Wings Over Talera

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

RUENN BEGINS HIS STORY

I sat by a small fire, in a clearing within the pine-forested hills of northern Arkansas, waiting for something to happen while I scratched my name idly in the dirt with a stick—Ruenn Maclang. About me, night’s face was dark and cold and lovely. Above me, the stars seemed as clear and brittle as icicle teeth. Looking up at those stars, I could see the familiar constellations of my youth, the big and little dipper, and to the north the pole star.

Seeing those brilliant and familiar points reminded me of my father, Kendall, who had taught me the constellations, and of late evenings in the California vineyards of my mother’s family where the first star was a joy. But that was youth. There are other heavens that are important to me now. They hold no stars. I waited in this clearing tonight, not to watch the skies of Earth but to be drawn back to a new land under those other skies, the skies of a world called Talera.

I had arrived on Earth sixty days before this night. I had taken care of a need that had to be met. Now I would return the same way I had come. For there was a gate in this clearing. It could not be seen in the blanket of fallen leaves or the thin topsoil. It could not be heard in the late autumn stillness of a chilled night. It could not even be opened from where I sat. But it could be opened—it would be opened—on Talera. And when it was, I would be drawn through it to the place where—with my parents and sisters dead—I called home.

I closed my eyes to better picture that home. There was one image, one face that I most wanted to see. But it did not come at first. Instead, I saw the bright flash of steel and heard the sharp twang of releasing arrows. There had been a battle fought two months before this night, on the very day that I had left Talera for Earth. These scenes had been a part of it.

With my friends—Heril Rolvfshern, Valyan Tiersal, and others—I had been flying slowly north within the borders of the island kingdom of Nyshphal, the home of Rannon Jystral, the woman I loved. Above our open airship rode the winter sun of Talera, and to the north lay the gate that would take me to Earth. And then there had been smoke on the horizon.

That smoke rose from a burning village called Rakii, which lies on the Sahtern River in a wild land where sheep* are the only livelihood of a poor people. I had ordered our airship down to investigate, and we surprised dark raiders at their work. They were mounted upon hyr-qualls, saddle lizards that somewhat resemble an iguana of monstrous size, and they were dressed as outlaws. This they were not. Their steel was too good, their armor too well matched. I did not know what they were, though I was to eventually find out.

[*I used the term “sheep” for the animals that I saw in Rakii because they were clearly descended from Earth ancestors brought to Talera by the Asadhie race that created this artificial world. Many other Earth species can be found on Talera as well: horses, hawks, cattle of various kinds, deer, pigs, and elephants. Among Earth plants transported to Talera are oak and apple trees, rice, wheat, grapes, and onions.—Ruenn Maclang.]

Despite their formidable appearance, however, the raiders had not been prepared for much resistance to their attack. And they had received little where the villagers were concerned. This changed abruptly when our ship flew down low over their heads and two dozen trained warriors dropped in on them from the sky.

Our pilot brought the ship to man-height and I was first over the side rail, landing lightly on my feet with a n***d sword drawn in one fist and a crossbow locked and loaded in the other. The raiders gaped, smoke and heat rippling in the air above them, and I bow-shot the first one who recovered himself, the quarrel catching him high in the throat and blowing him back over his saddle.

Sheep milled in the dirt street. People ran. Our enemies lowered their lances and came against us. I heard the screams of the villagers for a moment, then nothing to distract me as my mind centered on the task at hand.

There were men around me now. My men from the ship. Other crossbows released. Other enemy saddles were emptied. A red-bearded raider shouted at his fellows to kill us, and by that I knew him for a leader. I charged him even as he moved toward me, his mount snarling and showing its teeth. A hyr-quall is trained to attack anything that is not on its back. To distract this one, I hurled the unloaded crossbow into its face. It shied, and I ducked beneath the lance tip of its master and sliced upward with my blade, nearly severing the man’s arm above the elbow.

Blood sprayed. A new scream cut through the old ones. The fellow reeled in his saddle and I got hold of his boot with my hands and hurled him from his seat. The hyr-quall struck at me over its shoulder and I hammered its face with the pommel of my blade to make it behave. Then I mounted. I had ridden a hyr-quall before. Once. I hoped that I remembered what I had learned.

Heril was near me. I saw him axe down a second raider who he had thrown from the saddle. Valyan had taken yet a third hyr-quall for his own and I signaled him to join me. Heril mounted too, and the three of us moved up the street toward the far end of the town where half a dozen of the enemy had begun setting fire to the huts. They seemed more intent on doing damage than on acquiring loot for themselves. This, too, told me that we were dealing with no common marauders.

There were extra lances beneath my right knee and I drew one out and weighed it in my hand. I knew little of mounted spear work—swords were my strength—but I knew enough not to let better lancers close with me. Our foes dropped their torches as we approached and couched their own lances. Our two groups charged at the same time.

The hyr-quall does not run as smoothly as a horse or a tasaber. They are more like drums, and now their feet were pounding and pounding. And the dust was rising around us. I saw the glittering heads of spears, heard the rattle of armor and the creak of leather.

At ten paces from our enemies, I stood in my stirrups and hurled my lance into a dark-clad marauder. The wedge-shaped head of the weapon shattered through the man’s face-plate and exploded into splinters. He went backward, hauling convulsively on the reins, and the lizard that he was riding reared up on its hind legs and fell over into its fellows.

Chaos followed. One hyr-quall snapped its teeth into the neck of another. Heril went past the pile-up on the left, his Koro axe shearing through enemy bone and mail. Valyan’s mount smashed head on into the imbroglio, but the Nakscherii warrior had already loosed his feet from the stirrups and he somersaulted over the heap to safety. He left his lance buried in an enemy throat.

We closed on the survivors, our steel hacking. More of my men joined the s*******r, and in a few red moments the battle was over, though it would be long and long before the village would recover completely from its wounds. I left half my crew behind to start that recovery and flew on toward my meeting with a sphere gate. That could not be delayed if I wanted to reach Earth.

In the end, the battle had not delayed my quest. I’d made it to Earth. Now, tonight, I was going back to Talera. There, I would join the woman I intended to marry, and would begin another quest—to locate my brother Bryce, who had been drawn to Talera with me nearly two years before and who had never been found.

But I did not want to go back remembering blood. I opened my eyes from my thoughts and in that moment I saw Rannon’s sweet face, Rannon Jystral, the dark-haired Taleran princess who had said she loved me. Her visage seemed to float in the clearing before me and I took it as a sign that the gate was near.

I waited, and there was no sound.

Then there was.

One moment there were the stars and the shadowy trees and the quiet. In the next there came a humming, and a gray, whirling vortex opened in the air a few feet from my fire. I stood up, dashed the flames to blackness, and went forward, carrying nothing with me save a present for Rannon.

I stepped into the swirling air and felt something pluck lightly at my body, at my clothes, at my hair. There was an instant of chill and of twisting in my stomach, an instant of pain. And then I stepped out of the same air onto a flat wheel of stone that lay half buried amid drifts of snow. It was morning in this place, the sun rising blue-white, and the breeze that stroked my body was that of Talera.

Of home.