Torv and Icarus crossed an invisible boundary, the former none the wiser and the latter unable to express his anxiety. He was just a boy with an owl perched on his staff, taking a leisurely walk through uneven, empty countryside and forest. His reverie was broken the fourth night away from Wendell’s comfortable abode. Wendell’s map was absurdly detailed, and Torv tracked their route easily, consulting it only occasionally. They were in a particularly flat bit of country, nothing to see but tall summer grass waving in unexpected gusts of wind, unreadable patterns drawn out in the constant flexing and bending of the only visible vegetation.

Though he spent much of the day sleeping, talons tightly wrapped on his moving perch, Icarus occasionally flapped noiselessly from Torv’s line of sight, gone before the boy realized he was awake, and returned shortly thereafter with a mouse or vole, or some other small creature unfortunate enough to come across an owl awake and moving through their homeland. The grass was smooth to the touch, and vaguely sweet on the tongue, and fully as tall as Torv’s shoulders. The hood of his traveling cloak was nearly filled to bursting with burrs when they stopped for a rest.

It was the smoke he remembered the most, from the night his parents died. It billowed out and away from Luxan in pillars of thick, black smoke that looked solid to the touch, as if made of a particular dark stone that sat still in the sky. At first, Torv sprinted towards the pillar simply because it was coming from Daisy’s house. It was not until he was nearly there that he remembered his parents had gone to sit and have tea with Daisy’s father as they so often did of an afternoon. It was going on sundown and the blood red sun cast eerie shadows and amber light through the smoking mists that hung above Luxan.

He ran as fast as his legs would take him, hopping over streams and fences, panting raggedly from the exertion. He had been out foraging for mushrooms when the shouts started and he had looked up from the ground for the first time all afternoon to see what nightmares waited for him in the sky above. It was unclear at first, through the thin canopy of early fall, just exactly what was happening. It was when he cleared the line of trees and splashed through the cattail shallows of the pond that he saw...and he picked up his pace.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

A brawny arm hooked Torv around the shoulders and pinched him tight so that he could not run any closer to the flames. He could smell stale sweat and earth, pipe smoke and leather.

-No, Torv. No.

The voice belonged to Daisy’s mother, the strongest woman Torv had ever known, in every sense of the word. He felt Daisy herself next to him, smelled her fresh scent. She was sobbing gently, quietly. He did not know how long she had been there or when she had arrived.

-It was gone before we could get near it, Daisy’s mother continued. All we could do was to dig trenches around it so the whole village didn’t go up. They’re all in a better place now.

-You don’t know that, Torv said defiantly. A boy’s choice of words, not a man’s.

-No, Torv Mannold. I don’t. But that’s how I’ll choose to think of it. You can mind your own on that front I reckon.

In a move he would regret for years, he tore away from the two women, left them to grieve on their own, and ran towards the woods, refusing to look back, choking on smoke and tears.

Icarus was awake, and pecked at Torv’s knuckles, hard. A trail of dark blood ran down his hand to the grip on the staff, staining the old, wrapped cloth.

-What? What is it?

Torv was irritated; the pain in his knuckles radiated through his forearm and now they would have to stop and bandage it. What had come over the stupid feather…

There was smoke in the air, biting at Torv’s nostrils, stinging his eyes. In a flash, Icarus was on the wing, way way way up he went, doing wide circles high in the sky above them. Torv turned all the way around, spinning in circles, feeling a combination of fear and embarrassment as he twirled, looking for the source. It wasn’t long before he found it. Icarus turned in increasingly narrow circles above it as it advanced towards Torv in the grass, flattening all in its path, sending animals scurrying in all directions from its frightening machinations. It was a monstrous machine, spewing smoke from multiple stovepipes which stuck out from its riveted, iron body at odd angles. It was the color of rust, and it squeaked and screeched as it lurched forward in horrific gasps of Island engineering. It was not slowing down, and it was headed straight for him.