The Fickle Winds of Autumn

44. The Pain of Hope

The rough wind surged into Kira's eyes as she urgently scanned down the dizzying jagged grey cliffs for any sign, any hope of Harath or Ellis.

Her fretful fingers clutched at the coarse cave wall and held her distraught body upright, away from the perilous edge of the chamber.

Her leaning head teetered and spun with nausea; the terrible precipitous drop wavered and rose up to meet her quivering trembling feet.

Billowing flakes of snow stung into her eyes, but she refused to close them - they must be there, they must be safe - Harath was a great queen - Harath would never let her new friends down.

She strained her hopeful ears for any clues, but the suffocating wind swallowed her barren hopes.

They can't just have fallen and died like that.

They must be safe.

They must be somewhere.

The forlorn acid in her stomach sunk and stabbed through her dismayed core.

Her pulsing, numbing fears punctured and counted out a few miserable hollow lifetimes, and brought with them the caustic realisation that her friends were gone.

They hadn't deserved to die that way, so cruelly, so needlessly, so close to escape and freedom.

Her despairing eyes gazed out at the deadly rocks of the ravine.

The world beyond the convent walls seemed so cruel and so random - stripped of any certainty or comfort.

A dark shadow pulsed and flickered through the swirling, tumbling mist.

Her stubborn eyes blinked and strained and refused to focus as the thin snow stung into them.

But her heart thudded with an uncertain, needful hope.

She wiped the melting flakes away and stared intently, desperately.

The shadow pounded and flapped its huge brown fog-burdened wings and climbed up out of the swirl of obscuring mountain fret.

It was Harath!

And Ellis dangling below her!

They were alive!

They were safe!

Harath beat her magnificent, life-saving wings with strong confident sweeps; she regained a swooping lofty altitude and powered a steady channel through the light drifting swirls of snow, across the valley, towards the roaring water of the far cliff.

Her flight seemed staggered and slightly ungainly - perhaps Ellis's suspended weight swung and jerked at her progress?

Perhaps she was still not quite sure of her wings?

But they were alive and moving swiftly towards their destination.

Kira's tense, apprehensive body relaxed and rippled with grateful relief.

Her expectant eyes watched happily as the rushing water was disturbed and parted by a brief flash of foaming white as Harath crashed through the booming watery curtain.

They had made it!

Ellis would be safe, at least.

Harath flashed back out through the torrent of surging water and sped back towards the nest exit.

The flecks of water sparkled and glinted in the rare mountain light as they bounced and fell from her fine plumage.

Kira's nervous pulse told her that she should get Aldwyn into position.