The Miocene Arrow

by Sean McMullen

  She checked her compression spirit levels, but the float tubes showed adequate fuel for another hour and a half of flight. From the slant of the column of smoke she estimated the wind to be no more than 10 mph. Bronlar was safe, but then her gunwing was intact and she had not spent double her allotted time over the target as Serjon had. A river passed below, then another, then a chimney-shaped outcrop of rock. On her map Bronlar noted that Serjon was heading slightly north of the line to Forian. He was headed straight for the closest stretch of Callscour frontier: he knew that he was desperately short of compression spirit. They passed what was called Hogback Mountain on her copy of the ancient map, and Bronlar wondered what a hog might have looked like. Something very different from the tiny pigs of contemporary Mounthaven, she was sure of that. She glanced at her issue map again. Twenty-five miles, only a quarter of an hour from safety. If he lasted just minutes more, Serjon could practically glide to the Callscour frontier’s edge.

  Bronlar looked up to see that Serjon’s propellor was feathered, and the gunwing had lost a lot of height.

  The Horse River lay ahead. Bronlar estimated 400 feet as they passed over a subtle change in the color of the trees that marked an ancient road; then there was a uniform carpet of scrubby treetops. The Horse River came into view, along with the overgrown remains of a small cluster of buildings.

  Serjon was losing height more quickly now, he was less than a hundred feet from the treetops. Twenty-three miles, so near yet so far, Bronlar thought in dismay. The stricken gunwing began to weave to avoid the highest branches. The standing Call of the area should have seduced away his control already, but … No Call! Bronlar realized with a start that they were over a pause in the Call. It was one of the rare breaks that rippled over the Callscour lands every three days or so. They never lasted more than about forty minutes, but here there was one and so here was a chance for Serjon.

  Serjon’s aircraft banked, straightened, then lined up a sandbank beside a river. Bronlar noted that he was winding his wheels down. A belly landing on the water near the sandbank would be safer—but of course! If the sand was sufficiently firm for him to touch down and roll to a stop then Bronlar could land, take him aboard, and ascend again. He was testing the surface, he knew she would follow him down for a rescue. Love and pride welled up in her chest. The gunwing’s wheels touched, gouged; then the undercarriage collapsed and Princess cartwheeled into the shallows and came to rest amid an arc of spray. Serjon struggled out of the wreck and onto the sandbar as Bronlar circled. Still no Call, thought Bronlar as Serjon waved, gesturing her to fly east and leave him.

  “Only one thing to do,” Bronlar said aloud, winding down her wheels.

  As Bronlar straightened and eased the throttle back Serjon’s waving became frantic. Back and forth, his arms crossed above his head: Don’t land, danger. Ah well, even being alive is dangerous, she thought as she descended. The grooves in the sand from Serjon’s wheels were deep, it was loose and coarse. There was no hope. Bronlar’s grip tightened on the throttle … then she pulled it back. The compression engine slowed to an idle, the gunwing’s wheels bumped sand, dug in, bent, snapped, and collapsed.

  Bronlar’s gunwing continued straight on its belly until it came to rest. Serjon came running up and pulled up the canopy as she released it.

  “Are you all right?” he panted as he helped her out.

  “That ruined my average,” she said, patting the side of the gunwing.

  Dried blood from a gash above his hairline smeared his face. Bronlar remembered a long flight of her own with a similar wound. She climbed out of Slash.

  “Didn’t you see me waving you off?” demanded Serjon, allowing himself to be angry now that he knew she was all right. “The sand is coarse, loose—hopeless for wheels.”

  “I knew that, I saw the grooves left by your own wheels.”

  “You what? Don’t you know where we are? These are still the Callscour lands, this break in the Call has barely a half hour left! This is the thirteenth day of the month!”

  “I knew that too, Serjon. In a few minutes the Call will beckon us east for three days or more, even if we are tethered to my gunwing. In the meantime the dirkfangs will eat us alive, but we shall feel nothing until we awake in the afterlife.”

  He took her by the shoulders and tried to shake the dreaminess out of her voice.

