by Martha Wells
Watching them go, the humid breeze ruffled through Moon’s spines. The calls of birds, treelings, and insects were a continuous din. The scents were heavy and so intertwined with that of the mountain-thorn itself, it would have been hard to pick out a predator’s rank odor until it was almost on top of you. The other thing Stone had probably wanted him to think about was the fact that Stone’s presence tended to drive off large predators. With him gone, maintaining two separate camps with people going back and forth between them was a bad idea.
Moon had left two Arbora, Salt and Strike, and two warriors, Sage and Aura, stationed at this camp. They were all watching him, alert and a little worried. Moon said, “Pack up. We’re all going to make a camp in the city.”
Strike jumped to his feet, excited to see the inside of the city, and Salt and Aura hurried to start taking down the shelters. Sage, the oldest warrior here, looked distinctly relieved.
It would take one day, maybe less, for Stone to reach Ocean Winter carrying Merit and Venture, one day to get back, plus whatever time it took to talk the Ocean Winter queen into allowing her mentors to help. If she agreed; the others seemed to think it wouldn’t be an issue, but Moon couldn’t let himself have that much confidence.
The waiting was going to be painful. But at this moment, Moon couldn’t remember what it felt like not to be waiting in terrible suspense.
They made their camp in the big chamber with the shaft opening. Moon found out that some of the others had experienced several visions in the chamber while the light was shining, but the sensations seemed confined to specific spots. So Bramble and Braid had carefully mapped them out, marking off the danger areas with piles of pebbles and broken tiles.
After working out a roster of lookouts for the top of the dome and the chamber where Jade and Chime and the others were trapped, Moon sent a group of the warriors hunting. The Arbora already had the lumps of wood Merit had spelled for heat, flown over in the water kettles, and more clumps of moss, wood, and other things spelled for light than they could possibly need. The Arbora just spread the treated cloth on the floor so they wouldn’t have to sleep on the muck covering the pavement and they were done.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Moon wanted to stay below in the chamber to keep watch over the trapped group himself, but realized quickly that was impractical. Any threat was more likely to come from outside the city, and he needed to be at the top of the shaft to deal with it.
That evening, Bramble, Plum, and Braid took turns telling stories. Band kept reminding them of his favorites that Blossom and Rill had always told until, frustrated, they forced him to tell the stories. He wasn’t bad, though he tended to make up details when he forgot the actual plot. If it failed to really distract Moon, at least it distracted some of the others and gave them something else to talk about.
Moon either fell asleep or passed out from exhaustion at some point, but woke suddenly sometime well into the night when Bramble nudged him. He sat up abruptly, dislodging Salt who had had his head pillowed on Moon’s hip.
Moon had been sleeping in a sweaty and uncomfortable pile with the rest of the Arbora. The light was shining up from the shaft, throwing a soft illumination over most of the room. River and Drift were sleeping curled together a short distance away, with Aura and Band just past them. Bramble and Serene were wide awake and standing over Moon, which meant it was the second shift of guards, and that Floret and Sand were down at the bottom of the shaft, and that Sage and Briar were on top of the dome. When he managed to focus his eyes on her, Bramble said, “Briar says something’s wrong outside.”
“Should I wake the others?” Serene added.
“Not yet.” Moon carefully detached himself from the pile of Arbora, and stepped over Strike. His left leg had gone partially numb and he limped over to stand under the opening in the dome. One of the warriors leaned over the edge, waving at him. Moon shifted, braced himself, and leapt upward.
He caught the crumbling edge with his claws and hauled himself up. For a moment he couldn’t see anything except the surface of the dome itself, curving away toward a lower tower. Then Briar’s shape moved in the dark and she whispered, “This way. Sage is down here, so the light doesn’t ruin his vision.”
Moon followed her down, seeing that they had sensibly stationed Briar up near the opening so she could use the light to make sure nothing approached over the dome and Sage further down the curve, so he could keep an eye on the surrounding canopy.
They reached Sage and Moon crouched beside him, while Briar returned to her post. After a moment, Sage said, “There. Do you see it?”
Moon blinked hard. His eyes were still bleary from sleep, and dazzled by the light. But after a moment he made out the shapes and textures of the mountain-thorn’s branches and the heavy growth along them, coiling just past the city’s platform. Then the leaves and other foliage moved, rolled like a wave, as something undulated through the growth about two hundred paces into the canopy.
If they could see it from here … it’s big, Moon thought, the skin under his spines itching with nerves. Oh, that’s all we need. “They took the offal from the hunt out to another tree’s platform like I told them to, right?” They better have.
“Yes, Floret made certain. All we have near the camp is fruit,” Sage said. “It’s not been drawn here by that.”
There were, conceivably, large creatures in the suspended forest that were plant-eaters, but Moon wasn’t willing to bet that this was one. “Then it’s after us.”
“Probably,” Sage agreed.
Moon considered several ideas, all of them bad. He said, “Let me know if it gets any closer.” It felt like a stupid thing to say, as if Sage, having managed to see the thing, would take his eyes off it for a moment now. But Sage just gave him a serious nod.
