The birdsong abruptly dropped in volume.
Moon clamped his jaw against a hiss. Stone went still, head cocked to listen. There was no stench of Fell in the light wind, and none in the forest. Stone stepped soundlessly over the rotting trunk, and turned to slide between the two nearest trees. Moon eased to his feet and followed.
The moss and winding roots didn’t creak as they moved toward the edge, but the low nervous rustle of birds and flying lizards made Moon’s spines want to twitch. They reached the outer circle of large trees. The view was nothing but empty blue sky and the rolling, brushy green hills below, and the wind came straight at them from the northwest. Keeping his voice to a low whisper, Stone said, “Probably Fell. We need to split them.” He jerked his head. “You go out the other side.”
Moon twitched his spines in agreement and ducked back through the trees. This was bad, but could still be survivable. The Fell must be angling up toward them from downwind. They would have spotted Moon and Stone sometime after dawn and been waiting for them to stop to rest. It probably meant there weren’t that many, maybe just a small scouting party. They wouldn’t want to fight inside the cloud forest but they wouldn’t be sure exactly where Moon and Stone would come out.
Moon reached the outer fringe of the forest, stepped between the trees, and spotted three dakti riding the wind high above. He flung himself out into the air, extended one wing and twisted as if he had fouled the other one.
The dakti took the bait and dropped on him. At the last instant, Moon snapped his other wing out, caught the wind and used it to slide under the forest. He caught a dangling root and contracted his body, tucking himself up and out of sight.
Two dakti shot past but one tried to follow him under the roots and blundered in right beneath him. Moon fell on it, shredded its right wing, dropped it, then dove on the other two. He caught one as it foolishly tried to come up at him and ripped its chest open. The other fled, flapping madly, and that was when he heard the crashing and growling from the far side of the forest.
Moon snarled, forgot the dakti and flapped up toward the roots. He found an opening in the forest floor and wriggled through, clawed his way past roots and moss. Dodging between the narrow trunks, the roots vibrated under his feet and the trees ahead shook and thrashed as something struggled just at the edge of the forest. Moon swung up into the canopy for a better view. He spotted Stone and snarled in horror.
Stone was in his winged form but something had fallen on him, a huge thing like a sticky web that had trapped his left wing and half his body against the dead trees on the outer edge. A kethel flapped just above him, swiped at Stone as he struggled to free himself.
Moon leapt from tree to tree then jumped down into the understory, dangerously close to the thrashing body. Moon lunged in and ripped at the sticky net with his claws. This close he saw it had been made from a sac, the substance that the kethel could secrete to carry dakti or rulers. It was caught all through the dead trees and there was no way he could shred it fast enough—
Something hit his back and bounced him off the nearest tree. He fell onto the moss and rolled to see three more dakti clawing their way toward him, jaws gaping with laughter. But the trees were too close together for them to come at him at once, and one shouldered the others aside to be the first to leap on him. That was a big mistake.
Moon caught its shoulders, yanked it forward, spread his jaw to its fullest extent and bit its face and muzzle off. He flung the still-twitching body into the second one, who tried to retreat but wedged its body against a tree long enough to get its chest ripped open. The third fled but Moon caught it in the dead trees at the fringe, slammed it down between the roots and snapped its neck. The dead roots cracked and broke under the force of the blow, and Moon realized this was how he could free Stone.
He shoved through the trunks to where Stone’s left foot was trapped in the sac-net, then started to claw and rip at the brittle roots of the two nearest dead trees. Without the root connection to the rest of the forest, the trees started to sway and topple. Stone must have felt the give; he jerked his foot and the trees ripped out and dragged half a dozen others with them.
Stone dropped and twisted, the sac stretching, strands snapping. The kethel caught the edge of the forest with one clawed foot to swipe at Stone’s face. Moon was close enough to see the collar of skulls around its neck, all groundlings, different shapes and sizes, some so recent rotting skin was still attached.
Another dark body loomed over them, blotting out the light.
