• • Raydorn: The War in the Black
• December 31, 2023

Raydorn: The War in the Black (Chapter 53)

“There are no wings on this planet that weren’t meant to fly… except for penguins, they’re weird.”

Azukai Mófǎ-rie , Archmage of Susanna, 253 A.C.A.

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Escaping out of the castle was easy. They anticipated that escaping from Shadestown would be much tougher. 

“They’ll have all the main roads blocked,” Jack warned them as he hugged the alley wall, and the three behind him did the same.

“No shit, it’s the sane thing to do at this point,” Andy complained in a rather loud whisper.

“Why do you ever bother whispering? It’s never quiet,” Malum complained much the same.

Who was he to talk? Andy questioned, but her tongue was far more biting.

“Why do you bother talking? It’s always lies.”

Malum pulled back at the comment, unsure of where it came from, the sound of his beating wings was one of the things pulsating in Andy’s head. It was the only thing that wasn’t from her vision.

‘There will be time for that later,’ the presence told her.

There will always be time for that later.

‘That is true!’ the presence chimed, and their voice had Andy tilting her head.

You’re… different.

‘How did you know?’ There was this distant giggle in her head as this new voice asked the question. It had the same ‘sound,’ but there was something to this one that couldn’t be found in the other voice.

Happiness.

‘Ah, well, we’re not all buggers, we’re not all that quiet either.’

Can you all go away?

‘Hah! Hah… no, but we’re all different.’

Well, you’re definitely in the annoying department.

‘Well, that’s mean.’

“Andy,” Jack muttered her name before snapping his fingers in front of her face.

She was quick to snap at him. “I was clearly thinking.”

“Yeah, and I wanted to know what about, what’s the plan to get out of here?” he asked.

Couldn’t he come up with a plan this time?

‘Yeah, couldn’t he do it?’

Oh my god, do I miss the vague and condescending voice now?

‘He’ll be back eventually, we’re on a rotation of sorts.’

I thought you were many.

‘We are, just not many who want to talk to you.’

Andy smacked her lips at that response, rather quiet in the face of this new presence’s wit. It would be more satisfying for her to confirm with the one she found witless.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” Andy told Jack, and she leaned back against the wall. When she couldn’t quite hold herself up, the cold, unfeeling layers of brick would. “A part of me is thinking that we split up, but since we’re such a trusting gaggle of folk, it only takes for one of us to get captured for the rest of us to never leave.”

“You’re assuming a lot about Mr. No-face here,” Astrid joked, pointing at Malum. 

“Did I become Jack all of a sudden?” Malum asked, making Jack throw up his arms and roll his eyes. 

“Seriously, are we just going to spit jabs at each other all day,” Jack started muttering, getting progressively louder and louder as he continued. “Maybe we’re not on the same page but I don’t want to have to fight and kill my way out of here any more than I want to spend the next several months in jail.”

Andy pursed her brow as she looked at Jack, utterly baffled. “Your sister would get you locked up under host arrest, are you kidding me?” 

“Yeah, prison, my house, it’s all interchangeable.”

“I’ve been to your house,” Malum stated rather dryly, his body unmoving as his mask stared the young nobleman down, “it’s hardly prison.”

“Seconded,” Andy said with a raise of her hand.

“Can we just get to making a plan here?!” Jack snapped.

“I have one.”

All three turned towards Astrid in the back. 

They were silent in their staring, watching as Astrid managed to fight back the twitching in the corners of her mouth.

“How long were you sitting on that one?” Malum asked her.

She looked up before answering, “Ten seconds.”

“Oh, that’s not so bad.”

“Had me thinking it was a long time.”

“Eh, alright.”

They stared at her as she stared back at them, her brow slowly narrowing in confusion. “What?” 

“You want to tell us the plan?” Andy asked.

Astrid turned around with a smirk on her face. Rather than give her allies any insight, she turned around and put her foot behind her like she was going to start running. “You probably wouldn’t like it, so better I just make you follow me.”

It could never be easy with her, but to be honest, I’m kind of used to it, and at this point… Astrid fucks up the least of everyone here. 

When Astrid took off, Andy was the first one behind her. Malum was quick to follow and Jack lagged behind, needing to take the moment to roll his eyes and groan. There was also the injured leg, and his Iligsia could only help so much.

They didn’t break into a full-on sprint, with Astrid creeping around corners and doing her best to keep her footsteps quiet. It drew the wandering eye of the assassin, a third among their party who was more than decent at the art of the silent footstep. 