Moon climbed back up the dome and dropped down through the opening to the floor of the chamber. Bramble and Serene watched him anxiously. Moon had a number of conflicting impulses. Wake everyone up now or let them get more of the sleep they needed while he waited to find out just how bad the situation was. Go down to the bottom of the shaft and take over guarding Jade and Balm and Chime or trust Floret to do the job he had given her while he worried about the rest of the group. It was a reminder how nice it was to have queens in charge of the hard decisions. He took a deep breath, and said quietly, “There’s something nearby, in the mountain-thorn’s branches, something big. It’s probably hunting.”
Serene looked up at the opening above their heads, her spines twitching. Bramble said, “Uh oh.”
“Right.” Moon hesitated again. “Bramble, go down the shaft and tell Floret. Tell her we’ll hold tight here until we see what this thing is going to do.”
Bramble hurried toward the shaft. Moon told Serene, “Don’t wake the others until it’s time to switch the lookouts. I’m going to check around down here.”
Serene twitched a spine in assent.
Moon circled around the sleeping piles of Raksura and did a quick but thorough walk through the surrounding chambers, making sure they were empty of anything dangerous and that the routes to the outside were still clear. He had two brief visions, just flashes of sunlight and the sensation of falling and overwhelming doom. Though the overwhelming doom lingered long enough to where he couldn’t tell if it had come from the vision or was just a natural product of their situation. Then he went back up to the top of the dome.
Sage whispered, “It’s getting closer.”
Moon hissed. He told Briar, “Tell Serene to wake the others.” He couldn’t leave the lower chamber unprotected, but if the predator got any closer he would have to move the Arbora.
The movement drew closer to the platform, then they could make out a shadow, a big shadow, blotting out the lighter colored stone as it climbed up onto the city’s platform. Moon’s eyes tracked it more by the change in the darkness’ texture, the void where what little light there was should be gleaming off the city’s stones. It moved forward, disappearing
between structures, winding around towers. It was headed right for them. It was still nearly five hundred paces away, but there was no mistaking its intention. Moon drew breath to order Briar to go and tell Floret to flee with the Arbora to the other edge of the city, when it stopped abruptly. Sage whispered, “It’s seen us.”
From behind them, Briar asked, “Didn’t it already know we were here?”
“I thought so, but …” Sage let the words trail off as the upper part of the predator lifted up, as it tried to get a better look at them.
On impulse, Moon stood up.
There was a long moment when no one moved. He thought, It is surprised. It didn’t know we were here, but it was heading for this building. He thought about the tracks the Arbora had found around the edge of the shaft, the scrapes that looked as if something large had climbed out of it. Did this thing hunt the lower chamber on some sort of schedule, searching for prey who were trapped in the spell area? But then how did it get in and out of the spell area without being trapped itself?
And was he looking at an animal, or something else?
After a long moment, the shadow turned away. Sage and Briar hissed out in relief. Watching it move toward the edge of the city, Moon felt the tightness in his chest ease. But he felt this was just a temporary reprieve.
Sage said, “Well, maybe it won’t come back.”
Briar snorted. “Optimist.”
They watched all night and through the morning. The movement in the canopy stopped long before dawn, and Moon found not knowing where the creature was actually far more nerve-racking than being able to track its progress.
By early afternoon, he decided he had to go over and see if it was there. It felt like a bad idea, but everyone agreed that they should do it. Which didn’t make it less of a bad idea.
Moon made Floret stay behind but agreed to take Serene and River with him. All the Arbora wanted to go, but Moon only took Bramble.
As they flew across the short distance to the canopy, he carried her himself. From the uncomfortable glance Serene gave him, it was probably one of those things consorts weren’t supposed to do, but if Moon was going to take an Arbora into this situation, he wanted to keep her as close as possible.
The canopy was so thick on this side they had to land on one of the big branches supporting the platform. The bark was cracked from the weight of the platform’s stone, but the wood was as solid as bedrock as they climbed up along it. It led upward into the forest of small trees, ferns, and vines that grew along the wide branches. Bramble slipped a pace ahead or two of Moon, tasting the air deeply. Moon couldn’t detect anything but mountain-thorn, but he noticed the treelings and birds were suspiciously quiet; there was nothing but the hum of insects in the air.
They had moved some distance into the canopy when Bramble froze and twitched her spines, signaling them to halt. A moment later Moon caught it too: an odd odor, blended with the mountain-thorn’s scent and hard to define.
Bramble glanced back to make sure they had all detected it, then crept forward again.
A little further on, she slipped through a thick stand of grassbrush and hissed in dismay. Moon motioned Serene and River to stay back and stepped up beside Bramble.
Ahead a whole section of the winding branches of the mountain-thorn had been scraped raw, bark, thorns, trees, and plant life scoured away by the rough skin of whatever had climbed across them. The bare area formed a pathway extending back into the mountain-thorn. Moon guessed whatever it was, it was about thirty paces wide. Bramble said, low-voiced, “It’s not that big.”
As an attempt to be optimistic, it wasn’t successful. Moon told her, “We don’t know how long it is. This thing could be huge.”
From behind Moon, River hissed, “What is it?”
“Tracks,” Moon hissed back.
