We swam among clouds, soared in the dying daylight. Even as we had done, scores of wyverns rose in succession, issuing forth from the mighty Daybright, penetrating the beastly-made wall of clouds. How exhilarating, how unique was that feeling of flight. As though fetters of which I had never been made aware had at last broken. And what we left behind – our base and only shelter in this sky – was also security and inertness. Upon the sky we were free, though the loneliness was keen. While others flew no farther from us than two wingspans, I felt now that I had only my pledge-sister with me, where emptiness surrounded us and perils lay but a fall and tumble away. It was exciting, but also profoundly terrifying. It was many things at once, this first flight.
Once midair, a longing sensation compelled my eyes back to the ship. It was still near now, but the distance had diminished the sailors’ figures, and it was hard to distinguish them from one another. Save for one person I knew well. Gripping the guardrails, Thea leaned outwards, hair like a resting golden star trapped on the dismasted ship. As I looked on, a strong breeze caught and pulled it from her waist, making trailing strands like a comet tail. An anguish came over me. I hadn’t had the time to see her again before setting out. In all likelihood I would not see her again, would not once more taste the sweet air purified in her clear, bright laugh. The ship grew smaller, and Thea left, unable to send her good-bye in the end.
Litzia was silent, yet her quiet sympathy was conveyed through our bond.
The striking white of Galathus’s wyvern form was near at hand, Acis perched upon her back, so matched in shades that they seemed one body. We fell to their rear, following as instructed by Gladiola. Flying was simple. With Litzia’s will and mine connected, I need not speak my intentions out loud for Litzia to steer as I wished. And whenever her keen sense caught the movement of a strong wind, I would know to lay flat along her back and clasp my legs round her torso, where they fitted and were secured tight. So long as my stamina persevered and my mind stayed clear, it was not beyond belief that I should fly on for hours undisturbed. But it would be a long flight indeed ahead.
At length the Anemone’s formation thinned out, each ala pursuing a different direction into the dark clouds. We searched for the beast that had taken the lives of many of our kin. Forks of lightning illuminated our way in the twilight, at intervals painting misshapen columns of clouds near to us, as though we traversed a great ravine. Cliffs rose high and reached deep down, forming one turbulent, twisting cavern in the air, through which our mark had punched through, scattering storm clouds in its wake. All was quiet but for the roaring winds by our ears; only the seldom echoes of horns blown from far and near punctured the silence. Each Ala’s leader carried one such instrument, which they used to report the status of their reconnaissance.
In the middle of this monotonous hunt ridden with unseen perils, Litzia’s thoughts suddenly echoed in my mind. Despite our faint awareness of each other’s intentions, she had not conversed with me directly until then.
“What think you, sister?” she asked, “we are pledge-sisters now, and we are up in the sky, far from land and airship. I really wouldn’t mind being slain by a beast or falling to my death, I fear I have passed that point. But you have someone to return to, do you not?”
“Do not speak like that, even in jest,” I shuddered and answered out loud. “But mind dying – and heed our leader’s orders: live, I suppose.”
Our survival was beyond us now. But we must have hope, and it is a sad thing to have none.
“Again with that. Is that how all slaves are? Or all azures? Does nothing bring you greater joy than acts of obedience?” Though I could not see her beastly face, the jeering note was crystalline in our minds. And she delighted in mocking me, for it brought her the rare satisfaction she could still find in this perilous time.
“Do not take it as an order then, instead as my plea. I could not do it now, but fancy it in your mind that I am groveling, if that should please you,” I ventured a lark in turn.
“Hah, I shall not be made willing witness to that hideous sight!”
And she broke off, filling her mind with wetness sensations and the wind’s subtle changes along our course. For some curious reason, her mood had brightened a good bit.
We trudged on. At length, the air grew tense as though something – a certain creature – had condensed the emptiness round us, bringing early foreboding as we approached. Then a sudden flash made clear the familiar outline of our mark beyond the thick of clouds, like a heaving mountain that moved by a trick of light and not some ancient Art. It was no farther than a league away.
In quick succession, horns cried out. Which passed on to those nearer to the Daybright, until at last the vessel answered in rumbling chants and its own booming advance.
