Skyborn

by Cameron Bolling

  She made slow progress, especially down the slope of the hills. Every step made her wince. Pain throbbed in her leg and leaked up into her hip and side. She did her best to ignore it, reminding herself who she was and what she had set out to do, clenching her muscles and filling herself anew with determination—the only thing she had left to get herself through the desert. Oleja Raseari, skyborn, slayer of Honn, hero of the people of the canyon. She pushed on.

  In the haze of the day before, she’d deviated from her intended path. She could recall a burning need to follow the sun, though in her state of delirium she missed the fact that that was the aim of the previous evening, when the sun lay in the west, and should not have carried over into the morning, when it rose in the east. Even still, she wanted to go northwest, not due west, and pre-bite Oleja knew that without strain, yet post-bite Oleja did not. Somehow, by some great stroke of luck, her hallucinations afforded her one single favor: for the entire first half of the day, she seemed to have thought she saw the sun rising in the west. No doubt it truly rose in the east as usual, but until it arrived in the western half of the sky at midday, her hallucinations gave her a false sun to chase, keeping her relatively on course. Although, of that she could not be entirely certain, but given what she remembered, and by all manners of calculation, it seemed she traveled a good deal farther west than she would have if her path took her in a circle or otherwise unproductive shape. However, while her hallucinations and muddy-minded obsessions kept her on a course west, it appeared she made little progress north, leaving her south of where she meant to be—no great loss, so long as it did not spell her demise. All she could do now was point her path northwest with heavy emphasis on “north” and continue on at a slow, limping pace.

  The sun rose higher and the air grew hotter. Her robe, which now fell only just past her mid-thigh, still managed to keep some of the heat off her upper body, but her legs remained quite exposed. She knew she looked foolish in her altered outfit, but with no one around to see it, what did it matter?

  Occasionally a moment of dizziness hit her, and she stumbled more than usual. All at once the sky upended itself, dragging the earth by the horizon and flipping it over her head as if trying to pull a blanket down on her and trap her. After a few seconds, the spinning faded and she was able to continue on, cursing herself for getting bitten in the first place. She didn’t know how long the aftereffects of the venom lasted, but they couldn’t go away fast enough.

  Hours passed. Her waterskin drained more rapidly than she wanted it to, but no amount of cursing at it replenished the contents. She had yet to start on her canteen, but the location of her next water source would remain a mystery until she got nearly close enough to drink from it, be that hours away or days. Being stranded alone without any water at all could be her end, and she would not let that happen. She cut her water intake down, going longer and longer between drinks, and paring down those drinks from two gulps, to one and a sip, then to just one, then to only a few sips. Sweat poured from her skin as the heat rose in intensity. Part of her considered drinking it. She licked a runaway drop as it curved past her lips. The salt entertained her taste buds, tangy on her tongue, but it leeched what little moisture coated her mouth and only left her with a redoubled need to pull out her waterskin and down it all in a few swift gulps. She could not risk that. She had to ration it.

  An ache began in her head, mild at first but slowly rising, clawing its way through her skull as it pounded against her scalp, demanding she drink more water. Looking at the sunlight reflected on the bright golden sand empowered the aching, but she didn’t dare close her eyes; she had learned that lesson through the most ruthless manner.

  Soon, the sun’s touch passed beyond anything she had ever felt—beyond the heat of the forge back in the village, beyond the days spent walking beneath the sun’s intense glare alongside the raiders; like the heat of holding metal in a fire while waiting for it to become malleable, but she was without tools and used her hands instead. Even that might have been preferable to the murderous eyes of the sun trained down on her. Smoke rose from her robe, thin curls at first but soon billowing into her face. Sparks ignited, flames roared, the fabric went up in a blaze.

