A Flight of Broken Wings, page 20
part #1 of The Aeriel Chronicles Series
The Aeriel screamed, a blood-curdling cry of pure agony, as its legs buckled and it collapsed to the ground, Hiya still clutched tightly against its body like a shield, or a lifeline. Ruban stepped onto the injured wing – now twisted awkwardly against the floor – and drove his heel into it even as he raised his hand to hack at the other appendage. He would not stop until Hiya was back safely in his arms. Then, perhaps, he would make it a quick end.
“Baan! Stop!” Hiya’s shrill voice rent the air, permeating his senses and forcing him to stop in his tracks, as the girl jumped out of the Aeriel’s slackened grip and stood in front of him, shielding the creature with her body. “What are you doing?” she gasped, clutching at his leg and pushing with all her might, trying to drive him back. “It’s Ashwin. He saved me, didn’t you see? Stop it!”
A white, glowing orb flashed through the night-sky, heading towards them like an oversized bullet forged from fire. It crashed into the earth moments after Ruban had leapt forward and thrown himself bodily over Hiya, covering her tiny form with his own larger one as he rolled them further into the forest, hoping the foliage would provide some cover from airborne assailants. Zikyang did not have much of a canopy, but it was a fairly dark night. Ruban prayed that that would be enough even as he tucked them both into the nook between two of the larger trees.
Looking up, he saw the silvery form of an Aeriel appear against the dark sky, stark and glowing ethereally in the light of the moon. A moment passed, and two more pearly figures appeared behind the first one, circling each other over the forest with lazy flaps of their lustrous wings.
“Damn,” Ruban muttered under his breath, trying to push himself towards the area with the heaviest undergrowth in the vicinity. “They must’ve been waiting for Reivaa to finish us off, before all the vultures could gather to feed on our corpses.” He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought to check for any backup Reivaa might have had. He supposed it just hadn’t occurred to him that Reivaa would willingly share the pleasure of killing them with anybody else. Well, she probably wouldn’t have, which was why they hadn’t appeared until after her death.
“What do we do now, Baan?” Hiya’s voice shook, and she buried her face in the hollow of his neck. He could feel her tears drenching his shirt and he held her tighter, shifting slightly to make her somewhat more comfortable. He didn’t know what else to do, what else he could do. Pain flared through every part of his body, and his injured calf still felt as if someone had hacked at it with a rusted chainsaw. He felt helpless, and it wasn’t a feeling he was used to. He decided that he despised it.
Another energy-shell fell out of the sky and crashed a few feet away from where they hid, momentarily blinding Ruban with the flash of its detonation. A third soon followed – illuminating the woods in a flare of dazzling luminescence before going out just as quickly as it had appeared, making the forest feel darker than before.
A moment passed in relative tranquillity, and then something caught Ruban’s eye – a flicker in the distance, where the last energy-shell had hit the ground. It was tiny, barely noticeable. Ruban’s heart thundered against his ribs, as though it wanted to leap out of his mouth and vanish.
A fire-shell. They’re trying to flush us out by setting the whole damn forest on fire!
His blood turned to ice, he watched the spark grow brighter with every passing second, spreading slowly in an ever-increasing radius of flickering luminescence. He looked over desperately in the direction of his car, barely able to make out the metallic outline of the vehicle in the oppressive darkness. It was at least a hundred yards off from where they lay curled up in the foliage. Ruban did not need to flex his legs to know that he was in no condition to run that distance with Hiya in his arms. He could barely carry his own weight, and he certainly wouldn’t be fast enough to avoid being hit by one of the Aeriels on the way. They’d be dead long before they got anywhere near the car, he realised, as the flames danced closer to their hiding place with every moment that passed.
Was this what it came down to, Ruban wondered, a distant sort of calm descending over his overwrought senses. A choice between being burned alive or blasted to bits? Didn’t seem like much of a choice to him. But then, things rarely were all that they were cranked up to be, in his experience.