Gladiola replaced the horn on her baldric and signaled us to take caution. We were not to engage our mark until the main fighting body of the Anemone had arrived.
We drew near, the full extent of this creature’s presence became almost too horrible to bear. I was closer to it than I ever had been from the gunport. So near at hand, its scarred hide was all the more grotesque, its tentacles threatening and eyes filled with ancient malice. Two of which having been destroyed, the ones to port peered out, glossing over us. Great were those orbs that I could not make sense of its inner mind at first. But soon it was clear they had been radiating a deep rage, bearing the desire to destroy, for vengeance and for wrath. No less for flight. Even now it fled from the Daybright – its match at last after millennia of terrorizing unwitting airships. The Last Dragon was first to come for it willingly: to conquer and to devour.
Thunder had yet to crack and its tentacles slackened behind as it swam slowly, labouriously. I held fast to my runestaff. So tiny it seemed against so vast a foe. Ahead of Litzia and I, the Ala Estival’s members flew in a parallel line to the length of its body. Our ears yearned for the horn. And ere long it came: four sharp cries – signs of Ala Vernal, the Anemone’s leading warriors.
Being the mightiest, they mark the beginning of the assault. And so we were to keep the beast occupied, while contributing what attack we could, until the riders of Ala Vernal would deliver the finishing blow. A simple strategy, like last time, only with ample conscious caution.
At that moment, a swift beacon of light overtook us. I caught a glimpse of a gallant rider in white leading a squadron of seven – Rosa Alba she was, our commandant. Whiter was she than the moon, and all the more pristine. If Galanthus and her rider were the first pure snow at the change of season, hers was the eternal winter upon towering mountain peaks: in her the sky’s divinity and earth’s grandness. She carried no arms or crude rods, but one single oaken staff, old yet adorned in silvery gems. The long gown’s hem blew after her, clashing in glittering brilliance with the dark clouds that made the stage of this combat. An ancient and handsome wyverness bore her divine figure – Edelweiss be her name, the everwhite.
“That is Ala Vernal’s Prima, our Order’s prefect,” muttered Litzia darkly, “and the only bearer of the first rune – the hierogram of Creation.”
Together with their Ala, Rosa Alba and Edelweiss charged blasting horn, and onwards the rest flew, casting away momentarily fear and dread, inspired as they were at the sight of our shining commandant.
But I was not one of them. The valor I possessed, that of a somewhat experienced cannoneer could not afford comparison to that of the sky’s most feared alares. I leveled my staff, going through the motion to invoke the runes of power. Meanwhile Litzia hugged close to the Ala’s formation. And in her a change blossomed. Even as I aimed my first shot, a startling inferno erupted in the wyverness’ psyche. Her jaw loosed a chilling shriek. Almost at the same time across the Anemone’s formation, shrill battle cries of almost equal dark wrath rose to the peak of heaven; runes of power gleamed like falling stars. Such a sight that came straight out of songs sung of legends past, only alive were the figures praised, truer than any storyteller’s yarns.
For my part, Litzia’s was the most affecting. And the truth now lay bare as I realized the true nature of what I had fancied a mere accumulated temper spurred by hatred and grief. Nay, the fire was in her all along. The look and darkness I had seen in her eyes, the desire of hers to bring about justice – all were but a single manifestation of an ever-burning flame in her heart, the smouldering violence in her fangs. A mere beast she seemed with all the civil outfits now stripped. She was capable of anything, even the most foolish assault upon the greatest of beings.
And for now, there was a great target to freely unleash her long-repressed wrath.
The tip of our Ala, Gladiola, drew her both blades, and drove Hortensia sharply towards the beast’s side. Hastily we chased after her. To my left Valerian raised her staff and her runes shone. My aim was troubled as Litzia slithered after the others. My hands were shaking. The remains of reason and caution fought for sanity in my head against Litzia’s havoc-wreaking flame. In the end, my effort came to no avail. Her excitement consumed me. My eyes red with anger; my fangs bared.
I invoked my weapon, pouring into it an aching will. No more did I remember fear or doubt, of which Litzia’s battle rage had banished from thoughts. My arms vibrated, and the first shot rang out. Too black was the beast’s hide that it blended into the sky, that I could not tell if my aim was true. But at this range, the full barrage from our alares ensured devastation nonetheless. Closer and closer my ala-sisters flew still, as if to ram our very flesh upon our mark’s.
