by Martha Wells
They slammed into a wooden surface. Dare landed hard on Moon’s chest and knocked the air out of him. Moon got a breath into his aching lungs and quelled the panicked impulse to shift. The net was wrapped around his arm and neck, half-strangling him; it would be worse tangled on his spines and folded wings.
Dare gasped and choked. Moon managed to roll half over, easing the warrior to the side and taking some of the weight of the net off him. He was young, with light bronze skin and red-brown hair; he trembled violently from blood loss, his skin cold. Blood soaked his light-colored shirt, and Moon could feel it, slick and warm on his arms and chest.
Moon snarled and looked up. The kethel had dropped them on one of the open decks of the bladder-boat. The huge air bladder hung overhead and the rounded wall of a cabin was to one side. Two Aventeran groundlings stared down at them. Both were male, bundled up in knits and leather coats against the wind streaming over the deck, and both were armed with smaller projectile weapons. The stink of Fell clung to the wood. Moon bared his teeth.
One of the groundlings flinched and lifted his weapon. The other grabbed the barrel and pushed it away. “No, they’re wounded,” he said in Kedaic. It wasn’t until that moment that Moon realized it was Havram.
Dare curled up against Moon’s chest and Moon pulled him closer. He was dying; Moon could smell it. He grated out, “Why did you do this? We were trying to help you.”
The other groundling stared, as if he hadn’t expected Moon to be able to talk. Havram said, “We had no choice.”
Moon felt a footstep vibrate through the wooden boards, just before he sensed a Fell ruler. Dare whimpered and curled tighter into Moon’s chest.
A Fell ruler in groundling form stepped into view, looking down at them. He resembled Ivades in that he was tall and slim, his skin white as the palest marble, and the long hair tossed by the wind was dark and fine. But the gravity of his presence stopped Moon’s breath. This ruler was as old and powerful as Ivades had been young and foolish. Moon had never seen him before; it was a small relief, at least, that this ruler was not one of those he had seen with Ranea’s flight.
In Raksuran, because Fell always spoke the language of their prey, the ruler said, “Are you hurt?”
Moon hissed. “What does it look like?”
The ruler tilted his head at the groundlings and said in Kedaic, “You injured them.”
The other groundling said, “They were about to escape. I had to fire on them.”
Havram added, “This is what you wanted. Now take them and go.”
The ruler shifted, the effect different from a Raksuran, as if its body became liquid and flowed into the new shape. Its shifted form was larger than Ivades’ had been, its armored crest more prominent. It said, “So we shall go.”
It snapped out a clawed hand and slashed Havram’s head off, slapped the weapon out of the second man’s hand, caught him by the front of his jacket and slung him over the rail of the deck. Screaming erupted from the cabin behind Moon, then just as abruptly ceased. The ruler flicked the blood off its claws and said to Moon, “These creatures taste like carrion. They’re no use at all.”
The kethel’s hand swooped down again and snatched Moon and Dare off the deck. Moon would have screamed if he had time to gasp a breath; a heartbeat later he realized the kethel hadn’t crushed them. It was carrying them somewhere. The vibration of its powerful wingbeats traveled through the muscles of its arm.
The hand enclosing them shut out all but a little light shining through narrow gaps between the kethel’s claws. A little cool air leaked in, just enough to keep them from smothering in the sickening heat and stench of the creature’s skin. The net ground into Moon’s back and shoulders, and had to be exerting painful pressure on Dare’s wounds. Moon whispered, “It’s all right, try to hold on,” then felt Dare’s death rattle as the last breath left his lungs.
The kethel flew for some endless time. Moon fought down fear that threatened to choke him, forced himself not to struggle against the cooling weight of Dare’s body. If these Fell had the same plans as the ones who had stalked Indigo Cloud…
Finally the kethel landed, and Moon heard wind moving over rock, and less identifiable sounds. Then the slivers of light dimmed and altered, and he felt the kethel lean forward.
Its claws opened and Moon and Dare’s body spilled out and landed on a hard surface.
