In the Claws of the Beasts

The girl screamed and kicked, hot tears of terror streaming down her face. She craned her neck as she tried fruitlessly to wriggle free of the grasp of whatever creature was carrying her up off the ground, higher now than she’d ever been. Her stomach fell when she realized trying to escape was a fool’s mission—freedom from the creature’s grasp would only send her plummeting to the ground, and at this height, there was no chance of coming out with only a few scratches and bruises.

“Ianthe!”

Ianthe’s head snapped up at the sound of Fairuza’s voice. The larger girl was a mere twenty feet away from Ianthe, clutched in the enormous gray claws of a creature Ianthe could scarcely believe she was looking at. Her mouth dropped open as her eyes scanned the hulking creature soaring through the sky with Fairuza in its claws.

“Krakens below,” the girl breathed, her heart nearly drawing to a stop. “Gargoyles?”

She looked up , craning her neck around so torturously she thought her head might pop off. But there, hauling her higher into the black sky, was a creature made of stone and shadow, a monster straight from the bedside stories of nannies and folk witches. The creature was more fearsome than anything Ianthe could have imagined, and so much larger. One bite from that enormous beak could nip her head from her shoulders. One scratch from those dreadful claws could rip the meat from her bones.

And now she was caught, and the dreadful creature was taking her who-knows-where.

Ianthe began to scream again.

“Don’t panic!” Fairuza called. A second gargoyle had her clutched around the waist, her legs tangling free. The larger girl reached her arm out to her friend, though they were nowhere close enough to touch. “Ianthe, listen to me! You don’t want to scare it or piss it off! Just hold on, Ianthe. Just hold on until we land.”

“They’re going to eat us!” Ianthe screamed, real terror making her shake and cry, snot draining down her face as the wind whipped at her hair and stung her eyes. “They’ll claw us into tiny pieces and devour us while we live, Fairuza! You know the stories! Oh, blast! I don’t want to die, Fairuza, I don’t want to—“

“They’re not going to eat you!”

The voice came from somewhere just behind Ianthe. She tried to squirm around to see, but she couldn’t quite. Still, it was obvious the person speaking was Kimmerick being kidnapped by a third gargoyle. 

“How do you know?” Ianthe called back, her voice thick with sobs. “Are you a gargoyle expert as well as a brigand?”

“Not at all!” the boy called back, “but I am an optimist! Just hold still, and this whole thing will be over before you know it!”

Hold still, indeed! Ianthe pressed her body tightly against the creature’s stone foot, holding on for dear life wherever she could find purchase. It was a terrible sensation to clutch so dearly to something dangerous that likely wanted to eat you. But what choice did she have? Between being eaten by a gargoyle and being splattered upon the earth by gravity, at least the gargoyle might be bargained with. Gravity, on the other hand, brooked no argument. If she fell from this height, her body would be dashed upon the ground, her extremities and head rent from her torso. Her blood would soak into the earth and small animals would pick at her flesh until she was nothing but sun-bleached bones.

Ianthe clutched the gargoyle tighter.

The creatures hurtled through the sky at breakneck speed. Ianthe squeezed her eyes shut, biting down on her lip as she prayed to whatever gods that might listen to spare her life. The gargoyles howled and screeched as they tore through the sky, dipping and circling and twisting through the clouds, performing admittedly miraculous feats of aerial dynamics. It might've been a terrific sight if she were not a deeply involuntary participant.

Ianthe’s frenzied prayers were interrupted by a sudden and thunderous ear-splitting KABOOM! The sound seemed to come from nowhere, but then an explosion of wind blasted against the gargoyle, knocking the creature off course. The monster screamed as it redirected itself, searching for the source of the blast. The creature clenched its terrible claws, squeezing Ianthe so hard she thought her eyes might burst from her skull. She tried to scream, but there was no air in her lungs. She felt faint, the world before her swimming as clouds of gray and black began to blur her vision.

KABOOM! A second shock blasted the monster, this time catching him squarely in the belly and knocking the creature so badly off balance that it cartwheeled in the air, falling in a dead dive. Ianthe, struggling to maintain consciousness, could not scream as her stomach dropped. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to faint. She wanted to die. She wanted to live.

KABOOM! The third blast must have missed, as Ianthe did not feel the gale of wind this time. But then she heard Fairuza’s terrified screams, and the girl peeled her eyes open to see that the other two gargoyles were being similarly attacked. The blasts were coming faster now, more orchestrated. Well, if they were going to die, at least they would all die together. The breath gone from Ianthe’s lungs, the girl began to fade…

And then the creature’s grip released.

