Moon flicked his spines to show he had heard. He turned, trying to look up without using any muscles on the right side of his body. He couldn’t see much from this position, the glare of the light obscuring what moved in the darkness beyond it. Then a door behind him banged open and Kalam stepped out. One of the others called a warning to him but he ignored it and ran up to Moon. He said breathlessly, “Rorra’s on the upper deck. She saw you come down and said you were hurt.”
“No, well yes, but—” Ignoring Moon, Kalam pushed a folded cloth against the worst wound, pressing hard to stop the bleeding. Moon admitted, “All right, that’s actually a good idea. But if I tell you to run—”
“I will,” Kalam promised.
“I can’t see any more rulers or dakti in the air,” Chime reported from the cabin roof. “They might—Oh, Jade’s coming!”
Moon swayed, partly with relief. Careful to sheathe his claws, he put a hand on Kalam’s shoulder to steady himself. One of the Janderan stepped closer and said, “Kalam, you should back away—”
Kalam said, “Tell the physician to get down here. There must be other wounded out there, and on the airship.”
The Janderan hesitated, but then turned back to give the order. Jade banked overhead and spiraled down, the light glinting off her blue scales. Moon was starting to realize how lucky he was the Kishan hadn’t shot a fire weapon at him. They would have seen two nearly identical dark figures hurtling toward them.
Jade landed on the deck. She took in the dripping blood and the dead ruler. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Moon said. “Did you see Root and Briar?”
“They’re on the beach with Stone.” She leaned in to look and Kalam moved the pad so she could see the wound. She grimaced. “How many were aboard your flying boat? Do you know?”
Kalam answered, “There were five aboard. Is it destroyed?” He looked up at Jade, wincing in anticipation of the answer.
She shook her head. “It’s on the ground, but I didn’t get much of a look at it.”
Chime reported, “I see Balm coming this way.”
The cabin door banged open again, and Callumkal came out, followed by another Janderan. As they drew closer, Moon saw she was the healer, Serlam. Callumkal said, “On the beach—Were there survivors? We were lucky that most of the crew decided to sleep here tonight but there were five left on duty aboard—”
“Stone is there now and I’m about to go join him,” Jade said. “Tell your people not to shoot anything in that direction. The Fell are gone and Stone may have to lift the upper portion of the flying boat to look under it. If we find anyone, we’ll bring them here. Will you help Moon?”
“Yes, of course.” Callumkal hesitated, frowning, but apparently was only trying to consider the logistics of helping a person with spines on his back. “Can he change?”
Kalam peeked under the pad again. “He’s still bleeding, but not as badly.”
Jade’s gaze was worried, but Moon didn’t want to delay her. He said, “Kalam, step back.” He didn’t want to fall on him.
Kalam moved away, and Moon shifted. And then things got vague and dim, and his knees started to fold. Callumkal caught him and held him up, and Moon managed to at least look like he was still alert and conscious. “Go on,” he told Jade.
She stepped back, then took a running leap off the deck. Callumkal and Kalam guided Moon through the doorway and then down a wide corridor. Unlike the flying boat, the deck was wood and the walls a dull copper metal. The liquid light bubbles were built into the ceiling and nested in patches of moss.
They half-carried Moon into a cabin with wide padded benches built against the walls, and a braided grass rug on the deck. Callumkal lowered Moon down to the nearest bench. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked.
Gripping the bench, Moon managed a nod. Callumkal took him at his word and left, hopefully to go back out on deck. Moon wanted him out there, keeping any of the nervous Kishan from overreacting and shooting a Raksura. Kalam reappeared, urging Moon to lie down, and stuffing a cushion under his head when he did. Moon pulled up his blood-soaked shirt to see the wound. Kalam made a noise of dismay.
“It looks worse than it is,” Moon tried to croak. He wasn’t in danger; it was just going to be painful until his body could heal it.
Serlam pulled Kalam away and sat down on the bench next to Moon. He hadn’t spoken much to her aboard the flying boat. She was one of the Janderan who had kept her distance. She said, “I don’t suppose you’re going to bite me.”
