All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [43]
She grabbed Eliot’s hand and pulled him along faster—running.
A tide of flesh crashed upon the gate and spilled over to the fence. There must be a hundred people pounding on the gate from the other side.
The bones and rusted barbed wire flexed and groaned and shuddered.
And all those people screamed.
The noise stabbed at Fiona’s ears. She dropped her brother’s hand and instinctively covered her head. It felt like her skull split.
Eliot had one hand over his ear, but the other held his violin and pointed up.
A great bird swooped down from the sky. It was the size of a small airplane: a collection of black feathers and outstretched steel claws and glistening black eyes—and screaming the sounds of breaking glass and nails on blackboard.
The thing tore through the crowd near the gate. There was an explosion of feathers; bone snapped and limbs tossed into the air.
Fiona’s heart beat in her throat.
She and Eliot ran.
Behind them, human cries mingled with the bird’s and there was a whoosh of wings.
Fiona looked back.
In the glowing sky, the one giant bird disintegrated into a swarm of swirling feathers and claws like a Salvador Dalí tornado of bird parts. It spiraled up and then toward them.
She looked for cover. Eliot’s flashlight illuminated a stand of twisted trees ahead, but that was too far away.
Fiona froze—only for a split second, though. She grabbed and stretched her rubber band. The air about its edge hummed as she focused her mind . . . to cut.
“Come and get me,” she said. “Just try it.”
Eliot stood next to her, his face flushed, and his violin on his shoulder. Bow on strings, he drew out a long, sad note.
The birds hesitated and lost cohesion hearing this—but their momentum still carried them straight toward her.
Fiona braced.
Countless caws and screechings enveloped her. Grasping claws caught her clothes and hair, but failed to find purchase on flesh.
She cut—bone and sinew and feathers—severed even their screams midair.
Behind her, Eliot played: a song of sorrow that bridged to something lighter.
The birds scattered and fell silent before her brother’s music. So did the people on the other side of the gate. Even the erupting volcanoes in the distance quieted. Like the entire world paused to listen.
His song spoke of life and love . . . and hope.
Fiona’s picked up their flashlight, looking again for cover or a way out of this mess.
There was no trace of Kino’s tire tracks in the volcanic ash. The wind had already blown them away. That shouldn’t matter, though; all they had to do was follow the cliff edge back the way they had come.
Those birds, however, would come back if they saw them out in the open.
She cast her gaze to the thicket of dead trees. They looked like skeletons with outstretched arms and fingers. Their shadows lengthened and wavered in the beam of the flashlight.
She spotted another flicker of light deep in the forest.
Eliot stopped playing.
“Keep going,” she whispered. “There’s someone, or something, coming through those trees.”
Eliot shook his head. “I can’t do any more. The song hurts too much.” He held one trembling hand to his chest.
That hand of his had never recovered from that infection. Fiona knew he should’ve seen a doctor. She was about to tell him that he’d been an idiot, but decided now wasn’t the time for that. Besides, Eliot looked like he was in real pain.
“It’s okay.” She looped an arm around her brother and helped him toward the trees. “I think someone’s coming to help. And if they’re not, I can take care of them.”
Fiona wasn’t so sure. Her legs were leaden, and the adrenaline that had given her strength before was gone.
She waved their flashlight back and forth.
The light in the forest answered, doing the same.
She and Eliot made their way to the edge of the trees and pushed through until they saw a figure with a lantern. It was all shadow first, and then she saw an arm, a body, a man’s rugged face.
She knew him . . . but couldn’t place exactly from