Cloudbound (29 page)

We heard horns in the east, and southeast too, as Doran's people started fights on more towertops during the city's most solemn ceremony.

Doran had kept his promise to accompany us. He looked as ready to fight as we were.

Kirit dropped the most ballast and slipped past me. She and Aliati raced to Laria's market tier. Then Ciel's signal came. A single firebug, lit like a shooting star, moved across the sky before it burned out.

More of Laria's guards took off from the towertop like bats, chasing the flare. Ciel pulled closer to the skymouth husk, camouflaging herself in the dark night air. The blackwings shot past her and chased where they thought the firebug would be.

We found the updrafts then. Unfurled our wings, which we'd rubbed as dark as we could with blacking from Djonn's supplies. All of us, night-colored, like blackwings, and the Singer nightwings before them. Kirit had tied a tea-colored ribbon from Ezarit's robe at her shoulder. I had done the same. Aliati, too.
Not exactly like the blackwings. Nothing like, if we could help it.

When we cut ourselves loose from the skymouth husks, letting them float away, the wind caught our wings, and we shot into the market tier, past the guards. We furled our wings fast and rolled into the silken maze. Aliati whistled, loud and fierce, a tower alarm.

The silkwebs picked up the sound and reverberated. Kirit, followed by Aliati, disappeared into the webs. I heard the sound of running feet pounding the tier above us.

Bone horns sounded from Laria's towertop. That was Ciel's signal. She began dropping the bone chips we'd carved:
Rumul hides within your tower, a Singer. The blackwings are helping him.
The chips urged the tower residents to attack the tower's market tier.

From the lowtower, people began to emerge. A few carried sharp blades, lanterns. Some climbed the ladders. Some took to the wind. Others peered out from their balconies, still reading the messages.

At first, the guards must have thought the citizens had roused to help them find the flare's source. They let them come. But when the first blackwing fell from Laria into the clouds, they began to fight.

And Laria rose up against Dix.

 

23

RUMUL

We ran the tower's webbed passages, spreading out across the tier. The light of Allmoons streamed silver across the floor, turning the walls opaque until we split them apart.

Doran, Ceetcee, Beliak, and I sliced the silk walls with our knives and stepped through the openings. When we reached the innermost wall, we stopped, still hidden, and peered through the webbing.

Inside, Dix and her inner circle gathered around plans for Conclave. Blackwings and tower councilors stood beside her. On a low sling chair, Rumul huddled beneath quilts piled high, his bald head dented and shrunken, silver tattoos pulled into strange patterns by several scars.

Behind us: shouts, then fighting, as Dix's guards alit on the lowtower and Laria's people confronted them, asking questions. We had the tower nearly surrounded already, without a single arrow loosed.

I couldn't count my successes yet. Too many uncertainties still remained: if Ceetcee and Beliak could find Moc, Wik, and Hiroli quickly; if we could capture both Dix and Rumul; if Dix's guards would give way to the tower's people; if we could escape without harm.

All we could do now was wait until we had enough of Laria at our back, then confront Dix.

From the corner of my eye, movement. Kirit began cutting her way through the last of the webs early. Draped in stray spidersilk threads, her tattoos stark against her skin, she looked like a ghost. Her eyes were narrowed to slits, and she moved silently, trying to get within a knife's throw of Dix.

Aliati and I moved to grab her, too late. Before we could catch her, Kirit charged through the webs at Dix, knife drawn. Three of Dix's guards and one councilor overpowered and tackled her.

Once, before the fever, she might have fought her way free. But Kirit was still weak. She struggled as they bound her arms and dragged her before Dix.

Clouds take her, this is not what we planned.

“Kirit,” Dix said. “You saved us the trouble of hunting you down.” Beside Dix, Rumul's waxy face remained impassive, his eyes stared at some invisible middle ground.

As the guards stepped into the corridors to investigate, I slipped between the webs' shadows and saw Aliati and Doran doing the same. Beliak and Ceetcee had already gone in search of the captives. There was no way to warn them.

With our surprise blown, we would have to fight.

Everything went still, save for the scuff of footwraps over bone floors. I could hear the rasp of Rumul's breathing. My heart beat a tattoo: his name, then Kirit's.

“What do you bring us, Spirebreaker?” Dix said.