“Not unless you ask nicely,” Moon told her.
She blinked, then made a huffing noise he assumed was a laugh, and opened her satchel. “I’ve never treated one of you before. Can you tell me what I should do?”
“Just clean it.” She took a wad of folded cloth out of her satchel that smelled astringent. Moon set his jaw and didn’t flinch when she wiped away the blood. Her touch wasn’t rough, but she wasn’t as deft as Merit.
She finished cleaning the wounds, her expression still uncertain. “Are you sure I shouldn’t sew this up?”
Moon was pretty damn sure. “It’s not bleeding anymore because underlayers of skin have already started closing up. It’ll be fine if I don’t rip it open again.” It wasn’t the explanation Merit would have given; Moon had made up the word underlayers himself to describe what he had noted about the way his deeper cuts and slashes healed.
She leaned close, frowning. “Hmm. All right, but I’m going to strap it, just to make sure.”
He let her bandage the bigger wounds, and endured questions like “is your skin supposed to be this hot?” when he had no idea if it was or not. It didn’t feel hot to him and no one else had ever seemed to think it was odd.
Then heavy steps and bumping in the corridor signaled the arrival of Kishan crew members carrying more wounded. “Are they from the flying boat?” Moon asked.
Serlam said, “I don’t know. I have to go. Try to rest, and I’ll check on you later,” collected her bag, and strode out.
Gritting his teeth, Moon levered himself up in time to see three Kish-Jandera carried past, one on a makeshift stretcher. From what he could see, their condition wasn’t good.
“He’s in here,” someone said, and Stone stepped into the cabin.
“What—” Moon grimaced as the slashes and punctures in his side stretched. “The Arbora and Delin?”
“They’re fine.” Stone sat on the bench next to Moon. “Bramble dug in under the tent, literally. There were three paces of sand on top of them. They were still digging out when I left.”
Moon sank back down onto the bench again, too relieved to comment. Whether it was fear or the Arbora talent for doing things thoroughly that had led them to dig so deep, he was glad Bramble hadn’t underestimated the Fell. “What happened at the flying boat?”
“It’s in pieces, and two Kishan were killed, Berkal and Lilan. They were running the big fire weapon that took out the kethel. Esankel was a little banged up, but the other two are in bad shape. The Fell got that smaller flying boat too, the one that was anchored on the island, but there was no one aboard it.” Frowning, Stone looked under the bandage. He tasted the air, possibly looking for scents of poison or infection. He didn’t look like he had been in battle with two kethel, except that maybe his skin was a little grayer than usual. “You need Merit?”
“No.” Moon levered himself up on his elbows again, ignoring the painful pull at his ribcage. He couldn’t talk while he was lying flat on his back. “Did you—” He took a closer look at Stone’s expression. “What?”
Stone sighed. “The Kishan caught a dakti with that projectile weapon they have. They took it off the beach in one of the small boats and are bringing it up on deck now.”
“Caught . . . It’s still alive?” Moon had trouble understanding. “What’s the point of that?”
Stone’s expression was sour. “They want to talk to it.”
Moon hissed, but he knew the Kishan scholars well eno
ugh by now to not be entirely surprised. “They realize what they’ll actually be talking to, right?” Individual dakti had feelings and apparently personalities of their own, but they acted as conduits for their rulers, and probably for their progenitors, too. Something else would be seeing and speaking through the dakti’s body.
Stone grimaced. “There’s realizing it, and there’s understanding what it means.” He threw a wary glance toward the doorway. “I wish your birthqueen were here.”
Moon suddenly found himself defensive and he had no idea why. Maybe because he had been wishing Malachite was here too, and didn’t like to hear Stone articulate that hidden thought. “Why? Even Malachite can’t kill a ruler by talking to it through a dakti.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Stone said.
Stone started to stand, and Moon held out a hand. “Help me up, I want to hear this.” Stone’s expression was not encouraging. Moon glared. “Come on, we know more about Fell than anybody here. And it’s not like the rulers didn’t see us already.”
