3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
Fen
Wind.
I have not flown in years.
My wings open at the top of the ridge.
I don't remember how to fly.
My body does.
The cell took the sky from me a long time ago.
I beat them once. Wrong.
They spread on their own, catch the lift rising off the ridge, and suddenly I'm climbing. I remember on the second breath.
Thaw is at my left wing. Two hundred yards out. Bigger than me. Scales catching the moon when the moon comes through cloud.
Crull is below us. Running. The orc form covers ground quickly. He is keeping pace.
I am between them.
Crull glances up. The amber eyes find me through the trees. He is running flat-out and his head comes up to find me in the sky, and his look says, welcome back.
I push harder.
My wings catch a degree more air. Thaw sees it. He does not pass me. He stays at my wing. He is letting me lead the pace.
I bank into the current. The air shifts against my wings, and I follow it. I drop a wingbeat, find a thermal off the east face, and ride it up.
Thaw rides the same one beside me.
I bank harder. The wings cut at an angle and I glide down sharply.
I smile. Then I level.
We are not flying for me.
Every wingbeat stretches the bond tighter.
She is behind me. Every mile says go back.
Jen's voice stays with me. Her hand around mine an hour ago. Her palm against my face in the cold-storage room. Distance is the worst thing I have chosen.
The cell was done to me. The dosing was done to me.
This is my choice.
I choose it anyway.
The straps. The needle. The order to stay still.
No.
She told me not to die on the way.
I won't.
I focus on Hollens. She is ahead and we must save her.
The pre-dawn comes up. The Cascades go red at the edges.
I see him before Thaw.
A man on the south face of a slope below us. Alone. Walking a line at the base of a rock outcrop. Syndicate vest. Rifle slung. He is walking south to north, eyes on the trees.
Thaw has not seen him. Crull is in the trees behind us. The sentry is not on either of their lines of sight.
He is on mine.
I drop.
Not glide. Drop. The wings fold and I go down, and the sentry has time to lift his head once and his mouth opens but no sound comes out because I am on him.
I do not think. I move. The rifle is mine before it comes up. My claws find his throat.
He hits the ground. He doesn't get back up.
I wait.
For one breath, I wait to see if I can still think.
I can. I am still here.
I lift off the slope.
Thaw is overhead, plates lit in the pre-dawn. Crull is at the rock face. They both saw me drop. Neither of them is looking at me. They're looking at the body.
A valley.
White roof against the side of a mountain. Lights at the perimeter, low. Vehicle access on the east. A road coming in from the south. A single building.
Site Camille.