9 - A Bird with a PHD in Orbital Mechanics

Rope is easy to come by when you’re scavenging from a sailing vessel, even a small one. The Whizzing Arrow had plenty, both in-use and in reserve. We made a quick trip back to the ship to grab what we could; the sky would look like a spiderweb by the time we were done here.

“Vincent,” Kornos said. I turned and saw him staring off into the distance. I followed his gaze and noticed what he was looking at.

It was… I wasn’t sure, to be honest. Whatever it was, it was big, and it had wings, and it flew through the air despite the changes in gravity. Or, to be more precise, it somehow knew just how to move such that it almost never had to flap its wings, letting gravity do the work of launching it up, around, and across vast distances.

We skuttled behind a tree a few moments after having simply stared at what was most likely a giant bird that wouldn’t hesitate to swallow us whole the moment it spotted us.

“Shit,” I swore, “what are we going to do about that?”

Kornos stared at it from our hiding spot. I opened my mouth to say something, but figured he was thinking, or observing, I wasn’t sure which. So, I did the same.

The bird had at least a twenty or thirty foot wingspan; it was hard to tell from this far away and with the terrain being so wonky. It wore feathers of gold, purple, and – predominantly – crimson that shone brilliantly in the sun. The belly was white, though it had speckles of the aforementioned colors within it. Its hooked beak was black; it was made for ripping and tearing into flesh.

“Skyterror?” I suggested.

“Not a bad name, but it barely passes,” Kornos said smugly.

“Barely?” I questioned.

He put a hand on my shoulder and informed me, “It’s derivative, unoriginal. The only reason it passes at all is because it fits, somewhat.”

I shook my head, dusting his arm off my shoulder. “I haven’t heard anything better yet.”

“Crimson King.”

I bit my lip. Kornos laughed – quietly.

“Anyways,” he continued, “I think we’re far enough away for now. The lowest I’ve seen it get was still several layers of islands away. We’d have to travel through four or five islands at the least to reach near the lowest it’s gone. We won’t have to worry about it for a while, I think.”

I nodded in agreement. Problem was, we were on a deadline, and while we had time to explore the islands below the domain of the Crimson King, the fact was, Anomalies almost always had more thaums the farther you went from the edges – or closer to the core, as was more common. If I had to guess, I’d bet my axia that more thaums and artifacts could be found farther up than down in this Anomaly. And, if what we’ve found so far is anything to judge by, we won’t find enough to pay off the debt unless we head upwards.

I shared my thoughts with Kornos.

“We just need to take out the bird, right?” he asked, as if it was something easily accomplished. That thing practically blurred as it zipped across the Anomaly, and it hadn’t yet touched down to rest.

I gave him a look that said, ‘are you serious?’

His face was completely serious. I sighed. “You want me to make a weapon, right?” He nodded, and so I asked, “with what?”

Kornos smiled, showing off shiny, serrated teeth. “Why, I’m certain you can, what with all the thaums out there,” he said, waving to the scattered islands in the distance.

He wasn’t wrong, technically, but was it really possible? We could only spend a few days, tops, on gathering materials and thaums, and I’d have to get it in one shot, or we’d be bird feed if it survived. Could I even make the weapon in the first place?

Why did he have so much faith in me?

Kornos must have sensed my doubts, because he again put a hand on my shoulder and said to me, “I believe in you, Vin. We might only barely know each other, but I’d like to think I’m a good judge of character.”

“You were raised by a bunch of fish!” I exclaimed, throwing up my hands.

“They were very interesting fish, Vincent, don’t be rude.” I huffed, but let him continue. “In almost no time at all, you went from barely able to make a trinket to almost thoughtlessly creating abstract pieces. Vin, you made a glove that does stuff on its own. Did you even realize that yourself?” he almost shook me as he said those last words.

Had I? Was the glove and blade really that special? I took a moment to think it over, and my eyes went wide. I’d never heard of anything like the glove; thaumatic devices don’t just act on their own, and frankly, something so abstract as chivalrous, I wasn’t sure how I had even gotten an effect out of that. It had just seemed so… natural, at the time. I wanted something to protect me, and while I had been selecting thaums, my mind wandered to Kornos’s actions on the beach.

I touched the glove, examined it closely.

My mind was struck by a familiar scene. The very same that I had in mind when crafting the glove.

“What the fuck?” I yelped.

Kornos’s eyes went wide, and he looked worried. I took a breath to calm myself and waved him down. I explained to him what had happened. He looked confused, and a bit sheepish. I raised a brow, but refrained from saying anything. Bold, daring scallywag has a shy side, I thought to myself. I would have to tease him about this later, probably after the debt is repaid.

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“My dad didn’t mention anything about this, though, he never mentioned a lot of things,” he said.

“The education we got at the thaumaturgy school was very structured, systematic. We were told only what we needed to in order to do our jobs, and in the specified way. Rigorous, and a pain in the ass, is what I’d call it. So it’s no surprise that there’s a lot we weren’t told. I’d bet a fat bowl of axia that the Highdiver crews we’d signed up for knew, and that they’d tell us about it on the job.” I sighed. “Whatever. At least I learned something important.”

“And that was?” he asked.

“That there’s a whole lot that I don’t know squat about.”

Kornos chuckled and slapped my back. “You’re only just now figuring that out?”

I shoved him playfully and joked, “Shove off fish-boy, you’re not much better.”

He laughed again, and I felt myself laughing too, his mirth infectious.

***

We managed to search the island and traverse one other, fighting off several individual skychasers in the process. We harvested their thaums, as well as finding several other patches of natural ones. I now had a few options, though I needed more before I could start putting together some ideas.