Moon looked up at another kethel and thought, well, we’re dead now.
Then it slammed down atop the first kethel, yanked it off its perch and dragged it away. Stone twisted out of the sac-net as they fell past him. The two struggling kethel dropped out of sight under the bulk of the forest.
Moon leapt into the air as Stone wheeled away. He flapped until he caught the wind and then looked back over his shoulder. The two kethel fell, locked in combat. The kethel who had helped them had to be the one from the half-Fell flight. It was the same size and wore no collar.
Three smaller figures darted away in the opposite direction, fleeing the battle. It was a ruler and two dakti.
Ahead, Stone growled. Moon turned back and they flew south and away.
They flew until the cloud forest was out of sight. The terrain below was spidered with river channels running through shallow gorges, steep and inhospitable for groundlings. It was shaded by the occasional tall slender tree with a single layer of delicate canopy, spread like a parasol. Moon tried to signal Stone to land, and finally Stone circled down.
Stone landed on a rocky island that broke a wide channel into a short waterfall. He perched on the rock, then shifted to groundling and collapsed face down. Moon hit the rock, frantic, and shifted to lose his claws as he crouched to examine Stone. He didn’t see the big wounds he was afraid of, just streaks of blood from scratches on Stone’s arms and back. Then Stone croaked, “Left shoulder’s dislocated.”
Moon hissed, rolled him over, and shoved the shoulder back into place. Stone snarled as it clicked into the socket, then gasped in relief. He blinked and yawned. “Yeah, that’s better.”
“How did you fly like that?” Moon demanded. The wing joins used different muscles, but still.
“Not very well,” Stone admitted.
Moon pulled Stone’s pack around and dug in it. He pulled out a paper-wrapped packet and sniffed it. “You’re still carrying around the bug paste?”
Stone worked his shoulder carefully, his jaw set against the pain. “Obviously.”
Moon snarled in frustration, shoved it back in the pack, and dug out the half-full waterskin to hand to Stone. He took the empty one to the edge of the island to fill it. This is stupid, he thought. We can’t keep doing this. They were relying on luck and the word of a bladder-boat groundling that they were even on the trail of the right flying boat. And that shitting kethel was still following them.
Moon splashed water on his face and felt the sting of claw slashes and bruises he hadn’t noticed until now. He sat back and looked at Stone.
Stone was watching him, the waterskin on his chest. “We’re not stopping.”
It wasn’t nearly as satisfying to hiss in groundling form, and Moon was more exhausted now than frustrated. “We don’t even know if we’re going in the right direction.”
“We do, because the Fell are going this way.”
“They could be following us.”
“Then where are they?” Stone lifted his brows. He sat up with a groan, cradling his arm, and jerked his chin toward the empty sky. “That was the flight’s rear guard. The rest of them are ahead of us. They sent scouts ahead and spotted the Hians.”
He had a point. Moon rubbed his eyes and tabled the decision for the moment. He was suddenly hungry, and knew it was probably just nerves more than anything else. “That other kethel, that was the one the half-Fell queen sent. Which means the rest of the half-Fell flight has to be out here
somewhere. They’re following us, fighting the other Fell.”
“Not necessarily.” Stone shrugged and winced. “It might be just that one kethel.”
“So it’s competing with the other Fell to see who gets us?”
“Maybe.” Stone squinted at the empty sky again. “We need to get going.”
“No. I’m going to hunt, we’re going to eat, then we’ll find a place to sleep until dark.” At the far side of the pool below the waterfall, large silvery fish wove through the reeds and water flowers, and there were cracks and crevices in the rock that could make a good hiding place if he could find one wide enough.
He expected Stone to argue, but Stone gave him a sideways look and a slight smile. “And then we’ll get going.”
Moon snarled in frustration again, mostly at himself this time, shifted, and jumped into the water.
He managed to get enough fish for both of them before the school fled the pool, then helped Stone up to a crevice in the cliff that was big enough to lie down in. Stone slept, but Moon sat up just inside the cover of the overhanging rock, dozing off and on and watching the sky.
