by Martha Wells
Three warriors wheeled and dove on the herd, and the hunt was on. Moon found Chime, still a novice at hunting, and made sure he managed his first kill successfully. Then Moon took a small buck for himself. Like all the Aeriat, they dragged the carcasses off into the reeds to eat immediately; the second kill would be for the colony. They met Song, a young female warrior with coppery scales, already there eating her kill. “This was a fantastic idea,” she said between bites.
After he finished eating, Moon left Chime with Song and swam out into the lake to wash the blood off his scales, then took a second kill to haul back for the Arbora. After he dragged the carcass up onto a sandbar to bleed it, he scanned the sky to see where the others were. Most of the Aeriat were finished, though Chime and a few others still circled above the lake looking for prey. The herd had all moved off now, either further down the shore or into the trees.
A flash of vivid blue made him glance up, but it wasn’t Chime coming in for another pass. Jade cupped her wings and dropped down toward the sandbar.
She was the sister queen of the Indigo Cloud Court, and like all Raksuran queens, she had no groundling form. She could shift only between her winged form and a wingless shape that looked more like an Arbora. Her scales were blue, with a silver-gray web pattern. Behind her head, the frills and spines formed an elaborate mane, reaching all the way down her back to her tail.
She landed neatly, her claws digging into the sand. Folding her wings, she picked her way through the lilies toward Moon. He shifted for her, though he was still standing in the water and it soaked his pants to the knees. His groundling skin was more sensitive and he liked to feel her scales against it.
She caught him around the waist, and he relaxed against her. Her teeth grazed his neck in affectionate greeting, and she asked, “Did you have any trouble flying?”
“No, my shoulder’s fine.” He was a little sore, but it was the welcome ache of unused muscles finally being pushed to work. He nuzzled her neck. “My back’s fine, too.”
“I’m tempted to find out for myself.” Jade’s growl had a warm tone to it. She rubbed her cheek against his. “But we can’t afford the time.”
The grassy bank was very tempting, but she was right; they had to get the ships moving again. They hadn’t had much chance to be together onboard, between the crowding and Moon recovering from his broken wing. But now that Indigo Cloud had adopted a fledgling queen and two consorts from the destroyed Sky Copper court, it wasn’t quite so urgent that Jade get a clutch immediately.
Song, Root, and Chime banked down to circle overhead, and called to them that it was time to leave.
Later that afternoon, Moon woke when a strong cool gust cut across the flat roof of the Valendera’s steering cabin. It carried the clean scent of rain, but with a bitter undertone that meant thunder and lightning, and the force of it made the wooden craft creak and rattle.
Moon pushed up on one elbow for a better taste of the air. At the moment that was harder than it sounded. He was nestled between Jade and Chime, with Song, Root, and a few other warriors curled up around them. Jade had an arm and her tail wrapped around Moon’s waist and he was warm and comfortable from the sun-warmed wood and the heat of friendly bodies. He had to wriggle to sit up enough to look out over the wooden boat’s stern. What he saw made him wince. That’s a problem.
In the distance, just above the forest’s green horizon, a dark mass of storm built, reaching out toward them with gray streaks of cloud. On their journey so far, they had gone through a few days with rain, but no high winds or lightning. It looked like their luck was over.
Jade stirred sleepily, disturbed by his movement. Sounding reluctant to wake, she murmured, “What is it?” After the indulgence of the hunt this morning, most of the court were spending the day napping. Many had fed to the point where they wouldn’t need to eat again for two or three days.
Moon squeezed Jade’s wrist. “There’s a storm to the north.” “What?” She sat up, shouldered the others over enough that Root and another young male warrior rolled right off the cabin roof. She spotted the storm and frowned, then slapped her hand on the planks, making a loud hollow thump. “Niran! Come out here, please.”
