Windrunner's Daughter

by Bryony Pearce

  “Wait.” Wren took Jay’s hand and led him to Raw’s side. “Not without us.”

  They stepped through the airlock and over Genna’s crumpled body. They stood inside, nothing to say, only the sound of their breathing tainted the silence.

  Then the door opened onto the desert and the wind whipped inside, welcoming them back.

  They walked forward, staggering under Colm’s weight. The wind tore at his hair, as if wondering why he didn’t rise and fly.

  Then Raw and Erb lifted Colm up and swung him over the edge of the platform. The Creatures were accelerating towards her falling brother before he even hit the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Wren couldn’t watch. She turned away, letting the wind whip her hair into her face, and the next time she risked a glance at the sand, he was gone.

  Raw’s face was drum-tight while Jay’s sagged as if his skull had turned to mush beneath his skin.

  Erb nodded, turned and strode back into the airlock. He sighed deeply and started to drag Genna’s body out.

  “Should we …?” Jay murmured.

  “Let him do it.” Wren shook her head and coughed. “We’re going home.”

  She didn’t bother stretching, or even taking a starting position. She pulled her goggles on and then jogged over the net, she could barely bring herself to run. Weighty with grief, she did not leap, but rather fell from the end of the platform and allowed the wind to drag her wings out as it caught her.

  Her wings locked and she was pulled from the platform. She circled to see Jay leaping and Raw following him, both hurling themselves into the wind as if they could hurt it.

  The two sets of wings rose to meet her and Wren’s stomach churned; neither were wearing goggles. She had to be their eyes and Colm had known it. Somehow she had to get them safely home.

  She looked outwards, seeking Elysium Mons. She could see nothing clearly. Then she remembered Colm’s final advice: ‘Bear right from the Runway’.

  She wheeled right.

  There it was; a bump on the horizon. The dust from the impending mega-storm swirled, like a heat haze, but the bump rose higher still. It had to be the Mons.

  “Look at the Runners,” Jay shouted and Wren redirected her gaze. The Runners who had preceded them had scattered like dandelion seeds, each blown towards his own settlement. But as they dipped and whorled in the air currents, flashes of nimbus-like light glowed from their wings and created patterns of light as though they were still connected.

  Wren released her breath and tears filled her eyes. “Follow me,” she called. “We’re going home.”

  Aiming for height, Wren tried to watch both Raw and Jay at the same time. Her eyes watered with the effort and her chest went into spasm as she fought the agonising tingle of an impending coughing fit.

  If only she could have a drink of water.

  Water was suddenly all she could think about. Despite all that had happened, all she could think about was the cup of water she could not have. She licked her cracked lips and moaned. Her wings matched the sound as the wind carried her ever further and the sun slid across the sky.

  Wren’s jacket clung to her, sticky with sweat. Suddenly a cloud hid the sun and her heart rose in anticipation of a reprieve from the heat of the post-Perihelion sun. However, she felt no cooler. If anything, it was as though she had been plunged into a over-hot bath. Sweat dripped down the inside of her goggles.

  “Are you all right?”

  With a start Wren realised that Raw had flown to her side. “What?”

  “You’re wobbling. I’ve never seen you wobble before.”

  Wren forced herself to answer in a voice loud enough to carry. “I’m tired.”

  Raw nodded. “Can you make it?”

  Wren looked down. Familiar arrows traced their shadows on the eddying sand. “We can’t stop.”

  Raw nodded again and they flew on.

  Wren’s wings, once so light, weighed on her until her muscles quivered with effort. Now her throat not only burned for water, but her arms felt like dead branches. Only the wind pressing against them prevented her from trying to shake some life back into her shoulders. She tried to look down at the desert skimming by, but her eyes watered and it was all she could do to focus on the Mons. She had to fly in the right direction; Raw and Jay were relying on her. And they were close now, so close that she could see strata of colour in the cliff and shards of white in the bone-yard.