Dazed, bruised, and sticky with Dare’s blood, Moon tried to push himself up. He had been dropped on the deck of Delin’s flying boat; he recognized the color and texture of the wood. But the air was stale and thick, as if it had already been breathed once, and so heavy with the scent of Fell stench it was like trying to inhale dirt. He blinked hard to clear his vision, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes. The light was tinted a murky gray-red, as if it was falling through a piece of gut. Moon managed to roll half over and get a look at what was above the flying boat.
At first he thought it was a fog, or a heavily clouded sky. It was oddly mottled, thick, reddish-gray. Realizing what it was, he hissed in despair.
It was the inside of a sac, one of the containers made from the secretions of the kethel. From the fact that it was more than large enough to contain the flying boat, it must be the giant sac that Stone had seen. His eyes caught movement in the dimness and he saw dakti swarmed over the inside of it, working on a tear in the surface. The kethel must have had to open a slit to deposit Moon on the boat.
Moon pushed away from Dare’s body and tore at the net. Figures leaned over him, pulling at the cords; he flinched and snarled before he realized it was Floret and Chime and Saffron. They untangled the net, and Moon shook their hands off and shoved to his feet. Before Moon could speak, Chime shifted to groundling and flung himself into Moon’s arms. Moon stumbled, but stayed upright. Chime clutched him like a lifeline and sobbed once into his shoulder. Saffron crouched down to touch Dare’s face, then hissed in dismay as she realized he was dead.
They stood on the deck near the steering cabin. The interior of the sac was vast and murky, the air too warm and humid, laced with drifting mist. Supports like leafless branches crossed the vast space, made of more of the hardened secretion. The whole space was moving, the boat swaying a little with the force of the sac’s motion, nudged along with it by bumping against the supports. Moon’s sense of direction told him they were heading northwest, away from Aventera and the plateau, away from the Reaches.
Other shapes hung in the dimness; Moon caught a glimpse of something huge, like a flying island, but it was wrapped in some web-like secretion. Whatever it was, it looked horrible. Patting Chime’s back, Moon asked Floret and Saffron, “Who’s dead?”
“Horn is dead.” Saffron named one of the Opal Night warriors, her gaze still on Dare. Both she and Floret were wounded, with scratches and tears in their scales. “Ivory is hurt, badly.”
Moon growled a curse. “Who else is hurt?”
“Gallant, Tribute, and Fleet. And the younger ones, from Indigo Cloud—”
“Root and Song,” Floret supplied. “The Fell could have killed us all, but they stopped when Ivory went down.”
Saffron faced Moon, her spines flicking with anxiety. “Celadon and the others?”
“I don’t know. If they got away, I didn’t see them.” Moon took Chime by the shoulders and moved him away. Chime had bruises on his face, his neck, dark stains on his bronze skin. “Let’s get below.”
Saffron gathered up Dare’s body and started toward the stairs. In the doorway, Moon stopped Chime and let Floret and Saffron get ahead of them. He whispered, “What did Shade and Lithe do in the fight?”
Chime answered hurriedly, “I didn’t see. They were on the other end of the ship with Ivory and Saffron and the other Opal Night warriors. But they both had blood on their hands and teeth afterward, so they must have shifted to fight.”
Good. Moon started down the steps.
All the lamps belowdecks had burned out, but bits of cloth that had been spelled to make lig
ht were stuffed into the sconces. In a cabin on the other side of the passage, Saffron placed Dare carefully down next to the crumpled body of another young warrior.
The air was heavy with blood and sickness, detectable even over the stench of Fell. As Moon stepped into the main cabin, he found the wounded laid out on blankets on the floor at the far end of the room. He moved toward them, looking for Root and Song, sick at the thought of what he might see.
The warriors were all in their groundling forms, all deeply unconscious, their clothes bloody from the cuts that had rent their scales and transferred to their skin when they shifted. Root had a bad slash stretching from his collarbone down his left side. His eyes were deeply sunken in their sockets, his features sharpened as if the flesh had thinned and tightened. Except for the slow, almost imperceptible movement of his chest, he looked dead. Song was worse, slashed across the neck. Blood matted her curling hair, trickled down from the corner of her mouth.
