Circles, Chapter 1.9

Circles

Chapter 1.9

Maze of Madness

On the outskirts of Tallshadow Forest near the Glori Mountains ...

Rylor Skysong, Captain of the 33th Flight of Silvercloud, groaned and wiped blood from his eyes with a shaking hand. He could feel the broken bones in his body grinding as he tried to pull himself up. The pain made his vision whirl and tunnel, but he held grimly onto consciousness.

He turned his head. Around the clearing he could see the bodies of his flight. Most were clearly dead, their gyrocopters broken into smoking pieces, either by crashing or by the attack. But over to left, someone else -- please let it be Myton -- moved. Rylor stumbled toward the pilot.

"Rylor..." Myton groaned.

"Thank Mother Earth," Rylor said, dropping to his knees by his brother.

"What ... the others..."

Rylor looked around the clearing. He saw no other movement. Three of the pilots still hung in their harnesses, one of them dangling upside down. The other two had fallen out of their gyrocopters. Smoke and escaping steam swirled around the machines.

"Dead," Rylor said. His head pounded. He tried to pull magick from the sky, from the earth, anything to heal himself, but the magick only trickled in, more an indication of his condition than the availability.

Myton tried to sit up, but couldn't. "Ry ... what ... what was that? It looked like... It couldn't be." He looked at Rylor.

"I know," Rylor said. "I know. But it was."

"What have the humans done?"

"I don't think it was the humans," Rylor said. "I don't think they have the magick ... or the knowledge." He realized his goggles had remained somehow remained on. He pulled them off and dropped them. He wouldn't be flying any time soon. In fact, he would probably lose his rank. Silvercloud didn't reward captains who lose their entire flight.

Myton leaned to one side and vomited blood and bits of flesh.

"Oh, gods, Myton," Rylor said. "I've got to heal you."

"No time," Myton whispered. "You've got to get away. Before it comes back. You have to leave me."

"Not going to happen," Rylor said with as much force as he could muster. "Now hold your tongue. Got to patch you up." He stretched out his hand. This time, the magick came faster, but he couldn't do much. He found the internal injuries. He couldn't do much, but he could heal the worse of the wounds. The healers back at the Silvercloud could do the rest. If they could survive long enough to reach it.

It took all his concentration, but he did what he could for Myton. Then he turned his meager healing magick on himself. He couldn't heal himself completely, but he hoped it would be enough to let them find safety before the creature returned. He couldn't imagine the magick -- or could it be science -- that had been used to create such a thing. Who would create such a beast? And why?

His flight had been flying a regular patrol along the Tallshadow Forest. Nothing out of the ordinary. They passed a small village -- Trappen -- that seemed unusually quiet, but Rylor hadn't decided to investigate. They could be at a handfast or perhaps out in the fields. He looked for signs of life, people in the fields, horses or dogs, but found nothing. He circled around, the seven members of the flight following him.

His brother came up alongside and signed to him. "Where are the people?"

He shook his head and circled the village again, this time going lower. No dogs came out barking, no chickens scattered, but the sun would be setting soon. The flight needed to be back at Silvercloud before the curfew. Other than the stillness, he saw no signs of unusual activity. He signed to his brother. "We'll come back tomorrow."

His brother signed it to the other members of the flights, and they banked and headed back toward Silvercloud, the aerie of the Silver Folk. Suddenly his gyrocopter lurched in a terrible wind. He fought the controls. Opened the power valve full. Stabilized for a moment. Again the copter lurched. If he had been higher, he could have recovered, but too late. The tiny gyrocopter hit the ground hard, tumbling rotors over wheels. He took several blows, and his world dimmed. The copter finally halted on its side, one of its rotors buried in the ground, steam venting from its cracked engine. He unfastened his harness and fell to the ground, rolling once. Above he saw a huge winged creature circling in the sky. His vision blurred and went away. Unconsciousness claimed him for a few moments.

And now he stood and held out a hand to pull Myton up.

He felt the slight coolness as a passing cloud covered the sun. "Come on," he said. "We've got--" He stopped at the stricken expression on his brother's face.

Rylor looked up. What he thought was a cloud was not. Impossibly, a huge dragon floated above them, its ebony wings spread to the thermals.

"Goddess have mercy," Rylor breathed. He drew Myton up, and they limped toward the trees.

The black dragon dropped out of the sky like a bolt from the gods.

"Run!" Rylor said. "Run!"

The dragon hit the ground. The ground rippled, a shockwave that threw the brothers to the earth.

Rylor scrambled to his feet, pulling Myton up. If they could get into the trees, the dragon would be too large to follow. He wondered for a mad moment if it could breathe fire, but surely magick or science had its limits.

Any moment he expected the dragon to attack, but they reached the trees unharmed. They stumbled through the underbrush, seeking deeper forest where the dragon would not be able to reach.

"Have ... to ... stop," Myton gasped, bending over. "Can't..."

"We have to!" Rylor said, trying to keep the terror from unmanning him completely.

Myton nodded and stumbled on.

Rylor made the mistake of looking back. He would never be able to forget what he saw.

The dragon fed on his fallen friends, picking their bodies out the wrecked gyrocopters. It lifted one of them up in its front claw. And the pilot -- who wasn't dead after all -- screamed once before the dragon tore his head off. And ate it.

Copyright 2011 by Stephen B. Bagley. All rights reserved. No copying without prior express written permission. Thank you for reading.

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