  Oleja yelped and patted at the fire but it spread too fast. Dropping her bow and throwing down her bag, quiver, and glider, she unclasped her belt and threw off the robe in one quick pull. The light fabric fluttered down into the sand, trailed by orange tendrils of flame and dark grey clouds of smoke. She stomped on the fabric and kicked sand onto it. All her weight fell onto her injured leg and she recoiled, hissing in pain as she fell back into the sand. The world spun. Her head lolled. She closed her eyes and let it run its course. When she opened her eyes, the world had re-rooted itself. Her robe lay in the sand, torn somewhat and covered in sand. Not a speck of soot tinged the fabric. It was not scorched—not even so much as singed.

  Anger was all that burned her.

  Sand clung to her exposed skin, dampened by the coat of sweat that covered her from head to toe. Her head pounded. Her leg burned. She took a meager sip of water.

  It felt like the sand had gotten in her mouth and coated the inside all the way down her throat. Her breathing came strained through dry pipes. How she longed to curl up there on the ground and rest. She forced the feeling down, burying it deep in the sand. She could not sleep yet, it would be her end, she knew it. No giving up. She had to keep moving.

  A long tear split the front of her robe, and her violent and rapid undressing worsened the fraying at the hem. Though she shook as much sand from it as she could, the grains hid between the fibers, grating on her skin when she put it back on. No amount of shaking it out remedied the problem, and when she picked up her things and tried to keep walking, the sand-filled robe rasped at her skin. Frustrated, she flung it off again and dug out her old clothes. The tank top left much of her skin exposed to the sun. The pants covered her entire legs aside from the holes torn in them, but the heavy fabric quickly proved too hot to wear. Drawing her knife, she made quick, sloppy work of turning them into shorts, stowing the severed portions in her bag. She picked up her belongings again and kept walking.

  The sun showed no kindness to her skin, and without her robe blocking the sun and keeping her cool, the heat only became more unbearable. It didn’t take long for her skin to redden, cooking under the hot noontime sun, flushing her dark skin with a pink hue. The sunburn hurt with every touch, and all of the equipment strapped to her body felt like knives stabbing her each time it poked her in just the wrong way.

  Regardless of how badly she wanted to be out of whatever hell-hole she stumbled through, she could not push herself to go faster no matter how hard she tried. Her leg hurt more and more with each step, and when she pushed herself to move faster, she could feel it grow weaker, threatening to give out beneath her and leave her stranded there to die. Nothing in her bag was big enough to make a crutch, and her bow wasn’t sturdy enough to use in such a way, or even as a walking stick. She turned her eyes skyward frequently, hoping to see the sun lowering towards the horizon so that cool air and hope could settle across the world once more. But each time only proved more disappointing than the last. The hour reached midday, and not a minute past it. All of the time she’d spent walking so far that morning felt like weeks. She needed a break, a reprieve from the oppressive heat bearing down on her, adding to the load she already struggled to carry. But nothing broke up the sandy landscape as far as she could see, save for the low hills far in the distance and a small boulder up ahead—the only landmark amidst the field of dry, loose earth.

  The boulder rose to chest height, grey and brown and covered in sand. It jutted up from beneath the ground, coming to a point and leaning slightly east so that beneath it, like a small pool of water in the center of an oasis, clung the tiniest sliver of shade. Dropping her tinkering bag and bow, Oleja crouched down and crammed herself face-first against the rough surface, putting as much of her body into the shade as she could—which
meant only half of the top of her head and most of her shoulders. She didn’t care—it was her first moment of relief since leaving the pool of water at her campsite, save for the few fleeting sips of water she took now and again. The jagged stone pressed against the skin of her chest, shoulders, and forehead. With her sunburn, it felt like the rock carved her skin into slivers. She ignored it and pressed her cheek harder against the surface, thirsty for every inch of shade she could get.

  From her bag she withdrew her waterskin and leaned away from the boulder just enough to take another half-sip. She held the water in her mouth for a while and closed her eyes, relishing the feeling, imagining she took gulp after gulp. When she swallowed, the last bit of her hope went with it, down into her empty stomach that groaned for the food she couldn’t afford to give it. She lay down in the shade, tucking her knees up to her chest, letting her glider protect her back from the sun. The sand was soft despite the heat packed inside it. She closed her eyes. The feeling of spinning took her and carried her around and around the boulder.

