Windblowne (15 page)

“Found it!” announced the captain. He jammed a wad of rags into Oliver’s mouth. The Dragon soon passed from view.

“Mmph!” Oliver said. He reached for the gag. A Watchman grabbed for him and pinned his arms.

He turned his head in all directions. No kites, no
Festival decorations, no posters littering the streets, no announcements of the day’s schedule. The town felt sad and empty without them.

The Windblownians seemed sad and empty, too. A few looked curiously at him, then hurried on, their heads down and their faces troubled.

An intense longing for Windblowne, his Windblowne, filled Oliver. He wished he could see his treehouse again—

Which, of course, he could. He realized with a start that they were nearly there.

His mother did not have her sculptures crowding the lane—there were no sculptures at all. The lawn was clear and neat, just like any other lawn in Windblowne. The treehouse looked the same as ever, if a bit tidier. But his mother’s workshop was dark and shuttered, and a padlock hung on the door.

Oliver began to feel sick. He spat the gag from his mouth. “Who lives here?”

“You know who lives here,” snapped the captain. “We heard what you told those kids.” He bent down for the gag, then drew his hand back in disgust. “Re-gag the prisoner,” he ordered one of his men, who glared at Oliver.

“But I—” Oliver began. The damp and now dusty gag cut off his protest.

We must … I mean, they must not live here anymore
, thought Oliver miserably. Then he saw his father.

Oliver had not recognized him at first. He had never seen his father without his writing journal in hand, scribbling notes for one of his books. Usually he carried a sling stuffed with other books he was using for his research. He walked everywhere slowly, stopping every few steps to write, as some idea struck him.

In this world, though, Oliver’s father carried nothing. He still walked slowly, but his head was bent, and his step was heavy. He looked terribly sad, and Oliver had the sudden and very unexpected urge to run to him and comfort him.

Oliver tried to dart between the Watchmen. “Mmph!” he said as loudly as he could.

“I hate this kid,” panted the Watchman on his left, fighting for a grip.

They came alongside Oliver’s father, who raised his head leadenly to peer at the strange sight of six burly Watchmen struggling to contain one lively boy.

Oliver’s eyes bulged as they met his father’s. “MMPH!” he cried desperately.

For an instant, his father’s heavy eyes cleared and there was a flash of recognition. But then his father shook his head, muttered angrily, and trudged on.

“Mmph,” groaned Oliver. He stopped fighting. He felt numb with despair. His own father—sort of—had done nothing to help him. His own father had abandoned him to the Watch.
He’s not really my father
, he told himself.
My real father would have helped me
.

They came to Watch headquarters. The gag was yanked from Oliver’s mouth.

This headquarters looked as much like the one in Oliver’s Windblowne as these Watchmen looked like their fat and beery counterparts. It had bars on the windows and steep stairs on which other young, sharply dressed Watchmen were trotting up and down with serious looks on their faces.

They were the same serious expressions that Oliver had seen on every face in this world. There were no kindly looks, no smiles, no laughter.

Two passing Watchmen were talking urgently. “Leaves
falling all over the mountain,” one was saying. “No one knows why.”

“I know why!” said Oliver.

The men peered at Oliver. “What did this one do?”

“Came up from the valley,” answered the captain. “Dressed like a flier. Called himself Oliver. Thinks he’s funny.”

Oliver began, “I don’t th—” “Up!” ordered the captain.

Oliver put one foot on the lowest step. He wondered if he was going into a jail cell. Would this be his final glimpse of daylight? He looked up, savoring a last moment of sun and wind and sky.…

And saw a little black dot that was rapidly getting larger.

“UP!” demanded the captain.

Oliver whirled and grabbed the captain’s shoulders.

He pointed, shouting, “A hunter! I mean, a … a kite!”

The captain chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh, we’re not falling for that. We’ve heard that one befo—”

A shriek shattered the air as the hunter dove straight at Oliver.

Oliver leapt as the hunter struck him a glancing blow
. He fell flat on his back, his breath knocked from his body and his head hitting the solid ground. This position gave him an excellent view of the entirely one-sided battle between the Watchmen and the hunter.

