Under A Wild Star

by SwordTune

Ch 6 Friends, Old and New

The wind sweeping around Nisus flung her around in the creature’s beak. With her and the other creature weighing down the bird-horse, gliding quickly turned to falling. Nisus wished chimaeras had not grown vestigial wings. But falling or gliding, they were moving fast, and the cave quickly started to fade behind blue zoak trees.

The bird-horse barely slowed once they touched the ground. It moved in a long gallop, using all four of its powerful legs to tear across the dirt and grass. Nisus spat as zoak branches snagged themselves on her face and her mane.

She tried extending her hooves, which were just barely scraping the ground but not touching it. Catching even the smallest hold could yank the creature off course. But every time she came closer to the ground, she was pulled back up. Nisus punched the creature as much as she could, every strike seeming to hurt her more than it did the bird-horse.

“Nisus!” The voices were faint, but it gave her relief that she could still hear August. The creatures didn’t make an effort to cover their tracks. As far as they could run, Nisus was sure her cousin could track. She just had to find a way to slow down her captors.

Fire engulfed her claw again and she forced herself through the pain, hitting the feathers and the eyes of the bird-horse. The even stranger creature, the scaly-maned deer-thing, yelled incomprehensibly at her and prodded Nisus in the face with its horn.

Nisus could barely hear the other chimaeras at the pace they were going at, but August’s voice still murmured something from afar. Seconds later, a spear surrounded by magic cut through the trees, piercing whole tree trunks in an attempt to hit the creatures.

The spear almost found its mark, but at the last moment, the bird-horse pivoted, changing its path smoothly without slowing down. It loosened its bite on Nisus’s arm, barely, and grunted something. Nisus followed its eyes, and it seemed like it was having a conversation with the other creature.

The deer-thing responded, raising its voice. Nisus had no idea what it was saying, but she could hear its distress. After an unintelligible conversation between the two, the deer-thing seemed like it lost. Nisus’s vision was blurring from the bone-crushing force on her arm, but she was sure of what she saw.

The deer pulled something out from its ear, a small black object the size of a pebble, and spoke into it. By some magic, the object lit up like Nisus’s marks and projected a face into the air. It looked just like one of August’s spells, lights slithering out of the object to paint a picture in the air.

The deer-thing spoke to it, and sounds played back. Nisus stared, forcing her eyes open to see more. But no matter how much she tried, her vision darkened. She checked the mark on her free arm.

The blue scales that formed her mark still glowed at the base of the arrowhead shape. One or two more spells left. Nisus opened her mouth, struggling to form the words to a spell. She didn’t want to lose a fight without using everything she could. But soon after her vision left, her other senses followed close behind.

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August flung another spear through the trees. “Ganfthuru!”

Before it was done flying through the air, he ripped the last spear from Amorwen’s claws and aimed it again. He sprinted ahead, followed the trail of snapped branches. His breath was heavy, but rage filled his legs with the energy to push forward.

“Come back and fight us!” he screamed at the trees.

The Skaith grabbed her spear and yanked it back, cancelling August’s spell. “We can’t-” she heaved, “keep this pace.”

Her sister Fahanin dropped to her knees. “At this rate, even if we find them, we’ll be in no shape to get her back.”

Far behind them Tregor jogged, fighting his age to keep up with the adolescents. “They’re right, Foreteller. She’s your kin, but we can’t charge at them like this.”

“Shut up!” He kicked the dirt. The markings around his eyes flared with magic, but they were already draining. The exact number wasn’t clear, but the others could tell August was already reaching half his limit of spells.

“We don’t have time to track them down. She’s hurt. I’m not leaving her life to chance!”

“There’s no choice,” Tregor grabbed August’s shoulder, pulling the young Foreteller back before he could start sprinting again. August wanted to slap the jack’s claw away, but after having a moment to catch his breath, the ground began to feel as if it were slipping beneath his hooves.

