Outside the tunnel, the sound of skittering chittering grew louder.
“Here they come,” said one of the aeronauts, his voice tight with fear.
“Steady,” said Captain Grimm. From the excitement in his voice, he might have been talking about the weather.
Bridget glanced aside at the captain. He stood with his bloodied sword in hand, his still-hot gauntlet sending up wisps of smoke where copper cagework touched heavy leather bracer. His face was pale but calm, his eyes fixed on the entrance of the tunnel.
Her gaze continued to Benedict Sorellin, tall and straight, his breath coming a little harder than it had been a few moments before. That had to be the work of the poison. He too faced the darkness with a calm, pale face. He bounced his sword a few times in his hand, seemingly unaware that he moved the heavy steel weapon as if it had been no weightier than a cloth napkin.
If the nature of her foes would speak to the credit of Bridget’s death, then surely the nature of her allies would speak even more loudly and clearly of her life.
She finished the last buckle on her gauntlet, primed it, gripped the heavy knife in her right hand, and turned to face the foe beside Benedict.
Folly suddenly drew in a sharp breath, and her eyes went wide and round. She stared for a second at the tunnel’s entrance and then lifted her hands, making small whimpering sounds, scrambling away from the entrance until her back was pressed against the makeshift masonry wall.
Bridget stared at her for a second—and then remembered in a flash Folly’s precognitive reaction just before the horde of infant silkweavers had come plunging out of the ceiling. She tracked the direction of Folly’s gaze and whirled to shout to Grimm, “The ceiling, Captain! Fire!”
Grimm stared at her for a half second, but Bridget did not wait to see what the man would do. She raised her gauntlet and sent a howling bolt of energy flashing up toward the ceiling of the tunnel at its entrance. Even as she did, the first of a horde of silkweavers poured forward, rushing along the ceiling. Bridget’s blast missed—but Grimm’s shot, coming half a second later, neatly speared the lead silkweaver on a shaft of blazing light and sent it tumbling to the floor.
The silkweavers came on then, horrible and terrifyingly swift, flowing like a living carpet over the ceiling of the tunnel toward them. Their eyes gleamed, their tripartite jaws gaped, and they were emitting a chorus of hissing, whistling shrieks.
“Ceiling!” Grimm shouted, even as he loosed more blasts. “Fire, fire, fire!”
The aeronauts and Benedict followed suit, and for a moment the silkweavers were torn and blasted from the ceiling almost as quickly as they appeared. Bridget had no idea whether she hit anything, though it seemed fair to note that she could hardly have missed every blast. It was, she thought, more like pumping water at a fire than any kind of battle she had ever heard about.
Unfortunately, their pumps had a very limited amount of pressure. The aeronaut’s gauntlets began overheating one by one, searing leather and the flesh beneath. Grimm was the last of his men to stop shooting, and the copper cagework around his gauntlet was glowing red-hot in places before he was through, leaving Bridget to keep firing at targets alone, her own weapon fresher and holding less waste heat than the weapons that had been engaged in lengthy battle already.
“Blades!” Grimm called, as the tide of silkweavers began surging forward now, confident and aggressive.
Sheaths rattled and steel whispered as the aeronauts drew their weapons. The first silkweaver leapt down upon them, only to be met by a group of swords and stabbed repeatedly. But Bridget could see what would inevitably happen, and her eyes blurred with tears of frustration as she watched more silkweavers pour in. There weren’t anywhere near as many of them as there had been only a short while before—perhaps only a dozen. But they outnumbered the Albions two to one, and a man was a far more fragile creature than a silkweaver. They had come maddeningly close to victory—but now it was only a matter of time until death found them.
The silkweavers began to spring down upon the besieged little band.
And then Bridget heard the most beautiful music of her entire life.
When a single cat let loose a war cry, it was an unsettling sound. When two cats suddenly wailed at each other in a similar fashion, it was downright unnerving.
When hundreds of them caterwauled at the same time, in a single voice, the sound alone was enough to make one feel as if the skin had been peeled from one’s muscle and bone, to call up horrors inherited from ancestors long since dead and forgotten, raw terror before a deadly predator. Not even the alien implacability of the silkweavers could ignore that call, and the surface creatures began to skitter and dart nervously back and forth.
