Windrunner's Daughter (12 page)

The sounds in the walls grew louder, almost anticipatory. Wren could imagine them speaking to one another.

“How intelligent are they do you think?” she whispered.

Raw did not answer.

Then, two floors up, the sounds abruptly stopped. Wren climbed higher and a wail curled down the stairwell. She froze and backed downwards. The cry halted.

“Raw?”

He was standing with one hand over the palm reader. “It sounds quiet in there,” he murmured. “No Creatures and there could be more food in the kitchen, enough to last us until they give up and leave.”

“Don’t open the door.” Wren caught his elbow. His hand halted bare millimetres from the reader.

“Why?” Raw glowered at her.

“You said we were being driven. If its quiet in there it’s because that’s where they want us to go.”

“Or because they aren’t in there.” But Raw didn’t move. “You think they’re
that
clever?”

“I don’t know.” Tension thrummed through Wren’s body, like the flickering lights overhead. “You’re betting your life that they’re not.”

“And if we keep going?” Raw looked up. “You’re betting our lives that they
are
.”

“They’re hunters,” Wren bit her lip. “The safest place has to be where they don’t want us to go.”

“That would make sense if they were people.” Raw exhaled. “But they’re not.”

“No, they’re not.” Wren withdrew her hand from his. “You decide.”

Raw looked at the door again, then up the stairs. A susurrus hummed from the ceiling as if the Creatures could sense Raw’s hesitation and were hurrying him.

Raw stepped back from the door. “Up,” he said.

He turned and pounded up the stairs as the Creatures wailed. Wren raced after him, her legs shaking with each step.

Thuds against the concrete made the walls shudder and there was a scraping sound like that of teeth against rock.

“They can’t get through,” Raw shouted. “Keep going.”

Wren realised that she had faltered to a stop. She shook herself and pushed on. It felt as if she was running through a near solid barrier made up of noise and terror and she found her arms swinging widely in front of her as though to push it aside.

Then they were at the top of the stairs.

“This is where we came in.” Raw was standing in front of the reader, his palm spread. “Are you sure about this?”

“Do it,” Wren just wanted to be out of the stairwell. Her fear was suffocating, she wanted it over, one way or the other.

Raw slapped the reader and from the ground floor, Creatures
screamed.

Jerkily the door cycled open and Raw slid through sideways, pulling Wren after him. She slapped it closed and they stood in the room, panting. Shadows swirled around them as the glow tubes softly burned into life. Was the darkness deeper in the far corner? Was that a hole in the wall?

Wren sprinted for open window, kicking puffs of dust as she gripped the ladder and swung outwards in one smooth movement. She looked down and her eyes widened. The sand, which seemed strangely close to her feet given the length of the stairs they had climbed, was moving as far as the eye could see. Creatures must have converged from across the whole desert.

Her fists turned to ice and refused to open.

“Move it, Wren. I can’t get on the ladder till you’re off it.”

Wren looked up and her heart sank like a rock fall. “Oh skies.”

“What is it?” Raw grabbed and shook her leg. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s not morning,” Wren spoke with a shuddering voice.

“But its light out.” Raw strained past her.

“It’s not morning,” Wren repeated. “It’s
midday
, or near enough.”

“Midday?” Beneath his scar, Raw paled. “But that means -”

“There’s a dust storm coming,” Wren swallowed as sand began to swirl upwards from the boiling mass. Wind caught her hair and wings and snatched them outwards.

“But we can’t stay
here
.” Raw yelled. “I can hear them - they’ve found a hole. They’re widening it. They’re
coming
.”

Almost without thinking, Wren started to climb the ladder. It groaned with her weight and the sudden rage of the wind that pulled her as she tried to hold onto it.

She dragged herself onto the roof top and lay flat. Raw was swinging out onto the rungs even before she could call for him.

He stared at the ground, just as she had done, then climbed.

She caught his hand and helped him onto the roof. He flattened himself next to her and his eyes swept the desert. “Now what?”

“If we stay here the storm will blow us from the roof.” Wren was pale as ice. “But we can’t take off, that would be suicide.”

Raw groaned. "Which way will the storm come?”