August stumbled for a second, but caught himself against the trunk of a tree. “We go after them, now. As soon as the get an opportunity to hide, they’ll take it. We have to seize our chance now, when they’re still panicking.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t panic like them,” Fahanin suggested. “They have a dragon, remember? How will we save her when we’re burned alive.”

The Foreteller growled, but knew she was right. He was acting quickly, but rashly. He could guess from the lack of blood that his spells missed his targets. So now they had no weapons, and no way of catching up to Nisus’s kidnappers.

The thought of Beran couldn’t escape his mind. Were his keus-bhrater here with them, he might have grabbed the bird-horse and stopped it from ever leaving the cave.

“Let’s just think of how we’re going to do this, then,” he calmed himself with slow breaths. “I won’t leave my cousin.”

August bit back his words and clenched his shaking claw. He looked at the twin Skaiths. “Nisus needs me,” he said to them, knowing they’d understand. “I promised her I’d help take care of her.”

And then the ground greeted August, soil cushioning his fall. Fear glazed his eyes and exhaustion tugged on this legs. He knew they all saw it. He didn’t care.

Words quivered on the edge of his lips. “It’s a promise I have to keep. I have to keep her safe. She hasn’t even seen her fifteenth winter yet. So come on, we need a plan. A plan! I can’t just- I’m not- I’m-”

Tregor hesitated to hold the Ghending, but Amorwen was on him in a heartbeat. His shaking claws were immediately held fast in her tight grip.

“Hey, hey!” she whispered harshly in his face, her eyes wide and staring into August’s terror at the thought of losing his cousin. “Look at me. Look at Fahanin, okay? There’s not a thing in Eldyrea I wouldn’t do for my sister. Understand me?”

Her biting voice shook August out of his state for a moment. He looked around. Tregor stood back, the middle-aged Gaduron had little to say. The only solace was the guilt on his face.

“We know your heart, Foreteller,” Fahanin cut in, speaking while Amorwen gripped August’s shoulders. “But if we go after them, like this, we’ll die before we help her.”

“Like this...” August, murmured, rising to his hooves.

Fahanin took a look at him, then at her sister. “I can’t tell. Did you get through to him or not?”

August raised his claw, and the other chimaeras paused. Again, he thought of Beran. Muniko punished Beran for the fight with the dragon, but this was different. The clans had agreed to scout the cave and now the responsibility was on all of them.

“No normal animal would take a prisoner,” he said. “That horned creature, when I spoke to it with the highlander dialect, I think it understood. They’re thinking beings, just like us. Exactly like us. They’d never take Nisus unless they wanted her alive.”

Amorwen stood up, leaning on her last spear. “So, you’re back to your old self? Got a plan for us, wise Foreteller?”

August nodded, sucking back the tears on the edge of streaking down his face. “I have to talk to Beran and his clan, get them to help us. With that new creature, it seems we can’t predict what might come for us next. We’ll need help and information.”

“Then you go get the help,” Amorwen eyed August, her gaze holding a determined spark. “My sister and I will keep tracking.”

Fahanin gawked back at her sister. “We will? I didn’t agree to that.”

Amorwen snapped a look of silence. “It’ll be night by the time you get back. In the dark, we’re the only ones who can move quickly enough to scout out where the creatures are hiding.”

“It’ll be dangerous,” August warned her.

She snarked back. “More dangerous than a Ghending bumbling around in the dark? Hah! Typical, you have no idea what we’re capable of.”

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Hot smoke flooded Nisus’s lungs and forced her awake, gasping. Instantly, the pain in her arm shot through her body. She remembered being dragged through the air, but not much after that.

She looked around, a campfire as the only lightsource. Above, the cold clouds blocked even the moon’s light. The Melt ended winter, but spring was a long way from being warm. She tried to move, to stand up and find her hunting kit and deal with the wound, but her arm felt like it was on fire from the pain.

