Chapter 27
SKALD DREKKI
By the time the pitch darkness ended, he was eager to take his first flight.
He woke from his comfortable stone bed thirty days after becoming Speaker, and noticed the pale ray of sunlight touching the far reaches of his cave, mingling with the green light emitted from the stone, where it joined with his ledge.
At last. He could fulfil his duties as Speaker of his kind by ensuring the Others remained unaware of the presence of drekkikind.
He was no longer daunted by this first test of his flying skills. Flying free from rún-ketill would be very different from flying in the caverns, to the feeding grounds. He’d fed well yesterday, visiting the hot feeding grounds, anticipating today’s sunrise.
Now, he balanced himself on his ledge, near the edge of the sharp drop.
The cliff face fell straight down, beyond sight below him, unless he used his wings to balance, while his claws gripped the ledge.
Now, he extended his mighty golden wings, temporarily distracted by the shimmering sunlight on them, testing them once, twice, enjoying the sound as they swept through the air, before lifting himself briefly from the frozen rock.
A sharp wind rose to meet him, as he hovered, and then he snapped his wings shut and his claws scrabbled for purchase.
Exhilarated, he stretched his wings once more and this time, leapt from the ledge, soaring skywards. His golden wings beat up and down in the glow of the first sunrise after the end of the pitch darkness.
He flew south, towards the far edge of the shimmering wall, watching himself in the reflection as he flew across the massive glacier below his home. He’d never flown so far before, although all hatchlings learned to fly before they could walk.
He swooped and soared, revelling in his freedom, marvelling at the speeds his wings could take him away from the constraints of rún-ketill. It was only when the sun was high in the pale sky that he truly started to notice anything about the landscape below him.
Its unexpected beauty absorbed him. Frozen green rivers. Icy blue glaciers. Snow-encrusted purple high-peaked mountains. The dark green sea trapped beneath the ice. Black-topped mountains lacking snow on their peaks.
He sought the homes of the Others, but it was impossible to see much detail with so much thick snow blanketing the ground.
He looked down at the sparkling expanse of white, and then up at the low-lying clouds and at the glowing orb pulsing weakly in the clear sky.
As he hovered over the ice-locked sea, he surveyed the distance he’d flown.
Far off, he could see his snow-tipped home of rún-ketill, barely discernible from all the other mountains dotting the horizon.
Everything he saw was perfect and pristine, new and fresh. He saw it with new eyes. It was one thing to glimpse his home in the images playing in the Archive. It was another to see it for real and to know he was the only one of his kind who’d ever see what he saw until his life ended.
The wind was gentle on his face now, occasionally buffeting him.
When it did, he’d temporarily lose height and work his huge wings hard to regain the lost height.
He wasn’t used to being out in the open.
His kind were restricted to their home in rún-ketill, where the wind speed and direction was always predictable.
Out here, it was another matter entirely.
Skaldi knew a shiver of fear but countered it.
He was young. He was strong. He could fly as far as he liked.
With each downward stroke of his wings, he gained strength, rather than losing it.
Then he saw it. One of the Others, outside their dwelling.
If he’d thought them small before, now they appeared minuscule.
A few wing strokes later, their home appeared.
It was nothing more than a small snow-covered rock.
Only its regular shape interrupting the otherwise pristine snow confirmed what it was.
Following his success, he felt emboldened. He flew closer to the snow-encased land and saw more homes, but never another Other. Curiosity consumed him.
Why did the Others live here, in this land of ice and snow? They were evidently not made to endure such conditions.
He flew on, spotting other dwellings, but still not a single Other.
Eventually, the multitude of stars, his firm friends for the last thirty days, began to sparkle, crystalline, in the blackening cobalt sky above his head.
It was a beautiful, crisp evening, but the wind was bitterly cold, even through his tough hide.
With a final glance at the ice-locked ocean, he turned and beat his huge wings steadily home. But flying was no longer as easy. The wind battered him, making every downward stroke an effort as the wind seemed to rush upwards from the ground.
