A Whisper of Wings by Paul Kidd Page B

trail led to a massive, broken cliff, and the Kashra drifted earthwards one by one.
    The ïsha stilled, and the birds had stopped their singing. Leaves swirled and rattled through a dead, forgotten world. The hunters stood amongst a vast wilderness of crumbled walls. Huts? Lodges? Who could tell. The ruins lay like the green bones of an ancient corpse. Zhukora landed in a sea of brittle weeds, her nose twitching to the pungent, acrid scents of broken greenery.
    A huge cave yawned before them; a strange, smooth tunnel with walls slick as a dripping tongue. The line of statues plunged straight into the cavern’s heart.
    Round, grey stones paved the ground before the cave. Daimïru knelt to run her hand across the surface, and a piece broke off beneath her touch. Puzzled, Daimïru took her knife, broke a lump of paving free and turned it over in her grasp.
    Empty eye sockets stared madly back at her.
    The girl gave a croak and hurtled the thing away, while hunters scattered in superstitious dread. A skull was the seat of a being’s Ka. No Kashra would touch the leavings of the dead.
    Deep within the cavern, the ïsha slowly stirred. Zhukora seemed fascinated by the cave; step by step she drew closer, her footsteps crunching on the rotten skulls. Daimïru swallowed, her pulse pounding in her throat.
    “Stay back, Zhukora! There-there might be spirits!”
    Zhukora’s voice whispered with a strange intensity.
    “Daimïru, don’t you feel it? Can’t you feel the power here?” Zhukora’s fur stood all on end. “Sweet Rain, the air’s alive!”
    “Come back! The place reeks of evil! There might be an ïsha vampire.”
    “But why fear it? We could hunt it! Kill it!”
    “Zhukora?”
    The lean black huntress stared into the dark, her eyes strangely bright and hungry.
    “A challenge. To face it down alone! The ultimate test - Power against power, soul against soul! The loser falling down into absolute oblivion…”
    The leader breathed a long, deep breath. Finally she turned back to her followers, and her face seemed animated with strange new energy.
    “We camp here for the night.” She looked around with bright blue eyes. “Yes, here amongst the ruins! Let us see what dreams the night stars bring.”
    The hunters looked unhappily about themselves, peering at the ruins. Zhukora reached out to fold her people in the power of her gaze.
    “Don’t be afraid. I am with you.”
    She walked into the weeds, her tail trailing out behind her, and without hesitation, the other hunters followed in her footsteps.
    By nighttime the ruins had given up a yield of puzzles; here a lump of rusted iron - there a row of tiny figurines. Rocks had been fused and melted like long strips of ice. The hunters had searched all day and still there were no answers. What had happened here, and why had even the faintest ïsha traces fled?
    There were tales of the past that were never danced. Many fists of years¹ ago the Kashra had been more numerous. They had dug houses in the soil and had thronged the skies. And then - what was it now? Something bad had happened…
    Shadarii would have known. The cripple sucked up stories like a toad hoarding water. For once the little mute might actually have been useful; Zhukora found the thought strangely irritating.
    The firelight stained the weeds a dreary, spectral grey, making hunters pull their sleeping robes about their shoulders. There were no possums creeping through the boughs; the bats and frogmouthed owls seemed to shun the very air. The only animals worth eating were snakes and warty toads, but the stringy meat seemed to lack all taste. For some reason Zhukora ate her meal with avid speed. Finally she wiped her fingers on her leggings and reached out to find her weapons.
    “We set a watch tonight. Two of us will be awake at any time. Each time the fire begins to fade we change one sentry.”
    With twenty to share the watch, the waiting would be easy. Zhukora threw away her sleeping robe and slung