by Steve Rzasa
Endeavor whips around. My crew scurry, antlike from this distance, reloading and aiming. Gustave’s cloak is a blue banner in their midst.
My target is more elusive. I sweep up along the fringes of Kensinghall, so near the edge of the isle I could pluck grass in my outstretched fingers. A sudden gust drags me up higher, faster, than I’d anticipated. I must have reached the edge of Annalise’s influence.
There she is. A funnel of dust and debris rises from the center of town, where the granary’s roof has been reduced to a twisting mass slate chunks. She claws with her right hand, dragging a golden cyclone of grain out of its confines.
I unlimber my modified wheellock pistol and fire both barrels, one after the other. The smoke from both whips clear of my mask far sooner than if I were standing still. The first ball cuts across her shoulder. The second punches a hole in her cloak.
Her scream is magnified to the howl of a wounded dragon, piercing and enraged. My helmet offers no respite from the agonizing noise.
We’re less than a hundred feet apart when she curls the grain cyclone into my face. Golden kernels pelt the helmet, the armor, and the wings in a rattling hailstorm. Some lodge in the mesh. None make it through. The wings? Undamaged.
The onslaught of wind slows my advance. Lift diminishes. The wings lose their grip on the air, and I plummet.
Rather than panicking, I fold them close to my torso and bend. Kensinghall’s roofs are two hundred feet below. There has to be another current.
There. Chimney smoke caught in a swiftly rising curl. I bank toward it, as surely as if I were steering Endeavor. I snap the wings open.
The current shoots me up like a cannonball.
Annalise dives for me, perhaps thinking she’ll batter me to my doom as I fall. She doesn’t expect the reverse in course, because she’s wide eyed as I slam into her.
We grapple amidst the whirlwind. By heavens, she’s strong! Can’t dwell on it. I cover her mouth with a gauntleted hand, praying the stories are true: if summoner cannot speak, she cannot summon.
Together we arrow toward Endeavor. I’ve lost her progress during my own fight, but she’s locked neck and neck with the corsair. No more cannons boom. Instead I hear the crack of musket fire and the song of steel. Flames lick the deck of the corsair, and one of its masts droops over its port rail, wood splintered and canvas torn.
Annalise still rips at the air around us. I hold her firm, guiding us to Endeavor’s deck. It comes up a great deal faster than I anticipated.
We crash through a thicket of barrels and slide into the starboard rails. My head rings worse than the alarm bell. Annalise pulls free of my arms and holds up her right hand. Sharp blue eyes skewer me in place. “Ventosa!”
I cannot breathe. I gasp greedily, but the air is snatched from my lungs. Black spots blot my vision. Sailors and soldiers and goblins battle behind Annalise, their cries mingling with the clash of swords. Smoke smears their forms. The coppery tang of blood is everywhere.
Gustave parries a thrust from a goblin’s blade. The foul creature rasps unintelligible phrases at him, sweat glistening on knobby hide, spittle spraying from needle fangs.
“Derek!” He lobs a brass ring the size of a dinner plate. He stabs his cutlass deep into the midsection of a goblin, swings it around, and kicks it free. It collides with a second goblin, sending them both into a shrieking fall.
I leap for Annalise with my fading strength, and snatch the ring before she can. We tumble into a mass of cloaks and wings. Cloth tears. Her hands, smooth and cold, fasten to my neck. The last of my breath escapes.
I latch the binding crown around her forehead.
There’s a single stone embedded on the crown—black as a starless night, yet its edges shine with silver. The wind churning the skies and battering the hull dies out. One moment, raging storm. The next, nothing but the fight of men and goblin.
Annalise’s eyes are wide with perplexity. She mouths her incantation, but nothing happens. Not a breeze.
I suck in sails full of air, until I can hold her. But she makes no move to escape. Where would she go? The corsair ship is engulfed. There’s a crack, and a flash of green light. She falls, dragging down broken sails and the cries of doomed souls.
The remainder of the corsairs surrender. Ragged cheers engulf my crew.
Gustave is there, the blood of men and goblins smeared into a brown-black mess on his armor. He chains Annalise’s hands and stares at me. “It worked.”
