The Blackbird's Song

by Billy Wong

  Henry looked. Between his friend's fingers, so vivid in the bright sun, was a large black feather.

  #

  As they needed shelter, Henry managed to convince Andrew to take refuge inside the tower until he was better after all. He wondered if their savior would return, but no one ever showed themselves. After a few days, Andrew had recovered enough to resume traveling. Henry hoped they wouldn't run into any more trouble, as the delay had already cut into their food supply and hunting to replenish it would be perilous to say the least.

  He felt guilty over his friend being hurt. Before setting out again, he asked, "Do you want to turn back? There might be other things around that we're not equipped to handle."

  Andrew bit his lip, but said, "It would be a huge waste of time to go back after coming all this way. Besides, we may have been in over our heads, but we survived right? I may not believe in God, but maybe Lady Luck at least will have mercy on us." So they continued their journey.

  The pair made it through the pass without further incident and began their trek across the sea of tall pale-green grass that opened up before them. They spotted creatures they had never seen before, stocky ox-sized reptiles that traveled in herds, but these remained at a distance and never bothered them. Henry suspected whatever preyed on such docile grazers would be different, though.

  "So who or what do you think saved us?" Andrew asked as they walked around a large pond where many saurians gathered to drink. "Do you really believe it could have been an angel?"

  "Well, it could have... but probably not." He was stumped as to an actual explanation, though. "Maybe it was some kind of intelligent monster which became attached to that family, and thus attacked the serpent for disturbing their home."

  "In that case, we better hope we don't encounter a hostile member of its ilk."

  Keeping an eye on the map, they eventually drew close to where they should find the ruin. The area was a grove of sorts natural or otherwise, with a denser concentration of struggling trees than the rest of the plains they'd crossed. Andrew gazed about. "It should be around here, right? What's it supposed to look like?"

  "The entrance looks like a ditch in the ground," a voice other than Henry's answered. "Sadly, you will not live to see it."

  Henry tensed as he turned towards the sound, already knowing who he would see. A thickly built man in his early forties stood beside a tree, his face framed by a helmet made up of light brown hair and sideburns. He wore sturdy plate armor, and a heavy glaive rested on his back. "Grendel," Henry snarled.

  The agent of the Last Church regarded them cooly. "What, are you still begrudging the church for taking away your cash cow?"

  He didn't feel he had been selfish. Even if he accepted the gratitude and some gifts from the people he helped, he had also saved the lives of men, women, and children. "And how was destroying the illness-curing ring beneficial? So more people died who could have been saved?"

  "The artifacts are evil things. You know that."

  "No, I don't. How do you know it? Did God tell you?"

  Grendel paused. "The church is the voice of God on earth."

  "No it isn't!" Andrew shouted. "Henry is right. Even if God did exist, I still wouldn't believe you."

  "And what's your story again, boy? Because your sister chose with faith you lacked and couldn't accept, you pathetically renounce God and vie against Him?"

  "She didn't... she didn't choose." He sounded on the verge of tears, not that Henry blamed him. "You people are wrong, thinking you have the right to control our minds—isn't it stated in your own holy book, that God gave us the power of choice?"

  "If one chooses to enlighten others, that is also a choice." Grendel frowned. "This might have been an interesting discussion at another time. But I'm not sure my colleague has the patience for it."

  From behind another tree emerged a much younger man, younger than Henry and maybe even Andrew. Clean shaven, he sported black bowl-cut hair and carried an imposing spear with elegant carvings running down its length. Confidence shimmered in his sky blue eyes. "And who is he?" Henry demanded, drawing his sword.

  "He is one of our most promising young warriors, a prodigy who my superiors thought would do well to practice his skills on you. Sorry. I didn't want to kill you before, but you should have backed off when I gave you the chance. Now it looks like your only future is death."

  The youth leveled his spear at Henry, shifted it to point at Andrew and then back at him. "My name is Clayton Weingood, and today I cement my place in the knighthood by punishing these heretics and cleansing evil from this realm!"

