Hooded

by A A Woods

  She shoved to her feet.

  The final soldier in the Zanbur was taller than Carlette, more rounded. Carlette could feel the strength of her mind beneath blind terror and pain. This woman was filled with the intoxicating passions that Carlette had never known; a love of food, a taste for men. Carlette took an instant liking to her, despite the snake-spear emblem on her vest.

  Thump.

  Blood spurted onto the deck. Carlette stumbled to one side and vomited over the edge of the airship, reeling from the sudden, shocking absence.

  When she turned around, she saw a rock-sized indentation in the woman’s forehead.

  “Get going!” Byrna shouted, reloading her slingshot and diving into the melee behind them on Tabis.

  Carlette wiped her mouth. She watched the chief’s savage daughter disappear into the battle. Nuri soldiers screamed as Tabis bore down on them, a creature of their worst nightmares.

  “C’mon,” Tuk said, his tan skin pale. “We’d better hurry.”

  With shaking hands, Carlette began to undress the Nuri woman, wondering how much death she would endure before this was over.

  Chapter Twenty-One: The Resupply Ship

  The trees seemed to reach for them, intent on knotting the wires of the basket and scraping along the balloon. Carlette watched one sharp branch leave a long mark along their side, threads fraying in its wake.

  “Untangle the forestay,” Tuk shouted from the back of the ship.

  “The what?”

  “That rope in the front!”

  Carlette had to scramble to stop a thick Goddeau branch from ripping the rigging to shreds. Leaning out over the edge of the basket to thrust leaves and twigs aside, she felt a rush of vertigo.

  The ground was so far away it may as well not have existed.

  “Carlette, I need you to feed the fire!”

  She hurried to the middle. Her fingers fumbled as she carefully turned the knob on the fuel line. The flame leapt into the balloon in a spurt of fire.

  “Careful!” Tuk shouted as the ship bounced upwards.

  Carlette bit her lip, turning the knob back.

  “This is more complicated than enhabiting,” Carlette grumbled.

  Tuk grinned. “Flying is a delicate art.”

  Something exploded behind them. Carlette couldn’t see what it was through the dense foliage.

  “This is unnatural,” she said.

  Tuk’s laugh rang out, echoing off the thinning leaves.

  “For you, maybe,” he said as Carlette pressed her back against the inner wall of the basket, fingers clenched around the knees of her strange new uniform. She was grateful for the Nuri woman’s size—it had allowed her to keep her own Jemelle clothing on underneath, giving her the comforting impression of being well-padded.

  Not that it would help if she fell.

  “And for you?” Carlette asked to distract herself.

  Branches scraped against the underside of the ship. Tuk stared ahead, his gaze razor-sharp as he guided them towards open sky.

  “I was born to it,” he said, although his tone made Carlette think there was more to the story. Tuk flashed her a sad smile. “Perhaps it was destiny.”

  “I don’t believe in destiny.”

  “You don’t believe in much, do you?”

  Tuk asked the question lightly, laced with sarcasm. But Carlette frowned, pressed herself harder against the basket’s edge.

  What did she believe in?

  Suddenly, they burst through the canopy. Blue sky filled her vision, broken only by the massive, black shape hanging in the sky like a bloated moon.

  The resupply ship.

  It was giant, a nesting bird of prey perched on nothing as it waited for its children to return. The balloon could have been something out of a native legend, painted black with the golden sun-spear of Nurkaij on its side. The emblem had three snakes twisted around a triangular symbol, representing the Tribunal of Nuri deities: past, present, and future. Carlette watched as more Zanburs floated from the gaping maw of the resupply ship like demons being born.

  Is this what the King’s Axe fought when they marched into battle? Is this what the Ceillan pirates hunted in their sky chariots? Carlette found herself marveling at the world she lived in, all the strange and fantastical things that existed beyond the ludicrously small circle of her own experience.

  She glanced back. Tuk was frowning at the ship with a strange set to his eyebrows, resolve etched in the slash of his mouth. Carlette shimmied over to him.

