A Whisper of Wings (53 page)

Keketál gave a roar, grabbed Ingatekh by his crossbelts and hauled him from the ground. The huge noble held his victim dangling in midair.

“She’s in there! Don’t you understand? She’s somewhere in the fire!” Hupshu swore and snatched a water bucket. “I follow Lord Keketál!”

Keketál soaked his fur in water and then drenched his companion. Both men sprang up into a tree and stared out across the fires. The ïsha boiled as the flame walls thundered to the clouds.

Keketál leapt, and Hupshu sprang a whisker’s breadth behind him. Wings cracked with force as they hurtled themselves into the fire. Keketál tumbled like a mad thing as he tore clean through the heat; Hupshu burst through the fire beside him and gave a shout of fright; the flames had blackened the edges of his wings. He ran a hand across his face and turned to Keketál.

“Where to, my lord?”

“Where the others fear to go. Towards the flames!”

Keketál and Hupshu sped through the burning trees. Inch by inch the gap between the fires was narrowing, closing the rescuers between towering cliffs of heat.

Coals gleamed inside the ruined skeletons of trees. The fire had ripped out the forest’s life and sucked upon its juices. Ashes hissed and coals spat while trees raised their arms in shock towards the sky.

There, amongst the ruins, a deathly creature knelt in silent worship. She shone as stark and beautiful as blackened bone. Zhukora gazed into the dead black branches of a tree and reached out to touch the beauty of its lifeless desolation.

Serpent savoured the stench of smoke inside Zhukora’s lungs. The spirit gazed out through her eyes and heaved a sigh.

*Thou art beautiful, Zhukora! Did I not tell thee that warfare was the key? Did’st thou ever see thy people so powerful, so at one? Here is the spice of life! Here is the honour and the glory.*

~Yes, Serpent. You are a friend indeed. Never once have you lead me astray.~

Zhukora gazed at the withered wilderness and gave a sigh.

~I have seen my people transform into warriors! Where once there was sniveling supplication, now there is pride! The people have become a weapon. Now let the whole world tremble before our power!~

Zhukora rose up to her feet. Her bright eyes peered out through the dark recesses of her mask.

~My warriors sang out my name as they went into battle! Can there be any praise higher than the adoration of the people? Every day I think I cannot love them more. Every day I find myself loving them more deeply.~

The woman slowly turned around. The fields of ash behind her thronged with fantastic shapes, where a thousand alpine warriors knelt arrayed in jiteng armour. They were sheathed in the startling colours of the parrots and the forest birds; of flowers, flames and rainbows, leering demons and stark white bones. All the wild panalopy of forest myth had embraced the joy of war.

A mere thousand warriors; a tiny demonstration of the power of The Dream. Zhukora had tested her new creation, and had found it good…

The jiteng teams were the heart and soul of Zhukora’s war machine. The teams had come to her, begging the honour of fighting at her side. Now they surrounded her; the fighting elite of a people hardened by struggle. Each team of twelve had endlessly drilled in how to work together, think together, fight together. Zhukora’s army had sprung ready made into her hands.

For a thousand years they had been crushed beneath a weight of rules. Zhukora had torn aside the barriers; now nothing was unthinkable.

They knelt in silence, disciplined in ruthless patience as only hunters could be. Their spearpoints shone against the ash like stars.

Zhukora’s elite bodyguard of Skull-Wings lay far across the river under Daimïru’s command. Zhukora’s plans were exacting and precise, and already five villages had fallen to their spears. Zhukora’s warriors were utterly without mercy. They felt no remorse, no guilt; not even hate. The Dream had reduced their enemy to the status of mere prey.

A massive warrior in falcon armour handed his leader her woomera and spears. Zhukora turned her skull mask towards her waiting officers.

“Daimïru’s wing is about to cross the river. Fist Captains¹, ready your attack waves.”

The falcon stared at the distant wall of fire as though the horror of it had hypnotised his soul. Zhukora cooly drew her gauntlets on her hands.

“I shall be beside you. The fires shall not burn us; the heat shall pass us bye. Follow in my flightpath and I will bring you victory.”

The Leader’s eyes shone like a child’s laughter. The nobleman stared at her for one adoring moment before cramming his face down to the ground.

Zhukora gazed across the faces of her warriors in absolute serenity, filling them with her thrilling light. The chosen thousand knelt in shivering worship.