  "He's just a stupid kid," Andrew whispered.

  "Yeah, but he probably has the church's best training. Don't let your guard down."

  Clayton strode towards them while Grendel leaned back against his tree and watched. Henry and Andrew struck simultaneously, the former chopping at his collarbone, the latter jabbing at his face. In that first exchange alone, Henry felt the frightening smoothness and assurance of his motions. He intercepted the sword with his pole, leaned aside from Andrew's point while twisting Henry's weapon around so that his own partner had to jump back to avoid the redirected blade. He wrenched Henry off balance and kicked him in the back of a knee, dropping him to a crouch. When he turned, he found a shining spearhead streaking towards his eye, and was only saved when Andrew deflected it an instant before it plunged home. Clayton snapped the butt of his spear up in turn, catching Andrew in the bottom of the jaw. He stumbled back dazed and fell on his rump.

  "So he really is that talented," Grendel mused.

  Henry cut repeatedly at Clayton, hitting air each time. The youth sidestepped a thrust, hooked the shaft behind his leg and tripped him. Before he even hit the ground, Clayton's kick slammed into his back and launched him away. How is this kid so skilled? As he saw Andrew rise behind their foe, he got an idea. He rushed and threw himself at Clayton's legs. Even if he failed to take him down, the distraction could give Andrew a chance to land a telling hit. But instead of encountering the resistance of braced legs as expected and holding on, he failed to grab onto anything and continued his clumsy forward momentum for several feet before tripping into the grass. Behind him, a contemptuous chuckle. Clayton must have jumped—or flipped?—over him... He felt a sharp pain in his buttock and grabbed it to touch warm wetness. Instead of going for a fatal blow, the bastard was mocking him.

  He turned in pain, hopping embarrassingly, to witness Andrew get a cut drawn across his cheek with a flick of the spear at close range. Andrew shouted in anger and threw a punch, only for Clayton to slip it and flatten his nose with one of his own. He doubled over grabbing his face while blood poured between his fingers. Henry hobbled over and drove Clayton back with a desperate wide swing. When he tried it again, the youth blocked and spun along his blade to come face to face with him. He smirked, stunned him with a headbutt, then stuck the spear between his legs and used it to fling him through the air. Henry rolled over groggily to see Andrew interpose himself between them again, wielding his pole like a staff to strike rapidly with both ends. Clayton brushed everything off with ease, so confident he held his spear before him in a suboptimal vertical position with one hand. He shoved Andrew back and followed up with a high kick, snapping Andrew's shaft in two when he tried to defend.

  Henry limped to his friend's side and raised his shield to intercept Clayton's thrust. The spear punched right through the wood, nearly skewering his forearm, and Clayton used it as a lever to jerk Henry sideways into his friend. They both tripped and fell over each other, the shield ripped free from his arm. Just now, he realized how fast his heart was pounding, how hard he breathed and how tightly his undershirt stick to him with sweat. Currently Clayton toyed with them, but he had the fight completely under control and once he got bored, he would end them whenever he wanted.

  It seemed the time was now as his eyes narrowed. "Now you will understand that God's decree is absolute. Watch this, Grendel."

  "I told you yo
u should leave matters alone," the older church enforcer said sadly while his partner advanced.

  A new voice made itself heard, and Clayton slowed. It sounded female and young, yet heavy and a little raspy. "Grendel, huh? Nice name, but you are weak."

  Henry looked. A girl of average height stood some distance away, dressed in black leathers—and a cape made of black feathers. She appeared to be a little younger than Andrew, with a stocky build and scarred up face. In one hand she held a long, thick, slightly curved blade which many men would've struggled to wield with two arms, but she didn't even seem to register its weight.

  "What," Grendel snapped, "I'm not weak! I can lift five hundred pounds."

  The girl's expression remained calm as stone. "I'm not talking about your body. You're mental weak. If you don't want kill them help, otherwise both you come." Henry recognized the oddity of her speech, but didn't know what to make of it. "Besides, five hundred not sound much."

