Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles (56 page)

“
Raylan, can you hear me?
”

The voice was familiar. He felt he knew the voice…deep inside, Raylan knew he cared about it…cared enough for him to be reached by it.

“
Raylan, come back to us. We need you. I need you.
”

…it had helped him once before…in a dark well.

“
Raylan, please…I am sorry. There was nothing I could do…
”

Why would this voice have to do anything...it’s my fault…my fault alone
, thought Raylan.

“
You need to get up, Raylan. They are going to get you, if you do not get up, right now. GET UUUP!
”

Raylan looked up, startled. He felt he was waking up from a dream...or a nightmare. Galirras circled around up high, looking down at him, nervously. He jerked his head around to check the airship. Richard and Galen looked back at him, around the corner of the cargo doors, the ship already too far from the scaffold to make any attempt to jump aboard.

“
I can’t make that jump, anymore. Do you see another way out?
” said Raylan to his eyes-in-the-sky.

“
I…I do not know…wait. There! The horse…quickly, the horse on your left side below the scaffold. Hurry! A ghol’m is coming.
”

Raylan saw him, too. One of the ghol’ms moved his way, even as soldiers were nearly at the top of the scaffold. He heard a horse whinny, but did not see it, yet. He took off to his left, as Galirras had said, and looked down.
There!

The soldier had been a part of Corza’s group of mounted men, assisting in securing the airship. Now that the ropes were cut, he was ordering his steed around amongst the wounded, giving orders on what to do.

Looking behind him, he saw the ghol’m bring back his arm, ready to smash the entire scaffold.

“
Jump!
” howled Galirras, in his head.

And that’s what he did. He jumped, not sure if he would land where he had hoped. Behind him, the scaffold shattered, as the ghol’m rushed into the side of it, there was nothing left to stand on. The Doskovian soldiers crashed down to the ground, some of them even tumbling over the ghol’m.

Raylan, more or less, crashed behind the mounted soldier, hitting the back end of the saddle. The warhorse immediately bucked, from the shattering scaffold behind him and the unexpected passenger. Holding tight to saddle and rider, Raylan knocked the rider out of balance and pushed him off, barely able to stay on the horse himself. Somehow, he managed to swing his leg into position as the horse stomped between the wounded soldiers around him.

Archers were already moving in, as well as some soldiers with spears; he needed to get out of there.

“
Which way?
” he called out, in his mind.

“
Left. Your left. Go north, out of the harbor!
”

Raylan finally got a hold of the reins and wasted no time spurring the horse into action. The large steed felt incredibly powerful, completely different from his own horse who he had gotten to know so well over the last months.

The horse had metal armor on its head and chest. As its hooves thundered across the ground, Raylan steered it north. Any soldier in the way would get to know the full force of an eighteen hundred pound warhorse on the move.

As a salvo of arrows took flight, a windblast from above crushed them into the ground. Galirras made nosedives all over the place, attacking any long-range soldiers he could find, completely disregarded his own safety. Suddenly, he felt two sharp pains in his side.

No time to check…

The airship was slowly turning as Sebastian explained how to pull out the side sails. They had dragged him onto the main deck, where he was resting against the handrail while shouting what they needed to do.

As Raylan sped off on the horse, Galirras tried to make sure neither he nor the airship fell prey to the arrows. Luckily, the cloth on the side of the airship stopped a number of arrows from reaching the balloon. Following the path the arrows took, Galirras quickly took out the archers, before they could release arrows again.

The speed of ascension was ever increasing, as the airship moved higher and higher, out of the harbor. Galirras flew close to them, whenever possible, pushing them with his winds as much as he could. By the time they cleared land and drifted off over the ocean waters in the bay, Raylan had reached the edge of the plaza. He rammed past the last of the soldiers blocking him. He dodged arrows and swords he had never even noticed. Frankly, he had no idea how he was able to pull it off.

Had Raylan’s thoughts been clearer, he might have realized that the sheer size of the Doskovian army had worked in his favor. With the Doskovian armor he still wore, not every soldier knew he was an enemy needing to be stopped. There had simply been no time to inform them.

But Corza had no intention of letting him go. Speeding past the last line of soldiers, Raylan looked over his shoulder and saw Corza and the remaining riders in hot pursuit, for the second time, in these cursed lands.

With the airship now out of range of the archers and climbing steadily, Galirras tried to get closer to Raylan. But the chase had led them into the forest, where Raylan could do little else but ride as hard as possible, for as long as possible. The path he was on was steadily climbing. He suspected where it would lead, but there was no way to go around it. His horse was breathing heavily, quickly tiring from the steep climb.

“
I’m sorry, little one, there’s nowhere for me to go…”
he said to Galirras, as he noticed the dragon’s dark form slide across the treetops.

“
No! Do not say that. Keep going.”

“
They’ll catch me eventually, my friend. There is nowhere to hide…nowhere to run…”

“
It does not matter, just keep climbing! As fast as you can!”

“
You don’t understand, Galirras, it’s going to be a dead end…the cliff……it won’t have a way off.”

“
Yes, it will! Just keep going, keep going even if the path does not go on. When I had just hatched, I trusted you with my life…now trust me with yours…”

Behind him he heard the shouts of his pursuers. They were planning to run their horses into the ground, if that would help them catch him. Raylan had no idea what Galirras was talking about, everything was still happening in a cloud of haziness.