She relaxed, breathing slowly like she did before sinking a spear into a deer-hawk. The pain was incredible, but from what she remembered, it could be worse. Her injured arm was wrapped up in a thick and soft fabric. Spots on it were dark and hardened. Her own dried blood, by the looks of it.

Something metal clacked around her claws and hooves. Nisus tugged, testing them. Both her legs and arms were chained up. Even her tail was bound to the side of her leg. She tried thinking of ways to break even on link, but her arm throbbed with pain at the site where the bird-horse had crushed her thoughts.

Nisus shook her dishevelled mane out of her face and laid there, soaking up the heat of the campfire. She wracked her mind with spells that could break the chains. It was said that Ironhearths could turn their scales to metal. A Deruweid Foreteller could probably turn their arms and legs to roots and slip out. Each clan had their own secrets of magic. Nisus twisted against the metal.

There were common spells too. “Thurnin,” she whispered. The blue arrowhead marks on her arms glowed with magic, hardening her sandy-rose scales into thorns. Even her wings stiffened, the bony appendages fighting to spread open. The chains creaked, bending out of the way of her scales, though the metal did not break.

The spell wore off in seconds, but Nisus had little to show for it except crooked chains. They were looser, but not enough to slide off.

“Elements,” she whispered, “why didn’t I listen to August’s lessons?” She could picture her cousin shaking his head at her, telling her she should’ve studied more spells during the winter.

She waited and listened around her. Crackling fire drove off most animals, but the glinting eyes of some curious foxcoons. They stood at the edge of the firelight, and Nisus could see the foxcoons’ red bands coming into its fur. They stayed white most of winter, until their mating season began in the spring.

“What are you doing so high up?” Nisus frowned at the critter. Foxcoons mainly lived at the base of the mountain, as well as on the hills.

She eventually stopped fooling herself. She was the one far from home. Nisus started to look around. If she couldn’t escape, she’d learn what she could. Behind her, the mouth of a cave came into view. The light of the fire reflected off the outcroppings of quartz in the stone. The creatures weren’t around, but more of their tools were. Signs of their activity were everywhere.

Metal tools and bloody bandages dirtied a sleeping bag on one end of the cave. On the opposite side, Nisus recognized another metal contraption. It was one of their metal boxes, like the one they took from the other cave, only bigger. She listened. Unlike before, this one seemed to hum with some energy.

It sounded like the chattering of crickets and songbirds, jumbled together in an incomprehensible buzz. What its purpose was, she could only guess. The box wasn’t alone. Metal wires connected the box to a number of other contraptions: a flat plate of glass, a disk made of metal with a rod in its centre. They were building something.

Before she could make a good guess of what it was for, a series of footsteps started snapping twigs from the forest. The foxcoons scampered off as the crunching came closer. Hurriedly, Nisus held still and narrowed her eyes until she could barely see.

Slowly, a purple light crept out of the trees. Two sets of hooves battered their way through the branches. One, ruffled with fur, followed behind the light. The two talked back and forth, but it was useless to translate.

More wood was added to the fire, though the damp branches only dimmed the light. Did they just grab the first branches they could find? The wet branches were suffocating the flames, not feeding it. Nisus had to fight the urge to wriggle around and see them under the dimmer light.

All she could tell was one of the creatures gawked at their metal contraption before touching its knobs and buttons to stop the buzzing noise.

Then she felt one of them nudge her. The two swapped words again, this time flaring up their voices. It sounded like an argument to Nisus, even if she couldn’t tell what they were saying. She focused so hard on their voices that she almost shouted when one of them splashed water on her face.

By reflex, Nisus opened her eyes. She saw the same face as before, the horned creature from the cave, staring back. Beside her, sitting among the metal tools, a similar creature worked on stitching up a wound. Nisus blinked, hit with memories of her clan’s stories.

