Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (37 page)

From the stern, Balm yelled, “Jade!”

Moon braced himself as Stone reared back, dragging the sealing with him. The hull swung back to rock toward the sealing, and Moon tightened his grip, holding on to the railing to keep all three of them from falling into the creature’s maw.

With a crunch, Stone ripped the sealing away from the boat, taking a chunk of the opposite railing with it.Jade let go of Moon and Callumkal and they staggered on the rocking deck.

Callumkal recovered and ran down the deck toward the stern, shouting for the crew. Jade said, “We need to keep them off until the boat can move,” and leapt to the top of the cabin.

Moon followed her to the cabin roof and jumped from it to the upper section. He caught a glimpse through the large windows of the steering cabin, saw the flying boat navigator Esankel and two Janderan pulling levers and turning wheels and shouting at each other. Callumkal was just climbing up the stairs from below.

Moon leapt down to the stern deck where Jade had found Balm, Briar, and River. There were Kishan on the overhanging deck working the distance-lights and the weapons, and another group huddling over the winch attached to the anchor line. But there was one person Moon didn’t see.
Chime was heading here
, he thought, sudden fear tightening his chest.
Where is he?
But then Chime, with Song and Root behind him, slammed out of the nearest hatch.

Chime staggered on a buckled deck plate and said, “Sorry, we got stuck inside when the ship went sideways. What happened?”

Moon turned him around to face the island, where the shapes of the sealings were visible in the shafts of the distance-lights. Chime made a strangled noise.

Jade said, “Balm, Briar, Song, get in the air and try to see where the Fell are. River, Root, and Chime, get back up on the cabins, watch this deck. Don’t let anything get inside.”

The warriors took flight from the deck. Moon started to follow and Jade grabbed his frills and jerked him to a halt. “You stay with me,” she said.

Moon bounced impatiently, thought about protesting, and decided it would make him sound too much like Root. Then he saw Stone bank through the air and come in low over the top cabin roof. “There’s Stone,” he said.

Jade hissed, “Come on,” and went up the wall onto the next deck. Stone shifted, dropped down to the cabin roof, and landed on his feet in his groundling form. He swung down to their deck and said, “Where’s Callumkal?”

“This way.” Moon turned to the nearest hatchway.

It opened into a corridor with two stairwells, one up and one down. From the watery rushing noises and yelling, the down one led to something important, probably the motivator. Moon took the upper one and climbed rapidly, rounded a corner, and up again into the steering cabin. It was a wide cabin with windows all around, like the steering cabin of the Kishan flying boat. The wall below the front window had a number of levers and wheels and long tubes with horns on the end, which, from how Esankel and the other two were using them, were apparently for yelling at people in other parts of the sunsailer. Vendoin was there with Callumkal, and Kellimdar clutched one of the fabric maps. Rorra held the steering lever, her weight braced against it to keep it in place. They looked up as Moon stepped aside to let Jade and Stone get into the room.

Callumkal started to speak and Stone interrupted, “They’re coming in from the east and the west. There’s no way to go.”

Rorra swore in another language. Callumkal and Vendoin just stared. Kellimdar said, “But—” and stopped, as if he had no idea how to finish that sentence.

“The sacs.” Jade turned to Stone. “If we can rip open the sacs on some of the sealings, maybe just enough for the sunsailer to get past the others—”

Stone said, “I couldn’t see any sacs, and no rulers. The Fell are controlling the sealings some other way.”

Moon hissed in disbelief. He felt unexpected sympathy with Kellimdar. He wanted to say
but that’s impossible
. He heard footsteps on the stairs behind them and saw Delin climbing up. He looked a little shaky and Moon stepped out to give him a hand up. Moon had forgotten he was in scaled form, but Delin closed his soft-skinned hand around Moon’s scaled palm and claws with no hesitation. His face etched into worried lines, Delin said, “Oh, this has not turned out so well.”

Moon steadied him on the landing. Figuring he might as well get the worst out of the way, he told Delin, “They’ve got us trapped between the island and the escarpment.”

Delin nodded grimly as he stepped into the steering cabin. “I thought as much.”

Callumkal was saying, “We’ll fight them. We still have our weapons.”

Jade’s tail flicked continuously, a sign of her racing thoughts. “How long? Do your weapons run out?”