Ianthe’s lungs filled with air.

And then the girl screamed once more as she began to fall.

The air was once again ripped from her lungs as the girl plummeted toward the ground. She felt the pull of the ground in her chest, in her belly, in the marrow of her bones.  Falling was nothing like flying. Flying was terrible and fast, the wind whipping at her hair and clothing. Flying was a great defiance, a thumb in gravity’s eye. 

But falling was yielding. Falling was a final admission that gravity could only be negotiated with for so long. In the end, gravity wins.

Ianthe closed her eyes and prayed for a swift death.

She fell through the sky for an eternity, falling through clouds, her skin growing wetter and wetter. The moisture from the air stuck to her hair, her skin, her lashes. Her face was dripping. It was impossible to tell if she was crying. She might have been. Ianthe could cry when no one was around. And certainly she could cry when she was moments away from death.

Any second now. Any moment—

The world went silent. No rush of wind passed her ears. The drumbeat of her hummingbird heart thundered in her ears. She heard her own breath coming quick and shallow.

And then she realized she wasn’t falling.

Not falling? Was she dead? Had she hit the ground already? Well, that wasn’t so bad. At least it hadn’t hurt.

But on second thought, no. She wasn’t dead. And she wasn’t falling.

She was floating.

Ianthe gasped as her senses slowly returned, and she realized what had happened. Ianthe was floating in a giant, clear bubble that was drifting toward a sky island floating just in the distance. The girl scrabbled to her knees—the bubble wasn’t quite large enough to stand, and Ianthe wasn’t sure her knees were up to the job of holding her full weight anyway, not after all she’d been through. She pressed her hands against the bubble. It gave just a little. She didn’t press too hard, lest the barrier break and she returned to tumbling. Flying was bad. Falling was worse. But floating was all right.

She still couldn’t hear anything. Perhaps the bubble was soundproof. Yes, perhaps. That made sense. If she were inside a magical floating bubble, it made sense that the thing would be soundproof.

Ianthe’s mouth worked as she marveled over her own logic. She was inside a floating bubble! Nothing about that made sense!

While shock, relief, and utter disbelief vied for primacy in her brain, Ianthe stared out the bubble to finally see what was happening. The gargoyles were retreating—she could only make out their large, gray backs and their silhouettes of their terrible tails. She breathed a sigh of relief and wiped at her face. It was still wet—with moisture, naturally. There was no reason to cry , after all. She was safe.

Safe inside a magical bubble.

As she watched the gargoyles retreat, she saw now two identical bubbles to her own. Fairuza and Kimmerick were floating in sync with her. Their figures were blurry—she couldn’t make out much. But she cried out a sob of relief when she realized the other two were saved. She didn’t care so much about Kimmerick, but she would have been quite put out had anything happened to Fairuza.

She might not admit that later. But for now, having narrowly escaped the jaws of death, she could quietly admit that to herself.

She turned around to face the floating island, which was near enough now that Ianthe could see a cluster of people standing at the edge. Some of them were pointing up at her. Others shielded their eyes with their hands as they looked up. And still others held large mechanic instruments aimed directly at them. Ianthe had never seen such devices and couldn’t image what they might be for.

The bubble gently floated toward the island, the speed increasing the closer she got to the crowd. She realized now that floating was no longer an apt description. Floating implied she was at the mercy of the air, gently bobbing along at the whim of the currents. But she was moving with purpose. Gliding was perhaps a better word.

After a few short moments, the bubble landed on the ground, and a moment later, popped. Ianthe, shocked out of her wits and not knowing at all how to feel, whirled on her heel to seek her two companions. Both Fairuza and Kimmerick had landed safely, their bubbles gone. Both stood with the same dumbfounded expression that Ianthe was sure was on her own face.

The two girls rushed toward each other, grasping each other in a tight embrace. Ianthe quaked against her friend’s strong body, allowing herself to sob uncontrollably and, perhaps more uncharacteristically, to be consoled. Fairuza stroked the girl’s hair, pressing her cheek against her warm scalp. She smelled of sweat and dandelions.

“Thank the sea you’re okay,” Fairuza said, wrapping big arms around her shaking leaf of a friend. “I wouldn’t want to face the questions from your mom if I’d come home without you!”

“Oh, you wouldn’t,” Ianthe said, sniveling. “There isn’t a chance that you’d live through anything that killed me. You’d die trying to save me. I already know it; no use denying it.”

