A Gathering of Wings (29 page)

“Shhh!” she calls out to him, because the two centaurs are still asleep.

But it quickly becomes clear that this is not a social call. Sky is agitated, pacing, rearing higher at each turn. She tests the air with her nose. It isn’t lions. It is something else. It is the musty scent of mice trapped in walls. Then she hears it, a drone like a giant swarm of angry bees headed their way. She fumbles for the whistle, but no sound comes. She spits out the whistle and shouts, “Take cover! Leatherwings!”

The centaurs heave up from their bedrolls, wide-eyed and yelling. Malora abandons her post to fetch her spear, colliding with Orion in search of his own weapon. Neal stands on the deck, hooves planted, sword gripped in both hands, facing skyward. As she is screwing the spear together, she glances back to see that Honus is no longer at the stern. Where is he? The next moment, there is the sound of splintering wood. The barge has collided with something. Malora is slammed to the deck, her left elbow catching the impact. Waves of pain run up her arm. She gasps, shakes out the arm, and hoists the spear just in time. All at once the world seems to darken, the sky lowering. The air is alive with beating wings.

One of them swoops down upon her. As a girl, she had
never dared look up for fear of drawing Sky’s eye to them, but now she stares directly into the crafty black eyes of her foe. His small round head, eerily mannish, is topped with tufts of dusty brown fur. Fangs pinch withered black lips. His outstretched arms, encased in the leathery wings, dip down to envelop her. His hind legs cycle fiercely as the talons protract and prepare to seize her. She jabs the spear at his protuberant underbelly, what her mother had once counseled her was the weak spot. But he shrinks away from her spear point, sneering and hissing. A moment later, he rears up with a shriek, his head exploding in a bloody cloud. She staggers backward as the Leatherwing settles onto the deck before her with a sigh, as if he were just resting, but she knows he is dead.

The noxious odor of the Leatherwings is temporarily washed away by the familiar, ever-so-much more wholesome storm-scent. Lume lands on the deck next to the body. He wedges a foot beneath it and casually kicks the corpse overboard. Then he rinses the blood off the rounded knob of a wooden club in river water that now swamps the deck.

“Thank you, knobkerrie,” he says, bowing to the club’s knob.

Taking Malora’s arm, he says grimly, “You. You’re coming with me.”

Malora casts about frantically. Five more Leatherwings have swooped down upon them. Neal has sliced off the end of one wing, and Orion is holed up in the amidships cabin, the barrel of his blowgun poking out, aimed upward. She cannot see Honus and fears he may already have been seized. It is happening all over again. Leatherwings will destroy everyone she loves.

“No!” she tells Lume, shaking her arm free of his grip.

Lume moves behind her, elbow hooked around her shoulders and neck. She feels his lips at her ear. “Look there, Malora Thora-Jayke. See?” he rasps. “This is what happens when you try to live your long happy life in Mount Kheiron with your friends. You’re coming with me.”

She struggles against him, but she is no match for him. Gathering her up, spear and all, he lifts her from the deck of the sinking barge, weaving his way through the Leatherwings. Almost instantly, he sets her down on the riverbank.

Sky has whipped himself into a frenzy. He runs toward them and begins to circle, mane and tail whipping. Turning, she watches him helplessly. How can she calm him when he is right to be mad with terror? She sees his blue eyes flash with fear and something else. Outrage. She hears the creak of his leg joints, the air whistling in and out of his mouth and nose. She can smell the ripeness of his sweat. The lope escalates into a gallop.

“There. See?” Lume raises one arm and points at Sky, and that is when she sees it. It is as if the scars from the Leatherwings have come alive, dancing and whipping above Sky’s back like black lightning.

“Kheiron’s
hocks
!” Malora shouts.

Sky gallops on as the black lightning extrudes further and forms itself into a set of great black wings.

“My horse!” she cries, and looks to Lume for an explanation.

“I first saw this happen when I was flying over Ixion,” he says. “The wild centaurs were so terrified, I thought they’d turn tail and run into the sea. But Archon ordered them to catch him in a fishing net. I don’t think your horse quite knew what to make of the wings at first, but I think he does now, don’t you, Horse?”

Sky grinds to a standstill before them, the great black wings half-furled behind him. They are not beautiful, white-feathered wings like Lume’s. They are tough and leathery and black like those of their enemy. Sky snorts and tosses his mane.

