by Martha Wells
The groundlings aren’t going to make it, Moon thought. Not like this. Eikenn seemed to know it too. She sent half the drones ahead and stopped in a junction that was minimally defensible. Moon looked frantically for anything that might help. In a path that led away from the plaza where the battle had taken place he spotted some fallen sickles and long knives. He scooped them up, jumped up to a roof again, and hopped back to drop them in the path of the Cedar-rin. Then he turned to catch up with the fishers.
They had just reached the plaza and bolted through it, dodging around the bloody bodies of the drones who had died in the first attack. Ghatli pointed ahead, for the fishers’ benefit and for Moon’s. “The tunnel is there, between those two slopes!”
She pointed to where two pyramids formed a junction just beyond the last cluster of houses. From his better vantage point, Moon hissed in irritation. There were at least a dozen miners in the open space in front of the junction, more working their way toward it from an open passage along the far end of the houses. They were guarding against the Cedar-rin who had retreated into the tunnel. No, we’re not going to make it, Moon thought again. He hopped from one roof to the other, to get in front of the fishers. They stumbled to a startled halt as they saw him and he called down, “Ghatli, careful! It’s blocked by miners.”
Ventl peered up at him uncertainly, and Ghatli cursed again. She said, “What are we going to do?”
Moon looked around again and growled in despair. There was movement in the shadows and light shafts all over the cavern, the miners coming in from all sides. The Cedar-rin had fallen back to the plaza and fought the leader and its group of miners there. One miner stood to the side, just watching. From the gashes and wounds on its back, Moon guessed that was the one who had challenged the leader in the grave chamber. If he could just talk to it … But that was impossible, without someone’s dead possessed body as a translator. He told Ghatli, “Just … be ready to move, if there’s an opening.”
Ghatli’s expression clearly said she understood that meant there was little or no chance of escape. “All right.”
Moon pushed off from the roof and flew back to the plaza. He could only think of one thing to do.
The leader hung back a little to let the other miners engage the Cedar-rin. A few more of the drones had managed to take fallen weapons from their dead comrades and they fought in a tight circle, surrounded by the miners.
Moon leapt straight up and then dove for the leader, landed on its back, and wrenched at the join of one of its left legs. He yanked, twisted it with all his weight, and stabbed his claws into the joint. It lifted up on its other set of legs and slammed Moon down on the pavement. It jolted him loose but half the leg came with him, swinging sideways as he rolled away. The leader charged at him and Moon struggled to push himself up. Then Eikenn lunged in front of him, slashed her sickle at the leader’s wounded leg and sliced it the rest of the way off.
The leader jerked backward and staggered on its five remaining legs. Moon pushed himself upright and said to Eikenn, “I’ll go high, you go low?” He just hoped the drones could keep all the others occupied.
She jerked her head in agreement. “Try to get another leg on that side.”
The leader charged them again and Moon leapt for its back. He didn’t think killing the leader would change anything, or give them a chance to escape. But if he was going to die down here, he was going to take this thing with him.
He landed on the leader’s back and it spun to throw him off, but he dug his claws in and held on. Eikenn ducked in and got a good slash at the creature’s underside. Then it flipped and slammed Moon down on the pavement. As it spun upright again he got a dazed view of Eikenn sprawled on the ground.
Then something flashed over Moon’s head and another miner crashed into the leader.
Moon awkwardly scrambled away, his head ringing. Eikenn rolled to her feet and stumbled to stay upright. The miner was the same one who had challenged the leader inside the grave chamber, the one who had refused to take part in the battle. It had hit the leader between the two front legs and bowled it over, and now the two were locked underside to underside, as if they were having sex or trying to eat each other. Moon knew which one he thought more likely.
He threw a desperate look around. The other miners had stopped fighting and now skittered away from the drones to stand frozen in place. They watched the confrontation as if nothing else existed. He gasped to Eikenn, “Go, we need to go.”
