Windrunner's Daughter (3 page)

Wren’s vision blurred. “She never asked you for anything,” she shouted.

Win made no reply, only dragged her past the line of watching eyes. One pair in particular snatched at her attention. Green eyes that burned through a long curtain of hair with more than scorn: they glittered with hatred.

Wren’s eyes snagged on the face below the eyes. The whole left side was scarred; a twisted landscape of grey islanded with patches of pink skin. When he curled his lip, the flesh pulled tight. Painful. Caro’s disease, untreated for too long. He covered himself with his hair, but everyone knew that face, even Wren. The boy's name was Raw.

Wren stumbled as her grandfather pinned her against the airlock and slapped his palm onto the pad.

“Looks like you’re cleaning house, Councillor,” Raw murmured and Wren clenched her fists. She and Raw were the same age: fifteen. The other boys were younger. Despite, or perhaps because of, his scarring, Raw inspired worship. There was something about him. His cruelty fascinated.

Her grandfather ignored him, simply waited for the airlock to cycle green as though Wren wasn’t struggling beneath his arm. As soon as it opened, he tossed her through.

“Don’t come back again without a chaperone,” he growled. Then he turned his back and walked away.

Clutching her arms to her chest, Wren heard Raw’s laughter through the opaque walls that shut her out of Elysium’s Dome.

Chapter two

With the biosphere at her back Wren climbed the cliff path. The afternoon had become close, a minor dust storm must be blowing in. Sweat dripped down her neck but she dragged her feet, mind racing. What could she do now?

Behind her a hiss told her the airlock had opened. It could be a Green-Man checking on the belt. Still she turned, her heart rising in the hope that Win had changed his mind and was following her out.

Instead she saw Raw striding up the path after her, his mask covering half of his scarred face.

Wren considered running from him, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her mother was dying, what more could he do?

She turned her back to him and kept walking. Raw’s legs were longer than hers, he caught her in moments. Then he simply walked beside her. Wren shivered as the shriek of a Creature whispered up from the flats. As they drew level with the belt, she lifted her eyes to Raw’s narrowed gaze. “What do you want?”

Raw moved to block her and Wren blinked. He was big; more muscled than her brothers, despite their wing-training and he had a wiry leanness that made her step backwards out of his reach. Her heart thudded.

“Is your mother really dying?” Raw asked eventually, his green eyes gleaming.

Wren caught her breath. “You heard …”

“So she
is
.” Raw rubbed the scar on his face, massaging the tight skin above his mask. “Good.”

Wren flinched as if he’d struck her after all. “You can’t mean that.”

Raw met her eyes once more. “I really do.” He smiled then stepped to one side, out of her way. “Oh, and happy Kiernan’s Day!”

Wren opened her mouth then slammed it shut. She’d never wish death on anyone. And wouldn’t he have died from Caro’s disease if the Runners hadn’t brought medicine for him? He’d pay for his words. One day.

With a sob clinging to the back of her throat, Wren set her feet back on the path. With half of her mind she noticed that red dust was beginning to rise into swirling eddies around her feet.

By the time Wren had reached the cliff top, tears were making mud of the dust on her face. If only her brothers would come home. They could fetch a cure from the scientists in Aaru and do something about Raw. So where were they?

It was possible that one or both had both found their future Sphere-Mistress. They could be courting. Wren knew that one day, probably soon, Colm would leave and Runners would begin to come for her, hoping one day to take over the Patriarchy of Elysium from her Father.

Yet it seemed too early for either of her brothers to leave and the idea of being married off to some hoary Runner her father liked, made her own skin crawl.

Then again, the possibility that Colm was moving on his own ambitions was better than the other … she dashed away fresh tears and tried not to look over the cliff towards the bone-yards. She would wait for news before she believed them gone.

Her mind had room for only one problem now. Inside their sturdy little home, built to outlast mega storms, their mother was dying and Wren had failed to get a message out.

As Wren sloped towards Avalon, the dust rose to her ankles like a flood back on dead-Earth. Still she faltered. She had to get home but she paused again, driven to search the sky above the Martian delta.

Surely this time she’d see a Runner coming in?

