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Here was the trail they had been on, minus the cluster of gray rocks. She followed it through winding stone alleys, keeping high enough to see the river as well. Numair was right. If they kept to the water’s course, they could find the path where the river met open scrub-land. Beyond that lay the desert—the Sea of Sand.
She returned to him, and donned the clothes he’d cut down for her. Once the worst heat had passed, they set out again, pacing themselves to avoid heatstroke. After dark, nearing the spot where they could pick up the path again, Daine sensed Stormwings. Rikash was there for certain; she also thought she knew at least two of his companions.
Spying on the waiting immortals through a crevice between two rocks, Daine sighed with relief. She did know two of the others. One crowned female had the appearance of a mortal in her fifties. Her nose was prominent and forbidding over a mouth carved by a master sculptor, her dark eyes commanding under perfect black eyebrows. The girl thought that Queen Barzha of the Stone Tree nation of Stormwings must have been a beauty in her youth; age had added majesty. Her younger consort, Hebakh, had a pale, intense face lit by slightly mad gray eyes set over an aquiline nose.
Daine walked into the open. “Hello.”
Some of the immortals idling near the path jumped, caught by surprise. The air was filled with metallic clicks as steel feathers ruffled and fell into place.
“Don’t you make noise?” one of them demanded crossly as Numair came forward.
“You dine on fear, but you don’t care to feel it yourself?” the man asked innocently.
When the immortal opened his mouth to reply, Daine said, “Enough, both of you.” She bowed to the crowned female and her mate. “Queen Barzha and Lord Hebakh. May I present Numair Salmalín?” He had seen the Stormwings in Carthak last fall, but she didn’t think they had been properly introduced. “This is Leaf.” The darking nodded its hatted, knobby head. “And that’s Jelly.” The darking under Numair’s shirt thrust out a tentacle, waved, then disappeared into its refuge.
“It hasn’t met royalty before, that we know of,” Numair explained. He bowed elegantly to Rikash’s queen and her consort. “May I say that it is good to see you again?”
“As long as you don’t get downwind of us, right, mortal?” taunted a male voice from the rear of the flock.
“Do you challenge my decision, Vekkat?” Barzha asked without looking away from the humans. “Have you questions left unanswered?”
There was no loud reply, though Daine could hear voices whispering “Shut up!” and “Aren’t you in enough trouble?”
Rikash came up beside his queen, green eyes glittering. “I confess, the most amusing part of our association is that I am not sure who is more puzzled by it—you or me,” he said wryly. “I’m shocked Sarra let you go out dressed that way.”
Daine looked at her clothes. “My things got lost. I fell off a cliff.”
“You take such a fall well, Veralidaine,” Barzha said, her voice wry. “Rikash tells me I should apologize for not killing Ozorne while I had the chance.”
Daine smiled. She hadn’t thought the formidable Stormwing Queen had a sense of humor. “He’s good at survival,” she remarked. “I know you gave it your best.”
Hebakh bated. He was a nervous creature, always shifting his weight from one clawed foot to another. “We have not put the matter aside yet. There will be other chances to explain to Ozorne how things are done properly among our kind.”
“In the meantime,” Rikash said, “Queen Barzha has agreed that we shall carry you over the Sea of Sand, to the portal of the Dragonlands.”
“We are in your debt,” added Barzha. “You freed us from Emperor Ozorne. We shall feel better if we may repay you.”
Hebakh whistled. Two Stormwings flapped over, bearing some dark substance coiled in their talons.
“Your mother helped us to make these slings,” explained Rikash. “It won’t be an easy ride, but it’s the quickest way to cross the desert.”
Numair and Daine nodded. The pair with the slings, assisted by Rikash and one of the other immortals, spread their materials on the ground.
“I heard something that might be of interest to you, if you didn’t hear it yourselves,” Daine told the Stormwing Queen. Briefly she related the conversation she’d heard by Temptation Lake, before she had known the darkings were Ozorne’s spies.
The queen dug into rock with her claws, eyes glittering with malice. “So Qirev—”
“The other must be Yechakk,” interrupted her mate. “He’s the only old one left.”
“They are finding mortal warfare a bit rich for their stomachs,” said Barzha. “Perhaps Mogrul of Razor Scream also feels the pinch, after losing eleven. Perhaps—”
“You’ll never turn Queen Jachull,” Hebakh said, bating. “She is empty. There isn’t a Stormwing inside of her, only a void. But the others—they might yet listen to reason.”
Their conveyance was ready. After the humans secured their things and sat in the rope webs, Barzha croaked a word: shimmering with gold and crimson fire, the slings rose. On Hebakh’s command, five Stormwings took flight, the ropes that cradled the humans in their talons. Three carried Numair; two bore Daine. Belatedly, she said, “You know, I could shape-shift and fly my own self.”
