The Fall of Andrekka: Harper's Story

HARPER LED THE GIANT MISTGLIDER BY HIS REINS. “Mist protection! Get your mist protection here!” She screamed up and down the street. People were sitting on the stoops of their homes. Merchants set up pop-up shops selling fruits, pots, and jewelry. Harper held her palm flat as a visor above her eyes. She was judging the time by the sun. “You smell anything yet, Spit-tuk?” She asked her animal companion. “There’s gotta be a mist coming soon,” she said to herself. “Get your mist protection here!”

“Oh fly off!” Hissed a nearby merchant. “No one’s going to fall for your scam girl! One mistglider couldn’t consume an entire swarm. Everyone knows that.”

Harper knew that not everyone knew that. People loved to be happily ignorant. It was why all of these people were sitting on their stoops and all of these merchants set up stands everyday at the same time, instead of packing and preparing for a migration to Dustrae. Smart people knew that Andrekka wasn’t going to survive the war. And Harper was smart.

“Mist protection! We can protect your home, your business, or your family!” Harper shouted, ignoring the ignorant merchant. She just needed to raise enough money to pay her way to Dustrae. Andrekka’s sister planet was covered in forests and crystal clear rivers. Smart people knew this.

“I’ll give you a credit to shut up.” The figure was a woman bent over from some deformity in her back, Harper suspected it could have just been age. Andrekka’s floating cities could defy gravity, but all bodies eventually succumbed to it. She wore robes that were nothing more than rags. The woman wasn’t much more better off than Harper herself.

“I only take physical money, you know, knights and kings and things.”

“Kings!?” The woman laughed. “You’ll not find anyone on this block wielding kings, child. Now be off with you!” The woman shoved Harper in the chest with her cane. This dislodged the heart-shaped locket that Harper always kept hidden in her shirt. The old woman’s eyes seemed to widen and glow with new light. “Ahhhh — but I’d pay a king for that locket.”

The woman’s old gnarled fingers were reaching out towards the locket. Harper smacked the woman’s hand away. “You don’t have a king,” Harper snapped.

“Looks like Dustraen gold too!” The woman was basically drooling.

“Be off with you hag!” Harper pulled Spit-tuk’s reins further down the crowded street away from the woman. Harper knew danger when she faced it. You could never be too careful on the streets. Everyone was just trying to make a card or two, but some would do almost anything to get it. Harper believed in an honest business!

She absently rubbed her fingers along the locket. She had relatives on Dustrae and this locket was proof of that. She flipped it open and stared at the picture. It was a couple: Two women. One wore short hair with pink dyed highlights. The other had her hair very long, so long that it spilled further than the picture showed. These were Harper’s aunts. At least that’s what her parents told her. She only knew that one of their names was Amanda.

Spit-tuk suddenly stopped. “What is it boy?” Harper asked excitedly. The mistglider was a giant ferret-like creature. His nose was a short trunk that he could maneuver in all sorts of directions. “Did you catch the scent of something?” Mistgliders could always smell the wyrmmist coming before the sirens went off.

Harper looked to the sky as if she was going to see the oncoming mist before the rest of the city. Out in the distance another of Andrekka’s floating cities was coasting by. Harper hadn’t visited the message boards today, she had no idea which city that was, if it was friend or foe, thriving or conquered. The war had started over who got to claim Andrekka as their own. And it would be this war that killed it. Apparently, living planets weren’t easy to find in the universe, despite how many stars were in the sky. Harper learned that when she was still in school — back before the war started.

She was snapped from her reverie when the sirens started to blare! They startled her for a moment. She grabbed Spit-tuk’s reins with both of her hands and leapt onto the mistglider’s saddle. “Let’s go ‘tuk!” She shouted, tapping her heels into Spit-tuk’s sides. The mistglider jumped into the air and landed on the side of a nearby building. His paws were expert at clinging onto almost any surface. His long flat tail was perfect for maneuvering his body in any direction that he wanted to go when jumping or gliding.

Harper didn’t have a mental bond with Spit-tuk like those strange people with the robes and the funny hats, but she could command her mount to go wherever she wanted almost as if they shared a mind. Spit-tuk bounded up the side of the building until they made it to the roof. The sirens were louder up here. Harper scanned the skies for the black swarm.

Harper lead Spit-tuk, with a running start, to the edge of the roof, where the mistglider flung himself off the side. They were only in freefall for a moment before Spit-tuk whipped his gliding membranes open and caught wind. They soared, Harper steering her mount via the reins in her hands. Spit-tuk landed on the side of another building, bounded up the side for altitude, and then flung himself back into the air, gliding towards another building.

The duo did this a few more times before Harper could see the black cloud that was the wyrmmist! “There, Spit-tuk!” She could feel her mount’s stomach grumble. No one knew where the wyrmmist came from, but it had appeared not long after the war started. Miraculously, the mistgliders appeared too.