A shadow fell over them, and Hiya squealed, practically vibrating out of his arms in glee. Forcing his eyes to focus, Ruban looked up – to see Ashwin standing over them; wings outstretched, one hand braced against a nearby tree as if he didn’t trust his feet to keep him upright without the extra support. A faint sliver of light still spilled from his injured wing, casting forlorn shadows over the two humans as he stood there gazing down at them with empty white eyes.
Ruban wondered if it would be easier to just let Ashwin do it. He had been quick enough with Reivaa.
“Please, don’t hurt Hiya,” Ruban gasped, forcing the words through his parched throat in a strange mimicry of his entreaty to Reivaa earlier that evening. The words burned on their way out. It felt as though he had swallowed sand. “Please, just…you can do what you want with me. You don’t have to kill her. She’s done nothing to you. Just let her go, please.” He wasn’t above begging when it came to Hiya, when it came to the one thing that really mattered.
The Aeriel frowned, tilting his head to one side in that painfully familiar gesture. Dark hair fell over silver eyes, his braid having come undone at some point during the fight. The sight almost gave Ruban backlash, the combination of the alien and the familiar too much for his already disoriented mind to handle.
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Ashwin said, voice tinged with mild annoyance as he shifted his weight slightly to lean further into his tree. “And stop flattering yourself. Who do you think you are, anyway? You wouldn’t have lasted more than a fraction of a second if I’d actually intended to kill you.” He leaned down, pulling Ruban up by his collar as flames danced in the Hunter’s peripheral vision, inching ever closer. “Hold on to Hiya. Don’t let go, no matter what happens. We’re going flying!” He wrapped one hand around the Hunter’s back while the other strained against the tree, presumably to help him take the extra weight.
Ruban didn’t quite know what was going on, but he reached out to wrap his arms securely around Hiya, holding her close to himself. There was no way he was leaving her here; and besides, whatever Ashwin might have been planning to do with them, it couldn’t be significantly worse than being burnt alive.
With a few strained flaps of his gigantic wings – his face twisting into an agonised grimace – the Aeriel finally lifted them off the ground. As the reassuring touch of the leafy forest floor vanished from under his feet, Ruban tightened his grip around Hiya, who seemed more exhilarated than scared at being carried off into the air by an Aeriel. For the first time that day, he saw her grinning, eyes shining with unconcealed wonder as she looked down at the blazing forest below them. The fire had spread farther than Ruban had originally estimated. A large chunk of Zikyang lay engulfed in a red-and-gold haze. Smoke billowed into the air, creating the impression of a dense fog.
They flew higher – albeit rather shakily – gaining altitude by the second as the flaming forest receded below them. Ashwin’s wings flapped rhythmically above Ruban like a silver, feathery canopy, obscuring the sky, the moon. It wasn’t so much unpleasant as surreal, or at least it would have been, if they weren’t headed for almost certain death.
Suddenly, Ashwin surged to his left, causing Ruban to clutch at Hiya, who squealed excitedly. An energy-shell whizzed past the spot they had just vacated, crashing down into the blazing inferno that was the landscape below them. Ruban looked up to see the three Aeriels who had attacked them earlier appear through the smog, wings beating the air as little pinpricks of light danced around their outstretched hands. They were preparing to attack.
“Not right now,” Ashwin snapped, whipping around to face the Aeriels. “I’m kinda busy here.”
Another shell came flying at them, forcing Ashwin to swoop sideways to avoid being hit. “Fine. Have it your way,” the Aeriel said, irritation evident in his tone as he adjusted his hold on Ruban to free his right hand, holding it out in front of him in a practised gesture. “I mean, working for my mother would make anyone suicidal, I understand that. But this is taking it too far, even for Reivaa’s half-witted lackeys.”
Energy gathered around Ashwin like a rising storm, a whirlwind of which he was the centre and the origin. This close to the source, Ruban could actually feel the power cackling around him in an electric gale as an orb of light formed before Ashwin’s outstretched fingers. He didn’t know if it was the proximity that was distorting his perception, but the Hunter didn’t think he had felt an energy-attack this strong since Tauheen blew part of the SifCo building out of existence to steal the formula. The orb grew, glowing alternatively silver and white, before Ashwin gave a deceptively casual flick of his wrist, setting the shell free. It shot forward, hitting the nearest Aeriel, and detonated into a blast of prismatic light that made Ruban think of a miniature sunrise.
