Sky Warriors: Poleuthan's Thief (Sky Warriors Saga Book 1) (6 page)

“Where is that boy?” Garrett added with a harsh tone as he looked down the cavern.

Ange followed his gaze, wondering the exact answer to the same question. He was nowhere in sight.

Vera shrugged. “Perhaps he’s-”

She was cut short as several loud booms echoed from the tunnels behind them, a rush of air pushing them to the ground as the whole cavern began to quake. Ange barely managed to land with her hands before her face hit the chiseled stone floor.

“What!?” Vera shouted in outrage as she glanced back as clouds of dust rushed out for them. Ange screamed and scrambled away as the tunnels roof collapsed almost over her feet.

She glanced over to her left as Maven’s scream was cut short as a volley of boulders crushed him underneath their weight. Ange flinched at the sight as he disappeared under the unrelenting shower of stones. She scrambled up to her feet and prepared to make a dead run for the cave’s entrance.

“The Justice Guard! The Justice Guard is here!” screamed someone from the cave entrance, her voice suddenly cut short with a gurgle.

Ange felt cold fear grasp her as she looked to the entrance, the thief that had yelled out the warning collapsed dead on the floor before one of the energized spears the armored men carried. Their silver armor glinting coldly under the white light of the full moon haloing their backs.

Cracks and splinters sprawled instantly across the main cave’s roof that instant, lanterns fell off the walls, most of their crystals exploded loudly as they impacted the floor, showering the area with sparks and bright clouds of light before dying into darkness. The cavern plummeted quickly into shadows.

Ange gazed horrified at the men, her eyes traveled to a figure dressed in identical armor as her own standing with them, green eyes full of guilt as they stared out to her.

Daren.

And right beside him, casually leaning against the wall was Jason, his face empty and cold as he stared at them.

Suddenly everything came together, the horrible truth washed over Ange in an unforgiving tide. Daren had betrayed them.

“Keep them all cornered! No prisoners tonight!” bellowed the head guard in his adorned silver armor.

Daren’s face warped with horror as he grasped the man’s armored arm. “No! You promised you wouldn’t harm my friends!”

The guard shoved him back brutally. “Plans change, boy! Be grateful you will be walking away from this unscathed!” he spat.

“No!” Daren yelled as Jason grasped him in a lock and held him at bay. His desperate emerald eyes flashed to Ange. “Run, Ange!” he shouted over the roar of the collapsing cave.

Ange’s face twisted into a snarl. Only one word echoed in her mind.
Traitor.

Her hands pulled out her daggers in a swift jerk, she sprinted straight for the men, furious as she let out a battle cry while dodging falling rock left and right. She wanted to kill them, but she knew she had no chance of winning while outnumbered, she had to escape and hope that her distraction could give the others a chance.

“Fox!” Vera shouted somewhere behind her.

“Start shooting!” yelled the head guard.

The twenty or so men lowered their spears, an electrical buzzing filled the air as the blue crystals at the base of the channeling blades began to let out sparks of blue energy. A moment later bolts of blue energy shot out towards them in continuation, buzzing horrible through the air and followed quickly by screams of pain by the other thieves.

Ange thanked her short height as she ducked down and continued to sprint as the cave continued to rumble and crumble around them. Vera screamed out in horror behind her, almost making Ange flinch.

“No! Garrett!”

Ange was almost compelled to look back, but she didn’t dare as she continued to dodge boulders and bodies. A cart fell over, smashed by a large stone, its contents spilled on the floor before her, she ran to the left avoiding the burning hot crystals, to her dismay, a bolder came crashing down on them.

The crystals exploded as they were smashed, obliterating the rock in a catastrophic burst and shooting blazing chips toward Ange. They all bounced off her armor harmlessly, unfortunately she felt several sear and embed into the right side of her face, her eyes closed instinctually for a second. She hissed in pain but continued to run for the guards, opening her eyes again.

