The Bard

I’ve heard stories about Gray Eyes. Hells, many of their Story Marks resided on my skin.

I’d always loved the mystery surrounding the demonic beings of claws, leathery wings, and clouded eyes. The way they seemed to see even with their inherent blindness. Warriors who outclassed any other race. Surviving a fight with them was a matter of luck in every case I’d heard, not skill.

Yes. There were many things said about the Gray Eyes that varied in level of truth.

They all fell short of seeing them in real life.

Stick’s smirk vanished in an instant, her eyes drifting to the darkness behind me. I just focused on making myself as small as possible. Not a threat. This was my one chance for freedom. My chance to see the death and rebirth of the Raito I’d seen in the Writer of Fate’s vision. My only hope was that the Gray Eyes would focus on the Black Pegasus guild rather than one Bard.

It was working so far.

My hair whipped past my face as a warrior flew out of the darkness toward my captors. Then a second and third. At one point I curled into a ball in the tiny hole, watching the lithe beings pull their wings in tight to negotiate the tight opening, then snap them out to gain height.

Stick didn’t even have time to scream.

The first warrior straightened his arm, catching her solidly in the jaw and sending her flying backward. Even among the surprised cries of the others, I heard Stick’s skull connect with some unfortunate rock.

Taking my cue, I tried to stand. I needed to find my cello. If I could just do that, then I’d be fine. It would be a long treck back to the pitiful camp of wagons, but I had to find it. Without it, I was just a debatably heavy woman with a pretty voice.

With it I would make every member of this Gods-foresaken guild pay.

I got my legs under me by some miracle, hands raw and bound from softening my earlier fall.

Falls.

I was just barely to the lip of the opening when a clawed hand wrapped around my throat.

“No! I’m not with them!” I grunted, my throat bobbing against the bruising force on neck, “Let me leave, and you’ll never see me ever—”

A prick at the left side of chest was my only answer, and it was enough to silence me.

So I stood still, watching the other Gray Eyes swarm the my captors.

Their silvery hair was nearly the same as an Elemancer’s distinctive white. Their wings whispered in the air, the only sound they made as the ascended into the sky above. Stick still hadn’t risen from when she fell, but the others were screaming now. One of the scouts from earlier, who I’d nicknamed Rat Face, drew a pistol. He dove behind a rock as he fired off a shot.

Almost lazily, one of the warriors did a vertical twirl in the air to dodge. He swept into a dive as he finished it, blurring with speed. Unafraid of gravity.

Rat Face tucked into his rock, firing again and again. The winged shadow rolled in his drop first to the left, then the right. His face was smooth, unbothered as he fell upon Rat Face.

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It struck me then how broad their frames were compared to humans. They weren’t heavily muscled, but each limb moved with its own strength and grace. The warrior was at least three heads taller than Rat Face, and his shoulders were far broader. His large back muscles worked his wings with easy grace.

My jaw fell open as I saw the Gray Eyes pick up a grown man like he was a loaf of bread.

His wings snapped wide just in time to gain height, the tips barely grazing the ground as one of his feet powered off the ground to reverse his body’s momentum. The motion looked so easy, so natural to him. To me, it was a work of art. I’d seen fights before, but never such a raw display of power.

He didn’t merely pick Rate Face up by the throat. The human’s eyes widened as the Gray Eyes arched his arm up to throw him skyward. The man flew like an arrow at least twenty feet, his body silhouetted against the sky.

Screaming, his limbs flailed uselessly as gravity captured him again.

And then he met the ground with a sickening crunch.

My attention was redirected as Sack Pox fired his own pistols, screaming a war cry.

He wasn’t trying to hide, instead duel-wielding pistols and shooting indiscriminately. But the denizens of the Source Chasm danced away from every bullet, tucking and rolling in the air like a dancer rehearsing choreography.

Something glinted at their belts with each movement. Squinting, I saw handles of Source swords, daggers, and arrows neatly tucked away on each of them.

Gods. They hadn’t even drawn their weapons.

Two of the Gray Eyes made their way to Sack Pox simultaneously, claws enclosing his forearms in punishing grips. He squealed as he too was lifted high into the air. His pistols clattered to the dirt as his arms were forced wide.

He tried kicking out at the warriors, but they simply let him go, only to catch him the exact same way a moment later. A third warrior suddenly appeared, sweeping down and then ascending toward where Sack Pox bobbed in the air, legs still kicking.

By some unknown signal, the two warriors holding him let fall just at the third met his downward momentum with a fist to the abdomen.

Sack Pox spat out bile as he was carried back into the sky a few feet higher with the hit, his body going limp over the Gray Eye’s arm. A moment later, he was allowed to join his companions on the ground again.

All went still.

I went to move again, but that was rewarded with a small shot of pain as the knife pricked my skin at my chest. I froze, bringing my hands up in surrender.

“Please,” I pleaded to the warrior holding me, “I need to live.”

Silence.

I swallowed, saying the words I was too proud to say until now.

“I just want to go home.”

My plea was still ignored.

The warrior’s grip around my neck didn’t change, even as his three companions landed soundlessly at the lip of the hole. They looked to each other in some sort of silent communication, one nodding or shaking his head from time to time.

Doing my best not to struggle, I kept still in the warrior’s arms. I had a strong feeling that the reason I was unharmed was because I hadn’t fought back. Yet.

I looked downward at the hidden entrance to the Source Chasm, realizing the narrow shelf I stood on actually opened up to a dizzying drop. Distantly I could hear the roar of fires, the whisper of air flowing over stone, and mining.

And wings. Lots of wings.

The warriors continued their silent conversation for a few minutes before I heard a groan from nearby. Then another.

Gods. They didn’t kill them. I opened my mouth to ask why, but the warriors were already turning, hempen rope appearing in their hands to bind the others.

I stifled my groan, realizing I was going to have to wait a little longer to get my cello.

Dragging me backward, the warrior holding me gave a small huff as he lifted me and began to descend into the Source Chasm.

Well then, I thought bitterly as my stomach dropped with our flight, I’ve gone from one set of jailors to another. Writer, you’re a real bastard sometimes.