Cloudbound

by Fran Wilde

  When Dix turned back to us, she spoke first to Hiroli. “The Singers shared with us only a little of their knowledge. Now that I know more, thanks to your friends, I can better decide what the city needs. How to use that knowledge. Who should know it. We’ll have no more problems with the northwest soon. Meantime, this area must be controlled. None must know about it above the clouds.”

  Her blackwing guards shifted, the words sinking in.

  Dix put her hand on Hiroli’s shoulder. “You will remain here, as valley guardian.”

  “Guardian?” Hiroli paled, and laid one hand on her own throat. “No. It’s not safe. You said you’d take me with you, that I’d manage the artifexes—”

  “I know what I said, and think of it. All of this knowledge. You’ll learn so much. The guards will help you. Djonn will remain here too. You’ll need all the help you can get.” She tied a tether around Ciel’s waist and handed it to Hiroli. “And the brother, too.” Hiroli shook her head in disbelief and shock.

  “For those who can’t, or won’t share their knowledge?” Dix looked directly at me. She threw a kavik in the air, and it flapped off. “You have a short time to say your good-byes.”

  Everyone in the cave. Everyone on the meadow. My family, my friends. They were mine, not Dix’s. I shouldered the satchel with the brass plates. Dix hadn’t seen any reason to take it from me, because she thought everything in the meadow was hers now.

  I knelt beside Doran’s body and wrapped my hand around the bone hook Ceetcee had planted in the meadow.

  We had one more thing to teach Dix.

  Gravity.

  * * *

  With pops and cracks, the hook slid from the ground. I stood atop the pattern Ceetcee and Djonn had woven out of ancient wingframes and tools and felt the bones shift.

  Then I unfurled my wings. Seeing me do that, Kirit and Wik followed suit. Then Ciel. The ground slid, then began to pit visibly. The meadow shook.

  Hiroli stared, then fumbled with her wings, tangling them in the tether that held Ciel. I lunged to cut the tether, Dix’s voice in my ears: “What did you do?”

  But it was too late, a wing-sized portion of the meadow collapsed, and then more of it where the guards stood, and all of us slid into the void amidst clumps of lichen and ferns.

  The noise the meadow made as it collapsed sounded like the city rumbling. Like the world ending. The smell of fresh-turned dirt and crushed greenery filled the mist.

  As I tumbled, I saw others above me falling too, scrambling for solid meadow turf. One blackwing already flew free below. Hiroli tried to grapple Ciel. Kirit and Wik, wings locked, turned in the air. Ready for battle. In the meadow’s underpinnings, a gaping hole was still growing, though still more of the woven platform held fast.

  A blackwing dangled from the plinth. Doran’s body tumbled into the void below. I fell too, then righted myself. Wind caught my wings and the silk filled.

  Dix clung to the meadow platform, feet kicking, her wings half furled. Four blackwings tumbled through the hole in the meadow and swooped below her to help their leader right herself.

  Kirit flew a tight path around the shadow-towers, pursued by the guard who’d killed Ezarit and Doran. She held a glass-tooth knife in each hand. I joined the chase, locking my wings. Drew my bow and sighted, fighting the wind. The guard didn’t know how to fly below the clouds. Kirit led him on a weaving path through the building storm. I finally saw my shot and let the bolt fly.

  It struck him in the wing and passed through. Blood spattered on the silk as it shuddered and tore. The murderous guard curled. His wings folded and he fell, my arrow sticking from his side.

  I circled once to make sure he wasn’t coming back. Kirit flew beside me. There was no triumph in her expression. She looked worried.

  “The northwest,” she shouted. “We can’t leave them unaware.” We slowly banked around another tower, to the deep void beyond. We dove to build up speed and caught a gust that shot us towards the northwest, flying pinion to pinion. It was coming on evening. Dix’s blackwings would have pulled her from the shadows by now. They would attack soon, either us or the northwest. Ahead, we saw Wik chasing Hiroli through the clouds, blocking her wind and making her fight to stay aloft, exhausting her as she pursued Ciel.

  Blackwings raced behind us. An arrow swooped past, narrowly missing me.