Now, stirrings of fear took hold. For every one of his great wing strokes, he moved only a little way forward. His earlier speed had vanished.
Battling his growing terror, he decided on an alternative plan.
He fought his way higher and higher, until the land was a tiny, shining, multi-hued jewel beneath him.
Up so high, the going was somewhat easier.
The wind was less robust, but there also seemed to be less of everything.
He struggled for air to fill his mighty lungs.
After only a few short moments, his wings seemed to double in weight.
They were so heavy, he couldn’t maintain his wing beats.
There was no choice but to return closer to the ground.
As he dropped lower, his wings returned to their normal weight and the wind to its previous ferocity. At last, feeling exhausted, Skaldi decided there was nothing for it. He’d have to land and wait out the night before returning to rún-ketill in the first rays of early morning sunlight.
Perhaps the warning from his lessons in the cave shouldn’t be ignored after all. He must only fly during daylight hours.
He’d never practised landing in the open before.
It took him a few tries to get both front claws down at the same time and he came to a stop with a loud, ungainly thump on a rocky outcrop.
He detected no caves hidden in the vicinity.
He looked at where he’d chosen to make his bed for the night.
He was near an exposed ridge, stretching for a long distance to either side of where he lay.
Below the ridge, he suspected, was the glacier close to his home, and which the light shield surrounded.
He’d managed to fly against the force of the wind for longer than he’d thought.
He wasn’t far from home after all. But as the wind continued to howl, and the snow to fall in huge sheeting gusts, he decided the correct decision had been to stop and wait out the storm.
There were currently none of his kind who shared his unique ability.
It would be catastrophic if he plunged to his death because of the storm and left no one to govern his kind.
There had been no need for a new Testing to take place.
Not yet. Not when he was so young and so newly come to his position.
Satisfied, he curled up for the night, his mighty head tucked under his majestic wing, knowing his thick scales would protect him from the cold wind, just as they did when he flew high.
His wing would keep his head warm all night long, provided he curled his head beneath it.
At daybreak, he’d be able to resume flying.
Happy with his plan, he prepared to rest.
But sleep eluded him. He’d never spent the night outside rún-ketill before and he couldn’t help peeking over his wing spur as an initial splattering of snow quickly became a full-blown storm.
It landed on his wing, and he smiled. It felt soft.
He idly wondered if, when he woke, he’d look like one of the Others’ snow-encased dwellings.
It amused him; he found himself laughing.
He felt free and powerful. It was intoxicating.
He also found he was in pain. All across his long back, there was a stabbing sensation he’d never experienced before. He supposed it was because he’d flown a long way and he wasn’t used to it.
He hoped the pain would lessen by the sunrise, as otherwise, it would be painful to fly home.
It was already more than a little uncomfortable to curl his head under his wing.
He tried changing wings, but they both hurt his back the same.
In the end, he resolved to keep his head out from under the protection of his wings.
It was too uncomfortable to keep curled up.
He’d be warm enough. He’d be able to watch for the first rays of sunlight.
He felt too exhilarated to close his eyes anyway.
He was outside rún-ketill. He was lying on the snow.
At some point during the long night, he became aware of a strange ‘something’ pressing on his mind, as if it was shouting for his attention. And there was a noise. It rose or fell, depending on which way the wind blew, but it was always there. He tried to ignore it but found he couldn’t.
Eventually, he lumbered to his feet. He followed the wail, for he realised that’s what it was, which swelled with the shifting pressure in his mind, hoping to find its source.
It was deepest black all around him. His keen eyes allowed him to pick a path.
The wind continued to screech, and he squinted against the constant blowing snow.
As he came closer to the source of the noise, he noticed a trail of small prints in the snow.
They made him wonder if one of the Others had come this way and were lost. He hesitated, wondering if he should continue.
He’d been warned so many times to stay away from them and remembering the depictions of the way they’d slaughtered so many drekki before their separation, he was tempted to heed the advice.