Wren’s wings lifted from her back, almost pulling her into the air. Raw flattened them with a strong arm as Wren pointed. “The storm should sweep across this way, from Deimos, towards the South.”

“And which way do we want to go - which way is Vaikuntha?” Raw shouted to be heard over the rising gale.

Wren pointed towards a curving hillside. “That way.”

“It’s not that far, is it? We were nearly there yesterday.”

“Yes, but-”

“Then you know what we have to do.” Raw caught her chin and turned her to face him. As her eyes met his, he automatically tried to tug his hair over his face, but the wind pulled it back, exposing him to her gaze. He looked like a winged demon, his mask hiding his grinning lips. “We have to outfly the storm.”

Chapter nine

“Are you
insane
?” Wren wrenched her face away.

“It’s the Creatures or the storm,” Raw growled. “If you don’t want to fly, you might as well jump off the roof now and be done with it.” He grabbed her again and pointed to the churning sand. “Go on. They might be distracted enough fighting over your body that I can get away.”

“Stop it.” Wren kicked him hard and he flinched and released her again. She stared; the dust had already risen to knee height. Soon it would form a wall. She blinked particles from her lashes and pulled her goggles over her eyes.

She wasn’t going to throw herself to the Creatures and she wasn’t climbing back into their trap. Grinding her teeth, she rose into a Runner’s starting position and flexed her arms. She was in agony. She wasn’t even certain that she was going to be able to fling out her arms, let alone fight the wind.

“Stay with me,” she ordered Raw. Then she started to run.

Wren had barely taken three steps when the screaming wind billowed into her wings and lifted her from the rooftop. She hadn’t even opened them. With a moan, she forced her arms wide and gave the flick of her wrist that would lock the struts. Instantly she was lifted so fast that the factory was gone, vanished in a blur of ground and dust and sky.

Was Raw behind her? There was no way to know. She was tossed and buffeted in the leading edge of the storm, debris clattering against her legs and torso. She twisted, trying to see Vaikuntha, but the dust blurred everything and she had no idea which way she should be fighting to go.

Suddenly it was no longer about getting to Vaikuntha, but about survival. She faced forward, where the sand was curling into waves to meet the wind. She had to get further ahead. Forcing herself to streamline, she pushed faster, racing the dust, a tiny figure in the vast desert.

Her eyes and ears strained as she listened for Raw, but all she could hear was the gale that raged at her foolishness like an un-caged beast.

She pitched and yawed almost uncontrollably until she gave up the struggle to remain level and, with a feeling of terrifying elation, let the wind take her.  

There was no longer anything to see but a churning orange mist all around her. Wren’s goggles clogged until she was blind, her senses shut down. She focused instead on the feel of the wind beneath her, tossing her like a rudderless kite, wondering at what moment she would crash into a cliff, or the ground.

Inside her mask, she laughed. With all the Creatures at the CFC factory she would likely be buried in sand before they could get to her. She had chosen her death and it was a Runner’s death; glorious and in full flight.

Buffeted up and down, Wren soon began to feel nauseated, her stomach rolling with every sudden jolt. Then the real storm caught her and she was tossed into a somersault. She felt her feet go over her head, her wings collapsed and refilled and she had no idea whether she had come back level. She was as helpless as a leaf in the storm, and just as fragile.

She fought against nausea; if she threw up, the hose to her canister would block and there would be no air. Already she could feel her breath shortening as dust clogged the filters. She wished she had some sense of time; she might have been in the sky for moments, or hours. The storms usually lasted between thirty and sixty minutes, she could only pray to the skies that this was a short one.

Where was Raw - was he with her? Behind? Ahead? Already dead?

It seemed impossible that they could both survive: ridiculous odds. And yet she hoped. It made it seem less terrible if Raw was somewhere near, being hurled across the desert with her.

Time stretched and ballooned and the wind’s screech grew louder. The skin on her fingers and face had long gone numb, not with cold, but with the pain of constant abrasion.  

And then, with a strange abruptness, the wind, as though out of breath, began to drop. A lessening of the darkness that covered her vision told Wren that the sand had fallen away from her, but she had no way to clean her goggles to find out for sure.