Niran’s voice came from somewhere below. “What now?” He sounded angry, but that was normal for Niran. He was the only groundling aboard, a grandson of the Golden Islander family who had traded them the use of the two flying boats. It had been Niran’s grandfather, Delin, who had wanted to help them. Niran had distrusted the Raksura intensely, but had volunteered to stay and try to protect the valuable ships when the Fell had forced Delin and the other Islanders to flee. Forced proximity and shared danger had made Niran trust them, but it hadn’t made his personality any less prickly.
Niran came out of the cabin, a figure as short as the Arbora, but slim and with golden skin and eyes. His long straight white hair was tied back with a patterned scarf and starting to look dingy. It was hard to bathe on the boat, especially for those who couldn’t just fly down for a swim in a pond. He was dressed in a heavy robe, borrowed from one of the Arbora, and clutched a pottery mug. “What is it now?” he demanded again.
“There’s a storm coming,” Jade told him, and pointed.
Niran squinted in that direction. Groundling eyes weren’t as keen as Raksuran and he probably couldn’t see the cloud formation. “Oh for the love of the Ancestors, that’s all we need,” he muttered, turned, and stamped back inside the cabin.
“The boats can’t outrun it, I suppose,” Jade said, still frowning.
“I doubt it,” Moon told her. The power to keep the ships aloft and moving came from the tiny fragment of sky-island, kept in the ship’s steering apparatus, that let them ride the lines of force that stretched across the Three Worlds. Their progress was steady, but not very fast, and a storm-wind would tear the sails apart. Moon sat up all the way and nudged Chime over. “I think we’ll have to stop and winch them down to the ground.”
Chime twitched awake and sat up, blinking. “Winch what to the— Oh.” He stared uneasily at the approaching clouds. “That’s not good. What do we do?”
“Don’t panic,” Jade said. The others were blearily awake now, looking into the wind. She prodded Song with her foot. “Song, go and find Pearl.”
Song nodded and pushed to her feet. She shifted and jumped off the cabin roof, to land on the railing and leap again, taking flight toward the Indala. Pearl was the reigning queen, and Jade’s mother, and while the situation between them was better than it had been, there were still ripples of tension. Since Moon had caused one big wave of tension by becoming Jade’s consort and not Pearl’s, it was a relief that Pearl had decided to spend much of her time on the other ship.
“I wasn’t panicking,” Chime said with dignity. He drew his legs up, wrapped his arms around his knees. “I just never liked storms, even in the colony. Do you know what happens if lightning hits you?”
Jade didn’t bother to answer that. Most of the Raksura, especially the Arbora, would be used to weathering storms safe inside a colony, not in the air on a fragile flying boat. Moon wasn’t happy about it either. Thunderstorms made him edgy. The day after his family had been killed, he had been caught in one, huddled high in the branches of a too-small tree. The Tath had still been hunting him so he couldn’t chance climbing any lower, and the storm had grown in intensity all day, as if it meant to tear the whole forest apart.
At least he wasn’t going to have to face this one alone.
Niran came out of the cabin again, dressed now in the clothes Islanders usually wore on their boats: white pants cropped at the knee and a loose shirt belted at the waist. He held a copper spyglass up to one eye, twisting the lenses to focus on the storm. He said, “We need to find a place to shelter, and we’ll have to lower both ships to the ground and tie them off— Wait, what’s that?”
A dark shape flew toward them out of the gray clouds. Moon squinted to identify it. “That’s Stone.”
&nbs
p; Stone was the line-grandfather, the only other adult consort in the Indigo Cloud Court, the oldest person Moon had ever met, as far as he knew. Queens and consorts grew larger and stronger as they grew older, so Stone’s shifted form was nearly four times Moon’s size.
Consorts were already the fastest flyers among Raksura, so fast only queens could keep up with them. Stone’s approach was at nearly full speed, and he reached the ship in only a few moments. He cupped his wings to slow down at almost the last instant, then dropped down onto the stern deck. The ship dipped under his weight and Niran grabbed the railing to steady himself, cursing in the Islander language.
