The Fickle Winds of Autumn
48. A Burial

Kira’s body shuddered and ached as she forced her reluctant eyes to open. Cold, wet rocks surrounded her and seemed determined to poke and prod at every uncomfortable place and angle in her tender frame they could replace - back, ribs and legs - it didn’t seem to matter to them how sore or bruised she was.

Her woozy head didn’t seem to be properly attached to the rest of her fragile body, and a damp, musty smell of mould forced itself into her unwilling nostrils; its old sourness even lingered on her numbed lips.

An all enfolding bleak darkness slowly gave way to a faint purple glow as her eyes accustomed themselves to her surroundings and began to focus. She tried to sit up, but her body refused to obey her; her legs kicked out and must have dislodged several loose stones, which clattered away from her with a dry rippling echo. The bracing sound bounced around the cave and broke through the dull rushing, roaring noise which filled her ears.

“Oh! You’re awake!”

She recognised Ellis’s voice but couldn’t lift her head to see him.

“Good! You’ve been out for quite a while - I was getting worried - I mean we both were - I mean Aldwyn and me.”

The friendly sound of his concern almost coaxed a smile from her sore face, but the throbbing pain across her jaws prevented it.

Clearly, he had survived the ordeal of the poison and the perilous flight into the cave. Her breathing relaxed and came a little easier with the knowledge he was safe.

She rubbed her head to check it was still in its rightful place and, encouraged by her replaceings, tried again to sit up, with more success than previously.

The shifting pebbles rattled and reverberated away from her as she propped herself up and looked around.

Through the dim eerie glow, the low, tight hollow of the cave revealed itself. She was positioned amidst a bed of rubble and debris which sprayed out and covered almost the entire floor. Behind her, a huge mound of boulders had piled up and blocked off what she guessed must have been the entrance under the waterfall, leaving no obvious way out and blocking any clear source of light into the rocky chamber - and yet, across the gloomy, squat interior, her keen eyes were still able to pick out the shadowy outlines of her companions.

“What’s this strange purple stuff?” she asked, her voice bounced back at her in a sharp, shallow echo.

“It appears to be some form of bio-luminescent algae,” Aldwyn informed her. “Perhaps of the genus scintinllen,” he suggested. “The spray from the waterfall must have provided enough moisture for it to thrive in here - there are very few places in the world where Nature will not inhabit and bloom if it is only given the chance.”

It was pleasant to hear Aldwyn’s exacting tones too, above the muffled thunder of the angry water outside. If he had already studied and analysed the natural environment around him, there was clearly nothing wrong with him either.

“So we all made it to the cave, then? Is anyone hurt?” she asked into the eerie purple glow.

“Well, I feel like I’ve been run over by old master Pilton’s heaviest wagon,” said Ellis, “but I’ll survive.”

“Yes, your shoulders were cut from being carried, and you were infected by some sort of poison, but you’ll be fine.” Aldwyn assured him. “And how are you, young Kira?” he continued. “Is your ankle functioning properly?”

“It seems fine - still a little tender. I hardly remember how it happened. I just remember being thrown into the cave through the waterfall - I think I saw you Aldwyn, and then my leg…”

“Yes, it looked quite a nasty one,” said Aldwyn. “It will be sore for a while, but it mended in a satisfactory manner.”

“Oh, thank you. But did you see what happened to my friend, Harath? The one who carried us here to the cave?”

“Well, when I landed in here, I went back to the entrance to see if I could assist you - from what I could see, through the water, one of the other birds rammed into her, just above the waterfall ledge. They both slammed hard into the mountainside - there was an almighty thud and then it felt like the entire cliff-face came crashing down. Probably the rock structure had been weakened by centuries of water erosion. The whole mountain began to rumble and vibrate - I feared we would all be killed - crushed beneath the tumbling rocks - then you landed almost on top of me, I fell backward and seem to have hit my head, and that was the last I remember. So I wasn’t able to see what happened to your friend, but judging from the boulders and rubble that landed in this place, it was very lucky that any of us survived at all.”

Kira rubbed and stretched her cramped limbs back to life; her eyes slowly accustomed themselves to the unusual purple-blue glow; her ears hummed with the whistling roar of the waterfall trapped beyond the rocks outside.

Ellis and Aldwyn were safe enough in the damp, uncomfortable cave - but Harath?

What had become of her brave friend?

A friend who had risked her own safety to save them.

Without the burden of a human to carry, did she manage to get away from the guards?

And how would she survive on her own, away from the aerie?

Her keen eyes scoured the cave interior for any clues as to Harath’s whereabouts or fate.