Before the sun set he spotted a lone kethel, crossing back and forth across the clouds, searching for them.
Malachite and the others left at sunset. Chime watched with horrified fascination as the Fellborn queen’s three kethel built the sac from the secretions of pouches in their winged forms. It was far smaller than the huge sac Chime had seen before, maybe thirty paces across at most. Two kethel lifted it between them and most of the dakti and the rulers climbed inside. Malachite, her warriors, the Fellborn queen, and a few dakti rode the two kethel, with the third flying alongside. The idea was to switch out periodically with the riders inside the sac and rest, with the third kethel spelling one of the two others, so that the flight could be in continuous motion.
“Good luck,” Chime had said to Rise, Malachite’s lead warrior.
He had thought he was doing a good job of hiding how appalled he was, but she had smiled ruefully. “Believe it or not, this is not the oddest thing I’ve done with Malachite.”
Malachite had chosen five Opal Night warriors to remain behind, and Chime stood with them in the stern, watching worriedly as the flight vanished into the clouds. Saffron was one of them, and Chime found himself exchanging a horrified expression with her. He didn’t particularly like Saffron, and they didn’t agree on a lot, but they were as one on this point. The Fell sac they had been trapped in together had been a terrible experience, and Chime couldn’t imagine climbing into one voluntarily.
And he would have never thought he would miss Malachite, but with her and so many warriors gone, the wind-ship felt far more vulnerable.
Chime turned and realized he stood next to Root. The news about the threat to Indigo Cloud and the Reaches had struck everyone so hard, and preparations for Malachite and the others to leave had been so urgent, Chime hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him yet.
There was something about the way Root stood there, his spines drooping a little, that made Chime think that River’s concern wasn’t misplaced. Not that Chime expected Root to be happy, but . . . “Are you all right?”
Root didn’t react, his gaze on the shapes fading into the dusk. “I’m fine.”
He didn’t sound fine. He didn’t sound like himself at all. “That’s good, because nobody else is,” Chime said, hoping to provoke a reaction.
It did. Root turned to face him, his expression grim and unfamiliar. “We shouldn’t have left Song’s body behind.”
It was as abrupt as a sudden slap. The memory of Song’s face, twisted and slack with death, was too vivid still and Chime winced, controlling a snarl. He swallowed his temper and made his voice calm. “We had to, Root.”
The Kishan had left their dead behind, too. They had buried them all on a small island in the archipelago off the coast of Kish, barely more than a sandbar. The Kish were afraid the dead would bring disease in the warm weather, and Chime couldn’t blame them. Indigo Cloud had left its dead before, when the court had had to flee the eastern colony and they had burned the remains of all those killed in the Fell attack. It was never easy, it was never right. But there was no choice.
“We brought Flower back with us,” Root said, stubborn and angry.
“It isn’t a far comparison,” Chime said. Root knew that as well as he did. They had had a queen’s urn to carry her in, and they had been on the freshwater sea, with a boat to take them near the shores of the Reaches, and not so many days of flight from home. Without Flower they wouldn’t have had that home; burying her in the tree had been a symbolic act.
Root looked away, his throat working. Then he shifted and leapt to the cabin roof, so fast Chime stumbled backward. Saffron caught his arm to steady him. “What was that about?” she asked.
“He’s hurt, and he has to take it out on someone,” Chime told her. That was all he wanted to say in front of the Opal Night warriors. He just hoped Root could control himself.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was morning when Bramble and Delin were taken down the corridor and up to the common room.
Through the large glass-shielded windows, Bramble could see the blue morning sky. Vendoin, Bemadin, and Lavinat sat on a bench, while several other Hians stood in attendance. Bramble hadn’t seen or heard anything of Lavinat since that first meeting in this room, and had almost forgotten her. But her presence here again seemed to show that she was important, though what her place was on this boat or in Vendoin’s plans, Bramble had no idea.