Kirit's voice shook the webs. “I bring truth. When the city discovers who you shelter here, they will not forgive you. Nor will I. The city needs this truth.”

Dix laughed. “The city needs to be told what to see in order to discover anything, Kirit. Without strong leaders, it has only bad luck left to it. You offer neither leadership nor luck. But when I searched the Spire after you cracked it, I uncovered both. Rumul was the Spire's heart; he sacrificed to lead. And now he's skyblessed. He shares his insights with me. That is what the city needs: the past's wisdom and strength to do what's right for the future.” Dix put a gentle hand on Rumul's unmoving head.

As we listened, growing increasingly alarmed, Doran gestured that he would try to distract Dix. That I should get Kirit and drag her off the tier. Then he stepped out from among the webs. Said to all who would listen, “You don't know what leadership means, Dix. You never understood.” A few Laria citizens crowded behind him, straining to hear over the sounds of fighting on other tiers. “You wanted power, and you use that husk of a man as a signifier. That isn't leadership.” He held a hand out and walked closer. “You can stop this now.”

He nodded to the assembled councilors. Several bobbed their heads in reply.

I'd been edging around behind Dix, getting closer to Kirit. But before I could grab her, a guard, one of the men who'd played Justice with her at Grigrit, shouted, “Enough, Doran!”

When Doran didn't stop speaking, the man drew another glass-tooth knife from his belt and threw it.

The point edged Doran's robe at the hip and fell away. The councilor wavered but remained standing. He spoke again. “You play with towers, you set people against each other. How will you lead when you have no more people, only game pieces?”

I moved fast then. With a piece of Djonn's flint, I lit an oil-soaked rag we'd tied around an arrow. Shot it through the webs. It left a widening hole from its passage before it struck Doran's attacker deep in the gut and brought him to his knees.

More shouts came from beyond the web-encircled room. The outer-tier crowd drew closer, as web walls split and dropped.

Ceetcee and Beliak appeared as one wall fell. They had Wik and Hiroli with them. Wik's Lawsmarkers lay heavy on his shoulders, blood oozed through his robes, and he looked dazed. Hiroli appeared little better, her head lolling as Ceetcee half dragged her. Moc wasn't with them.

“You won't stall the Conclave again,” Dix yelled when she caught sight of Ceetcee. “You'll be part of it.” The muscles in her arms and neck tensed. “Rumul says there must be a Conclave.”

A man in the growing crowd behind us whispered, “Skytouched.”

But Dix clutched the edge of Rumul's sling chair, and drew back the quilt that covered the broken Singer. Blood beat hard in my ears. Moc lay in Rumul's lap.

Dix began dragging the two of them towards the tier's edge, her guard pulling Kirit along behind. Another guardsman started towards Ceetcee.

“In fact, he says I could have Conclave right here.” Dix motioned as if she would throw Moc from the tower immediately.

“No!” Aliati shouted. We burst through the webs, tripping on thick skeins. I landed hard on my hands and knees, then got to my feet and raced for Moc. Was he alive? I thought his chest moved, but I couldn't be certain. A high-pitched voice behind me screamed, “Murderer!” Ciel.

Aliati turned on Dix while Ceetcee ran for Moc. She lifted him away from Rumul, then leapt from the tower. The two flew away through the illuminated night as Remembrance fires bloomed on towertops high above us.

A charging blackwing tried to wrap his arm around my neck and drag me from the tower. I ducked and twisted, and he fell free, without me.

Inside the tier, all was confusion. More of Laria's citizens emerged and shouted at Dix's guards, and at us. The peace of Allmoons was shattered. In the melee of blackwings and silkspinner tower fighters, few noticed a Singer fledge approaching the chair where Rumul lay. I saw her and tried to fight my way closer. Each time I knocked a guard aside, another charged me. Finally, I got clear, just as Ciel snuck close enough.

She screamed again at Dix, tears streaming. “Murderer! My brother!” A knife gleamed orange in flamelight; a small hand dropped hard to an old man's chest. Ciel stared at the result, hands retreating from the knife hilt, eyes wide.

A towerman stumbled into me, bleeding. Then rose and ran for shelter. Meantime, Dix howled as if she'd been struck herself. “Traitors have killed the city!” She pulled a knife from the sheath on her leg and lunged at Ciel.

Aliati reached Ciel before Dix or I could. The scavenger grabbed the girl and swung her away, into the sky.

