Free World's End by Jake Halpern Page B

half-closed and she appeared to be asleep. She was clearly a Dormian knight—those elite soldiers who vacillated between sleeping and waking every few seconds. "I will ask my knights to prepare a burial site." She then turned to face Alfonso, saluted, and bowed. Her eyes sprang open. She appeared to be taking a series of five-second naps.
    "Colonel Nathalia Treeknot at your service, though please just call me Nathalia," she said. "I'm in charge of the Dormian Expeditionary Corps, part of the Order of the Dormian Knights." Her eyes closed. "On behalf of the Order, I'd like to welcome you home."
    The colonel's words were welcoming enough, but there was something in her demeanor that seemed rather harsh. She barked several terse orders and her knights, who were all dressed in long fur coats, immediately snapped to. They gathered up whatever could be salvaged from the airplane—including the luggage, the Enfield rifle, and the contents of the emergency kit, while the others dug a burial site for Snej. Like the colonel, the knights switched between being asleep and awake every five seconds.
    The funeral for Snej happened almost immediately. The group only had time for a brief ceremony before setting out through the snow, since the sky loomed gray with another blizzard. Bilblox was the only one to speak and he recited the same pilot's prayer that he had heard Snej utter so many times.
    Â 
Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth.

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings,

Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds—and done a hundred things...
    Â 
    "I can't remember the rest," said Bilblox hoarsely. Tears gleamed on his face. "The prayer was written by a nineteen-year-old Canadian airman during World War Two."
    "That's all right," replied Hill. Suddenly, he began reciting the verses of the poem where Bilblox left off.
    Â 
...and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared

and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace,

Where never lark, or even eagle, flew.
    Â 
    Hill placed his arm tenderly around Bilblox.
    "You knew the prayer?" asked Bilblox. "How?"
    "You forget, my old friend—I too was once a pilot," said Hill with a smile. "I used to say it before every flight during my air force days." He looked up at the angry gray sky. "We've laid Snej to rest, and we'll mourn her later. But now it's time to go home. This weather won't hold much longer. "
    Bilblox nodded somberly. "Let's go."

    ***
    Although Alfonso and Bilblox were both exhausted and more than a little shaky, they blocked out their pain and trudged through the deep snow of the mountain's flank, following Hill, Colonel Treeknot, and the soldiers. Bilblox put a harness on Kõrgu and she led him expertly through the snow and then across fields of ice-covered rocks. At one point, Alfonso asked Bilblox how he was feeling and whether his headache had gone away.
    "I'm better now," said Bilblox cheerfully, but there was an undeniable trace of weariness in his voice.
    Snow began to fall and as the wind grew stronger it whipped at them in fierce gusts. Alfonso's cheeks grew numb and his eyes stung. Colonel Treeknot, who led the group, appeared to be zigzagging along an invisible path. There were no markers, and the route they followed was incredibly steep. And yet it appeared as if she were out on a Sunday stroll. Her calm confidence reassured Alfonso, as did the thought of seeing Somnos again.
    They pushed on for several hours until the night lightened into an early, sullen morning. The snow began to fall more heavily, obscuring the razor-sharp peaks of the high Urals that surrounded them. Colonel Treeknot made several subtle hand gestures, and her soldiers took positions around Alfonso and Bilblox.