She glanced around and said, “These creatures … make no sense,” and started toward the drones.
Moon felt you could say that about a lot of people. He managed to jump to the nearest rooftop, staggered but regained his balance, then leapt toward where he had left the fishers. Eikenn and the drones moved quickly into the pathways, carrying a few wounded. From up here Moon saw all the miners had frozen in place; they were everywhere among the pathways and houses now, where they had been converging on the plaza. The leader obviously didn’t control them completely, or the other miner wouldn’t have been able to attack it. But it clearly had some sort of connection to all the others, and they obeyed its orders. But it was as if the challenge by the other miner had suspended those orders until the matter was settled.
Moon found Ghatli and the fishers at the edge of the avenue, warily eyeing the miners who guarded the junction that led to the tunnel opening. More than a dozen stood in the open area between the two pyramids, unmoving, waiting. A light-bundle sat in the middle of the space, foiling any attempt at concealment in the shadows. But the miners just stood there.
Moon dropped off the roof next to Ghatli. All the fishers except Ventl scrambled back in alarm. Moon said, “I’m going to walk toward the tunnel. If they don’t kill me, follow.”
Ventl said, “Is that a good idea?”
Ghatli’s ears twitched with nerves but she was still determined. “Our choice is to stay here and be killed, so … let’s just get it over with.”
That was how Moon usually felt, too. He started forward, every nerve jumping, his partially extended foot claws clicking on the stone. Behind him, the fishers anxiously whispered to each other.
Once out in the open area of the junction he could see the passage between the two pyramids was only a hundred or so paces long. It stretched back to a shadowy fold of the cavern wall, and Moon thought he could spot the tunnel opening at its base, but only because several miners were grouped near it. He understood how it might have gone unnoticed by the invading miners. It might have been a passage left open for the Cedar-rin who had buried their city to leave it for the last time.
He stepped cautiously close to the first miner, and looked for its eyes. The small dark orbs were glazed over with a white film. It was like the miners were in some sort of catatonic state. Listening, Moon thought. Or watching the dominance battle through the miners who were close enough to see it? He lifted a hand and motioned for Ghatli to follow.
Ghatli and the fishers sprinted into the open and Moon waited until they rushed past him before he followed. He stopped at the mouth of the passage, trying to watch all the miners at once. Presumably there were still Cedar-rin waiting in the tunnel. He hoped they didn’t stop the fishers. Ghatli was going to have to handle that part; Moon’s appearance there would just start another fight.
Ghatli and the others ran down the length of the passage. The fishers hurried to disappear into the shadow that marked the tunnel entrance, but Ghatli stopped. “Moon!” She whispered, and motioned frantically for him to follow.
“Go on,” he told her, “I’m right behind you.” Eikenn and the drones emerged from the path between the houses and started across the avenue. Moon meant to follow them through the tunnel. Hopefully the Cedar-rin inside intended to withdraw, and he would be able to get out without any violent confrontations.
The drones were too disciplined, and too occupied by helping the wounded, to do more than glance warily at Moon as they passed by. Eikenn followed, limping a little. Moon moved aft
er her, backing away from the stationary miners.
The drones reached the tunnel and started in. Eikenn stopped to face the miners, waiting until the drones all filed inside. Moon waited too.
The last few drones slipped into the tunnel. Then the nearest miner twitched into motion. Moon hissed and flinched back, as Eikenn braced herself and lifted her sickle.
But the miner moved away toward the junction and the avenue beyond. The others moved too, and all headed in the same direction.
“Something changed,” Moon said under his breath. He thought the fight must have come to a conclusion.
The pearly scales on Eikenn’s brow furrowed in frustration. She said, “I have to see what’s happened,” and started after the miners.
Moon said, “Wait.” She stopped and he leapt up the side of the pyramid and landed on the pitted stone slope. He hooked his claws into the gaps and cracks and climbed rapidly up to where he had a view of the cavern.