  “Bronlar! Are you mad? You mean to say that you landed even though you knew this would happen?”

  “I was totally certain that this would happen, Serjon Feydamor,” she replied, looking into his bloodshot, wind-reddened eyes.

  At a loss for words, Serjon sank to the sand. Bronlar knelt beside him and put an arm over his shoulders. Serjon clutched at his hair, his mouth open. Slowly he began to relax, as if he had surrendered to something akin to the Call.

  “The dirkfangs may not notice us out here on the sandbank,” suggested Bronlar.

  “And a floatwing may happen past when there is next a break in the Call,” countered Serjon, hopeless and wretched.

  Two small birds flew overhead, screeching and striking at each other.

  “Some fool is always starting a war in the air,” observed Serjon.

  “Who do you think will win?”

  Serjon shrugged. “The bird with the black streak along its belly.”

  “I mean the war. Us or the featherheads?”

  “Oh, we’ll win. The featherheads are just parasites. If we could beat Bartolica we can beat anyone. Yarron was transformed into a disease that sapped Bartolica’s strength. There will be more fighting now, because all the other dominions will become like Yarron.”

  “Such a stupid reward for all our suffering, sacrifice, and bravery,” sighed Bronlar.

  She looked down at the watch on her wrist.

  “We must have caught the leading edge of this break. It’s over fourteen minutes since you crash-landed.”

  “My maps showed that we are twenty-three miles from the nearest point on the Yarronese Callscour frontier. We’re just five miles from the Hawk Springs ruin, and beyond it is an ancient road going due west to the frontier. It’s no more than a day’s walk.”

  “It’s unfair, I know.”

  They sat in silence as a scatter of sailwings and gunwings droned past in the distance. They even saw the two super-regals flying west. Bronlar stroked Serjon’s hair smooth.

  “You should have stayed up,” Serjon said, his voice bleak and distant.

  “I did not want you to die alone, Serjon. You were my friend, and I want my friend back.”

  “Bronlar? You can’t mean that.”

  “But I do. I prepared the most cruel dilemma possible for you. It was for revenge, nothing more, and it made me lose you just when you drifted into reach. Now that you are falling toward death alone, the least I can do is be company for your fall.”

  “But damnall, you could have done that by circling overhead! I’ve faced death alone before.”

  “But not certain death. You gave up your honor, rank, and property when you lied to clear my name. Now here is my life, to atone for hating you. I’m here to die with you, Warden Serjon Feydamor, and it’s really too late for you to do anything about it.”

  Serjon’s head jerked around, his face contorted with an expression of pure horror.

  “My—my words in Condelor,” he whispered. “Die for me, give your life for me … some drivel like that.”

  “‘Little sister, if you died for me yet remained living,’” Bronlar quoted precisely.

  Serjon buried his face in his hands. “I’ve killed you,” he moaned between his palms.

  “But does thirteen—”

  “To hell with thirteen! Thirteen ruled my life and thirteen forced me to kill you. Thirteen be damned! Thirteen be humped!”

  Minutes passed, and still there was no Call. They sat side by side in the wet sand. A light breeze sighed through the trees, and some distance away on the riverbank a wild emu minced into view and paused to regard the first humans o
f its experience. Bronlar stroked the back of Serjon’s neck, then took his wrist and felt his pulse.

  “Clammy skin, lost blood, high pulse, rapid breathing—you may be in shock. Do you feel nauseous?”

  “We’re about to die, what does it matter? I hated you flying into danger beside me, I hated the idea of you dying .”

  “We shared danger. What other lovers can say that?”

  “Gah, we’re friends, not lovers. Lovers pull off their drawers and play nozzle-in-the-fuel-tank. Friends are people who are not good enough to be lovers.”

  “Serjon, how can you say that?” cried Bronlar. “People are dead because they pissed on our friendship. Since 9:35 P.M. on 19th August 3961 I have been your … your lover designate. All that stood between us was your thirteen, my faithfulness to you, and one very pretty Airlord.”

  Serjon dabbed one of his cuts open, and with the blood on his fingers wrote 13 on his trouser leg.

  “Well, do something to me!” he barked at the number.

