Thorunn by Esther T. Jones

Author:Esther T. Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Starren Isle Press
Published: 2020-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

__________•__________

Morning brought clouds that gathered at the very edge of the horizon, ready to be blown out to the coast. Bo had watched as black faded into deep blue, then into grey. The last of the chsaa-rhee had entered the cave and nested down hours prior, but Bo had waited until he was sure they'd succumbed to sleep after a long night of hunting. Laine had drifted off despite Bo's efforts, and he'd stopped expending energy on the slothful human, though he did poke Laine whenever he started snoring a little too loudly.

“It's time,” Bo said, shaking Laine awake.

“Wha―?” Laine rubbed at eyes that struggled to stay open.

“The chsaa-rhee are all asleep, but we gotta keep quiet. We can't risk rousing them before we've cleared the cave.”

They still didn't have a safe escape route. The outer cliff-face was sheer, and Bo's cable only went down two thirds of the way. The drop remaining would be enough to break his and Laine's legs. Bo began to climb cautiously out of their tunnel, racking his brain for other means to flee the mountain without getting caught in the blast radius.

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him. If Ken or Seri or Lanae forbid, the Innah, were here, they'd have choice words with him about his complicity in wiping out an entire species. Especially when the birds were only acting according to their nature. But when faced with choosing between Ken's life and those of the murderous chsaa-rhee, it really was no choice at all. Bo couldn't even begin to consider wavering from his decision. He had to carry on, one bomb-laden step at a time.

Bo slipped a few times on the gently sloped walls of the cavern, heart jumping into his throat at each fresh shower of onite fragments. Behind him, Laine struggled not to cough at the clouds of black dust they stirred up. Yet the birds remained quiescent, worn out by their nighttime excursions, sleeping soundly on full bellies. As they passed the motionless chsaa-rhee that had died during the moonlit hours of the morning, an idea struck Bo.

“What if we used them to get down?”

“Like . . . like hang gliders or something?”

“Exactly. The blades the lieutenant gave us should be able to cut through their wings; then it's just a matter of popping out the bones and slotting my quirn and your lacrosse stick in place.”

Laine recoiled, a look of disgust crossing his features before he schooled himself and reached for the large knife belted to his hips.

“What the heck. Beats tryna rappel down an entire mountain in five minutes.”

They crept over to the dead chsaa-rhee, Bo breathing shallowly so as not to expel the contents of his stomach at the rotting odour. He drew his own blade. The bright steel glinted in the sunlight as he sawed through thick wing membrane. Bo used his steel cable to bind his quirn to the wings, and wonder of wonders, Laine's sports gear actually came in handy, a long length of extra netting ending up lashed around the human's lacrosse stick.

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