The larger shape of the leader was easy to spot. It lay on its back, five remaining legs in the air. Its opponent stood nearby. It looked unsteady and there were gaping tears in the fur across its back. The other miners moved toward it, all of them, from all over the cavern. As the nearest gathered around, Moon thought they might attack it. Instead, it moved away, taking a path between the houses, and the miners in the plaza followed. The others Moon could see changed their direction toward a point at the far end of the cavern.
Moon jumped, used his wings to slow his fall, and landed in a crouch. “The big one—the one you talked to—is dead. The others are following the one who killed it, all going toward the other end of the cavern.”
Eikenn’s expression hardened. “They are going to destroy more of our dead. We will have to return here with more drones.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Moon looked toward the entrance of the passage. The last miner had vanished, leaving the light-bundle behind. Looking at this place now, he couldn’t see it as a ruined city, just a giant tomb. “It didn’t look like the others wanted to go to war with you. That was why that one attacked the—”
He sensed movement through the air just behind him. He flared his spines and twisted away, and the sickle that had been aimed at his head bit into his shoulder and glanced off his collar flange. Eikenn slashed at him again and Moon hooked the sickle in his claws and tore it out of her hand. He flung it away and she fell back a step.
Moon leapt away from her, up onto the slope of the pyramid. He snarled, “I helped you.” He was surprised, and bitterly angry at himself for it. This is how it always happened, this was what he got for helping groundlings. He didn’t know how he could let himself forget for one instant. As if that one encounter with the Fell had made him forget who he was.
If that was true, then this was a pointed reminder.
Eikenn backed away, watching him. “And why would a creature like you help us?”
“Because—” He stopped himself. Because Ghatli asked me to, he had been about to say. But she hadn’t. Moon had inserted himself into this whole situation.
Eikenn said, “You are a Fell, one of their vanguard.”
“Idiot. The rulers aren’t the vanguard of the Fell, the major kethel are,” Moon said. There was no point in protesting. And if she thought he was a Fell ruler, she wouldn’t blame Ghatli or the fishers for his presence.
Eikenn backed away toward the tunnel. Moon turned and climbed further up the pyramid, until he had enough height to push off. He half-
spread his wings and managed to leap to the next pyramid, then the next, until he was below the basket-web structure. It was abandoned now, the miners gone to the cavern floor for the ceremony or meeting or whatever it was they were doing.
Moon clung to the sloping wall just below it and took a deep breath to steady himself. Moisture trickled over his scales, but he could tell the cut wasn’t deep. It just hurt. For more than the obvious reason.
He braced himself and leapt up to the web, and climbed back out of the crevasse.
Before Moon went to look for a resting spot, he flew over the hills until he saw Ghatli, the fishers, and the Cedar-rin leaving the tunnel and making their way down the trade route. The miners had all retreated into the crevasse and there was no sign of any attempt to pursue the Cedar-rin.
Weary and in pain, Moon went to ground on the roof of the caravanserai. He lay across the trapdoor, so the vibrations of anyone approaching it would wake him. There was no vantage point that overlooked it, and it was relatively safe from predators. He drowsed in his other form first, listening to movement in the house below, the quiet voices of the fishers and an occasional Cedar-rin. When he felt the cut stop bleeding, he shifted to his groundling form to sleep more deeply.
He woke when the sky was awash with a gold sunset. He flexed his shoulder cautiously, but the cut had continued to knit and was now scabbed over. There was more movement in the house below, but nothing that seemed urgent. He could smell cooking, fish and maybe some sort of sweet tuber.
He shifted to his winged form and eased up along the edge of the roof. In the clearing below, several drones and three Cedar-rin primaries sat. One of the primaries was Eikenn. They had some packs with them and there was some evidence that they had made a meal off of provisions they had brought with them. They weren’t impeding access to the caravanserai; as Moon watched, a group of a few fishers and other groundlings crossed the clearing and went inside, and two other fishers left, heading down the path for the shore. All the other groundlings circled widely around the Cedar-rin and watched them without favor, but they didn’t seem afraid.
