Kaia the Argent Wing

The moment we stepped out into the wind and snow, we lost the ability to communicate except for vague hand gestures. I’d opted to make this trip as Silver, after first finding Charles as Kaia to inform him that I was going to go snuggle up somewhere warm to think about the steam engine.

So it was as Silver that I held the door open for Chloe while we bustled into the foyer where Chloe had originally been doing her growing experiments.

Closing the door, I was alarmed when it resisted. My hand was yanked backwards as the wind grabbed it and tried to pull the whole door off its hinges. Straining, I pulled it back around while the door groaned dangerously.

“Fuck,” I gasped, locking it firmly in place.

Chloe was staring past me, back out into the screaming wind. “Is it getting worse?”

“It feels like it,” I agreed, gently stretching the muscles in my arm. Despite my toughness, the sudden, quick movement had strained them.

We headed out towards the admin offices, but we barely made it through one hallway junction before we heard something. A man's voice, ranting angrily from a classroom.

Chloe and I shared a look. She shook her head, warning me off, but I was too curious. I tiptoed closer to the open door of the classroom and peeked inside.

Oh man.

It'd been converted into a mini church, and Pastor Thomas was up front, ranting away to the room—packed full of people. The bottom dropped out of my stomach when I saw how many there were—at least a hundred, maybe a bit less.

His sermon rambled and meandered, dipping into and out of coherency in a way that was difficult to follow closely. There was a general theme to his words, however—God had destroyed the modern world as punishment for the hubris and depravity that humanity had fallen into. He was blaming the apocalypse on the gays. What a dickhead.

I was of half a mind to stomp in there and challenge him, but before I could, Chloe's hand wrapped around my bicep and she pulled me away. “Don't bother. The asshole has been doing this for weeks. Let's just go find the Captain, okay?”

“Fair point,” I said, unhappy even as I saw the wisdom in leaving it alone. We were already planning to throw gasoline on one fire, no need to do a second.

When we made it to the admin area, we found another surprise gathering, except this one was infinitely more welcome. A small group of Bandoners were here, including Brielle!

I waved and smiled as we approached, while Chloe just eyed the lot of them with guarded interest. Right, she hadn't spoken to them much. Her social anxiety was probably causing her defensive spikes to come out, metaphorically speaking.

“Brielle, how's it going?” I asked as she stepped away from the group that I now saw actually contained the man we'd been looking for.

Brielle shook her head worriedly. “The cold has reached us down the hill. We're not sure we can keep up our food shipments. We've already lost some of our more sensitive crops.”

My good mood at seeing the Bandoners faded. Losing access to their food shipments would spell death for Edgewood. We'd have to try and evacuate, regardless of the danger such a thing might pose.

“Good thing we might have a solution, then,” Chloe said with a deepening frown. She looked up at me. “Get his attention.”

With an apologetic shrug in Brielle's direction, I raised my fist and imbued it with a silvery moonlight that crackled with menacing energy. All eyes suddenly turned in our direction, and I shook my hand to dissipate the energy.

“Captain!” I said loudly, locking eyes with him. “Chloe reckons she's got the solution to our wind problem!”

“Really?” He asked, disbelieving but excited. “Explain?”

The Bandoners had been listening before because of my cantrip, but now they were paying attention with interest, as were all the Edgewood folks.

“Chloe has finished designing a ritual song that should allow us to encourage the wind to blow in a certain direction,” I explained, glancing at her to make sure I was getting it right. “We need to test it, but that'll let us go ahead with the Cap’s earlier plan to burn the storm bird out of its nest like the old native americans did.”

The Captain was grinning when I finished, and he turned that grin on Quinton, who was standing nearby. “Quin! Go get us some volunteers! We need to test this song thing.”

Quinton, whose eyebrow was raised in open interest, nodded. “Right. Where should I tell them to meet?”

“The front foyer,” the Captain said after a moment of thought.

A Bandoner man I didn’t recognise cleared his throat. The sound rumbled deep enough to get the attention of the Cap.

“Carter, if you’ve got a way to chase that chicken away, we’d be more than willing to lend a hand,” the man rumbled. “We’re all fighters here, and it's our homes on the line too.”

“I didn’t want to get all pushy, but yes, we could really use your help,” our leader said with a grateful smile. “My people have been collecting gas for a couple weeks now, mostly to use as fuel for the heating under the gym since it don’t burn quite so fast anymore. Still catches easy enough, though, so we were going to douse a couple houses over in Riddlebank, light the whole neighbourhood on fire despite the damn snow. Only problem is that the storm bird can summon winds, and it could use ‘em to blow the flames back up the hill. Chloe here has the solution, though. A ritual song that can blow the wind away from Edgewood.”

“Sounds risky,” Brielle muttered to herself.

The Bandoners asked a bunch more questions, about the ritual, about the houses we had sitting full of tinder, and about the firebreak that was behind them. The latter two I only had passing knowledge of, but in the hope of finding a solution, the Captain had ordered his people to prepare the plan.

At the base of the hill was a natural green strip that was now covered in snow. That would be our firebreak in the beginning, but as the fire melted the snow, our firefighters would clear the brush with abilities and axes, then roll it down to join the flames. As for the start of the fire, over a dozen houses had been rigged with flammable materials. Additionally, large containers of syphoned gas had been stored there, ready to be poured over everything and lit on fire.

We were actually ready, although I doubted we'd get started today. It was early afternoon, I think, and the day was running out. Best to just test the song and then prepare.