“What are you waiting for?” Lume says to Malora. “Mount your horse and follow me into battle.”

Malora isn’t sure she wants to get on Sky’s back. What if he begins to show other traits of the Leatherwings, like fangs or talons? Can this really be her horse?

“While you stand here dithering,” Lume says, “your friends are losing ground to the Leatherwings. They’ve already got the faun.”

Sky noses his way into her armpit and blows out, as if to reassure her that he is still himself—and hers.

“Okay,” she whispers to him, stroking his neck. “Okay. Honus will have an explanation for this later, but right now he needs saving.” She backs away from him slowly. As if he knows what she wants, he folds one wing out of her way. With the spear, she vaults onto his back, grabbing his mane with her free hand. He spreads his wings as Lume takes flight back toward the melee on the river. Sky follows Lume in a soaring arc. Malora’s body braces to absorb the shock, as it would if the horse were still earthbound. But there is none. She might be riding the horse, but the horse is riding the air, and the sensation is strangely weightless. Her feet, resting on the roots of his wings, ground her better than any stirrup ever has. She lifts the spear and cocks it over her shoulder as they follow Lume flying well above the Leatherwings. She cannot see through the chaos to the centaurs below. Are her friends holding their own?

“Up here!” a strangled voice cries out. Malora looks up and sees Honus’s hooves dangling high in the air above her, kicking feebly. Then she sees his terrified face staring down at her, pale and slack with shock. A Leatherwing’s talons grasp him by the back of his coat, lifting him ever higher. The fabric saws at his neck as he struggles.

Lume shouts back to Malora, “I’ll harry him toward you! Maim him however you can, and I will catch the faun!”

He had better catch the faun, Malora thinks, or the fall will kill him as surely as the Leatherwing. And how is she to maim him when Honus’s body protects the creature’s underbelly? Lume circles around and flies above the Leatherwing. He blocks its ascent with the force of his beating wings, which are wider and overpower those of his opponent. Then he darts behind him and thrashes the creature’s barbed tail with his club, chasing him toward Malora. Honus has covered his head with his arms. She waits until she can feel the carnivorous heat of the Leatherwing’s breath and looks for a spot to pierce. His head is too small, and he flicks it constantly back and forth. The tendons in his neck are thick and radiate down from his head like the spokes of wheel. She looks below the neck and thinks she can see where his heart beats a hand’s breadth above Honus’s cowering head.

“Don’t move, Honus!” she calls out as she aims the spear and, heeling Sky, drives it forward and upward to meet the Leatherwing. The spear finds its mark.

Her foe lets out a strangled cry. Blood rains down upon her. Before she can pull back and free the point of her spear, he has a death grip on it. Even if she were willing to relinquish her weapon, his dead weight has settled on Sky’s neck, dragging all three of them earthward. I have the wrong weapon, she thinks too late. She only hopes Lume made good on his plan to catch Honus, for they are all falling together. At the last moment, Sky gives his head and shoulders a mighty rattle, breaking the Leatherwing’s lock. The spear cracks in half. Lume swoops down and plucks Honus from the limp
talons. The Leatherwing spirals headfirst, splashing into the Neelah. Sky, wings pumping, climbs upward.

Afterward, they sprawl on the western bank. The barge has sunk. The crocodiles have arrived, having passed up the temptation of eating the six Leatherwings, whose corpses the current had carried downriver. But the crocodiles have made it impossible to salvage any of the cargo. Malora and company have managed to escape with their lives, most of their weapons, Jayke’s rope, an oilcloth bag of salt, two flasks, and the leather satchel containing Honus’s journal, writing implements, and toilet kit.

Sky grazes calmly nearby, tail switching, as if none of this ever happened. No one has made any mention of his wings, which seem to have vanished into the scar tissue on his back.

Orion and Neal lie on their sides bickering listlessly over which of them killed more Leatherwings, Orion with the darts from his blowgun or Neal with his sword.

Lume, who has flown off to make sure there are no more Leatherwings, returns just in time to settle the dispute. “You each got one and a half. I finished them off with my knobkerrie.”

“Is that what you call it?” Neal says.

“It’s an executioner’s club, from the far southern reaches,” Lume says. “I find it serves me well.”