Across on the other side of the entrance, her curiosity was provoked by some softer, rounded silhouettes, poking out through the sharp angles of the heavy pile of dislodged boulders.

She turned onto her front and crawled towards the unusual mound; the rough stones, strewn across the cave floor, bit into her knees as they shifted and clattered beneath her. She winced and thought about standing up to avoid the crunching, irritating pain, but the stinging memory of her snapped ankle, and the low, stooping height of the grotto’s ceiling, extinguished this option.

Her mind flooded with troubled thoughts of Harath - how brave she had been; her concerns forced her forward, but an overwhelming anxious dread also tried to hold her back.

Kira scrunched closer; the strange shadows of the dim purple glow fragmented and illuminated as she moved. A proud, defiant contour stuck out from under the terrible weight of rock. She clasped her hand to her mouth - a shuddering recognition of the twisted and mangled curves, the sheen, the shapes and colours stabbed at her - it was Harath’s wing - and her brave friend must be crushed and entombed beneath the immovable, unfeeling mass of stone and rubble.

Her distraught mind reeled and stung; it convulsed with vivid horror, and shock, and grief.

She had met the unpleasant face of Death before - but her heart had not shattered at the demise of her schoolmates - she knew that her days would not be empty without them - she would not miss their selfish and uncaring thoughtlessness.

But Harath - a brave protective friend who had risked her own life to save the humans she hardly knew - who had spoken to her so wisely and with such warmth in her lonely prison - how could she bear such a burden of unhappiness? How could her loss be measured or understood?

She reached out a gentle hand and stroked the plumage of her friend; her feathers at once soft and strong; so proud, and now so sorrowful.

Perhaps she had still hoped to replace a living pulse beating through them?

Her dissonant mind still clutched at solace and comfort - the precious memories of her vibrant friend - but it sunk and dismayed and knew that Harath could not possibly have survived under such a catastrophe of fractious rock.

Several smaller feathers had been ripped out by the crushing landslide, and lay twisted and useless on the damp cave floor.

Kira picked one up and fondled it across her mourning cheek; she pressed it to her lips, then slipped it silently inside the breast of her tunic - the courage of her dear friend would stay close to her forever.

Outside, only the lonely roar of the waterfall broke the silence of her sorrow.

She did not know what to do or how to proceed; her legs no longer noticed the pain of kneeling. It didn’t seem right just to leave Harath lying there like that - unattended, unloved, her wing protruding at a cruel, unfeeling angle.

She gently folded and patted her dear friend’s limb back into a more natural and comfortable resting position. She picked up some of the smaller, more manageable rocks, and tenderly mounded them up, covering her departed friend with a makeshift cairn.

“I’m very sorry for your friend,” said Ellis.

The closeness of his voice shocked her back to the dim, sorrowful cave.

“From what Aldwyn has told me, she gave her life to save us. I’m sure she didn’t deserve to die like this.”

“No. She didn’t.” Kira replied softly. “But at least she didn’t die alone and afraid on the mountainside. The others in her nest were going to abandon her and leave her to starve; but, instead of following their customs and traditions, she chose to sacrifice her own life to help her friends - as a true queen should. Of course, you didn’t know her properly - you were still drugged - but in many ways she was the most human of anyone I’ve met since I left the convent - she was probably a good deal more human than some of those inside the convent walls too! Perhaps she would have been happy and proud to be described like that. That’s how I shall remember her, anyway.”

Kira picked up another stone and placed it carefully on the mound. Ellis lifted a nearby rock and moved towards the cairn.

“No - please let me do it,” said Kira quietly. “I mean, it’s just something I feel I need to do alone - it’s something I owe her - to try and pay back the debt of her care to us.”

“Of course,” said Ellis. He put the rock back down and moved away a respectful distance.

The barren rocks seemed so heartless and cold as they covered the soft lustre of Harath’s feathers - but what else could she do?

Should she say something?

A prayer she had learnt in the convent, perhaps?

But that didn’t seem to do - and she couldn’t really think of any just at that moment.

She knelt in the damp, solemn stillness of the cave; her thoughts wandered and lost themselves in the strange, eerie glow and the closeness of its reflecting echoes.

From his seated position, propped up against the back wall, Aldwyn eventually broke the silence.

“Well, I too am very sorry about your friend - especially one who had helped us so kindly. But perhaps now is the time to remind you both that our own fate is still far from certain and we may simply have exchanged one danger for another.”

Kira shuffled around to look at him through the bereaved darkness.

“We must hope that there is another way out of this cave,” he continued, “or your friend’s sacrifice may have been in vain - and we might even suffer the same fate as her - to be trapped and entombed here, without food or hope, forever.”