“Yes,” Kellimdar said, his voice thready. “They will function for some hours, but the mosses need to rejuvenate. They need sunlight . . .”

Then Delin said, “We must try to open the city.”

Moon, and everyone else, turned to stare. Delin said, “We can retreat to it, take shelter. If we can open it.”

Jade recovered first. Speaking Raksuran, she said, “I thought it would take a crossbreed Fell-Raksura to open it, someone who looks like a forerunner. We saw the Fell have a half-Raksuran queen.”

“That was our theory and may be what the Fell believe,” Delin replied in the same language, “but we do not know if that is so. There may be another way. If it is a foundation builder city and not forerunner at all, there is certainly another way.”

Callumkal found his voice. “Please speak Altanic. Do you know how to open it?”

Delin spread his hands. “Bramble, Merit, and I accomplished much today. We found the door, we can find the way to open it.”

“Can you do it in time?” Vendoin asked.

“That is a good question,” Delin said. “Perhaps the Fell and their sealing battering rams will be driven away by our weapons and it won’t matter.”

Stone made a skeptical noise, and Delin added, “I agree.”

Callumkal looked at Vendoin and Kellimdar, then Jade. He said, “He’s right, we have to try. Even if the city holds some danger, there is no other option. We can send Delin and the others over in the small boat, if your people will guard them—”

Rorra gestured toward the railing. “Both the small boats were hulled when that thing tried to overturn us.”

She was right; the mast of the boat that had been tied off there was still visible above the rail. But it sat at an acute angle that didn’t bode well for the rest of it. The Kishan had those little rowing boats, but they would take too long. “We can fly them over,” Moon said. He thought it was a bad idea. He also thought it was the only idea.

Jade’s tail lashed in frustration but she snarled, “We don’t have a choice.” She turned and flung herself out the door and down the steps.

Stone caught Moon before he could follow. Stone said, “Tell Jade I’m going to try to hold them off as long as I can.”

“Right,” Moon said. He wanted to say a lot of other things, but there was no time right now, and no real point.

Delin tapped his arm. “Your assistance?”

“Sure.” Moon lifted Delin up and carried him down the stairs, then outside and over the rail down to the lower deck.

There, River and Chime waited with Jade. She must have told them how bad things were. River looked the way he usually did, except maybe less sullen, but Chime’s spines and tail twitched nervously. As Moon landed, Root came out of the hatch with Bramble and Merit. Moon sat Delin on his feet and told Jade, “Stone’s going to try to hold them off.”

Jade flicked her spines in assent. She said, “The Arbora will go with Delin to try to open the city, Root, River, Chime, and Moon will fly them over. I’m going to join the others.”

Overhead, Stone launched into the air, his shifted form skirting the distance-lights and diving toward the oncoming sealings.

Bramble nodded tensely. She and Merit were in their scaled forms, spines and tails twitching in anticipation and nerves. She said, “We could use Chime’s help.”

Merit seconded that. “He’s done this before.”

“Sort of,” Chime corrected, but he didn’t object.

“Whatever you have to do to get that door open,” Jade hesitated, then grabbed Moon’s shoulder and nipped his ear. “Be careful,” she whispered. “And take care of them.”

Moon’s throat went tight; she didn’t mean just the Arbora. He thought of their clutch again. But he said, “I will. Just come back.”

Jade stepped away, jumped to the railing, and then into the air.

Moon took a deep breath. “Everybody grab someone,” he told the warriors. “I’ll take Delin.”

Root obligingly picked up Bramble. “What are we doing?” he said, “because I missed that part.”

“We’re going to open the city,” Moon said, lifting Delin up. It sounded far too optimistic.

“Oh.” Root’s spines drooped. “I was hoping it wasn’t that.”

Moon asked Chime, “Are you going to be all right?”

Chime moved his spines in an assent that wasn’t quite as confident as Moon would have liked. “The wind’s better than it was before. I can do it.”

River snarled, “Let’s just get it over with,” and picked up Merit. Moon decided to let that go and leapt off the deck into the wind.

He caught the strong current and banked to turn back toward the escarpment. As the others followed, Delin gripped his collar flange and gasped, “One of the creatures nears the ship!”