“Crude but effective,” Neal says, giving the club a grudging nod of approval. He heaves himself up to a sitting position and raises his left hand palm out, placing the other over his heart. “Neal Featherhoof. I am pleased to meet you. You must be Lume, the Wonder Boy.”

“Lume will do, soldier,” Lume says coldly.

Orion, groaning, sits up, too, and manages to salute. “Orion Silvermane,” he croaks.

“Son of the Apex of Kheiron,” Lume says. “And alchemist.”

Orion shrugs, as if neither of these were of much consequence. He waves in the general direction of Honus. “That’s Honus. Polymath.”

“The polymath and I have met,” Lume says. He sinks to the ground, his wings folding neatly behind him like a pair of crossed quivers.

“Gallant Rescuer,” Honus says with an airy salute. He rubs the ugly red mark around his neck but is otherwise unharmed. Twirling a blue flower in his fingers, he contemplates the
Triteleia grandiflora
with a nearly blissful expression.

Malora knows how he feels. The pleasure of being alive pulses through her limbs. But it isn’t just that. After a lifetime of fearing the Leatherwings, of watching them destroy everyone she loved, she has finally gotten some of their own back—even if it was, as Lume points out, just a small hunting party. It doesn’t get her mother and father and Aron and the people of the Settlement back. But it is
something
. She wants to tell Lume how thankful she is to him for helping her achieve this sweet victory, but she doesn’t want to do it in front of the others. Instead she settles for saying “I, for one, am happy to be alive.”

“Hear hear,” Honus concurs.

“And,”
Neal adds, “we even wound up on the right side of the river.”

“How far away are we from the Downs, do you reckon?” Orion asks.

“At least six days on foot,” Neal replies, “maybe seven,
and
we have no supplies. I hate to say this, but we should consider returning to Mount Kheiron to reoutfit ourselves.”

“No,” Malora says firmly. “We’ve come this far. I can get us the rest of the way. This doesn’t have to change anything.”

“Oh, excellent,” Orion says, lying back down.

“What are you talking about?” Lume bursts out. “This changes
everything
!”

They stare at him in surprise.

“What’s wrong with you all!” He is on his feet again, staring down at them as if they have lost their minds. “You must return to Mount Kheiron without delay and warn them of the danger.”

Malora remembers the evidence they saw of a Leatherwing attack even closer to Mount Kheiron than this one. But neither she nor Neal breathed a word of it to Medon. Rescuing Zephele has always been their only thought. It still is. Lume doesn’t understand.

Neal says, “We will warn them.
After
we find Zephele and bring her home. I think the Apex himself would condone our making this a priority.”

“She
is
his favorite,” Orion adds.

Lume looks to Malora to make sense of this for him. “Zephele is but one, and the Kheironites are many.”

Malora climbs to her feet and goes to him. “We have to do this, Lume. We can’t let the wild centaurs have Zephele. You said yourself they’re capable of unspeakable savagery.”

Lume’s head droops in defeat.

As gently as she can, Malora adds, “You don’t know what it’s like, to love someone so much you can’t bear the thought of losing her.”

He gives her a long and deeply resentful look.

“I’m sorry,” Malora says, flustered. “Maybe you do know, in which case you should be able to understand why we’re doing this.”

He sets his jaw and shakes his head quickly. “Very well. I will fly to Mount Kheiron and warn them myself.”

“Well done, Wonder!” Honus crows.

“But will they believe you?” Orion asks.

“They’ll disbelieve him at their own peril,” Neal says. “Demand an audience with the Apex. Tell him exactly what happened. Spare no detail. Tell him to station the Peacekeepers along the wall and four more in the dome facing in each direction. Tell him to enlist every blacksmith in the city to start forging weapons. Brion knows what we need. Everyone must be—”

Lume interrupts. “Soldier, I can only give him the warning,” he says. “I cannot tell the Apex of Kheiron what to do.”

“You’re right,” Neal says ruefully.

“But a little friendly advice won’t hurt,” adds Orion.

“I’ll do what I can,” Lume says. He turns toward the river.

In another moment he will be gone.

“Wait!” Malora says. She takes his hand and draws him farther away from the others.

“What now?” he says, frowning. “I’m in a hurry, as you can see.”