest all around her; for a solid week they had lived off the land, binding themselves together in a grim, determined fellowship.

One week. One week since her humiliation. The young folk of the clan had turned away from their elders, finally rejecting the ancient regime. They came to Zhukora’s hearth fire in the evening just to bask within her glow, and a dozen folk had clamoured to join the Skull-Wings. Zhukora thrilled as a strange power flooded into her hands.

The people needed her. When she smiled, the men walked taller, the women squared their shoulders and lifted their heads high. Zhukora had become their symbol of defiance.

The hunters made a strange, grim spectacle as they glided through the trees. Each man and woman wore tough leaf-leathers to protect them from forest thorns, while a pack across their chests held the few supplies they needed to survive. A dao, a woomera and a wicked bunch of spears made for a deadly armament. These were the elite - Zhukora’s chosen few. The nobles could keep their traditions and their rules; the trust of one of these common hunters was worth more than all the jewels in the sky. Zhukora looked out across her chosen ones and felt a thrill of love.

It felt good to be far from the villages. Zhukora’s headaches had driven her out into the dark. The councils had betrayed them all, and too few people had the eyes to see. They listened to the elders and believed the lies they told. A disaster was coming and the councils would do nothing! Zhukora felt helpless before the people’s apathy.

The hunt had led her high up into the deserted peaks. The forest’s food supples were drying up, and all the game had gone. Zhukora meandered along forgotten ïsha trails as she lead her teams in search.

A whistle trilled from somewhere in the ferns, calling for Zhukora’s personal attention. The woman flicked out her wings and dove silently off into the fog.

Daimïru flew behind her; all was as it should be.

The women speared through the mist, their wings cutting swathes of phosphorescence in their wakes. Zhukora banked past a looming tree trunk and swirled down beside her forward scouts.

The man knelt beside a massive something that gleamed against the forest floor. Smooth green stone had been carved into shapes; there was something like a nose and eyes, the broken tips of wings…

It was a buried statue!

Zhukora knelt down and touched the thing with marvelling hands. A life-sized Kashra had been buried neck-deep in the mould. The artistic style seemed crude and barbarous - an object from the uncultured ages past.

The other hunters gathered as Daimïru took her dao and dug down into the dirt. She uncovered the statue’s shoulders, chest and breasts. The girl exhausted herself long before she reached the statue’s waist.

Curious; still, it might look good outside the lodge. Zhukora stroked her muzzle and wondered whether it was too heavy to be carried home, until her train of thought was disturbed by another urgent call.

Someone had found a third - and then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth dwindling off into the gloom. The mist held hundreds of shapes, ranked into a silent avenue.

Zhukora gazed along the lines of statues and signalled her followers aloft.

“Follow; we’ll see where this leads.”

Great wings stirred as the hunters drifted quietly in the mist. Beneath them the lines of statues led their way into the mountain peaks - up into a land of bitter winds and barren, folded rocks. Finally the trail led to a massive, broken cliff, and the Kashra drifted earthwards one by one.

The ïsha stilled, and the birds had stopped their singing. Leaves swirled and rattled through a dead, forgotten world. The hunters stood amongst a vast wilderness of crumbled walls. Huts? Lodges? Who could tell. The ruins lay like the green bones of an ancient corpse. Zhukora landed in a sea of brittle weeds, her nose twitching to the pungent, acrid scents of broken greenery.

A huge cave yawned before them; a strange, smooth tunnel with walls slick as a dripping tongue. The line of statues plunged straight into the cavern’s heart.

Round, grey stones paved the ground before the cave. Daimïru knelt to run her hand across the surface, and a piece broke off beneath her touch. Puzzled, Daimïru took her knife, broke a lump of paving free and turned it over in her grasp.

Empty eye sockets stared madly back at her.

The girl gave a croak and hurtled the thing away, while hunters scattered in superstitious dread. A skull was the seat of a being’s Ka. No Kashra would touch the leavings of the dead.

Deep within the cavern, the ïsha slowly stirred. Zhukora seemed fascinated by the cave; step by step she drew closer, her footsteps crunching on the rotten skulls. Daimïru swallowed, her pulse pounding in her throat.

“A challenge. To face it down alone! The ultimate test - Power against power, soul against soul! The loser falling down into absolute oblivion…”

The leader breathed a long, deep breath. Finally she turned back to her followers, and her face seemed animated with strange new energy.

“We camp here for the night.” She looked around with bright blue eyes. “Yes, here amongst the ruins! Let us see what dreams the night stars bring.”

The hunters looked unhappily about themselves, peering at the ruins. Zhukora reached out to fold her people in the power of her gaze.

“Don’t be afraid. I am with you.”

She walked into the weeds, her tail trailing out behind her, and without hesitation, the other hunters followed in her footsteps.

By nighttime the ruins had given up a yield of puzzles; here a lump of rusted iron - there a row of tiny figurines. Rocks had been fused and melted like long strips of ice. The hunters had searched all day and still there were no answers. What had happened here, and why had even the faintest ïsha traces fled?

There were tales of the past that were never danced. Many fists of years¹ ago the Kashra had been more numerous. They had dug houses in the soil and had thronged the skies. And then - what was it now? Something bad had happened…

Shadarii would have known. The cripple sucked up stories like a toad hoarding water. For once the little mute might actually have been useful; Zhukora found the thought strangely irritating.

The firelight stained the weeds a dreary, spectral grey, making hunters pull their sleeping robes about their shoulders. There were no possums creeping through the boughs; the bats and frogmouthed owls seemed to shun the very air. The only animals worth eating were snakes and warty toads, but the stringy meat seemed to lack all taste. For some reason Zhukora ate her meal with avid speed. Finally she wiped her fingers on her leggings and reached out to find her weapons.

Ever loyal, ever watchful, Daimïru silently followed Zhukora out into the dark. As the other hunters turned back to their food, Zhukora left the campfire far behind and walked into the empty lands of stone.

The cavern seemed nothing but a patch of thicker darkness. Light flared as Zhukora spat the ïsha into life, and a dry branch crackled as flame caught in its crown. With a torch held firmly in her hand, the huntress led the way across the field of mouldering skulls and down into the cave.

Light died against a wall of liquid black. ïsha discharge snapped and sparked across the metal weapons while Zhukora crouched with wings spread wide. Antennae quivered as she sniffed a sense of presence. Zhukora hissed in challenge, fangs flashing in her cruelly perfect face.