Then the light was gone, and all that remained was the fire, coursing through the air like a blazing whip, engulfing the remaining Aeriels into its crimson fold. A flare-blast – Ruban realised belatedly – though he had never seen anything quite like it. The energy seemed to burn the very air around it, flames rising out of nothing and dissolving into ether. Technically, there shouldn’t have been anything to burn up here in the sky.
Then, as fast as it had appeared, the flame was gone, the Aeriels falling out of the air like birds hit by stones thrown by a child; and darkness descended over them once again. With a final glance at the three Aeriels – hurtling through the air towards their fiery grave – Ashwin turned, beating his wings a couple of times before flipping into a horizontal position and coursing through the air at a speed that made Ruban’s breath catch in his throat. The wind stung his face like myriad little pins attacking every inch of exposed skin even as Ruban wrapped numb fingers around Hiya as tightly as he could and tried to focus on staying conscious.
They crashed onto a boundary wall in a secluded alley, the dingy street illuminated only by the light of a single street-lamp that flickered wearily on the opposite footpath. Its mates had long since given up the fight against short-circuits and poor maintenance and stood lifelessly beside it, like the statues of a forgotten age. Ruban thought that he must be heavily concussed to be waxing lyrical about malfunctioning streetlights – even in the obscure depths of his own head – and tried to focus on his surroundings in a more grounded fashion.
To say that the ride had been a turbulent one would have been an understatement. It was like riding a storm – exhilarating and terrifying at the same time – as Ashwin flew haphazardly over the city, his movements simultaneously swift and uncoordinated, swaying from side to side with the wind like a drunken bird. The landing had been as rough as the flight and Ruban spared a moment to be thankful that he hadn’t had anything to eat in over twenty-four hours. He would have been puking his guts out, if only he had had anything in his stomach to throw up.
Shifting slightly, he reached a hand out to check on Hiya. She had landed against his chest when they crashed into the wall, which would probably lead to a few bruised ribs for him, but at the moment, that was the absolute least of his problems. Hiya was breathing a little fast, but seemed otherwise unharmed. Her fingers curled around his hand as he touched her face lightly and she looked up at him with tired eyes. The excitement of the flight had faded, and she looked just about ready to drop off right there on the sidewalk.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, running a gentle hand through the tangled mess of her hair.
“Nope,” she mumbled, snuggling against him, her eyes falling shut.
Holding the girl against him, Ruban sat up, peering at his surroundings through bleary eyes, trying to determine their exact location. The few shopfronts lining the street were all shuttered, the hour too late for business, and there weren’t any other location markers that he could see. He wished he still had his phone, but he had left it in the car, which he was sure had been burned to a crisp by now.
Turning back to look over the boundary wall against which he sat, he noticed that it surrounded a large white-and-green building, its walls decorated with generic murals depicting nature and greenery.
Taking a leaf out of his cousin’s book, Ruban almost squealed.
The building faced away from them, but there was no mistaking that design. They had landed behind Hermanos General, one of the biggest hospitals in the city. He could have wept with relief.
Struggling to his feet with the sleeping Hiya in his arms, he began to make his way around to the main entrance of the hospital. As he turned the corner, however, something made him look back at the prone figure lying unconscious on the sidewalk. Ashwin’s wings had disappeared, although a few silvery feathers still lay scattered around him, denying Ruban the reprieve of pretending that the last couple of hours had never happened. Still, he looked almost human like this – eyes closed, dark hair spilled across the sidewalk like someone had splattered Zainian ink on the stone.
And he had brought them to the hospital. Ruban supposed he wouldn’t have done that if he had been planning to murder them at his own leisure.
It made no sense. Aeriels didn’t help humans, didn’t make friends with humans, any more than a human would willingly befriend an Aeriel. Not if they had any self-preservation instinct anyway.
After a moment’s hesitation, Ruban limped back into the alley, unbuttoning his tattered coat as he went. Taking the garment off, he threw it lightly over Ashwin, leaning down to push the unconscious creature further into the sidewalk, out of the way of any oncoming vehicles. Not that there was likely to be much traffic at this time of the night.