  “I do believe in some things,” she said in a soft voice. “I believe in doing what’s right.”

  Tuk’s lips twitched. “That’s not always a straight path to follow.”

  “No,” she whispered, turning back to the ship, “I suppose it isn’t.”

  · · ─────── ·❅· ─────── · ·

  Carlette remained silent as they floated towards the resupply ship. Zanburs drifted in and out, the returning vessels leaking smoke like blood. Gunmen perched on the edge swung from side to side, defending their mothership.

  On the prow stood a man, his braided black hair pebbled with gray.

  “Who’s that?” Carlette whispered, keeping her hands on the fuel gage and checking to make sure her bandana hadn’t shifted. She might be wearing the right uniform, but her skin and hair were more than enough to label her an intruder.

  “Commander Invitas,” Tuk hissed back, careful to keep his manacles hidden. “He’s the leader of Caika. He almost never oversees missions…”

  Shrieks and explosions echoed up as they drifted into the shadow of the resupply ship.

  Carlette frowned. “I suppose he wanted to see the genocide of a people for himself.”

  Tuk winced but Carlette didn’t have any interest in softening her statement. In this man, she could see everything her people hated about Nurkaij. Cold, calculating, expression unmoved by the screams of dying Moians, this man had seen death, had caused it, and felt proud.

  This was the kind of creature who enjoyed war.

  Tuk guided them into the enormous hangar and Commander Invitas disappeared from view. Carlette ducked low, face hidden as her eyes adjusted to the shadows.

  It felt like being inside a whale. Wooden boning and ropes made up the ship’s interior, the ribs of a living machine. Men and women scurried in the rigging, hauling wounded men out of their Zanburs, tossing around boxes of fresh ammunition, plugging in fuel lines. Carlette gaped at the iron tools, the polished guns, the order.

  She was forced to admit, if just to herself, it was impressive.

  But she had to be careful. To these soldiers, Carlette was a witch. An abomination. The Nurkaij emperor had offered a price for her head, for the head of anyone with the slightest bit of magic.

  Any Nuri soldier would be glad to put a bullet in her brain.

  Two workers swung overhead like monkeys, shouting something at Tuk. Carlette dropped to the ground, rolling beneath the engine. Tuk said something in rapid Nuri that Carlette couldn’t even hope to understand. The two workers were out of her line of vision, but even so she sensed their trained efficiency, their controlled frenzy. They didn’t let Tuk finish before one snapped out a brief, clear order.

  Carlette felt them leave.

  “What did you say?” she whispered when they were alone again.

  “I said we fell under attack and I was the last survivor, barely managed to save the ship. They sent me to a docking bay. Stay low, we’re passing under the viewing deck.”

  The engine was hot, this close to her face. She felt flushed and humid, overdressed. A part of her longed for the simplicity of her cowl and cape, her shield. Who knew what had happened to it, and with Grand Mera’s letter inside? It was probably deep in the tunnels, draped over cold obsidian where it might remain forgotten until the end of time.

  Something nagged at the corner of her thoughts, the feeling that she was missing something.

  But a rumbling bump knocked her out of her t
houghts.

  She peered out to find Tuk grabbing onto a mooring line, speaking to the nearest soldier in rapid Nuri. Carlette could imagine what he was saying. Leave me, I can handle the ship. Go and help the others.

  It was exactly the kind of selflessness people love in chaos.

  “Ok,” Tuk hissed. “They’re gone.”

  Carlette shoved out from beneath the engine and followed Tuk as he leapt into the rigging and began to climb. Sparing a single glance down, where the floor of the hangar was open to the burning forest, smoke curling towards them like cairog feelers, she shuddered.

  What kind of warrior is afraid of heights? she thought in disgust as she tangled her hands into the rope, swallowed the pain, and pulled.

  Tuk led her up, toward a long, narrow chamber that traced the spine of the hangar. As they approached, Carlette reached out to touch the minds inside, stealing their senses in brief flickers so that no one would notice the telltale white eyes or the mental weight of her control.