That would have to wait, however, as not long after we made it back to the ship, night fell again.

“How long was that, anyways?” Kornos asked, referring to the length of the day.

I took out my watch. “About the same as outside.”

We decided to head back to the boat and get some sleep. Nothing accosted us during our return, and we ate more crab meat for dinner. The boat was as safe a place as it could get in the Anomaly, so we decided that we would both sleep through the night.

The jarring transition from night to day shocked us both awake.

“Crushing depths,” Kornos swore, which I echoed, “I’ll never get used to that.” I nodded in agreement.

We reorganized our supplies, restocked our rope, which was limited enough that I began to plan how we would traverse islands without it, and did a final ready check.

And with that, we set off once again.

“Huh,” I muttered absently. “There’s a crab over there,” I pointed far off to the side, near the very edge of my sensory range.

“So?”

“That hadn’t been there earlier. In fact, I’m pretty sure that we’ve cleared nearly this entire beach. There shouldn’t be a crab this close to us.”

Kornos shrugged. “What does it matter? Let’s just get going. Unless you want to go poking at some more crabs?” he teased.

“Oh, shut it, fish-boy.”

***

We made good time, reaching the second island in about half an hour. There, we encountered a familiar sight.

“Skychasers,” I informed my friend, pointing towards their direction. There, creeping through the undergrowth not fifty feet away were two, squat forms of stary midnight. “They aren’t moving towards us; I don’t think they’ve noticed us yet. We should-”

Kornos took off, heading straight towards where I had indicated the beasts lay.

“Dammit, Ko,” I grumbled quietly.

His reckless charge was immediately noticed. As eerily silent as always, they soundlessly took off in opposite directions, moving in to flank Kornos.

Chasing after them, I pulled out my knife, and without stopping, struck it against a rock, causing it to vibrate with a nearly inaudible hum. I had debated whether or not to create some kind of leather using the hide from the skychasers, but I lacked the tools and chemicals to properly tan them. It would have been convenient if we had some leather I could infuse with thaums, but in my haste to leave the colony, obtaining proper armor slipped my mind. To be fair, there hadn’t been any armorers open at that time anyways, and the general store had not sold either armor or raw leather.

Unfortunate.

Anyways! I spotted Kornos heading towards one of the skychasers, leaving me to deal with the other that circled around to Kornos’s back. I ran to intercept, leaping over difficult terrain and dodging past trees and rocks. The beast closed in on him, but I reached it first. I lunged, attempting to drive my knife into its flank with an underhand thrust. It didn’t even turn its head as it dodged away, hopping just out of my reach.

That was fine. My role in this fight was to keep Kornos from being surrounded so he could quickly dispatch his opponent and move on to help me with mine. Kornos was the better fighter by far. It was far more tactically sound to stall my opponent instead of rushing in to defeat them. Despite having an infused piece of equipment that vastly increased the rate at which injuries healed, we would still lose time if we had to recover from a particularly nasty wound. Even a crab could hit something vital if we were careless, let alone these silent stalkers of fang and claw.

I raised my gloved hand, ready to intercept the skychaser that had turned its attention to me. It regarded me much as any predator when faced with unknown threats; it weighed its chances through nothing but sheer instinct – both innate and honed through experience, and made a decision.

I caught the beast by its throat as it lunged towards me, fangs bared. Held at arm’s length, it thrashed violently, scoring gouges across my forearm, though they weren’t deep, as its claws were for ripping, not slicing or puncturing. My grip tightened, and it grew more frantic, earning me several more light wounds. I grunted with effort, and crushed its throat with an explosive burst of strength, simultaneously driving my knife where I now knew its heart to be – one of the most valuable pieces of advice I had overheard while waiting tables at the tavern frequented by Highdiver crews had been the immense importance of performing dissections on unknown creatures in Anomalies. To learn of its skeletal structure, placement of organs, even the size of its brain or equivalent center of thought, was to learn of its weaknesses. How it moved, vital organs, level of intelligence, diet, sensory organs. Anything to gain an advantage against the aberrant beasts that prowled the cracks in reality they called home.

When I had explained it to him, Kornos had immediately understood its importance. Though, when I had first attempted to cut open and examine a skychaser, my stomach couldn’t take the combination of horrid stench and outpouring of blood and viscera. I had thought I’d been prepared, that my mind had been prepared for what I would see, but as often the case, emotion trumped logic, no matter how much I wish it weren’t the case.

The beast in my grip went limp, and I pulled my knife out with a wet sound before dropping the corpse. Kornos was, uncharacteristically, still battling his opponent. He had adopted a defensive posture, reacting to its charges and either dodging or forcing it to abandon the charge or be impaled on his blade. I cautiously circled to flank.

Kornos gave me a look that said, ‘let me handle this,’ and I nodded in acquiescence, though I stayed alert, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.

Thankfully, I wasn’t needed, as not long after, Kornos decided he was satisfied and ended the fight, lunging forward in his signature style that mimicked the violent ocean currents his father was known for.

I shot him a mildly questioning look as he cleaned his blade. He shrugged and said, “I wanted to get some extra practice in; make sure I’m prepared if I can’t immediately take one out.”

It was as good a reason as any, I supposed, so I didn’t question it further.

We harvested what we could from the bodies before abandoning them at a remote edge of the island. I snorted to myself as I imagined the Crimson King spotting the corpses and taking them as an offering.

Something told me it was far more intelligent than we were assuming it was. The way it moved; instinct alone could not account for that.

I’d have to make sure that when the time came, whatever I tried against it would undoubtedly obliterate it, or we’d have a very angry, very clever bird hunting us down.