Chapter 19 Karinna
Karinna
Karinna seethed as the sky-dog winged away from the Resistance hideout. She wanted to stick a knife in him for leaving the Tel Ilessi alive. Hells, she wanted to stick a knife in herself for following Musa’s orders and fleeing instead of staying to fight.
But up here in this skies-forsaken Sail, all she could do was hold on and hope that the sky-dog had strapped her in properly. They’d spiraled aloft so fast that Karinna’s stomach dropped out from under her as swiftly as the receding earth.
“That metal box just below you. Don’t touch it.” Cero spoke into a conical-shaped bit of metal, connected to a tube. The tube snaked back to her seat, where it opened to another cone. Musa’s communication apparatus.
“That’s the engine,” Cero went on. “If it’s jostled, we’ll stoop like a struck falcon.
” Cero put the Sail into a tight upward spiral, spinning round and round until Karinna couldn’t tell sky from earth.
When the accursed man finally pulled out of the spin, Karinna leaned over the side of her chair and retched until there was nothing left in her stomach.
Her face burned in embarrassment and rage. She should have heaved her dinner all over the damned pilot’s back, but she didn’t want him to lose control of the Sail. By the time her stomach had stopped convulsing, the fires from the Kegari attack were behind them.
Karinna glanced down to discover moonlit forest, farmland, and an immobilizing fear of heights.
She’d thought flying would be a bit like riding a horse. She hadn’t expected the incessant humming of the engine, nor the icy wind, nor the sheer terror of having nothing below her but air and a painful death.
She caught a glimpse of iridescence at the edge of her vision. A wight. Of course one of those little buggers appeared when she was at her worst. She used to think they were rare, but after learning she could communicate with them, she saw them everywhere. Not that they ever listened to her.
“Come here, you,” she growled at it. “I want to send Musa a message that this was the stupidest plan he’s ever—ow!”
The wight bit her hand and then chittered something at her before disappearing in the wind. Typical!
The next few hours were some of the worst in Karinna’s life.
Her skin smarted from the freezing wind; her body shook from cold.
A litany of morbid questions passed through her brain: Would she scream as she fell, or would the wind steal her voice?
If she hit the ground at the wrong angle, would she risk a slow, lingering end instead of a nice, quick demise?
Would she simply freeze to death first? Skies, she could hear Khunnor and Bhadboo laughing now.
Thought she was something special and she ended up crow food…
No. She’d get through this. She’d succeed in this mission and prove to Musa that she belonged in the Resistance as much as the rest of them.
She thought of Ruh, of how sometimes, when she taught him a new combat roll or scim defense, he’d look at her like she knew more than anyone.
Her father’s old mantra echoed in her mind: The field of battle is my temple.
The swordpoint is my priest. The dance of death is my prayer. The killing blow is my release.
She white-knuckled the straps keeping her in the seat. Memories surfaced in her brain, her father speaking of Blackcliff and of the Commandant’s ruthless methods for curing phobias.
Empress Helene, she recalled, had also been afraid of heights. And if she could conquer it when she wasn’t much older than Karinna, then Karinna would find a way to do so too.
When Cero finally brought the Sail spiraling down, the sun was beginning to rise—not that Karinna noticed it. She’d kept her eyes assuredly closed.
They hit the ground with a gentle thump. Karinna caught the brief impression of a mountain clearing, skinny pine trees, and a spring. But mostly, she was focused on ripping the damn buckles off and getting away from the Sail.
“Take a second to stretch your legs before you get out, otherwise you’ll—”
Cero was speaking, but Karinna was already leaping from the seat, desperate to escape the damnable contraption. The second her feet hit the ground, she crumpled like a shack in a gale.
“—fall,” Cero finished.
Pain shot through her ankle and she’d bet her best dagger it was sprained. Broken if she was unlucky. Bleeding hells, just what she needed.
Karinna threw Cero a dark look before staggering to her feet—or trying.
Her ankle wouldn’t hold her, so she hopped in a humiliating and undignified manner toward the spring.
By the time she reached it, her entire body shook and she was pouring sweat.
She splashed water on her face, wincing at her reflection in the clear water.
Her hair was a snarled knot, her face filthy with salt and dried tears. She looked a mess.
She looked weak.
The thought made her angrier than she already was. Karinna willed the sky-rat to say something. Anything. She wanted a fight.
But he was silent. When she looked back at him, he was laying out his bedroll beside the Sail.
