The Endless Skies

by Shannon Price

  Soldiers walk along the side of the train. Latches click shut. The whistle blows. From ahead of us, the donkeys shift and snort, unused to such cramped quarters.

  Finally, the train lurches forward. I focus hard on the sound of it—thud, thud, thud. Like the ringing of bells, it gives me something to put my mind on that isn’t the danger of us being back on this thing or that I need to apologize to Ox. Across the train car, Callen smiles meekly at me. Ignoring the quickness of my heart, I pull the cure to my chest and keep it there.

  We gain speed quickly, the track below us clicking in a steadier rhythm than the older tracks did. My spirits lift. With this machine’s faster pace, we could make it home before sundown.

  Skies keep us. Everything was going to be all right.

  * * *

  The smell of smoke jolts me from a light sleep, sending my body into an automatic sense of alarm. Between the smoke is something else, too—gunpowder.

  The train slows.

  Io and I scramble up. She nudges the others with her foot. “Up. Now.”

  I take a step toward an opening in the train’s side, where a knot of wood had long since fallen, leaving a hole. I lean close and am met with a blast of pine-scented air.

  The unmistakable light of late afternoon catches on the trees as they disappear from my sight as quickly as they came. The sun is still to my left, but the angle is wrong. We’re no longer traveling due west.

  “The train turned,” I say gravely. A moment later, I jump back, because not ten feet from my vantage point is a human watching the train arrive. “We’re in the northwest, near the mountains.”

  Io crouches to the ground, face focused. “Everyone, pour out your waterskins,” she says. “Rowan, give me yours.”

  Io undoes the cap of my waterskin, and my heart lurches at the sight of the precious panacea spilling onto the floor. A moment later, as she starts filling Sethran’s waterskin with it, I understand. She’s dividing the cure among all of us. “Only one of us has to make it to the prince. Whatever you have to do to escape, you do it,” she says. When she’s done, I take my share back and wrap the strap securely around my body. I think back to the maps I’ve seen of the humans’ settlements.

  “We’re at the mines,” I say. “We must be.”

  Io flinches. “The humans gave up the mines years ago. The bearkings say that happens sometimes, when the ground fails to give out any more of what they seek.”

  The train eases into a slower pace, and the shouts of humans rise around us. Sethran steps around me, moving me out of the way with a gentle touch of my shoulder. He looks out a moment, using his hand like a cup around the space, keeping it dark as he looks out.

  The train comes to a complete stop. A tremendous snap and clack echo from the car in front of us. Hooves scuff against the splintering wooden planks, followed by brays of protest and strain. It’s only a matter of moments before the humans come for the food and supplies in this car.

  “My orders hold,” Io says, straightening up. “Get to the prince. At any cost.”

  41

  CALLEN

  Sweat beads at my brow. At any moment, the humans will open the doors. The small fraction of seconds we’ll have to escape undetected will come and go like the beat of a wing.

  “How far from here to the Cliffs?” Rowan whispers.

  “Minutes,” Sethran replies. “Ten, maybe fifteen.”

  “Skies keep us,” she says. We shouldn’t have blindly trusted the train, but of course we’re too late now—and it got us this close. To go west, we’ll have to go directly over the mines, or through them.

  I look out of the car again, carefully. The train has stopped in a U-shaped settlement teeming with workers, miners, and Marchess’s soldiers. The miners carry themselves with a heavier stride, pickaxes in hand as they trudge toward the tunnels. The soldiers are more subdued, more confident.

  “Why are they all here?” I whisper. Something must have drawn them in like ants to honey. I consider what Io said about the bearkings and say, “They must have found something else worth taking from the earth.”

  “What about those flying machines you mentioned?” says Ox, addressing Callen. “They’d need some kind of power, like the train burning fuel at the front. Maybe it’s here.”

  A pair of voices cuts our wondering short. Ox, closest to the door, tenses up. Axe in hand, I step up behind him with a quick touch of respect on his shoulder. I know he won’t forget Rowan quickly, but we are both warriors of the same cohort. We should have an effortlessly trusting relationship like Io and Sethran’s.