“I love you. I love you all.”

And with those simple words, the black goddess of the forest turned to watch the forest fire.

At the far side of the village, a black horde stirred into action. Skeletal, demonic shapes crouched forward on the trees. Daimïru hung beneath a branch like a predatory bat, cruel eyes glittering as she stared down at her prey.

Zhukora’s planning had been brilliant. She had led the Skull-Wings in an attack upon the plainsman villages at the very crack of dawn. They had slaughtered men out in the fields and women in their beds, beasts in pens and eggs in the nests. Zhukora used terror with all the skill of a surgeon slicing through a patient’s flesh. A few deaths now would purchase power untold; the plainsmen would surrender, and in the long run, lives would be saved. Daimïru savoured the morality even as she prepared herself to kill.

The beautiful girl stared at her soldiers with the clear, bright eyes of an utter psychopath. Her soft voice reached to caress their screaming lust for blood.

“Let nothing live. Let no prey escape you. We shall slay the women in their huts and their babies at the breast. We shall hack down their men and open out the throats of playing children. Our sacred mission is to sweep this land clean.”

Daimïru turned to gaze joyously out across the swirling river. She felt her faith swelling up to fill her with its power.

“They have sat there in their obscene wealth as we slowly starved to death! Now the time of retribution is at hand. We shall terrify them as no souls have ever witnessed terror. We shall show them the horror of defying Zhukora’s word. A thousand years ago they shut us up inside the woods to die. Finally vengeance has returned!”

“Keketál! There’s no one here! There’s no sign of anybody!”

Flames roared like a cyclone. Hupshu flinched as a blazing branch crashed down from a tree, and he tried to shield his face from a stinging stream of cinders.

“Keketál, don’t go any closer! Don’t let the heat get to your wings.”

Keketál barely even heard. The nobleman flitted back and forth across the fire, trying to fight his way upwind into the blaze. Hupshu slowly battled up beside him.

Keketál’s wings beat furiously at the ïsha. He’d been so sure that there were figures near the fire wall. Had they been behind the fires, or in front?

Hupshu dragged at Keketál’s crossbelts, hauling him back towards the village lines.

“My Lord, please! I will not allow you to hurt yourself. Harïsh would have my balls served on a plate! Quickly, back towards the creek before we set our fur ablaze.”

The heat boiled like a whirlpool; suddenly debris exploded through the air. Blazing leaves and coals ripped past Keketál, and both men were hurtled backwards by the blast. Keketál curled into a ball and rolled, his body remembering jiteng training long gone by. He slapped the ground and somehow sprang back into guard.

The flames had drawn back into a whirling tunnel; at its centre hung a shrieking figure made of blackened bone. She threw out her hair and sent a horde of nightmares howling down the corridor. Hupshu and Keketál drew slowly to their feet as all the colours of a madman’s dreams came screaming for their blood.

Keketál suddenly knew what to do; every twist and turn fell into place. With a yell of fury he folded up his wings and speared between the blazing branches of a tree. Hupshu shot through the gap behind him, and sparks roared up to blind the creatures following behind.

Something evil screamed and ripped through the brush beneath them. It smashed into a burning bramble bush and gave a howl of pain.

Hupshu sobbed in desperation. His eyes rolled in terror as he saw the snarling horde behind his tail.

“Savages! Sweet Rain, it’s savages!”

Steel flashed as a spear hissed for Hupshu’s back. Keketál punched out with the ïsha and shoved the spear aside. He shot a glance across his shoulder and let Hupshu draw close behind.

“Go! Head for the village lines. Ram the flames. We must give warnings to Lord Ingatïl!”

The two young men dove off towards their home. Behind them the nightmare surged onwards in a wave of blood and steel.

Harïsh’s mother cursed as she hauled water from the river and staggered back uphill. Her feet were filthy and her fur was drenched with sweat; with two sons and a grown daughter, why was she always left to do the blasted work? There was the roof to douse, the deadwood to be cleared and a whole pile of unthreshed grain to store. There was dust and ash, livestock scattered, and the family’s clothes getting filthy…

Damn! Who’d be a mother?

Nurïman-kana irritably balanced the weight of a water jug above her brow. What idiot had put the river so far from the house? Nurïman tottered up the hill, seething with a mothers’ righteous wrath.