She reached for her boot—if this was a break, she needed to get it off before her ankle swelled up and she had to cut the leather away.
When she pulled at it, pain exploded through her leg all the way up to her thigh.
She gasped and tried to think of her father and all he suffered at Blackcliff.
He wouldn’t have cried and fallen apart over a sprained ankle.
He’d have gotten the boot off and dunked his ankle in the cold spring until it went numb.
“The—the field of battle is my temple,” she tried to say, but it turned into a whimper, and when she noticed the sky-dog’s presence beside her, she wanted to take his head off, because he’d heard her. She supposed it was a good thing her hands were shaking too badly for her to grab her blades.
“Get away.” She felt feverish and it was made worse by the hot wind blowing across the clearing. “I don’t need—”
He sat down at her feet, and with a gentleness that made her grit her teeth, he pulled off her boot.
“I can help you.” The sky-dog glanced up at her. “Will you let me?”
“Fine,” she growled. A moment later, he rolled down her sock and turned her foot.
“Ow, bleeding hells, be careful!”
“A sprain—”
“It’s a bleeding break. I’ll need to get to a proper healer.”
“I know a poultice that can help.”
“You—” Dizziness overtook her words. “No poul—need a—”
Darkness swept over her. She heard him calling her. Oi. Martial. Rebel. Kari—whatever the bleeding hells your name is—
The next thing she knew, she was returning to consciousness a few hours later, the sun painting her eyelids orange. There was something warm packed around her ankle. And something else warm on her chest. She squinted at the sudden brightness to find two emerald orbs staring back at her.
Abzi? she said in what she hoped was a reasonable approximation of cat language. How did you get here?
The cat appeared to answer, but Karinna only understood fly and cold.
Again, please, Abzi?
I fly. She sniffed at Karinna’s ankle. Careful. Paw unworthy of hunt.
It won’t be worthy for a while, Karinna said.
Maybe. Abzi began to lick her belly languidly. Maybe not.
Karinna rose to her elbows. Cero had dragged her to the lee of an oak near the spring. He lay on his bedroll a few yards away, underneath the shade of his Sail. Fast asleep. Karinna moved her ankle gingerly. It still ached, but nothing like before.
She limped over to the Sail and poked at it with her foot.
“Please don’t put a hole in it.”
She jumped; she’d been certain he was asleep.
“I might dislike it, but I’m not stupid enough to damage our only means of completing this mission,” she said, peering at the Sail’s engine. “I thought these things fell apart when the pilot stepped out.”
“An improvement of mine,” Cero said. “Allowing the reeds to stay in place if you trigger a lock mechanism. Makes for quicker takeoff.”
“Hmph,” Karinna grunted. “You invent things? Magical things?”
Cero shrugged, staring up at an afternoon sky lit in shades of ochre and rose. He twirled a thick silver band around his finger. She nearly asked him if he’d made that, too, but decided against it, lest he think she was warming to him.
“My ankle’s still hurting,” she lied. “Your poultice didn’t work.”
He frowned. “Not sure what you’re up to, rebel,” he said. “But I saw you walk to the Sail and kick it. The poultice worked.”
She was up to something—the second part of Musa’s mission—and she was irritated he’d guessed. Don’t dwell on it.
“Maybe.” Karinna limped ostentatiously back to her spot, far away from him. “Maybe not.”
He dragged himself up and came to sit beside her. “May I?” He fixed his green eyes on hers. For an instant, a tendril of doubt curled around her thoughts. But she put up her mental wall quickly and nodded.
He removed the poultice, and then held her ankle, turning it left and right. Then he reapplied the mud and wrapped it. As far as Karinna could see, he hadn’t done much. And yet strangely, it felt better.
“Should help,” he said. “I’m going to see if I can find some game.”
He disappeared into the hills and not a quarter hour later, Abzi began to circle Karinna, clearly trying to tell her something. After long, frustrating minutes of attempting to interpret it, Karinna finally understood.
Visitor, Abzi said.
Karinna thought Abzi was mistaken until, after a few minutes, she heard the whirr of wings.
The wight landed on her knee and gave a bow of deference.
She was clearly well trained, which meant she was one of Musa’s messengers.
Some of his wights spoke Serran, but not this one.
It took Karinna three tries to finally comprehend what the wight was saying.
Message for the Beekeeper?
Yes, Karinna said, and whispered her message quickly, in case Cero returned. As the wight departed, Karinna smiled.
Already the mission was bearing fruit.