Obsidian Thornwing's Arc

Chapter 6 of 18

Obsidian sat up against the stump and touched the braid at his shoulder. The pain was gone, but the problem was worse. He was not on the road north. He was not at the muster. By nightfall, the royal guard would mark an empty slot beside his name. By morning, they would call him a deserter and strip the braid he had just earned. "I have to send word," he said. His voice came out rough. "If I don't reach the Ridge, or send a runner, they'll take the rank back. They don't wait." Sylvara knelt in front of him and tightened a strip of cloth around his forearm. She did not look up. "I know," she said. "You don't understand. It's a day's walk even if I could stand. I can't stand." "I know that too." She tied the cloth off. "Sit." She stood and whistled once, low. The green cat with the glowing spots lifted its head from the ferns and bounded past her toward the cabin. Sylvara followed. Obsidian watched her go through the round wooden door under the red mushroom cap. A small red birdfeeder swung on its chain from the eave. She came out with a folded scrap of bark paper and a stub of charcoal. She pressed both into his hand. "Write it short," she said. "Name. Rank. Where you are. When you'll come." "A letter won't reach them in time." "A letter won't. A falcon will." He looked up. She was already turning her face to the sky, two fingers to her lips. She whistled again, higher, three notes he did not know. He wrote while she called. Obsidian Thornwing. Captain. Held east of Mosswood. Injured. Three days. The falcon dropped through the canopy like a thrown knife. Red feathers, black eyes, talons wide. It landed on a stump at Sylvara's shoulder and folded its wings. She did not flinch. She held out her wrist and it stepped onto it as if it had done so a hundred times. "He's mine," she said. "He knows the north road." Obsidian folded the paper small. Sylvara took it and slid it into a leather cuff at the bird's leg. She spoke to the falcon in a language Obsidian did not recognize, short and clean. Then she lifted her arm and the bird was gone, up through the gap in the branches, north. She sat down beside him in the moss. The cat pressed against her knee. "They'll get it by dark," she said. Obsidian let out a breath he had been holding since the blast. The braid was safe. The rank was safe. But he was still here, in a stranger's clearing, unable to walk, three days from a post that would not wait forever. "Three days," he said. Sylvara did not answer. She was watching the sky where the falcon had gone.