by Amanda Sun
I’m nearly beside them now, and the bird’s talons are hovering just above my height. I throw myself at its scaly leg and yank as hard as I can. My weight is nothing to the hazu, but he twists his neck back, startled. He shakes his leg to fling me off so he can lift higher into the air. Griffin looks alarmed and reaches forward to cover the bird’s giant eyes with his hands so he won’t see me.
The hazu squawks and kicks, its beak open as it snaps at the air. The motion gusts wind around my face, the click of its beak echoing in my ears. He’s lifting into the sky now. The ground is whooshing away.
“Kali, let go!” Griffin shouts, and I drop from the bird’s leg. My legs buckle under me as I land.
The hazu is struggling against Griffin, its talons flailing too close to my head. I scramble to my feet and run, tripping over the too-big shoes I’m wearing. I fall flat on my face with a mouthful of dirt.
“Kali!” Griffin cries, looking over at me. The distraction is enough that the hazu shakes the hands off his eyes. His neck curves around and his beak slashes into Griffin’s back with the horrible sound of flesh tearing.
“Look out!” I shout, but he’s already crying out in pain. There’s a tangle of limbs and feathers that follows, the hazu flying in low circles as the two struggle. Griffin lifts an arrow out of his quiver and digs it into the nape of the bird’s neck like a spear. It’s a tiny arrowhead for such a big monster, but then I remember the venom he dipped it in from the chimera’s snake fangs.
The hazu slams against the plain in a cloud of dust and grass, its wings unfurled on the ground, its long tail twitching. The movement throws Griffin off its back and he rolls across the ground, writhing.
I run as fast as I can, my breath heaving against my aching ribs. “Griffin!”
He looks over, his shoulders rising and falling with every breath. His blood stains the rust-colored dirt around him. “Kali,” he pants. “Are you all right?”
“Me? What about you? You’re bleeding.”
“Am I?” he says, his eyes squeezed shut with pain. “How about that? It’s been a while since a sky beast drew blood. I’ll have to adjust my stats.”
Is he serious? I blink, and then he lets out a small, forced laugh.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve hunted worse things than this overgrown chicken. Give me a minute, will you?” He heaves himself up to a sitting position as I kneel and offer my hands. The sweat drips down his forehead and smears what’s left of the yellow and purple stripes under his eyes.
He takes my hands, his palms sweating and his fingers rough. I help him up as he winces and looks over his shoulder. There’s a gash right through the leather of his tunic, near the back of his neck. It’s bloody and torn, but it doesn’t look too deep or life-threatening, as far as I know. Which isn’t that far.
“It’s kind of embarrassing.” He laughs. And I wonder if it would’ve been better if I hadn’t interfered with the hazu.
“I’m sorry. I just... I wanted to help you.”
“I appreciate it,” he says, his eyes crinkling as he smiles. “It’s nice to have someone looking out for me.” The comment leaves me feeling warm and forgiven. I’ve just met him, but he’s so comfortable to be with, like an old friend. Elisha would like him, too, I think. She’d also probably waggle her eyebrows at me when his back was turned.
Griffin stumbles to the hazu, still and massive on the plain. He plucks the feathers on its stomach, one by one. It takes both hands and effort, because each plume is at least half our height. I’ve watched Elisha pluck a chicken before, in Ulan. So I step forward and pull out as many feathers as I can, until the sweat is dripping down my neck and chest. Griffin pulls three for every one I manage, even with his injury. But I won’t let it slow me down. I rest my foot on the bird to brace myself as I yank the feathers out. I want to show what I can do. And Griffin doesn’t tell me to stop or laugh at my feeble attempts. He says quiet, sincere thank-yous as I add my plumes to the pile. I’m an awful hunter, but he makes me feel like I’m good at it, like I’m useful.
When we’ve plucked a clean area, Griffin carves in with his dagger. “It’ll make a nice visiting gift,” he says, resting the meat inside one of the large feathers on the ground.
“You’re going to eat another monster?”
