The Withering Sword

Chapter 58: A Knife

EBEYA

Amrato-feg, capital city of Gyoto

As the first rays of sunlight bathed the horizon, the dawn bird dove with Ebeya on her back.

Around them, the other mountain birds dropped like stones as well, wings pinned to their sides and talons ready to strike. Ebeya half-closed her eyes against the rush of air, but something seemed to block the brunt of it from her face, the way something had let her breathe high up in the sky. The lightening world streamed by through her tears.

She felt the collision with the glass that covered the empress’ garden all through the giant bird’s body. It rattled Ebeya’s bones and made her teeth snap together so hard she feared she might have shattered one or two of them, but no other bones broke. A second later came the next sound of impact, then the next and the next, like the heaviest hail she had ever heard. Ebeya watched the other mountain birds dropping onto the glass as the dawn bird’s powerful wings began the slow and mighty process of carrying her aloft again.

They rose a hundred feet or more and dropped again. This time Ebeya stuffed the hem of her tunic into her mouth to keep her teeth from breaking or her brain from rattling in her skull. When they hit the windowpane, she heard the crunch of glass.

Looking down past the dawn bird’s wing as they rose a second time, Ebeya saw the guards gathering in the garden, aiming guns upward. As soon as the glass broke, they would start firing. Many of them would die, but they could bring some of the mountain birds down with them―and the dawn bird and Ebeya would probably be the first to break through.

Don’t fear, child, said the dawn bird’s voice in Ebeya’s mind, powerful and commanding as the gong of the bell that woke the empress’ servants in the morning. Ebeya noticed that the golden feathers under her hands had begun to shine, their brightness increasing the further the sun climbed.

Down they dropped again. Ebeya heard the mighty groan of the thick glass and the wooden beams that held it in place. On the fourth collision with the glass, white with criss-crossing break lines, it shattered.

Ebeya’s stomach lurched as they fell further than she had expected. She caught a glimpse of the dawn bird’s talons below as they sliced into terrified men below. More fell beneath the bird’s crushing weight, but only a handful, and Ebeya could see reinforcements waiting in the doorways.

Other mountain birds landed around her, accompanied by shards of glass of every size―some so large that they skewered birds and men alike, others so small they settled on intact flower petals and leaves like frosty dew. Bullets flew around the garden, ripping through the empress’ carefully pruned greenery, penetrating the wood of the far walls, and all too often striking flesh. It was hard not to hit something living and breathing with the entire garden full of flapping giant wings and soil-trampling talons. Ebeya lay with her cheek pressed against the golden feathers, too frightened to close her eyes.

The dawn bird jerked, and Ebeya knew a bullet had struck her. Rather than keeling over like many of her brethren, the dawn bird gave a terrible shriek and spun on her feet, throwing her wings out to the sides. Ebeya saw one of the golden wings hit a palace guard in the neck, breaking it. He fell limply and disappeared into the whirlwind of feathers.

Ebeya tightened her grip as the dawn bird staggered. She turned her head and saw a palace guard struggling to free his sword from the great muscle of the dawn bird’s wing. His eyes widened as they met Ebeya’s. Clearly he had not expected the dawn bird to have a rider.

With a thrust of her wing, the dawn bird flung the sword’s owner across the garden to plow face-first into the black soil littered with trampled plants. Before he could rise, another of the mountain birds fell from the sky, talons striking him.