Tails of the Apocalypse (28 page)

The boy yelled, kicked the horse’s flanks, and off we went. My talons squeezed his glove again. I dipped my head forward. Speed made my blood pump faster.

You can do it, Kael. You can do it
.

I stretched my wings. I could feel the pull in them, the wind lifting me. All I had to do was open my talons and let go. It was in my head, though.

The fear.

The fall.

My heart wanted to fly, yet my head wouldn’t let it.

Then the boy did the unthinkable. He slid his hand out of the glove. And there I went, me, my stretched wings, and the glove still clutched between my talons.

It was a fantastic feeling.

Liberating.

Inebriating.

Terrifying.

And it lasted two seconds before I tilted my wings too much and almost slammed into a tree. But it was done. The boy had unlocked my wings by letting me go.

On our next attempt, he never let go of the glove.

I did.

I flapped and took off, found the thermal—the column of hot air rising up from the ground—and rode it like I’d been doing it all my life. Like the humans rode their horses. I flew over the river and above the forest, my eyes feasting on the landscape sprawling below. I skipped across the scents on the air, and they lifted me, drawing me forward. Herons took off from the water as I swerved by them. I saw the waterfalls in the distance and flapped my wings until I found the perfect currents that took me right over them. I dipped in the cloud of sprays rising from the water.

I felt strong, I felt alive.

I could finally fly.

I wanted to tell the world. No, not the world. I wanted to tell the
condors
.

So I left the waterfalls and rode the thermals back to the river. I saw the boy, the father, and the girl running with their horses at full gallop along the bank. They waved at me and cheered me on. They didn’t say, “Come back.” Instead, they yelled, “Look at you, Kael. You can fly now!”

I can fly
.

Mother would be proud
.

I flew over the forest and back to my nest in the crevice. Other brown falcons were taking off from theirs in the trees. They looked up at me in wonder, a young fledgling they’d never seen before. Or didn’t remember. I rode the ridge lift as it pounded against the cliffs, found the ledge, and landed in front of the crevice where Mother had built our nest.

How long ago was it? Days? Weeks?

I’d lost count.

The nest was empty, the branches that Mother had so lovingly propped against the crevice all but blown away. The down she’d used to make my bedding was dirtied with rat droppings. The smell was rotten and foul. I was disgusted.

A forlorn feather clung to the entrance of the crevice and flapped in the wind. It was from my mother, one of the few she’d left in the nest to make it warmer. I plucked it with my beak, freed it, and watched it twirl in the currents until it vanished.

Goodbye, Mother
, I thought.
I can fly now. I can survive
.

I spread my wings and took off again, rising over the cliffs. The condors were there, their finger-feathers gliding on the winds. They drew circles in the sky. My wings had grown tired, my breast muscles sore. Yet I ignored the pain and kept rising in the sky until I reached my idols. I sensed no communication between them, just mindless gliding and waiting like machines, ready to swoop down on the first carcass they saw. I circled with them. I flapped my wings and called out to attract their attention. I wanted them to
see me
fly.

One of them flew over me, and his full shadow embraced me, his wingspan at least three times mine.

I circled and called to them, “Can I be one of yours?” But they never replied. After a while, my fatigue caught up with me. And I felt lonely.

So very lonely.

So I withdrew from the lift drawn by their wide wings and glided back down. Back home.

Back to my family.

My name is Kael. I’m a brown falcon, and my family is made of humans. A father, a mother, a boy, and a girl. They all have something special. The father has wires in his ears, the mother has a hook for a hand. The boy has eyes that can see in the dark. The girl has a flying sail that unfolds from her back.

They made me special, too. They gave me a bear’s sense of smell. And they taught me how to fly. I can hunt at night, like my brother. And I can glide over the cliffs, like my sister.

Not all families are equal; not all are made of the same species even. In my family, I’m the only feathered animal. I don’t mind that and neither do they.

Kael’s story is set in the world of my book series titled
The Mayake Chronicles
, a post-apocalyptic world where only two human races have survived on the planet: the Mayakes, who avoided extinction thanks to nanobots and electronic implants, and the Gaijins, who dominate the Mayakes using state-of-the-art technology and weapons.

Kael makes his first appearance at the beginning of book one as the pet falcon of Athel, the boy in my story, and Akaela, the girl. I realized then—as the bird soared with Akaela over the mesa and joined the brother and sister in the attack on one of the Gaijins’ droids—that he deserved his own backstory. I’m grateful to Chris Pourteau for the opportunity to reveal this bit of the Mayakes’ world and tell the story of how one family was so generous as to use the little technology they had left not for their own ends, but to save a bird’s life.

I write sci-fi thrillers and young-adult dystopian fiction. For a complete list of my books, please visit
my website
at
http://eegiorgi.thirdscribe.com/my-books/
.
Join my newsletter
at
http://eegiorgi.thirdscribe.com/newsletter/
and you’ll automatically get a free story as well as the opportunity to read my books for free before they are released.

For the past hour
I’ve followed buzzards circling in the sky, looking for the spot where death has drawn them. Where I hope to find enough unspoiled meat to get me through another day. When I arrive and scare the buzzards off, I find the corpse of an Icarite. One less Icarite in the world is one less pain in my ass. But I’m still annoyed that I’ve lost a meal.

There isn’t much left of him; the buzzards have taken care of that. By his clothing I know he’s one of their hunters. The Icarites have hunted
me
often enough. I have the scars to show for it. By the arrow protruding from his ribcage, I see this hunter became the hunted. The irony isn’t lost on me, but he’s no concern to me now. I still have to find food.