He hums cheerfully as he cuts into its belly. “He was going to eat me,” he says. It’s his answer for everything.
There’s more meat on the hazu than a village could use in a month, but he’s taking what he can manage so he doesn’t waste all of it. “I suppose the scavengers will come again.”
“Everything needs to eat,” he says. “Otherwise I’ll have nothing left to hunt.”
There’s a tone of sadness in his voice, even if he’s joking. He wants it to end. He wants the monsters to vanish.
“What do you mean, a visiting gift?” I ask. I sit beside the feather and rub the soft downy fluff between my fingers. “For your family?”
He nods. “We’re nearly there. As long as they’re still in the haven. We have to switch hideouts frequently or the monsters figure out how to get in. If they’ve moved on, then at least you and I will have a feast. And the waterfall’s nearby, too, so I can clean this chicken scratch on my back.” I roll my eyes. It’s hardly just a scratch.
When Griffin’s carved as much as we can carry, he folds up the feather and binds it with string, resting the package over his shoulder. We walk back to the slope down to the greener valley and follow the edge of the forest, the sun starting to descend in the western sky. I hope we’ll make it before the sun sets, but I know I’ve slowed him down all day with my injuries and my tripping over his leather shoes. And now the encounter with the hazu, and the laborious plucking and gathering, have slowed us down even more.
But just as the sky is turning shades of orange and purple, and the swarms of biting insects come out of hiding from the warm daylight, I can hear the rush of water nearby. I look at Griffin, and he nods, a smile curling on his lips. “Nearly there,” he says.
It’s amazing how much greener the grass is down here from the rusty plain. It reminds me of my outcrop on Ashra or the fields around Lake Agur. There’s an emerald sheen to everything, rich and alive and flourishing. The forest stretches out farther than I can see, but Griffin says there’s marshland on the other side of it. He wades deeper among the trees, the swarms of insects landing on our necks and arms and faces. I swat them away as the sunlight dies, turning the forest a deeper olive green.
I’m about to ask how much farther when a voice calls out from above. It’s a woman’s voice, confident and assured. “Griffin!” she shouts. “Have you finally trekked your sorry behind all the way home?”
Griffin laughs. I look in the canopy above, but I can’t see the owner of the voice. And then a rope drops from a tree branch and the woman slides down it. Her laced leather boots land softly against the grass. She looks maybe two or three years older than me, and she wears a mix of furs and leather and weapon straps just like Griffin. In her hand is a long spear, tipped with a jagged crescent of white bone. She wears a necklace of teeth or curved bones around her neck—I’m not sure which, but they’re definitely from some kind of monster. Her skin is the most elegant black, like the darkest night sky, and she wears a gold armlet and earrings that sparkle in what’s left of the fading sunlight.
“Aliyah.” Griffin laughs as the two embrace. Her arm wraps around his back and lands straight on his wound from the hazu. She jumps back, grabbing his shoulder to spin him around like a naughty child.
“Two shining moons, you idiot, what did you do to your back?”
“Love bite from a little bird,” he grins as she runs her hand across the torn leather.
She shakes her head. “You’re nothing but trouble.” And then she looks at me, nodding her head in greeting. “I’m Aliyah,” she says, holding out
her hand. “This fool’s sister.”
His sister? The comment takes me off guard, and I falter for a moment. “I’m Kali,” I answer finally, taking her hand.
“Welcome,” she says, swatting a mosquito off her bare shoulder as she stares at me. I must make quite the impression in my ragged, muddy dress and my lack of tools and weapons. And I’m draped in her brother’s karu fur and too-big shoes. “Have you traveled far?”
I think of my long fall to earth. Her question strikes me as funny, and horribly unfunny, at the same time. “You could say that.”
“Kali is a fallen,” Griffin mutters. Aliyah’s eyebrows rise up.
“A fallen? Well, then, a double welcome,” she says. “We haven’t had a fallen this side of the mountain range in a very long time. You must be hungry and full of questions. Come, come. Sayra is just about to start on the meal.”