He would have worried about the technique’s secrecy if Jack hadn’t nearly knocked a trashcan over as he was catching up.

He drew a mean side-eye from all of them. “Alright, that’s honestly my bad.”

They managed to continue, and while she remained quiet on the matter, it did not go unnoticed to Andy that they weren’t hitting many soldiers, and the smell of salt was getting stronger.

Is she taking us to the docks? Our ship won’t be there, and the only ship we could operate would be caught by any of the army ships on the dock. What’s the idea here? 

‘Maybe trust your friend.’

I do trust her, I’m just impatient.

‘The young are so impatient.’

And the dead are nothing but.

‘Am I… do I count as dead? I’ll have to ask the others about that.’

Andy growled to herself, trying to not release the loud groan in the back of her throat. The sound she made was a familiar one to the Legionnaire currently leading them. Astrid looked back for a moment while Andy was focused on the inner machinations of a growingly packed mind, but kept her words to herself.

The docks had many more guards. While they hadn’t come in on a boat, a dock would seem like a likely option for would-be party-crashers and murderers of the town’s law enforcement. People of their ilk tended to take those kinds of things personally.

Astrid was sure to take her time moving through the dock that was still full from the personal ships of party guests in the castle. A war may have been going on, but you’d never notice from how the rich lived. Not every noble leads from the front, if any.

They had to knock out a few guards, but eventually, Astrid led them to the end of a long pier and looked out over the water. She whistled before announcing, “We’re here!”

When they looked out over at the water, one could only guess what they were supposed to see… because they only saw water.

“Just when you forget she’s insane,” Jack muttered.

Andy shook her head and asked Astrid directly, “Can you explain to us your plan now?”

Astrid put her hands behind her back and just smiled at Andy. She didn’t say a word, she just smiled and appeared to wait.  

Caw-CAW!

“There’s always a fucking animal with her,” Malum cursed, not needing to look up at Andy and Jack.

Jack’s jaw dropped as the beast’s cast descended in the way of the sun, casting them in its shadow.

Andy slowly shook her head, a smirk to match Astrid’s. 

They watched as the griffin with no claws but plenty of blood on its beak, descended to the end of the pier. 

The dock was the safest place for it to land and take off from, Andy realized. But where the fuck did she get a griffin from?

‘Your friends are very interesting.’

Well, she is.

‘Everyone is interesting, they just won’t all interest you.’

Calm down, Seraph.

‘Who?’

Philosopher.

‘Oh… okay.’

The mental shrug she felt in her head made Andy cringe.

*****

“There’s no way we can fly on that thing,” Malum warned as Astrid began rubbing the beak of the beast. “It wasn’t properly trained, and we can’t all fit on it.”

“It doesn’t need to fit all of us, you can fly yourself,” Andy said rather nonchalantly in a way that froze Malum in place.

All Malum could think was, Oh god, no… 

Andy looked at him as if it were any other day, as if she said that she could just drop without any consequences.

“And since when can Malum fly?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know that,” Andy said with a shrug, “just that he had a pair of white wings when the two of you were trying to kill me.”

Jack looked from Andy’s scowl to look at Malum with a look of shock. The Starshield was not one who was especially well-versed in myth, but he knew the most important bits, particularly about the monsters. He had to learn about the monsters when he trained at the Pain.

This is it.

No man-monster with wings were their records. Despite this…

Jack shrugged. “That explains the bat demon I saw when the Bard had me under his spell, but what about stirring the beast, you said it wasn’t trained?”

Malum’s head tilted. “You… that’s what you want to know about? Not… not the wings?”

“The wings won’t make it impossible to kill you if I need to so…” Jack just shrugged again. “I’m really not sure why it’s a big deal. I’ve learned how to mind my own business when it doesn’t concern me. Same reason I don’t ask why Andy’s hair is white or why her eyes glow green.”

Andy blinked. “My eyes glow green?”

Jack ignored her and reminded Malum, “I mean for god’s sake, did I even question it when Astrid had visions of the future, one of which she shared with us?”

Malum took a step back, his back to the water as he looked at the three people around him. He couldn’t help but look back and forth as he was trying to process it all. “You… none of you truly care?”

Rather than answer, Astrid pulled herself up and onto the neck of the untrained beast who still obeyed her every wish. From atop it, she patted its wing and prompted it to rest on the ground, perfect for Andy and Jack to climb on.