It’s hot out on the grasslands. The green scarf I keep wrapped around my head keeps the sweat from my eyes, but my shirt clings to my skin where the sweat trickles between my breasts. I raise my canteen to my mouth. Only a dribble comes out. I know where I can get water, but food is more urgent, and less plentiful.

I should be enjoying my time alone, but there’s never any joy in it. Always, it’s about survival.

I shade my eyes and stare into the distance. My vision fills with prismatic light—it’s the disease leaching into my brain. The air is full of rainbows; my sickness is a monster wearing a mask of beauty. I blink to clear my eyes, straining to see if I’m alone in the wide sea of grass. Phantoms rise up to mock me, to catch me off guard. They gather substance, then dissipate like smoke. More tricks the disease plays on my mind.

The high wall surrounding Icarus is barely visible from where I stand, but it still feels too close. I need to move on, back to the safety of the woods and the mountains, before another Icarite hunter finds me.

My empty stomach rumbles as I fall into a steady lope. My legs also protest, but I ignore the ache and adjust my stride, compensating for my limp as I always do. When I reach the tree line, I wait for that elusive feeling of safety the forest sometimes provides. But it never comes.

I kneel at a familiar stream and satisfy my thirst, then fill my canteen. I’m always at a disadvantage when using my left arm—my good arm—for anything but wielding a weapon. My right arm is weak, my hand mangled. Only my thumb and the nub of my forefinger remain. It’s the price I paid for escaping an Icarite trap that almost took my life two years ago. An arm for a life. No argument there.

As I cup more water to my mouth, I listen for out-of-place sounds—the snap of a twig, the crunch of leaves underfoot. My hearing is the one good sense I have left, and it’s honed to a sharp edge. I don’t hear anything, but I’m aware of a presence just inside the trees. Without turning around—I need the element of surprise—I slip my knife from its sheath.

“No need for that, Anya.”

I jump to my feet and face him. Gunther. My brother. We share the same blood, but there’s no love between us. He’s older than me by four years, but the disease that claims us all outside the Wall of Icarus has ravaged him less than it has me. He still has most of his hair. He stands straight. There’s little weakness in his flesh and bones.

He treats me like I’m at death’s door, but not in a kind, protective way. He lords his condition over me, and I hate him for it. Gunther despises me because I wander alone, away from our clan. Because I don’t act like a woman. He resents that I leave him to care for our ailing father, a job the daughter should do. He envies my freedom. My willingness to take it.

Gunther looks to the west. “Storm coming.”

I follow his gaze and see the bare wisps of cirrus clouds marring an otherwise clear blue sky. “Not for a while,” I say. “Tonight or tomorrow.”

Gunther shrugs in his indifferent manner, as if what I say matters little. “Bode is asking for you. You should come home.” It’s not a request, and he doesn’t wait for me to respond. He turns and disappears into the woods.

Bode is our father. The harshness of our lives has stripped us of any desire for endearing terms. I feel little connection and no obligation to him, or to any member of our clan. The disease has hardened us, made us resentful. We congregate only because we stand a better chance of surviving in a brutal world where food is scarce. Where nature has become a wrathful, unpredictable demon.

But we aim most of our resentment at Icarus—a city built as a shrine to itself. Before Bode was born, the world was in turmoil. There were gods of war and hunger and hardship. Gods of madness. Then other gods came—gods of science who believed they could perfect those things that had always resisted perfection: the human body and the weather.

But traveling the road to perfection means there are always failures left in the ditches. We, the Ferals, as they like to call us, are those imperfect missteps. We’ve been discarded like trash outside the city wall.

Abandoned to deal with disease that can’t be restrained, and weather that won’t be subdued.

But inside the wall—under an invisible dome where light and precipitation and temperature are well ordered—life is comfortable. Icarus worships at its own feet, and its perfect residents flourish, disease free. Their immunity was earned through our suffering.

We are the Ferals, the bastards Icarus refuses to claim. But imperfection is insidious; the Feral undercurrent pulses inside the city wall. When the Icarites realized they could never tame the demon of their own fears, they soon learned they could at least appease him. And so the Icarites hunt us for sport. It’s how my mother died, and why our clan has been reduced to a few dozen.

Our camp is always well hidden, and we never stay in one spot for long. When I arrive, the clan is already packing up and preparing to move on ahead of the storm.

Bode huddles beside a small fire. When I join him, he pierces me with an icy gaze. His sunken eyes are clouded; they’ve seen too much suffering. He’s hard and wiry, in body and soul. Even though he’s not that old, the disease has aged him far beyond his years. He can’t walk without help. When the clan moves on, Gunther will have to haul him on a travois made of tree limbs and animal skins.

“About damn time,” he says by way of greeting.

I don’t feel like arguing. He knows I’m a loner; I’m tired of defending myself. “I found a dead hunter,” I say. “Arrow in his chest.”

Bode squints. “Whose?”

“Jamison’s clan, looks like.”

He nods and pulls his knees closer to his chest. “Good.”

That’s one thing we share, at least. An appreciation for dead Icarites.

Gunther shows up with a roasted rabbit skewered on a stick. My gut rumbles again in response, but he won’t share the meat. It’s meant for Bode and him. The rest of the clan shares, to an extent, but I’m not around enough to contribute, so I don’t eat.

“What did you want me for, old man?” I ask. I watch as Gunther splits the rabbit with his knife and hands Bode half. The smell of roasted meat wafts to my nose and my mouth waters. Bode eyes me for a minute, then tears off a piece and hands it to me. Gunther’s disapproving scowl follows.