Stone said, “Don’t think you’re fooling anybody with that ‘we’ bit. You think you know more about the Fell than anybody here,” but took Moon’s arm and hauled him to his feet.
Stone helped Moon out to the corridor. Moon scented Fell, but the door was open onto the deck and the whole island and the sea between here and the escarpment stank of Fell right now. “How did they breathe under three paces of sand?” Moon asked suddenly, remembering the Arbora’s hiding spot. “And how did they keep Delin breathing?”
“I don’t know,” Stone admitted. “Sometimes I wonder about the Arbora.”
Sometimes Moon did too. They limped out onto the deck where the wind had died and the hanging fluid-lights glowed steadily. The fire blossom in the sky had faded but distance-lights on the upper decks swept the air and the beach. Jade was out there, with Balm and Chime, still in their winged forms. Balm had long scrapes and scratches on her arms, but didn’t look wounded anywhere else. Moon was beginning to think his decision to grapple with a Fell ruler all the way down to the sunsailer was possibly not the best choice. Calumkal, Kellimdar, and Vendoin stood with half a dozen of the Kishan crew. The mast of one of the smaller boats was just visible above the railing.
Moon heard Kellimdar say, “I feel we should apologize, but we truly saw no sign the Fell were still in this area.” He sounded genuinely regretful.
Callumkal said, “They were waiting for our return, clearly. But how did they know?”
Jade said, “That’s a good question. You know they could have put one of your people, a Kish-Jandera, under their influence and set them to spy on you.”
“That should have been impossible,” Kellimdar told her. “Our arcanist, Avagram, was alert for such deceptions when we were on our way here. He died before we arrived, but there was no chance of the Fell abducting anyone and returning them while we were underway.”
“It could have happened before we left Kedmar,” Callumkal said before Jade could. “We weren’t as careful then, not suspecting the Fell might be interested in our actions.”
“Perhaps the Fell were attracted by the Raksura,” Vendoin said. There was a pause as Callumkal and even Kellimdar stared at her, startled by the suggestion. Jade’s spines started to lift.
Vendoin raised her hands. “I did not mean deliberately attracted! I meant, perhaps the Fell thought we sought out the Raksura because they knew the way into the city, and acted because of that.”
Jade, having spent a good portion of the night saving groundlings from Fell, managed to lower her spines with difficulty. “It’s possible,” she said, an edge to her tone that could have cut bone.
“Since I was the one who invited the Raksura to come here,” Callumkal pointed out, grimly, “I ask that we put this discussion off until later.”
“Perhaps after my consort’s blood is washed off the deck,” Jade added, still eyeing Vendoin.
“I meant no offense,” Vendoin said.
Moon sighed. For someone who didn’t mean any offense, Vendoin had picked the worst time to cause it.
Chime glanced back, saw them, and stepped over to Moon with a relieved wince. “Are you all right? You don’t look all right.”
“If I move around, it’ll heal faster,” Moon said. It sounded right.
Chime’s concerned expression turned exasperated. “No, not really.”
Moon didn’t want to argue so he didn’t reply. Balm threw a worried glance at them and nudged Jade’s arm. Jade looked over her shoulder, did a double-take, and glared at Moon. He glared back.
Jade wasn’t able to take any action because the winch extending off the upper deck creaked as two crew members turned the wheel at its base. It hauled something in a net up off the small boat, and Moon caught the scent of burned dakti. All the attention shifted to the rail.
The net swung over and was lowered to the deck. Wary armed Kishan surrounded it and the dakti trapped inside snarled at them. It was still in its winged form, small compared to an adult warrior. It had armored plates on its back and shoulders instead of scales, and it had a long jaw and a double row of fangs. Moon had seen dakti in their groundling form, which was not particularly prepossessing either. It moved like it was injured, but wasn’t showing any emotion except anger and what was probably a thwarted desire to eat groundlings.
Jade stepped forward with Callumkal. Balm moved a step sideways, putting herself between the dakti and Moon, Chime, and Stone.