“It did.” I stand, knees wobbly, and flex the wings. “I flew.”
Kensinghall is safe. Varoth’s death meant its life.
A final task remains.
Gustave and I kneel before the throne. Morning light streams in through huge stained glass windows, reflecting off white and gray stone. Blue tapestries mimic the color of the sky. The carpet upon which we plant bended knee is as deep navy as the ocean.
Her Majesty Queen Rebecca descends the Seven Steps. The silver crown, resplendent with an egg-sized ruby, sits atop long brown hair laced with white. She is older than I by a good fifteen years, one believes, yet her beauty is unmatched.
Unmatched, that is, until today.
She stands before the prisoner Annalise and I cannot deny the resemblance. “Gentlemen, you have done the Crown a great service. The people of Westnaxa and especially Kensinghall owe you much.”
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“I understand much of your success can be attributed to a device of your making.”
“My making, yes, but the generosity of dragonkind, Highness.”
Queen Rebecca nods, but her eyes are not on me. They’re a swirl of hazel, and they search for the gaze of Annalise the wind-summoner. “You’ve brought her home. Perhaps with time, the soul-mages can mend the darkness inflicted upon her.”
“If it would bring you joy, Your Highness, may it be done.”
“Joy. Yes, I would have it.” She touches Annalise’s cheek. A tear trickles from the wind-summoner’s eye. Queen Rebecca smiles, her own gaze misting. “My dearest sister. You have delivered her to my care. Thank you, gentlemen. Whatever you desire, I shall provide it.”
Gustave and I glance sidelong at each other. We’re both well off, our crew and families succored. He smiles and nods. We’ve discussed this. I have kept my pledge to Varoth thus far, and intend to continue doing so. My imagination fills with blue and silver sailors, joining me in the air with outstretched wings.
“Highness,” I say. “There is one thing…
UPHILL BOTH WAYS (2016)
PRIOR TO CHRISTMAS 2016, I entered a short story contest hosted by NYC Midnight. It was kind of a write-off, in which you’d receive a subject, a genre, and a character. Each heat had word length requirements and deadlines.
For the first session in January 2017, which included some 3,000 writers, I found I had to create a short story that was a comedy, involving exercise, with a snowplow operator as a major character. This was understandably disconcerting for a guy who’s always focused on science-fiction and fantasy, but then again, the challenge was part of the reason I’d signed up. Within the 8-day deadline I wrote Uphill Both Ways. I landed in second place of the top five in my heat, meaning out of more than 3,000 writers, I moved on to the second round containing 500 writers. Not too shabby!
Plus, I had a fun story under my belt.
Dean Riggs had meant to take up cycling again before winter hit. He’d let himself slack off when he’d twisted his knee mountain biking.
He’d ridden a 20-mile loop in blistering August. Fast forward to January and he gasped like an asthmatic while he heaved snow in 10-degree weather. Bend, scoop, lift, toss, repeat.
He took a break to survey the situation. His plow truck had both wheels on the right side stuck in a mini-avalanche, snow piled so high he couldn’t see the tires. It was his own dumb luck. He’d clipped the edge of the steep hillside while he was clearing Highway 20 up to Chamberlin Road. Sure, he’d cleaned 16 inches that had fallen last nig
ht and into the gray dawn, but that brief contact tipped a heap of snow off its precarious perch. Now he was sitting here, orange flashers going, on the side of a road closed off for snow removal.
The CB radio’s tone broke through his wheezing. Dean trudged to the driver’s side, breath feathering.
“One Nine Seven Seven, Two Oh Eight, on West Loop.”
Great. Two Oh Eight was Joel, his foreman. Dean snatched the CB off the dash. “One Nine Seven Seven, go ahead.”
“How’s it looking out on Twenty?”
The truck leaned off the road, snoozing. Dean envied it. His beard iced over where sweat froze, and his back ached. “Great. Getting it shaved close to the pavement. There’s some ice but nothing too bad.”
“Making good time?”
The flashers clicked, igniting the snowbanks orange. Nothing else moving except his chest heaving under his Carhartt and thick flakes dancing in the air. “Oh, sure. Just got to be thorough, right?”