  There’s the metal clunk of a latch coming undone, followed by the strain of the sliding wooden door opening.

  Ox lunges out, his sword flashing. He cuts the first human across the chest. The second starts to shout, but a swing of my axe cuts him short. The two fall, their deaths swift. Ox ducks around the back of the car while the others climb out. To our right, more humans have come looking for the first two, and they start shouting when they see us.

  “Go, go!” Io says. “Get to the Cliffs. Get to the prince!”

  I break into a sprint. The human dies with surprise on his face without having put up a fight. Scanning for the black-clad uniforms of General Marchess’s soldiers, I follow Io, who’s taken the lead, as she dodges around the far side of the mines, retreating slightly back down in the direction of the train tracks. I follow up the side of a pile of broken rubble, my feet sliding on the loose stones.

  Then, finding purchase, I leap up and onto the natural curve of the land above the mined area when the first bullet whizzes past my head. I duck, crouching before jumping up and diving behind a thicket. More shots ring out, but not just at me. Taking the chance, I lunge toward better cover behind a discarded pallet of crates.

  The pop of the gunfire continues. Looking up and around the crates, my heart seizes as I catch a glimpse of Rowan and Ox, cornered between what looks like a common area for the workers and the entrance to the mines.

  Snapping forward, I catch my breath and try to decide what to do next. Ahead of me, Io and Sethran are also biding their time, trying to judge their best move. Just one of us needs to make it. The thought comes to me unbidden, but it’s true.

  If I can cause enough of a distraction, it will buy everyone time.

  Sweat trickles down my forehead as I turn and take in the crates I’m sheltering behind. The ground beneath me is still loose.

  Without time to think of anything better, I shove the top crate with both hands. To my surprise, it still is full of something, because it’s heavier than I expect, but it still topples to the ground, sliding on the stones until it’s in a free fall down to the opening of the mines below. I do the same for the other boxes, shouts of humans and the crashing cacophony of the splintering wood following behind it.

  Then I run farther up to the top of the mines, away from Io and Sethran. Praying my armor is strong enough, I tuck onto my back as best I can and slide down the opposite side, leaving clouds of dust in my wake. When my momentum stops, I look up and behind me to see if any humans have followed.

  Standing on shaky legs, I check my body. Blood trails down my upper arm and the side of my leg where the armor doesn’t cover it, but otherwise, I’m all right.

  Ahead of me lies nothing but open land. My spirit rises, only to be snapped back down as if shot with a human’s bullet. Rowan.

  She and Ox were out of the path of the falling crates—weren’t they? They must have been. But even with the humans distracted, she and Ox wouldn’t have had time to escape the way Io, Sethran, and I did. Trapped on three sides, only one would have remained open.

  They went into the mines.

  42

  ROWAN

  The mines push inward and downward, and in the span of moments, I feel like I’m suffocating. With both arms out, my fingertips brush either side of the walls. Small lamps line the mineshaft, cutting my vision with bursts of light and harsh shadow. With every step, I think, This is wha
t it felt like at Garradin. They couldn’t get out. They ran out of air.…

  Ox runs ahead of me. When the crates began to fall, they pulled earth with them, creating a rockslide. The humans were trapped and crushed under the weight of the dirt, and that’s the moment Ox grabbed me and pulled me into the westernmost tunnel of the mines.

  We can’t be more than a few feet into the earth, but already, it feels like too much, like there’s no air to breathe. I catch a glimpse of Ox’s face in the lamplight. His eyes are wide, face flushed with sweat and fear. Nothing I’m thinking is unique to me.

  “Ox,” I say. “How are we going to get out?”

  “There have to be air vents,” he says. “Same way there are vents in the tunnels below the palace. The humans need to breathe, too. Come on.”

  I trust him, my own mind struggling to keep up with the twists of the tunnel. Ox is continually choosing left and avoiding the veins that go deeper into the ground. Shouts from behind us tell me we’re so close to being caught. My heart thrums in my chest, my breath coming in weaker and weaker gasps. Suddenly, we round a corner and see light.

