by Martha Wells
“I know,” Jade snapped. “Ceilinel, Thiest, back away from them.”
“What?” Rorra whispered.
“Fell ruler.” Moon eased forward in front of Kalam.
The figure who stepped off the boarding ramp was tall and lean, and very like the groundling form of an Aeriat, except for its pale skin and long dark hair. It made eye contact with Ceilinel and started to speak.
“It’s a Fell,” Rorra shouted, and lifted her fire weapon.
Moon wasn’t expecting much in the way of help, but the difference between groundlings who had little experience with the Fell versus groundlings who had fought them before was immediately evident. Thiest yanked Ceilinel away and shouted an order toward the steering cabin. An instant later the flying boat dipped sideways and ripped itself free of the gantry.
Neline staggered as the deck tilted. “What are you doing?”
Ceilinel scrubbed at her eyes, clearly furious. “It’s a Fell ruler, get away from it!” Rorra and Kalam aimed their fire weapons.
Thiest ordered, “Ceilinel, get inside.”
Jade stalked toward the ruler, her head tilted, angling her approach to shield the retreating groundlings. Moon shifted, ignored the nervous jitter from the crew, and moved to flank her.
Ceilinel backed toward the nearest hatch but said, “Can you make it tell us what happened here? Are there more Fell inside the emplacement?”
The ruler braced itself against the railing. It ignored the groundlings and smiled at Jade. It said in Kedaic, “You have a fine consort, queen. My progenitor is pleased.”
Moon fought a surge of fury and made his hiss sound amused. “Is that the best you can do?” He tried to keep his attention on the towers, knowing the ruler’s job was to distract them. Whatever it said, it couldn’t have expected to find a Raksuran queen on a groundling flying boat.
Jade snarled, “Your progenitor will be in pieces. She’s nearby, is she? She put you in that tower for a reason.”
From behind them, Thiest demanded, “What reason?”
Moon said, “They want to destroy this flying boat. They knew it was coming.” He realized Stone wasn’t on deck anymore. He hadn’t shifted and taken flight, and he hadn’t gone inside, so he must have vaulted the railing in the confusion. He’s right, if the Fell aren’t above us, they’re below us.
“They want to escape.” Urgently, Rorra said, “Thiest, you need to get this boat out of here, now.”
Taking mental control of the Kishan garrison would have allowed the Fell to know a boat was on the way. If Raksura were really hunting Fell through this region, then this flight must want to capture or destroy the boat so they would have a clear path to escape through Kish. Neline and Pathial stood like confused statues, as if they had no idea where they were or what was going on. Ualck backed away from the ruler, his face set in a grimace of horror, as the Fell influence faded and he realized what had happened.
“What about the garrison?” Ceilinel asked from the hatchway.
The towers were ominously silent, no one observing the standoff on the flying boat. Kalam, backed up against the cabin wall with Rorra, said, “They may be all dead.”
Moon kept his attention on the ruler. The fact that it wasn’t talking was worrisome. It looked like it was listening. The ruler had been the Fell’s first plan, and it hadn’t worked, and they had abandoned it. They would be working on their second plan now. “Jade—”
“You need to go, now!” Jade snarled at Thiest.
The ruler shifted and surged toward Jade. It either hadn’t thought Moon would interfere or the mental command from its progenitor had allowed no room for caution. Moon hit it from the side and Jade bounced upward and slammed into it from above. Moon rolled clear of its flailing legs as Jade thumped it down to the deck and opened its throat. Thiest turned toward the steering cabin and shouted, “Take us up!”
Then a deadly cloud of dakti shot out of the tower windows.
The dakti swarm fell on the boat like an avalanche. A figure slung itself off the nearest tower and shifted into a kethel in mid-fall. Fire weapons roared as the Solkis fired into the dakti and the boat’s two big forward weapons turned toward the towers. Moon leapt up to slash the first dakti to reach the deck, then slapped the next two out of the air. Jade took down a second ruler, and Stone’s dark form leapt out of the trees below to snatch the kethel and drag it down into the foliage.