Joel grunted. “Okay. Keep it up. City wants the intersection with Chamberlin Road open in an hour, maximum.”
“Yeah, no problem.” If he could grow a dozen arms in that span, or borrow a couple flamethrowers… “I’ll have it all cleared, you got it.”
“Okay then. Two Oh Eight out.”
Dean clicked off the CB and moaned. This was punishment for being a smart aleck. He razzed Luis bad last December when the guy got stuck on a slick patch down by the waterfront. How many jokes had he piled on Vance when he’d spun out into a drift at Polk Park?
He leaned against the words “Granite Bay Public Works” stenciled on the truck’s flank. Plenty of boasts had led to plenty of bets, all of them lubricated by rounds of beer at the Gull Wing. If the guys found out he’d gotten himself stuck, he’d be singing karaoke all night this weekend. Solo.
His guts tightened at the thought of singing in front of all those people. New sweat broke out under the edge of his knit hat.
Digging took his mind off the threat of a future “Summer Nights” rendition. Bend, scoop, lift, toss, repeat. Time blurred into muscles burning, lungs straining, and heart hammering. Man. It’d take forever with a tiny camp shovel. Thing was as useful as a kid’s plastic scooper at the beach and half the size.
Color caught his eye. Up the hill. A mailbox stood sentry, black and spindly against the drifts. Someone dressed in a bright blue coat and a fire engine red hat walked down the lone driveway. He had snow shovels stacked on a sled.
Dean slogged up the road. His pant legs were soaked where the snow rose above his boots, and leaked down around his feet. Soon he squelched in self-made puddles.
So much for salvation. It was a kid up there, who couldn’t be more than 10, but he did have 13 shovels stacked against a cardboard box. “Dig Out! Best Shovels!” was scrawled in black marker.
“Hi.” The boy was barely up to his waist. Bright blue eyes, surrounded by a horde of freckles, tracked Dean. His mouth was covered by a green scarf. “It’s cold out here.”
“Yeah, I noticed. I need one of your shovels, kid.”
“Okay. I’m selling them.”
“What? Why?”
“Because.” He scooped up a mitten full of sopping wet snow. “Duh.”
“Right.”
“Mom said I couldn’t do lemonade. She thinks it’s gonna freeze.”
“Well, who knows. Just let me borrow one of those. You can have it back when I’m done, kid.”
“My name’s Frederick.”
“Fred. Got it.”
The eyes narrowed to sapphire slits. “Fred. Er. Ick.”
“Okay, fine. Frederick.” Dean held out his hand.
“How’d you get stuck?” Frederick leaned around Dean. The plow’s lights were dimmer, what with the sun’s light elbowing the clouds aside. “Dad used sand when our car wouldn’t go. He says it’s always the best plan. You look like you got a lot of sand in your truck.”
“I do, but I also have a pile of snow around the right wheels, so until I get ‘em dug out I’m not going anywhere, sand or no sand.” Dean flexed his gloved fingers again. “C’mon, lend me a shovel.”
“I told you. You have to buy one.”
Really? There wasn’t anything stopping Dean from taking a shovel. Some had metal blades, but most were plastic, each riven with cracks and a handful missing chunks. What, had the kid gotten hungry on his way down the driveway? Dean selected the one with the biggest metal scoop, even though its handle wobbled like the heads on those stupid dolls. Vance had a bunch lined up on his dashboard. Duct tape around the handle didn’t reassure him.
“Hey.” Frederick waggled a glowing rectangle in his face. Smartphone. “You have to pay or I’m calling Mom.” The phone made a chirping click.
“Did you just take my picture?”
Frederick’s cheeks bunched. Little jerk was grinning.
“Fine. How much?” Dean tucked the shovel under his arm and dug for his wallet. Road wasn’t getting plowed any faster. At least he’d caught his breath.
“Fifty dollars.”
And there went that breath again. “Fifty bucks? Are you kidding?”
“No, wait.” Frederick tugged off his mitten and tapped on the phone. “Fifty-three thirteen. I forgot about sales tax. Dad says it’s six point two five percent. He talks a lot about taxes. Then he says bad words, and Mom makes a face. Taxes pay for your job.”
Dean ground his teeth. “Look, kid, I’m not paying fifty-three whatever for your lousy shovel.”