  “I’m sorry I’ve failed,” she muttered. To whom, she didn’t know—Ude? The people of the village? Her parents? Herself? Perhaps all of them. She didn’t open her eyes or look up from the ground. The venom still ran through her system, and she couldn’t bear to see any of them; that would be a cruel final trick from her venom-addled eyes. If it was the last thing she did, she would not give up that one last victory.

  Then her mind went black.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Someone was stabbing her. Hadn’t she been through enough?

  With enough force to open her village gate, Oleja raised her eyelids just a crack. Sand, stone, a deep pink and dark blue sky. No one stood in her line of vision. She let her eyes drift closed again. There wasn’t enough left in her to move a finger, let alone her whole body.

  Another jab like a cruel-pointed knife pricked at the back of her neck. A spike of searing pain jolted through her. She let out a hoarse groan from deep in her sternum.

  This time the stabbing pain erupted in her leg—her right one, the one that still carried its weight and then some. She tried to kick away her assailant—a twitch of her muscles, and nothing more. The prodding came again, more forcefully this time, sending a spark through her. She used it to pull her knees in closer to her chest.

  Something grabbed her hair now—not with great force, merely a tug. It pulled and shook as she felt her braid come further undone. A few strands ripped free from her scalp. From behind her, a sharp screeching hiss sounded in her ear, followed by another stab against her sun-raw neck.

  Oleja lifted a hand, so heavy it felt like she wore a glove of iron and stone. She swatted at whatever stood behind her. Soft footfalls danced away in the sand, then hopped right back and poked at her again. With a grunt of pain, Oleja pried herself away from the boulder and forced her head up into the air. She could barely raise it an inch, but it was enough. She turned to look behind her.

  A bird looked back. Black and dark brown feathers covered its body, and its head—which looked too small for the rest of it—was stark red like the western sky. It watched her with beady eyes and clicked its white beak, hissing again. She knew the bird: a vulture. They ventured down into the canyon every now and again to pick at the village’s endless supply of dead. But she had never seen one so close before. They were ugly.

  Two more stalked her from down near her exposed legs. The sound of wings beating in the hot air told her one now sat atop the boulder as well. She dropped her head back into the sand.

  It took as much energy as she could scrape together to flip onto her stomach and kick at the birds by her feet. They dodged easily; she was not exactly in peak fighting form. With a deep breath and a grunt of pain, she clawed herself through the sand away from the boulder. Her legs forbade her from standing.

  The vultures followed her, four of them in total, all waiting impatiently for their evening meal. Well, they’d have to find it somewhere else, because it wouldn’t be her.

  She moved only three feet from the boulder before her arms shook so intensely that she couldn’t drag herself another inch. Again, she swatted at the vulture hovering around her head, and again it cared little for her movements. Until she stopped moving altogether, it would find no satisfaction in her existence. Breathing hard, she let her head fall into the sand once more. Her bow lay back over by the boulder, deposited on the ground alongside her bag during her haste to get into the shade. Even if she retrieved it, she didn’t have the strength to shoot. Strapped to her belt, she still had her knife, but even that she doubted her ability to wield. Her movements came slow, sluggish—the vultures found no difficulty avoiding her swings with her arms or legs, what difference would the knife make?

  Killing the birds would fetch her a meal but mustering the strength to kill one called for more energy than she possessed. For now, she just needed to keep them all from eating her. After that, if any of them had a death wish, she’d be happy to oblige, but otherwise shooing them had to suffice. And besides: so far, dehydration had a winning lead over starvation in the race to see what killed her first.

  She pressed her forehead to the sand, eyes squeezed shut, breaths still ragged and hoarse as they funneled through a mouth drier than the desert around her. Sweat no longer dampened her forehead—undoubtedly a bad sign. Perhaps it would be best to let herself find her end there in the sand and at least provide one last favor to these hideous birds.