Dakti swarmed Moon and he slammed them down to the deck, ripping at their throats and wings. They fled abruptly and Moon caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The tube of the big fire weapon at the top of the nearest tower jolted into hesitant motion. Moon’s spines shivered as it swung down to point toward the flying boat. That’s wrong, that’s definitely not supposed to happen.
Then two Fell rulers came over the top cabin. One hit Ceilinel and the other struck Thiest, dragging both up and off the boat. Jade braced to leap but wooden disks from the big tower weapon hit the steering cabin with a patter like a sudden heavy rain. Moon yelled an incoherent warning to Jade and she changed direction in mid-leap.
Moon grabbed the nearest groundling, a random blue-skinned person, and flung it down the deck toward the stern. Jade snatched up Kalam and leapt toward Moon. Moon turned, pounced on Rorra, and bounced down the deck.
As he reached the stern railing, the boat bucked. A fire cloud belched up out of the weapon stations and heat stung his scales. Something hit him from behind and bowled him down.
Moon struck the thick moss of a cabin wall. For a scatter of heartbeats he couldn’t move, then Rorra dug her blunt claws into his shoulder. Moon forced himself to lift his head.
He had Rorra clutched to his chest and the weight atop him was Jade and Kalam. Fire consumed the whole bow of the boat. The deck was an angled mountain now, a jagged crack across it. Something important in the boat’s structure had snapped. Groundlings lay sprawled on the tilted deck, some trying to stand or groping for their fallen weapons. The stench of burned flesh and moss filled the air.
Moon realized the freezing chill in his chest was shock, that the sight of the fire and the stink of the weapon’s discharge had frozen him in place. Jade let go of Kalam, who woozily fell over on the deck, then pushed herself up.
“Are you all right?” Moon croaked the words out with effort.
“Yes.” Jade glanced back and bared her fangs.
Rorra turned in Moon’s arms, and gasped in dismay.
The boat twisted and jerked sideways. Moon reached up to grab the railing. Her voice gravelly with smoke, Rorra said, “The motivator, they’ve lost steering.”
Kalam levered himself up. “They got Ceilinel and Thiest,” he said, his voice shaking from reaction. “Maybe—They wanted the patrol craft out of their way, maybe they’ll go—”
“They’ll want to feed before they run.” Jade grated the words out as she uncoiled and came to her feet.
In the air above the boat the dakti swarm reformed, swirling back down toward them.
Rorra flailed and Moon gave her a push to get her upright. She pointed toward the stern weapon stations, still intact above the cabin. “I need to get up there, see if the weapons are working. Kalam, come on!”
The two groundlings headed for the nearest hatch. As Moon shoved to his feet Jade said, “You go with them.”
Moon twitched his spines in a negative. The Solkis still alive on the deck fired handweapons up at the dakti, temporarily scattering the swarm. It made his burns scars ache with remembered pain. More groundlings staggered out of the hatch with big tube things, directing a spray at the flames still licking the steering cabin. He said, “We’ve got to get to that big fire weapon on the tower. If there’s Raksura here, they can’t get close while the Fell have it—”
Her voice rough with rage, Jade said, “Not ‘we.’ I can’t let you, not again.”
“You want to die, or you want to fight?” Moon snarled back. He could just leap into the fray and make her follow him, but even furious he knew th
at was a terrible strategy.
Jade barred her fangs. Above their heads the starboard stern weapon loosed a burst of fire, shattering the cloud of dakti. It was the perfect moment; Jade snarled and turned to leap to the railing. Then she flung herself across to the big tower.
Moon followed and hit the curved wall just below her. He clamped his claws on the weathered rock. Movement under him made him flare his spines, but the dark shape weaving through the heavy foliage below was Stone. His big form coiled around the base of the tower and vanished; he must be looking for a way in.
Jade dropped to the nearest windowsill and paused for a heartbeat. She might have been trying to taste the air, but the smoke and Fell stench was so thick, scent was useless. As she jumped inside, Moon swung after her.