  Hiroli dove at Wik as thunder cracked overhead, then lightning. She drew a knife—my knife—and threw it. The blade tumbled between Wik and Ciel as lightning streamed the sky again. We smelled the bolt’s acrid passage, but I’d closed my eyes against the light, not wanting to be blinded. The residual light made bone look creased, wingsilk pocked, and the clouds as solid as bone.

  Hiroli shrieked and fell far behind, panicked. Perhaps unable to see. Two of the guards went after her, and the rest of us climbed away into the lighter clouds.

  Wik managed to fly another guard tight against a tower. She scraped a wing and spun into the clouds. The remaining blackwings went after their fellow guard instead of pursuing us.

  “Rise!” I whistled, and the other three flew with me. We circled to find a strong gust, and this time, we rose into the upper cloud as one. Even Ciel on her fledge wings. We were so used to the lower cloud darkness, everything felt brighter here, even in the storm.

  Thunder rumbled and rain stung our skin as we flew northwest, towards Mondarath and Densira. Toward home.

  We still had our bows. Our new glass-tooth knives. We couldn’t deliver to Mondarath the brass plates as I’d planned: the blackwings were too near for us to climb the tower and fight.

  But Kirit was right, we had to warn the northwest quadrant. To protect my home—and Ceetcee’s and Beliak’s, Elna’s. We’d left Laria to fend for itself; we wouldn’t leave Mondarath.

  “If rumors of what happened at Laria have spread, word of the cloudlight might have spread too,” I called to Kirit, who still flew close on my wing. I hoped that was the power of myth and rumor. “We could try to signal from the clouds.”

  “If no littlemouths are clinging to the tower sides, we’ll have to risk the blackwings in force above the clouds,” she shouted back. It was a big if.

  “And then?” Wik yelled.

  “And then when all the towers are warned, we fight,” I said.

  Soon we reached the topmost layer of the clouds, looking up at Mondarath’s lights through the mist. We flew a single circle of the tower, with me as a lookout for blackwings.

  A gray scrim of mist hid the tower’s details, its gardens and flags. Would they see us? Would there be littlemouths here?

  Wik, Kirit, and Ciel began to circle the tower. The former Singers began to hum. Ciel’s littlemouth glowed. On the tower here and there, reaching up from the clouds, the few littlemouths clinging to the bone walls and tiers pulsed in reply. So too, the walls at Viit and Densira.

  The clouds around Mondarath took on a soft glow, ebbing and flowing with the Singers’ path. The littlemouths pulsed in windsign: a simplified warning. Danger, attack, danger. If a tower guard on lookout remembered Laria, they’d know a fight was coming. If they could translate windsigns from pulses, they might get the full messages. If not, tower citizens would at least know something strange was happening and would be on their guard.

  A shout, “Spirebreaker! Brokenwings!” An arrow struck the tower above me and fell away into the cloud. Blackwings. Not caring whether they were the leading edge of Dix’s attack, or our pursuers from the meadow, I dove, trying to draw them away from the towers, to double back on the main force. Above, the clouds were lit with littlemouths, like small stars. They faded as the Singers followed me back towards the center of the city to make our stand.

  * * *

  “Nat Brokenwings, you will be forgotten!” Dix’s voice came from upwind, close by. She’d recovered from her fall while we’d flown away from the meadow. Now, dark shadows circled above me, searching for me.

  “They’ll sing of us,” I shouted back, hoping to draw Dix down
and towards me. “A fierce song of thieves and knowledge.” Another lesson to the city not to forget. Then I dove again.

  They broke through a thick cloud then, where they’d been hiding at the city’s edge. Hiroli flew at Dix’s side, a bow in her hands, an arrow nocked. When she released it, the bolt tore a corner of Ciel’s wing, but the silk held. Ciel struggled to keep up with Kirit, her wing spilling air.

  Kirit slowed for her.

  Hiroli dove for Kirit and Ciel. I dove too, and blocked her angle of descent. Swept the wind right out from beneath her, and she went spinning again. She recovered faster this time and dove at me. We swooped lower in the darkening clouds.

  My ears popped. We’d dropped again, dozens of tiers, past the ghost tower’s elevation. I got my bearings and located my companions. Overhead, Wik circled a blackwing, a spear in his hand. Below, Kirit guarded Ciel, whose left wing bellied and puckered from the tear in the silk. Behind us, Dix shouted orders, gaining on us.

