The Last of the Wyndryders

Corbin, Cloud-Prince of the Wyndryders was flying.
On sable winds he soared, his great, sonorous strokes caressing the air with feather-fingers as he circled high above an alpine clearing. With his unmatched visual acuity, no insignificant detail escaped his notice, from the coney cowering on the edge of the forest, to the pine-leaves shivering in the slight breeze. His primary objective lay in the trio of trees that tyrannised the clearing the zig zag shadows, cast by boughs long blasted silver by the unforgiveable elements. They were so old that the acid rains of this alien world had carved deep rivulets into their dry flanks, leaving sharp, unforgiving ridges in their wake. The tree raised petrified slaws to the sky, almost grasping to capture and contain his airborne freedom.
But Corbin flew too well, was too strong. With his calculated intelligence, he sailed silently over his target, planning his next move.
***
The Sky People came from beyond the Endless Black, the realm of the stars.
Everyone in the city of Wessibee heard them as their engines tore their atmosphere asunder with a devastating sonic boom, kicking the desert dust up as they swooped out of the sky and sped low over the parched plains, their path set straight for the steadfast sandstone walls.
A guard raised the alarm; howling his canine song, drawing his sword with one clawed hand as he did so, "Spell casters, spell casters, the wards, the wards!"
At each of the eight towers that fortified the city, eight figures dressed in garish robes of yellow and blue began to chant. The only people in the city who were recognisably human, they were lead by Vilmar the Sorcerer, swathed in his black robes and stark white half-mask. He held a staff forged from metal that glimmered iridescent colours in the blood red suns-set, uttering words in a language preserved only by his sorcerer's craft:
"Membantu kita, roh-api,
Membantu kita, roh-air
Membantu kita, roh-angin
Membantu kita, roh-bumi
Melestarikan kota ini
Dengan kekuatan kamu!"
The chant built to a hoarse crescendo that echoed among the dry mud-stone homes and the impassive sandstone walls. From Vilmar's staff arched a seething rope of energy that exploded on contact with the desert sand and spread out to encompass the whole city within a humming protective dome. The Sky people arrived in their ships with battle-axe-shaped wings and assaulted the dome with bursts of red light that roared with raw power. But the dome held strong and absorbed the shocks, while the citizens cowered in fear underneath. With their multitudinous lights and powerful light-weapons, the ani-people of Wessibee had never seen the aliens' ilk in all of their ancestral memories.
***
Corbin, Cloud-Prince of the Wyndryders, was flying.
On silent wings, he broke his ceaseless circles and swooped down to the tallest of the trees in the clearing, snapping a straight branch from its topmost canopy. It felt hefty in his hands, heavier than dry wood should. That was good. It made a suitable weapon.
***
"Vilmar the Sorcerer! Who are these people?" cried His Majesty Bardolf the king. He stood before his throne, battle-axe in hand, watched by his war-council of ani-people. The walls of his palace swept upwards to a ruby dome open to the sky above, revealing the stars that were emerging from their daytime hideouts for the coming twilight.
Vilmar opened his eyes, awaking from his trance. He stood and knelt before the king and his onyx throne, "I have seen … terrible things … during my Sighting, my king."
Bardolf gestured with his battleaxe, indicating the rest of the council, a motley collection of centaurs, serperes, katze and the odd harpy, "Tell us, then."
"The battle-axe machines carry a race stranger beyond all imagining, your Highness," Vilmar said, gesturing broadly with his staff, "They are made of metal, and speak with strange clicks and whistles. They do not know the meaning of the word 'mercy'."
Bardolf lifted his lips and showed his lupine teeth in a slight growl, fixing his court sorcerer with a steely yellow gaze, "Can you and your spell casters do something to destroy their flying machines?" Bardolf demanded, gripping his battle-axe.
Vilmar bowed his head, "No, your highness. The Circle of Eight has enough strength to maintain the wards that we have summoned, and only then for a limited time."