Gladiola sunk her harpoon in, thereupon the shaft’s glowing symbols came to life, and carried by Hortensia’s force of mighty wing beats, the knight dragged a long gory gash on the tough hide. We twisted to parallel to her course, and laid down fire still. I witnessed firsthand the extent of the destruction we wrought. The runes on my staff were finely crafted in favor of firepower in their simplicity, yet I was much amazed: the blasts I shot far exceeded what a sailor could muster from the greatest of cannons; and the extension of will into the Art did not drain me, instead brought virility like provocative oil to the inner flame Lizia had fanned. For each blast that struck, a chunk larger than a wyvern’s wing span gushed out, permeating the sky with misty black blood and the foulest stench.
Roaring and roaring the runestaves kept on. And yet all were drowned out by the beast’s near-death cry. More deafening it was than a flash storm, and so close were we to the source that my bone rattled and ached to the constant blaring. But the worst was only on its way. Its dreadful tentacles had become animated. The first strike, though aimless and failed to bring down any of its foes, was a grim reminder of the difference in singular power. Thunders cracked. We had the advantage of numbers, but with each true strike we would diminish, and each of us had but one life to offer. Timely, the real brunt of our assault had been brought to bear. Far, far aloft, the Commandant coiled her way through a maze of tentacles that had intertwined to shield the wound on its back. Edelweiss threaded through these small openings with the sleight of wings. And then, from Rosa Alba’s staff of silver the firmament parted: light poured from that slim crack, sorcerous stream of Art rent the leviathan’s most vulnerable spot. The searing hot strike swept clean all the shivering griminess in the air. The wave of heat hit Litzia, whose sense I shared, despite the distance from us to the point of impact. Like a spreading earthquake, the victim shook along its length. Many of its tentacles drooped lifelessly to the sides, falling over us like uprooted pillars of a toppling cathedral. Its shriek had grown so loud my ears had gone deaf, my head rang. But we need not think, having only one singular purpose: to bring as much destruction as we could upon the dying giant before us.
Suddenly, Galanthus went into a steep climb. Litzia immediately followed. I had been too absorbed in the aiming and firing of my staff, one shot after the next, and the effect of Rosa Alba’s sorcery, that I hadn’t caught the change in our formation. Ahead, Hortensia worked fiercely her wings, and soon we were flying aloft the beast’s topside. Our destination was the mass of tentacles protecting still the freshly carved hole. In the midst of which, Rosa Alba and her ala wended their ways, launching their offensive unceasingly. Several alae were upon the mass. And all others were drawing closer even as us. It seemed to me we had abandoned all effort to distract it, instead gathering everything we could to extinguish its spark while it was still in a daze.
“Just a little more.” My teeth ground, and I was all but holding my breath for the coming end that I thought near.
“Not yet,” muttered Litzia. She was frustrated. “It is alive. Weakened, but far from extinguished.”
I haphazardly shot a blast with my staff, which sizzled in the dark and landed on an unmoving tentacle. It wasn’t dead perhaps, but the vigor had been mostly vanquished.
“Be cautious,” she warned. “It was like this last time also. Victory so near at hand…”
So recent was the loss of so many comrades to the same foe, and yet in my mind I could scarce hear the sound of triumphant, as though we were almost upon the finish line thanks to our tireless effort. It seemed just that we should be rewarded. And the trials we had gone through had already far exceeded the physical and emotional limits of our being. This leviathan needed only to loose the last howl and fall from the sky, and we would succeed, would beat our wings home where warm meals, warm beds and warm embraces awaited. And nevermore shall we wish for a thing so dearly.
Suddenly, from the very centre of the tentacle maze, there came a cry. Not for sweet victory but a terrible danger. My back grew cold: it is come. A great red column of flame surged, shot from within the mass and broke open the beastly’s appendages. At once, both Litzia’s and my instinct commanded us to flee – as hurriedly as we could, to seek the last shelter under the sky if there be any – lest ultimate doom should come for us, as it had for many poor alares before us.
