Chapter 29

Fowler sat on a bed, but it wasn’t his bed. He sat in a room, but it wasn’t his room. He was in Ledun, his heart and mind clamoring at him still with thoughts of fleeing. He’d arrived two days ago. It had been, without a doubt, one of the hardest things he’d ever done. It had taken every ounce of his courage and will power not to drop the feathers off the side of that bridge. In the end, it had been Garreth to change his mind.

He could still remember everything about that moment as if it were frozen in his mind forever. He remembered his fear and the bleak sense that his mission was, in the end, futile. He remembered the way the feathers felt in his hand and how soft they’d been. He remembered almost opening it so he could watch them drift down to the ground to lay there until someone else, someone more worthy, would take them up.

In the end, however, it was Garreth that saved him…again. He’d almost let the feathers go but he saw the man’s corpse out of the corner of his eye, despite trying so hard not to. Suddenly it wasn’t just Garreth lying on the bridge anymore but his father. Then his father changed to Asher. Asher changed to Rianya (a girl he would never admit to anyone that he was madly in love with). The parade of all his loved ones continued to flit past his eyes and he knew that if he didn’t do something to help, the visions would come true. They would all die and he would be a part of it.

Before he could change his mind, he clenched his hand around the feathers. He felt their presence. He felt their strength.

He’d taken a deep, steadying breath, turned, and then ran. He ran for as long and hard as he was able. Every now and then, he could see shadows moving through the forest beneath him. Bright fire from Rook weapons would try and bring him down, but somehow he managed to keep going. It was one of the most harrowing, dangerous experiences of his life and now all he wanted to do was be somewhere safe.

The sounds of explosions tore through his thoughts, shredding them like paper.

He rushed to a window and looked out. He wished he hadn’t. Rooks were swarming across the forest floor. Bright red light could be seen everywhere. More explosions went off with such force that he could feel the tree house he was currently hiding in shake. Terraqouis warriors were charging across the battlefield with their weapons held high and roars coming from their throats.

It was an intense and vicious battle. Rooks were dying left and right. They attacked with reckless abandon, doing anything and everything they could to try and kill whatever Terras they could. They didn’t seem to care about themselves. All they cared about was destroying anyone and anything in their path.

The Rooks showed up shortly after Fowler arrived. At first, they weren’t doing much but sitting there and biding their time. They seemed to take a sick pleasure in creating fear among the Terras.

Now the waiting was over. They were attacking in full and Fowler was sure there was nothing anyone could do about it.

His hand went to the Roc feathers. They were back in his pocket now. They had become a strange sort of reassurance for him.

He got up and went to the door. Shoving the last bit of reluctance away, he opened it and rushed out to meet his fate.

Fire from the Rooks’ weapons were scorching across his field of vision. Looking around, he spotted Opus. He was a wizened old man that was Ledun’s appointed Warlord while Chibbi was fighting at the war near Roanoke. He gripped a sword in one hand, a shield in the other, and was perched on a tree branch like a raven, which was appropriate since that was the shape he took when he transformed.

Opus jumped off the branch, somersaulted in mid-air, and landed in a crouch. He cut down the five Rooks that swarmed him before they could do much more than twitch their trigger fingers. He wiped the blood off his sword and then, with a shout, charged ahead. Others joined and followed him. When they got into an open space, they fanned out. It was mesmerizing, watching them fight. They seemed so synchronized in their movements. Each one looked like an extension of the others.

“Shields!” he heard Opus shout.

The Terras all held up their shields as the Rooks rained fire down on them. The shields held, somewhat. The lesser quality ones burst into flames.

Fowler ran to a ladder and climbed down it as fast as he could. He landed on the ground a couple minutes later. He could feel his panic eating away at him. His entire body felt like mush and he was surprised that he could still walk. His legs felt so wobbly.

But he pushed all of that away.

He was tired of being a coward. He was tired of always running.

He picked up the first weapon he saw. It was a Rook blaster. He was surprised at how heavy the thing was. It didn’t look like it weighed that much. Before he could so much as turn and run, however, the thing burst apart. He watched the little microscopic machines returning to what Rone had called mechpaks.

Fowler let out a frustrated growl. He was out in the open and he had no weapon.

There’s no time!

He had to get to Opus. Rone had said the feathers had power. He said that they could summon an army if needed. Looking around Ledun and seeing the amount of Rooks coming, he was pretty sure an army was exactly what they needed.

Without thinking about what he was doing, Fowler ran. He dodged enemy fire and ran around other Terras. He tripped once and fell painfully on the ground, but he picked himself up and ran again.

An explosion went off a couple of feet next to him and the force of it sent him flying into the trunk of a tree. He groaned in pain. His side felt like it was on fire and he hissed through his teeth as he put a hand to it. He held the hand up to his face and was shocked to see blood on it. He pulled up his shirt as tenderly as he could. There were six bloody gashes in his side. One was a good five inches wide and was gushing blood. Cold terror seeped into his mind but he was surprised at how easily he ignored it.

With a strength he never knew he had, he managed to get on his feet again. He staggered forward, his feet shuffling along the ground as he stared at Opus still leading Ledun in the battle for their lives.

“Time to show them what you’re made of, Fowler,” he said out loud. “No more hiding under your bed. No more running.” He coughed roughly, a spray of blood coming out. He could taste it on his mouth and fought the urge to hurl. “No time for that.”

He kept talking to himself as he struggled to get to Opus. It was hard. Even harder than running from the Rooks to get to Ledun. The talking helped. That was just his nature. He was a talker.

“Almost there,” he said. “Almost.”

