A Leaf and Pebble

by Andrew Monroe

  We reached a clearing where a small crowd had already gathered. They all were looking into one of the pools, a dark red pool among the otherwise blue, green, and gold springs that dotted the area. A small, broken body floated among the still rippling red water. No one had gone near it.

  I kneeled at the pool’s edge, and reached out for the body that was bobbing in the spring. “Johanna,” I choked out, numbness now spreading through me, despite my hammering heart.

  “God’s above,” Volant whispered, dropping to his knees beside me. He too reached out, and began helping pull the still form from the water. Shakily, we lifted her from the water’s edge and carried her to a flat spot of ground. Bruises covered her face, and her head was twisted at an awkward angle. But it wasn’t the fall that killed her. A distinct red gash ran across her throat, ear to ear. A cut that could only be made by someone else, with something sharp.

  A woman peeled away from the still gawking crowd. “I heard this huge splash, right behind me,” she said. Her voice was raw and harsh, and the still functioning part of my brain told me she was most likely the screamer we heard. “When I turned,” she continued, “there was a body.” She broke down at this, sobbing too hard to finish what she had meant to say.

  Hot, angry tears threatened the corners of my eyes. I brushed them aside before lifting the wet, blood-soaked corpse of probably the nicest woman I had ever known. My arms strained against the weight of even a small woman such as her, but setting her down wouldn’t happen. With a few people from the pools behind us, I followed Volant to the closest lift system. I almost made it before my tears won out. Silently they dropped, blurring my vision until I could barely see. I carried the body across ships, planks, and even a few swinging bridges. No one stopped us. The crowd swelled behind us as we made our way back to Thran’s leaf. Everyone knew Johanna, apparently. But all I saw was the back of Volant and his blonde hair leading me.

  Captain Andreska was waiting for us at the docking platform her ship was anchored to. One look at the body and she spun around, heading back up the plank at a dash. A bell rang out, and the ship swarmed with activity. Finn and Brawn hustled down, axes in hand, allowing no one but us on board. Volant explained everything while I sat on the deck, still holding tightly to the crumpled corpse.

  Words are directed at me, but I can’t make sense of any of them so I say nothing. They try and take the body but I hold on more tightly. My tears finally stop, but Andreska’s have just begun. She sits down as well, while Volant rushes below deck with the crew. Smoke wafts by us, smelling of burnt wood and canvas.

  “Nil, now is not the time to mourn,” a soft voice says. Volant appears before mine, eyes full of sadness and anger. He wears a long rapier and a quiver full of arrows. One hand holds a bow. The other, my hatchet and pair of knives. “They’ll be coming for us next. We both know who’s behind this.”

  I reach out for them, and Johanna’s body is taken from my lap by Jameson. Smoke rises from below, and I try to look for its source as I stand. “They can’t keep doing this,” I say. “I can’t keep losing friends.”

  Volant looks over the edge with me, staring at the smoke. “Her ship caught fire. It almost started a chain reaction, but a few kids cut it loose, probably saving all of her neighbors, or so I heard. Some of the crew was nearby when it happened.” He nods towards a man not much older than us. “Says he didn’t see anyone besides the kids cutting at the anchor ropes. They barely got it free before it would have done serious damage.”

  Our eyes meet, and somehow an understanding passed between us without any further words. No more running.

  No attack on Thran’s leaf came. The crew was armed to the teeth, and no one slept. People only left in pairs, and only one pair at a time. Supplies were gathered. Information was pooled. And goodbyes were said. As the sun set, lanterns were lit along the ship’s perimeter. The odd light of refracted fireproof gel making the whole ship sparkle. The watch was doubled. Still no attack.

  Sunrise came as it always did. We took Johanna’s body down back down to the mountain and buried her, a quick but traditional funeral.