“Save your strength for the dragons,” replied Hebakh.
The Stormwings began to climb. The magic that had lifted the slings to a level where their porters could grab them released. Daine and Numair dropped an inch, then rose, borne by Stormwings.
The scrubland came to an end and was replaced by sand dunes. Like all deserts, this one was cold after sunset. Daine shivered, but was resigned; at least the cold laid the Stormwings’ odor.
Barzha flew close to Numair. Mage and queen spoke, but Daine couldn’t hear; the wind bore their words away. Jelly was nowhere to be seen. Leaf, to the contrary, was looped around Daine’s neck, its small, eyeless head stretched forward to take the full brunt of rushing air. It was talking softly. She had to bring an ear close to the darking to hear, and when she did, she laughed. Leaf was saying, “Funfunfunfunfun.”
For a while, she was content to sit, shivering, as she watched the immortals. There were sixty-three Stormwings present, all of the queen’s allies. These were the ones that Rikash had spoken of, those who took honor and tradition seriously.
There’s a thing to boggle the mind, she thought, rubbing her shoulders to warm them. Stormwings with honor!
Rikash had been flying in the van, watching the sky. Now he fell back, gliding into position near Daine. A female Stormwing behind them called, “Mortal lover!”
The green-eyed male looked at her. “Repeat that on the dueling grounds at the next full moon, Zusha.” The female shut up, and Rikash turned his attention to Daine. “A feather for your thoughts.”
“Hm?” she asked, startled.
“Mooning over Long Lankin?” he inquired, jerking his head toward Numair.
Daine blushed, and glared at him. Long Lankin was the villain in a ballad, a tall bandit who lived for slaughter. “He’s no more Lankin than you are a songbird,” she retorted. “Besides, he’s not what I’m thinking of”—which wasn’t entirely a lie.
Rikash laughed. “What were you thinking of, then?”
“I heard somewhere that immortals are born in dreams. Or our dreams give them shape—something like that. Now, I can see folk dreaming winged horses and unicorns. Even dreaming that a winged horse or unicorn would go bad makes sense. Haven’t we all thought something’s a joy, only to find that it’s evil inside? But—forgive my saying it; no offense intended—how could anyone dream a Stormwing?”
His smile was cruel. “Ages ago, a traveler in the mortal realms went from place to place and found only the leavings of war—the starving, the abandoned, the dead. It was the work of armies, fighting over ground they soon lost again. That traveler sickened of waste—of death. She wished for a creature that was so repulsive, living on war’s aftermath, that even humans would
think twice before battle. That creature would defile what mortal killers left, so that humans couldn’t lie about how glorious a soldier’s death is. She dreamed the first Stormwing.”
Daine shivered. “But it doesn’t seem to make a difference, most of the time.” Leaf, who had trickled down to pool in her lap, nodded.
“That’s humans for you,” said the immortal cheerfully. “Nothing slows them down for long. But—if one person asks himself—or herself” —he nodded politely to her— “if the matter to be fought over is worth his corpse being ripped to pieces and smeared with our dung, and decides it isn’t, that’s all we need to justify ourselves. You’d be surprised how many people changed their minds, knowing that we’d come to live on their pain and play with their bodies. The barrier changed that. Humans forgot us. We’ve had to start all over. It will take a century before we’ll make a difference again.”
Daine shook her head as she stroked Leaf. “Am I a bad person, then, for wanting to fight to protect what I believe in?”
“I’m only a Stormwing, not a philosopher. For that, you must talk to Salmalín—if you don’t mind the headache he’ll give you.”
She smiled. “Have people tried making offerings and sacrifices to you, to keep Stormwings from coming down on them?”
“Very good. You know human nature almost as well as we do.” The Stormwings who carried Daine had been listening. They cackled their amusement, making the girl’s hair stand on the back of her neck. “Of course humans have tried to buy us off.” Rikash grinned, his sharp, silver teeth glinting. “We go after them first.”
Hebakh called. “My master’s voice,” Rikash commented with a sigh. He winked. “Sweet dreams.” He rolled in the air in front of her, and caught up with Hebakh effortlessly.
Daine thought long and hard about his words, curling up into a ball within the ropes of her sling. She was afraid to sleep, but she must have done so anyway. The next thing she heard was a voice in her ear. “Wake up!” it said. “We’re setting down!”
She opened her eyes to dawn. They were indeed descending, bound for a flat expanse of sand. Before it roared a curtain of white and red fires, like a flaming waterfall.