“We’re in good time, then,” Griffin says, handing her the bound hazu feather full of meat.
“Look at that, he’s some use, after all.” Aliyah laughs. “I’ll take this down to her. Will you come with me, Kali?”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling shy. Their hospitality and happiness is overwhelming. I’d always assumed the earth was barren, but if there were humans, that they’d be miserable and barely surviving. Unbelievers lifting up their hands in lament and mourning like the illustration in the annals.
She leads us through the trees until I’m thoroughly lost in the darkness. And then she stops suddenly, crouching over a mossy patch of dirt. Griffin helps her smooth the moss and grass away, and there’s a trapdoor underneath. She pulls on the iron handle and it lifts without a creak. There are stairs leading down into the darkness, a small flickering light glowing at the end of them.
“Welcome to one of our havens.” Griffin smiles at me, and we descend into the darkness, Aliyah lowering the trapdoor behind us and sealing us in.
The stairway is steep and dark, but just as I’m worried about stumbling, Griffin’s hand reaches out to me. “Here,” he says. “Take them slowly.”
Aliyah is already down the stairs, her silhouette outlined by the gleaming of the light in the distance. “Ignore him,” she says. “A woman can do it on her own, Griff. You’ve come out of the day more damaged than she has.”
“Sisters,” he mutters near my ear, and withdraws his hand. There are only four steps to go, then three, and when we’re at the bottom the short tunnel opens into a room dug out of the earth. The light is an oil lamp on a small wooden table, flanked on either side by beams of wood on stumps that make two benches. There’s a long countertop on the far wall with a clay basin of water and an iron stove, with a pipe that runs up the dirt wall and out of the forest floor above. A skylight has been cut above the countertop, but it’s fitted with another trapdoor that’s closed and barred for the night. There’s another girl our age at the basin, and she turns with a bright smile. Her skin is olive, her hair dark and frizzy like Elisha’s.
“This is Sayra,” Aliyah says, and we take hands.
“Kali,” I say.
“She’s a fallen,” Aliyah adds.
“Welcome.” Sayra smiles, and then she embraces Griffin. She throws her arms tightly around his neck, and the impact almost pushes him off balance as he laughs.
“Careful,” Aliyah warns her. “He’s got another bragging-rights scar back there.”
Sayra’s expression turns to concern as she sees the wound, but Griffin waves off their worry as he sits on one of the benches. He passes the hazu meat package to Sayra, who looks pleased. “Can I help you prepare it?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “Rest now, both of you.”
The kindness of these three overwhelms me. We’d always been taught to look down on the unbelievers, in a way. They’d chosen to die by the monster’s claw rather than work together to build a new life on Ashra and her lands. If I’d pictured humans living on the earth, I could never have imagined these three in their underground haven, sharing what little they have with nothing but smiles, looking so alive in the face of certain death.
Aliyah shows me the adjoining room, a floor of dirt swept clean and covered with beautiful quilts. They’re stitched from furs and odds and ends of cloth, lining the room from one end to the other. It’s the complete opposite of my room in the citadel, with its opulent fabrics and gilded edges and giant windows open to the mountains and Lake Agur. Sometimes, on dark, still nights, I could see the rainbow glow of the firefly clouds in the outlands, the cool breeze wafting around my balcony. There’s no fresh breeze down here. It’s small and stuffy, but cozy. I think that maybe I was wrong about the monster-ridden earth, that there were no safe places down here. This certainly feels like one.
Sayra appears in the doorway with a clay goblet of water, and I drink it down so quickly that I sputter when my dry throat sticks. She smiles and gets me another full glass from the pitcher, and then Aliyah invites me to lie down and rest while they make dinner.
“You’re sure I can’t help?” I ask, but I’m so exhausted I sway on my feet.
“You’ve done well to survive until Griffin found you,” Aliyah says. “And he told me about your ribs. Best thing for broken bones is rest.”