His scales scraped against a folded metal arrangement that was probably meant to shutter the window, then he landed in a crouch. The room was wide and high-ceilinged, the thick walls carved out with shelves stacked with pottery jars and casks. Jade stood still, her foot claws retracted to keep from making noise on the stone floor, her head tilted toward the door. From this angle, Moon saw it opened into a larger space towards the center of the tower.
The shouting and fire weapons outside covered subtle sounds, but there was movement somewhere past the door. Moon stepped up beside Jade, ready to work out a plan with silent gestures, when Jade bolted through the door.
With a growl of surprise, Moon bounced after her and slammed into three dakti. He ripped the first one apart almost before he registered that Jade rolled across the floor, her claws clamped into a ruler. The second dakti clamped onto Moon’s head and ripped at his shoulders, opening gashes in his scales before he disemboweled it and tossed it aside. The third had almost reached a doorway before Moon caught it and snapped its neck. He turned, hissing, as Jade shoved to her feet, shaking the ruler’s blood off her claws.
This was the central stairwell of the tower, a large round space with various doorways, the spiral of the stairs leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Daylight fell down the open shaft, the heavy metal sliding door pushed to the side. A groundling lay in a dead crumpled heap by the wall across the way, one outstretched hand still reaching toward the stair.
A vibration shivered through the floor as the weapon above them worked again, and outside fire roared. Moon hoped that Stone had stayed on the ground, that he wasn’t the target. Jade stepped toward the stairway. Her expression was a grimace of doubt. Moon knew why; there was no way they could get up through that opening without the Fell having the advantage. They’ll rip our heads off as soon as we stick them up there, Moon thought grimly. Trying to distract them from the outside would be. . . . His gaze fell on the bulge of a large ceramic tank tucked up against the ceiling, right below where the large fire weapon must be. The flying boats had those same kinds of tanks for their motivator. Like those, this one had tubes leading up to it from the floor. And it had levers along the side.
As Jade eased forward, Moon tugged on one of her frills and pointed to the tank. She hesitated, then flicked a spine in agreement, in a way he interpreted as it’s worth a try.
Moon started toward it, keeping his steps silent. Jade flanked him, her attention on the spiral stair. Moon swarmed up the wall to the tank and pulled the levers. Something inside gurgled and the tubes made a whooshing noise. Above them the weapon coughed again, then there was a thunk and a noise like something large gagging.
Moon shoved off from the wall and Jade hissed, “Go, go, get out—”
A progenitor dropped out of the trapdoor and landed beside the stairs. She was huge, and she had her clawed hand wrapped around Ceilinel’s neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“There! There he is!” Heart said. She crouched on a flat rock half-buried in the heavily forested ground below the Kish towers, with First, the half-Fell dakti beside her. Vine and Serene perched in the branches above her. Parties of Indigo Cloud and Opal Night warriors hid all through the trees and heavy vegetation around them, trying to approach the Fell taking shelter in the emplacement. Heart called softly, “Stone, it’s us!”
Stone’s dark form flowed up on the rock and First retreated with a noise of alarm. Stone shifted to groundling and said, “I know it’s you, what are you doing here?”
He looked just the same, weathered and gray, but dressed in groundling clothes that had seen hard use. Heart flung herself into his arms. “I’m so glad you’re all right! We heard—And I had a vision—Is Moon all right?”
“He’s fine, he’s fighting Fell on the boat with Jade.” Stone grabbed her shoulders and looked down at her, baffled. “What are you doing here?”
Vine began, “There are Fell in the towers—”
Stone snapped, “I know there are Fell in the shitting towers!”
Serene finished, “—and we chased them here from the Reaches!”
“Pearl let you do this?” Stone demanded.
“Pearl’s leading us, with Malachite,” Heart told him.
Stone stared down at her, then slowly grimaced, still half incredulous. “Pearl?”
Heart felt a tug on her tail as First whispered, “Ruler has a groundling.”
Heart’s gaze snapped upward. Through the trees she saw a dark figure climb the outside of the nearest tower, a struggling figure tucked under its arm. She hissed in dismay.
“That’s Thiest, the groundling captain. I was looking for her,” Stone said. He shifted and leapt upward to batter the tree canopy aside.
