Chapter 223: If You Fall

The old man with the beard was still sitting at the edge when they left.

He had not moved while they slept. His eyes were on the dark below. He did not look round when Vina waved at him, or when the units went past behind his back.

The young woman with her arms round her knees kept her eyes on the dark too.

Vina walked in front of Rishin, down the ledge. She held his hand behind her without looking back at him. She had learned already how fast she had to go.

"You are not leaning," she said.

"No."

"Tell me if you start."

"I will, little one."

The ledge narrowed below the village.

It went from three abreast to two, and then to a single file, with the wall of the pit on one side and the dark on the other. The units went along it one by one.

Terry had to turn sideways and shuffle, pressed to the rock.

Billy rolled at the front and called out every crack in the stone.

"Loose bit. Step wide. Boss, there is a bird’s nest here. A big one."

"Leave it."

"I am leaving it. It is very ugly. There are bones in it."

Logan looked up.

The rock rose above them into the dark. It was pocked all over with holes, some no bigger than a man’s head and some as big as a cart. Some of the holes had dark shapes in their mouths.

As he watched, one of the shapes moved.

"Birds," said Alice. She had her bow off her back already. "Above us. In the holes."

"Nyriel," said Logan.

[ Gloomhook Swift ] [ Level: 47 ] [ Rank: Epic ]

[ Attack: 2,300 ] [ Speed: 4,200 ] [ Constitution: 1,300 ] [ Arcane: 200 ]

There were dozens of points in the holes. They were stirring.

"Isolde," said Garen.

"Not on a ledge this narrow." Isolde had her chakram up. "The dome will push someone off."

The first one dropped out of its hole.

It came down the wall like a thrown knife.

It was black and long-winged and as big as a man, with a hooked beak and hooked claws on its wings. It did not go for the units. It went for the people between them, the ones standing on the edge with nothing to hold.

It went for Edda.

Bram’s shield came up in front of his daughter. The bird hit it with a crack and spun off into the dark. Bram rocked on his heels at the drop, and Edda caught his belt.

"Papa."

"Watch your feet," said Bram. His eyes stayed on the holes above. He had his shield up again.

Alice shot the second one through the neck as it dropped. It folded and fell past the ledge without a sound.

[ Gloomhook Swift slain. ] [ Alice Rezvolt: +300 Tower Points ]

Then they all came down at once.

Logan fought from where he stood.

He could not go forward. Terry was in front of him, and the promise held his feet behind Terry’s as firmly as any rope.

So he stood against the wall with his blade up, and he cut whatever came down onto the ledge near him.

The swifts came down out of the dark in long dives, one after another. They hit and wheeled away and came back. They were not trying to kill. They were trying to knock people off.

Garen shot one, and another. Isolde’s chakram went out along the ledge and came back to her hand wet. Halden swung his halberd in the open air beside the ledge and took two at once.

[ Gloomhook Swift slain. ] [ Isolde Rezvolt: +300 Tower Points ]

Behind Logan, Link stood with the iron staff in both hands. He swung the red flame at every bird that came near Vina, and the birds shied from it.

One came in under the flame.

It hit Link low, in the legs.

Link staggered. His foot went off the edge. He caught himself on the iron staff, jammed against the wall. He hung there half off the ledge, and his hand came off Rishin’s belt.

The old man was already moving. He had stepped in front of Vina with Stay drawn when the bird came. Now another one came down behind the first, straight at him.

Stay came up. It took the bird across the chest.

The bird’s weight carried on. It struck the old man full in the body and went over the edge with him.

Rishin did not let go of Vina’s hand.

Logan saw it happen.

He saw the old man go out over the dark with the bird tumbling away from him. He saw his arm stretched back toward the ledge and the small hand locked in his.

He saw Vina’s feet go.

She did not jump. She did not stumble. Her feet walked her to the drop after him, one step and then two, as if somebody had told her to. Her face was white. Her eyes were open.

"If you fall down," she said, "I fall down with you."

Then she was gone over the edge too.

Logan threw himself toward the drop.

His feet would not take him past Terry. He went down on his knees on the ledge behind the big unit with his arm stretched out into the empty air, and his hand closed on nothing.

"Solveig!" he shouted. "Solveig, go!"

The units first. Always the units first.

Beside him, Alice had her bow drawn on the birds still wheeling above the ledge. She loosed and loosed again, keeping them off the falling three, and she did not look down.

Solveig was already falling.

He went off the ledge head first, with his wings folded tight against his back. He dropped through the dark faster than the old man and the girl were falling, and then his wings opened.

They opened wide, white and blazing. The light of them filled the pit.

He caught them both.

Logan saw it from the ledge. He saw Solveig’s arms close round both of them together, the way he had seen them close round Vina on the lawn at home.

The wings beat once, hard. The three of them stopped falling.

Solveig hung there in the dark below the ledge, with the light of his wings pouring out round him. The old man was in one arm, and the girl in the other, and their hands were still locked together between them.

Around the ledge, the birds that were left had stopped diving. They wheeled away from the light and went back into their holes. On the ledge, Isolde lowered her chakram and pressed her other hand flat against the rock.

Rishin was not looking at Solveig. He was not looking at the girl.

He was looking down.

He hung in Solveig’s arm with his face turned to the dark below, where the pit went on and on without a bottom, and his body leaned toward it as if it wanted to go.

Logan heard him say it. The pit carried it up to the ledge, low and clear.

"Not yet."

Then he turned his head, and he looked at Vina.

She was crying. She was holding his hand so hard that her knuckles were white.

"You said Solveig picks up the pair of us," she said. "You said it. Above the Silver."

The old man closed his eyes.

"I did," he said. "I did say it."