  The room was huge, dominated by a gigantic flame that filled the ship’s balloon. Bodies milled around thick, snaking fuel lines. Kegs of oil lined the walls. Shouts rose and fell in harsh volleys, unintelligible to Carlette.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked when Tuk paused.

  He glanced around.

  “It should be… there!”

  He pointed at a thick tube that ran up the side of the ship.

  “That’s the main line that goes to the smaller ships. It comes from this room, but if breeched it could light the whole bay on fire.”

  “What?”

  Tuk pointed into the fuel room, where flames hissed and spit.

  “It isn’t a perfect system. Some of the fuel ends up in the air. In a small ship, it’s not such a problem, but for the amount going into that fire…”

  “You’re going to light the air on fire?”

  Tuk grinned.

  “But… those men…” Carlette murmured.

  “We’ll get them out. I don’t feel like becoming a murderer and a traitor in the same day.”

  Carlette frowned. “This seems dangerous.”

  “We will have to get out of here fast.”

  “How fast?”

  Tuk dropped his gaze to hers. “Really fast.”

  Carlette gulped, unable to respond.

  “Can you enhabit all those men?” Tuk asked. “Get them to jump out?”

  She twisted, looking at the shapes in the fuel room, backlit by the enormous bonfire.

  “I’d need to get closer,” she said.

  He nodded. “Follow me.”

  Moving as gracefully as a sionach through the Goddeau trees, Tuk swung from rope to rope. When he caught the one closest to the fuel chamber, he began to pull himself up, Carlette scrambling along behind him. Together, they curled their fingers over the harsh, wooden edge of the deck, Carlette cringing as her hands oozed and bled. She forced herself to hold on.

  “They’re talking about the attack,” Tuk hissed at her as he listened to the jabbering voices. “Apparently, the Commander was worried about an intel breach. They accelerated their plans.”

  “They must mean you,” Carlette said.

  But Tuk’s eyes widened as he continued to listen. Carlette saw something strange in them—Pity? Fear? Horror?

  “Carlette,” he said, voice low. “They’re talking about Jemelle. It sounds like an informant told them that Yokan is marching on it, and this time she has a way inside.”

  Carlette’s heart fell into her stomach.

  Like a spear of light breaking through the clouds, she realized what she’d been missing all along.

  “The edict of safe passage…” Carlette said. “My hood!”

  “SHHH!”

  But it was too late. Faces appeared above them. A shout rang out.

  “Carlette, stop them!”

  A bell tolled, deafeningly close. Carlette shoved her terror aside, compelled herself to concentrate. It took everything she had, but she managed to quiet her mind enough to enhabit every Nuri soldier in the fuel room…

  And make them jump out.

  The entire airship shifted with the sudden redistribution of weight as engineers leapt from the chamber, grabbing at the hanging ropes. One man slipped, fell, silent and white-eyed as he tumbled out of Carlette’s reach and into the enormous Goddeau trees.

  She felt him die.

  Carlette lifted her head, flushed with guilt and exhaustion. But Tuk had already dragged himself to the top of the hangar.

  “I need your knife!” he called.

  Soldiers and technicians were flying towards them as if they had wings. Carlette threw herself upwards, stretched out her hand, offered Tuk the blade.

  He slashed through the fuel line with a single, vicious swipe. The air filled with an unsettling hiss. Someone grabbed Carlette’s ankle and she kicked out, looking down to face the oncoming Nuri soldiers. The closest ones saw her hair, her skin, her tattoo. Eyes widened in recognition.

  She couldn’t let them see Tuk. If they realized who had betrayed them, he would lose everything…

  “I need a spark!” Tuk shouted.

  As she enhabited the soldiers around Tuk with sweeping, uncalculated strokes, Carlette used one foot to flick a gun out of its holster. She caught it in midair. Threw it over the deck’s edge to Tuk.

  “Brace yourself!” he cried out.

  And fired.

  Flame bloomed around them, superheated and ferocious.

  Tuk was blown backwards.

  He fell in an arc, eyes half-closed.

  “No!”

  Carlette released her rope and dove after him. But he was moving away, too fast, too uncontrolled. The Goddeau Trees below them seemed to reach up, eager to accept another bloody offering.