Rowl and the Nine-Claws had come to wage war.
Cats flashed into the tunnel in a howling wave, led by Rowl, son of Maul of the Silent Paws. At his side rushed Naun, chief of the NineClaws, and a cadre of the tribe’s largest warriors flanked them, every single one of them wearing a set of battle spurs.
The tight mass of cats seemed to explode all at once into different directions. Those who had never seen a tribe of cats at war, or at least playing war games, would look upon what came next as utter chaos. Cats dashed this way and that, seemingly at random, scratching with their claws, leaping, biting, and accomplishing nothing.
But Bridget knew better. The cats knew they were no match for the much larger and stronger silkweavers on an individual basis. Rather than sacrifice their warriors in desperate slashing piles of pure attrition, they played a different game, forcing the silkweavers to react to them, to keep them continuously spinning and turning and snapping at threats—only to have the cats they targeted sprint away before they could be pinned down. Cats darted this way and that, always passing a whisker’s breadth out of reach of the silkweavers. The surface creatures, furious and agitated, could only snap uselessly at the air where a rushing cat had been, and try to keep track of every movement.
And then, once fatigue had begun to slow the silkweavers, once confusion had reduced the fantastic speed of their reflexes, Rowl and Naun struck.
Bridget watched as her friend suddenly sprinted directly at silkweaver’s open jaws. She began to shout a warning, but Rowl bounded left and right and then flung himself down flat on his back without ever slowing down. The cat slid beneath the silkweaver and promptly began raking with his battle spurs.
Rowl let out another war howl and his rear legs blurred as he raked and raked at the underbelly of the silkweaver above him. He rolled and sprinted out an instant before a rush of stinking purplish fluid and some kind of mucus burst from the silkweaver’s abdomen. The silkweaver thrashed madly for a few seconds and then tottered onto its side, its many legs weaving uselessly and only slowly becoming still.
“Rowl!” Bridget called, delighted.
“Littlemouse!” Rowl caroled merrily in reply. “Do not kill any of my prey! I have a wager with Naun!” The cat bounded aside from the attack of a silkweaver Bridget would have sworn Rowl could not have seen, and rushed away, only to slide beneath another lethally harassed silkweaver on the opposite side of the tunnel. Once again he raked madly and darted clear before he could be drenched in the stinking guts of his foe.
Captain Grimm surged forward with his sword held high, bellowing, “Help the cats! Bait the silkweavers! Wear them out!”
Benedict darted forward to slash at a silkweaver who had managed to seize a cat’s tail, menacing the creature and forcing it to release the cat, then kicked another silkweaver away from a wounded cat, leaping to place himself between the surface creature and the downed feline, his teeth bared in a wide grin.
Bridget held back. Given her skill with a gauntlet, it would have been foolishness to start hurling bolts of energy into that kind of chaos. Given how short her knife was, employing it seemed to her an excellent way to be poisoned by the silkweavers—and besides, someone had to stand watch over Folly to make sure one of the spiteful things didn’t rush her helpless f
orm.
The battle did not last long. Just as the silkweavers had outnumbered the Albions, leading to only one inevitable conclusion, the cats outnumbered the silkweavers to much the same effect. Naun, Rowl, and Naun’s personal guard dispatched the creatures as each presented itself as a target—until only one silkweaver remained standing.
And at that point, Naun let out a vicious, furious howl, and two hundred Nine-Claws threw themselves upon the beast, ripping and tearing in a frenzy of wrath. The cats didn’t kill the silkweaver so much as they spread it evenly over several dozen square yards of tunnel.
Bridget almost felt sorry for the beast.
Not quite, but almost.
“Bugger me,” blurted a burly aeronaut. Bridget thought his name was Kettle or Keppel or something like that. “Little furry bastards don’t play around, do they?”
“Mind your tongue, Kettle,” Captain Grimm said. “All things considered, I think it very wise not to deliver any unintentional insults. Mmm?”