  Abruptly the wind growled and she rocked, dangerously off-balance.

  She leaned right, fighting a pull to the left, but the wind buffeted her playfully and held its breath. Wren’s wings fluttered and her stomach lurched; she had flown them into turbulence. Finally warm air picked her up again. Struggling to remain parallel with the ground, Wren rolled to regain her balance. Slowly she levelled out and released a sobbing breath.

  This time Jay flew to her, pitching and yawing jerkily through the turbulent air.

  Wren staved him off with a shake of her head, feeling as though blood was sloshing inside her skull. Then she dipped her shoulder to find a stronger current and Jay dropped behind her like a bright bird.

  Wren's limbs were shaking and her chest felt as though it was being slowly crushed. She struggled to breathe and phlegm clogged her tonsils. Helplessly she filled her goggles with tears as she coughed uncontrollably and waves of heat rippled through her.

  “I want to be home,” she whispered, wretched.

  “Come home, baby.” Her mother’s face appeared in front of her. “I’m waiting for you.” She began to dance – twirling around Wren in a purple dress the colour of the sky.

  Cheerful music filled her ears and Wren blinked to find Colm, grinning around his tin whistle as he played to the beat of their mother’s drumming heels. In the background Raw gave his slow twisted smile. Her heart did a flip as he mouthed her name.

  “Wren?” Raw’s voice was raised; he had clearly been calling her for some time.

  In front of Wren, the sky whirled like a purple dress.

  “Wren, can you hear me?” Raw was shouting at her, but she could not stop her head from drooping. “Stay with me, Wren. Jay - help!”

  It was strange; although Raw looked happy to see her, his voice was filled with alarm. She looked down at herself. Her dress hung wrong because she was holding her arms out at an odd stiff angle - she looked like a tree. She tried to drop her arms to her sides, but they wouldn’t move. She frowned. There was some sort of resistance and for some reason her elbows were locked and aching. She forced her arms down.

  ***

  As the wind fled her folding wings, Wren dropped silently and without protest.

  Raw hurled himself after her, clutching at the space she’d occupied as if she had left part of herself behind that he could save. “Jay!” The wind burned his streaming eyes and he could hardly see, but he heard Jay’s answering cry. Rolling, Raw saw Wren’s brother shooting downwards, his wings narrowed as he pointed himself after his plummeting sister.

  Immediately Raw copied him, tipping his torso and streamlining his wings. The wind had already tipped Wren onto her back and her wings billowed around her as if to cushion her from the coming blow. A tiny amount of lift was all they offered, but it was enough to slightly slow her descent.

  The wind whistled mockingly in his ears as he dived. He wasn’t sure what he could do when caught up to her, but there had to be something.

  Jay’s head turned. “Her arm,” he screamed.

  Raw assumed the gale had stolen his true meaning. “What?” he shouted.

  “She’s lighter than any man. Catch her!”

  Instantly Raw understood. He set his jaw. This could be suicide. But he didn’t care and, apparently, neither did Wren’s brother.

  Raw saw only the blur of silver below him. He had no intention of losing Wren and had fixed his eyes on the glowing corona of her wings, which didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Then he w
as on top of her and everything happened in an instant.

  Recklessly he tilted, trying to grab her hand. His fingers brushed hers and the heat of her skin on his cold palm made him gasp. Then she slipped free and he lost her. On Wren’s other side, he could sense Jay grappling with her other arm, but his peripheral vision was long gone and he could not see him properly.

  Suddenly Wren tipped. Her wings flattened across her face and her gentle fall whipped into a frenzied plummet.

  Jay must have caught her and now he was going down too.

  Raw snatched desperately. He rolled and his own wings tried to unlock, but the end of Wren’s wing smacked into his hand.

  He remembered trying to catch her once before; her wings sliding out of his fingers as she ran from him. Now they slid again, slippery as blood, but he flicked his hand and wrapped the material around his wrist, grabbing a strut to ensure his grip.

