Wings In A Wounded Sky

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Wings In A Wounded Sky - book excerpt

Chapter One: The Perils of Foraging

Licking her dry lips, Rae stood on her tiptoes to reach the chera plant’s wide, curling leaves. She tilted one down, unfurling the rim, and let the dew pooled at its centre drip on to her tongue. Its delicious coolness not only quenched her thirst, but also quieted her galloping pulse. Satisfied, and making sure she’d left a few drops for the hand-sized Pix folk who journeyed through the forest on their way home for the summer, she let the leaf bounce back to its normal position.

The snap of a twig somewhere to her right earned a twitch from her oversized ears. She stiffened, then dipped to retrieve the bag of mushrooms and roots she’d dropped at her feet. Tightening her grip, she turned.

A hunched she-Ogg with watery eyes stood watching, grey skin wrinkled with age and bat-like ears full of white hair to match the tangles hanging around her face. A sketch Rae had once been shown of her grandmother flashed into her mind. This she-Ogg was nearly identical. It’d never been this convincing before.

“You must be lonely foraging here all alone,” the she-Ogg said. “Why not sit with an old Ogg and share breakfast?”

“There aren’t any other real Oggs living this far south – that’s why my parents chose it,” Rae said, using all her energy to keep alert. She couldn’t let it know how tired she was from sprinting so far; who knew what tricks it would get up to if it did? “You’ll have to try something else.”

The she-Ogg let out a cackle, a noise that no true Ogg would ever make and, with a sharp “crack”, transformed into a short creature covered in wild fur.

“We’ll let you keep your mushrooms for yourself this time, little Oggling,” the brag laughed. “But only because you outran my friends before this. Be ready for next time, though.” The trees around it rustled and joined in with its gleeful hooting, revealing the other hobgoblins working with it. She should have known they’d band together if they couldn’t trick her individually. Then they all snapped their fingers, causing a cloud of smoke to appear, and vanished.

Rae kept her eyes trained on the bushes beyond for another few minutes until she was sure they were really gone. She could hear them guffawing still, but it was from a good distance away and growing fainter. Letting out a deep sigh, she leaned against the chera plant and ran a hand through her cropped black hair. With luck they’d leave her alone for a while now, and at least she wasn’t falling for their tricks as much as she had last month. The smell of her gatherings wafted up from the bag and her stomach growled, overriding her momentary sense of pride. Breakfast was long overdue.

Scanning her surroundings in more detail, she discovered she was much closer to her nest-hole than she’d thought, and she set off tracking her way with thoughts of fried mushrooms and boiled roots filling her mind.

She came to a stop in front of her parents’ nest-hole, only a few metres from her own. The familiar tree roots at its entrance were covered in rot-shrooms, marking the nest-hole unsafe. They’d been growing there for two moons already. But until they were gone, Rae couldn’t enter to retrieve all the precious things her parents had left behind. The centaur healer she’d sent for to tend them had been very firm about that – the spores that caused the sickness could linger for a year or more. Best to stay away completely.

The ache in her chest from how much she missed them hadn’t dulled for a moment in those two long months; she supposed waiting for a few more couldn’t make it any worse.

Turning away, she headed to her own hole, trying to ignore how the fresh scent of its turned earth revealed its newness. She pushed aside the fern tendrils at its mouth and lowered herself down into the gloom within. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dark, her vision every bit as sharp as it was above ground.

She took her bag over to the two frost stones at the far wall and emptied its contents on them to keep them cool while she worked. Next, she took a tall stick resting by the fireplace and carefully removed the chimney cover, pleased that she’d remembered, as it was usually an afterthought when her nest-hole had become so smoky that she couldn’t breathe.

Dry logs were stacked neatly beside the hearth, just as her father had done and, selecting two from the top, she added them to the remains of the last fire and lit them with a strike of flint. The fire grew to a comforting crackle and, satisfied it was ready, she filled the pot hanging above it with water from her reserves then set it to boil as she washed and chopped the roots ready to add in. For the mushrooms, she left them whole and put them in a pan with the oil from her favourite seeds, watching them sizzle until they were tender.

It was a lot of work for a few morsels, she knew that, but it was as close to her mother’s cooking as she could get, and she had no intention of forgetting everything she’d been taught. It didn’t matter that no other Oggs lived this way, choosing instead to eat their food raw, and certainly not settling for vegetation when there was unsuspecting prey to be had. It’d been their way, and now it was hers.

After she’d eaten and put out the fire, she took some of the coal and spent a few hours adding to the portrait she’d spent the weeks working on. It wasn’t very good, and smudges from where she’d gone wrong and had to rub some out covered most of it, but it was starting to resemble her father more and more. When it was done, she’d start on her mother’s – if, by then, she hadn’t forgotten what the beautiful she-Ogg looked like.

The coal slipped from her hand as she was drawing in part of his beard and rolled over to the bundle of crimson eneegy roots at the foot of her moss bed. Her face blanched. She’d been so busy getting used to foraging on her own that they’d slipped her mind completely. It sent a shiver up her spine as the words her parents had said when they’d given them to her two winters ago echoed in her head.