The wind shoved her dangerously towards the marker posts, so Wren lay flat, rested on her elbows and shaded her eyes with her hands.

Russet mists churned over the flats. In a few weeks, when the wind was at full strength the desert would disappear completely, but today the sand flirted with the ground. She looked higher into a vast purple sky, hazed with streaks of gauzy grey cloud. The sun glowed to her right, a half-light, she had been told, compared to that of dead-Earth. She could barely imagine brighter. She peered directly into its corona, desperate to see figures racing the storm.

“Colm, Jay, where are you?”

There was nothing. They weren’t coming.

Wren waited one more minute as the spark of hope was doused. Then she jumped as horns blared from the roof of Elysium.

Her eyes widened. “What? No! It’s too early!” She tried to stand but the wind snarled and knocked her off her feet. “It’s
Kiernan’s Day
!” She shrieked, as if there was anyone to listen. It was only just Perihelion, the big dust storms were days away, weeks even.

But the alarm wailed.

The dust wasn’t going to remain low on the ground. Elysium had detected a big front; it was going to rise and rise and …

“Oh,
Kiernan
!” She shrieked as she crashed back onto her elbow. Dust clogged the filters of her mask and she gasped as stinging crimson particles whipped into her eyes. Panic began to cloud her thoughts. If her mask failed she would suffocate. The atmosphere was years off breathable, even this close to the green belt.

The alarm was one continuous shriek now and the dust had risen already. She was almost out of time. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, Wren dragged herself forward on her elbows. She used her instincts to keep her on the invisible path and felt out to the left in case she encountered a marker post, or worse, dead air.

Suddenly the wind crept under her shoulder and inflated her shirt. Wren was boosted a hand’s width from the ground and tumbled sideways.

“No!” With fingers curled into claws she stabbed at the path and rolled, deflating her shirt. She thumped onto her back, her O
₂
canister digging painfully into her shoulders. Wriggling frantically, she tucked her shirt into her pants, flipped onto her belly and continued to crawl, panting sharp little breaths that now tasted frighteningly of sand. Her lips dried and she tasted grit on her tongue. How much longer would her mask operate? With a full tank on her back, she could die from a lack of O
₂
. A giggle forced its way through her lips and Wren bore down on bubbling hysteria.

Her lungs tightened and she gasped into the darkness, bright lights flashing in front of her eyelids. She daren’t stop, if she wanted to live, she had to keep moving.

Gritting her teeth, Wren reached ahead, gripped what felt like a marker post and pulled herself towards it. She could use the posts like this as long as she kept far enough to the right.

After an eternity, Wren’s fumbling fingers bumped into what had to be the porch of the Runner-sphere, where she knew safety lines were coiled in a box on the first step. They hadn’t been used in years, but Colm maintained them. He liked backups, safety nets; he planned for every possible eventuality. Thank the skies.

The clips were slotted into a grooved post for easy access. She reached for the lowest and her fingers brushed silver fibres that glimmered even through the whirling dust. Growling, she pushed once more until she was right underneath the box and stretched. The line was too high for Wren to unclip without raising herself higher.

With a yell, she drove upwards, but as she lifted her chest the wind howled its triumph and took her. Wren’s fingers brushed the line and a scream dragged from her mouth as she was tugged back towards the cliff edge. Her feet lifted and she felt the ground drop away. Then the gale changed direction with a fickle huff and hurled her as hard towards the box as she had been torn away.

As she hurtled past, almost completely blind, Wren grasped a safety line in both hands and fumbled for her belt. She snapped the cable on just as it pulled tight and whipped her backwards by the waist. Wind roared around her and she was pummelled on the end of her line like a kite. Strong leather stretched, but held. Turning inside the maelstrom, Wren caught the rope with both hands, closed her eyes once more, and began to pull hand-over-hand towards the house.

    It seemed to take hours. Wren was already light headed and nauseous, and now O
₂
deprivation needled at her vision. She was going to suffocate before she reached the ‘sphere.

Still, Wren focused on the movement of her hands and body. She reached with her left fist, fought the wind as it tried to drag her arm behind her, gripped the rope and hauled herself forward one step; then she did the same with her right. Gradually she drew nearer to safety.

