Merritts of Writing 3

Chapter 25-1

Angie

As harsh and barren our world has become since the canisters fell, there were still wonders out there and the delicaate and beautiful creatures of the fyre wings were thankfully one. I wished there were more.

A HEARTBEAT LATER

I felt my stomach suddenly clench. Something in the tone of Stevron’s voice disturbed me. I lowered the glasses and turned to look at him. He met my eyes. I felt a chill run up my arms. Stevron was angry.

He took a step toward Mylane, and even though Calvin had handed the seeing glasses to the girl, she moved closer to Carter. Was she seeking his protection?

She lowered the seeing glasses and I saw the flash of unease in the young teenager’s eyes. She glanced nervously to Stevron.

“Sounds wise,” I murmured, then added. “I take it, the fyre crawlers’ role is to bring the fyre eggs to the surface so they can hatch.”

Stevron shook his head. “No, although they do carry the eggs to the surface, their role is as protector. A form of guardianship.”

“You said they’re poisonous,” Dirk said. “Do they kill instantly?”

Stevron didn’t answer and his silence sent a wave of concern up my arms.

I put the seeing glasses back to my eyes. I focused on the fyre crawlers and watched as they both hauled and dragged unbroken fyre eggs out of the burrows and deposited them a few feet from the hole’s edge. “How long will it take the eggs to hatch?” I asked.

“Not very long. Maybe a few minutes.”

As I continued to watch an egg began to crack. A moment later a long, thin tentacle-like tongue flickered out of the gap. I gasped as a fyre wings burst through the shell and unfurled it’s body. I’d seen fyre wings hatch on numerous occasions, in hatcheries at several of the processing plants. I still thought it amazing at how incredibly beautiful and graceful the tiny creatures were.

A brilliant sapphire blue, the creature glowed in the early morning light. Two sets of rounded wings that were almost translucent with tiny silvery veins running through the wings in a spiderweb fashion began twitching in rapid succession. The forked tail which was curled upward toward the soft belly of the midsection straightened out. The fyre wings’s snout-like beak was long and pointed, and when it opened a long tongue snaked out and waggled in the air as if tasting the sunlight.

I felt Stevron’s hand on my shoulder. “They’re beautiful aren’t they.”

“Magnificent,” I breathed. I watched the creature’s head turn and begin to preen a few feathers on it’s back. After only a fleeting moment the creature’s two sets of wings fluttered faster and without hesitation the tiny creature lauched itself into the air. The fyre wings was gone before I could blink.

“They guard against the Larcore.”

A shiver ran the length of my body and I lowered the seeing glasses to glance at Carter. His gaze moved from Stevron to me.

“Is it true that the Larcore dropped the canisters because they wanted control of the fyre wings trade?”

I looked to Stevron. Dirk had asked the question that had been on the tip of my tongue. I’d always hated the fact that the Larcore’s diet consisted primarily of fyre wings and they had been devouring the population at an alarming rate.

I watched Stevron press his lips together. He glanced at Mylane. Something passed between the two and Mylane swallowed and lowered her head.

Stevron’s jaw clenched then unclenched. He nodded. “My people have lived in this region for thousands of years, and have been fighting the Larcore’s lust for centuries.”

Stevron’s words made me frown. Thousands of years? Centuries? I raised my eyebrows. “I thought we only became aware of the Larcore’s existence around fifty or sixty years ago?”

Stevron’s eyes went again to Mylane. “There is much that has been shrouded in secrecy surrounding the Larcore.”

“And obviously about your people as well.” I caught a flicker of sheer panic in Mylane’s eyes and decided it was time I shut up on that subject, so I changed directions. “What do the fyre crawlers have to do with the Larcore?”

Stevron suddenly smiled. “Their venom is deadly.”

“Then the eggs are well protected,” Calvin commented. He accepted the seeing glasses I handed him.

I watched Stevron take a deep breath. The anger in his eyes resurfaced. I saw him clench his fists. “Yes, the eggs, but not the fyre wings once they’ve hatched. You see the Larcore emit a scent similar to the water reed. It’s sweet and very alluring to the fyre wings. And because the Larcore are not detectable in sunlight, the fyre wings unknowingly fly right into the Larcore traps.”

I felt my stomach lurch. I looked to Mylane. The girl was staring hard at me. Her thin body stiffened when our eyes met. “Are the Larcore, here, now?” I asked.