Skyborn

by Cameron Bolling

  Personally, Oleja had other plans—and she would see them through, regardless of what Casmia told her to do. Her people needed a hero—needed their freedom—and she was going to be the one to deliver it. She’d follow in Tor’s footsteps to finish what he started. Plans for how to do so dominated her thoughts as she spent the day walking.

  Doubling back was not yet an option. Though she so badly wanted to, turning around meant facing Honn. He nearly bested her once and admitted to showing mercy in the encounter. He promised to be less courteous the next time they met. That was a promise Oleja bet he intended to keep. An outright brawl did not lay the grounds on which she wanted to contest him—not unless she caught him by surprise or sprung some other great advantage. Though she had experience, she was a self-taught fighter who learned the ways of combat by torchlight in a cave. He was a warrior, a trained soldier of the eclipser camp. He wore armor tempered in a true forge and wielded blades sharpened on grinding wheels meant for such a purpose. As much as she hated it, he had the upper hand in a fight.

  She could double back in a wide loop, leading him in a circle around behind her and then sprinting back for her village with him in tow. They’d play the same game that they played now but going back in the other direction. Sure, it was possible, but it also relied on her knowing how far behind her Honn was, which she did not. He could be five miles back, or he could be fifty. If she didn’t loop wide enough and ran straight into him—well, that promised no better an ending than opting to face him in combat directly, except the advantage of surprise could very well fall to him.

  Getting through or around Honn in her return was one thing, but even if she managed it, she had no way to tell what surprises waited to greet her upon return. The eclipsers knew she remained at large—after all, they sent Honn after her, and until he returned with her head in a bag, they could only draw so many conclusions. Running full-speed for the lever at the gate—and then Pahlo following in her footsteps—made her ambitions clear, and as a result the eclipsers would be foolish not to guess at her broader plans. If Honn hadn’t yet captured her, they had to assume she planned to—and could—return and finish what she started. They’d be sensible to increase security at the gate. Posting more guards in the tower, and perhaps even some down by the lever, seemed like realistic precautions. Or they could even leave the opening mechanism shattered from the rock strike. No human, or even an eclipser, stood a chance of opening the gate with pure strength; if they feared she may try to open it, what better way to deter her than make it impossible?

  Pahlo still wanted to help. Not only that, but he still insisted Oleja enlist help from the raiders or others from places beyond. In fact, as soon as Casmia mentioned the town in the mountains to the west, Pahlo had suggested to Oleja that she seek out help there. She didn’t know how to explain to him her aversions to turning the rescue into a collaborative project, especially if it included turning him away as well. After all, he had some stock in the liberation of the people as well—he knew other slaves who worked aboveground in the eclipser camp. It would be difficult to convince him that he should stay behind and not partake in their rescue, but she had to. She worked alone.

  Including the raiders would become disastrous in minutes. Just as fast as she could lay out a plan, Casmia would cast her doubts over every bit of it. They’d spend time arguing just as they had the night before when Oleja tried to improve the wagon. It would be a catastrophic waste of time, during which the eclipsers could close in and kill them all before Oleja even convinced the raiders to follow her. And that only afforded worry to the dissent of Casmia—what if the others she brought along proposed their own conflicting plans, or refused to follow? What if she gave one of them a significant role—say, identifying the schedules of the guards in the tower—and they failed? The whole plan would collapse, leaving Oleja’s people to remain in the canyon. She’d never throw the lever, seeing only failure come of her plans, and all because she counted on someone who failed or who thought they could do better by altering the plan. Everything hinged on the competence of everyone included. The more people there, the more room for failures or for clashing ideas. It could be fatal. She knew she could count on herself to see tasks done and would not have to waste time convincing herself.

  That was not to say she had entirely ruled out bringing others along in any capacity. They could not play pivotal roles in the main part of her plan, nor try to influence it—that would lead to all of the challenges she did not have time to deal with—but Pahlo’s insistence got her thinking. It might be plausible to bring a small force of fighters along. She could send them to wreak havoc elsewhere in the camp, drawing attention away from the gate. Or she could use them as a strike force, attacking the guard tower while she went for the lever. Even if they failed in such duties and only slowed the guards, she’d have the opening she needed. The risks of including others for such purposes were far lower, and thus worth consideration—just so long as she left them out of the planning process, which could prove tricky.

  As long as she pulled the lever—as long as she got to be the hero—there might be room for others to play more minor roles.

  But from where she stood, walking through the wilderness alongside the raiders, she still saw too many hurdles. Taking care of Honn, getting back to the village, ensuring that she could get the gate open, and then actually executing it all. It was a lot to deal with. She had to start by accumulating assets; making a new glider would be a good start. Then she could determine who—if anyone—she wanted to use as a distraction or strike force in her plan. Once all of that was done, she needed to figure out how to kill Honn. In the meantime, she’d travel with the raiders. Their path was the same that she’d place her feet upon whether they walked it or not, as it carried her away from Honn, which bought her time to plot and tinker. Food and water were never scarce in the group, which helped stave off starvation and dehydration, which both became quite lethal in high doses. She hated to keep moving farther and farther from her village, but she had few other options. She’d make a faster return, at least, as she wouldn’t take detours through ruins or long breaks. And with any luck, she could make that return soon.

