Raw’s flight didn’t alter in the slightest.
Wren dipped her right wing and circled, hoping he would see her. He gave no sign. She would have to dive to draw level with him.
Taking a deep breath, Wren brought her father’s instructions to mind. ‘To drop, you must lift your legs from the hip. Lift them higher to descend more sharply.’
Wren recalled watching her brothers lying face down on the floor, lifting their legs stiffly from the ground. With a deep breath, she tensed her thighs and lifted. The air rushed beneath her and she started to tip.
Straight away Wren’s heart thumped and she levelled out as fast as she could, but the wind still embraced her and when her chest stopped aching she saw that she had dropped closer to the guttering wing-set below.
“All right.” With another breath Wren lifted her legs again and the wind tipped her like a favoured child. As soon as she could see Raw’s wings glowing silver at the tip of her fingers, she pulled up. “Raw!”
He still couldn’t hear her. Even over the flutter of wind in wings, Wren caught the frenetic pants that heaved from his mask. She tried to catch his eye but without goggles, his eyes were watering madly. He couldn’t see her.
As she considered circling round and trying again, Raw yawed more violently and overcorrected.
Their screams harmonised as the inevitable happened: his wings unlocked, lost their shape and were abandoned by the wind.
Raw’s cry mingled with hers’ as he dropped towards the formless clouds.
Instinctively Wren threw herself into a dive to match his crazy tumble.
Raw’s arms and legs flailed as he tried to catch the insubstantial air and he hit the cloud cover like it was water.
Wren followed a moment later. She braced, but although she went face first into the mist, there was no impact, just water that clung to her goggles and blinded her.
“Raw!” She could no longer hear or see him but Wren had to hope they would break through the clouds together and that she would have enough time to save his life - and the wings - on the other side.
She counted as she dived. Her cheeks and fingers went numb and drops of water poured into her hair like tears.
“One, two, three, four …” Wren had reached ten when the light on her goggles grew abruptly brighter and warmth tickled her back and fingers. She was through.
Putting her face into the wind, she forced the air to whip the spray from her goggles. In moments she could see.
The red desert was still far below, spotted with flashes of silver as sand moved lazily over the bone-yard. But where was Raw?
Frantically she turned her head one way, then another. There was no sign of plummeting silver.
A deadening blow smashed her right arm downwards and she spun in the air. Wren fought to keep her arms locked as the wind tried to close her wings against her body.
She had overtaken Raw inside the clouds.
Three times she turned; so fast the ground and sky blurred together. Then a gust of warm air slid beneath her and she yawed level.
Her right arm ached as if it had been struck with a hammer, but she had to hold it steady. With a shake of her head Wren took a single deep breath; then she pitched downwards once more. At least Raw now knew she was there.
As she dived she saw that he was finally trying to straighten out. But each time he attempted to thrust out his limbs, the wind shoved his arms and legs back in. Still plunging, he tried to spread his arms. The wings fluttered above them, useless and lank. Suddenly though, they netted the wind and billowed.
Wren gasped and her heart leapt.
But Raw’s wings hadn’t locked. For a short moment the spreading material arrested his fall, but then his arms were pulled behind him with a crack that even Wren could hear.
The wind carried his cry and trapped it under her hood. It pealed in Wren’s ears until she quivered at the sound. She hissed, moved her arms to a slight backward cant and pushed herself to dive faster.
Raw was rolling again, wings tucked round him like the shell of a louse. Wren’s eyes flicked to the ground, then away. She could already make out individual boulders at the base of the Mons. Among them she could make out clusters of bones, showing where unlucky Runners had made their last landings. Jumbles of curving ribs and grinning skulls showed where the majority had met their end. In the distance she spotted skeletons that appeared whole, spread-eagled for the sky. But soon she saw that even these were missing limbs; taken by the Creatures.
Her stomach lurched, there was very little time before both Raw and the precious wings were smashed to pieces.
Finally she reached him.