Behind Moon, Kishan yelled warnings and he heard something strike the ship’s metal hull. Moon hissed and concentrated on his flying. The wind had died down a little when the sun had set earlier, but this was still going to be tricky.

He let the wind carry him toward the escarpment, then pulled up at the last instant and let it shove him toward the wall. He caught hold of the rock with his free hand and his foot claws. Delin, whose head was a handsbreadth from the stone, whistled in admiration.

Moon twisted to look over his shoulder. Chime hit the wall several paces below him and slid a little. River and Root landed with less velocity, Bramble freeing one hand to help Root hold on.

But the sunsailer wasn’t doing so well.

Moon couldn’t see the sealings, but there must be at least one or more, possibly underwater or just above the surface. They were pushing the sunsailer slowly toward the escarpment. The wind carried the sound of a straining rumble: the motivator that drove the sunsailer, fighting the pressure.

“The ship?” Delin gasped.

“You need to hurry. Hold on, I’m going to climb down.” Delin gripped his collar flange so Moon could use both hands to climb down to the ledge. Bramble and Merit had already spread out over the wall, pounding and clawing the obscuring coral-rock off the surface.

Moon set Delin down in front of the carvings at the base. He started to say, “Do you need any help?” when River shouted, “Dakti!”

Moon twisted around, spotted the shapes outlined against the sunsailer’s lights. He snarled, “Chime, stay here, River, Root, get in the air!”

Moon launched himself off the wall, veered away as River did the same. Root went too low and almost ended up in the water, then flapped his way to an unsteady recovery at the last moment.

Moon flapped upward. The first group of dakti shot toward River and Root. Their night vision must be dazzled by the distance-lights, and they hadn’t seen Moon, his dark scales fading into the night. He waited until they bunched up, nearly on top of River, and then hit them from above.

Dakti shrieked and tried to scatter as Moon tore through them and slashed their wings, slapping them out of the air. River slammed through a knot of survivors who tried to regroup and Root came up from below to tear through three stragglers.

Chasing stray dakti, keeping them away from the escarpment, Moon rapidly lost track of time. Suddenly he was circling, looking for prey and finding none in sight. The sunsailer still held its own, closer to the escarpment than it had been but not impaled on any rocks. The Kishan had managed to turn one of their weapons to point down over the side. The fire bundles thumped down into the water, glowed under the waves like some strange sea creature, then went out, but it was working. The huge sealings who had managed to get close stayed back from the hull, thrashing angrily in the water.

Moon gained some more altitude, trying to get a look at the situation further out. He saw Jade and the female warriors circling, driving off or killing the dakti who darted at them.

A small number of dakti were the only ones trying to get to the sunsailer, because most of the other Fell were attacking each other.

Moon stared, trying to make sense of it. He saw distinct swarms of dakti, striking at each other and falling back. Rulers flicked back and forth, darting at each other. Near the beach, three kethel fought in a confusing mass of wings and tails. Another dead one lay in the waves, next to the one that had been killed last night. Taking advantage of the situation, Stone dove on one of the sealings, snatched it up in his claws, and flung it away across the water.
What the shit is going on?
Moon thought.

Movement in the water caught his eye and he swung around, but it was Bramble, just pulling herself up onto the docking platform. She ran over to the pillars, studying them in the light of a glowing sea-weed clump Merit must have made for her. Moon growled under his breath at the danger she was putting herself in. But he realized that while Delin and Chime and Merit had all made extensive drawings of the symbols, it was all sitting back on the ship, because Moon and Jade hadn’t given them any time to go get it. Bramble must have needed to check on what exactly was carved into the pillars.

A group of dakti came in low over the water, past the bow of the sunsailer, and River and Root dove for them. Moon hung back, waiting to see if it was a distraction. But the Fell fighting with each other near the island couldn’t be a distraction. Not unless it was the dumbest distraction anyone had ever thought of in the long and varied history of the Three Worlds.

Then Moon saw a dark shape swoop on Bramble. He dove, pulled in his wings and arrowed down. Closer, he saw it was a ruler, and it had her pinned to the dock platform. Moon had never been blind with rage, the way he had heard some groundlings describe it. He had been so consumed with killing that it blotted out all rational thought, and that was what he was now.