She dodged several more bolts, at least the cloud of dust and growing darkness hid her fairly well. She flashed through the last few steps to the closest guard, her blades arced forward, her right hand dagger stabbed through the armor of his right side, snapping and breaking under the pressure as the other stabbed into his chest.

The guard gasped in agony as Ange ran up his crumpling body, pulling her left blade out and dropping her right one. She leapt off him, landing on the head of the guard right behind him. Ange felt a gaze trailing after her as she leapt off.

She turned her hazel eyes to the eyes that traveled after her. She glared venomously into Daren’s green eyes, hoping her feelings of betrayal and disappointment burned in her eyes for him to see, and to her surprise she felt something even worse than anger smolder in her gaze. Something she never thought she would have ever felt towards her best friend. Hate.

She turned her gaze away from his guilt filled eyes as she landed behind the dazed guard and quickly ran for the western gate of the mine facility and hoped that she and a few others could get away from the massacre.

“Don’t let her escape!” shouted one of the guards.

Moments later orbs of bright burning blue energy shot ahead and behind her, she kept feinting to the left and right trying to avoid the projectiles. Her breath was starting to come in short and ragged gasps, her heart thrumming, she glanced back momentarily.

Her eyes widened in horror as one of the bolts charged straight for her back, she ran to the right, but she didn’t get out of its range quickly enough. A blistering pain shot over her upper left arm as her new black armor melted and burned away as the bolt grazed past. She yelled in agony.

She fell and rolled almost dropping her dagger as her right hand came up and cupped the wound as she rolled back onto her feet and ran the last few feet to the fence. She leapt up, climbing with her right hand, the glove now covered in her blood and making it harder to climb since she couldn’t feel her left arm response even though it still stubbornly held onto her dagger.

A singe warmed the right side of her face where she had also lost most feeling as a blue bolt flashed past her face, burning and melting a large hole into the fence, the edges of the metal still cherry-red hot and smoking as she glanced at it in shock and fear.

She quickly found the energy to climb over the rest of the fence as other bolts flared for her, riddling the fence with more holes.

She landed on the other side with a heavy thud feeling her body sag with fatigue but that didn’t slow her as she jogged for a stable she noticed in the moonlight, more bolts shot after her along with several voices. She took the dagger from her left hand and stabbed the hard wood with as much force as she could muster and then kicked the gate open. The rinorses inside reared and bellowed in fear.

She went to the nearest stable and opened the gate, the beast snorted at her, hoofing the ground agitated with its short thick legs.

Ange didn’t allow fear for the large beast freeze her as she pressed her blood stained gloved hand on the
rinorse’s snout, patting it gently, and scrutinizing its large long horn that had been cut in half protruding from the top of its nose. The beast calmed and snorted, looking at her with a soft brown eye.

Ange smiled and grabbed onto its mane and pulled herself up over its wide shoulders, thankfully they were not tall animals as she slung herself over its huge heavily bone-plated shoulders that padded over its thick gray skin.

She hung on tightly and dug her heels once into its side. The rinorse reared and let out a roar as it lunged forward and smashed past part of its enclosure and stampeded for the entrance.

Ange stared in amazement as three of the guards suddenly ran to the entrance, she dug her heels in harder, hoping the
rinorse would ignore the men and keep running. She was right, the beast picked up the pace, two of the men screamed and ran away, only one stood his ground, his spear stabbing into the beast’s chest as they neared him.

The
rinorse roared in pain and anger, but did not dither as it ran harder, trampling the guard under its large hooved feet with a horrible crunch and scream the man fell silent as a snap followed the horrible sound as the spear broke and the animal continued on it path. Once out into the open, Ange tugged on its mane and guided the beast westward and away from the mines.

Its hooves beat against the ground loudly and jarred her bones with every step.

“Don’t dare come back!” hollered one of the two remaining Justice Guards, his voice slowly becoming distant. “Your base has been destroyed and your friends are dead!”