“Raw,” she screamed.
His eyes rolled, terrified and staring. He’d never understand instructions; there was only one thing to do. Wren’s heart beat a terrified rhythm: please don’t, please don’t, please don’t …
She had never watched her brothers practise this move, she’d been too scared, but she knew the theory and now, if she wanted to save the wings Raw had stolen, she had no choice.
Before she could change her mind, Wren flicked her wrist just so, unlocked her wings and pulled her arms into her body.
Now she was falling too.
Wren pulled her legs in to imitate Raw and her dive immediately became a chaotic tumble. Panic clawed into her throat and her heart pounded faster: don’t die, don’t die, don’t die …
The ground rushed towards her, but she only saw it in pieces; patch-worked into a dizzying jumble with the sky, the cliff and the fool plummeting with her.
Somehow on a roll, she caught his eye. He had to understand what she was doing and watch her do it.
Wren inhaled, glad that her mask kept pumping O2, because the air, even if it had been breathable, now whipped past her too thin and fast to do any good. The ground rose like dough, a blur of bronze that started at the corner of her eye and then filled her whole vision.
Furiously Wren thrust her legs out behind her and forced herself back into a dive. Every instinct fought against the streamlining of her shape; demanded that she make herself less aerodynamic; called for a few extra precious seconds of life.
Over-riding her terror, Wren drove her arms back so her hands touched her thighs. She shot past Raw and saw him roll as he tried to follow her descent.
Finally she thrust her arms out from her sides, making a T. The wind battled her, trying to pin her limbs back to her body, but she was fighting for her life. Her shoulders threatened to give way. Suddenly she passed the halfway point and the wind allowed her to flick her wrists and lock her wings into place.
She was still heading at insane speed towards the rocks below - oh and a small patch of greenery, it seemed the ferns had spread to the delta. But she had her wings once more. Hysterical laughter hissed out of her as she began to bend her torso upwards.
Just as with her arms, it was a matter of reaching that point where the wind stopped fighting her and got beneath her straining body. But Wren wasn’t strong. She grunted with effort, unable to tear her eyes from the ferns. In moments she’d drive through them so hard no-one would even know a Runner had crashed there.
Would she feel her bones breaking, or would it be over too fast?
Abruptly the wind pushed her upwards. With a crazy whoop Wren straightened out, blood pounding in her ears so loudly she could hear nothing else. Then she wheeled back to Raw. “Now you!”
There was no sign that Raw had taken her display on board.
"Do it,” she cried.
He won’t, he won’t, he won’t. Her pulse goaded her until finally Raw thrust his legs behind him.
Raw was stronger than Wren and it seemed easier for him to create a disciplined dive. She wheeled over his head, heart banging in her throat, as he accelerated towards the ferns.
His right arm was slower to move than his left, but it looked straight enough. Maybe the wind hadn’t broken it after all.
Still it t
ook Raw a couple of tries to lock his wings into place and Wren held her breath until he had his wings extended, seconds away from control. Too many seconds away.
“Pull up,” Wren murmured. Her eyes were glued to his body as he struggled to bend his torso as she had done.
When she knew it was too late, she closed her eyes.
Chapter five
There was no sound.
Surely Wren should have heard the rustle of ferns being crushed, the snap of wing and bone as Raw drove into the desert?
She risked cracking open her eyes and peeped towards the ground. There was no sign of a crash landing; no broken body or twisted wings poking from clusters of greenery. Holding her breath, Wren turned her head. Was it possible that Raw had flown?
She was too low; all she could see were long scarlet rock formations. Smoothed by millennia of abrasive storms and with no water to add grooves, each was so organic that Web could imagine the breath that would make them rise and fall. Looking away from the bubbles of rock she wheeled into a warm gust but, even circling slowly, she could see no sign of Raw.
Then, as she searched upwards, a spot appeared in the centre of the lowering sun. It darkened and grew until she could see Raw, finally flying upwards, whirling just as she was, in the centre of a thermal.