  For too long the three of them fell. Then Jay and Raw managed to straighten out. They hung almost suspended, neither falling nor rising, with Wren dangling awkwardly beneath them.

  Jay had her arm and Raw her wing, so she hung facing her brother, one leg flopping over nothing, the other tangled inside the span of silver material.

  With every outward breath Jay sobbed, frantically trying to catch his breath and failing. Raw’s jaw was clenched so tight it was agony. He tasted blood. Desperately he looked for the cliffs of Elysium but he was disoriented and had no idea which direction he was facing.

  Then Wren’s weight started to pull them downwards. Slowly they dropped in an ungainly, but controlled glide.

  Jay’s bloodshot eyes were wide. “If we land in the desert we’re dead.”

  Raw nodded grimly. Neither of them let go. They spiralled inside the wind, their wings trapped by Wren’s weight, unable even to guide their descent.

  Raw gave up squinting into the biting blasts of air. He couldn’t see where they were going; only vague splashes of colour that came and went as they turned.

  On one rotation a snatch of turbulence stole his breath and turned Wren’s face briefly towards him before it fell back down. She looked completely at peace.

  He closed his eyes and focused on his grip. He would need all the strength that remained to him if he was going to have to carry her up the Mons.

  Jay was shouting at him. Raw opened his throbbing eyes. A green blur filled his vision then suddenly Wren’s wing was yanked from his hands. He rolled forward, pitched sideways and his face smashed into solid ground. Jay spun past him, a tangle of arms and legs and a blur of wings.

  Ignoring the pain in his arm and the agony of his back Raw forced himself to his feet. Blood ran into his eyes and he slashed it away with an impatient swipe of his wrist. His face throbbed and he was weather-blind.

  “Wren,” he shouted. “Jay?” There was no answer.

  His arms were pinned from behind. Raw fought, but there was no reprieve. A man’s wide chest pressed against his back. Frantically Raw blinked. Where were they? He had to see.

  Gradually his vision cleared, and his eyes widened with shock. Avalon hunched on the edge of the cliff in front of him, defiant in its stand against the wind. Wren really had brought them home.

  Finally his ringing ears caught the full force of the fury of the man who held him. “What in the skies is going on?”

  Tortured by the exact words he had heard once before, when he had tried to save his own family from Caro’s disease, Raw filled with terror. Able to do nothing else, he convulsed with bitter laughter. Chayton was back from Convocation. They were dead after all.

  Chapter twenty-eight

  Wren first became aware of the voices. They sounded barely human, so full of anger. Was she in hell, doomed by her sacrilege? Silently she laughed: the colonists had been right all along. The Designers really had been watching over them and cursing Wren’s blasphemy.

  She struggled to comprehend the words that singed the air around her.

  “You thought I would believe this?”

  “When Jay wakes up -”

  “You think he’ll back your story? It wasn’t enough to let Caro’s destroy your face, boy?”

  “Any Runner there -”

  “- will kill my daughter on sight, thanks to you.”

  “Blasphemy …” Wren’s lips formed a whisper and immediately the snarling stopped.

  Then it started up again. “I heard that. You said she would support your wild tale! You just never thought she’d wake.”

  “Wren, can you hear me?” Hands closed around her own; not Runner’s hands, but comforting all the same.

  “Get away from my daughter, Grounder filth. To think I fought Convocation for you and yours.”

  The words had meanings. Wren had to try harder to understand. She strained to focus, trying to hear more. Then the hands were torn away.

  “Let me go to her.” That voice made her lips tingle.

  With a great effort Wren opened her aching eyes. “Water?”

  In moments a cup was held to her mouth and she gulped. Cool liquid spilled down her neck and dampened her collar. It was musty, not freshly pumped, but it soothed her burning throat.

  She tried to lift her head and immediately someone raised her to a sitting position. Her nose pressed into a tunic and the scent was wonderful. “Father, did you die too?”