The unicorn was exactly how the Foretellers described them. A long, pointed horn rested on the crown of a four-hoofed beast. It noticed Nisus watching, and grunted something to the maned creature before revealing a cut on its leg. A thread and needle from the pile of equipment seemed to move by themselves, but the concentrated look on the unicorn’s face clearly spelt out that it was using magic.

Nisus wanted to open her mouth to speak, but she didn’t know what to say. She remembered August’s stories. It was said by the Foretellers that unicorns were once natives of the Element’s home. But they were banished for taking all their blessings for granted. Were they here now, as a punishment from the Elements? Or maybe they were just jealous.

Words passed between the unicorn and other creature. The maned creature simply looked at Nisus and offered a shrug. It raised its horn, arched and forked like a deer’s antlers, and swung a pulse of magic in a wide arc. Slowly, roots and moss grew over the cave, hiding it from anything, or anyone, outside.

“Unicorns once listened to the Elements,” Nisus finally growled. “What do you want from us?”

Both creatures turned to each other and then back at Nisus. The unicorn spoke quickly, crudely finishing up its stitches and quickly marching over to Nisus. But, the other creature jumped in front of its friend, whispering softer words to calm it down.

Slowly, the creature turned to face Nisus, watching her with a smile full of wide eyes. With a quick gesture with its horn, it pointed to its friend. “Ywmikern,” it said.

Then, to itself. “Kyin.”

The unicorn said something, giving what sounded like a scoff towards its friend. Nisus looked confusedly between them. What did this thing expect from her?

The creature rubbed its head, muttering. “Yun-eh-karn,” it tried to say, pointing to its companion once again. And then it pointed to itself, waiting for a reply.

Slowly, Nisus tried repeating the other word she heard. “Kirin?”

A look of recognition lit up in its eyes. It cried out with a laugh, practicing Nisus’s pronounciation rather than its own. “Kaer-en! Karan!” It repeated itself, slowing down and adjusting its voice for Nisus to hear. The unicorn watched silently, this time with no indignant scoffing. The “kirin” hopped over the campfire, pointing at the flame with its horn. It looked eagerly at Nisus. She waited patiently, trying to sense the kirin’s intentions. She wondered what could have said that made it so excited, or why it seemed a lot happier now.

She wondered if happiness even meant the same thing between them. No chimaera had ever seen a dragon or unicorn, even though they were part of their stories. If this “kirin” was another creature from the Elements’ realm, then she knew even less about it than she knew about the unicorns. Perhaps this was actually some kind of outburst of rage.

After a dragged-out moment of silence, Nisus realized she was overthinking things. It was just happy, and that made her even more uncomfortable. Its wide, expectant eyes blinked at her, continuing to aim its horn at the fire. The longer Nisus waited, the more confused the kirin started to look.

“Fire,” she quickly blurted, hoping another word would keep it happy.

The kirin released a sigh, sitting down with its back to the wall of roots and moss it had created. It pointed to Nisus and repeated the word.

“Vur,” it repeated after Nisus before pointing to itself. “Fey-ar.”

Nisus furrowed her brows. “Feyr?”

Again, the creature beamed. Nisus didn’t want to assume, but it seemed as interested in words as August was. Was it some kind of Foreteller? Their own version, perhaps. Though, after the fight with the bird-horse, she was having a hard time believing these new creatures wanted to do anything else except rip her apart.

But a few words was a good start. Nisus nodded knowingly to the kirin, and then eyed the unicorn. It seemed a lot more upset than its friend, but it eventually grunted at the kirin and returned to fixing its own stitches.

That’s right, she sneered at the unicorn in her head, take your seat. This mountain is my home.

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Some time passed before they managed to form a basic system of communication. It mainly consisted of them repeating their words for basic items around the camp. Food. Water. Sit. Sleep. The kirin did the talking, though the unicorn listened in whenever Nisus said something.

