ROCCO'S WINGS

Chapter 2 - Air Marshals

Chapter 2 - Air Marshals

Rocco's wings hummed over the savannah. He planted his feet at the base of the cliffs.

Staying close to the rock face, he flew up, pausing to listen at regular intervals for the shouts of guards or Air Marshals, and glancing back at the Endless Plains. At last he came to the top. The fortress wall of Krakatoan was exceedingly long and high. Up close it was even more massive. But he had managed to arrive at the end of the wall, a corner tower, bordered on the right by a dense forest.

Pulling himself over the crest of the rock, he started into the woods. A peal of laughter, close but muffled by the stone wall, rang out. Once he was safely inside the trees, Rocco walked along the wall's outer edge, guided by the laughter that continued to float into the air.

He came to a tree with a sizeable trunk, and branches overhanging the top of the wall. Whoever was on the other side might hear his wings, so he climbed the tree and pulled himself out as far as he dared. He was almost at the end of the tree's limb.

The voices, clearly more than one, had grown ever louder with merriment. Rocco parted the leaves. Four young urvogels, with white wings and dressed in white robes, were playing in the courtyard below. 

'You go,' said the tallest urvogel, Wheat Hair, he decided to call him because his hair – pulled in a topknot - was the exact colour of a field of grain ready to be harvested.

They were playing some sort of game. Wheat Hair pushed the shoulders of the smallest one whose dark hair hung loosely around his face. Small One ran forward. The other three began to chant, run-run-run-jump-and-flip.

Upon reaching the base of the wall, Small One jumped at the stones as if he could run up vertically. Whatever he was trying to do, he wasn't very good at it. Two steps up, and Small One jerked back. He fell on his bottom. Small One didn't appear to be hurt, he grinned up at the others who began laughing uproariously.

The other two white robes were a middle-sized boy and girl. Middle Boy and Girl, he would call them. Middle Boy had a tapered face. His hair was in a topknot just like Wheat Hair's. Girl had long, loose raven-coloured hair, which bounced around her shoulders and down her back.

'I'm going to go again,' announced Small One.

'Not your turn,' said Girl.

'I fell. It didn't count.'

'Yes it did.'

They were almost directly beneath Rocco. He had a clear view of the tops of their heads.

The area where they were jumping was full of closely cropped, very green grass. How did they keep it so trim? Not even any goats around, thought Rocco, looking along the cobbled pathways that ran under the equally green trees. Clay roofs of buildings built out of some kind of shiny white rock stood in the distance. Deeper within the city rose the towering walls of the Queen's palace. At the top sat the three gold domes.

Turning his attention back to the game, Rocco watched the girl urvogel run-run-run-jump-and-flip.They sang the phrase aloud. Girl managed a perfect backflip off the wall.She was agile, hardly using her wings. Bouncing down to the ground, she bowed low while the other three clapped. They were surprisingly playful. Not mean at all.

A knot from the tree limb kept sticking into his stomach. Rocco shifted around trying to find a more comfortable position. As he jostled around, a spray of leaves fluttered off the tree. They blew down. The four urvogels' heads jerked up.