  Chayton’s arms tightened around her but she struggled to look past him; she had heard Raw, where was he? Confused, she realised that she recognised the room.

  “Avalon,” she murmured. “We made it home?”

  Raw was slumped against the far wall. With a surge of relief, she sought her brother. Jay lay motionless on his cot, his breathing heavy as a snore.

  Almost reluctantly her eyes searched Avalon’s last corner. The curtains around Mia’s bed were closed and the floor remained covered with untouched jugs and cups of old water.

  “Mother?”

  “Hush.” Chayton wiped ragged tails of hair from her face.

  Wren fought free of his hold. “I brought her cure.” With fingers that felt like sticks, she fumbled for the packet Colm had handed her.

  Raw surged to his feet. “Wait!”

  Chayton had already taken the medicine from his daughter and turned to the curtained cubicle. His fingers tightened around the prize. “Wait?”

  “Wren’s sick too.”

  Chayton stared at Raw, then at the packet in his hand. “There’s only a single pressure tab? Enough for one of them?”

  Raw nodded.

  “So I have to choose: my wife, or my daughter.” Chayton’s face tightened.

  Instantly Raw clenched his fists. “Why should you choose?”

  “What did you say?” Chayton’s reply was a whip of sound.

  “Did you bring the cure back?” Raw strode forward. “Did you save the Runners? What right have you got to choose?”

  “What right?” Chayton’s chest expanded. “I’m the Patriarch. I am the only one with rights.”

  Raw’s eye flicked to the graphene knife hanging by the airlock. He jumped over the table and grabbed it in shaking hands. “You won't take her from me.”

  Chayton looked at Raw with a blazing gaze. “You’re both condemned to death for your blasphemy. Why should I lose my wife too?”

  “Wren’s your daughter.” Raw’s knuckles were white on the knife handle. “No Runner need even know she’s still alive. The Vaikunthan Council will say she’s already dead. Send her to the Women’s Sector. Send her to me.” His eyes were watering. Wren gaped: Raw was crying. “You already lost a son today. Don’t lose a daughter too.”

  “And Wren’s mother?”

  “I -”

  “Wren.” The voice was whisper soft yet it silenced every sound in the room. Chayton dived towards the curtained alcove and swept back the material. Mia was not moving, even the rise and fall of her chest barely disturbed the air above her, yet somehow she had managed her daughter’s name. />
  “Mother!” Wren tried to lurch out of bed and Raw leaped to her side.

  “Her mother would want Wren to take the cure,” he pleaded.

  Chayton waved him to silence and dropped to his knees at his wife’s side. “I don’t want to lose you.” His voice was a murmur.

  Mia’s hand trembled violently on the coverlet. “Wren,” was all she said. Chayton’s shoulder’s shook.

  “I didn’t bring the cure back for myself,” Wren said wrenching her arm from Raw’s.

  Then she clutched her head as an alarm beeped, warning them before the airlock cycled open.

  Wren stared at the figure silhouetted against the sky.

  “Why have I had to come all the way up here?” the man snapped. “Incoming Runner’s were seen, yet no-one has informed the Council. You are neglecting your responsibilities, so maybe we should neglect our tithes, what do you think?”

  Wren tried to focus through the glare as the setting sun glowed red behind the newcomer and set him on fire. She could not see who it was but her ears supplied the answer. “Grandfather?” she whispered and the airlock closed behind him.

  “Councillor.” Raw dropped the knife with a clatter but Wren’s grandfather strode right by him, pendants swinging. “While I’m here, where is Mia?”

  Wren saw his shoulders stiffen as he saw the figure on the bed. “She really is dying?”

  His eyes flicked to a swaying Wren. “And the girl too. I should never have left them here with you. You brought Mia to her death, Runner, I hope you’re happy.” Although the words were spat, Wren heard the tremor beneath the poison.

  “We have a cure,” she rasped.

  “Then why haven’t you used it?” Her grandfather sneered. “Too stupid I suppose. Give it to me.”