Serene leaned around him to look, made a worried noise in her throat, and retreated back to describe it to River.
Bramble glanced at Moon, spines cocked inquiringly. He told her, “We follow it.” In his own attempt to be optimistic, he added, “Maybe it left.”
Bramble’s expression suggested this was a fond hope. He picked her up and leapt to a branch above the clearing that still had its coating of brush and small trees. Serene and River followed, and they made their way above the cleared area, leaping from branch to branch. The pathway wound back through the mountain-thorn, deeper into the green-tinted shadows.
Bramble proved her hunter’s eyes were better than Moon’s when she suddenly squeezed his arm, denting his scales with her claws. “There!” she hissed.
Moon signaled the others to halt with a flick of his spines. He narrowed his eyes, scanned the clearing below. A moment later he spotted it.
It was hard to see, blending in with the gray bark, and at first it looked like one of the huge thorn branches curled in on itself. But it was a living creature, wound up into a giant knot and resting on the wood it had scraped raw. Moon couldn’t tell much about it, couldn’t see its head or even if it had one. Its hide was mottled gray-black, and its scales were large, ridged, and spade-shaped.
Moon twisted around and motioned for the others to go back. Serene and River turned and fled, and he followed with Bramble.
They waited through the day and into the evening. Moon had decided not to send the warriors out to hunt, hoping the creature would lose interest in them. Raksura didn’t need nearly as much meat when they weren’t doing anything other than sitting around and waiting, and the dried travel rations and fruit they still had was enough to keep everyone mostly content.
As the green twilight began to deepen, Moon went up on top of the dome with the warriors on watch, Floret, Serene, Sage, Briar, and River. There had been no movement in the canopy yet, except for the small flickers of birds and other creatures. Moon was certain there were other predators in the canopy watching them, but nothing else seemed eager to venture up to the city and try its luck.
River kept saying, “What do we do about it?” Moon didn’t answer, currently spending most of his energy not hitting River in the head. He had been thinking about it all day, coming up with various unworkable plans.
Floret said, “I just wonder why this thing came here now. If it just wants to eat, there’s lots of grasseaters on the platforms of the other mountain-trees around here. Is it attracted to us because we’re moving around so much?”
Serene shook her head. “We haven’t been moving that much, except to go hunting.”
“That’s all it takes,” River said. “Obviously.”
All the female warriors flicked their spines in annoyance and Serene eyed him as if considering slapping him sideways.
Moon said, “I don’t think it was after us. I don’t think it knew we were here.”
Floret settled her wings uneasily. “So nothing we do will help. It’ll either come back, or it won’t.”
She was right, but Moon wished she hadn’t put it quite that way.
The night wore on and there was no movement in the canopy. When nothing had happened by the time the light started to shine up from the shaft, Moon was cautiously optimistic and even thinking he might be able to afford to take a shift guarding the lower chamber. It might not do Jade and Chime and the others any good for him to be there, but it would at least make him feel like he was doing something for them.
Then Serene muttered, “Oh, no.”
Moon saw it too. Sinuous movement in the canopy, right in the spot where they had last seen the predator. He snarled under his breath. “It’s the light. That’s what’s drawing it here.”
Just as it had last night, the predator advanced up onto the city’s platform and worked its way further in. Moon turned to Aura. “Go get me one of the moss light bundles. A big one. And wrap it in a blanket before you bring it up here.”
Aura sprang toward the dome’s opening while the others stared at him. Floret said, “Moon, what are you going to do?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to give her the chance to talk
him out of it. Aura jumped back up to the edge of the opening clutching a blanket-wrapped bundle. Moon took it and leapt into the air, snapped his wings out and shot toward the predator.
He tore open the blanket at the last moment and dropped the glowing moss, then circled away to land on a balcony and half-furl his wings.
The moss fell where he meant it to, about ten paces in front of the predator as it crossed an open plaza. It stopped and reared back, lifted its front section the way it had before. The moss provided enough light to get a better view of it.
Away from the mountain-thorn’s canopy, its scent was easier to detect. It was metallic and heavy, like earth, like rock. There was no rankness of predator to it. Moon heard Floret and Serene land on the roof of the tower above him, their claws scraping as they clung to the stone. He twitched his spines, warning them to stay back.
He couldn’t see anything on its front that was recognizable as eyes, but there were four irregular lighter patches that might serve that function. The scales in those areas were tiny and delicate, like flower petals, very different from the big rough plates the rest of it was covered with. Moon took deliberate steps along the edge of the balcony and the head twisted slightly to follow him. He thought if this thing was just a mindless predator it would have attacked him by now. Maybe it made its lair in the ruin, and had been gone when they arrived. But that didn’t explain why it seemed to be drawn to the light. He said, “We don’t want this place. We’ll leave as soon as we can.”
It drew back a little, rough scales scraping along the pavement. Then it surged forward.
Moon snapped his wings in and leapt up and back, landed on the curve of roof near Floret. She and Serene hissed in chorus.
The predator hadn’t come forward any further, making no attempt to come after them. But that had definitely been a warning. Moon’s heart was pounding in reaction, his pulse beating in his ears.
Floret whispered, “Did it understand you?”