  Not six feet off the ground is a vent—a small one, but one is all we need.

  “Hurry,” says Ox, and he ushers me forward. He kneels and lets me use his cupped hand as a step, then boosts me up. Rocks cut into my skin as I crawl through the square passageway, maybe a foot and a half thick. Ox shouts at me from behind, and before I can say anything back, he pushes me out and into the dirt. I fall hands first onto the outside of the mine and get up, reaching back for Ox.

  He takes a short running start before making the jump, catching the edge of the air vent. Then, with a groan, he reaches up and clasps my forearm. I pull him through. Or at least, I try to.

  “No,” I whisper, trying in vain to pull him again. Ox must find footing in the wall because his weight lifts more easily, but it’s not enough. The vent itself is too small. Ox adjusts, then discards his bow and tries again, but broad shouldered and nearly a head taller than I am, there’s no way he’s going to get through.

  “Skies,” I say. “Come. On.”

  Ox lets go of my hand, and for a moment, I think the humans have got him. Instead, he pushes his waterskin toward me. Pulling it forward, I throw it to the side, reaching for his hand again.

  “Ox, you have to find another way out,” I say. “Go. Please. Find another way out.”

  He has an expression on his face that’s beyond description—fear and peace at once. “Rowan, you have to go.”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “You have to. Take the cure. Go to the city.”

  I don’t move. I absolutely cannot, will not leave. I start digging at the sides of the vent, only succeeding in moving pebbles and dust. There is the sound of a sword unsheathing as Ox abandons his bow.

  “I’ll hold them off,” he says. “Get going, Rowan An’Talla. You have a city to save.”

  Then he moves back into the darkness, and I know I will never see him again. I want to shriek into the tunnels and have the sound of my heartbreak echo around the mine—but to make a sound would give me away.

  Grabbing both of our shares of the cure, I stand up on unsteady legs and half run, half stumble down the side of the mines. Collapsing against the trunk of a sturdy pine tree, I press the waterskins to my chest and scream silently, rocking myself back and forth.

  “Just get to the city. Just get home,” I tell to myself. Sunlight breaks through the trees, and I’m pulled toward it like the sun is pulled toward the horizon—steady and true. Something starts to awaken in my bones. Magic.

  Warrior or not, I am Leonodai. And I’m going to save the city Ox loves.

  Loved.

  I wipe fresh tears with the back of my hand, my anger adding new weight to everything I am trying to process and understand.

  I run, wild and untethered, toward the west.

  43

  SHIRENE

  The bells sound—raucous and ready. Beside me, the queen jumps at the sound. She holds the prince close to her chest, rocking him back and forth. Prena, skies keep her, passed out from exhaustion not long ago. Her eyes flutter open.

  “Aeroplanes?” she asks.

  “No,” I reply, counting the bells’ tolls. “The humans have launched their ships.” I get up, but remembering my promise from before, I give the queen a reassuring look. “I am not going far.”

  I run through the queen’s rooms and out onto the adjacent balcony of the Queen’s Tower. It faces south, but if I stand at the end, I can make out the wall of black masts of the ships leaving Balmora’s coast. I envision them streaming out of the protected cove at the Cliffs. Their numbers seem only slightly greater than usual, and my hope rises. The underwater attacks from the sea-folk are bound to hold them.

  From the northern side of the city, the first wave of our defense flies forward. Teams of four carry nets full of stones to drop on the unsuspecting ships. But the ships are approaching fast, skimming over the waves. Is this their latest strategy? Move quickly enough that we can’t take them all out in time—

  BOOM!

  A tremendous explosion slams the ground from below. I thought I’d be ready for the impact. I am not.

  The Heliana has fallen.