  Thoughts of Ude came to her again, accompanied by a pang of guilt. Every minute that she spent away from the village marked another minute he thought she was dead. Only her return could show him otherwise.

  That evening, as the group sat around the fire, Oleja found a spot of clear ground off to the side and laid out a collection of wooden boards she had found in the last town of ruins. They were rough and splintering, but she could turn them into the perfect frame for a new glider.

  She cut them down and laid them out: two large rectangular slats for the main body of the case, smaller ones for the top and bottom, and a set of four long appendages to serve as the frame for the wings. When she got them all cut to size and sanded down, she began assembling the bones of the device.

  A shadow drifting over her work pulled her eyes up. Kella approached. She waved when Oleja saw her.

  “Hi. Mind if I sit?”

  Oleja waved to the spot across from her. “Feel free. Just doing some work.”

  Kella settled in sitting cross-legged and surveyed the mess of parts strewn about the ground between them. “What are you building?”

  Oleja glanced up from where she hammered a nail through the corner of the frame, and then back down, resuming her concentration.

  “It’s… well, it’s something I made up, actually. I’ve built one before, but it got a little banged up in landing and I had to leave it behind.”

  “In landing? So, it’s something that flies?” asked Kella, hints of incredulousness leaking into her voice.

  Oleja gave her a mischievous smile. “Better—it’s something that makes a person fly.”

  “No way.”

  “Yep.”

  “How?”

  Oleja picked up the body of the glider, now loosely held together, and one piece of the wing frame. “These are
attached here and here, and they swing out like this.” She demonstrated the motions using her hands in place of the springs and hinges that had yet to be attached. “Then there’s a fabric wing along here that catches the wind and makes you glide.”

  “That’s amazing,” said Kella, looking down at the other limbs of the wing frames as if they had taken on fantastical new properties, no longer just cut pieces of discarded wood. She met Oleja’s eyes again. “Could you teach me? How to build, I mean. I know I already asked you to teach me to shoot—and you better still do that.” She gave Oleja a jokingly stern look. “I want to know how to do this too. It’s… amazing.”

  Oleja laughed. “Thanks. I’ve heard it’s because I’m skyborn, but most think that’s just superstition. I can teach you.”

  Kella’s face lit up in excitement. “Thank you! What do I do?”

  Oleja pulled her bag over and emptied the contents of the largest pocket onto the ground. A heap of scraps and other miscellaneous objects crashed together in the dirt. The fine cloth that would become her glider wings, now folded neatly, remained tucked inside a separate pocket. She handed a fistful of tools to Kella.

  “Find things that can be put together to do something,” she said. “Manipulate them in your hands until they serve a purpose. Let your hands guide you.” Kella took the tools gingerly in her hands. She looked over the pile of stuff with wide eyes. She chewed at her lip.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s where you have to start,” said Oleja with a shrug. She returned to her work as Kella picked through the pile of scrap.

  “What does ‘skyborn’ mean?”

  Oleja paused. “What?”

  “Skyborn. You said some people think you’re so good at building because you’re skyborn. What is that?”

  “Oh,” said Oleja, realizing that she had indeed made such a statement. “It’s something from my village—an old myth about babies who come down from above. Born ‘from the sky,’ at least according to some, though no one knows for sure how it all happens.”

  “Well, did you come from the sky?”

  “I guess I did. That’s what I’m told, at least. I was a baby.”

  “A baby who came from the sky? How does that work?” It was not disbelief in Kella’s voice, but curiosity. Oleja couldn’t help but feel compelled to explain.

  “They just arrive sometimes swaddled in bundles—not fine blankets or anything, they’re usually pretty rough—with little parachutes to keep them from plummeting to the ground and dying. That’s where I got the fabric for my first glider. I know it sounds pretty mythical and silly. None of my people understand it either, so some believe those babies are born from the sky—‘skyborn’—and that it makes them special in some way.”

  “Do you believe it?”

  “I—”

  The question caught Oleja off guard. She’d been ready to chalk it up to superstition as so many did. After all, no one treated skyborn as anything special anymore. Once, generations before, they were regarded as more purified humans, but over time it seemed everyone just realized they were no better than anyone else. Just as capable of stealing, or lying, or slacking off in the mines. They didn’t live longer or speak softer or sing any more beautifully than the rest of the people. As time went on, they lost all special treatment. Now they got two letters added to their name, and that was it.

  But part of Oleja—a part she had been pushing away for years—bubbled right back to the surface as Kella spoke those four words. A part that wanted to believe something innately special resided within her. She wanted to be better, and to prove that she was worth more than the village seemed to think of her: an orphaned girl who contributed nothing and hung around with a dirty old traitor’s son. Maybe she was those things, but she was skyborn too. Her one claim to grandiosity, to heroism, even if her exceptional birth came a few hundred years too late for anyone to believe it.

