The Children of the Sky

As Ravna turned to follow Woodcarver, she heard a burst of angry Tinish. A single member came scrambling up from the lower ledge. “Ritl! What the devil…?”

The critter gave Ravna an imperious nod, emitting a chord that meant something like “You again” as it swept past.

Heida Oysler was next up from the ledge. She seemed to take Ravna’s question as directed at her. “Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. We thought this was part of Tycoon. Hei, it was member-close to the guy, and wearing the same insignia. It even talks like a boss. So we grabbed it.” The kids coming up behind her looked a little shamefaced, too; maybe this had been a group effort. “Now it looks like we got someone’s ugly pet.”

Oh my, I don’t have time for this. “But why did you bring her here?”

Heida glared at the singleton. “Well, it wasn’t our choice.”

•  •  •

Scrupilo’s video was so low-resolution that it must have come from his own locally-made camera. However much he might call it crappy, Ravna bet the guy was vastly proud of the device. And when she had Oobii mesh them with the survey imagery … they were everything the recovery parties needed.

There were three towering swarms of birds. The pictures didn’t reveal what was on the ground beneath them, but Ravna’s topo map showed one of the sites was just ahead of Poul Linden’s group. Woodcarver shouted guidance down to Poul as Ravna’s group closed in on the highest projected impact point, one that the birds had not yet discovered. This spot might take some hard climbing, but for now Ravna and Ovin walked almost abreast of each other, with Woodcarver occasionally extending herself out between them.

As they walked, Ravna cycled through her task list: Nevil’s radios were motionless on the other side of Newcastle, under forest cover. Either he had discarded the devices, or he was waiting for “his people” to catch up with him. The Denier Children were visible on the north road, heading toward the valley forest, shadowed by Woodcarver troops. More wagons had joined the group. Several packs seemed to be guiding the caravan. Dekutomon and company? There was no avoiding the conclusion that this was a planned exodus. Nevil was either nuts or still playing a turn ahead of Ravna and Woodcarver.

Whatever Nevil’s strategy, it didn’t look like he would be rendezvousing with his main Tinish allies any time soon: Vendacious and Tycoon were still driving into the eastern sky, rising steadily as they approached the Icefangs. If they thought they were out of beam gun range, they were dead wrong. They would be visible to Oobii for hours more, unless they decided to play a risky game of hide-and-seek in the mountain valleys. Even now, Ravna could count the fasteners on Tycoon’s steam engine gondolas. A word from her and Oobii could flash-fry both airships.

Ovin interrupted her impotent daydreaming: “Hei! Where did this come from?” He was kneeling at the side of the path. Now he held up something bright and yellow.

Two of Woodcarver eeled forward for a close look. “A gold coin. Long Lakes mintage.”

Ovin turned it over a couple of times, hefting it. Like a number of Children, he had gone native to the extent of valuing heavy metals; gold and silver could be exchanged for things the starfolk couldn’t yet make. “When I was little, we used to hike around here a lot,” he said, glancing up at Ravna.

“All forgiven,” she said. Rascal.

Ovin smiled fleetingly. “The point is, we never saw anything like this. And if we had, we’d have snarfed it up.”

Woodcarver said, “Sigh. Maybe it’s not such a mystery. I’ll bet that after we got you and your friends off the cliffs, Vendacious and Nevil turned this into their private highway.”

Jefri walked past them, oblivious. Magda and Elspa tagged along behind him, scarcely pausing to glance at Ovin’s coin. These three knew what was important.

“C’mon,” Ravna said to the others.

“Hei up there! Are you seeing lots of gold coins?” The question came from some pack on Linden’s team.

“Just one,” Woodcarver boomed in reply.

“We just found a dozen, some on open rock, some wedged into the trees.”

The words set Jefri moving at a trot, barely slowed by Magda and Elspa’s cautions.

“I see yellow, too!” Scrupilo chimed in. “Hei, you on the high path! It’s just a little further on. The birds haven’t found it yet, but there are holes punched in the spring leaves—”

Jefri and company had disappeared around a corner of naked rock. When Ravna and the rest caught up, they found the three stopped, staring: not at a handful of gold coins, but at hundreds of coins and gems, a splash of gold and glitter that swept across the path. It lay in bright, direct sunlight. Indeed the Spring forest canopy had two wide tears in it. Where the light fell, greenish gloom was replaced by uncompromising detail. But Amdi, where are you? Like in the fairy tales, where the dying friend is turned to treasure?

Jefri scrambled up the rock, bracing his feet against tree trunks to lean against the steepness. He swept wildly at the branches. Gold coins scattered from around his hands, unheeded. “Where is he?” Jefri shouted. “Where—” He paused, steadied himself, and pulled. Something large and angular broke loose from where it had been jammed between rocks.

The wreckage bounced and crashed down to the path. It was—had been—a strongbox. Where it hadn’t splintered, the surface glistened with polish.

Ravna felt a touch on her shoulder. She turned. It was Ovin, grim and solemn. He jerked his head upwards. Ravna followed his gaze. Something dark and member-sized was caught in the higher branches. She noticed Ritl pacing beneath it, staring straight up. For once the critter was not spewing commentary.

Ravna swallowed. Then she looked at Jefri, still braced precariously between the cliff face and various tree trunks. “Please come down now, Jef.” She kept her tone even and comforting.

“We have to find him, Rav.”

“We will. I promise.” It took a force of will not to look at the dark, still form that hid in the shadows just beyond Jef’s reach. “But you shouldn’t be way up there. It’s not safe. I want you to come down now.”

He stared back at her, his eyes wide. It was a look she hadn’t seen in years, from long before he had grown and gotten mixed up with the Deniers and betrayed her and rescued her. It was the little boy that Pham had rescued on Murder Meadows.

Jefri gave a sigh. “Okay,” he said and carefully came down to safety. No one spoke, but by the time Jefri reached the ground, almost everyone else had noticed the body in the trees.

•  •  •

The hardest part of getting the body down was keeping Jefri out of the way.

The body. Think of it as the body, the creature, the member—not as part of Amdiranifani. The creature was dead beyond doubt. The poor fellow had been impaled on one of the thornlike branches at the apex of the tree, where the evergreen needles didn’t grow. The accidental spear had passed through the length of the body, ending where the branch was almost fifteen centimeters wide.

As they began cutting down the body, Woodcarver shouted news of the discovery to Linden’s group.

“Okay!” came the reply. “We’re fighting off a mob of stubborn—yeowr!—seabirds. They’re swarming around something just ahead of us.”

Magda and Elspa were sitting with Jefri on the ground. They finally had him calmed down. Ravna leaned against a large boulder and sent all sorts of surely unnecessary detail back to Oobii. From Scrupilo’s video, the ship had already located seven bodies, all dead for a certainty, though this one and the one by Poul Linden might be the only members they could get to today. So I’ll be free to think on other things. But now her attention was stuck on the impaled body, all the other windows ignored.

One forester sawed at the tree as the other sailed restraining ropes around the upper branches. Ritl circled underneath, acting more like a real dog than Ravna had ever seen among Tines, even singletons. Ritl wasn’t saying much. She just looked curious and mystified and—for once—as stupid as she probably was. But the dogs Ravna remembered were plenty smart enough to realize when their betters were upset—and surely Ritl remembered Amdi. She had caused poor Amdiranifani enough problems. Ravna hoped the little beast couldn’t be hurt as much as Jefri and Amdi’s other friends.

As they lowered the body to the ground, Jefri shook himself free of Magda and Elspa. Everyone but Ritl