“She can’t go anywhere,” the other Justice Guard said loudly with gloat. “Her only option is the Artic Dessert, and entering there is certain death anyways,”

The first guard laughed loudly in agreement.

Ange felt tears run down her face, warm against the chilling air that cooled her hot and burnt face as the
rinorse kept running west and straight into the snowy cold Artic Dessert. She glanced back, seeing the guards hollering in victory and the bright lights of Cyridell grow distant and cold. She blinked, forcing the tears away as the cold wind whipped around her.

A though echoed endlessly in her head as she felt her consciousness slip.

What do I do now?

Chapter 5: Lands of Barren Snow

A disturbance rumbled through the ground, felt under long black talons and thick padded feet heavily covered with soft white feathers. The large beast raised his black-horned crowned head and looked east towards the bright city and then to the base of the mountains.

It glanced momentarily at its guarded treasure, glittering brightly under the moonlight. Lately the blade had seemed to sheen with greater brilliance, sending a flare of ghost-like feeling through it that made it wonder if it was the feeling of hope. It could call upon ancient memories and confirm the feeling but it wasn’t as strong as it should be, as it could be, so long as the other half of its soul remained lost to it.

It stood up reluctantly and peered past the flat plain that its charge rested upon, wondering what was wrong. Its white feathers dancing like grass under the cold breeze as a storm gathered over the sea and over its snowy desert.

What it had felt had not been an earthquake, it was too short, too weak. It felt like the explosions the humans ignited under its mountains, but that was only during the day and they were slightly weaker than this. They didn’t echo through the mountain’s body like this one had.

Another rush of half-dead emotions surged through its body, curiosity and disgruntlement. But there was one thing it felt almost familiar, a powerful pull toward the southeast and over its snowy desert and to the origin of the quake. Like the tug it had been feeling over the past decade, but it had been weaker, tonight it was overpowering and sent worry through it which was the one emotion that was especially strongly felt.

Deciding to investigate, the large creature unfolded a pair of silky white wings, their lower halves dusted with a few tiny black flecks. One of its wings was nearly twice the length of its long powerful body. With a single sweep the giant was in the air, gliding the cold currents down the mountain. Snow flurries started to rush through the air as the beast swept its piercing sun-yellow gaze over the land before trending it path against the mountain toward the source of the tremble. Silently, it beat its powerful wings and rose higher into the sky and above the clouds as a storm of flakes followed its body, hiding its shape as it brought the storm over the mountains and into the city and valley below.

It didn’t do it intentionally, it could not control the full mass of its powers, not till it found the other half of its soul. Till then, its birth element would protect it. The beast quickly found itself miles high in the sky over the site of what looked like a devastating explosion. Its eyes had no problem zooming in on the tragedy. The scent of blood, dust, and sol powder reached its nose even at this height as smoke rose into the sky.

But gazing at the sight did not quell the fear that had begun to build in its chest since it took flight. A powerful pull made it turn back around, back to the snowy desert, leaving the storm behind it to hail on the disaster below. By the time its wings carried it to the barren snowy lands, a blizzard stormed unrelentingly through the barren tundra and way below its sharp eyes caught a tiny black figure trudging through the snow, a human it was certain, it could even see it huddling itself. The beast’s fear suddenly manifested into panic as
the figure collapsed, without even thinking, the great beast tilted into a dive, slicing through the icy wind towards the tiny fragile shape. As soon it neared it willed the icy storm to part away from the small human.

Instantly, instinctually, the snow flew away from the human, obeying the beast’s silent whim. A huge dome of still air encompassed the small body, a thick wall of snow swirled violently around the air socket, waiting for the great beast to let it take its natural course.

It glided gently to a land, its massive size sending a quake through the ground, even with the deep snow as its feather protected paws crunched the snow into deep holes. It gazed past the snow filled wind to the tiny black-clothed human, its eyes narrowing on the shivering form in the snow as the human’s hazel eyes gazed up in the beast’s direction. The beast knew the human’s pitifully weak eyes could not discern its shadowy form in the dark stormy night, especially with a wall of moving snowflakes.