Ivory was still awake, Shade supporting her head, Lithe kneeling next to her. Moon took one look at Shade’s face and gave up his last suspicion. Shade’s expression was set with shock, his eyes all pupil, his light skin so pale it was almost translucent. He looked like Flower had before she died.
Lithe’s eyes were wide, frightened, as if the effort of holding back panic was almost too much. She said, “Moon.” Her voice was thick with relief. “We thought—We were afraid—Is Celadon—?”
“We don’t know about the others yet,” Floret told her.
Moon knelt next to Ivory. “They’re all in a healing sleep?”
“Yes.” Lithe touched Ivory’s forehead. Moon could see the effort it cost her to pretend to be calm. “I need to send her into one, but she won’t let me.”
Ivory’s scent was bitter and coppery with blood, and her collarbone was broken. She was in her Arbora form, so there was no telling what damage had been done to her wings. Her scales were scratched and torn, the fingers of her right hand smashed, her claws broken.
She opened her eyes and focused on Moon. Her voice grating with pain, she said, “Where’s Celadon?”
As she spoke, he saw she still had blood on her fangs. “Either dead or free, flying to Malachite and the others.”
With her good hand she reached over and squeezed his wrist, hard enough for his bones to grind together. “I hope everything they said about you was true.”
Me, too, Moon thought. What he wanted to do was huddle in a corner and quietly panic, or loudly panic, but he couldn’t afford to.
She raised her voice enough to say, “Saffron. Until I wake, obey this consort as if his words are mine.”
Saffron gave Moon a wary glance, but said, “I will, Ivory.”
Ivory sank back against Shade and closed her eyes. Shade made a frightened sound, like a fledgling.
Biting her lip in concentration, Lithe put a hand on Ivory’s brow. Ivory’s body gradually relaxed, her breathing grew even and slow, the lines of pain on her face smoothed away. Lithe sighed at the effort and rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know if she’ll live. She has a chance, if—” She cut the words off.
If the Fell leave her alone, Moon thought. They might all be dead in the next few moments.
As Lithe and Shade laid Ivory down on the blanket, Moon got to his feet. He looked around and realized the others were staring at him. Right, he was in charge. To get his thoughts in order more than anything else, he said, “The Fell knew we were coming here, knew about the trap.”
Lithe sat back and pushed the sweaty hair off her face. “But how? The crossbreeds, I know what you think, but we didn’t—”
“That’s not what I think,” Moon interrupted.
Chime said, “You think this is the same thing that happened at Indigo Cloud.” He folded his arms tightly and his voice trembled a little, but he didn’t look as bad as Shade. “That these Fell have crossbreeds of their own, a mentor-dakti who guided them here.”
“It would explain a lot.” Experimentally, Moon shifted to his winged form, then back to groundling. “But we can still shift.”
“Or maybe they just haven’t bothered with us yet,” Chime said, and glanced nervously up at the deck.
Saffron, Lithe, and Shade all followed his gaze.
Floret paced to the doorway and stood so she could watch the stairs. “It is like what happened to us. The way they knew we were going to the groundling city, what we were going to do. But why attack Opal Night, one of the strongest courts in the Reaches?”
“Maybe revenge against Malachite, for destroying a Fell flight,” Chime told her. “Like they wanted revenge against Moon, for killing a ruler.”
Saffron turned her head to stare at Moon, incredulous. Moon guessed Ivory hadn’t repeated anything he had said to her in the bow yesterday. That made him feel even worse about what had happened to her.
“It also doesn’t explain why we’re going northwest,” Shade said tentatively. He still looked shaky, but maybe trying to solve the puzzle of what had happened and why was helping him stay calm. “If they want to attack Opal Night, why are they heading away from it?”
“That’s a good question.” Moon wished they had an answer to it. “Are there any courts in this direction? Or another groundling city?”
“No courts that we know of.” Saffron frowned in thought. “I never heard of any groundling cities, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
“They’ve just had a groundling city, though,” Chime said. “Why didn’t they stay longer at Aventera?”
“They didn’t seem interested in it,” Moon admitted reluctantly. “It was like they came for us, caught us, and forgot about the groundlings.”