“Boy!” a voice yelled at him.

It felt so far away.

He looked up with tired eyes. His hand was clenched tightly to his side but even so, he could feel his life’s blood spilling out between his fingers. He knew he didn’t have much time.

“Get outta here, boy!” the voice yelled again. This time Fowler looked up. It was Opus.

I made it!

The joy he felt was soon eclipsed by a sudden wave of dizziness. He teetered for a minute, thinking he was going to fall again, but he kept his feet.

A rough hand gripped his shoulder.

“Are you insane?” Opus asked. He ducked as a trace of killing fire lanced over his head. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“No time,” Fowler whispered. “No time for dying.”

“What?” Opus asked confused.

Fowler looked around, trying to get a sense of where he was exactly. A line of warriors were blocking off his view of the Rooks. Other than that, he couldn’t really tell. Nothing seemed to make sense to him anymore and his held felt fuzzy.

“What are you doing here?” Opus asked.

Fowler blinked. He wasn’t sure anymore.

Opus looked at him. He saw the blood coming out of Fowler’s side.

“You’re injured,” he said. “You need a healer. Come with me.”

Opus tried to get Fowler moving but the boy wouldn’t budge.

“No time,” he whispered again. “No time for that.”

He had to do something, but his head was foggy. He couldn’t focus.

He had a mission that much he was sure of.

The feathers! he remembered suddenly. That was his mission.

He blinked rapidly, wondering exactly where he needed to be when he threw them in the air. He remembered Rone saying his people had to be behind him. They couldn't be in front.

There was only one way to make sure of that.

He had to run into the middle of the battlefield.

Fowler ripped his arm out of Opus’s grip and stumbled forward. He broke through the line of Terras before they could stop him. The only thing he heard was the appointed Warlord yelling after him. He was already several yards ahead of the warriors before they grasped what was going on.

Fowler ignored all the yells. He ignored his pain and fatigue. He ignored everything and focused on a point directly between the opposing armies. He knew his time was running out. With each passing second, he was getting weaker.

He broke into a ragged jog, his breathing heavy and rough. Finally, he got to the spot he’d picked out and stopped. The Terras were on one side and the Rooks were on the other. He could see the enemy now. They were bringing their weapons out. They were pointing them at him. He could see the ends glowing with sinister red light.

He stuck his bloodied hand into his pocket. He gripped the feathers with a smile on his face. Then, as the red killing fire was streaking toward him, he threw his hand up into the air and let go. Pain, bright and hot, entered his body. It completely eclipsed the pain in his side. He looked down at himself and saw his body riddled with holes. He saw tendrils of smoke drifting off of them. The strength went out of his legs and he fell onto his back. Distantly, he heard shouts and screams of rage.

But those things ceased to matter. Fowler, son of Hert and Sephone, could only stare at the glittering, opalescent feathers as they drifted through the sky. He watched as they started to sparkle, their light growing brighter and brighter. There was a big, ripple-like flash of white light that faded slowly.

Throw them into the air and an army will come, Rone had said.

After the big flash of light, nothing seemed to happen. Men and women on both sides of the battle stopped and stared, looking at the empty space where the feathers had been seconds before with wide eyes. Then, all of sudden there was a roaring noise of sound. A raucous chorus of bird chirps, tweets, and screeches. They came from everywhere at once, filling up the world. Everyone there covered their ears, but Fowler didn’t. That kind of thing no longer mattered to him.

Instead, he just watched.

He watched as millions of birds burst through the canopy of the forest and flew onto the battlefield. Big birds of prey. Little birds. Brightly colored parrots. Delicate seeming sparrows. Wizened looking owls. A constant stream of them.

It was, he reflected, one of the most beautiful sights he’d ever witnessed in his short life.

Fowler smiled one last time. Then the world was leaching away. Everything turned grey. His eyes rolled up into his head and his face went slack.

Opus watched in amazement as the army of birds the boy called forth attacked the Rook soldiers. Despite their science, despite their machines and technology, the birds were too much for them. For every one bird a soldier managed to kill, thousands of others would converge and attack. The Rooks didn't stand a chance.

Not one bird strayed from that fight. Not one bird so much as came close to a Terra. They attacked only the Rooks.

Opus wasn’t quite sure, but he was almost positive that when it was all said and done, not one Rook was left alive. They weren’t given a chance to surrender and were all slashed, pecked, or clawed to death.

The bloody, torn corpses of Rooks littered the ground, but Opus didn’t care about that. The only thing he cared about was the boy. The courageous boy that had saved them all.

He went to him. His small form looked ludicrous lying there in the middle of a battlefield. It looked like it didn’t belong.

When he got closer to it, he knelt down and tried to pick him up. Instantly, as soon as his fingers so much as brushed against the boy’s skin, the army of birds reacted. They whirled on him, flying circles around him in perfect synchronicity that taken as a whole looked a lot like a tornado.

“Peace,” he yelled, barely able to hear himself in the roar of sound the birds were making. “I only wish to honor this young warrior. To pay tribute! He has saved not only my life, but the lives of all my people. Let me do this! Let me honor him!”

The tornado of living birds writhed and surged with renewed vigor and for a moment the Warlord thought they would attack him for daring to touch the boy. Instead, they broke apart and flew to different parts of the forest.

Ledun grew eerily quiet.

Opus watched them leave, feeling grateful but at the same time sad. A tear escaped one of his large eyes and fell on the boy’s face. He picked him up and carried him back to the heart of Ledun.

One by one, every Terra that Opus passed knelt down on one knee, their heads bowed and their right fist covering their heart.