Novel excerpt: THE WINGED WOMAN

Chapter excerpt from a YA Fantasy novel written by A.N. Timms 2008.

The Winged Woman

When twilight pawed after the setting sun in tawny streaks, the Old Road dipped into lowlands and Cinnabar no longer seemed a mirage forever distant on the horizon. Dylan made out hundreds of buildings clustered together, rearing into the sky like fingers of jagged, cinder-red crystal.

To the east of Cinnabar, in the dusky light, a forest staggered up a hill that led to a rocky slope. The hill and forest stood beneath the dark frown of a craggy mountain range.

Evening soon pressed into the darkening shadows of night.

Like the flick of a light switch a bright spark came to life ahead of him. It was followed by another, and then another, until a parade of lights bobbed above the ground. Low, mumbling voices made Dylan quicken his pace. Several lights danced madly and shadowy bodies shuffled in a circle around the silhouette of a dark tree.

Out of the murmuring a harsh voice bellowed, followed by rowdy jeers and catcalls. Dylan crept cautiously ahead.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

A mob of men and women raced up the dark road. They brandished burning torches that cast shadows on their fitful faces. They were a rough bunch, shoddily dressed and jostling and shoving at each other in their haste. Their lashing flames were soon added to a mass of others that surrounded an enormous oak tree.

The mob’s jeers and threats were shouted with thick, burly accents. Dylan stepped closer and heard someone shriek, “Plague bringer!”

He halted his footsteps. The agitators couldn’t have meant him. The rabble were clearly intent on something near the tree, which Dylan was unable to see.

The gang soon became a mass of writhing, angry, shouting bodies. Smut from the flaming brands choked the air and flames lashed. Raised arms pistoned up and down in synch to the rough shouts.

Dylan entered the mob’s outer ring, carefully avoiding prods from nasty looking farm implements and firebrands. The crowd’s faces were contorted into hatred and loathing. Dylan saw fear in their dark, beady eyes, and he could smell it in their sour, body odor.

“Vermin!” they berated in chorus.

What was the object of their torrential scorn? Dylan squeezed his way among the dirty, sweaty bodies.

A group at the front was throwing rocks. Two mangy dogs barked and jumped at the foot of the oak. One of the mutts got clipped with a rock and wailed, while the other bared its yellow fangs.

Afraid of what he might see, Dylan poked his head between two of the stone throwers and peered up into the oak’s dark cage of branches.

What he saw crouched in the oak looked like an enormous bird. It was perched like a gargoyle with wings drawn in at its back. It clung to a sway of crooked branches.
The mob pelted more stones and ranted louder.

Dylan inched closer. In the torches’ light, what he saw in the tree was no horrid looking creature made of stone, but a living woman — a woman with wings.

The winged woman hunched down as another volley of stones crashed about her. Her heart-shaped face showed no fear but a heartbreaking sadness. She squatted like a wild thing, but she didn’t fight back. She seemed broken by a great weight that she bore. She gripped the tree’s branches and let the hail of rocks and stones fall.

Her sorrowful face filled Dylan with overwhelming pity. Drops of blood fell from the winged woman’s wounds like tears. She swayed dejectedly in the tree, nearly willing herself to let go, to succumb to the mob and tumble down upon their sharp implements and thrashing flames.

Dylan’s heart punched so fast against his chest that he wondered if it alone could knock away the rabble. Then he saw the crumpled figure at the base of the tree. Another winged woman lay there. A crimson-tipped arrow lodged in her chest.

“Child stealer! Vermin! Plague bringer!” chanted the mob.

Another hail of stones fell.

In a swoon, the winged woman’s eyes rolled back, her tight grip on the branch loosened.

Before Dylan knew what he was doing, he dashed out from the entrapping mob, jabbing an elbow into a grizzly man who had hefted a stone and taken aim.

Dylan faced the incensed crowd, “Stop! Stop this now!”

The dogs snarled and raised bristling hackles. Dylan kicked out violently at the brutes. They scampered off into the mob.

With his heart thudding in his chest, Dylan felt his body tense like it was made of shining armor and could deflect anything.

“Git outta ’ere kid,” someone grunted.

“You ent belong with us!” others railed.

The mob shambled forward. They raised their ironmongery of wards and superstitious trinkets and threateningly shook them.

“Kalaxian sympathizer!” they hissed.

“Vermin defender! You ent one of us!”

In a single stride the angry horde lurched at Dylan. Talon-like fingers reached out to snatch him.

Dylan jerked backward, tripping over the body at the base of the oak. He felt the cold bare skin of the dead winged woman. He recoiled from the cowardly thought of shielding himself behind her corpse and stood up, bracing himself before the mob’s rage.

The maddening horde jeered and rattled their wards and trinkets. Dylan expected to be stoned or hurled against the trunk of the tree, but for some reason, the mob moved no closer. They stood back, making dark sidelong glances at the dead woman.

“She’s contaminated!” shrieked a sinewy ragged-clothed woman.

Disgusted, Dylan saw the mob’s attention turn back to the live winged woman cowering in the tree.

Her pale, heart-shaped face, like that of a wise owl, turned to face him and her eyes swelled with tears. Dylan felt a surge of adrenalin rush through his body. “Leave her alone you monsters!”

Feathers swooshed over his head.

The winged woman had swooped down from the tree. Violently she flapped her wings upon the crowd, scattering them, her strong and powerful wing beats guttering their torches.

With the mob running scared, she circled back to Dylan, sweeping him up in her long outstretched arms.

Dylan’s stomach lurched and the wind rushed about his ears. He gulped in a breath of cold air and peered down to the land that he was rising away from. The mob’s hulking shapes scurried hither and thither, nervy flames flickering in the gloom.

Faint cries and screams drifted away into the night. Dylan clamped his eyes shut and hoped that when he opened them it was not to look on cold, white stars.

His eyes sprang open when his feet suddenly bumped against land. The winged woman hovered in the air, her pale wings beating like there was a hidden tempest in their strong curve. She gently set Dylan back on his feet.

He stood among tall pampas grass, its downy tips swaying. Squinting above, he tried to make out the winged woman’s silhouette in the dark sky, but she was no longer in the air. A few feet away he noticed a dark shape collapsed in the grass.

The winged woman lay curled in a fetal position, one arm shielding her face.

Dylan bit his lip, and crouched down. “Are you hurt?” He rummaged around in the front pocket of his knapsack for matches and a candle. “I’m going to light this candle, okay, so I can see you.” Dylan worried that she might be dying; perhaps she was badly wounded, although no crimson-tipped arrow pierced her side. He struck the match and made out her lithesome figure. She wore a sleeveless, indigo linen dress, which Dylan could see was mottled in places from the stones the mob had hurled. The garment hung in undulating folds down the middle of her back, making a low U where two pale blue wings extended from each side of her upper vertebrae. The span of her feathers lay outstretched at her side.

“Can’t I help you?” Dylan whispered.