Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 414
One entered the ship. Loud concussions sounded inside,
and the lights went out. Then spiral tendrils of light drifted
down from above, and gently but firmly gripped the sides of
the ship. The five remaining humanoid forms reached out, and
dissolved into the ropes of light. Then, with hardly a tremor,
the swans pulled the Pan Hellenia out of the ground, and
retreated into the sky with it in tow.
The stellar glow faded; the full-throated cry of the swans
diminished; soon the clearing was lit only by ordinary fire. But
over the smell of burning autumn leaves lay the sharp reek of
ozone.
For a time the three lay where they had fallen, head to
head, watching the spiral aurora recede into the zenith, until
finally the stars came out one by one, like the timid crickets.
Marya Mounce sat up and brushed dirt off her sleeves.
"Well," she said briskly. "Thank you both, very much, for
rescuing me."
Hours later they paused, halfway around the lake under
the eaves of an abandoned barn. Axel was unused to this level
of activity, and he had begun to stagger badly. Calandria
favoured her wounded arm, so she could only carry so much.
Marya had managed to keep up amazingly well, considering
her feet. Whatever augmentation had been done to support her
shortened tendons had toughened the balls of her feet
immensely, and she could indeed run if she needed to.
As Axel slumped down wearily, and Calandria moved
slowly to gather old planks for a fire, he noticed that Marya
was shivering violently--whole body shivers accompanied by
wildly chattering teeth.
"Thermal wear," she muttered. "There must be some
thermal wear here." She knelt down and began rummaging