The Last Stormdancer

Rahh looked at me, at the Lady, growl seething in his chest.

“Be still my Khan,” I said. “I will seek the truth of it.”

Down onto the snow I bounded, to stand before the Shogun’s bride. She did not make your jabber speakings with her monkey-tongue. She did not try to tell me what had happened. But from within the folds of her travel-stained robes, she drew a thin cane of polished pine. Dried blood upon the blade. Dried blood upon the hilt.

His blood.

“Koh?”

The Lady reached inside the obi wrapped at her belt. Drew forth a small sack of dark cloth. Loosening the binds at its throat and upending it there before my widening eyes. Sandy gray spilling forth, out into the wind, snatched and scattered by the howling gale, dusted upon our faces, hers and mine. Ashes, I realized.

His ashes.

No.

The beginnings of it, a growl. Deep in my belly. Boiling and burning, monkey-child, like the brightest flame. White-hot and incendiary. Demanding release. Rumbling up through my chest, churning and seething, tearing from my throat with all the strength I could muster. A roar to shake the very stones, reverberating across the mountainside. A roar to begin avalanches, to send boulders of ice crumbling free and crashing into the canyons below, all Four Sisters trembling with the fury of it. And I raised my talons, set to seize and tear and shake like a doll of rags and bones and bloody—

“They killed Jun.”

I turned to Rahh, my eyes ablaze.

“THEY KILLED HIM.”

Rahh stood tall, hackles raised, talons crushing the stone at his feet to dust. A snarl, wings flared wide.

“Then they die. All die. Jun your friend. Your brother. We avenge. We fight.”

Rahh roared, a long, grating call, echoing amongst the peaks. A call to battle. To war. For every buck to take to the wing, to spill blood and strike fear into the hearts of—

“No,” I said.

Rahh cocked his head.

“No?”

My growl shook the very stones around me.

“They blind. All. Blind, Rahh. Monkey-Khan promise to end sickness. Sky grows redder by day. Sun burning brighter. Smoke thicker. They lie to us. They use. Think us beasts. Think us fools. And if we stay here? If we fight when their own Khan will not? Then fools we are.”

“I gave word,” Rahh growled. “Khan’s word is law.”

“Not stay here. Not fight.”

“You not asked to fight. Males fight. Females breed. Such is our way.”

“Foolish way!” I snarled.

“This again? Not speak so, no! I your Khan. You obey. Khan’s word is law!”

The bucks gathering about us now, flying in from the corners of the Four Sisters. The skies above us filled with the thunder of their wings. I recalled flying with Jun on my back. Those brief and precious days of freedom. Anything and everything possible between us. We were supposed to save the world, he and I. We were supposed to change everything. That was our destiny.

And I looked then, at the ashes scattered in the snow. Smudged upon the face of this tiny monkey-child before me, just as wounded and lost as I. And I hated her. Her and all her wretched race. Their greed and their blindness and their pride. Their faith and their dreams and their foolish hope. All of it. They deserved to burn. To suffer. To die choking in the funeral shroud of their own weaving.

Jun was dead. The prophecy a lie. There was no saving this place.

Why in the name of all would I doom myself and my own to linger here?

“I challenge,” I snarled.

Rahh blinked. Eyes narrowed.

“What you say?”

“I CHALLENGE!”

“Foolish. Females not challenge. Females not fight. Females not—”

I did not wait for him to finish. Did not wait for him to list yet another thing I could not should not would not do. Instead I roared, hackles flaring, wings spread, and charged into him with all my might. We collided like thunderheads, the crack of bone, the hiss of breath, a splash of blood. Lightning cracking at the edges of our feathers as we flew off the mountainside, a tumbling, snarling flurry. He tried to break away, roaring at me to stop, to hold, to think.

But I could not think. I could not feel. I could not breathe.

All I tasted was blood.

All I saw was red.

And all I knew was rage.

And here at last, we find our place, little monkey-child. Here, where we first stepped out upon the stage.

I plummeted from the sky, wind clawing at my eyes. Warm and scarlet painted thick upon my tongue. Wings pressed tight to my flanks, lighting crackling along my feathertips. Roaring, bellowing like the storm itself, impossible brightness cracking the skies, black clouds closing at my back. My talons locked with his. My friend. My foe. Our plumage dipped in crimson and fluttering in our wake as we flailed and bit and kicked. Descending.

Mountains loomed below us. Jagged peaks rising from the rolling mist of rain and ashen smoke, snow-clad teeth set to tear us to pieces. But still we struggled. Chained together by my rage, my hatred, unwilling to let him go. At the last, he broke away, kicking loose in a shower of blood. I spread my wings, felt the wind cup my feathers, distant pain from the wounds he had torn in me stealing my breath. He was ever my match. Even when we were cubs, the stripes at our haunches still muddy gray. Not my blood. But yet my brother.

And now, my enemy.

We leveled out, circled each other through the rain. He called to me, voice as loud as the storm, my blood in his mouth.

“Stop this, Koh. Stop this madness.”

I growled reply between the thunder claps.

“Only three ways this will end.”

“I am Khan here,” he roared. “Khan’s word is law.”

“Then kill me.”

“Never.”

“Then die.”

I tore across the sky toward him, tempest at my back. All around us was chaos, the voices of our packmates raised, eyes watching the drama unfold. We collided like comets, like falling, burning stars. I dug my talons into his flesh, knuckle deep. He tore at my shoulder, blood brighter than the poisoned sun, and we became snarls and shrieks and roars, all a-tumble across the sky. Lightning rocked the clouds, gleaming in his eyes as we plummeted toward teeth of stone. His beak closing about my throat. Mine about his.

My friend. My enemy. My Khan.

“Stop this!” he growled.

“Not stay here. Not fight. Not lose you or myself or the ones growing within me.”

A silence, then. Long as years.

“… What?”

“Will not let us die here.”

“You lifebearer?”

“Your cubs, Rahh. Yours and mine.”