  For some reason, Grendel grinned. "Your simplicity is amusing. In the real world, no one is free to do just as they please. But okay, I'll come." He charged the girl.

  Just before he reached her, he went flying violently sideways like he'd been struck. Henry hadn't even see her move. "Should both come, I said." She walked deliberately towards Clayton. "Are you ready?"

  He glanced with huge eyes towards where Grendel lay motionless, slapped himself out of his stupor and barked, "I welcome the challenge!" He stabbed at her face. She dodged so fast she seemed to disappear before Henry realized she had gone behind him. Clayton spun—directly into her fist. The first punch lifted him onto his tiptoes, the second smashed him to the ground. When he looked up, it could be seen that his mouth had transformed into a ruin with lips torn apart and multiple teeth gone. He raised his spear before him in a gesture that looked more supplication than defense. "W-what are you? I surrender!"

  The girl smiled a bit. "Good. I can not kill you. Give me spear and you go." He extended the weapon to her, but as she reached for it he grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at her eyes. She closed them to avoid being blinded, and he sprang up to stab at her heart. She caught the shaft before the point could reach her, yet he smirked.

  "Got you!" he said, and electricity crackled along the spear above where he held it. It coursed into her, and her body went rigid.

  Her other hand closed on his bicep, and he jumped as the same current ran through her into him. She let go of both him and the pole, and he toppled convulsing onto the grass. His eyes bulged, and his tongue stuck out. She studied him impassively, as if the same shock that disabled him in an instant barely had any effect on her. "Cheap trick." She reached down, grabbed hold of his hair, and then in one motion sawed his head off. "No more cheap tricks."

  Even though she had saved their lives, Henry shuddered with fright at what this person had just done. Was she even a person? She seemed so inhuman... At last, he managed to sputter out words. "W-who are you?"

  She looked slowly towards him, the head dangling from her hand. Her face didn't look monstrous at all, though for a moment he had somehow imagined it might. "Call me Blackbird."

  Chapter 2

  Blackbird looked towards where Grendel had fallen to find him gone. "Other one run," she said, tossing Clayton's head aside. "I go kill."

  Although Henry was tempted to let her, and had no doubt she could find him, his good nature won out. "No, don't. He spared my life once, so let him live for now."

  "He let you go before, but today try kill you. Things different now."

  "Even so, I still owe him mercy once. You can kill him next time you see him."

  She licked her lips. "Fine. Maybe, your burial."

  "Maybe it will be," he said glumly.

  Andrew walked up, covering his mangled nose. When he spoke, his words sounded rather unclear. "You saved us before too, didn't you?"

  "Big snake hurt tower, annoy me. But then I see you. Second time, I help you."

  Henry still felt woozy, hardly able to believe what just happened was real. Clayton had been insanely skilled and this girl treated him with utter disdain, not to mention shrugged off a longer shock than the one that had destroyed him like nothing. Maybe she really was an angel, a fallen angel given the color of her wings... cape. Andrew seemed to be handling this better, why he didn't know. Was it because he was younger? Not that Henry was very old... He tried to approach this from a more rational perspective. She had saved them twice—well, once intentionally—and never shown hostility. So there was no reason for him to be so wary of her, right?

  "Why you stare, you like girls?" she asked, and he realized he had stared unblinking at her face for the last several seconds.

  He did like girls, but that wasn't the reason. "You're just... how the hell are you so strong?"

  "I fight, from this small." She stretched out her hand, indicating a height he estimated she would have had at seven or eight years old. Did she mean she had trained since that age? Or did she mean that, somehow, she had lived and survived out here for that long?

  "Where are you from?"

  "Here. I don't know anywhere else." He couldn't believe it. Growing up here alone since then would explain her poor speech and savagery. But how had she gotten so strong, had she turned into a monster to survive among monsters? He also wondered where that sword had come from, though she probably just found it on a dead traveler.