  “Maybe. I haven’t decided yet,” she said, finally answering the question. Kella nodded.

  “Well, I see something in you. I think you could be born from the sky,” she said. Oleja pushed her dark hair from her face—her braid had unraveled too much to keep it from her eyes.

  “Thanks. What about you? Where do you come from, Kella Hylde-born?”

  Kella giggled. “I’ve been traveling with the raiders all my life. My mom said she thought about settling down in a town when she found out she was pregnant, but she decided not to. I’m glad she didn’t. The towns we pass through all feel so dull. Out here there’s more adventure. I like it most of the time.” She tossed a piece of copper back into the pile of scrap. “Sometimes I just wish I had friends. People my age, I mean.”

  Oleja couldn’t help but give the girl a sad smile. “I know the feeling.”

  The space between them fell silent for a few minutes.

  “What about your dad?” asked Oleja.

  Kella shrugged. “Never had one. Well, I guess I did, but I never met him. My mom says he was just some guy she met while passing through a town once. She never saw him again. I had another mom, though. She joined the raiders just before I was born. She and my mom raised me together.”

  A question hung in the air, shrouded in a cloak of sadness that Oleja was worried to pull aside. She didn’t want to pry, but curiosity got the better of her.

  “What happened to her?”

  Kella laid her pliers in the dirt alongside the twisted piece of metal she poked at. “About three years ago, she was scouting ahead for the group. She ran into a pack of earthborn. They killed her.”

  Oleja reached out a hand to Kella. Kella took it in her own.

  “I’m so sorry, Kella. I know your pain. I lost both of my parents when I was still a young girl. They were in the mines and there was a cave-in. They both died, leaving me alone.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Oleja gave Kella’s hand a squeeze as a single tear fell from the younger girl’s cheek and into the sand. “We are alive and well. And we will do great things in their memories.” Kella nodded. Oleja released her hand and began repacking her bag.

  “Thank you for teaching me,” said Kella. “I didn’t make anything useful—just freshly bent metal. But I’d like to keep learning. And to learn your way of shooting. Don’t think you can get out of that. Remember, I said I’ll hunt you down.”

  They laughed together until Hylde came over from her seat by the fire and asked what sparked so much excitement. Kella showed off her piece of bent metal, which Oleja insisted she keep despite the other girl reassuring Oleja that it served no purpose whatsoever. They agreed the time had come to retire for the night, and once Oleja gathered the rest of her things, they parted ways and found their tents.

  Over the following days, Kella sat with Oleja as she worked on the glider in the evenings. Kella perfected her bent-metal-making technique while Oleja’s glider began to take shape. She completed the frame, though it still lacked springs, straps, the fabric, and the release mechanism inside, leaving it still a ways off from being complete.

  Two days from when Kella first sat with Oleja to tinker, as they crested a hilltop, Oleja beheld a scene that sucked her breath from her lungs. Below them lay a massive expanse of glittering blue water that stretched at least two miles across before the ground continued on the other side. It wasn’t as large as the one she saw during her glider flight, but impressive nonetheless. A lake, if she remembered the term correctly. Even if she didn’t, Wulshe made sure to inform her of the name, as he did with every simple object that crossed their path.

  But not even his sarcastic remarks could ruin the view before her.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Hmm. I thought the lake would be dry.” Casmia held her map close to her face, eyebrows pinched inwards as she studied it.

  Pahlo looked around. “Uh… I think lakes are usually wet…”

  Casmia scoffed. “Well, yes, the ones that still exist. But this map is from the Old World. Most bodies of water out here in the desert
have dried up—or partially dried up—since the temperature rose when the shift occurred.” She folded up her map in frustration. “All right. I will have to plot a new route around. In the meantime, we will go down to the shore to refill our water supply and rinse off all of this sand.”

  Oleja surveyed the lake below. It was immense—she couldn’t even begin to guess at how much water it contained. Only once had she seen any body of water larger, but she still got the sense that this was nothing particularly special to the other raiders. Though she could hardly imagine such a thing, she figured there must have been larger bodies of water aplenty in the world beyond the desert, out where the temperatures allowed such a thing to thrive.

  Though her estimate said that the lake was no more than a few miles across at its narrowest point so far visible, its shape included three long arms. Two stretched to their left and right—north and southeast—while the third pointed straight out ahead of them to the west. To either side and looking ahead, the farthest banks lay somewhere out of sight. A detour to find a new path around could add a full day or more to their trek. And time was still a valuable resource if she wanted to stay ahead of Honn.

  They descended to the lake where waves lapped at the rocky, sandy shore. Casmia found a place to sit on a boulder just up the slope. She looked up and down the shoreline, consulting her map between each glance outwards. The rest of the group went right up to the edge of the water.

  Trayde and Jeth were the first to kick off their shoes and run into the shallows, but Kella was only a pace and a half behind them. The other raiders followed, though none of them plunged into the water with the same enthusiasm as Trayde or Kella, opting merely to remove their boots and wade in up to their shins. Trayde, Kella, and Jeth, on the other hand, were quickly drenched.