For a single inhale Wren allowed herself to feel a wave of relief that almost washed away the strength in her limbs. Raw had lived, but more importantly, the wings had survived his crazy impulse. If she could just get him to land, no-one need ever know what had nearly happened.
“Raw!” She flew up behind him as fast as she could force the wind to lift her. Automatically he turned his head and yawed alarmingly. Immediately he turned back. He was holding his body stiff as thin ice, ready to shatter at the slightest pressure. He had to relax. “You’re all right,” Wren called. “You won’t fall.”
Either he didn’t answer, or the wind snatched his reply away.
Wren circled until she flew on his right flank and then looked at him. His eyes were watering badly. His jacket was dark with crescent shaped stains and there was blood smeared on his chin.
“Can you hear me?” she called.
Raw nodded tightly.
“I’m going to help you land.” Wren tried to catch his eye. He’d crunch on the runway if he didn’t loosen up.
She could hardly hear his croaked response. “Are you going back?”
Wren snorted. “No, but I’ll guide you in – tell you what to do.”
Raw stared ahead and the muscles on his jaw stuck out like struts. Then he shook his head. “Then I’m not landing.”
It took a moment for Wren to absorb his reply. She almost choked. “What do you mean?”
“If you’re not landing,” he yelled, “I’m not. I’m coming with you.”
Tears of frustration pricked Wren’s eyes, threatening to mist up her goggles. “Why do you want to follow me - to get me in trouble? I won’t help you if you come after me. Go back.”
Raw risked a slight twitch of his head and wobbled as his body jolted into the wind.
“You have to,” Wren raged. “You don’t know how to fly.”
Raw said nothing; he simply set his face into the wind.
Furious, Wren narrowed her eyes and pointed her toes. She’d gained enough height, so she could leave the thermal. She should leave Raw right here, circling endlessly upwards into the cooling air until she returned. Or until exhaustion overtook him and he fell.
“Burn you.” She glared viciously through her goggles, wishing she could force Raw to obey her. “I’m not going back to Avalon. I have to find a cure.”
He continued to ignore her, but Wren noticed that the longer they circled the less terrified he looked.
If he followed her, she would have no choice but to help him. The wings were precious, one day they would belong to her son. She couldn’t risk their loss. “If you’re coming, you’ll have to keep up,” Wren growled. “I’m not waiting for you.” Then she dipped left and the thermal released her into the cooler air.
For a while Wren burned with a fury so hot and deep that she could hardly see anything through her goggles. She paid no attention to the landscape below, simply headed in the direction of the Mons, kilometres lower than Elysium, but still visible against the horizon, which she knew would steer her to Vaikuntha.
Her mind raced with the problem of her hanger-on. When he crashed, the Runners in Vaikuntha would instantly see that he was not one of them. Even if he watched her and managed to pull off a landing, he knew nothing of etiquette and then, if he still escaped notice, he would give Wren herself away. Why else was he following, if not to ruin her mission? She clenched her fists. “Just because his mother almost died …” she muttered.
Her wings rustled louder as she shuddered. But as the afternoon wore on, and her arms began to ache, rage burned itself out and Wren was filled instead with quiet awe.
Below her, the Martian delta stretched out, seemingly endlessly. A vast orange desert pocketed with patches of green, seeded from Elysium. Rock formations like giant sculptures dotted the emptiness, smooth as sanded wood, shadows growing black as the sun sought its nadir.
Then she saw an arrow moving in the sand, following her own shadow as it wove over rocks and dipped in and out of crevices. It persisted with her, keeping pace as she sped through the sky.
Wren shivered as one trail became two, then three. She saw nothing of the Creatures themselves. As far as she knew, no-one ever had. Generations ago early colonists had tried to modify the Creature’s antecedents, which had been woken from dormancy by humanities’ terra-forming efforts; they thought they could use the burrowers to loosen soil and release more greenhouse gases. But they had grown at an alarming rate even as rivers began slowly to form in empty beds and the dampening sand filled with Martian bugs. As far as the Originals had been concerned the Creature was relative to the sand snake; some kind of serpent. But who really knew what they had turned into since man’s modifications?