Still she pitched side to side, wobbling, not even certain which way up she was flying. Her head was spinning, her gut clinging to her throat. There was no way to regain any kind of control, not only was she blind, but she had gone beyond exhaustion, she didn’t think she
could
make her body move; her shoulders were pure agony, wrenched, as they had been, by the gale. Gusts warmed around her, gentler now, and she could feel the wind, exhausted as she, losing all its strength.

Some instinct, some sound, or change in the atmosphere around Wren, made her brace. She tensed just as she slammed into the desert.

The breath was, finally, knocked out of her, and her mask ripped from her face. She rolled, spitting sand, and her wings unlocked as she scrabbled for the O2 canister, blindly seeking the hose that should end in her mask.

Gasping like a fish, feeling her throat already burning from the chemical atmosphere, she fumbled until her fingers closed around her mask. She shook it to empty the sand, then shoved it against her face, inhaling with grateful desperation as the oxygen hissed from the bacteria in her tank.

She was on her knees. With trembling fingers, Wren pulled her goggles from her eyes, blinked and swallowed. Dust settled around her as a gentle breeze caressed her hair, almost apologetically. She turned to see a long furrow where she had ploughed into the ground and rolled. Martian bugs were already fighting inside, a miniature world at war, their armoured backs and sharp pincers ripping into those exposed by her landing. She shaded her eyes, staring around her with growing panic. She had landed in the middle of the desert, so the Creatures would be coming. It was stupid to think that the whole population of the delta had congregated at the CFC factories.

Wren tried to stand so that she could see further and immediately fell back to her hands and knees. She pulled her mask from her mouth just in time. She vomited a heavy, warm stream of purple fruit gel onto the desert floor and watched through sticky eyes as green grey bugs swarmed around her knees, seeking the sustenance.

Then, still shuddering as if she was in flight, she managed to refit her mask, and rise up again. Removing herself from the pain of her limbs she stared out across the desert. A short distance to her right there was a rock formation. If she could make it there she could at least climb off the sand and there was a chance she might be able to work out the way to the nearest settlement. She wrapped her arms around her chest, her wings dragging and airless. She doubted she was anywhere near Vaikuntha. Wren hung her head. She was likely hundreds of kilometres off course; she could be anywhere … anywhere at all.

Barely able to keep her feet Wren staggered, with her head hanging low and her feet dragging through the sand; great weights on the ends of legs that felt like twigs. Her wings slid along behind her, wiping out her footsteps as she walked. Every so often she looked up to check that the rock remained ahead, then she looked back down again, her ears straining all the time for the wail of a hunting Creature, the skin of her spine already tingling in anticipation of an attack.

When she looked up again the rock was right in front of her. If she lifted her arm she would be able to touch it. She blinked and swayed; then she stroked its smooth surface. It was real, it was smooth and it was too high for her to climb. A giggle forced its way through her lips, then another.

She trudged along the rock looking, with increasing hopelessness, for some kind of hand or foothold in a formation that millennia of storms had sanded to polished smoothness. The rock itself, striated with black obsidian, sloped slowly until it entered the delta at the height of her waist. She flung her arms over the end of it and kicked her legs, trying to gain any friction, seeking to lift her body from the sand. She dangled uselessly; then dropped. As if the thud of her feet wakened something she felt, rather than saw, a Creature stir and its attention rise towards her.

Terror gave her speed. She ran backwards, out into the desert; then she turned, flicked out her aching arms until her wings locked and raced back towards the rock.

Her heart pounded and the dust dragged at her feet, making her slip and slide, but at the very last moment she leaped. Her jump forced wind into her wings and made it lift her, not far, but far enough. This time Wren managed to get her whole chest onto the rock; her stomach, her thighs. She wriggled forward like a sand snake, until she lay flat on the sun-warm stone, her breath coming in small rasps.   

She lay with her face pressed against a seam of quartz, arms splayed out, hugging the rock. She lay still and quiet for what felt like an age until she felt the pressure of the presence vanish once more into depths. Then she lay longer, allowing the stone’s heat to soothe her quivering muscles and throbbing bruises. By the way the warmth moved across her back, Wren could feel the sun tracing its way across the sky and knew that she had hours to find some kind of shelter before the desert grew cold once more.