When they got used to her, they sat her up and carefully readjusted her chains so that she could sit comfortably. They let her tail and wings move freely, but kept her legs and arms bound. Once they were sure she couldn’t move, the kirin reached behind a rock and produced a bag they had kept hidden.

A simple metal tray was produced, along with a wrapped bundle of dried food. The kirin motioned to Nisus, moving its hoof to its mouth. “Food?” it asked in barely passable Lowlander.

Nisus eyed the bundle suspiciously. She wasn’t sure if the two of them could even eat the same food. One thing was certain, however. The dried mix of vegetables that the kirin unbundled looked incredibly unappetizing.

The unicorn muttered something to the kirin that made it raise an eyebrow with curiosity. They exchanged a quick conversation until the kirin finally gave up and tossed the bag to the unicorn. It caught it with a spell, a ball of light that wrapped around the strap to hold it in the air.

This time, a packet of gemstones was produced from the bag and laid out in front of Nisus. The unicorn gestured with its horn. “Food?” it asked, in its own language.

Nisus’s face twisted with incredulity, her confusion almost making the kirin laugh. What kind of creature could mistake gemstones for food? Maybe the unicorn was an idiot.

Nisus reflexively reached up and touched her left ear, the side with a crystal replacement. Perhaps they had more magic, more spells Nisus had never heard of. Still, she wasn’t eager to try eating gemstones.

Instead she pointed to the bag in the unicorn’s grasp. “Kit,” she said slowly. “Where is my kit?”

The kirin jumped at the question, rushing around almost in a fury. “Yes! Kit!” it repeated, already understanding what she meant. From underneath the metal contraption that was being built in the cave, the kirin pulled out Nisus’s equipment. Her weapons were wrapped up in a tube of cloth, seperate from her hunting kit.

The unicorn yapped, quickly ripping the weapons out of the kirin’s grasp with its own magical grip, shoving the tools back behind the metal fixtures.

Nisus clenched her jaw at the rough motion. Spears were replaceable, but somewhere underneath that cloth was her bow. She spent as many hours caring for it as her father had when she made it. Seeing it mistreated somehow made the pain in her arm even worse, as if all those hours of polishing cried out within her.

The kirin put on a sour look, but voiced no protest. It searched through the kit, pulling out rope, herbs, pyrite and tinder, and her knife.

“Stop that!” Nisus lashed out the moment she saw the knife come out. Her injuries yelled at her to stay still, but losing the knife was a line she couldn’t stand. August had lent her the knife. It was only hers until she could make a new one. Her tail flicked against the ground, knocking stones and dust around to warn the two creatures.

Both kirin and unicorn jumped at her outburst, dropping the knife to the ground. Her arms were bound and throbbed red with irritated skin, but she still grasped for the tool. Its flint blade, carefully knapped by her cousin, was strong but brittle. Already she could see it had chipped its edge against the ground.

The unicorn yapped something in protest but the kirin interrupted. Nisus didn’t care. She struggled up to her hooves and grabbed her hunting kit out of the air, pulling it to her chest before the unicorn’s magic could get a grip on it again.

At the bottom of the kit were chopped strips of dried meat, deer-hawk venison slowly cooked over her clan’s bonfire. Right now it tasted better than anything, because it tasted like home.

The unicorn eyed her knife suspiciously, but the kirin said something that relaxed it. They returned to their seats by the fire, the unicorn still prodding at its wound while the kirin chewed on its sad looking vegetables.

Whoever they were, wherever they came from, they were outsiders. Nisus returned their looks as she tore off bits of her jerky. The herbs that flavoured the meat were from the mountain, and meat she had hunted herself. Every bite reminded her that she was still near her home.

And, with her mind cleared with food, their fear and caution started to make sense. Nisus realized she had been thinking of them as invaders and attackers. But even though she wore the chains, she wasn’t the prisoner. They were still on the mountain, surrounded by chimaera clans. And now it was the creatures who were trapped.