"How long?"
"Three days."
"By the Sandstorm's chariot!" Bardolf cursed.
"Your Highness, I could gather my archers and catapulters and launch a flame-attack on their machines." Wessibee's general, a battle-hardened centaur, stepped forth.
Bardolf hesitated, "Do not waste your arrows, Orion, you will do no good against air-machines that size."
Vilmar nodded in agreement, "There is only one race who can help us now."
Bardolf narrowed his eyes, "You believe you can summon the Wyndryders?"
Vilmar nodded again, "Ever since I rescued their Cloud-Prince in the Beartooth Mountains, they owe me a debt of honour. They will come to our aid if I call them."
Bardolf stepped back and sat in his throne, battle-axe across his furry grey knees, "Very well. They are our last and only hope."
***
Corbin, Cloud-Prince of the Wyndryders, swooped towards the ground.
His six-foot wingspan cast dark shadows on the ground, growing more and more strained with air before he snapped them closed and dropped to the ground in a battle-ready crouch, his branch – now fashioned into a wicked metal-tipped spear – held at the ready. But nothing moved in the tranquil little clearing.
He stood upright, checking his leather armour, and shrugging his shoulders so his wings settled comfortably. Before him stood the three silvery trees he had been examining from the air. Now, they towered over him, their gnarled fingers grasping at the impervious rocks of the mountains, which watched the scene impassively. Around the bases of the three silvery monoliths gathered a small forest of saplings, so thick that he couldn't see the bases of their parents. But they, too, were dead, blasted as silver as the bigger three, petrified forever by the unforgivable mountain air. Corbin approached, seeing how fragile they were, despite the fact that once, long ago, they had grown to head-height. Steeling his resolve, he shouldered through their woody fortifications, ignoring the bright flashes of pain as their thorns tore welts into his bare shoulders.
***
Vilmar the sorcerer stood on the battlements of his defence tower, exposed to the dry desert winds. His half-mask gleamed softly in the light of a nearby planet that loomed on the opposite horizon, so huge that he could make out every detail in its crater-scarred surface. The ain-people called the planetary guardian, 'Naga Biru', the 'Blue Dragon'. Once more, Vilmar began to chant, in a voice magically enhanced so that his voice echoed across the plains:
"Ayolah, orang burung,
Ayolah, memenuhi hutang kamu
Ayolah, melidungi hota ini
Dari musuh berbahaya!"
Bardolf emerged from the stairwell behind Vilmar, anxiety etched in his grey, lupine face, "Do they come?"
Vilmar turned to the east, towards the Beartooth Mountains that crouched on that horizon like gargoyles hiding in the night. He stood still, listening to the whispers on the breeze. It took but a moment for the raucous calls of the Wyndryders to reach their ears, as the wild bird-folk took off from their alpine perches and converged on the city.
They swept from the mountains like black rain, calling to each other like the birds they were descended from. They, too, had seen and heard the aliens descend in their mechanical ships, and in their clawed hands they carried flaming quivers of arrows, huge broadswords forged from metal deep in the mountains and heavy, elaborate spears from the same metal.
The battle-axe ships turned to face their new opponents and opened fire, unleashing the full, devastating force of their light-weapons on the Wyndryders. They fell to earth even as they halved the distance between the mountains. By the time the arriving force could engage the huge battle-ships, their ranks had thinned considerably, but they still poured from the mountains, like an endless rain of avian might. They showered the ships with their heavy metal arrows, learning quickly to target the transparent glass windows and the strange metallic creatures that lurked within.
When the first ship crashed to earth, Bardolf howled in triumph, pounding his sorcerer-friend on the shoulder with one furry hand.
The two armies raged in battle, day and night for three days, and the bodies of the Wyndryders accumulated on the desert floor in their thousands; broken wings, snapped spines, dropped weapons and chests blacked black by the Sky-People's awful weapons. As the suns rose each day, the city's wards grew weaker, and Vilmar and his sorcerers grew white and feverish as they fed the magic with their waning strength.