We got a couple hundred volunteers to be our chorus, and all of them were packed into the front foyer. By necessity, none of the chorus were fighters, because those needed to be free to help light and spread the fire. They were all also recent converts to Cynath and by extension, me. They’d been swayed by my so-called heroics and Cynath’s ongoing pledge to keep the survivors of our neighbourhood safe. It was intimidating to know that these folks were… worshipping wasn’t the right word. Cynath spoke too regularly to garner the same type of blind devotion that the Christian faith did, but instead, her new followers had less capacity for doubt. The existence and potence of their new goddess was plain for all to see.

Since these attempts at the ritual were just practice runs, we were all standing around chatting, waiting for a very nervous Chloe to get her gear in order.

In an attempt to help, I brushed a hand down her back. “You got this.”

She glanced up at me. “No I fucking don't. I'll try anyway, though. It's not like anyone will be surprised when I fail, like with the herbs for my potions. You weren't surprised.”

“Didn't know enough to be surprised one way or another,” I said, squeezing her shoulder. “Be chill. Be calm.”

“Telling her to be calm probably won't help,” Brielle commented, shifting from her eavesdropping position to fully join the conversation.

Chloe baulked at the other woman’s intrusion, but didn't make any comments.

“Let me tell you something, though. That growing shit? It's harder than it looks,” the nerdy Bandoner mage said. “We had to set up a tiny horticulture college down in Bandon just to pool our knowledge and teach folks.”

Chloe's eyes widened a little, and her guard fell slightly as her special interest was piqued. “Really? That sounds pretty fucking cool— Ah, but not now. I got a job to do. Silver, can you like, stand beside me so people don't talk shit?”

“How would I…” I asked, trailing off.

“You're six and a half feet tall and you're built like you could strut a runway, snap a man in two at the end, then strut back—All without breakin’ a sweat,” Brielle pointed out with a wry grin. “Ain't nobody with a brain gonna challenge you.”

I giggled. “Point taken.”

Brielle frowned. “Unless you giggle, then all bets are off.”

Chloe laughed, then grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me over to the front doors. I pulled my trick with my imbuement smite again, and everyone turned their attention to us.

“H-hi, everyone,” Chloe stammered, then cleared her throat and tried again. “Hey, everyone. Thanks for coming to help. Here's what we're trying to do…”

 

Ten minutes later, and after a couple of dry runs so everyone got the alien language song right, we led everyone out into the screaming abyss that the outside world had become. It was a damn good thing that being able to hear the other members of the chorus wasn't required to start the ritual, because otherwise the wind would have drowned everyone out.

The wind plucked at everyone's clothing and whipped hair into eyes, up noses, and down throats—all while its knife-edged chill stripped the moisture from skin and turned it brittle. The occasional snowflake would hit exposed skin with enough force to sting, but behind the snow and the wind, there was a… a presence. You could feel it as a distinct entity now, the storm bird was very purposefully throwing the air at us like a weapon.

Despite the frigid animosity that beat down on the chorus, they formed a loose semi-circle in the old parking lot, facing inwards towards Chloe, but also past her into the wind. The direction their words flew would determine the direction the wind began to shift towards… In theory.

I could see Chloe was uncomfortable with so much attention on her, but she held a hand up anyway. It swayed as the wind tried to take it along with everything else, but she held strong. One finger went down, then a second, then a third, until there was only one left… and that one fell too. Her hands shifted to frame an area of space in front of her at head height, signalling the start of the song.

Nothing happened. No sound reached those of us who were arrayed around the chorus, keeping watch. Their mouths moved, however, even as their faces shifted with doubt. That is, until the sigil began to take real shape in the air between Chloe’s fingers. It twinkled like dew-kissed spider’s web at first, then strengthened with every intent-imbued word that made it to Chloe.

The wind lessened for a brief moment, like a reverse gust, and eyes across the chorus widened. Belief set in, slowly but surely, and with that belief came stronger, more pure intent-mana. It lit Chloe’s sigil up like a Christmas decoration, and she lifted it higher so everyone could see. The damn thing was working! It was working!

We could hear the chant now, with the odd language and its too many vowels all twisting together, and it sent a shiver of excitement down my spine. The wind stilled further, dipping and straining against the sudden resistance.

To my surprise, I saw Alec and three other people I recognised from the school band suddenly leave the front doors of the school. They carried large drums, and I laughed with eager delight. Hell yes.

The four of them placed themselves behind the chorus at roughly equal lengths apart, then began to drum out the beat of the chant. The boom of the big heavy drums pulled the voices and their wayward timings together, centering everything around them. The sigil flared brighter, until slowly but surely, the wind turned.

Snow flakes that had been hanging confused in midair began to drift back the way they’d come, and smiles broke out across everyone, participant and guard alike. We’d done it, our ritual chant was working.

Working, until a scream of avian rage washed over the car park, its razor edge severing the strings of the chorus in one, swift motion. Voices fell silent as fear took hold…

“Captain!” I called into the stillness after the screech. “I know this was a practice run, but it might be the only run we get!”

Maybe it was just that strange human instinct that we all had, but I could feel it on the wind, the storm bird, but it wasn’t approaching, not itself anyway… not yet.

To his eternal credit, the Captain felt it too, and he began to bark orders. It was now or never, because we’d angered a demi-god, and they didn’t tend to allow you to do ‘later’ unless it would prolong your misery.

While the Captain organised the fighters, Edgewood and Bandoner alike, I ran over to Chloe. “We’re doing it right now. We pissed the bird off, we don’t have another option. Can you and your chorus keep this up?”

“If we organise more to fill in, and maybe some bonfires, shelter or something,” she said, shivering. “Water, too. Maybe tea?”

“Pull aside whoever you need,” I nodded, taking her frigid fingers in mine. “We should’ve gotten you some gloves.”

“I have some in my room…”

I smiled into her determined, pretty eyes. “I’ll go get them.”