We swam among clouds, soared in the dying daylight. Even as we had done, scores of wyverns rose in succession, issuing forth from the mighty Daybright, penetrating the beastly-made wall of clouds. How exhilarating, how unique was that feeling of flight. As though fetters of which I had never been made aware had at last broken. And what we left behind – our base and only shelter in this sky – was also security and inertness. Upon the sky we were free, though the loneliness was keen. While others flew no farther from us than two wingspans, I felt now that I had only my pledge-sister with me, where emptiness surrounded us and perils lay but a fall and tumble away. It was exciting, but also profoundly terrifying. It was many things at once, this first flight.
Once midair, a longing sensation compelled my eyes back to the ship. It was still near now, but the distance had diminished the sailors’ figures, and it was hard to distinguish them from one another. Save for one person I knew well. Gripping the guardrails, Thea leaned outwards, hair like a resting golden star trapped on the dismasted ship. As I looked on, a strong breeze caught and pulled it from her waist, making trailing strands like a comet tail. An anguish came over me. I hadn’t had the time to see her again before setting out. In all likelihood I would not see her again, would not once more taste the sweet air purified in her clear, bright laugh. The ship grew smaller, and Thea left, unable to send her good-bye in the end.
Litzia was silent, yet her quiet sympathy was conveyed through our bond.
The striking white of Galathus’s wyvern form was near at hand, Acis perched upon her back, so matched in shades that they seemed one body. We fell to their rear, following as instructed by Gladiola. Flying was simple. With Litzia’s will and mine connected, I need not speak my intentions out loud for Litzia to steer as I wished. And whenever her keen sense caught the movement of a strong wind, I would know to lay flat along her back and clasp my legs round her torso, where they fitted and were secured tight. So long as my stamina persevered and my mind stayed clear, it was not beyond belief that I should fly on for hours undisturbed. But it would be a long flight indeed ahead.
At length the Anemone’s formation thinned out, each ala pursuing a different direction into the dark clouds. We searched for the beast that had taken the lives of many of our kin. Forks of lightning illuminated our way in the twilight, at intervals painting misshapen columns of clouds near to us, as though we traversed a great ravine. Cliffs rose high and reached deep down, forming one turbulent, twisting cavern in the air, through which our mark had punched through, scattering storm clouds in its wake. All was quiet but for the roaring winds by our ears; only the seldom echoes of horns blown from far and near punctured the silence. Each Ala’s leader carried one such instrument, which they used to report the status of their reconnaissance.
In the middle of this monotonous hunt ridden with unseen perils, Litzia’s thoughts suddenly echoed in my mind. Despite our faint awareness of each other’s intentions, she had not conversed with me directly until then.
“What think you, sister?” she asked, “we are pledge-sisters now, and we are up in the sky, far from land and airship. I really wouldn’t mind being slain by a beast or falling to my death, I fear I have passed that point. But you have someone to return to, do you not?”
“Do not speak like that, even in jest,” I shuddered and answered out loud. “But mind dying – and heed our leader’s orders: live, I suppose.”
Our survival was beyond us now. But we must have hope, and it is a sad thing to have none.
“Again with that. Is that how all slaves are? Or all azures? Does nothing bring you greater joy than acts of obedience?” Though I could not see her beastly face, the jeering note was crystalline in our minds. And she delighted in mocking me, for it brought her the rare satisfaction she could still find in this perilous time.
“Do not take it as an order then, instead as my plea. I could not do it now, but fancy it in your mind that I am groveling, if that should please you,” I ventured a lark in turn.
“Hah, I shall not be made willing witness to that hideous sight!”
And she broke off, filling her mind with wetness sensations and the wind’s subtle changes along our course. For some curious reason, her mood had brightened a good bit.
We trudged on. At length, the air grew tense as though something – a certain creature – had condensed the emptiness round us, bringing early foreboding as we approached. Then a sudden flash made clear the familiar outline of our mark beyond the thick of clouds, like a heaving mountain that moved by a trick of light and not some ancient Art. It was no farther than a league away.
In quick succession, horns cried out. Which passed on to those nearer to the Daybright, until at last the vessel answered in rumbling chants and its own booming advance.