As Bardolf and Vilmar stood on the battlements together, watching the battle unfold, Vilmar shook his head in disbelief, his pallor matching the colour of his half-mask, "They are throwing their entire race behind this battle; if this conflict doesn't end tonight, the Wyndryders will become a passing memory in the desert sands."
His words held the eerie steel of prophecy, and as the suns rose the next morn, the city of Wessibee found itself surrounded by the menacing battle-axe ships and there was not a single Wyndryder warrior in sight.
They hovered, humming quietly as Vilmar and his sorcerers staggered into unconsciousness, and the wards, that had protected the city for three days, finally flickered out.
***
Corbin saw the door.
Sunk deep into the trunk of the biggest tree, it had been invisible from afar. But now, Corbin shouldered it aside, and limped into the shelter beyond it, carved out of the hollow trunk and made into something recognisably habitable.
He stood on the threshold, wings held high, his speak gripped in a steely fist. The room was empty of any discernable presence, but scattered here and there were the trappings of the sorcerer's trade: books, dried herbs, chunks of blood red rubies from the desert beyond the Beartooth Mountains.
"Vilmar the Sorcerer, show yourself!" Corbin crowed.
Footsteps sounded on a staircase that spiralled up into the lofty reaches of the tree, and Vilmar's black-clad form emerged on the other side of the room. His eyes widened behind his half-mask, "You!"
"Me." Corbin said, with icy calm, "Did you really think all of the Wyndryders were dead?"
Vilmar hesitated, his back against the wall, "You always fight to the very end, to a man."
"Well, I survived the battle, you slimy spell-prattler. I was among the first to come to your aid, Vilmar, mindful of the debt of honour I owed you. But I was knocked unconscious while I fought, and I woke only to see the entire city of Wessibee enslaved by the Sky People! But I also saw something else."
"No, you can't, I made sure!" Vilmar cried, alarm creasing his face.
"I saw a familiar black-robed figure sneak out of the citadel with all the food and books he could carry. And at that very same moment his king was being executed on the battlements by an alien more metal than meat! I saw you run to save your own precious beard, while your city was being destroyed. Now, wise wizard," Corbin's voice dropped into a wind-swept whisper, "where is the honourable man who saved my life? Or was that just a farce?"
"You don't understand!" Vilmar began to edge up the stairs, but with a hawk-like screech, Corbin darted across the room with half-flared wings and seized him by the front of his robe.
"I understand perfectly well!" he hissed, his face shoved so close to Vilmar's so the sorcerer could see the tiny feathers that covered Corbin's face, "My people died to heed your call, and you spit on their honourable sacrifice by abandoning your city? No, for that, as the last of the Wyndryders, I will not let you live."
Vilmar whimpered quietly, his eyes scrunched tight.
"But first, let's see what lies beneath your legendary mask!" Corbin screeched, and tore the thing free with his claws. Vilmar cried out, as if his soul had been wrenched from his body. Down one half of his face, metal and cogs gleamed, right down to the clean robotic line of his jaw. In the middle of his forehead, skin stretched tight across his robotic exoskeleton in a poor imitation of human skin.
Corbin dropped the sorcerer, "You're one of them!" He screeched. He had fought enough of the alien metal-people to recognise one if he saw one.
"No! You don't understand!" Vilmar said again. But Corbin didn't listen. He raised his spear and drove it underneath one of the overlapping metal plates on Vilmar's face. Metal ground against metal, screeching to match Vilmar's unearthly, pain-racked cries. Corbin did not cease stabbing him until his body finally lay still, sparking and cracking with dying electricity. He stood still for a moment, breathing heavily, as the spear dropped from his nerveless hands. And then he darted out of the hollow tree and back into the sky, the mountains ringing with the sounds of his grief.