darkened blade_ A fallen blade novel - Kelly McCullough Page 0,71
a wall and fall to a very painful death, and wanting him to succeed and get us out of this mess, I found that I couldn’t wish for anything but his safe landing at the far end.
That’s why it hit all the harder when no signal came up the canyon. Not within what would have been a reasonable amount of time, nor even an unreasonable one. It slowly became clear that something had gone wrong.
“The question is: what now?” Siri asked after a half hour had passed with no sign from Kelos.
“That depends on whether he made it and simply landed someplace he can’t signal us from, or if his story has finally ended,” I replied. “One means flying forward into mystery, the other going back to our tents and hoping for a miracle.”
“He’s alive,” said Jax. “I can feel it in my bones. He’s too damned mean to die that quietly. Mind you, I have never liked this plan. But I think we have to go forward anyway. There’s no sign of the storm truly breaking, and we’ve got to get off this mountain. I think we have to send another sail-jumper down the run and hope that they make it, and that they land someplace better suited for signaling.”
Siri nodded. “I’m with Jax on that. I wouldn’t have agreed to this in the first place if I thought we had any real alternative.”
Faran sighed. “So, who goes next?”
“I do,” I said.
“Javan’s a better sail-jumper,” said Faran.
“For that matter, so am I,” added Siri.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Did I give the impression that this was up for discussion? Because it’s not.”
I don’t think—
I cut Triss off. Nor with you either.
“I’m going,” I continued aloud. “I won’t send anyone else into that ahead of me.” I pointed into the crevasse below. “I shouldn’t have let Kelos go—sail-jumping is one of the few places where I ever surpassed him. You, too, Siri. Though you’re better at almost everything else a Blade does, I can outfly you.” I turned to Faran. “And we’re not even going to consider Javan for this.”
“We’ve had this conversation,” said Faran. “If we lose you, we lose our leader. We can’t afford that.”
“Too bad.” So, because I knew that we could go around on this argument for hours if I let it continue, I simply turned and jumped.
Dammit, Aral! Triss snapped into my mind, but that was all he had time for as he got busy spinning shadow wings from the substance of his being. After that, he had to hand control over to me if he wanted to give us the best chance of surviving the glide.
Above and behind me I could hear all three women swearing angrily, but only briefly. Then distance and the muffling snow wrapped me in blessed silence. I loved sail-jumping as I loved few other things. There was a purity to it that I found in very few places. And this was an exceptional experience of its kind.
The snow hid the river below and blurred the passing walls of the canyon just enough so that it seemed as though I was hardly moving. The north wind barely touched the air down here. With no turbulence and no way to judge movement, it felt like I was floating gently within a sea of white light. I could have lived the experience forever if not for my responsibilities.
For starters, surviving the flight and getting a message back to the others. The safest way to do the former was to stay high up in the canyon, as close to the top as possible, where the gap between the sides was widest and the chances of hitting some outthrust bit of floor or wall the lowest. But that’s certainly what Kelos had done, and, even so, something had gone wrong somewhere along the line. I needed to try a different tack.
I decided to get down low and see what the floor of the canyon looked like. Was the river frozen? Did Kelos hit a wall and go down somewhere along the line? I couldn’t tell any of that from up here. So I tilted my arms, angling my wings to steepen the angle of my glide. Down, down, do-ooooh! I flipped my wings back hard, braking and clawing for height. The river was indeed frozen or, at least, iced over and covered with a deep layer of snow that both made it almost invisible amidst the fall around me and silenced its burbling voice.