  He spat on it when no thunderbolt struck him down. He skipped thirteen stones over the calm surface of the river.

  “It’s good to die free of thirteen,” he declared.

  “So … how do you feel about consummating a long and badly managed courtship?” Bronlar asked.

  He put an arm around her shoulders. “I got this far at Casper last October. I know others have been a lot farther since then, but I’d love it if you didn’t push my arm away this time.”

  Bronlar squeezed him with all her strength, and fire stabbed his chest where a rib had been cracked in the crash-landing. He did not cry out.

  “Serjon, I … I … I want to say something pretty and poetic, but I am no poet: do—ah, do you want to move beside my gunwing, in the shade, ah, before we undress and … ?”

  He shook his head. “Bronlar, any moment now the Call will take us. We have each other, so let’s sit together and die with dignity—not with our drawers at our ankles. Force the dirkfangs to unwrap us.”

  “You are a gentleman, Sair Thirteenth Time,” she said, kissing his ear.

  After a moment she reached down into her flight breeches and drew out a tiny jade comb which she offered to Serjon. He took it from her and savored the musky scent about it, then kissed it and put it in his coat pocket.

  “I don’t give buttons,” said Serjon firmly.

  “Good. It’s a filthy, primitive tradition.”

  Still no Call came as they sat with their heads together. A dirkfang began to yowl a challenge close by, and Serjon fired two shots into the air from his pistol. The dirkfang crashed away through the bushes. Serjon pulled Bronlar against him and delicately kissed her lips. The kiss lingered and lingered, as if tempting the Call to tear them apart.

  “They say love is like a wineglass, Serjon. Once shattered it can never be made whole, yet here we are with the broken glass perfect.”

  “Let’s not drop it again—Is that an engine?”

  “Yes, but what does it matter?”

  “It matters, it matters!” he shouted, standing up and waving his arms. “That’s Rowley, the engine of Finwings the Third, a floatwing! I flew it at Wind River. It’s used as an observer, but it can land on water!”

  Serjon fired a smoke flare. The floatwing passed overhead at three hundred feet, then descended when the flyer saw the two figures waving beside the wrecked gunwings. He selected a clear stretch of river and made a smooth landing.

  “Just as well we stayed dressed,” Bronlar said as they waded out into the shallows.

  The floatwing turned back and started for the sandbank.

  “Ascend as soon as we’re aboard!” Serjon shouted as he and Bronlar splashed toward the floatwing. “There’s been no Call for nearly forty minutes. The next one must be right on us.”

  “Take your ease, young sair,” the flyer called back. “There’s been no Call in the Callscour lands for more than five hours. Something’s changed. The whole world’s. changed! The Call has ceased completely.”

  Carabas had started to descend when he heard the desperate transmission from his wingfield.

  CALL HAS CEASED. REPEAT. CALL HAS CEASED.

  At once Carabas knew that something was seriously wrong. There had been a break passing over the wingfield when he had ascended, and that had been over an hour ago. He tapped out his orders.

  INITIATE CONTINGENCY PLAN MEXHAVEN. REPEAT. INITIATE CONTINGENCY PLAN MEXHAVEN.

  The attack flock would be back in a few hours, and this time the super-regals would be crammed with carbineers. Still, a few hours were enough.

  UNDER FIRE. GUILDSMEN’S COMPOUND BREACHED IN ATTACK. GUILDMASTERS LOOSE AND HAVE TAKEN GUARDS’ ARMORY. AT LEAST A DOZEN FLYERS SURVIVED CRASHES AND HAVE JOINED GUILDMASTERS.

  Carabas considered the scene below him. One flightstrip was free of craters, but wreckage needed to be cleared away before it could be used.

  INITIATE PLAN MEXHAVEN. ACKNOWLEDGE, he tapped, then waited.

  Far below he could see a new plume of smoke over the transmitter building. There was no reply. Carabas never took long to reach a decision. He plugged a new coil into his induction transmitter and tapped out a message to the nearest sunwing. His heart sank. It reported being not far from Condelor, some seven hundred miles away. Carabas ordered it to turn due east at once, then turned the Sandhawk west, abandoning his work of the past five years to the unexpectedly tenacious humans.