Fairuza pulled away just far enough to examine her friend’s face. The girl was crying, her cheeks tear-stained, eyes red and swollen, but there was a softness in the planes of her face that suggested the beginnings of a smile underneath the afternoon’s trauma. Winking, Fairuza pressed her index finger against the girl’s chin. The smile came out of hiding, breaking across the full width of her face.

Someone coughed behind them.

The girls turned to see Kimmerick scrubbing his face with his flesh hand, the mechanical arm hanging limply by his side. He wasn’t crying, but he was pale and clearly shaken. He offered the two girls the bravest smile he could muster and said, “Not the method of travel I’d have chosen, but I suppose it was effective.”

Ianthe snorted, standing tall and brushing out the creases in her clothing. “After everything we’ve been through today, I hope I never take to the air ever again! I’m off flying forever, thank you very much.”

Around the same time that the disheveled trio began to get the bearings, one woman holding a golden mechanical instrument lowered her device and stepped forward. She wore large purple goggles and a jaunty leather cap over a halo of frizzy brown curls. Gray pantaloons were tucked into tall black leather boots. She wore a frilly white blouse with large ruffled cuffs under a deep purple waistcoat with round brass buttons.

“You took quite a tumble,” she began. Her voice was the sort that commanded attention: deep and resonant. “Are you three all right?”

Fairuza patted herself down, more for show than anything. Nothing hurt too much—the beast had squeezed her too tightly and clawed her legs up pretty decently, but the adrenaline of being saved was doing its job, numbing her to everything that wasn’t life-threatening. All things considered, Fairuza felt great.

“Nothing broken,” she said, offering a smile. “A little banged up, but nothing some R&R can’t fix. Ianthe?” 

The smaller girl shrugged, rubbing her neck and shoulders. “I’m okay, I think. Physically, anyway.”

Both girls turned to Kimmerick. The lad gestured to his mechanical arm with a concerned frown. “Arm’s dislocated, I think. Ain’t working at least. It don’t hurt or nothing, but it’s useless as it is.”

The woman approached Kimmerick and leaned in for a closer look, arms folded across her chest, fingers tapping thoughtfully. After a few moments, she adjusted her goggles, spinning one of its many dials as she peered at the contraption. “Wow, this is nice work! Who’s your armorer?”

“Ain’t got none,” Kimmerick said proudly. “Do have a mechanic, though. Her name’s Windy.”

The woman clucked her tongue, cocking a brow. “You’re not a soldier?”

Kimmerick gasped, clearly affronted as he took a step back. “A soldier?! Never would, and curse your tongue! I’m a brigand!”

“A brigand with a high-quality mechanical arm?” She made an impressed face, seemingly unperturbed by the notion of a brigand in her midst. “Interesting.” The woman said nothing more, refocusing her attention on the arm. After a while, she gave a curt nod and pulled herself to full height. “Well, looks like some of your connections came loose. We’ve got a decent armorer in camp that can fix that up for you, don’t worry. It’s a good thing we found you. Aside from the obvious reasons, I mean. If you’d been rescued downstairs, you’d be stuck with that bum arm a while yet.”

Kimmerick lifted an eyebrow. “Downstairs?”

The woman cocked her head toward the horizon. “Just what we call the ground. Only when we’re up here, though. Insider jargon, you know.”

Turning slightly, the girl thumbed over her shoulder, past the edge of the sky island. “Um…did you lot save us? How?”

The woman handed her device to a companion who set it onto a rack of similar devices. The woman propped her hands on her hips as she looked skyward. “Oh, that was easy, really. We’ve been hunting gargoyles all morning. Well, hunting isn’t the right word. Is it? Have we been hunting gargoyles?”

She aimed this question at another companion, a squat man with a hairy chin and oversized goggles that peered up. He heaved a heavy shoulder without taking his eyes off the sky. “Sniping them, more like. We ain’t goin’ after ‘em, but if they come around here, we give ‘em a good blast.”

“Right,” the woman said, bobbing her head in agreement. “We’ve been sniping them. So when we saw them heading our way, we just, to quote my comrade, gave them a good blast. They were a little more ornery than usual, but eventually they got the memo to take a hike. But then—they dropped you, I guess. It took a few seconds to switch our cannons from blast to bubble, but not as long as it could have taken if we’d been downstairs. You don’t take an assignment on the islands without putting bubble on a default position on your cannon, right?”

“But what’re you doing up here?” Kimmerick asked, running his good hand over his hair. Like Ianthe, his hair was coming free of his braid, giving him a wild look. “Who are you?”