Moon squinted toward the lake and saw the Cedar-rin boats were now moored in the shallows near the fishers’ stilt village. The fishers there were ignoring them, busying themselves with rolling up their nets for the night.
Moon sat for a time, watching the lights made from the glow plants gradually come to life in the clearing.
He wanted to stay here.
It was an idiotic impulse. Even if Ghatli had been the only one to see him, she didn’t know him well enough to trust him. It wasn’t a survival-conducive act for a groundling, or a skyling or a waterling for that matter, to let something like him into their home, among their unsuspecting friends. He didn’t even know what he was. He wasn’t a Fell, but he had killed a Fell ruler; maybe he was something worse.
Below, he saw Ghatli walk out of the caravanserai with Ventl, heading toward Eikenn.
Moon turned to the back of the roof and climbed down the tree that supported the structure. He slipped down along the side of the bathing room where it was half-buried in the roots and the hillside, and stopped when he could hear voices.
Eikenn was saying, “Our scouts report the miners are leaving our city.”
Ghatli said, dryly, “We are overjoyed.”
Eikenn didn’t react. “They are moving away through the hills, presumably returning to where they came from. We will, naturally, remain here until we can confirm that they have left none of their number behind. And we will seal the city again.”
“Good.” That was Ventl.
Then Ghatli said, “Where is he?”
Eikenn didn’t answer.
Ghatli continued, “I know you did something to him. I think he’s dead in there, and when you seal the city, you will cover up evidence of your crime.”
Eikenn said, “That is not true.”
Ghatli’s voice was almost as calm as Eikenn’s. Except Moon could hear the anger under Ghatli’s cool tone. “Then tell me what you did.”
The silence stretched. Then Eikenn said, “I drove it away. It flew out through the opening to the surface.”
Ghatli was apparently unsatisfied with that. “I call you a liar.”
“Then I will speak to you no longer.” Moon listened to Eikenn’s quiet footsteps move away across the grass, then to Ghatli and Ventl entering the caravanserai, much less quietly.
Moon stayed where he was, concealed in the brush. He dozed off and on through the night,
listening until the groundlings in the caravanserai gradually quieted. At some point before dawn, the Cedar-rin withdrew down toward the shore. He didn’t think they were leaving, but he wondered if they were meeting reinforcements who had been sent to help make sure the city was secure.
He knew Ghatli got up before dawn, so it wasn’t a surprise when he heard movement in the lower rooms of the structure. Then a few moments later someone came down the ladderwell into the bathing room. Moon climbed out of the brush and slipped around to the back of the building, and went in through the door used for cleaning the latrines.
Moon peeked through the passage into the bathing room to make sure it really was Ghatli in there. It was, and she was priming the pump for the bath. He stepped into the doorway, shifted to his groundling form, and whispered, “Ghatli.”
“Gah!” She spun around. “Moon!”
“I just came to tell you I’m leaving,” he said hurriedly, wanting her to know he didn’t mean to make this any more difficult for either of them. “And that Eikenn stabbed me in the back. So … Keep that in mind, when you’re dealing with her.”
“Ah.” Ghatli wrinkled her lips in distaste. “That doesn’t surprise me.” She watched him, her expression hard to read. “I’m glad you survived.”
Moon shrugged. He was too, mostly. He supposed. He turned toward the door. “Keep Ventl out of trouble.”
“Moon, wait. I thank you for everything you did for us. You saved our lives.” Ghatli hesitated. “If I could ask you to stay—”
“I wouldn’t stay.” He shook his head immediately, relieving her of that burden. “I’m not looking for a place to stay.” He had already gone over all the reasons remaining here was impossible. He would find another groundling town or settlement at some point, but it would be a place where no one knew what he was.
Ghatli didn’t sound very relieved. “What are you looking for? Your people?”