Gladiola replaced the horn on her baldric and signaled us to take caution. We were not to engage our mark until the main fighting body of the Anemone had arrived.
We drew near, the full extent of this creature’s presence became almost too horrible to bear. I was closer to it than I ever had been from the gunport. So near at hand, its scarred hide was all the more grotesque, its tentacles threatening and eyes filled with ancient malice. Two of which having been destroyed, the ones to port peered out, glossing over us. Great were those orbs that I could not make sense of its inner mind at first. But soon it was clear they had been radiating a deep rage, bearing the desire to destroy, for vengeance and for wrath. No less for flight. Even now it fled from the Daybright – its match at last after millennia of terrorizing unwitting airships. The Last Dragon was first to come for it willingly: to conquer and to devour.
Thunder had yet to crack and its tentacles slackened behind as it swam slowly, labouriously. I held fast to my runestaff. So tiny it seemed against so vast a foe. Ahead of Litzia and I, the Ala Estival’s members flew in a parallel line to the length of its body. Our ears yearned for the horn. And ere long it came: four sharp cries – signs of Ala Vernal, the Anemone’s leading warriors.
Being the mightiest, they mark the beginning of the assault. And so we were to keep the beast occupied, while contributing what attack we could, until the riders of Ala Vernal would deliver the finishing blow. A simple strategy, like last time, only with ample conscious caution.
At that moment, a swift beacon of light overtook us. I caught a glimpse of a gallant rider in white leading a squadron of seven – Rosa Alba she was, our commandant. Whiter was she than the moon, and all the more pristine. If Galanthus and her rider were the first pure snow at the change of season, hers was the eternal winter upon towering mountain peaks: in her the sky’s divinity and earth’s grandness. She carried no arms or crude rods, but one single oaken staff, old yet adorned in silvery gems. The long gown’s hem blew after her, clashing in glittering brilliance with the dark clouds that made the stage of this combat. An ancient and handsome wyverness bore her divine figure – Edelweiss be her name, the everwhite.
“That is Ala Vernal’s Prima, our Order’s prefect,” muttered Litzia darkly, “and the only bearer of the first rune – the hierogram of Creation.”
Together with their Ala, Rosa Alba and Edelweiss charged blasting horn, and onwards the rest flew, casting away momentarily fear and dread, inspired as they were at the sight of our shining commandant.
But I was not one of them. The valor I possessed, that of a somewhat experienced cannoneer could not afford comparison to that of the sky’s most feared alares. I leveled my staff, going through the motion to invoke the runes of power. Meanwhile Litzia hugged close to the Ala’s formation. And in her a change blossomed. Even as I aimed my first shot, a startling inferno erupted in the wyverness’ psyche. Her jaw loosed a chilling shriek. Almost at the same time across the Anemone’s formation, shrill battle cries of almost equal dark wrath rose to the peak of heaven; runes of power gleamed like falling stars. Such a sight that came straight out of songs sung of legends past, only alive were the figures praised, truer than any storyteller’s yarns.
For my part, Litzia’s was the most affecting. And the truth now lay bare as I realized the true nature of what I had fancied a mere accumulated temper spurred by hatred and grief. Nay, the fire was in her all along. The look and darkness I had seen in her eyes, the desire of hers to bring about justice – all were but a single manifestation of an ever-burning flame in her heart, the smouldering violence in her fangs. A mere beast she seemed with all the civil outfits now stripped. She was capable of anything, even the most foolish assault upon the greatest of beings.
And for now, there was a great target to freely unleash her long-repressed wrath.
The tip of our Ala, Gladiola, drew her both blades, and drove Hortensia sharply towards the beast’s side. Hastily we chased after her. To my left Valerian raised her staff and her runes shone. My aim was troubled as Litzia slithered after the others. My hands were shaking. The remains of reason and caution fought for sanity in my head against Litzia’s havoc-wreaking flame. In the end, my effort came to no avail. Her excitement consumed me. My eyes red with anger; my fangs bared.
I invoked my weapon, pouring into it an aching will. No more did I remember fear or doubt, of which Litzia’s battle rage had banished from thoughts. My arms vibrated, and the first shot rang out. Too black was the beast’s hide that it blended into the sky, that I could not tell if my aim was true. But at this range, the full barrage from our alares ensured devastation nonetheless. Closer and closer my ala-sisters flew still, as if to ram our very flesh upon our mark’s.