  Carlette grabbed Tuk’s arm. With her other hand, she snatched at a rope. Screamed as it ripped open her palms. She grabbed another rope, hooked her leg around one of the ship’s ribs. Her body pulled taut, slammed into the side of the hangar. She heard the crackle of snapping wood. Filled with panic, unable to do more than hold on for dear life, she clutched Tuk’s wrist and gritted her teeth against the ache of her leg around the beam.

  It bowed out, lowering them inch by inch, before giving way entirely.

  Carlette released a breathless scream.

  And then it was knocked out of her.

  The flat protrusion of a loading bay had caught their falling bodies. Abruptly, painfully, they came to a halt, crumpling into a tangled heap of limbs. Carlette groaned and rolled over. Her mind was an island of pain in a sea of noise. Tuk’s breathing was shallow, his hair smoking. His aviator cap had been blown away. But, thank the elders, they’d stopped.

  They were alive.

  Color swirled around her, smudged and smoky. Alarms rang, reverberating in Carlette’s addled mind. One bell rose above the others, a deep gong that could only mean one thing.

  Retreat.

  Tuk stirred. With a whimper, Carlette rolled upright to face him. She waited for someone to shout at them, for soldiers to slide down and take revenge on the arsonists.

  But they were just two shapes, lost in a fresh and frantic chaos.

  “I can’t believe that actually worked,” Tuk said, coughing. His face was streaked with oil and soot, but his eyes glittered like jewels.

  Carlette opened her mouth to respond, but she was interrupted by a hum of noise. Black shapes rose from the forest, returning to their mother’s call. Leaving the Moians to escape.

  “Now what?” Carlette said, barely managing to stay upright.

  “Now we get off this flaming wreck,” he said with a snort, “And I return the favor.”

  “What?”

  He looked at her, eyes unnervingly sincere.

  “It’s time to save Jemelle.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two: A Long Way to Travel

  It took every bit of Carlette’s discipline to accept the folded bit of cloth that Tuk had called a ‘parachute’ and trust it
with her life. To her it was madness, a strange new kind of magic that she didn’t understand. But Tuk’s nimble courage convinced Carlette to strap on the harness, clip herself to Tuk’s belt, close her eyes, and tumble out into thin air with him, screaming. She’d thought she could hold it in, but the ground rushing up, the cruel branches yanking at slender threads and thin fabric, was more terrifying than she could handle. They were tumbling, buffeted, unwelcome.

  After what felt like an eternity of falling, they hit a thick branch.

  Tuk grunted.

  Something ripped.

  Suddenly, Carlette was alone, the cords of the parachute wrapping around her limbs like a spider web. She flailed, hit another branch, knocked into the trunk.

  And stopped.

  Tangled in the branches of a massive Goddeau tree, surrounded by the carnage of the Nuri attack, back in dangerous territory, Carlette relished the wonderful sensation of being still, even dangling this high in the air. For a long moment she just hung there, breathing.

  And then she realized she was completely and thoroughly stuck.

  “Shit,” she muttered, tugging on the knotted cords, swinging wildly.

  Her mind began to fill with unhelpful thoughts. Would she be eaten by crows? Dragged away by cairogs? Would the spiders find her? Would the Moian warriors come back for survivors?

  To her relief, Tuk appeared, walking along the narrow branch she hung from as if it was solid ground.

  He crouched over her head.

  “I didn’t know you could scream like that.”

  “It was a long fall,” Carlette grumbled.

  Tuk only laughed.

  Now, having made the endless, harrowing climb down the Goddeau tree with only a knife, the leftover parachute, and her gauntlet of spines to help them, that laughter felt very far away.

  The forest floor was a bloodbath.

  Bodies littered the ground, viscera splattered on the fallen leaves, unable to stay whole after such a plummet from the sky. Carved wood, still smoking, had broken off from the cities above and exploded into splinters. The sloping shapes of crashed Zanburs could be made out in the haze of the smoldering forest, as still as sleeping beasts.