Chapter 26: Flight from Windcrown
The plan had been simple enough for Dantes to think it a good plan. Run across the bridge before the agents were expecting it. Simple. It had started well enough, he supposed.
Mitty ran while he held off the woman. She felt like the more dangerous of the two, and between the both of them, only Mitty could be realistically taken on the span. He’d tried to hold the other one too, of course, but the male agent used a gap made by this partner to slip by, with nothing Dantes could really do about it lest he take a dagger to the side.
He already had his hands full as it was, the woman successfully darting in and out of his range to give him minor cuts. Still, he was used to fighting with a range advantage, and he was mostly keeping her out.
She stepped forward, and his staff lashed out like a snake in a burst of [Speed], crunching painfully into her lead foot. The woman grunted in pain and favoured her other foot now but said nothing.
Some movement from under her cloak ended in a dagger sailing towards his face. He ducked, but the distraction was enough for her to close the distance again, pouncing at him like a tiger.
He tried to knee her to get her off, but a searing pain bit into his thigh, as she countered by leaving a long red gash. Still, it got her off him, his blow had landed, knocking the air out of her.
Behind him he heard a scream of pain.
He wanted to turn and run to help his friend, but with his leg as it was, he knew he needed to stand and fight.
He felt the woman might’ve smirked if she didn’t look so relieved, before her eyes widened and she collapsed to the ground like cooked spaghetti.
Behind her a voice boomed angrily.
“I warned you. If you caused any more trouble, I’d cast you off my mountain myself. Let it never be said the King of Windcrown is a liar.”
Suddenly the pressure that had been pressing the agent down released, as the man strode forward and dragged her to the edge of the bridge, casting her off like a man discarding trash.
Before the man had finished, however, he’d already turned, running towards Mitty. Ahead of him he saw she’d already broken free, though the agent was catching up to her. He would’ve caught her too if a fletched bolt didn’t pierce his leg just above the knee. The man collapsed to the ground screaming in pain.
On the other side he saw yet another agent wearing the same colors running towards them, casting aside a spent crossbow.
Did he miss Mitty and accidentally strike his ally? How many of these people are there?
He wouldn’t make it, he realized. He slowed, fumbling at his pouch for the parcel Mitty had given him before. “Open in case of emergency”, she’d said.
He tore the brown paper away, revealing a still warm soufflé. A joke? Would Mitts joke about something so important?
His gut said probably, but he decided to trust his partner instead. He crammed it into his mouth as he ran, barely registering the delicate flavor and light fluffy texture. He did register the power that coursed through his veins, though it did not help him run faster, and did something.
He felt invigorated, pushing his legs to their limit.
He saw his partner make the leap. He heaved a sigh of relief. She would make it.
As she soared through the air though, something went wrong. Her trajectory changed from making it with room to spare, to missing it by inches.
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No!
The power coursed through his shoulder blades and outwards. He could feel cloth ripping on his back, but he ignored it, pumping his legs with every drop of energy available to him.
He leapt after her, pushing off the ground with everything he had. [Speed] coursed through his veins, his good leg exploded with the last drop of energy he had to give it, his whole weight thrust forwards, his wings made a single mighty flap. He rocketed over the gap.
She clung to the edge with mere fingertips, her other arm flailing uselessly by her side, the enemy agent closing in.
She fell.
He rocketed into the agent mere breaths later. He punched the damnable man in his face in frustration, knocking him out instantly.
His friend would die. He was helpless to do anything about it.
It hit him like the punch to the face he’d just delivered. She was falling, and soon, she would die.
The wind hit him in a great gust now, catching his wings, knocking him off balance slightly.
His wings?
He looked behind himself and saw great wings of gold and white, soft plumage covering them. They spanned twice his height, and should have been quite heavy, but they felt light as air. He gave them a test flap. They responded to his will without question, lifting him high into the air.
He looked down, his friend a rapidly fading speck in the distance.
He dove after her.
He saw her in the distance, tumbling like a ragdoll through unseen air currents. He tightened his form, tucked his wings in and willed himself be faster.
The wind streaked into his eyes like an unrelenting tide. Still, he forced them to stay open, regardless of the pain of a thousand needles poking into them.
He was gaining on her, but she was already halfway down the spire. She was falling outwards, he saw, and would likely land somewhere on the slope.
He gritted his teeth, but there was nothing he could do to accelerate further. As he closed in, he saw little wings on her back, but they were stubby and useless, flapping helplessly against the air that battered her ever which way.
He closed in, and soon they were separated by maybe a dozen paces.
But the ground was closing in faster.
It rushed towards them like an unstoppable wall.
He was too slow again.
He saw her bounce off the hard stone of a staircase, landing on a street below, unmoving, face down.
He aborted his dive in favour for taking the landing feet first, wings taking mighty flaps to slow him down, though he still landed with a jarring shock.
A thin crowd had formed around her already, the startled workers whispering amongst themselves.
They parted for him, staring at his wings, but saying nothing.
It was over.
Their adventure had barely begun, but already it was over. He collapsed at her side, grasping a hand.
Her mischievous smile after she stole something or made a joke. The names she called him which he really knew meant ‘friend’. The hurt in her eyes that he would never fully understand now.
He howled in sorrow and loss.
An emptiness filled him as he realised the only person in the whole world who could truly understand him lay broken on the flagstones before him.
Someone did this to her. Through the emptiness, that thought gave birth to a feeling that twisted inside him, black and cold, lurking beneath the surface.
Someone had done this to her. Some people. He’d seen three but who knew how many there were in this city. He would find them. He would tear them to shreds.
A weak cold hand grasped his hand back. His thoughts of revenge swept away in the wind.
She lived.
How? She’d fallen from the height of two mountains and landed on cold hard stone.
It didn’t matter how. He’d failed once already. He would not fail her again. This place was too dangerous to stay. They needed to leave. To go far, far away, where no cloaked agents could reach them with their long knives.
He looked around them. Already, he thought he could see a brownish red cloak approaching from the crowd.
He quickly gathered Mitty in his arms. He heard a soft hiss and a pained whisper.
“Careful you oaf, don’t you know how to treat a lady?”
He smiled. Everything would be okay.
He gathered himself, crouching low, before leaping skywards, wings carrying him once more.
He could feel her in his arms, light as a feather, fragile as hope. He grasped her tightly as golden wings took him south.
***
In a trance, he flew. Flew away from that dreadful mountain of magic and assassins. On wings of broad daylight he fled across low lands, bereft of anything taller than shrubs, past sparse forests that slowly thickened, until there was more forest than open ground.
Still he flew, until his wings flapped no more, and he was forced to glide on the gentle wind currents, slowly descending into the dense canopy below.
It had been raining for some time, he realised, for the air was wet and humid, and perspiration streaked his brow.
He sought now a break in the trees, for the colorful foliage was dense, and vines tangled across the canopy making landing a difficult proposition.
He eventually saw a huge tree, bigger than the others, that pierced the canopy. Around it, he could see the canopy was sparse, so he glided towards it, spiraling downwards around its trunk until he was below the canopy and set his two feet on the ground.
For now, they were safe.
Exhaustion flooded into him as he set his burden lightly on the ground in a patch of fallen leaves. A muscle he did not have throbbed as he leaned back against the tree and closes his eyes.