The human suddenly collapsed completely into the snow with a tremor, its eyes closing.

The great beast’s panic turned into uncontrollable terror and before it even knew it, its body was vanishing into a void of ice and snow as another body quickly took its place…

***

Ange awoke shuddering with cold. She opened her eyes unwillingly and was surprised and relieved to find herself still on the rinorse’s back that was now trudging slowly.

She pulled her cloak closer around her small frame, the right side of her face and left arm stung with definite pain and she could move her arm again. She gazed surprised that she still clutched onto her dagger. She stiffly raised it up to her face observing the frozen dry blood. And for once she noticed her surroundings.

An endless expansion of flat plains rolled around her as far as her eyes could tell, covered in deep white snow that reached up to the rinorse’s chest which gave it a depth of four feet. The one object she recognized which now loomed close and foreboding in the dark was the Poleuthan Mountain’s very edge and last jagged peak. Shivering icy wind rushed around them and as she gazed up waves of flurried began to slash around her, obscuring the last moon in the sky sinking to the horizon in the dark night.

Ange’s teeth began to clatter as she shoved her blade into its sheath forcefully and then yanked the cloth down that revealed her tattoo before pulling up her mask over the majority of her face and was thankful it also covered her ears. She pulled up the hood and clutched the neck of the cloak to prevent the wind from whisking it away.

She gazed around at the harsh snowy wind and felt her heart plummet in her chest. She was in the worse possible place in the world. In the Artic Dessert, as the guards had said, being in these lands was certain and unavoidable death no matter how prepared one was and she was certainly nowhere prepared to withstand the harsh and unmerciful terrain.

She gazed back in vain hope, the
rinorse’s tracks were still on the surface of the snow but she knew they would be completely covered within the hour with the weather that lashed around them. Then it occurred to her that she had nowhere to go, the Black Owls had been obliterated. She could feel the truth echo though her entire being and the thought sent a wave of grief over her. She had no home to return to, not even a friend.

She felt tears prick her eyes and she flinched rubbing her eyes as the tears instantly crystalized around her eyes and on her cheeks. She hardened herself and decided now was not the time to cry, then she reflected she might never have another chance to cry. Her fate had been sealed the moment she entered the snowy tundra.

Ange felt hopelessness overwhelm her, freezing her still far more than the blizzard that raged. Another shudder running through her body caught her attention and snapped her focus to the current situation.

No I can’t lose hope. I can make it through this and avenge the Black Owls.
She thought.

An image of Daren and Jason flashed through her mind and anger seared through her, burning her insides with conviction, with a purpose, for a reason to survive the storm. She sat up straight against the force of the wind and gazed ahead over the flat lands that she could barely see with the turbulent weather. Her eyes traveled to the mountains that she could hardly see now. As she stared at them, she started to feel a strange sensation pulling from the center of her chest, toward the mountains…towards the sky that she couldn’t even see overhead heavy with storm clouds and snowfall.

She grimaced and wondered if there was a cavern in the mountains she could shelter in. She didn’t even have food or any form of supplies.

She gazed down and was amazed the
rinorse was still walking even if it was a slow pace, she could hear the animal huff and breathe heavily into the air, its breath coming out in a vapory cloud that vanished an instant later as frost clung to its nose and chopped horn.

Another shiver ranked Ange’s body, it was freezing,
she had never felt so cold in her entire life as her limbs became slowly unresponsive as the warmth was sucked out.

She gasped horrified as the sense of flat earth suddenly disappeared underneath them as the snowy floor howled and broke away. The
rinorse screamed and flailed as it tried to run up the breaking mass of snow, nearly knocking off Ange.

She didn’t think before her body instinctually reacted and she leapt up on the
rinorse’s back and then ran up its neck in two steps as it thrashed underneath her. She leapt, her body falling through empty space. She screamed as she quickly plummeted down into darkness as snow avalanched down with her.