Stone shifted to his groundling form, and the boat righted. He caught hold of the edge of the cabin roof and slung himself up onto it, as the last two warriors scrambled away and jumped down to make room for him. He sat down on the planks, a tall lean man, his face lined and weathered, dressed in a gray shirt and pants. Everything about him had faded to gray, his hair, his skin, something that happened to the groundling forms of the oldest Raksura. The only spot of color was in his blue eyes, though the right one was dimmed and clouded. He jerked his chin toward the streaked sky. “You noticed?”
“Yes.” Jade settled her spines, which had bristled involuntarily at Stone’s rapid approach. “Niran says we’ll need to stop and lower both boats to the ground.”
“If we can find the ground,” Chime put in. “The forest has been getting deeper and there aren’t that many breaks in the canopy.”
“If we don’t lower the ships, the high winds will surely tear them apart,” Niran added, apparently braced for an argument.
Stone conceded that with a nod, but said, “We’re nearly to the new colony. We should make it before the storm reaches us.”
Startled, Chime said, “What? Really?”
Jade gave Stone a hard stare. “Are you certain?”
Stone shrugged. “Sure.”
Annoyed, Jade tapped her claws on the roof. “Were you going to share this information with anyone else?”
“Eventually.” Stone looked toward the bow and the endless sweep of the forest, as if gauging the distance. “I wasn’t sure until today. We’ve been making better time than I thought we would.”
Jade looked down at Niran. “Well?”
Niran set his jaw, but after a moment he said, “Very well. If you want to risk it.” Then he added grudgingly, “Chime is right. The forest beneath us seems too thick for a good landing spot. We’d have to search for a clearing anyway.”
Jade disentangled herself from Moon and pushed to her feet. She shook her frills out and shifted to her winged form. Moon rolled onto his back, just admiring her. She smiled down at him. “I’d better let Pearl know we’re nearly there, too.”
Jade leapt straight up, snapped her wings out to catch the air, then glided over to the Indala.
“I’ll find Flower,” Chime said, and threw a nervous look back at the distant clouds. He shifted to jump down to the deck.
Moon stretched out, taking advantage of having the roof nearly to himself, basking in the sun before the clouds covered it. Stone still sat on the edge, looking out over the mist-wreathed forest, his expression preoccupied. “So what’s this place like?” Moon asked him. “A tree.”
Moon swore under his breath. He had gotten that much from everybody else. They were all very enthusiastic about it, but nobody had been able to say how much work they were going to have to do to make it habitable. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
Stone snorted. “I just told you. A tree.”
Moon rolled onto his stomach, pillowed his head on his arms, and pretended to go to sleep, one of the only effective ways of dealing with Stone when he was in such a mood. He had been hoping for something not much different from the ruin where the court had lived before, except more defensible. He had lived in trees, and they weren’t comfortable. And he had seen how fast the Arbora could build temporary shelters, but they would have no time to do that before the rain hit.
He heard the wood creak as Stone moved around and stretched out on the other half of the roof. Then Stone said, “It’s a mountain-tree, the place our court originally came from.”
Moon opened his eyes a slit to see Stone lying on his back with one arm flung over his eyes. A mountain-tree. Moon turned the words over, searching for familiarity, hoping it stirred his memory. For all he knew, he had lived in one as a child, but he didn’t remember it. “I don’t know what that is.”
Stone’s voice was dry. “You will before nightfall.”
Moon was standing on the deck when Flower told Jade and Pearl, “I don’t need to augur to know we need to get to shelter.” She waved a hand toward the approaching storm. She was small even for an Arbora, her white-blonde hair wild as usual, and after the long journey her loose red smock was even more ragged. She was the oldest Arbora in the court, and age had leached the color from her skin so she looked far more delicate than she actually was. She was also the chief of the mentor caste, the Arbora who were shamen, augurs, and healers. “We’ll have to go below the tree canopy anyway, so Stone’s right: we might as well try to reach the new colony.”
Pearl’s tail lashed, though whether she was angry at the storm or angry at Flower, or just angry in general, it was hard to tell. Her scales were brilliant gold, the webbed pattern overlaying them a deep blue. The frilled mane behind her head was bigger than Jade’s, and there were more frills on the tips of her folded wings and on the end of her tail. A head taller than any of the Aeriat, she wore only jewelry, a broad necklace with gold chains and polished blue stones. She said, “I could have gotten that advice from a fledgling.”