They landed on their last building and scurried towards the street below. People were rushing to close their shops and windows. Wyrmmist could easily bust through glass, so shutters were being drawn. Harper had to act quick. “Get your mist protection here!” Everyone knew that mistgliders feasted on wyrmmist. Less wyrmmist meant the less damage it could do. “Get your mist protection! Wyrmmist has been sighted! Protect your family and your homes!”

A well dressed man passed before Harper with his family of two children and a wife. They were all holding hands with each other. “Brent!?” The wife said as her husband stopped in his tracks. “Brent, we won’t make it home in time.”

The wyrmmist could be seen over the buildings. Spit-tuk was licking his funny trunk-nose. “We can’t just leave her.” Brent said.

“Oh, I’m fine.” Harper replied. “I’m smart.” She said proudly. “But I can get you home safe. Don’t want any of those things laying eggs in you.” Harper used her money-making smile. She had this man Brent wrapped around her finger.

“Brent!” The man’s wife hissed again.

“Daddy,” one of his kids cried, pointing at the sky. The wyrmmist was too close. This family needed to find shelter now or risk infection — or death.

“Brent!” The man’s wife was walking towards the door of the nearest home. Harper suspected that she meant to knock on the door and hope the family inside would offer shelter. Maybe before the war, it would have been that easy to find shelter or a helping hand, but now, no one trusted anyone. Their enemies looked just like them. Their enemies were them.

The swarm of black gnat-like creatures was squeezing between the buildings. No doubt it had caught their scent. Harper hopped on Spit-tuk’s saddle. “Hide in those bushes there. Mr. Brent sir, I’ll need payment.”

Brent’s wife and kids were moving aside branches to crawl into the bushes. They weren’t going to be perfectly protected, but if Harper could lure the wyrmmist away, she might be able to save them from being stung and impregnated. Harper held out her hand towards the patriarch, while he pondered his options. “You’re running out of time.” Harper could feel Spit-tuk getting restless beneath her saddle.

“Brent!” His wife screamed this time. The wyrmmist was just yards away! They could all hear the buzzing of their wings.

Brent pulled a king card out of his pocket and slapped it into Harper’s open palm, “Protect my family!”

Harper smiled, “Will do sir.”

And with that, Spit-tuk jumped to the nearest building and bound up its side and leapt straight for the wyrmmist. Harper lowered goggles over her eyes. Spit-tuk would move through the mist too fast for any of the wyrmmist to cling to her — hopefully. The mistglider arrowed into the wyrmmist. He expanded his neck pouch and opened his mouth. Like a snake, Spit-tuk could unhinge his jaw and open his mouth impossibly wide so that his jaw and neck looked like a butterfly catcher. As he glided through the mist, he caught as many of the tiny bug-like creatures as he could. He landed on the wall of the far building and flung himself back out, gliding membrane catching wind as he zipped back through the wyrmmist.

“Alright Spit-tuk, now we gotta lure it away from that family. They paid us a king!” Harper pulled out a little pocketknife that she always had in her pocket and cut a nice gash in her arm. She winced at the pain, but the scent of her blood on the wind would cause the wyrmmist to follow her without fail. Spit-tuk carried them to the top of a nearby building and jumped into the air, taking a long glide away from Brent and his family.

Once they were a safe distance, Harper started rubbing tacky wound glue over the cut while Spit-tuk kept diving through the mist to get as much of a meal as he could. Then, the loudest crash sounded a few blocks off. Harper could see the black smoke billowing up into the sky. They froze. Harper’s eyes got too wide. She shook.

<Did that other floating city attack?> Harper thought. It wasn’t rare for attacks to happen under the cloak of a wyrmmisting. It was the perfect time when everyone was focused on saving themselves from the mist. Harper knew this because she was smart. She just wished her parents were smart enough to stay alive. Her finger was absently rubbing the locket again.

There was a commotion below Spit-tuk’s perch that caught Harper’s attention. In the middle of the street was a black rectangle, like something out of a nightmare. There was a crowd around the rectangle and whoever was in charge was losing control. “A doorway.” Harper gasped. Doorways like that led to the corridors. She’d heard that they were completely dark and scary — but that was how she was going to get to Dustrae.

She had the sensation of the floor being pulled out from underneath her. It was kind of how it felt when Spit-tuk was freefalling without wind in his membranes. Something was wrong with the city! And Harper wasn’t the only one to sense it. The commotion down on the street quickly grew to a fever-pitch as everyone started to realize that the antigravity machines that kept the city afloat had failed!

Harper had a moment where she felt sorry for Brent and his family. She lead Spit-tuk down the side of the building. The crowd was fighting the people in suits. It was only a matter of seconds before the suits lost control over the portal and it would be a free-for-all for the doorway. Three… Two…! Harper heeled Spit-tuk in the sides. The mistglider was positioned perfectly. Spit-tuk threw his membrane out at just the right moment, catching just enough wind. He angled his paddle tail the right way and the two of them shot through the open doorway over everyone’s heads. Harper opened the locket and kissed the picture inside, “I’m coming Aunt Amanda!”