Those blue eyes went razor thin. Frederick tapped more numbers. “Sixty-three seventy-five.”
Dean bit his lip until it hurt. Only way he could prevent every swear word he’d learned since fifth grade from spilling out. He shoved three twenties and a ten into the kid’s mitten. “I want my change.”
Frederick pocketed the cash and handed Dean a crumpled wad of ones, plus a quarter. “Thanks! Have a nice day.”
“Hey, wait. I could use an extra hand shoveling—”
“That’s gonna cost extra. Somebody could steal my shovels.”
“The road’s closed until…” Dean massaged his forehead. “Never mind.”
He stomped his way down to the truck, muttering all those words he’d just promised to keep out of the kid’s hearing. His knee throbbed with every other step. Soon as the snow melted, he was going to drag out his bike and get pedaling. No excuses.
Bend, scoop, lift, toss, repeat. Fifteen minutes in, the wobbling shovel blade slewed so crazily it dropped a load right on Dean’s head before he could get it thrown over his shoulder. He yelped as the snow soaked the back of his neck, his shirt underneath, and hell, even his boxers!
He wanted nothing better than to put the shovel through his windshield, and shake his money out of that kid. The fantasy of dangling a screaming Fred-Er-Ick upside down made him smile. It’d be like Christmas.
A horn honked. Hang on. No one was supposed to be on this road, hence the barricades at the top and bottom of the long, curving uphill stretch of Highway Twenty. Some idiot must have moved one.
A short Granite Bay Community Rides bus, painted an eye-watering neon green, pulled up. Dean rounded the back of his truck, fuming. What did this guy think he was doing?
It wasn’t one of the regular drivers. An elderly Latino woman waved at him from behind the steering wheel. A red pom-pom topped a blue knitted hat speckled with white deer. She had on a pair of silver aviator shades. Dean saw himself reflected, mouth agape, a 28-year-old man with a brown beard.
“Hello there!” The lady disembarked, and Dean realized she wasn’t much taller than Frederick. “Well! You’re in a doozy of a pickle.”
“Ma’am… I … wait…”
“That’s okay, take your time.” She smiled.
“Sorry, my brain just filled up with a bunch of questions that ran into each other like an interstate pileup.” Dean’s arms pinwheeled. “What are you doing up here? The road’s closed, never mind half-plowed. Where’s the driver?”
; “Hey, Dean.” A slender blond man with a buzz cut waved from the open door. Tattoos crawled up his neck. “It’s, um, my fault.”
“Kenny? What the devil are you doing, offering Driver’s Ed to the senior citizens’ coffee klatch?”
“Now, listen here.” The lady poked Dean in his chest, as firmly as if she were a cop who’d just drawn her sidearm. “Up top of that hill is the Rec Center, and they have open swim every Wednesday morning at 9. Sharp. I’ve got our whole squadron of ladies’ swim aerobics ready for this, and some little dusting isn’t going to stop us. Why, Dottie’s been coming since the club started up in ‘Ninety-One. She’s going to be eighty-five tomorrow. Do you know how many sessions she’s missed?”
Dean stared at her.
“Zero.”
He eyeballed Kenny. “Did they kick you out of the driver’s seat?”
Kenny’s face went scarlet. “Hey, man, there’s like twelve of them. You ever have your grandma holler at you? Multiply that!”
“Ma’am, I can’t let you all continue up—”
“Nonsense. Soon as we get your cute butt out of our way that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
Cute—? “My jacket’s down below the waist. How can you tell what my butt looks like?”
“Oh, you’re young, dear, I was assuming. Probably correctly.” She winked. “Now, then. I’m Esperanza, formerly Army Nursing Corps, Lai Khê, Second Surgical. How about we inspect the problem?”
His head spinning from the sheer exasperation, Dean led the way to the other side of the truck. By now the rest of the women were peering through the bus windows, like a field trip contingent plus sixty years.
“This?” Esperanza scowled at the snow pile, criticizing its existence. “We can help. Don’t suppose you have any extra shovels in the back?”
“No. There’s a kid up the hill selling them, but you’ll need a credit card if he goes any higher with his prices.”