Jade’s spines twitched with the effort to keep silent, but she had been trying hard to get along with Pearl. Moon hoped she could last until they reached the colony. Flower, who was better at dealing with Pearl, said dryly, “Then next time, ask a fledgling.”
That had been in the late afternoon, and it was the edge of twilight now. Thunder rumbled continuously, the sky dark gray with clouds and the cool wind heavily scented with rain. The Arbora and Aeriat crowded around on the deck, waiting with nervous impatience, most of them in groundling form to conserve their strength. Moon, by virtue of being a consort, had a place along the railing. He stood next to Chime and Knell, who was leader of the Arbora caste of soldiers.
Knell scratched his shoulder through his shirt, grimacing. He had been wounded in the Fell attack on the colony, the attack that had killed many of the other soldiers, and had new claw scars all down his chest. He said, “I hope Blossom knows what she’s doing.”
Blossom was the teacher who steered the Indala, on Niran’s instructions. Chime stirred uneasily, but said, “She’s done fine so far.”
“She hasn’t had to do anything so far.” Knell threw him a sour look. “Except go forward and stop.”
Knell was Chime’s clutchmate, along with Bell, the new leader of the teacher caste. Neither looked much like Chime, Knell and Bell both having dark hair in their groundling forms and being more brown than bronze, though they were both tall for Arbora. It wasn’t unusual for Arbora clutches to produce one or two Aeriat warriors, something that the mentors attributed to generations of Arbora breeding with queens and consorts. It was unusual that Chime had been born an Arbora mentor, not an Aeriat warrior. Sometime a turn or so ago, long before Moon had come to the court, Chime had shifted and turned into a warrior. Flower and the other mentors believed it was because of the pressure on the colony from disease and warfare, and the lack of warrior births. Unlike Arbora, warriors were infertile, and could also travel longer distances to find food. Chime had been horrified by the change, and from what Moon could tell, still wasn’t that reconciled to it.
“All right,” Chime said to Knell, annoyed. “Both boats will crash and we’ll all die. Are you happy now?”
“We’d better do it soon then, before the storm kills us,” Knell told him.
Suddenly I see the resemblance, Moon thought, c
arefully not smiling.
Knell was right about the storm, though. Moon could already feel the presence of lightning somewhere nearby, as a tingle on his skin. From the forest below, Stone flew up through a gap in the canopy, his wings knocking aside branches and leaves. He shot up past them, circled back, then dove back down through the gap.
From the bow, Jade shouted back to Niran. “We need to follow him down!”
Niran, standing in front of the steering cabin, looked horrified. Thunder rumbled again, reminding everyone that they didn’t have a choice. The Valendera went first. It carefully maneuvered down through the narrow gap in the canopy, while Arbora hung off the sides to give directions to Niran. The ship sank past layers of branches that scraped at the hull and the railings, and scattered leaves and twigs across the deck.
Finally they moved down into green shadows, as the wind died away to a cool, damp, sweet-scented breeze. The lower branches of the trees grew lush flowers in blues and purples that wound down the dark gray trunks.
There was far more room under the canopy than Moon had expected, a vast green space. The flying boats could sail around down here easily.
Niran eased the Valendera forward, gliding between the trunks, leaving room for the Indala to follow it down.
Moon leaned over the railing and tried to see the ground, but it was hundreds of paces down, lost in the shadows. Not far below the ship he could see platforms covered with greenery standing out from the trees and completely encircling the trunks, connecting the trees to each other in a web, many more than large enough for the Valendera to set down on.
They looked like tethered chunks of sky-island, covered with grass and flowers, dripping with vines, most supporting glades of smaller trees. But as the ship drifted closer to one, he saw the platforms were thick branches that had grown together and intertwined in broad swathes, catching windblown dirt and seeds until they built up into solid ground.