The men were shouting and running in all directions as the hunter tore through them, talons flashing. Two Watchmen crawled under the steps near Oliver. Oliver thought he heard one of them whimpering for his mother.

“Men! Remember your training!” the captain shouted, but it was obvious that the training had not included keeping a cool head during a kite attack.

Oliver worked on getting some air back into his lungs as he struggled to his knees.

“Mother,” whimpered the steps.

Pathetic
, thought Oliver.

The hunter was cutting the air in a low, wicked circle.
It’s looking for the kite
, thought Oliver.

He hopped backward a few steps, then turned and fled up the mountain, into the oaks. If he went straight up the slope, he would keep crossing the Way. If he could direct himself properly using his map, he would come out of the woods right where he had left his kite.

He plunged desperately, running when he could, scurrying on all fours where the brush was too thick or the slope was too steep.

He burst from the trees, right onto the open Way, directly into the path of an elderly woman. It was Marcus’s grandmother.

“Sorry—” Oliver panted, but the old woman screamed, “It’s him! The boy from the valley!”

Great
, Oliver thought,
I’m famous
. He had obviously made quite an impression on this Windblowne during his brief visit.

“I never liked you either!” he shouted as she took a swipe with her cane. Then he shot into the forest again.

Oliver smashed along, cursing as he was thwacked in the head by low-hanging branches.

He barreled out onto the Way again, huffing. An excited group of people stood talking nearby. “Four kites!” one of them was saying breathlessly. “They attacked the Watch!”

Wild rumors were spreading. Oliver adopted a casual saunter and walked, panting, hair full of twigs, across the Way.

One of the group looked toward Oliver. “Hey—” he started.

Oliver exploded into a run. Then he was in the oaks again, slipping and crawling upward. In a few frantic minutes he came again to the Way, and this time he raced straight across the road. Now he was really a spectacle, covered with dirt, more leaves, and spiderwebs. But this time no one looked at him.

“A whole fleet of them!” someone was shouting. “A whole fleet of kites appeared and demolished Watch headquarters! They’re plucking up the Watch and carrying them off!”

Oliver wished that were true.

Closer to the crest now, the mountain was getting
steeper. His running felt more like an excruciating plod. Bright spots flashed in front of his eyes.

He hurtled onto the Way for the fourth time, wildeyed, chest heaving. The kite was just a little higher. He would have to risk running on the open Way.

As he ran, he heard the shouts of the Watchmen. They had taken the long way around, but they were also much faster.

Ahead, a crowd had gathered at the place where he’d been forced to abandon his kite. With relief, Oliver saw a blanket on the ground. Someone had covered the kite, just as the captain had ordered. The crowd was keeping a wary distance from the blanket.

“HALT!” The Watchmen were right behind him.

Oliver ran through the startled crowd, tossed away the blanket, and seized the kite.

“A kite!” someone screamed. The crowd stumbled backward, bumping and pushing.

Oliver whirled around crazily, shouting, “A kite! A kite! Ha ha!” and waving the kite about like a sword, feeling utterly ridiculous.

The Watchmen shoved their way through the panicked
crowd. But even they would not come close to the madly whirling Oliver.

A piercing scream tore through the air. The hunter had found them.

This was too much for the timid citizens of this Windblowne, and they scattered like leaves. The Watchmen scattered with them.

Oliver ran into the forest. He heard a whir as the hunter sliced through the air.

His chest seemed to think it wasn’t getting enough air.
If I had known what was coming
, Oliver thought,
I would have gotten more exercise
.

Somewhere above, the hunter screeched angrily. Oliver looked up, trying to spot the hunter, trying to—

WHACK

He ran smack into the wall. Luckily, he had not been going very fast.

Gasping, he placed his hands against the solid granite. He turned his face up, looking at the wall’s vast height—and realized he was out of options.

He searched for a rock, a branch, anything he could use as a weapon.

There was a soft squawk. Trembling, Oliver turned.

The hunter was perched on a nearby limb, regarding him with its glass eyes. Oliver put his hand on the heaviest branch he could find and prepared to defend his kite.