In the sling chair, Rumul stared unblinking at the burning Remembrance flags. His wheezing breath went silent. Dix threw her knife at me instead, and I ducked, readying another arrow. The blade spun through the air, struck a target. Beliak staggered, clutching his leg. He dropped to the floor.

The world slowed then, as I tried to get to Beliak. I dragged through webs, past blackwings, screams and shouts. None of that reached my ears as loudly as the spider bodies being crushed and ground to paste beneath my feet. Doran lifted Beliak and dragged him from the tower. “I've got him,” he yelled. “Get Dix!”

In the outer tier, Kirit helped Wik from his Lawsmarkers and into a wingset torn from a guard. Hiroli slowly pulled on another wingset. The tier was filling with smoke.

Through the smoke, Dix shouted, “They've kidnapped Councilor Doran Grigrit! Kirit Spirebreaker, Nat Brokenwings, and their thieves—they've killed … they've doomed the city!”

I found her then, standing beside Rumul's chair. When she spotted me through the smoke, her lips pressed to a pale, thin line. Dix pointed at me as I approached. “There! There's the traitor!” Nearby Laria citizens slowed, confused about whom to listen to, and who spoke the truth. A silkspinner lunged for me while Dix ran for the balcony, preparing to jump away from her attackers and the fighting. I dodged his outstretched fingers and leapt over a guard's body, pursuing Dix. But the older woman moved faster towards the balcony than I did, towing Rumul's chair behind her.

In the moonlight, a telltale silver gleam outlined small lighter-than-air sacks bobbing above Rumul's head. Dix maneuvered these well clear of the flame-licked webs.

No. She would not get away like this.
I drew my knife and closed the distance between us, too late.

With a great shove, Dix tipped Rumul's seat over the balcony edge. She leapt after it, snapping her wings open. The sacks of lighter-than-air buoyed both her and the sling. She began a slow, burdened glide towards Grigrit.

I leapt into a fast gust and caught her footsling in the air. Jerked the fabric backwards. Dix flipped, and we clawed air and silk, trying to tangle each other in the tethers that held Rumul in the sky.

Grasping Rumul's sling, I rolled hard, tearing Dix's hands from its frame. A tether snapped, and Rumul's body slid, hung suspended for a moment, then fell. I grabbed for it, snagged his robe, tore it. Silk in my hand, the sling rising lighter, while the body continued to fall, striking tower outcrops until it disappeared into the clouds.

I turned towards Laria again, blinking grit from my eyes. Dix circled lower, keening. My fingers gripped the sling, the silk robe.

Rumul, who had been close to death for a long time, was gone. He'd been a game piece. A remnant to be knocked over. Dix had made him a rallying cry for her cause. Something that Kirit had always refused to be.

A blackwing soared towards me. The world and the small battle within it had not stopped. But he flew past; the tethered skymouth husks hid me from view.

On Laria, the remaining web walls were on fire. Smoke choked me. Kirit huddled with Wik and Hiroli.

Below, a small circle of blue lights appeared dimly in the cloudscape, then faded. “There!” I shouted. Dix's guards had regrouped and were headed for them. My friends leapt from the tier, wings tightly tucked. They plummeted to the glow in the clouds and disappeared.

Above me, more fliers began escaping from the tower, the blackwings coming from Grigrit now, fresh for battle and well armed. They chased us, but could not fall as fast, because they feared the clouds. That would not stop them for long, but it was enough for now.

I cut two air sacks from Rumul's chair and sank through the night, my wings heavy with spidersilk. The plan had gone all wrong. The towers were in disarray, and we had no proof of anything to show the city except the empty robe of a dead man.

Far below the clouds, Djonn had spread the net beside the ghost tower and anchored it to the last of our skymouth husks. He double-cranked his whirlwind wings in reverse, faster now, sending gusts of air up towards the tower. Only when we were in the clouds did we extend our wings. The updraft slowed our fall.

Aliati circled, bow ready. Ceetcee landed, carrying Moc. Doran and Beliak fell into the net, then Kirit and Wik, then Hiroli, and the rest of us guided them to the tower.

When the net was clear, I helped Djonn crank the whirlwind faster, sending gusts of wind towards the tower, trying to blow our enemies back. Ceetcee bandaged Beliak's leg as best she could on the towertop.