Callumkal asked Jade, “How do we begin?” He sounded a little uncertain and Moon thought, Good. Overconfidence wasn’t going to help anything.
The angle of Jade’s spines suggested that if they had to do this, they might as well do it thoroughly. She said, “Just wait. There’s no point speaking to the dakti itself.”
Watching uneasily, Kellimdar said, “Does it understand us? If the rulers won’t speak through it, perhaps we could offer to release it to carry a message to them.”
Jade flicked her spines in a negative. “It’s hard to explain, but that wouldn’t work.”
The dakti would know the rulers would probably kill it for showing that much initiative. Moon figured all the dakti who were capable of thinking for themselves and resisting a ruler’s commands were either dead, or had slipped away from their flights and were living happy though lonely lives in a forest somewhere.
Callumkal said, “I’ve heard speculation that they are a group mind, incapable of individual thought. Delin said it was a theory, but nothing was known for certain.”
Jade’s spines relaxed a little at these signs of understanding. “He’s right, we don’t know, for certain. They act as a group mind much of the time, share memories with each other. But sometimes the rulers act as individuals, so we don’t know who has the control, if it’s a group of the rulers or the progenitor or . . . something else. But the dakti and kethel have been bred to be obedient.”
Moon heard Rorra’s boots on the deck behind them and a moment later she stepped up beside Chime. She must not have heard about the dakti, because her expression was wide-eyed and incredulous. She muttered something in a language Moon didn’t know. It sounded exasperated.
Then the dakti stirred and stretched its head up.
Everyone went still. The dakti’s mouth opened and its throat worked. A voice, grating and hollow, said, “So here we are.”
Moon’s skin prickled as if he had just been dipped into freezing water. No matter how many times he had seen a ruler do this, it never got easier. Maybe because the dakti clearly had no choice, no identity once the ruler took over. Maybe because it seemed so easy for the Fell to give up that identity.
Callumkal said, “And who are you?”
The voice said, “A friend. You seem sorely in need of friends.” It would have been a chilling moment, but Stone made a disparaging noise in his throat clearly audible to everyone on the deck.
The Fell spoke in Altanic. Fell always spoke their prey’s language, which meant this flight might come from t
he eastern peninsula, where that was the most common trade language among groundlings. It also might mean it came from closer to Kish, and just didn’t want to reveal that by speaking Kedaic. Or possibly Moon was overthinking this.
Jade leaned toward Callumkal and said, keeping her voice low, “They always speak that way to groundlings, at first. They always call themselves friends.”
Callumkal made a gesture of assent. “So I’ve heard.”
Kellimdar whispered, “It’s disturbing to see it in practice.”
Moon felt the tension in his chest ease a little. Chime, who had apparently been holding his breath this entire time, gasped.
Callumkal raised his voice to say, “We are in need of friends. We’ve just been attacked by Fell.”
The ruler who spoke through the hapless dakti said, “We attacked the Raksura.”
Rorra, standing with her arms folded, snorted in derision. Callumkal said, “The flying craft did not belong to the Raksura.”
Moon sensed the mood on the deck turn from uncertainty and fear to something more grimly angry. All the Kishan were focused on the dakti, and no one looked at the Raksura. Moon suspected the loss of the flying boat and the dead and injured crew aboard it was not going to be easily excused by any of them. It was a relief.
“So what did they want, then?” Chime whispered. “They could have approached the Kishan like they normally do, tried to trick them. Why attack openly?”
It was a good question. Moon noticed Rorra leaning close to listen. He said, “Maybe because they’re Kishan. Maybe the Fell thought it wouldn’t do any good to try to trick them.”
Stone muttered, “It’s not going to be that simple.”
The fact that the ruler hadn’t answered immediately was telling. Though what it was telling, Moon wasn’t sure. Then it said, “It can’t be discussed in this manner. We must meet with you.”
Callumkal didn’t appear convinced by that argument. “I’m having no trouble discussing it in this manner. Just tell me what you want from us.”