The Curse of the Winged Scorpion
Something strange falling from the sky

Fantelfollowed Smith to the back of the ship. She was in two minds about leaving,which was surprising. She had no desire to die in a fiery crash and could dolittle to help Rashari by staying. Yet somehow it felt wrong to escape knowinghe wouldn’t.

“Bloop,”Smith rotated one hundred and eighty degrees until its eyebeam focused on her. Theautomaton bobbed in the air before an oblong door. Smith gave every indicationof impatience. Another shudder rocked Vedeca. Fantel braced her arms againstthe walls of the corridor to keep her balance. The ship was losing altitude,and the pulsing purple light threading through the walls flickered and shiveredin time with the laboured whining of the engines. Smith turned around andfocused its eyebeam into a smaller cone of light, sharper and brighter thanusual. The light pooled in a tight circle centred on a sensor pad set into thewall. The sensor flashed deep blue and the door opened, pushing up and out witha soft hydraulic sigh. Fantel could see only darkness beyond the doorway untilSmith buzzed ahead.

Smith’seyebeam threw coloured light into the shadows of Vedeca’s underbelly as theautomaton cut a path through canvas covered objects of unknown origin. The holdsmelled of phantasma, oil, and heavy machinery. A hammock, strung between ahook in the wall and a huge cloth swathed crate, swayed back and forthviolently in time with the erratic movements of the ship. A large, sturdy trunkcovered in battered wyrm skin had been secured to a support strut under thehammock by a piece of thick rope. Fantel’s keen eyes could just make out a setof embossed initials, worn and faded, on the top of the trunk: S.T. A book slidacross the floor. Fantel stumbled, almost tripping over the book. The slim volumewas old, the leather cover faded and split in places, the title legend almostillegible: The Cautionary Tale of theScoundrel Rashari. Another booming shudder hit Vedeca. Smith beeped at herfrom behind a stack of crates. Fantel kicked the book out of the way and madeher way swiftly around the crates.

Smithfloated above a wide open hatch in the hold floor. The sharp tang of cold nightair hissed past the hatch. Fantel could see the tops of fir trees dart by. Shewas disturbed to realise that the tree tops were not nearly as far below themas she might have liked. How close to crashing were they?

“Blo-blop,”Smith buzzed close and then veered away moving toward an odd lookingcontraption pushed up against the wall of crates. It looked like a huge kite;strong canvas fabric stretched over a framework of lightweight metal struts. Aseries of leather straps dangled from the underside of the giant kite. “Bloooop,”The light from Smith’s eyebeam raked over her. Fantel had the feeling it wantedher to hurry. She approached the kite contraption cautiously. It was a one-manglider. She lifted one end of the pointed wingtip. It was light, as she hadhalf suspected, but too large and unwieldy for her to pick up easily. Shetipped up the wing further and reached for the series of straps connected tothe metal chassis. She realised that the three thickest leather straps formed aharness. A person could loop their arms through the two uppermost straps, whichwere actually separate pieces joined together by buckles. The third part of theharness was a leather belt that circled around the waist and could be fastenedto fit. The harness connected the person to the glider’s frame. The otherdangling cords controlled the wings. Fantel tugged experimentally on one of thecords and the reticulated wings snapped half-closed, like the furled wings of abird. It was far easier for Fantel to manhandle the glider over to the hatchand wriggle into it with the wings furled.

“Blop,”Smith hovered close to her head, the light from its beam stinging her eyes. Theautomaton was almost quivering with impatience. Fantel wondered how a sphericallump of metal could so aptly imitate the emotions of flesh and blood beings. Itwasn’t even alive. Yet she could feel anxiety rising from its round shell likeheat haze. Something screamed through the air, and Fantel watched a white hotcomet crash into the forest below. A searing orange-red bloom of flame burstinto life and the canopy ignited. Fantel sucked in a harsh breath. The tops ofthe trees were very close now, the ground reaching up impatiently. She had tojump now before it was too late. She would have to trust that Rashari reallycould distract their pursuers before they noticed her escape. She jumped.

Icecold air tore over her body, smashing into her like a giant fist. She startedto fall, a gale force shriek howling in her ears. She couldn’t see, couldn’tbreathe. Desperately she groped at the glider cords, tugging on every singlestring until finally the glider wings snapped open. There was a ripping sound;it was a horrible, horrible sound, like flesh tearing. The whole world jerkedviolently, dragging Fantel’s body with it, wrenching her from vertical tohorizontal. Starburst explosions of pain ignited behind her eyes. The nature ofher descent changed, instead of a cannonball thundering toward the ground, shewas now caught in a riptide spiral, tumbling around and around, upside down anddown side up like a leaf in a hurricane. The glider wings caught the air,making her fall erratic.