As they walked on up, they left Malum reeling, watching the impossible happen again and again in a matter of minutes. 

Astrid pulled back on the neck feathers of the beast and made it turn just ajar from Malum.

“We’re a weird band, Mal. There isn’t a one of us that isn’t somehow different and special from everyone else. It’s what’s made us feel normal. How you sat at our table and didn’t catch any idea of that…”

Andy raised her hand as she sat behind Astrid, the other hand hanging onto her waist. “Oh, I know, is it because he’s statistically the most unclenched asshole ever?”

“Oh that has to be it,” Astrid agreed.

“Huff,” Malum muttered. His hand raised to his chin, but he didn’t want to hold something. His hands roamed under his mask. “I… I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”

How… how could they not care? Do they have no idea what the wings mean? Special doesn’t cut it, and that’s not a good thing. They have gifts, and I have a curse…

“Then you’ll have to figure out later because we’re taking off,” Astrid warned as she began to turn the griffin around with nothing but a bit of twiddling his feathers. “Little Stinky clearly wants to go.”

Andy arched her brow as she asked, “You named him, Stinky?”

“Little Stinky,” Astrid corrected.

“Hold on, isn’t anyone wondering how long Astrid has known how to fly a griffin?!” 

Astrid moved the griffin’s feathers and called over her shoulders, “Since the vision when Lapis showed me! Did you know Lapis and Valkarion are first cousins?!” 

Andy squinted with a look of bafflement, “Who the fuck is Valkarion?!” 

“God of Griffins!” 

“Oh great, because griffins needed a god-AAAAHHHH!!!”

Jack and Andy screamed in unison as Little Stinky took off into the air without warning. Astrid could only cackle over them and the sound of the wind as the griffin took high, up with a straight shot. 

Astrid’s fingers were enough to hold the lone knot tie around the griffin’s neck, a vestigial piece from Little Stinky’s days in training. It served as a back to help riders steer griffins if something happened to the reins. 

But from where Andy was sitting, her arms wrapped around Astrid’s stomach, eyes smushed against her back, there was nothing. Jack could see even less smooshed against Andy.

But Malm saw it all. He looked up with his hands at his sides and was left rather empty of the head.

The wings have brought me nothing but pain and misery. They are the proof of my mother’s sins and I have burned for less, and these people… they don’t care?

How could they not care?

“How could they not care?!” Malum shouted, his wings blasting forth from his back. 

How could these abominations be something to shrug at? Their beauty was meant to deceive, and their origin was meant to sicken… is that the power of ignorance?

No, they know, Astrid at least, and Andy must have some idea, but to them, it was just… something about me… 

How could that be? 

Malum felt the wind under his wings, flowing and tickling the skin beneath the feathers. They flapped with the wind’s current and it was all such wings long for. His body felt refreshed, and his mind tried to fight the feeling.

How could something that feels so good not be a temptation?

Malum’s mind could not be certain of the answer to the question. Asking question after question before getting an answer could only ensure that you will never receive a proper answer, even when it is staring you in the face.

If he only stopped thinking, he’d understand the truth. 

Some things just aren’t as serious as we have been led to believe. Hate is universally held but reason is not, not even for hate.

The winds ceased their wait for Malum to join them and dug under his feathers. They pushed and lifted, trying to pull him into the sky the same way a mother would pull her children through the streets. 

And like a mother’s strength, the strength of the winds always won.

With a flap, Malum’s wings thrust him into the air. His heartbeat was so loud that he could hear it even over the wind. When he did flap his wings again, he was headed for the water, and in fear, they flapped again.

Then again.

And again.

And again, until he was soaring away from the docks.

He soared up into the clouds, his wings enjoying the evening winds. Sometimes one’s limbs had to ignore the brain because the brain thought too much.

As he flew through the clouds, with the light of the moon shining down upon him, he was left with a mesmerizing, and lonely feeling.

The sky bears me a gift, Malum thought, seeing the supermoon over the horizon of the clouds, seeing the beauty of Nylean. May she wish me…

Flap! Flap!

The sound of wings not his own interrupted his thought. He looked over to see them upon the back of the griffin, Astrid, Andy, and Jack.

Together, they stared at him as they soared above the crowd.

Then Astrid waved. 

Malum watched them and thought some more.

Without thought, his arm raised itself on its own and waved back.