Then he turned back and strode briskly towards the hospital gates – or as briskly as his mutilated calf would allow. He needed to get Hiya to a doctor, and hopefully find some painkillers for himself. And it wasn’t like a hospital would do an Aeriel with a wing-injury much good anyway. He would think about what to do with Ashwin once his body stopped feeling like it had been run over by a truck carrying a stable full of rampaging horses.
Chapter 9: A History Lesson
Ashwin lay motionless on the bed, pale and unresponsive as the day they had dragged his unconscious body into the flat – although the pale part probably had more to do with him being a winged freak than with the condition of his health. Ruban sighed. He supposed he should stop obsessing over that particular fact. It wasn’t doing his already disturbed mental equilibrium any favours.
Besides, he had had the chance to ditch the guy. And the heavens knew, he had been tempted. So very sorely tempted. He had almost walked off with Hiya that night, after the check-up; almost left Ashwin unconscious in that alley, to do with himself as he pleased. There was nothing he had wanted more in those few minutes than to forget about the entire incident. To forget about Ashwin and all that he represented – Ruban’s stupidity, his failure to notice the obvious, his wilful fucking blindness towards everything that wasn’t what he wanted to see.
Ruban should have known that things weren’t as they seemed. From the very beginning, Ashwin had been stronger, sharper, more knowledgeable than he had any reason to be. On the day of the SifCo attack, Tauheen had spoken to him like a long-lost acquaintance, if not a friend. Not to mention Reivaa’s constant taunts from the moment they were face to face with her.
Ruban should have put two and two together a long time ago. But he hadn’t, because just this once, he had thought that the universe had genuinely cut him a break. Because somewhere in the back of his mind, he had wanted Ashwin to be who he said he was – an ally he could rely on in a time of need. A friend, an equal whom he could trust. And every time he looked at Ashwin lying motionless on the bed, it was a bitter, mocking reminder of just what a pathetic idiot he had been.
But he had retraced his steps to the alley – a decision he would forever blame on the effects of too much morphine in his system – and dragged the unconscious Aeriel onto the main road, throwing him unceremoniously into the cab he had hailed to take them home.
So really, Ruban had made his own awkward, Aeriel-infested bed, and he supposed he shouldn’t complain now that he had to lie in it. At least the wings hadn’t made a reappearance after that night at Zikyang over forty-eight hours ago, which was a mercy, however small. Ruban wasn’t entirely sure how he would react to that visual reminder of Ashwin’s lies, his true nature. The reminder that Ashwin was the one thing that Ruban hated more than anything else in the universe, and that he had been fool enough to think of that monster as his friend. Ruban would probably try to kill him again, and he was fairly certain that that would upset Hiya.
Hiya lay curled up on the bed beside the Aeriel, reading a storybook out loud – whether for Ashwin’s benefit or her own, Ruban wasn’t sure. The girl had refused to leave Ashwin’s side for any length of time since she had woken up in the flat the day after Zikyang, and he didn’t have the heart to scold her for it. Not after he had come so close to losing her.
Seating himself in the balcony with a cup of much-needed coffee, Ruban wondered if he was making a mistake by not sending her back home. He had told Subhas that he was taking the girl to the Surai Fair over the weekend, and his uncle had agreed readily enough. The fair wasn’t due for another week, but Subhas would not know that.
It was clear as day, at this point, that the IAW had been compromised. Someone on the inside was feeding information to the Aeriels, and Ruban had no idea who it could be. There was no reason to involve his uncle until he had something more concrete to go on than a really strong hunch – plausible deniability had its uses so long as you could maintain it.
But until he knew where the leak was coming from, the Kinoh Residence wasn’t a safe place for Hiya to be. They had tried to take her once, they could try it again. She was a source of leverage over one of the most powerful men in the IAW, perhaps in the whole country, and he didn’t doubt that the Aeriels would leave no stone unturned to get their hands on her. No, he wanted Hiya where he could keep an eye on her, protect her if need be. And if that meant letting her read Black Beauty to an unconscious Aeriel, well, it was just something he would have to learn to live with.