“You’re getting older now, Rae, and it’s time you had your own. If the craving comes to you, these roots will subdue it. Eat one as soon as you feel it coming, and its effects will last for a full week.”

“What if it doesn’t work? I don’t want to end up eating people like other Oggs do. But what’ll I do if I can’t control myself?” she’d asked, clinging to them both.

“Sweetling, your father and I have been eating eneegy roots ever since we were old enough to gather our own food. They’ve never failed us, not once.”

Rae picked up her coal and studied the roots. She didn’t want to become a monster who preyed on innocent travellers; she didn’t want to hurt anything at all. But if the craving did come, then these were her only protection against it.

Knowing that, it was a wonder that any of the forest folk spoke to her. She thought it was largely to do with how well her parents had treated everyone. They’d proved that Oggs could be more than their history dictated, and had regularly helped others out in times of need.

The humans had never trusted them, though, and Rae couldn’t blame them. Why take the risk when there were frequent reports of their kind going missing in the Wayward Mountains where the Northern Ogg clan – her parents’ clan, before they’d left – still roamed?

The day wore on and Rae grew restless. Moreover, she was getting hungry again and needed to gather more food.

Emerging from her nest-hole, she sniffed the evening air. It had the heady smell of damp leaf litter and fragrant leaves, the kind that only give off their scent after a light downpour. Underlying it all was the distinctive whiff of chester-nuts. They weren’t close, but it wouldn’t be hard to find them. They were practically calling for her to pick them.

Within an hour she’d hunted them down, filling her bag until it was bursting. Mouth watering, she was about to return home when a tremendous crack rattled her ears. She dropped the bag to clap her hands against them and ease the ringing, but the sound stopped as fast as it had begun.

Where had it come from?

Climbing the nearest tree as soon as her ears stopped hurting, she inspected the area to see if the ground had fallen in anywhere. Yet it all appeared normal. Only when she happened to glance up at the sky did she see it – an enormous angry gash streaking above part of the forest and in the centre of it was…

Rae rubbed her eyes with one hand, the other still clinging to the tree. There was another forest visible in the sky. Similar to the one surrounding her, but the trees were different. She didn’t think she could name any of them.

The gash shimmered as she looked on, and closed up slowly, threads of sky zigzagging across it as if it were trying to sew itself shut. When it closed fully, Rae climbed back down, puzzled by what she had seen. After a moment, another sound filled her ears.

Crying.

She concentrated, wondering if someone was in trouble. It didn’t sound far away – but what if it was a brag or other hobgoblin playing tricks on her again? They’d said to be ready for their next attempt to catch her out, and even though they usually left it a few days between, that didn’t mean they always would.

What should she do? The crying wasn’t high pitched, like an infant, but more the sobs of someone grieving. If it was, what help would she be? She could barely hold her own grief in.

A particularly loud sob echoed through the trees and, without meaning to, she took a step towards it. Her gut was pushing her to go, to give comfort if she could. No one deserved to grieve alone.

The crying seemed to be coming from the same direction she needed to head in anyway, so it wouldn’t be much of a detour, and if she stored her food away first, then she wouldn’t have to worry about it being stolen if it did turn out to be hobgoblins.

She carried on, with more determination in her footing, and arrived at her nest-hole. She nipped inside, quickly storing the chester-nuts on the frost stones, then scrambled back out and went on her way.

The crying became clearer as she wriggled through the dense undergrowth, signalling how close she was. Ducking under the outstretched limbs of a giant asheen tree, she found the broken trunk of a nearly-mature sapling. Behind it, covered in black cloth stitched with luminous white thread in a curious, linear pattern, was a human girl a year or two younger than herself.

A twig shattered under Rae’s feet, and the girl’s head snapped up with a hopeful gaze. Yet when she saw Rae, she let out a howl of absolute despair.

“Please don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you,” Rae said soothingly, holding up her hands in a gesture of peace. Whether the girl was scared at seeing an Ogg so near or if she was disappointed because she’d been expecting someone else, Rae couldn’t quite tell.

She’d never been this close to a human before. She examined her carefully, taking in her black hair and bark-coloured skin. Then she saw the small point to the girl’s ears, and, realising that she was being examined the same way, saw her reflection staring back at her in vibrant orange eyes. There was also a soft tang of smoke radiating from the girl’s skin. Rae gasped.

The girl wasn’t human at all. She was one of the Drengin – dragon-people – whom Rae had heard of only in stories.

“What… are you doing here?” she blurted. “Why aren’t you up in the City of Clouds with the rest of your people?”

The girl straightened, her orange eyes narrowing with sudden hardness. “Why are you wandering around on your own? I thought human young didn’t go into woods like these without their adults,” she countered with a sneer.

Rae stepped back, momentarily speechless. “I’m not a-a human,” she stammered, overwhelmed by the girl’s imperious tone. “I’m an Ogg. Can’t… can’t you tell?”

“No. I’ve never seen a human. Or an Ogg. Just faded illustrations. Besides, you don’t look dangerous, like Oggs are supposed to be.” The girl got up, adjusting the cloth that hung around her so that it covered her better against the chill evening air. “And you still didn’t answer my question.”