The Sky Demons Part Two: Quest

Chapter One- The morning rush

Tenmar- The morning rush

I’d been lying in bed, talking to my familiar miles away through our link. At this distance her voice was faint, but I could still make out the words if I stayed in a quiet place and concentrated hard. So I lay still and called out her name with my mind until she answered, then I listened to her telling me about her day, before relating to her everything that had happened to me lately, the same as I did every morning.

We were just discussing our plan to visit some of the nearby villages- with the capital city as our end goal- when an angry knocking began at my door, my eyes snapped open and my concentration was lost, my familiar’s voice fizzling into silence. I’d have to apologise later.

I flipped from lying on the bed into a standing position and stretched luxuriously until my spine popped, reaching my arms as high as possible and extending my wings wide. The knocking stopped and the door whipped open; Kayira materialized in the entrance to my room, scowling as usual.

“What are you doing?

“Stretching?”

“I was knocking.”

“I heard, I think everyone did.”

“Why didn’t you answer? I’ve been stood out in the hallway with this flaming bird on my arm.”

She moved to the side as she said this, revealing her arm held rod-straight and the bird perching on it, which was indeed flaming.

“Nice choice of description,” I smirked, “but who could have sent it? Only the guild keep anything enchanted with our magic for phoenixes to track us by.”

“It is from the guild, they believe we’ve been away too long and want us to return immediately. If we fail to they’re threatening an investigation.”

I dropped my arms to my sides and stared at her in disbelief.

“Huh? The guild sent that phoenix? But it’s only a red-hot; even a mafic level interceptor could steal that message! The guild would never send anything lower than a white-hot, it must be from someone else.” I tutted and shook my head, “I would’ve expected better of you Kay, spotting forgeries is basic level training, if you’ve forgotten that you should probably go back to school.”

Both Kayira and the phoenix glared at me: the bird cawing indignantly and the spectrumosa holding up her other hand, in which she clutched the neatly re-folded letter.

“It’s got the guild’s official stamp, ass-hat,” she retorted, “I already performed the tests on it. We need to leave ASAP. Put a shirt on.” She disappeared from around the door, which then closed as sharply as it had opened.

I slunk out of my pyjama bottoms and into some more travel-suited clothes in the same style as Kayira: loose trousers tied with a tight belt, a tunic and a jacket. Fastening the straps on my legs and arms to carry weapons and attaching pouches onto my belt took a bit longer, but finally I put on my waterproof socks and boots. Hurriedly I searched my room, trying to find my mercenary ID papers for work and entry into the capital and wondered what the power to which Kay’s anger increased with each extra minute it took me to get ready might be.

I rushed down the stairs two at a time and careered into the kitchen, where I found Kayira explaining our change of plans and early departure to Serefk’na and Tigre, who were the only ones that seemed to be up.

“Um, how come red-feather’s still here?” I asked, motioning to the phoenix sitting on the table, pecking at a bowl.

“I tried to order it to return to its guild building but it hasn’t reacted, just followed me around.”