A Whisper of Wings (56 page)

The villagers rallied behind their chief. Captured spears plunged and bit; Hupshu screamed in rage and shoved his dao into a demon’s heart. He whirled and stabbed a second creature in the spine, and the savage arched in agony then pitched into the stream.

Suddenly there was no one left to fight. The last two demons fled off down the stream, one with a broken elbow and one with a spear impaled through its chest. Keketál staggered sideways to collapse against a corpse, while Hupshu fell to his knees and retched.

Bodies lay strew across the creek, blood swirling thich as syrup on the stones. Somewhere in the background a wounded woman cried; the sound hung strangely soft against the sudden deathly still.

Harïsh came to him, just as she always had whenever he needed love. Keketál’s eyes went blank as he gazed down at a horror he could barely understand.

“It’s Keketál’s fault. Keketál led them here.”

“No, my love. They would have come after us anyway. You saved us.”

Harïsh lifted up Keketál’s fine hands and washed them clean of blood. A village girl moaned as they dragged a spear from her leg. He should go and help. Keketál opened up his eyes and tried to think what to do.

“Harïsh, how many of us are still left?”

“Three men, seven shepherds. Five of them badly hurt. Three of them might-might die.” Harïsh slowly wove up to her feet. “I will see to them. I-I have to care for them…”

The girl staggered as she walked across the stones. Somewhere an injured shepherd tried to clear his bleeding lungs. Keketál slumped back against a tree and closed his eyes, trying to still the trembling of his hands.

He had known; the throwing stick, the silver knives and screaming skulls. Somehow he had already known…

Keketál hid his face inside his hands and felt his spirit weep.

Hush rippled through the warriors in a single breathless sigh. Something filled the air with a numbing spell of awe, and a thousand fighters sank reverently to their knees.

Footsteps echoed as Zhukora slowly paced between her worshippers. The ïsha swirled around her as she walked. Her armour shone and dripped with light, and highlights gleamed across her slender curves. Daimïru knelt before her in the dust and bared her dripping blade.

“Revered one, the village population has been liquidated. Their women lie dead, their menfolk fell before our ambush. The children were slain as we overran the river. All the target villages have now been totally destroyed. Your orders have been fulfilled.”

In the houses little Ka wailed in dismay. Zhukora looked about the ghastly corpses draped across the village square and gave a smile.

“You have done well, all of you. No one could have asked more. Perform the rightful ceremonies. Free the spirits trapped inside the bodies. Give them the gift and ask forgiveness. We are not butchers. Though we have come as instruments of punishment, we shall act with mercy and respect.”

Zhukora gazed at the corpse of a beautiful teenage girl. Once she had once been blonde, vibrant and alive. How like Daimïru…

“A dreadful lesson. They have paid for their crimes; we have shown them the price of defiance. Now our will shall be done. We have secured the future of our people.

The Leader’s voice roise out to ring across her warriors.

“We claim these lands in the name of the united Kashran race! Bring your families. Let your children feast upon the fresh meat of the plains! We shall dig the yams and fish the rivers. We shall worship Rain and Wind and thank them for their bounty. The unholy waste of natural resources is at an end!”

Zhukora held them spellbound with her words. She stood before them, virginal and perfect; the custodian of the Kashran racial dream.

“No property! No priests, no elders, Kings and Queens. We will have our Dream! Our Dream of iron! Our Dream of living room and justice. If the plains creatures oppose us, they will pay the price in blood! We are the peoples of the alps - the chosen ones of Mother Rain! We shall take The Dream across the world and open out new limits to Kashran glory!”

The rainbow warriors screamed in adulation. Zhukora drew their faith around her like a cloak of streaming colours, bowing down her head as they screamed out the people’s will.

Zhukora swayed, utterly lost within a storm of love.

Two figures rose up to peer through the grass. A golden, fluffy tail waved high above the bushes, and a grey hand reached out to quickly snatch it back.

“Notice it? You drive Keketál mad with it for weeks! How Keketál keep faith with your mother when all he thinks about iss jumping on your bones?”

“Prickly-fire and poison! Keketál knew he shouldn’t have let you come! Go back and look after hurted ones. Go back and be helping friends!”

“Now look, I’ve bound and stitched until I’m fed up to the gills! I want my Mama and Papa, I want my lazy brothers and I want my brat of a little sister! So you can go right on wasting time or you can let us get on with the job!”

Harïsh took her fears out on Keketál; if she had stopped to think, she would have gone stark raving mad. The girl jerked her armour into place. The helmet spilled down across her head and nearly smothered her.

Harïsh saw his face and angrily flicked out her antennae. Her family had gone missing, her village stood in flames, and her only companion was a numbskull! She whirred up into the air and sped towards her home.