  The city bobs like a toy boat on a rippling pond, lurching my body upward, only to suck it back down as I hold fast to the balcony’s railing. Leaping up, I take my lioness form, beating my wings to stay steady in the air as crashes continue to sound from the city below. Buildings topple as if they are made of sand. Above me comes a horrible snap as gilded arches fragment like broken bones. A strange, shrill chiming saturates the air, and it takes me a fraction of a second to put it together—glass.

  Adjusting my wings, I dive back into the palace as a million shards of glass rain down from the remains of the Glass Tower. I retake my human form, sprinting back the way I’d come. The palace has come to a rest at a slight angle, with toppled chairs and finery settling into bunches against the far wall as I burst back into the queen’s room and the nursery. “Queen Laianna!”

  The prince’s bed moved with the impact, but it’s not overturned. Prena kneels beside the queen, who is no longer rocking Prince Tabrol but shaking with her whole being as if her heart is being ripped from her chest.

  She screams, and that’s when I know. The crown prince, the lifeblood of the Heliana and the future of the Leonodai people, is dead.

  Somehow, the queen finds the strength to lift her head. Her red eyes find mine. Not with kindness this time but with blazing pain and anger.

  “Go fight,” the queen says. “Take my armor. It’ll fit you. Go fight for us, warrior Shirene.”

  44

  CALLEN

  I catch the sound of someone running in the forest behind me. Dogs bark in the distance, eager to hunt us down. I hesitate, torn between needing to hurry and hoping …

  Relief sweeps over me as Rowan emerges from the brush. She sees me and lets out a small sob.

  “Callen,” she gasps. Not too far in the distance, the sound of humans shouting carries over the mine. She pushes me back, as if remembering something horrible.

  “Rowan—”

  “We have to go.”

  We run. My body protests every move, desperate for rest and food, but the sunlight filtering through the trees spurs me on, as does the blind determination in Rowan’s eyes.

  I don’t have to ask her where Ox is. She has two bags of the panacea looped around her chest, and tears have cleaned her cheeks on an otherwise dirt-smeared face. Racing through the trees with a wounded body and grieving mind, she is just as much a warrior as everyone else who’s taken the oath. I don’t know how far we run, or for how long, but when I spare a look over my shoulder and see the first flash of a dog’s teeth, I know we’re nearly out of time.

  “Rowan, the dogs!” I yell just as she yells, “Sethran!”

  We burst from the trees. Skies alive, we’ve made it to the Cliffs—and we’re not alone. Sethran
and Io fight a few dozen feet from us, each with three humans lunging at them with swords. Two already lie dead on the ground, their skills no match for the pair of warriors.

  I look past them to the sea. My limbs shudder with an unholy mix of the pure relief and the pure terror as the Golden City comes into view.

  “No,” I gasp.

  The Heliana has fallen completely. She floats—an uneven island, but an island nonetheless. General Marchess’s ships bear toward her. Smoke rises from some of them as Leonodai and sea-folk fight back.

  Rowan lets out a war cry as she unsheathes her shortsword, and my attention is pulled back. The first human to spot us has some weight on me, but I am stronger and fueled by something beyond their reason. Rage. Anguish. With every swing of my axe, I can feel my limbs loosening, heart lifting, and lightness returning to me as I revel in the golden glow of the sun cresting over the trees.

  Io and Sethran fight like one soul—Io charges, bashes an attacker with stone from the ground as Sethran follows right behind her, sword drawn, to catch the human as he scrambles to get up.

  Then the dogs are on us.

  Rowan’s scream cuts the air. I whirl around, bringing my sword down against the flank of the animal that’s sunk its teeth deep into her leg. The dog refuses to let up. Then, with a vicious yell, Rowan finds her shortsword that had fallen behind her and brings it down. Crouching beside her, I pry the animal’s jaws from her calf. Blood pours hot and fast between my fingertips.

  “Callen,” she starts.

  “You’re gonna be fine,” I say, putting pressure on the wound, “We have the cure—”

  “Callen, stop.” I look at her as her body trembles. The clash of swords quiets from behind us as Io lets out a victorious yell, but Rowan isn’t looking at them. She is looking at the Heliana. “Do you feel it?”