  “Not a chance,” she muttered aloud. Death was not an option. She reached her hand around to the small of her back, stretching out her aching fingers until they grasped the small cord. She yanked it downwards.

  With the force of a strong and distinctly not-dying creature, the wings of her glider unfolded and sprung out to their full span. One of them collided with a vulture, which bleated out a startled hiss before taking to the sky, followed swiftly by the remaining three, all frightened by the sudden movements from what they thought to be their mostly-dead dinner.

  The sky faded slowly to deep blue, and at last the heat began to dissipate. Oleja lay motionless until the first chill of night kissed her skin and sent a shiver through her limbs. An ounce of energy filled her. She opened her eyes and set her jaw.

  First, she got to her hands and knees. After conquering that, she rose up onto her knees alone. The sand dug into her soft, scorched flesh, pinching at her kneecaps like dozens of tiny needles. She drew what energy she could from the pain and then slowly, one leg at a time, rose up onto shaky legs until she stood tall in the dusk of the desert. Standing, of course, seemed to be the easy part considering the next step demanded she walk tens of miles into the desert. The daunting task almost made her want to lie back down in the sand, but she dropped those thoughts and left them. She could only carry so much; she didn’t have the strength to carry doubts as well.

  After retrieving her bag and bow and pausing for a modest meal and a quick gulp of water—the most she had afforded herself since shortly after leaving the pool—she set off northwest once more at what felt like a pace of a million miles in each step. At least the temperature had dropped, handing her one single luxury. With each step of her left leg, fresh pain rose up from her wound, reminding her—quite curtly—that she was injured. In her dizzy, dehydrated, sunburnt-state it had nearly slipped her mind.

  Another break so soon after setting out was not the best way to cover ground, but she couldn’t deny that her body offered no protest. She knelt, untying the sand-coated and sweat-saturated bandage to reveal the infected wound. It certainly looked no better, but at least it remained free of sand—the only spot on her body that such could be said for. Wasting water to wash it again was out of the question, but she removed one of the clean bandages from her bag, wrapped it tightly around the injury, and cast the soiled one aside. The vultures could pick at it if they so wished; she’d give them nothing more.

  Darkness descended in full and the stars poked out from behind the curtain of black. The desert almost lo
oked beautiful at night—the distant sand taking on a bluish tint, dark like an expansive lake before her. Thoughts of water only reminded her of the dryness in her throat and dehydration that wracked her body. She vowed not to make that mistake again but took a sip from her waterskin nonetheless to sate her and try to restore some sliver of energy. If she intended to get out of the desert alive, she needed every bit of it she could get, but it was also imperative that she save some for later. Her canteen remained untouched, but her waterskin bordered on emptiness. Within a day from the last water source she drained half of her supply. What if the next chance to refill didn’t come for another two or three days? Did she dare cut her consumption down further?

  She couldn’t have that debate. What little food and water she consumed kept her going, but only barely. Cutting it to even smaller portions could be just as deadly as the heat or her infected wound or running out of food and water entirely. For now, she had to maintain her portions, but if the environment continued to act as hostile as it seemed determined to be, she’d reevaluate her choices then.

  The night wore on beneath her feet, albeit slowly. Every hour that passed felt like ten, and by the time morning neared she doubted whether the majority of the venom had truly worn off—she felt sure that day had arrived already, and she only saw night as a hallucination. But when the stars began to fade, she knew day approached at last.

  Rocky hills closed in more and more as she walked, nearing on the left and right as if attempting to clamp in, flanking her as they went in for the kill. She had avoided them so far, opting to walk through the sandy valley on even terrain to ease the strain on her leg. Granted, no path made for an “easy” walk with her leg, but the slopes meant harsh ascents and descents, so she chose the gentler route. Fortunately, the valley so far followed a rough course northwest, creating a perfect road for her to travel. Now it looked like she had no choice but to head up into the hills—at least for the time being, until she came down the other side.