Heart took the opportunity to tell Serene, “Better tell Pearl we’ve found Stone and Jade.”
Serene twitched her spines in acknowledgement and hopped into the foliage, disappearing with hardly a rustle. Vine edged sideways, his head craned to watch Stone.
Stone landed with the groundling in one hand and what was left of the ruler in the other. First sunk further behind the rock.
Stone set the groundling beside Heart and tossed away the ruler’s crushed body. He shifted out of his winged form as the groundling Theist stared at Heart in blank shock. She was gray-skinned with dark braided hair, her chest and shoulders badly scratched, bloody furrows from the ruler’s claws. She breathed hard and seemed stunned, though she clearly recognized Stone. He told her, “We can help your crew, but you have to tell them to stop the fire weapons so we can approach.”
She shuddered, then her expression cleared as she gained control of herself. She glanced at them all, then nodded sharply. “I can do that. Just get me back to the craft.”
Moon didn’t move, his heart pounding in his chest, suddenly aware he was dripping blood onto the floor. Jade let out a slow hiss. Ceilinel was still alive, her eyes wide, her face darkening as she was half-strangled by the progenitor’s grip. This was the biggest progenitor Moon had ever seen, towering over Jade. But he scented fresh blood on her, a smell that made his claws involuntarily contract with the urge to rend. She was wounded, terribly wounded, somewhere under the plates of her scales.
The progenitor said, “You attack us with consorts, too? You are so confident in our destruction.”
Moon held his spines flared though his heart had just contracted in hope. So there are Raksura here somewhere. Jade snarled, and didn’t correct the progenitor’s assumption. She said, “This place was a trap and you flew right into it. You should kill yourself now to save us the trouble.”
There’s two of us, Moon was thinking, we could take her. Maybe we could take her. If they could do it before more rulers or dakti arrived. But it would get Ceilinel killed. Ceilinel wasn’t his friend, but she was right there and still alive and Moon had seen too many groundlings torn apart by Fell.
The progenitor’s head tilted and Moon realized the roar of the flying boat’s weapons had ceased. Outside it was eerily quiet.
Then Pearl whipped down through the trapdoor and hit the floor in front of Moon and Jade.
Jade flinched back. Moon was so shocked he nearly screamed, but managed to keep the sound to a strangled gasp. Yes, t
hat was really Pearl, facing down a progenitor, here somehow from across the Reaches.
Moon had never seen Pearl’s fully extended spines from this angle; when she was this angry, he was usually in front of her. Her growl was higher-pitched than Stone’s but it made his ears ring. Pearl was always impressive when she was fighting but the force of her presence now was hard and vital, the air around her charged like lightning.
The progenitor widened her jaw in a grin, revealing her fangs. “Where’s your companion?”
Pearl’s hiss was all sharp amusement. “Guess.”
Beside Moon, Jade’s growl was almost voiceless. A heartbeat later he realized Malachite stood behind the progenitor, that she had dropped out of the figured stonework above. Moon had a picture of it in his head, a dream image, but he couldn’t actually remember it happening.
“You want the groundling alive?” the progenitor said, and her voice was warm and even, as if she couldn’t give up the deception, the belief that they might still be seduced by her. She flexed her hand and Ceilinel made a keening sound. “What will you give me in exchange?”
Malachite said, “You’re weary, and hurt.”
Her power curled around Moon’s heart and his breath hitched.
The graceful coil of the progenitor’s body moved, turned to face Malachite. She opened her jaw to speak, but stopped, a sudden stillness in her body. Jade tensed to move but Pearl flicked her claws, a warning to be still.
Malachite’s head tilted and the progenitor’s head tilted with it. This is what she did, Moon realized, fascinated. When she had broken and killed the progenitor who had destroyed her court, when she had rescued Shade and Lithe and the others.
The progenitor’s grip on Ceilinel loosened, its claws leaving livid streaks on the soft gray flesh of her throat. She slid to the floor and half collapsed, catching herself with bloody palms braced on the floor. She tried to crawl away and Moon crouched down and sidled toward her.