Gladiola sunk her harpoon in, thereupon the shaft’s glowing symbols came to life, and carried by Hortensia’s force of mighty wing beats, the knight dragged a long gory gash on the tough hide. We twisted to parallel to her course, and laid down fire still. I witnessed firsthand the extent of the destruction we wrought. The runes on my staff were finely crafted in favor of firepower in their simplicity, yet I was much amazed: the blasts I shot far exceeded what a sailor could muster from the greatest of cannons; and the extension of will into the Art did not drain me, instead brought virility like provocative oil to the inner flame Lizia had fanned. For each blast that struck, a chunk larger than a wyvern’s wing span gushed out, permeating the sky with misty black blood and the foulest stench.
Roaring and roaring the runestaves kept on. And yet all were drowned out by the beast’s near-death cry. More deafening it was than a flash storm, and so close were we to the source that my bone rattled and ached to the constant blaring. But the worst was only on its way. Its dreadful tentacles had become animated. The first strike, though aimless and failed to bring down any of its foes, was a grim reminder of the difference in singular power. Thunders cracked. We had the advantage of numbers, but with each true strike we would diminish, and each of us had but one life to offer. Timely, the real brunt of our assault had been brought to bear. Far, far aloft, the Commandant coiled her way through a maze of tentacles that had intertwined to shield the wound on its back. Edelweiss threaded through these small openings with the sleight of wings. And then, from Rosa Alba’s staff of silver the firmament parted: light poured from that slim crack, sorcerous stream of Art rent the leviathan’s most vulnerable spot. The searing hot strike swept clean all the shivering griminess in the air. The wave of heat hit Litzia, whose sense I shared, despite the distance from us to the point of impact. Like a spreading earthquake, the victim shook along its length. Many of its tentacles drooped lifelessly to the sides, falling over us like uprooted pillars of a toppling cathedral. Its shriek had grown so loud my ears had gone deaf, my head rang. But we need not think, having only one singular purpose: to bring as much destruction as we could upon the dying giant before us.
Suddenly, Galanthus went into a steep climb. Litzia immediately followed. I had been too absorbed in the aiming and firing of my staff, one shot after the next, and the effect of Rosa Alba’s sorcery, that I hadn’t caught the change in our formation. Ahead, Hortensia worked fiercely her wings, and soon we were flying aloft the beast’s topside. Our destination was the mass of tentacles protecting still the freshly carved hole. In the midst of which, Rosa Alba and her ala wended their ways, launching their offensive unceasingly. Several alae were upon the mass. And all others were drawing closer even as us. It seemed to me we had abandoned all effort to distract it, instead gathering everything we could to extinguish its spark while it was still in a daze.
“Just a little more.” My teeth ground, and I was all but holding my breath for the coming end that I thought near.
“Not yet,” muttered Litzia. She was frustrated. “It is alive. Weakened, but far from extinguished.”
I haphazardly shot a blast with my staff, which sizzled in the dark and landed on an unmoving tentacle. It wasn’t dead perhaps, but the vigor had been mostly vanquished.
“Be cautious,” she warned. “It was like this last time also. Victory so near at hand…”
So recent was the loss of so many comrades to the same foe, and yet in my mind I could scarce hear the sound of triumphant, as though we were almost upon the finish line thanks to our tireless effort. It seemed just that we should be rewarded. And the trials we had gone through had already far exceeded the physical and emotional limits of our being. This leviathan needed only to loose the last howl and fall from the sky, and we would succeed, would beat our wings home where warm meals, warm beds and warm embraces awaited. And nevermore shall we wish for a thing so dearly.
Suddenly, from the very centre of the tentacle maze, there came a cry. Not for sweet victory but a terrible danger. My back grew cold: it is come. A great red column of flame surged, shot from within the mass and broke open the beastly’s appendages. At once, both Litzia’s and my instinct commanded us to flee – as hurriedly as we could, to seek the last shelter under the sky if there be any – lest ultimate doom should come for us, as it had for many poor alares before us.