  Hiroli dove again, knocking Kirit away from Ciel. Then she snared Ciel with her bone hook just as we passed into the rain line again. I shouted as Ciel was pulled away.

  Dix chose that moment to hurtle towards me, wings locked, arms extended as if trying to grab me from the sky. I rolled away and she followed. Above, the blackwings scattered, chasing my friends. We were separated across the clouds. Dix dove at me again, and I forced my wings into a tight turn, right into the dark storm cloud. Riding wind gusts battering my wings, rain driving my hair into my eyes, I flew until I thought I’d risen high enough, then banked out of the cloud. Below, Dix’s dark wings and robe blended with the storm, while her long hair, woven with tower marks, made her easier to see.

  But I was out of arrows, with only one knife left.

  She dove within the mist, trying to lose me in the clouds, then get above me. I matched her turns, refusing to let her out of my sight until I could get a good shot. She could not rise with me above her, so she dove again.

  For all their skill, the blackwings didn’t know the clouds like we did. The depths disoriented them as we passed the meadow’s elevation. Without oil-proofing, their dark wings grew damp as they flew lower, the silk wicking moisture from the clouds until they were heavier and slower than us.

  Days ago, Doran’s people had oiled our wings before we left the city. Now the moisture beaded and spilled when we turned, faster than the blackwings. They began to straggle. Wik and Kirit chased them down into the clouds as we closed low on the city’s northeastern edge.

  I heard Hiroli yelling at Ciel in the mist. “Sing, clouds take you. Make some of those pretties light up.” They were lost in the clouds, and Ciel wasn’t helping her. I heard a wing rip, and Hiroli shouted again. “You’ve killed us both, fledge!”

  I dove for them, hoping to catch Ciel. Saw them tumbling through the clouds.

  An arrow cut through my wing, then kept going. A small hole, not like a knife tear. I listened for the telltale sound of silk ripping, but the hole held. The proofing had more than one benefit.

  A shout came across the wind. “Before I drop you, Brokenwings”—Dix dove at me—“you’ll give me the satchel. The plates!” I’d taken them from the meadow, had hoped to leave them at Mondarath. She would not get them now.

  Her next shot flew true, though. The bolt tore through the air, and into the muscles of my upper arm, my knife arm. I screamed with the pain and then again as the bolt jerked me from my glide path.

  Dix had secured the bolt to a tether before firing it. Now she reeled me in on the length of rope that spanned the gap between us.

  I shifted my knife to my left hand, as Dix had done, a seeming lifetime ago, when the city was whole.

  “You’ll never have the plates, the city’s knowledge.” I let my injured arm dangle as she pulled me. I became her kite, her victory.

  She gloated when we were close enough to see each other clearly, the wind still pushing us forward. “You’ve lost. You and Kirit. I know where the meadow is. Where your family is. Now I have the plates. Soon I’ll have the artifex too.”

  My breath jarred from me as she swung me towards a bone-encrusted bridge that hung askew on the city’s northeastern edge. I landed with a clatter. The bridge smelled of rot and moss. The slick rime beneath my knees soaked through my robes and blood seeped from my arm to stain the bridge where I lay. Beside the bridge, Dix had set a bone grip and secured herself with a tether. She swayed beside me, her feet braced on a small outcropping.

  I didn’t feel much pain, just a twinge when she tugged at the bolt. The corners of my vision began to ripple. Blood dripped slow from the bolt line, measuring out my life. But I did feel it when she began sawing at a strap near my shoulder. Worried about the littlemouth there, I batted her hand away. Grabbed at the satchel as she took it from me.

  “You don’t know how to use them,” I whispered.

  She smiled back, almost close enough now. “It doesn’t really matter what they mean, Nat. Only what I tell the city they mean. And they will worship me for that.” She was close enough; I felt her breath on my cheek. Her face moved in and out of shadow beside me.

  “The city will do no such thing,” I whispered. I said a windprayer for Aliati to take care of my family. Then with my last energy, I threw my shoulders back. I drove my body weight against the bolt in my arm and kicked out with my feet, hard enough to yank Dix off her handgrip and make her wobble on the outcropping.