She felt her hands hit something hard as she fell past, instantly she latched on, her body jerked and slammed against a rock wall, a sharp stone stabbing her side without piercing her skin. She squeaked in pain, her arms trembling with the effort to hold up her weight. Thinking quickly and hanging in the darkness she clacked her heels, the sharp blades under her soles shot out and she kicked into the rock wall, stabbing them in. Instantly her arms relaxed and sagged with relief as they no longer were required to sustain her entire mass.

Ange stayed there for several moment, panting as her heart slowed from its exhilarated race of adrenaline. Her chest heaved for air, it burned as she sucked in cold air into her lungs. When her body finally calmed and stopped trembling from the shock she looked around. It was absolutely dark and as she looked above she could see she was many feet down a huge and expanding crevice that cut jaggedly through the land above.

She guessed she was about forty feet down what seemed like a twenty foot wide crevice from where she hanged. The storm raged above, hardly any moonlight reached where she was in the horrible conditions.

Ange suddenly remembered her illuminator on her belt and she let go of the rock her left hand clung too, she was surprised she even able to use her arm, as thought about it, her arm began to burn with pain.

She cursed silently under her breath as she yanked the lantern from her belt and hugged the device between her body and the wall as her stiff fingers brushed off the frost and pressed the button to turn the inner mechanism and reveal the sheltered blue crystal. She sighed in relief as the metal shutters moved aside and the area was bathed in a decent radius of light.

Ange held the lantern out and gulped as she looked below, over a hundred feet down she could barely capture the shape of the rinorse that had carried her so far, on its side, dead and partially covered in snow.

She looked at it regretfully and observed the deep dark crevice carefully before looking up. If she went down, she probably would get snowed in a mere few hours. As if in confirmation, a few feet to her right a waterfall of snow fell down into the crevice with a loud thrumming and misty cold air for several seconds before stopping, the crevice was filling.

She looked up with a concentrating and determined frown as she snapped the lantern back onto her belt and slowly began the climb up the quickly frosting stone wall.

She found the first ten feet easy and the stone soft enough for her boot-blades to stab into the wall’s surface. But afterwards the stone became harder and covered in frost and fresh snow powder that required for her to sheathe her blades and climb with her own strength. It probably took her an hour to climb the crevice’s steep wall, resting only twice as more snow rushed down to her alarm, at least it didn’t flow over her.

Painfully she climbed the last few feet, panting and out of viable breath in her lungs. Her entire chest burned with the effort and cold air, even with her mask on. She knew if she took it off, the air would be even colder and sharper, but at that moment she felt it was suffocating her. She tiredly pulled herself up and fell limply on the snow, relieved for once for its coldness. Her entire body felt hot with the exertion she had just suffered through the climb.

Ange yanked her mask off, the cold air and snow crystals stung her face and she sighed in relief though her breath came more sharply and painfully. The wind was picking up and with it the snow from even the ground. She panted heavily and stayed there on all fours for a moment as snow accumulated on her back as she tried to catch her breath, her body burned tiredly and she could feel her awareness slipping, desiring to blackout and rest. The idea was almost too tempting, to fall asleep forever.

No. I don’t want to die.
She thought harshly.

Her arms pushed her up unwillingly and she swayed momentarily before regaining her balance and closing the cloak around herself more tightly, her body was starting to shiver with cold again, though it was worse this time, she felt the her perspiration was freezing to her skin underneath her black leather armor.

Sullenly her feet began to trudge through the snow as she pulled up the hood and held it with her stiff and injured left hand. Her body was starting to shake painfully as she pulled her lantern and held it before her, her arm gradually growing numb again. To her dismay, the snow grew deeper the farther she walked, soon it was past her hips and to her stomach.

Teeth clattering
she stiffly lifted her lantern overhead and looked for the mountains. She squealed in shock as a sudden burst filled the air before her and she fell back, it was dark again. She spat and cursed under her breath, realizing the crystal had probably gotten damaged during the day’s events and finally broke.