“Aye, Skip,” Kettle said, eyeing the spreading stain that had been a silkweaver a few moments before. “That does seem like good sense. No offense intended, kitties.”
Rowl sauntered lazily up to Littlemouse, looking enormously pleased with himself. “Five,” he said smugly. “Five full-grown silkweavers in as many minutes. Maul has never done that.”
Bridget tried to speak and found that she couldn’t. Instead she dropped her knife, let out a little choking sound, and scooped Rowl up in her arms, hugging his furry warmth close to her.
“You saved us,” she said.
“Of course I did,” Rowl responded. “I am without flaw.”
Bridget swallowed hard. And then she did begin to cry. “I was so scared,” she said. “I thought I was going to die a long way from home.”
Rowl made a deep, pleased purring sound in his chest. “How could that happen,” he asked, “when you have me to protect you?”
She choked out another laugh. “You are impossible.”
“I am cat,” Rowl said smugly. “It is not of your doing, Littlemouse. It is natural that something so limited as a human finds me impossible. And you are squishing my fur.”
Bridget kissed the top of Rowl’s furry head, hugged him once more, and set him down on the floor. Oddly, he did not seem at all concerned about his fur. “I would speak to Grim Ship-Trees.”
Bridget blinked. “You have given him a name?”
Rowl shook his ears as if he hadn’t heard her and yawned. “Will you speak Albion to him for me?”
“I will,” Bridget said. “Benedict, stay with Folly?”
“Of course,” Benedict said. He nodded rather deeply to Rowl and said, “Well fought.”
“He knows,” Bridget said, before Rowl could actually utter an answer.
Rowl seemed to consider it for a moment, then turned with a flick of his tail that indicated the same disinterest as a human shrug. “Yes,” he said. “I do. Come, Littlemouse.”
Bridget accompanied Rowl over to Captain Grimm.
“Master Rowl,” Grimm greeted the cat gravely. He straightened, tucked his hat beneath one arm, and swept a very low bow to Rowl. “You have preserved my life and the lives of my men. I am in your debt.”
“I know that,” Rowl said (through Bridget). “I have a mission to complete, as a member of the Spirearch’s warriors. There are still Auroran warriors loose in the territory of the Nine-Claws. The Nine-Claws and I have saved your lives. Now you must help them defend their territory.”
“Aye,” Grimm said, nodding. He glanced aside and his eyes widened.
Bridget looked up to see the rest of the crew of Predator emerging from one of the other shadowy tunnels. The broken forms of several silkweavers dotted the floor behind them—as did motionless human forms. Evidently the larger group of men had been kept bottled up in their tunnel by a relatively small number of silkweavers. Now they emerged, gauntlets primed, swords in hand, staring warily at the cats.
“Hold your fire!” Grimm shouted. “Stand down! It’s over! The cats are with us!”
The men obeyed their captain, and Grimm turned back to Bridget and Rowl. “Whatever the Aurorans put those Marines here to do, they’re off to do it. They must be stopped. Will the Nine-Claws help?”
Rowl’s tail flicked left and right. “The Nine-Claws do not care which humans rule the human portion of the habble. Their war was with the silkweavers. Fighting surface creatures is one thing. Fighting humans with gauntlets is another.”
Grimm grunted. “What about intelligence? Can they tell us where the Aurorans are?”
Instead of answering, Rowl sat down, and a heartbeat later a little bit of shadow detached itself from a wall and padded over to sit next to him. Rowl’s thirty-pound frame dwarfed that of the smaller female cat who sat down beside him, though she showed not an ounce less dignity.
“Hello, Mirl,” Bridget said. “Captain Grimm, this is Mirl.”
“I am pleased to know her name,” Grimm said. “Thank you, Mirl, for your warning. Do you know where the Aurorans have gone?”
“Of course,” Mirl said, with a sidelong glance at Rowl. “While you spoiled children have been amusing yourselves killing prey that is not even good for food, I was doing the important work.”
“What work is that, please?” Grimm asked.
“Following the Aurorans, of course,” Mirl said. “Incidentally, I did so entirely without getting anyone who depended upon me captured by the enemy.”
