Page 17 of Suncatcher

The road led her until the lights of the outskirts city lit the distance. It wasn’t one of the main trio of cities that made up the human empire, but it was the one Pearl had pointed to. Driz had gone too far.

Circling wider, she started back, scanning the areas more closely.

She was passing over a series of brushy hills and valleys, imagining how a giant might have run her fingers through the landscape here, when Driz saw the canvas. She banked to the left, drifting lower. Three wagons, painted red, rested along a dirt track running up a valley. She had somehow missed them on the way east. Only three wagons, though.

A rocky outcropping jutted from the crest of a hill and Driz landed on it, pausing to survey the scene, catching another hint of white in the bushes. She inhaled and listened, her senses straining.

She moved quietly along the ridge. A camp was set up in a hollow, out of sight of the road and the wagons. She made out half a dozen sleeping forms and one sitting up, the glow of the dying fire washing his face with warm light. Behind them, stacks of crates and barrels rested. Driz watched for a moment, to make sure no one else was nearby, and swooped low. She passed the wagons sitting in the open. She didn’t land, but she didn’t need to in order to see inside. They were empty.

The scene felt wrong. It wouldn’t make sense for Pearl’s townsfolk to unload their wagons and leave them so obviously in sight, right?

It reminded Driz of a creature that lured in unsuspecting prey by whining and pretending to be injured, only to strike them when they got near enough.

Driz had to warn Pearl.

She shot high, ignoring the road and taking a direct path back toward Salt Bluff. It was a while before dawn when she landed in the ravine. Her wings and back burned lightly from flying so far and long tonight, but she enjoyed the feeling. It meant she had been useful.

The clothes Pearl had brought her rested carefully where Driz had left them. She slipped off the old leather cover she wore. Many goyles didn’t bother covering themselves, though some clung to the vague recollection of the humanity in them. Humans had been the base material for their creation, and Driz liked the reminder of that.

The trousers slid on easily, though they only reached to a bit past her knees, and the waist hung loose. They shifted strangely against her skin. Then she puzzled over the shirt. Humans didn’t have wings, and she wasn’t sure how to work the fabric around her own. When she slid her arms into the sleeves, the top bunched beneath the joints on her back. She hesitated to ruin the piece, but she wanted to wear it. Extending a claw, she carefully ripped from the collar down to the middle of the back panel.

Her fingers were clumsy with the buttons, unused to the fastenings, though she got better with each one she did. The collar gaped wide at her shoulders since she had torn the back. Still, Driz was pleased. She used a strip from her old leather as a makeshift belt, slipping it through the loops on the trousers, and then looked down at herself, twisting and testing. The fabric of the sleeves strained when she bunched and curled her arms, but they didn’t restrict her much. She grinned.

She felt different. She hadn’t ever considered finding human clothes that might fit her, and was grateful to Pearl for offering them.

Driz was suddenly ravenous for pie, whatever it was.

As the night drew to a close, Driz started pacing. She was eager to tell Pearl what she had discovered. What if she flew into Salt Bluff to find her? That was a terrible idea, so Driz settled for prowling up and down the ravine, poking her head out to look for Pearl.

The horizon lightened. She listened, waiting. But she didn’t hear or smell anyone coming.

Her excitement dimmed to worry, edged with something sharp. Pearl had said she would meet her before dawn. Dawn was nearly here, but Pearl was not.

Driz’s arms began to grow heavy. For the first time in a long time, she tried to fight it, but it was no use. The world narrowed and she was lost in the blank emptiness of stone.

7

Passing Ships

Pearl pushed her horse to go faster, knowing she was too late. She’d risen well before dawn to heat the pie, which she was rather proud of herself for managing. But the sheriff had also been up early.

Some days, Pearl really regretted still living with her mother. But Pearl wouldn’t leave her. Not like Pa and her brothers had. Where else would Pearl go, anyway?

But it had taken too long to get away today, and now the cold pie on her saddle would not reach its intended. She’d taken her horse in the hopes she could make it, which would just draw attention to herself now.

The first rays of sun lit the tops of the bluffs and then struck the corner of her eye in accusation. She turned and glared back at it, slowing her mount, but proceeded onward, up and over the wooden bridge that crossed the river to the bluff side.

She left her horse at the mouth of the silent ravine and hurried inside.

The edge of a folded wing stuck out from behind an outcropping halfway up. Pearl paused, heart in her throat, and approached slowly, trying not to make any sound, driven by a reckless curiosity to see Driz in the light.

Pearl nearly dropped the pie. Driz’s eyes were open and aimed at her.

As Pearl’s heart slowed, she realized the eyes were unseeing and made of stone. All of her was stone. Waving lines of variegated reds and tans streaked diagonally across her face, from her hairline to her opposite jaw, like the sedimented layers of stacked bedrock that made up the canyon behind her, darker and more intense in daylight than her coloring had appeared at night.

Pearl both wanted to look away and get closer. Driz’s brow extended outward, shadowing her deep-set eyes. Her nose was curved, almost a hawk’s beak in profile but thin head-on, her cheeks sunken to highlight the chiseled sharpness of the bones around them, leading down to a pointed chin. Her mouth was parted, a snarl on her lips, which just pulled the rest of her features even more terrifying. Her teeth were sharp, short fangs near the front extending and pressing into the stone of her lower lip. Pearl hoped that ferocious expression wasn’t her fault. But it probably was.

Pearl had made a deal with this creature and let down her end. And for nothing, because she hadn’t even learned what Driz discovered.