Birthright (The Technomage Archive, Book 1)

  Chapter seventeen

  When Harlo opened her eyes, all she could see were wings. She thought it was a dream and rolled back over, just a remnant of a nightmare burned into her eyes after a short night of restless sleep. She blinked her eyes, but the vision was still there.

  And then the vision shrieked at her, and Harlo knew it was no dream.

  Harlo was a small woman, so her petite frame was in stark contrast to the toned and muscled giant in front of her. She recalled vaguely from the day before that whatever had kidnapped Ceril and the others had been barely dressed.

  The angel before her, however, was quite the opposite. It wore long, flowing robes made of something that could have easily been silk. Just saying they were “purple” would be wrong—the threads seemed to rotate between multiple hues. Chevrons decorated both arms, and two parallel stripes ran downward across the front from the shoulders. Symbols embroidered in green decorated the stripes, though they appeared to float slightly away from the robe itself. The creature wore gloves that left every other finger bare and sandals that did the same to its toes.

  In all, it conjured a much more majestic image than the torn rags had yesterday.

  Harlo immediately came out of her stupor. Swinton was now awake, too. He made his alertness known by firing his sidearm over Harlo's head into the towering winged creature. His sidearm was not a slug-thrower, and Harlo thought more’s the pity when she saw the energy bolts pool like water against its clothing before being absorbed into its body. Or, more accurately, into its clothing. Harlo thought she saw the green symbols on the front glow when Swinton’s blasts hit it, but she had just woken up and the world was nowhere near right.

  Swinton fired maybe a dozen shots into the thing, and it never twitched.

  It did, however, shriek.

  “Harlo, are you okay? What did that thing do to you?”

  “I'm fine. And nothing,” she shouted back, not taking her eyes off it. She wished that she had gotten a better look at the ones who had taken the others. She had no way of telling if this was one of the same angels coming back to kidnap her and Swinton, too, or if it was an all-new member of a happy little local community.

  Another shriek.

  This time, the noise was accompanied by the thing's head cocking slightly to the left. Was it trying to communicate? Harlo couldn't be sure, but she wanted to try something.

  “Swinton, stop shooting. It's not doing any good. I have an idea, anyway,” she said.

  Swinton listened. He put his sidearm away and reached into his pack to pull out an impressively long knife. The edge was serrated from the blade's halfway point all the way to the hilt, and the tip was curved slightly down, making it far more dangerous when slashing than stabbing. He held it close to his body as he edged closer to her and, unfortunately, their giant visitor.

  “What kind of idea?” he said, sliding close to her left side.

  “I think it's trying to communi—”

  More shrieking.

  “—cate,” she said.

  “You're kidding, right?”

  “No. I have no reason to think that's the case, but I do. Don't you think that if it were here to hurt us that your shooting would have made it fight back? At least a little?”

  “Maybe,” he admitted.

  “So I'm thinking that we need to find a way to communicate back. It keeps making those screeching sounds. It may be trying to talk,” Harlo said.

  It shrieked again.

  Swinton looked unconvinced. “What are you about to do?”

  She was on her feet before he could get the whole sentence out of his mouth. Harlo had woken up a few feet from the winged visitor. It had stood stock still, and the only movement she had noticed was when it was screeching or when it tilted its head as though wanting to communicate. So in her mind, the best course of action was to close the gap and let it know that she and Swinton were not threats. She put her best face on, walked directly toward it, and tried to make herself seem nonthreatening.

  And it was having none of it.

  As soon as she was within the thing’s reach, it grabbed her, lifted her into the air, and shrieked.

  Its wings beat rapidly and created a lot of wind that pushed Swinton off his feet. Besides the wings, the creature never moved. Harlo could feel no muscles flex, and carrying her added weight didn’t seem to strain it at all. The creature did not fly away. It just hovered above the ground, high enough that a fall would seriously injure Harlo.

  “Harlo?!” Swinton screamed.

  “I'm okay!” she yelled back. “I can't move, though! Well, I can move my head. There's no way I can get free.”

  The creature shrieked.

  “Try talking to it!”

  “What?”

  “Talk to it! You said that it wanted to communicate! I think it's pissed that I was shooting at it. Maybe you could talk it down a little. Literally.”

  “You’ve got a way with words, Swinton,” she said.

  “Thank you!” he responded. “Now do it! First priority is to get you back on the ground. This ground. We don't want you to be taken like the others.”

  Harlo turned her head as far upward as she could get it. The stared blankly ahead and paid her no attention whatsoever.

  “Excuse me?” she started.

  No response. Just the wings beating steadily.

  She cleared her throat and started again. “Okay, let me try it this way. My name is Harlo. Easter Harlo. I'm a medic. From what I can tell, my team and I have been stranded here in Purple World as part of the Rites we have to go through to become full agents of the Charons.”

  It shrieked, as though in response.

  Harlo noticed something unnerving when it screeched. The sound wasn’t being made vocally. The creature's mouth had not moved when the screech sounded, but the screech had still come seemingly in response to something she said.

  “What was it I said?” Harlo asked. “My name is Easter Harlo.”

  Nothing. Wing beats.

  “Rites? Purple World?”

  Nothing. Wing beats.

  “Charons?”

  The large purple creature cocked its head to the side and chirped a little, almost like a bird trilling its song.

  “Swinton,” she yelled back at the ground. “I think this thing understands us.”

  “That's impossible,” Swinton shouted back.

  “Even still. When I mentioned I was trying to become a Rited Charon—”

  It shrieked.

  “—it reacted. See?” she said.

  “I'll be damned,” said Swinton. “Keep talking.”

  “What is it about the Charons—”

  This time, its wings flapped harder, and its whole body tensed. Harlo could see the muscles under its purple skin ripple.

  “—that excites you?” she asked as she turned her head back toward its face.

  What happened next amazed her. This time, the thing's mouth actually moved, and its attention went from a blank stare to being focused directly on her. They met eye to eye, and she could see differences between the two of them more easily now. Its eyes were bloodshot, but instead of red, the blood was a blackish-purple. The veins tapered as they approached the thing’s green iris, like small tentacles wrapping around an orb.

  “Jaronya,” it said.

  She blinked. “Swinton,” she said without moving her attention in his direction, “did you hear that?”

  “More like felt it,” Swinton replied.

  “Yeah,” she agreed. The thing’s voice had been loud. But it had also been primal and powerful. It was like its voice was bypassing her ears and going directly into her brain. “Jaronya.”

  The creature narrowed its eyes as it looked at Harlo. Its voice came out harder, more stern now. “Jaronya,” it said again.

  Then with no notice whatsoever, the creature flew away from the campsite, Harlo in its arms.

  Harlo would have screamed, but it would have done no good. The thing had flown out of
earshot all ready. While carrying a person. In maybe three seconds.

  She had also not expected that reaction to her attempts at communication. She yelled at it and struggled against its grip. “Hey! Where do you think you're taking me? Why did you come for us this morning? Was it something I said, he said, we did?”

  It paid no attention. It just watched its path ahead and wound silently through the mountains, around outcroppings, all the while never tightening or loosening its grip on her.

  “Jaronya?” she asked, yelling the word as though it were a password that would make it stop its flight.

  “Jaronya,” it agreed and continued on its way.

  Harlo sighed and resigned herself to silence. There was nothing she could do. She resented being taken like this, not just because of her fear and uncertainty, but because her medical and research supplies were back at the camp with Swinton. She hoped that if Swinton came searching for her, he would bring them. She hoped that she wouldn't need medical supplies, but she was pragmatic enough to know she probably would.