  Screaming through the sudden, searing pain, I flipped forward off the bridge and raked at her face with my knife. I tried to drive the point into her shoulder, her neck, but it fell from my hand. I grabbed Dix’s silk robe hard enough that her grip tore free of the bone wall.

  We slid together down the rough, moss-encrusted tower. The satchel flipped open, spilling brass plates in every direction.

  Dix shouted outrage as we dropped. She grabbed the bolt haft and twisted. I howled, my vision fading to a pinprick that encompassed only her face and the clouds above.

  “Now see what will come for you,” she said. She tore the bolt from my arm.

  “Us!” I shouted. “What will come for us!”

  I wrapped my hand in her hair, her robe. Dragged her backwards with me, into the clouds.

  PART FIVE

  BOUND

  Dark kaviks wheeled the pale clouds, fighting gravity. They scaled the gusts, their beaks piercing the homeward winds that would take them back to bone tower, to roost, and to flock. Thick clouds closed around them as they rose and disappeared.

  WAR

  No tower will sabotage or war

  With neighbors near or far.

  We rise together or fall apart

  With clouds below, our judge.

  33

  BONE FOREST

  Spinning, we fell until we struck an outcropping hard. Bone crunched beneath me, and Dix gagged and groaned. She’d broken my fall. When she rolled to her side, she spilled me over the edge and the bolt’s tether came free. I slipped from the ledge, screaming.

  I flipped and struggled to find a gust to lift me anew. Curving my wings to find enough wind was not enough; I strained at the cams. Failed. I could only pull hard on one cam, so I spun and flipped again. Dizzy and losing blood, for a moment I saw those above me—blackwings and friends both—blurred into a whorl of wings and weapons.

  Then they too tore away on a slightly stronger wind, black specks on gray clouds. I flipped again, and my wings filled with a little air, enough to slow my descent but not enough to glide. Gravity drew me like a needle through the clouds. The updrafts disappeared. Silk fluttered noisily above. Then a blackwing plummeted past, his legs kicking, his wings empty.

  The wind weakened until it could no longer bear us.

  I was no longer as afraid of falling as I’d been once. But hitting something? That terrified me.

  In my dizziness, I imagined towers becoming clouds, growing together, and swallowing me whole. The city’s familiar gusts and the clouds’ turbulent winds were gone. Nothing supp
orted my weight.

  And then the cloud disappeared. Light dazzled my eyes with unforgiving sun and a flash of blue sky.

  I fell from the bottom of the cloud. The ground spun beneath me: huge stretches of dark green and gray. Beyond those, madder red surfaces swirled with dust. My eyes saw, but my mind couldn’t understand that such wide expanses weren’t sky or cloud. The weak wind whistled. My hands grasped air. The red dust hurtled through the spinning sky to meet me.

  When I hit, impact pressed the breath right through me. My ears rang. I sank into the rough surface and fought to pull a breath in. Coughed and tried again. Opened my eyes to stars and light, swinging in wild circuits. I squeezed my eyes shut again.

  Dead. I was dead this time, I was sure of it. Ceetcee, Beliak, and Elna were far above me, and alive. I hoped.

  It was very hot to be dead.

  I opened my eyes a crack. The stars didn’t reappear. I saw clouds.

  I groaned. I hated clouds.

  Above me, the white and gray sky was dotted with wings. Shapes wheeled and spun, falling. A scream came fast and in the distance, a pair of black wings folded and fell from the sky, landing hard with a loud snap of bone.

  I lay there, breathing, the sun hot on my face. Finally, I summoned the strength to roll to my stomach, on my good side. When that stopped hurting and I was able to breathe again, I dragged myself to my knees. The world flipped inside out, and my stomach with it.

  After I stopped retching and the world stopped spinning around me, I looked at the surface beneath my hand. Pale dust covered a rough topography of gray and green crags. The terrain did not feel cool like bone, but warm. When I moved, the surface gave slightly beneath my knees and palms, like a thick skin might.

  Fighting pain and dizziness, I turned my head slowly. A wall of bone rose to my right, the ground gathering around it tightly. The wall rose higher again in sideways tiers that disappeared into the distance and up into the clouds. Smaller bone ridges pricked shadows on the horizon, as far as I could see.