  After, every nook and cranny was searched on board, and a head count taken. Captain Andreska brought on as much food and water as the ship could carry. We headed out west, each crewman armed and lightly armored as they went about keeping the airship in the air. We’d been gone a day or two before Captain Andreska dropped speed to something less than breakneck. Volant and I mostly stayed out of the way in his secret studio in the hold during the flight so far.

  “Your mother still seems upset,” I said. The idea that she could be emotionally moved still a shock to me.

  Volant was scrunched into a corner where a nest of blankets, furs, and pillows lay haphazardly. “She’s more scared than anything, I think.” He scratched on a sketchpad. “On the other hand, though, I’m just angry.” He scribbled furiously on his pad until a deep sigh escaped him. He tossed his latest drawing to the side, unfinished charcoal eyes peering up at the ceiling. Standing up, he rolled his shoulders and neck in loose circles.

  I too stood. Knowing what he wants, I set my own little journal on the small table and lift the lifeless piece of deadly steel from the table. An underhand toss sent the rapier flashing through the air. End over end it turned until my friend’s hand shot out, catching the hilt.

  Strapped to my belt are the daggers I’ve managed to hold onto so far. Without a sound, I follow him out of the studio and into the brightly lit hold. As we each move into our warm up patterns, my mind wanders over the last few days of being cooped up on board his mother’s airship.

  Each day, so far, had begun with a decadently large breakfast with Captain Andreska and her most trusted officers. After breakfast, we would go back to the hidden studio and work in silence, Volant on his drawings, and I musing away in a journal. We also did a lot of push ups and pull-ups. But mainly, we each felt that putting something on paper was necessary in life.

  The more I thought on it, I realized it was how we became such close friends. Both of us had been in the school’s library, writing and drawing away until a pencil had broken. I offered my spare to him, and we’d been inseparable since. It’d been too long since we’d had any opportunity for our more creative arts, and now it seemed we were trying to make up for lost time.

  Once one of us was tired of sitting, or frustrated with our work, we’d move into the hold, and practice the basic sword play Rook had taught us. Today was the fifth day since casting off from Wydvis, and despite our speed, it seemed we weren’t getting anywhere.

  Captain Andreska seemed to be steering the ship in absurdly huge curves, first one way, and then the opposite. Even in the meetings at breakfast, the ship’s course was not discussed. Nor anything else for that matter. Andreska was a stone.

  Leaving behind the warm up movements for something quicker, I shifted into more aggressive footwork and bigger sequences. As we’d been growing stronger, we’d begun to rely more upon the actual strategy during sparring rather than just overpowering one another.

  Mostly I was getting much better at closing the distance between us. On the other hand, Volant was getting even better at keeping a healthy rapier’s amount of distance between us. He was becoming quite impressive with that sword, but my two daggers had proved a consistent match. Of course, if he ever added an offhand weapon, I’d lose immediately.

  That said, he was becoming incredible with the bow, putting a hundred arrows into a target on the wall every day since we’d arrived in Wydvis. It was scary how fast he’d become adept with it.

  Lightning-quick, Volant thrust the blunted tip at my heart with a triumphant grunt. The attack knocked me out of my reverie and shattered my focus into a thousand shards. Fortunately, I was quick and my reflexes took over. With the off hand dagger, I pushed the still sharp edge down and away from my chest, trapping the rapier between my bicep and ribs. With my own lunge, the tip of the second dagger found Volant’s throat, dimpling the skin below his Adam’s
apple. A triumphant laugh escaped me, followed shortly by a hiss of pain as I felt the sudden burn of cut flesh where the sword was still trapped.

  “Gods spawned idiot,” Volant muttered, walking back to the study, and returning with bandages. “Twice spawned, twice cursed idiot,” he emphasized while wrapping the parallel cuts bleeding from my arm and side onto the wooden floor. “It’s a bloody sword. Not a stick with a pointy end. Everything is sharp on it.”

  Back into the studio, drops of blood followed me to the sacks of flour I had claimed as my writing chair. The rest of the day went by in a less exciting fashion, hours spent drawing, reading, and writing, with breaks to discuss what we each could have done better in the sparring session.