A young Hian male knelt by a low table, using a ladle to combine the contents of various jars into a set of three cups, then he stood and carried the tray to Vendoin, kneeling to offer it to her. There was something about it that Bramble found unnerving and alien. She flicked a quick look at Delin, and saw his expression was closed and neutral, almost as enigmatic as Stone at his best.
Vendoin must have seen Bramble staring, because she asked in Altanic, “Your males do not serve your females this way?”
“Not that way,” Bramble said. She wasn’t sure why it made the back of her neck itch, as if the spines she didn’t have in this form wanted to twitch in discomfort. Consorts made tea for their own queens and each other, informally. Except for Moon, who would do it for anybody unless you stopped him, and Stone, who as a line-grandfather did as he wanted. During formal meetings with other courts, Arbora generally tried to make the tea, since it was important to get it exactly right. But this was different somehow. It didn’t help that Vendoin was critically watching her discomfort.
With an edge to his voice, Delin said, “I don’t mean to interrupt your entertainment, but perhaps you could tell us what you want of us.”
Vendoin motioned them forward, indicating a stool near the table. There was only one stool, and Delin glanced at Bramble. She nodded at him to take it and he sat down with a sigh. Bramble stood behind him and realized she had a better view through the windows from this angle and could see that the flying boat was coming to a stop above a settlement.
It lay in a wide valley with a shallow river winding through that sparkled in the morning sunlight. Steep, rounded, forested hills stuck up out of the otherwise flat terrain, placed at random on either side of the bends of the river and sprinkled across the valley. The groundlings had mostly built their dwellings atop or in the sides of the hills, which were carved with pathways and stairs. Bridges joined the hills, and the ground around them was covered with colorful tents, apparently a market or trading area to receive the traffic from the docks along the river and the two elevated stone trade roads that curved in from the surrounding forest.
Before this trip, Bramble had only heard about large groundling settlements from Moon, and it was still exciting to see one, even under these circumstances. Groundlings moved on all the pathways and bridges, and big flat boats were moored at the river docks or moved slowly with the current.
Vendoin said, “You see we have stopped above a trading town, the last for s
ome distance. We’re well past the borders of Kish now.”
That was discouraging. Bramble knew they had traveled a long way, far outside the bounds of any map she had ever seen, but at least she knew groundlings from Kish. She didn’t know if they were still alive or not, but it felt like Kish was the last familiar thing left in her world outside this flying boat.
Delin said, “That would mean something to me if I knew where we were going.”
Vendoin made a gesture, as if accepting that fact. “If only you had some information of use to me, perhaps I could be more forthcoming.”
Impatiently, Bemadin said, “Why play this game? We will have help soon and we no longer need him or the Janderan.”
Vendoin eyed Bemadin without favor. Then Lavinat said, “What Bemadin said is true, we have stopped here to find another scholar to help us.”
Bemadin’s glance at Lavinat seemed wary. Vendoin stiffened, as if Lavinat had insulted her somehow. The first time Bramble had seen them together, it had been obvious they weren’t in accord. It seemed like the division between them had grown worse over the journey; Bramble hoped it was something she and Delin could take advantage of.
Delin’s brow furrowed. “Do I know this scholar?”
Vendoin looked at Lavinat, as if waiting for her to answer, then said, “She is a great scholar of the foundation builders, but has not lived in Kish for some time.”
Delin smiled a little. “Does she know she is to help you or will you steal her as well?”
Bramble thought that if Vendoin had been a Raksura, she would have hissed and rattled. Vendoin started to say, “That is not—”
Someone shouted from down the corridor behind Bramble, a wordless yell of alarm. She whipped around just as the deck rocked under her feet. It’s Jade and Stone and Moon and the others, she thought in fierce joy. They found us!
Then she caught the scent carried in on the air from the corridor and shifted almost before her mind processed what it was. Fell stench. Sick, she blurted out, “Delin, it’s the Fell!”