Eventually Wren’s feet knocked against the porch. Two more sluggish paces and the wind lessened enough for her to leap for the airlock. Wren wrapped a fist around the handle and held on until her knuckles whitened. She crouched, making the most of the shelter, and then unclipped the line and, in one movement, slammed her palm on the pad. As the door opened with a hiss she rolled in, ripped her useless mask from her face and lay on her side, gasping.

Now that she was back she didn’t want to move from the airlock. On the other side her mother lay dying. In here she could pretend everything was all right. However, she felt naked without her mask, exposed to air that she was sure could fail at any moment. Her hands began to shake. She had to refit her mask quickly.

Her mother stirred. “Wren?”

Wren exhaled guiltily, shocked to see a puff of air from her own lungs dissipating in front of her. Swiftly she cycled the lock around. “I’m here.”

“… so thirsty.”

The room came into view and Wren looked for the jug of water. It had been on the floor by her parent’s bed. A little remained. Before she helped her mother though, she
had
to replace her mask. Once a near inaudible hiss of O
₂
shivered into her lungs, Wren’s heart began to slow. As soon as her hands stopped shaking, she tossed the old mask into the recycling, poured water into a clay mug and made her way over to the recess that hid her mother.

She hesitated in front of the curtain. Clutching the mug tightly, she closed her eyes and pictured her mother smiling and reaching for the water, as if the thought could make it so.

“
Come in here, Wren, it’s a cold morning and I’m not ready to get up.”

The curtain was flung back. For a moment all Wren could see was a tangle of bedding and limbs.

“I’m hungry,” she mumbled, but her bare legs were cold and Jay was already snuggled up next to their mother, which left a Wren sized space. “Where’s Colm?”

“He went out to check the skies.” The airlock’s what woke you. Now get in here!” Her father lifted the covers. It must have let in a chill, because her mother shrieked and slapped his arm.

Chayton raised his eyebrows and Wren decided that her belly could wait. She sprinted for the bed and leaped into the space, wriggling into the warm gap. Jay pinched her leg to make her move over and she huffed and slid across slightly, making her father growl as the blanket pulled off his chest.

“You’re all getting too big,” Chayton grumbled, before pulling her close and sniffing her curls. “Mmmm soft.”

“Or we need a bigger bed,” Mia’ used the ends of her blonde hair to tickle Wren’s cheek and she screamed again just as the airlock cycled open.

“Incoming.” Colm announced, slapping dust from his hands.

“Already?” Mia was dismayed. “They must have set off at first light.”

“Just a bit longer?” Wren wrapped her arm around Chatyon’s elbow, holding him in place. “They’ll be ages yet.”

“I need to make sure the platform’s dust free,” Mia said unconvincingly. “And set up the massage table and oils, warm some stones, heat water for a brew and get some soup and bread on. Jay, you’ll need to wrap up warm if you have to run down to Elysium with his message. Colm, you know what to do. Wren, you can help me.”

“Can’t I help Colm check the netting and look after his wings?”

Mia frowned, her brown eyes suddenly hardening. “No. Wing checks is men’s work. If they need a repair you can help with the glue, but it’s more important that you learn to do Sphere-Mistress tasks. After all, you’ll have to take over from me one day.”

“Not for years and years.” Wren scowled back. “All right then, can I at least record the arrival and his message in the big book?”

“How’s your handwriting?” Chayton frowned down at her.

“As good as Jay’s. I’ve been practising.”

Mia thawed. “Fine. You can write in the book,
if
you get dressed and start boiling the water.”

Wren sat up and Chayton rolled out of bed.

“I hope it’s news from Arcadia.” He rubbed the stubble on his head. “I’m getting worried.”

Mia smiled at him, her cheeks still flushed from sleep and warmth. “Don’t be worried yet, it’s too early in the day.” She stroked his back with gentle fingers and Wren wrapped her arms around his neck.

He flipped her over his back and onto his legs. “Does anyone want a bite?” He offered her shoulder to Jay who grinned and growled.

“I do.”