Chapter Five

As the boy and his rider hurried towards the clearing, the cockatri pursued from behind. It was the first time that night the creatures had started acting normally—except of course, besides that they were hunting humans.

For the learned in Skaadom, cockatri flanked their prey from one side as a diversion. While the flock chased and antagonized on the left, a solo cockatrice, known as a “cutter,” would hang back in the blind spot of the right. Cutting down their prey little by little. At random they would switch sides to keep their prey guessing.

Carrying Amber made it difficult for Petra to see behind him. The cutter had begun to creep in close enough to take a nip at Amber’s leg. When it struck suddenly, she yelped and clung to Petra’s neck so tightly it choked him.

“Amber—!” he coughed. “Legh-go!” Her eyes were squeezed shut as Petra strained to look back at her. But he couldn’t see the damage without putting Amber down. A steady trickle of blood had begun to dress her shin like a winter stocking.

“Skivv those little—”

Petra picked up a rock and hurled it in anger. “Get out of here! Or I won’t feel sorry if I have to kill you!”

In the corner of his eye, he noticed that Amber had his knife in her hand. She was using it to strip off a portion of her shirt. Petra stared in disbelief. How on earth did she get that? A quick pat down confirmed an empty holster.

He’d assumed Amber was using the shirt to staunch her wound. And perhaps, she was doubly clever in that way. But moments after facing their attackers, a rock tied in the shirt cloth flew by and landed with a “thunk” in the foliage. The cockatri shrieked, and as if magnetized, fled after it into the underbrush where they tore the cloth to shreds in a flurry of scraps and feathers.

The older he got, the more Petra realized life moved too quickly for him. He hadn’t been granted the courtesy of processing the horror he’d just witnessed. All he could do was scoop Amber up like a sack of turnips, and hurry out of the woods without looking back.

For several minutes, they walked in silence until Petra had begun to grow tired of the sound of his own thoughts.

“We’re almost there.” he started up. “At first, I was going to take you to my own house, but I have a friend who has more resources than I do. Food and medicine—brains even.” He smiled wryly as he thought about it. “Does that sound ok, Amber? Your leg doing alright?” She didn't respond, though Petra could feel that her breathing had finally calmed.

As the trees tapered off and were replaced with walls of stone houses, their trip was nearing its final stop. An old, tudor-style house with a rare second floor sat at the tail end of an area called Weaver’s Row. This was the home of a Council member, and it showed. But seeing its funny roof poking over the plain bungalows had become for Petra an inside joke. The moment it came into view, he stifled his laughter. (He was surely alone in this type of humor.)

“This is it,” Petra gave Amber a nudge. He had crept around to the house’s back patio. “Bletchny—I hope she won’t be too angry about this.”

“Who?”

“My friend’s name is Cassidy Sterling. She hates her first name though, so everyone calls her Sterling. We’re pretty good friends, but I doubt she’ll be thrilled to see my face at this hour.”

It occurred to him. “Wait, you talked? I heard you! How long could you—”

Just then, the back door swung open. A woman a year older than Petra stood in the frame with her arms folded. She looked Petra up and down while he grinned back at her nervously.

“Some people have hobbies, you know?”

“Um—” he stuttered sheepishly. “I have a good explanation.”

“Apparently.” She stepped past Petra to get a closer look at the girl on his back. Then Sterling crouched to inspect the gash on Amber’s leg.

“What kind of man-eating jungle did he pull you from, kid?” She heaved a sigh. “This way.”

Motioning the pair in through the back door, she tugged at Petra’s ear as he passed. “And for Sol’s sake, be quiet about it!” Sterling hissed.

“Ow! Okay—that wasn’t necessary,” Petra muttered, rubbing his face. “So, I’m guessing you already saw us coming?” Sterling set her jaw defensively.

“Yeah? You’re lucky I was up. Saw you from the bedroom window.”

“Then, your being awake has nothing to do with that meeting tomorrow?”

“Oh-ho-ho—you remembered about that? Sweet tar biscuits that pisses me off more—”

“What do you mean?”

Sterling took Amber by the hand and sat her down onto a nearby footstool. “Cass, it’s okay to be stressed about it. Foreign Relations is like, a huge deal.”

“No spit, Sherlock. And I told you not to call me that.”

“I’m just saying, I get it. I’d probably have trouble sleeping too if I had your job.”

“And so you brought her here knowing that, didn’t you? She pushed aside a strand of her silver hair.

“Oh. Well—when you put it like that—”

“Ugh! You don’t think anything through, Petra!”

By that point, Sterling had fetched a damp cloth and had been dabbing briskly at Amber’s wound. When she had finished, she helped ease Amber down to rest on the patio sofa. “Care to step outside for a moment?” He gulped.

Goodbye Amber—you can have my knife when I die, and the eleven scoria left in my pocket. He glanced once more at Amber, and her eyes returned his gaze as he hesitantly followed Sterling outside the door.

“We’re all covering our asses for you, Petra. You can’t just expect us to take on the burden every time you decide to play hero. What if my father woke up and saw you, instead of me? Y’know how bad it would make things?”

“Look, I know! I’m sorry. I appreciate your father—even if he is a nose hair away from turning me in. And I appreciate you. I swear, I don’t deserve you most times.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But what else was I supposed to do?”

He glanced inside at Amber. “Something really crazy happened tonight. I still can’t totally make sense of it—there was this cockatrice, and I thought it was going to kill a child—but it turned out it was after Amber.”

“That’s her name?”

“Yeah—the way she held on to me back there, I had half a mind to start calling her “Clingy.” Sterling punched his arm. “I mean it affectionately!” he cringed under Sterling’s glare. “But seriously—they would’ve killed her, Sterling.”

“Wait, who was ‘they’ again?”

“The cockatri!” Sterling furrowed her brow.

“But cockatri—”

“Don’t attack humans, I know. I’m telling you, these ones were different. Something caused them to be drawn to her like flies, or like—”

“Clusterwings?”

“Yes! Thank you. Like clusterwings going after blood. Maybe something about her scent made them go wild.

He noticed Sterling was staring at him, blankly. “What? You don’t believe me?”

“Oh, I do. I’m just realizing now that you might be more stressed than I am.” Petra leaned his head against the door frame.

“Maybe.”

The two of them stepped back inside moments later to find Amber curled up tightly in a cold sweat.

“Poor sweet kid—” Sterling watched as Petra hurried over to the sofa and gathered Amber’s weak form into his arms. She groaned faintly while being moved, and Petra stroked the soft hairs of her temple to quiet her.

“I’m not cut out for this, Cass,” he whispered. “An Azurite wouldn’t let anyone suffer this long.” Sterling chewed the bottom of her lip.

“Stop.

We’re not going to start talking like that.”

She touched a hand to his shoulder. “We do have some gecko-root pills in the washroom cabinet. It’s a fever reducer. But I don’t want to risk my father waking to me sneaking up and down the stairs. I can try dropping it to you from my window.”

Petra looked up at Sterling with no sense of resistance. A distant nod was his only reply. And with that, Sterling turned to steal away back to her room.

Before opening the door that led to the kitchen, she paused. “You got her here alive through all that mess. I doubt your people would’ve had the guts to do the same."