Rowl’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Out with it,” he growled. “Where are they?”
Instead of answering, Mirl licked a paw fastidiously, for just long enough to make it clear that Rowl was not compelling her to do anything she did not wish to do.
Bridget sighed. Cats. She held up a hand for silence when Captain Grimm began to ask a question. He frowned, but complied.
After a moment, Mirl spoke. “They are in the stone house with walls and dirt and green growing things.”
Benedict stiffened. “The temple. What are they doing there?”
“Killing,” Mirl answered. “Burning.”
Bridget’s gaze shot to Captain Grimm. “Why would they do that?”
“Why indeed,” Grimm replied, his eyes narrowing.
“We must help them, Captain,” Benedict said fervently.
Grimm studied the young man for a moment before nodding. “We’ll do all we can. Creedy, I know everyone is exhausted. But we’re moving out.”
Chapter Fifty-six
Spire Albion, Habble Landing, Temple of the Way
Rowl, having defeated the army of silkweavers virtually unassisted, sat and watched as the humans floundered about in the wake of the battle.
Littlemouse, who was by far the most important human present, helped human Folly to her feet and spoke to her in a low, worried tone. That was ridiculous, of course. Human Folly could stand, and could speak, and so the odd girl was obviously well enough. Human Folly looked rather frantic for a moment, until Littlemouse placed several small lumin crystals into the other girl’s hands, at which point the etherealist’s apprentice cupped them as if they were more precious than kittens.
Grim Ship-Trees was visiting his fallen and wounded warriors. Rowl approved of that. Even now, Naun was making the rounds of the wounded and fallen Nine-Claws warriors. The clan chief finished the task and prowled over to Rowl, his bloodied battle spurs clicking on the ground.
“Rowl.”
“Naun.”
“You slew as many as I did,” Naun noted.
“Did I?” Rowl asked airily. “I was not keeping track.”
Naun’s tail lashed in amusement. “The threat to my clan is gone.
You were instrumental in making that happen.”
“You are welcome,” Rowl said.
Naun stared silently for a moment. Then he said, “You spared the life of my kit, when you had more than sufficient reason to kill him.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“O
ut of respect,” Rowl replied. He lifted his right rear leg and peered at the bloodied blade on it. “His battle spurs are excellent.”
“Hardly used,” Naun growled. “Keep them.”
“Neen will not like that,” Rowl noted.
“Neen will earn his spurs again. Perhaps this time something will sink in.”
“I wish you luck with that,” Rowl said. “If you will excuse me. The spurs chafe.”
Naun flicked an ear in farewell. “Convey to your father my respects.
His envoy is welcome in Nine-Claws territory.”
“I will,” Rowl replied.
Naun rose without further remark, and departed.
Rowl turned back to watching Grim Ship-Trees, and noted that the man was in the midst of detailing a few of his healthy warriors to help the human healer take the wounded to something more like safety. If he could smell the distant smoke in the air like Rowl could, he would be moving more quickly. But that was the way of humans. Like their minds, their senses were not particularly sharp, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they spent an inordinate amount of time ignoring them or dulling them even further with their drink and their alleged music and their soap. So, no matter that they were standing in the only habble in all of Spire Albion filled with flammable buildings, and that the entire place might turn into a gigantic oven and cook them all. There were human matters to fuss with before moving out to take action. Years of living near humans had taught Rowl that there was no point in trying to hurry them, and had made him even more patient than he was puissant. They would be ready when they were ready. Meanwhile, he prowled over to Littlemouse, made himself comfortable, and started working on the laces of his new battle spurs. Knots were uncivilized creations. His thumb-paw was really not well suited to undoing the length of leather cord that kept the cuffs securely on his legs, which was why a pair of squires was generally required to secure the cuffs in the first place.
“Rowl,” Littlemouse asked, in Cat. “Would you please allow me to assist you?”
“Yes,” Rowl said promptly, and lay down to relax while Littlemouse saw to the knots with her indecently long and precise fingers. Each creature had something it excelled at, he supposed. Humans could manage knots easily, and cats could do everything else.