  More days went by in this fashion, both idyllic and completely miserable. After my arm was healed up, I’d been enjoying the repetitive twang of Volant’s archery practice, when he suddenly stopped. Next thing I knew, he’d appeared before me and dropped a huge war axe at my feet.

  I groaned, standing up in the process. “Those are the worst!” I said petulantly. Flexing my arm sent a throb of pain through my bicep were the cut had scabbed over. The dulled, double sided axe made of coarse metal was attached to a two-inch-thick shaft, wrapped in sweat stained leather. We didn’t spar when using the heavies. Andreska had a range of pseudo-weapons made out of heavier, cheaper metals that she used to train her new crew members on.

  When not in use, they were stashed in a corner down here in the hold. They were mostly to build strength and proper stances rather than learning combat. They also acted as ballast, heavy weight that could be tossed if needed when quick altitude was required. Heavy practice was monotonous, hard, and only slightly less dangerous than our usual sparring.

  Grunting with effort, Volant swung up his own heavy double-sided axe. A wicked gleam graced his glowing face, showing my complaints would get me nowhere. “Maybe if you were less an idiot during our last sparring session, we wouldn’t have to.”

  Another warm up followed until we dripped sweat on the floor, and every muscle in my body had been worked in the process of clumsily spinning the hulking axe about my head in body in a slow, artful flow.

  “Time to start. Hope you’re ready.” Volant then chuckled at my responding groan. “Headsman!” He called out, giving me only a slightly advanced warning of incoming blow, swinging his axe in a backwards arc, and then driving it down in a straight line. Right at me.

  My hands spread to either end of the shaft, and I stepped forward while raising the now horizontally held shaft, meeting the oncoming blow before it gained too much momentum.

  The sharp sound of wood on wood cracked through the air, followed by Volant grunting in surprise as I deflected the blow away from me. With a tug, I separated my axe from his and spun it around towards Volant’s midsection.

  “Lumberjack!” My voice rang out, warning him of my retaliation.

  In response, he tucked into a tight roll and let the swing pass over his head unchallenged as I spun with the momentum. With a groan of dismay, I toppled forward, not being able to arrest the axe’s pull, while also refusing to let go. The wood floor met both axe and I with a jarring embrace. Rolling onto my back, I could see Volant standing above me, resting his axe an inch to the right of my head.

  “I hate heavies,” I emphasized again. Once we had finished a few more rounds in this fashion, my muscles from head to toe burned with exertion. Worse, my stomach clamored for food. To add to it all, my lungs seemed to have forgotten how to function properly, burning long after we’d come to a rest.

  Volant shrugged, feigning like he was unbothered, though I could see he struggled to breathe as well. But my poor friend was forever dreaming of becoming a statuesque slab of muscle, so he’d never complain.

  Personally, I’d rather read a couple of books instead of putting in the above normal effort it’d take to look like an artist’s misrepresented drawing of the ideal man. “I still can’t believe they killed Johanna,” I whispered, a sudden, dark depression squeezing at my heart.

  A shadow passed my friend’s face. “Me neither, Nil. But we’ll find a way to make them pay.”

  Eighteen

  Yet another few days went by. We’d been airborne for longer than seemed reasonable, and I was growing more sullen with each passing day. When I thought for sure I’d go crazy, the constant forward motion of the ship came to a stop.

  Volant’s mother came down to the studio shortly after, wearing a tired smile and her polished captain’s uniform. “We’ve arrived in Brod,” she said. “The landing crew will be down here shortly for the fallpacks, and I want you to stay out of sight until they have jumped.”

  “But mom,” Volant started, “we can’t stay here forever!” The enclosed room had taken its toll on me, but Volant was by far the worse for wear because of it. No one from Wydvis could handle enclosed spaces without going a little stir crazy.