  "Is your name really Blackbird?" Andrew asked.

  She nodded. "I don't remember another."

  "That's your family inside the tower, isn't it?"

  All of a sudden she seemed to become agitated, looking away from them. "No."

  That surprised Henry quite a bit, but she didn't sound like she was lying. Maybe after losing her own family, they were one she had grown attached to and failed to protect. "If you were close to them, why didn't you bury them?"

  "I don't want to."

  Seeing the pain on her face, he decided to change the subject. "Why did you help us?"

  "You're human."

  It sort of made sense. Being alone so much, she probably valued seeing others of her own kind for as long as she could, which keeping them alive would help with. But then... Andrew asked his next question for him. "Why us then, and not those other two humans?"

  She glanced towards the carcass at her feet and shrugged. "I don't know. You weak, I guess."

  Henry and Andrew exchanged looks. She didn't say it condescendingly, only as a matter of fact. He supposed with her history, despite her current strength she naturally would identify with the weaker party. When she'd been a little girl, before developing the abilities she had... he couldn't imagine what it was like fighting tooth and nail to survive like that. That she'd lived to see today might yet be more impressive than her apparent superhuman powers.

  "Thank you for saving us." He extended a hand to shake hers, and marveled at how hard—like rocks under skin—it felt. "By the way, there's supposed to be an underground ruin around here. Do you know which way it is?"

  Her features tensed. "A hole? Those are bad places. Don't go down there."

  Even she erred on the side of caution in this? Henry briefly entertained the thought there might something to the church's madness, that maybe there was something wrong with the objects of power left from the past. Yet he himself had possessed the curing ring for nine months, and nothing bad happened to him or anyone he helped. More likely Blackbird had met some monster in the depths that threatened or unnerved even her, perhaps when she'd been younger, and that was why she avoided them. But he and Andrew couldn't do that.

  "Thanks for the warning, but we need to go. There might be something that can help people, and bad men want to destroy it instead. Do you know where it is?"

  She pointed southeast. "There." She shook her head. "But you shouldn't go. You won't come out, you too weak. I go and get what you want."

  "You'll do that for us, even though you're scared?"

  "I can get scared. But scared don't stop me. Nothing does."


  He smiled at that. "I think I understand you a bit better now. When you feel fear, you just push back against it and get stronger and stronger, don't you?" Not that it explained her abnormal physical prowess, but at least it accounted in part for how she could survive all alone in such dangerous wilds. She looked confused by his words, which was to be expected. "You shouldn't go by yourself, though. We can go together, that way we'll all protect each other."

  "That's good. I agree with it."

  "By the way Andrew, you take that spear since yours is broken."

  He looked a tad squeamishly at its owner's headless body. "But I don't know how to use it."

  "You mean the shock? We'll try figuring that out later, for now you can just use it like a normal spear." That had been what Clayton mostly did, anyway. Henry cupped his chin. "But I do wonder about its origins... is it one of the holy arms granted by God, or did the power not come from the spear at all, but from the youth himself?" But that seemed unlikely considering how he reacted to it being turned back on him. "We should probably wrap the shaft too, in case somebody might recognize those carvings."

  The men did what they could for their new wounds, then Blackbird led them to a tunnel obscured by grass which led down into the earth. Henry guessed she had known about it before any visiting outsiders stumbled upon it, and just chosen not to do anything. When they went in, she took the rear position. "You lead. If need, I go forward."

  "She is scared," Andrew said, half bemusedly, half with real anxiousness.

  Henry patted his back. "At least we know it won't be crippling, probably. And don't say that. She can probably hear you."

  She cracked her knuckles, and both men grasped their weapons a little tighter.

  Beyond the entrance of the tunnel, their surroundings rapidly changed. Instead of being surrounded by uneven packed dirt that felt like it could collapse at any moment, they were soon boxed in by rough but straight walls that gave the impression of immovability. Less unpredictable seeming, to be sure, but it didn't feel any less intimidating. Traps were usually made of solid materials, after all.