Then something whirred through the air and struck the branch on which the hunter was perched. The hunter gave a startled croak and hopped aside. When another object—Oliver thought it was a stone—followed the first, the hunter had to leap from the branch.

A barrage of stones came whizzing one after another. The hunter shrieked, made two fast circles, and then, with a bright flash, disappeared.

Oliver swallowed hard. “It’s gone to get the others,” he said, pulling the kite close. A slight breeze rose, and the kite’s tail flew up and stroked his arm.

He looked up, trying to find the source of the stones. At first he didn’t see anything or anyone. Then there was a sudden movement on a high branch deep within a nearby oak, a movement like the one that he had seen when he first arrived in this Windblowne. He spotted a shadow, crouching on a hidden branch, high above him.

The shadow spoke.

“What was that? That wasn’t a bird!” the shadow said
.

Oliver recognized the voice.
Oh no
, he thought.
Not her. I lost her kite charm
.

The shadow melted down through the oak, climbing swiftly. Soon the light revealed a girl, wiry and small, with black hair tied back and a splash of freckles on her face, and a red knit pouch slung over her shoulder. She swung one-handed onto a branch twenty feet above Oliver’s head and crouched there, looking at him curiously and tossing a round stone from one hand to the other.

It was Ilia. Oliver wished he could melt into the ground. Then he realized that, in this Windblowne, she had no idea who he was or that he had been so careless as to lose her charm. In fact, it wasn’t even
her
charm.
She also didn’t know that Oliver had once, through extreme ineptitude, destroyed her most beautiful kite. She didn’t know that, in another world, people still spoke ruefully of the school of flying fish that shattered into a thousand pieces after Oliver accepted the reels.

Some of the white-hot embarrassment faded away. “No,” Oliver answered finally. “It wasn’t a bird. Well, most of it, anyway.”

Ilia continued to stare. Oliver became uncomfortably aware of his appearance. His flying clothes looked as if they had been shredded by wild animals, which they had, with help from half the thornbushes on the mountain. They were blood-soaked and filthy, like the rest of him. His kite was a perfect match, battered and covered in dust. It was said in Windblowne that people end up looking like their kites. For Oliver, this had never been more true.

“Can I see your kite?” Ilia asked.

“Uh,” said Oliver.

Ilia seemed to take that as a yes. Slinging the stone into the red knit pouch, she descended, skipping from branch to branch. She landed with a thump beside Oliver and reached out.

Oliver, surprised that she did not seem afraid, held out the kite.

She poked it cautiously. A delighted smile broke out on her face. “What a nice kite!” she said.

“You have no idea,” said Oliver, feeling proud.

“I might,” said Ilia. “I was sitting on the wall this morning, watching the sun rise. I saw you fly down from the sky. I’ve been following you ever since.”

“Oh,” said Oliver.

“You need some help with your oak climbing,” said Ilia.

“Well, it was my first try,” Oliver said defensively. “How did you follow me?”

“Through the oaks,” replied Ilia. She took another stone from her pouch and scanned the sky. “So is that … thing … coming back?”

“It’s called a hunter. And yes. It’s going to bring more with it.”

“Come on, then,” said Ilia. She turned and dashed along the wall. Oliver followed, listening for signs of pursuit from below.

They soon came to an oak with several low-hanging branches. Without breaking stride, Ilia began to climb.
Oliver fastened the kite to his pack and climbed after her, glad that she had gone first. He wanted to practice climbing some more before she saw him at it again.

The air seemed to get thinner as they climbed, or maybe Oliver was reaching the physical limits of exhaustion. He felt queasy. He wondered how long it would take him to hit the ground if he fell, how many branches he might hit on the way down. Ilia showed no signs of tiring, and he wasn’t about to ask her to slow down.

Don’t look down
, Oliver thought. This made him look down. As he suspected, the ground was now quite far below, with plenty of branches in the way. When he turned back, Ilia had disappeared. There was nothing above him but an impenetrable tangle of branches and clusters of dead or dying leaves.

“Ilia?” Oliver ventured.

Leaves rustled. He heard a shout, far off.