At moments the climb was so steep his horse almost had to jump to get up higher. The path made a number of sharp turns, allowing Corza and his men to get dangerously close. Arrows thumped into trees next to him, as he ordered the horse to go through the next turn. The horse’s hooves skidded and slid on the loose gravel of the path. At one point, the horse’s hind leg kicked loose a boulder, starting a small avalanche of tiny stones. The boulder barely missed one of the riders in pursuit, as Raylan heard a waterfall of curses follow him up the hill.

Raylan felt the pressure mount inside his ears from ascending the hill at such speed. As he neared the top of the path, the forest opened to rocky ground, at the edge of the cliff. He was headed straight for a pointed overhang. On a normal day, the view from such a place would have been amazing; now, it only made it painfully clear it would be the end of his escape. As Raylan saw the dark bay water looming…way…way down.

We’ve must have climbed over a thousand feet
, thought Raylan to himself.

“
I’m sorry, Galirras, this is it…there’s no more road. I’ve got to stop…”

“
No! Keep going, even if the ground stops. Keep going. Trust me,”
the dragon said, forcefully.

Raylan saw his friends across the bay, flying the airship toward open waters. He smiled…they deserved to make it. He was happy they had made it.

“
Okay…okay…I trust you,”
he said, giving into the inevitable, more than understanding what the dragon meant.

With shouts following him out of the forest, Raylan spurred his horse to its top speed. The warhorse, bred to ignore his own fears and to follow commands in disregard of his own instincts, sped up and headed straight for the edge of the cliff.

The final few yards suddenly went by at an incredible speed, as the warhorse pushed off and left the solid rocky ground of the cliff, for good. Corza and his men slid to a halt, trying to keep their mounts from falling over the edge. The stream of curse words sent after him, by Corza, were lost on Raylan. Raylan was in his own world. He had never so intensely felt the promise of freedom.

Chapter 18

Aftermath

As Raylan and the horse tumbled forward, Raylan felt himself lift out of the saddle. The horse dropped away from under him, plunging toward the sea. He found himself weightless for just a moment longer as the momentum of the jump continued, but then gravity caught up with him and showed its inevitable influence.

Raylan did not even bother to move. He was tired…his mind numb. As he fell, head first, toward the water, he saw Corza and his riders come out of the forest, just before the edge of the cliff removed them from sight. He closed his eyes, and felt the wind run through his hair, as he silently fell down to the water.

“I’m sorry, brother…you were right. I’ll be able to apologize to you, in person, soon. I’ll see you in a bit…” he quietly whispered.

But a gush of wind announced a different path. As Galirras moved in, Raylan felt the push of air next to him. The dark shape of the dragon blocked out the first rays of sunlight coming over the mountains in the east. If Raylan had not known Galirras as a close friend, he might think a demon was coming to drag him to the underworld. It would have been a very eerie sight indeed.

As Galirras’ dark silhouette engulfed him like a monster from the deep seas, Raylan smiled with sadness more than happiness.

I’m sorry, brother. It seems I’ll be a little while longer…

Galirras carefully closed his front arms around his friend and pulled him close.

“
I got you!
”

With a sudden yank, Raylan felt the force of a sharp turn push his guts down to his toes. He felt the tip of Galirras’ claws puncture his arms as the dragon’s scales scuffed against his skin. Blood seeped out of the small wounds on his arm, but Raylan welcomed the pain. It meant he felt something…that he was alive.

His flying friend turned away from the cliff, skimming the water close enough for Raylan to feel the wet drops from breaking waves. The warmth of the dragon’s skin against his front was a strong contrast to the cold water splashing on his back. It felt like he, literally, hovered between life and death.

Galirras beat his wings strongly to gain altitude again, moving away from the cliff and harbor.

“
We got company. The large airship that was following me tonight just entered the bay ahead of us. The other airships are launching, too. The first have already taken to the air.
”

Raylan did not say anything. He felt light-headed from the flight as he turned his head around as far as he could. Peering around Galirras’ arms, he spotted the harbor. His eyes were wet from his tears while the wind against his face did its best to dry them at the same time. The morning sun announced itself over the hills already, but he still saw the lights of torches and lamps all across the coast. Everyone was flowing toward the water. Sails were being raised all over the bay. He saw four or five airships, leaving their docks and quickly gaining altitude. It seemed like a strange and faraway world, something that could not possibly exist.

He looked up and saw Galirras’ neck stretch out in front of him. Raylan felt the muscles move under the scales. The powerful strokes of his wings made the dragon’s entire body wave and flow, like a gust of wind playing with leaves.

In the distance, beyond Galirras’ head, he saw their freshly liberated airship rapidly coming closer. He saw shapes on deck, but the bumpy ride—and his tears—made it impossible to see who it was.

Raylan would have preferred to stay here…in this in-between world. Here, nothing was real; it was just a shelter from everything out there. There, on the ship, the others would bring reality…

As Galirras approached the airship, he came in low. Using his wings and wind power to hover almost completely still, he grasped the railing with his hind claws and put Raylan down as careful as possible in between the ropes on the upper deck…which pretty much meant Raylan bounced his behind on the deck a few times and ended up lying on his back.

“Raylan!”

It was Peadar who came rushing at him first, as the others followed. Peadar and Marek had been below deck the entire time, unaware of the things happening on the battlefield. Marek was still looking after the oven, but he had told Peadar to get some fresh air after they got the message, through the speaking tube, it was all clear. As the boy arrived on deck, Galirras arrived at the railing.

“You alright? That must have been some ride!”

But as he got to his feet, Raylan did not know what to say. Tears ran across his cheeks again, now that the wind from Galirras’ flight did not dry his eyes anymore. He stood there swaying, slightly, as he looked at Xi’Lao behind the others, not saying a word either.