Anupdraft of air caught under the glider wings and held. Abruptly Fantel was nolonger falling. For one brief and stunning second she was suspended in the air.She forced open her eyes, ignoring the tears streaming past her cheeks. She sawa sweep of moorland underneath her. Rough slabs of rock dotted the moor,gleaming like exposed bone in the greyish blur of feathery grass. The night airwas clean and sharp, singing in her ears. Tilting her head up, grimacing at thewind clawing at her numbed face, she could see beyond the rolling sweep ofmoorland toward the distant lights of Aramantine. The fortress city was builton a natural hill, encircled by numerous concentric tiers of curtain wall. Theneedle point towers forking up from behind each wall struck out at the nightlike rapier points. The lights of the city twinkled in the velvet night.Rashari had brought them closer to the city than she had thought. If she waslucky and her landing was kind she might be able to reach the city by daybreak.

Theground swept up to meet her. Fantel pulled on the cords, retracting the gliderwings when she was still ten feet or more above the ground. This was a mistake.Immediately she fell, her controlled descent collapsing into a thudding crashlanding. Gravity seized her greedily. She hit the ground sideways on, theawkward curl of one reticulated wing striking the ground first. She bounced androlled. The canvas wings tore, the lightweight struts snapping. Fantel came to astop, teeth rattled and thoughts jumbled. She breathed through her nose andwaited for the world to stop spinning before sitting up. One broken glider winghad sunk into the sod several inches deep. She ended up having to wriggle freeof the glider completely.

“Bloooooooooooop.” Smith hurtled toward the ground. A blazingcorona of violet light encapsulated its metal form, which stood out against thelight like a dark kernel in the heart of a burning comet.

Fantelthrew herself to the side, rolling down the slight slope. Smith smashed intothe ground, pulverising the remains of the glider. There was a retina searingflash of light. Fantel felt a tremor of energy sing through the ground underher fingertips, something alien and unfamiliar. She lifted her head and stared.She couldn’t see Smith but the ground around his landing site was a glowingcrater, five feet across. The grass had been seared away, leaving a veldt ofsmooth, glassy residue; it looked like lavender frost, shot through withcracks. Hazy purple smoke rose from the middle of the crater, tickling the airwith spectral fingers. The smoke smelled wrong, writhing in her nostrils withthe promise of magic and power, tasting of life and energy and just a hint ofsomething dark and malign.

“Bl…bl…bo…lop.”A mechanised warbling rose up from the hole. Fantel twitched in surprise. Theautomaton should have so much scattered metal from that fall. Fantel inched herway forward. She reached out with one finger and poked at the crystallisedground. It felt like she’d shoved her arm, up to the elbow, into an animawellspring. Her arm was instantly alive with energy, stinging heat soaked intothe marrow of her bones, energising every cell in her body, filling her tobursting with raw, unbridled power. Magic; life; energy; a constellation ofcoruscating lights flared behind her eyes, dazzling her. She hadn’t feltanything like this in over a decade. The ground throbbed with power. Then itwas gone. For one transcendent moment there was magic, and then, like aguttering candle in a draft, the power ebbed away. Fantel watched as the carpetof tiny crystals over the ground retreated from her touch like dawn frost underthe midday sun.

Amechanical shriek filled the night above her. Vedeca was falling from the sky,screaming all the way. Vedeca wheeled in the air lighting up the dark night andleaving glowing contrails in its wake. No wonder Rashari had been confidenttheir pursuers would not notice her bailing out, she doubted the pilots of theother ship could tear their eyes away from Vedeca, glowing like a falling star,leaking power like a trail blood across the sky.

Vedeca’sfall was mesmerising. The craft rippled in vibrant shades of indigo, violet,lavender and mauve so bright Fantel was sure the play of colours against thenight sky played tricks on her eyes. She thought she saw Vedeca transform fromairship into a scorpion with a twitching tail and huge, beating wings. AsVedeca rushed the ground, it looked like the scorpion’s eight legs skitteredover the moorland, gouging glowing purple pock marks into the ground. She sawits impossibly huge, unreal wings beat against the sky, powdering the night airwith sparks. Vedeca scoured the ground, slicing a fifty foot long furrow in theface of the moor. There was a hideous noise, a scream of metal and stone, andin that last instant as Vedeca streaked along the ground, Fantel saw thescorpion strike upwards with its coiled and barbed tail and swipe the Dha-halicraft out of the air.