  She nodded in agreement, placing a tender hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. As soon as we’ve established an anchor, I will be visiting a friend in the Below. I plan to have him take you in, until this all blows over.” She paused, taking us both in with unsettling gold eyes. “We jump at dark. Be fully packed by then.” Before she left, she gave him a wrapped bundle, long and smelling of leather and oil.

  As she left, Volant sat down and unwrapped the bundle. A beautiful yet simple rapier with a razor-edged blade held in a well-worn leather scabbard. His father’s sword, Andreska’s brief note said. Tears glistened down his face as he held it, so I left him alone for a while and went to pack.

  I was eager to leave the ship, but honestly, all I really wanted was to be home with my own father and mother. But Brod was as far from Erset as you could get.

  Volant flopped down on his makeshift sack seat, running a hand through his long hair. “What I wouldn’t give for a bath,” he mumbled. “No matter what you have to say about the school, the bath houses were the best.” The tears had dried, though he certainly seemed buoyed by his mother’s gift.

  Darkness came, and as promised, Captain Andreska showed up and found us ready, fallpacks on over a darker set of clothes and armed with our scant arsenal. In Volant’s case, his father’s rapier was shoved between the fallpack and oversized traveling bag. We each carried a large bag, stuffed with the small amount of clothing, food, water skins and a fresh sketch pad a piece.

  Our packs were made of a Water-resistant skin from some mysterious river creature I’d never heard of or seen and made them worth more than the contents. Andreska, on the other hand, had no supplies but wore a pure black uniform, something like a professional thief would own and that Volant and I would have metaphorically killed for when back at the school.

  That in itself made my throat dry and difficult to swallow, thinking of how her son and I had been spending our nights in Kalaran, stealing for fun and profit. She carried nothing but a bandolier with enigmatic pouches sewn to the black fabric, along with her own sword hanging casually at the hip. She too wore a fallpack, though everything had been dyed black. I guessed she’d had it hidden in her cabin for personal use like this, as I hadn’t seen it in the cage.

  “Open the back door, if you please,” Captain Andreska said to Volant quietly.

  He headed to the opposite end of the hold. A door in the middle of the slanted wall slid open, the starry sky and soft moonlight inviting us out to her nightly embrace.

  “This some kind of diving board or something?” I asked amused, my heart beginning to beat slightly faster.

  A flash of smiling white teeth from Andreska appeared amongst the darkness of the cabin. At least her approximation of a smile. “Something like that,” she said smugly. “As you may already know, beneath the island portion of Brod, sitting at the bottom of the lake, is the Below. There are four towers rising from it to provide air to the residents down there.”

  “The weird chimney looking towers?” Volant asked skeptically. “I know about them.”

  “They lay a good wa
y out north from our ship,” Andreska said, still smiling. “The citizens don’t allow us to anchor anywhere near them, for fear of exactly what we are about to attempt.”

  Thinking back to a map of Brod I once saw, I suddenly knew what she wanted to try. My heart beat jumped up even faster than before. “Andreska,” I said hesitantly, “we are a little bit heavier than usual at the moment with all this gear. If we hit the side of one of those, we are not going to enjoy it.” And then another thought occurred to me. “How far away are we, if they don’t let ships above the tower openings?”

  A beyond delighted look crossed her face as she took us to the end of the plank. Powerful winds whipped about as we walked out onto the plank that extended into the empty sky. Down below, and a fair way out, at the enormous lake reflected the sky. We were nowhere near the pinprick sized towers. The harbor city looked like a green growth on a patch of misshapen wood, with no details being visible this high and this far away.

  “You want us to jump,” I said, pointing down at the plank, “from here to there?” My finger shook ever so slightly as I aimed it towards the city. We were so high up, I doubted any Lakers that were awake could even see the ship.

  “It won’t be so bad,” Volant said, now getting that manic grin of his own.

  “Obviously, you will have to give both you and I quite the assist with your mystical Learner powers. I’ll have some trouble, since I don’t have a Natural’s Talent, and my son probably won’t be able to help us on the initial leap as we need some proper spacing.”