“Thank you,” I say. The blankets are as soft as they look, and I can almost forget the hard dirt ground beneath them. In the other room I can see the edge of Griffin sitting at the bench while Aliyah removes his leather tunic and sighs, dipping a washcloth into a basin and dabbing at his shoulder.
Then I see the two huge gashes on his bare back, not from the hazu, but from something much older. They curve inward like crescents from the edge of his shoulders to the top of his hips. The two grooves are thick and scarred, split open like deep lash wounds from a whip. I can’t imagine what kind of monster carved those marks into him. I can’t believe he survived it.
“Another badge of honor, hmm, monster hunter?” Aliyah sighs. Sayra says something past hearing, and the three of them chuckle between Griffin’s small gasps of pain. They mumble in a low and comforting harmony that reminds me of my father speaking outside my bedroom door to the guards in the citadel. The hazu meat sizzles and smokes, and the mouthwatering aroma fills the tiny underground haven.
Exhaustion overcomes me and I close my eyes, finally feeling safe for a moment in this vast and frightening world.
I am with Griffin, Aliyah and Sayra, and we are alive and safe. I could never have imagined any of this even three days ago.
I sleep for maybe an hour before I awaken to the terrible clawing of monsters scratching through the roof above.
TWELVE
I SIT UP with a shout before Griffin and Aliyah come running into the room. I point at the ceiling, where a monster of some kind is clawing and sniffing high above the surface. They exchange glances before looking at me with sad eyes.
“It’s all right,” Griffin says. “They usually give up before they dig too far in. There’s easier prey on the surface at night.”
“Get her some water, Griff. You’re scaring her,” Aliyah says, and while he’s gone she smooths my hair behind my ear. “You’re not used to the monsters yet,” she reassures me. “Give it time.”
But I shake my head. I will never get used to the eternal fear of being hunted, of being mere prey to be sniffed out wherever I go. “Griffin said he’ll take me to the mountain range,” I tell her. “From there the airships will be able to see me and rescue me. I’ve told him they’ll take all of us, too. You can come live on the floating continents, where it’s safe.”
Surprise plays in Aliyah’s wide eyes as Griffin returns with the water and a plate of the fragrant hazu meat. Sayra has drizzled it with scarlet honey and spices, and it reminds me of the chicken I had with Elisha at the festival. I breathe in its hot fragrance before I take a bite, while Aliyah raises her eyebrows at Griffin. “Did you tell her you’ll take her
to the mountains, brother?”
He hesitates while I drink the water. “Yes, I did.”
“I see.”
I don’t understand why they’re all so cautious about going to Ashra with me. They’ve never been up there. How are they so sure they’ll hate it? Surely it’s better than mere survival down here.
“When will you go?” Aliyah asks.
“Sunrise. Kali says the airships will be looking for her, so we need to get there as soon as possible.”
Aliyah shakes her head and takes my empty plate and glass from me. “She’s in no condition to travel, and neither are you. That wound will split right open unless you take a couple days to heal up first.”
“But the airships,” I say. I don’t mean to be ungrateful. It’s just that if I wait too long, they won’t search for me anymore. They’ll think I’m dead. Which they probably think anyway. Who could survive that fall? And they don’t know about the barrier that saved me.
“You’re easy pickings for the monsters ahead if you don’t take the time to heal,” Aliyah says. “Rest now.” She leaves the room, and as much as I don’t want to admit it, I know she’s right.
“Don’t worry,” Griffin says. “I promised to get you to the airship, and I’ll get you there.”
“Why are you helping me?” I ask, the words surprising me as much as they surprise him. “I know you said you help the fallen, but you’ve done that. Why take me all the way to the mountains? Aliyah doesn’t seem to think it’s a good idea.”
He chuckles under his breath. He’s washed his face, and the paint is gone from his cheeks. He still wears his shell necklace, but his weapons and all their leather straps are gone, his chest bare. I can see the trails of old scars, bites and claw marks etched into his skin by different predators. “Aliyah’s been protective ever since I can remember,” he says. “She’s all the family I have left. The two of us and Sayra are the only ones left from our village, so of course she always worries.”