They flew on towards the village meadow, and Keketál waved the girl behind him as he wormed his way into the grass. She saw his wings turn stiff; for long moments the man simply sat and stared across the fields. Harïsh crawled curiously up beside him, her ears lifting as she gently placed a hand across his rear.

“Keketál? What is it? What do you…”

The girl turned her gaze across the meadow, and words simply froze inside her throat. She felt her face form into a vacuous smile as she stared at the murder of her entire universe.

They were all there, every man that she had ever known. Totasha the dye maker; Lasri the weaver’s boy, so proud to have been fighting fires beside his father. They were still together, lying side by side. Lord Ingatekh stared in outrage as a crow held aloft his gleaming eye. The bird swallowed down the juicy morsel and stropped its beak upon his lordship’s bloodstained fur.

Harïsh spread her wings and gently drifted through the sky, coming to rest beside a grey old figure in the grass. Harïsh reached out and absently stroked her father’s ruffled fur.

The field was black with frozen shapes. There would be thirty one of them; Harïsh had no need to count. Every one was here - all the missing menfolk of the village, all of them together in their deaths just as they had been in life. Harïsh had never known there was so much blood in all the world.

Keketál loomed beside her with his arm about her shoulders. Harïsh paid him no attention, staring at her father and her brothers in the grass. Her voice seemed strangely gay, as though she were lost inside a rosy dream.

“Mama’s dead of course. They’ve killed everything, haven’t they? We never even knew they existed, and yet they came and killed us all.”

The girl wove up to her feet.

“She’ll need me. I really ought to be with her. They’re my family, you see? You really have to understand us. What happens to my family, happens to me.

“I didn’t really want to die. I wanted to marry you. I could have been a good wife for you, you know. I wanted to bear your eggs and share your house. I was going to be the finest surgeon in the tribe! I’d have given you everything, every happiness my heart could find, and you’d have loved me in return.”

The girl slowly wandered out across the grass, letting Keketál’s hand slip from her grasp.

“I have to go. Do you understand? I simply have to go.”

Suddenly the girl gave a jerk and fell. Keketál caught her softly in his arms, the heavy throwing-stick tumbling from his grasp. He heaved the girl across his shoulder and bore her over to the trees.

“Keketál understands, my love, but Keketál iss family too. He iss family who loves you.”

“Rooshïkii, your report.”

The tiny warrior looked up to face her leader’s eyes. Rooshïkii’s voice rang with a supernatural calm.

“The unit was eliminated in combat. There were two survivors, the new officer and his second. Both survive because they are superior fighters. Their position was quite hopeless.”

“How? How did mere villagers beat back our elite?”

“Our attack was engaged by missile fire before it could close. Team seven attacked hand to hand, but the enemy combined firepower with melee action to beat them back. The key is to attack from the air at high speed. Slings cannot be fired on the wing. Our spears are the superior weapons for mobile fighting.”

“There is one dangerous officer amongst them. Without him the villagers would have been helpless. I would have taken him were I not bound by my orders.”

“Only at the cost of your own life.”

“If it serves you, then it is well spent.”

The little girl bent forward in a bow. Zhukora refreshed herself with tea from a common soldier’s kettle. She looked across her teacup at her smallest warrior.

“I am pleased that you obeyed your orders. You are far more use to our cause alive, Rooshïkii. I want you to organise our scouts and spies. You are to be our eyes and ears in the world.”

The officers bowed; Rooshïkii rose stiffly to her feet and disappeared amongst the busy crowds of warriors. Zhukora gave a sigh and let her cup be filled again.

“Daimïru, what’s next? Let’s get the business done.”

“Food. We have found buried hordes of grain; more than we can carry. The village herds have also been discovered.”

“We shall leave the supplies. They will be useful during the first days of resettlement. Detail a hand of teams to remain here as a garrison.”

Daimïru signed to a Hand Captain, and the man instantly flew off to do the deed. Daimïru turned to the next cut on her quirt and gave a predatory smile.

“Aaaaaah yes, prisoners. We have found a single living female who had hidden in a wicker basket. She ‘bargained’ most prettily for her life; I think team sixteen is already half in love with her. I must admit, the girl does have a certain charm.”

“By all means bring her in! I shall be pleased to meet a living plains-dweller face to face. We shall send her off to her rulers with our demands.”

It had been a most wearying day. Zhukora stood and stretched her slender body in the sun, thinking suddenly of curling up in a bed of new-cut grass.

Lord Serpent suddenly hissed a warning in Zhukora’s mind.

*Someone watches! I feel hostility and power!*

Zhukora whirled and glared about the village square, seeing only flies and corpses. No danger lurked, no one hid beneath the trees; the only movement came from a single Skull-Wing warrior. He knelt across a female corpse, gently closed the woman’s eyes and bowed his head to pray.