The Creature’s persistence as they waited for Wren to make a mistake reminded her to check on Raw. He too was on her tail, waiting for her to fail, a scavenger no less than the Creatures below. She glanced back. Her enemy remained in sight, silver wings glinting in the reddening sunlight, but she was drawing further ahead of him. Soon he would be nothing but a mote. Wren sighed and tilted into the setting sun, looping in lazy circles as she waited.
The joy of feeling the wind against her cheeks sent from her mind the Creatures, Raw and their hunger for her demise. At some point her hood had blown back and her shorn hair streamed into the currents. The sheer speed of flight amazed her. In mere hours, she had travelled so far that Elysium’s massive peak was barely more than a bump in the landscape. She imagined that if she had no O2 mask, the wind would have long ago whisked the air from her lungs, but instead she had tamed it and forced it to carry her in its currents.
When Raw began to catch up, Wren swung towards Vaikuntha. He could stay at her back; she did not want him at her side.
As she flew, Wren started to think of the wind as a solid, living thing and gradually became adept at choosing the gusts that were strongest and longest lasting.
As she did so, she began to see that the shape of the ground affected the character of the embracing wind. Where the desert was smooth and flat the wind rushed in a straighter path; where the ground gullied and rolled, it swirled and bounded in flurries that took her up and around more often than forward. So Wren started looking at the ground ahead to anticipate where the wind would be kindest. It meant that she veered from a straight path more than once, but she flew even faster.
Behind her Raw grew tiny and, with a strange lurch in her belly, she found herself wishing she could share her discovery with someone, even if it had to be him.
Despite her resolution to leave Raw to himself it was as if Wren’s head was on a string and although her loathing of her partner burned as brightly as ever, s
he was drawn to keep checking on him.
The wind’s whisper in her ears was comforting, but somehow desolate. The silence which filled the air above the wind pressed in on her like a weight.
Wren was coming to know the Runner’s truth. Flying was freedom, but freedom was lonely. And so each time Wren saw Raw dip into the wind, she had to fight the upturning of her lips. She did not know what would happen once they landed, but at least she wasn’t alone any more.
Hours of flying meant that Wren’s wrists felt burdened as if by ballast and the sharp arrow of her flight was beginning to sag. To the East the bright star that was Deimos began to burn, brightening the heavens. She looked to the West as Phobos faded into view, pallid against the bronze sky. For a while the battered asteroid hung in balance with the setting sun and Wren poised between them on a thread of air.
Finally the desert quenched the sun. The sky smouldered and gold-edged wisps of clouds changed to grey as twilight descended in a cloak decorated with mirrors and stars. Now both moons were in the sky together, the orbital array between them, reflecting the last of the sun's heat back to the surface. Moisture from her breath started to freeze in Wren’s mask and cold ate through her clothes as the air cooled. She flexed her stiffening fingers and exhaled shakily. They had to be close to Vaikuntha now, simply because night-Running was not an option; particularly for a beginner. Already she could feel the thermals wilting; flaccid and unable to bear her weight.
Although Wren pitched her torso desperately into the wind, trying to turn upwards, her flight tilted into a gradient and she began to descend.
The V-shaped wake of the Creatures seemed to surge closer. Was it possible they knew she was in trouble?
“Wren!” It was Raw. He was only a few wingspans above her and his voice was filled with fear. Wren looked up; his wings glowed red and purple as they reflected the dying sun. “I’m sinking. What do we do?”
She offered no answer; she would just have to search the deepening darkness for a rock on which to land. It was their only chance. If their feet hit the sand, the Creatures would have them. Raising her head, Wren searched desperately for telltale shadows.
Windrunner's Daughter Page 6