They all digested that unpleasant thought for a moment. Lithe said slowly, “I think… This doesn’t change anything. I think we were right, all along, that the Fell came here for crossbreeds. But they just needed one or two of us. Now that they have Shade and me, they don’t need to attack Opal Night anymore.”
Chime hunched his shoulders uneasily. “She may be right.”
Shade looked even more sick. “But why do they want us?”
Moon didn’t think they were going to like the answer to that question, whatever it was. It might mean these Fell wanted more Raksura for breeding, but in that case it seemed strange that they had settled for only two crossbreeds and one full Raksuran consort. He didn’t want to think about it, and he didn’t want the others to think about it. They had to focus on getting out of here. “Chime, do you know if Delin has anything on this boat we can use? Like weapons?”
Before Chime could answer, Saffron snorted. “We have weapons. Our claws.”
Moon wasn’t in the mood for any backtalk from warriors, but before he could explain that and include a demonstration, Lithe said sharply, “Saffron, don’t be stupid. He means groundling weapons. Like something that shoots projectiles, or makes things catch on fire.”
From the doorway, Floret gave Saffron’s back a withering look.
Shade stood up straight, enthusiasm making his voice stronger. “If we could set the sac on fire and get the boat out…” He saw the flaw in the plan. “But the boat is too slow. The kethel would just catch us again and kill us.”
Lithe hesitated, as if reluctant to voice her thought, but she said, “It might be better if we forced them to kill us. Before they have a chance to do whatever it is that they captured us to do.”
Moon couldn’t argue with that. Floret nodded grimly, Chime looked sick, and Saffron frustrated. Moon thought Saffron wanted to argue, or hated the idea of using groundling weapons, but she knew that Lithe was right.
Shade huddled in on himself again, but said, “Setting the sac on fire is a good idea. We have to stop them, or they’ll just attack Opal Night for more crossbreeds.”
Chime cleared his throat. “I don’t know if Delin has any weapons onboard. But we can look.”
Moon had Lithe, Shade, and Chime go through the other cabins, while the two warriors kept watch. He searched the main cabin a
nd the hold himself, but all he found that might be useful were some knives and other sharp implements, for cooking or for working on the boat. The food and water stores were still good, so at least they would be able to eat and care for the wounded right up until the Fell killed them.
He had finished and was in the main cabin when Chime returned with something he and Lithe had found.
It was a metal projectile weapon, with a long tube attached to a handle, and a lever. Chime pointed to various bits of it. “I think you use the lever to pump air into this part of it, and then when you pull this, that makes the air release and that shoots out the projectile. I found some of these—” He set a box down on the table. It was filled with round little packages wrapped in paper. “I think they’re the projectiles. But I’ve been thinking, Delin never mentioned he had a weapon that would be useful against the Fell. And this was packed up in a cabinet in his sleeping room, and not up in the steering cabin where he could get to it quickly. So maybe it’s not a weapon, it just looks like one?”
Moon picked up one of the projectiles, handling it carefully. It felt soft, like sand wrapped in heavy paper, and it had a wick like a candle. He tried it against the opening in the weapon, and it slid right inside. He took it out again, and sniffed it cautiously. The scent was bitter and acrid, like sulfur. Like something that would be flammable, and it was clearly meant to be lit. “I don’t think it is a weapon. I think you light this on fire, and shoot it into the air with this thing, and it makes a burst of light.” On the Crescent Coast archipelagos, he had seen ships signal each other with various contraptions that made light high in the air.
Chime took the device back, turned it over and examined it again. “It could still be a weapon. If you shot it into a kethel’s chest… It would still hurt.”
“Hurt it, but maybe not kill it. I wonder if it would set something on fire.”
“The sac, like Shade suggested?” Chime’s expression was doubtful. “Some things don’t catch on fire easily. It might need to be covered in oil. But there is oil in the hold. It’s made from some kind of sea plant that the Islanders grow. Delin has it for the ship’s lamps and the metal cooking thing.” He added nervously, “And then there’s the part where the sac collapses on the boat and we burn to death.”