  Serjon and Bronlar were debriefed as soon as they landed at Forian. The aviad bases had been wiped out, but around the same time the Call had vanished from the Callscour lands. Surviving flyers were being picked up or dropped food, water, and extra flares all the way to Sioux City, and the super-regals had already been sent back carrying two dozen battle-hardened carbineers each to secure the main aviad wingfield. Some flyers had seen dozens of figures waving to them at Sioux City’s ruins, and names painted on the flightstrips. They were the missing guildmasters, and Bronlar’s father was among them. Bronlar and Serjon did not get out until after dusk, by which time Serjon was dizzy with fatigue and the blood that he had lost.

  “I have rooms in a hostelry that was restored for the use of Bartolican wardens during the occupation,” Bronlar said as they walked from the adjunct’s tent. Serjon was unsteady on his feet and leaning on her.

  “I’m open to suggestions,” replied Serjon; then he suddenly straightened and fumbled to adjust his flight jacket’s collar.

  Sartov appeared out of the darkness, at the head of at least ten Airlords and escorted by a large squad of carbineers. He noticed the pair at once, for all Serjon’s effort to remain utterly still and blend with the shadows. Sartov stopped. Everyone else stopped. The Airlord of Yarron reached into his pocket and drew out something on a loop of silk.

  “Warden Feydamor, this is your daystar medal,” Sartov declared, holding out the medal on its loop of silk ribbon. “To use an Old Anglian word, take this fucking medal or I shall blast your head off and award it to you posthumously.”

  “Ah, that would require changing the enamel background to red,” the Cosdoran Airlord pointed out.

  “Quite so,” said Sartov. “Take it for my sake, Serjon. Don’t make a fool of me in front of the Council of Alliance Airlords.”

  “Again,” added the Cosdoran.

  Serjon saluted, said, “Yes, Lordship,” then bowed his head. Sartov lowered the silk loop over Serjon’s cap and hung Yarron’s highest decoration on his neck.

  “Samondel said to tell you ‘Two gunwings confirmed,’” Sartov whispered in his ear before Serjon stepped back.

  The airlords walked on. Serjon sat down in the grass, waiting for his head to stop spinning while Bronlar removed the ribbon and pinned the daystar to the throat of his collar. Presently they began walking again.

  “I’ve never held hands before,” Bronlar confessed as they left the wingfield. “It makes me feel like I’m walking on clouds.”

  “What?” laughed Serjon. “In spite of doing the ultimate with two—”r />
  “That’s nothing, that’s done out of sight. You have to be proud of someone to walk down a street holding hands with him.”

  “I … I do believe it’s my first time too,” Serjon said after thinking carefully, surprised that it was true.

  A huge celebration had erupted throughout Forian. Gunshots, flares, and bells were going off all through the siege-ravaged city, and bonfires with effigies of Stanbury and stylized Callwalkers atop were ablaze. In the newly renamed Virtrian Square were thousands of revelers, all singing, dancing, and drinking around a great central bonfire. Many more had spilled out into the side streets, and it was a party of these who encountered Serjon and Bronlar. A big, burly carbineer caught sight of them and pointed.

  “Eh, here’s two Air Carbineers wi’out a drink!” he bellowed, and immediately the group of drunken, cheering men and women began to converge.

  “Yer a sweet young pair,” said a gap-toothed backwoods trapper turned carbineer who was barely able to stand for the drink. “Daystars,” muttered someone else in awe.

  “You got flight jackets, were you in today’s attack?” a girl wearing a carbineer’s hat asked.

  “Aye, we plucked some feathers,” called Serjon.

  “And is the Call really stopped?” cried a guildsman as he held out a beer bottle to them.

  Serjon nodded, but declined the bottle. Although Bronlar was tense, she did not fly into a rage. Her mania was under control now, even if the presence of guildsmen set her on edge and brought a dangerous gleam to her eyes.

  Just then the big carbineer realized that Bronlar was a warden as well as a girl—and there was only one female Yarronese warden in existence.