Updraft (41 page)

But many of these skymouths were bred for killing. Even drugged in nets, they were still dangerous. One of my fighters had lost a toe, bitten off after he flew too close to a net.

My fliers grew tired. My own arms and legs ached, my mouth was dry with thirst. Fearing we would make mistakes if we grew too tired, I looked for a tower that did not yet have a flight or two of fighters already resting on its roof.

“I'll scout for a tower that can host us,” Wik said. He found a breeze that took him southwest and slowly faded into the distance.

*   *   *

As I watched him go, I realized the rash on my hands from the skymouth's hide had faded, along with the skymouth's scent. The caustic oil had finally dried and peeled away. As I flew an updraft, my exposed skin pulsed in scrawls and etchings along the lines where I'd seamed the hides.

In the distance, Nat's dark wings and those of the Singer flying with him led a line of hunters returning, seeking a place to land. I sighed with relief.

Then the sky opened below us. An enormous mouth, readying to swallow us whole.

The monster of the pens. The one that had devoured Sellis. It had tracked us through the night, hiding and waiting. Now it was upon us.

“Scream, Kirit!” yelled Beliak. “Shout it down!”

I tried. A sour sound, almost a bark, came from my throat. My voice was ruined. I had screamed too long in the Spire just this morning.

So I gripped my knife and dove instead. Angled to meet the thing sideways, its teeth as big as my hands; its eye, oiled and deep like the sky.

No chance this monster would stop, once it got through us. Not until the whole city was stripped bare and ruined.

I dove, my glass-tooth blade aimed straight at its giant eye.

I flew close enough that I could smell it: that acrid scent combined with smoke and blood. I tried to hum, to calm it, but the monster rolled its eye, flipped over backwards and fled, jettisoning behind it an acrid cloud that made breathing near impossible.

I choked on the cloud, wobbling on my wings.

“Kirit, where are you?” Beliak called as Nat's flight crossed the skymouth's path. I shouted a warning and tried to right myself.

Nat heard me. He whistled a turn. The Singer in his group signaled wildly and tried to order him back into line.

No! I was upright again, and climbing for them before I knew it. This time, I felt the scream in the back of my mouth, and I hoped that I was strong enough. Loud enough. Horrible enough.

The maw opened. I put myself between it and Nat.

The skymouth grunted and lashed tentacles in all directions. It scrawled motion in a sea of wings, tearing down one flier after another. In the midst of a pass, I jerked to a stop. The skymouth gripped me around the waist with a tentacle and pulled me in towards the rows of teeth. My rough scream had no impact on its intent. My voice faded in my mouth. The monster began to squeeze.

Behind me, Nat held his shot and yelled my name.

The skymouth now loomed as wide as a tower, as angry as the clouds. It shrieked and grabbed even as it drew me in. The fliers dove to stay clear of it, while still trying to make it release me. Arrows studded the invisible giant, but they served only to make it angrier.

The bone battens of my wings began to crack in its grip.

And then I heard a squeal, too high-pitched to be Singer or skymouth. The sleeve of my robe squirmed, then deflated. The littlemouth. I echoed, trying to see it, though I didn't know if I could in all the noise and confusion.

Yes, barely.

The tiny mouth pulled itself along the tentacle of the monster, a soft moving shape against the harder arm. It cheeped and squeaked, sharp-pitched and noisy, like nothing I'd ever heard. When it reached the maw, moments before I did, it was sucked past the glass teeth. The tiny skymouth spread its limbs, reaching for purchase, stretching. It grasped a flap of the mouth and didn't let go. It reached for another, and another. It began to choke the monster from inside.

The giant skymouth thrashed. Tentacles loosened as it clawed at its own mouth.

I fell away from its grip, and when a gust from the skymouth's struggle hit my wings, I rose with the wind until I leveled off on a steadier gust. My wings still bore me up.

As soon as I was steady enough, I turned and flew at the skymouth one more time. On the monster's other side, I saw Nat dive towards it, arrow nocked to bowstring.

I pulled my own bow and nocked an arrow. Aimed at its eye.

Nat was now out of my sight, hidden behind the bulk of the skymouth. The monster rose between us, reaching and reaching. I dove forward.

The air around me took on the sound of gust and the throttled whisper of tentacles thrashing through the air. My glide became turbulent, but I kept going.

The strangling skymouth, fighting its own internal battle for breath, could not control its limbs. I could see its eye, the size of my head, and hear the liquid in its echoes. I held my bow steady.

My elbows ached against the winghooks. My left forefinger and index held the bolt steady against the bow sight. The rest of my hand gripped the bow hard. The gust I rode now was a steady one, and I'd set a straight course. I checked the wind one last time as I drew the bowstring back to my cheek. I held until I was sure that I would crash directly into the creature if I missed, giving me a chance with my last knife. And then I opened my mouth to scream one more time, drawing all my breath. Hoping I had enough strength left in my voice.

Screaming rendered all other actions, fighting and flying and shooting, sharper. I had become an arrow of sound aimed at the most terrible creature in the city. The monster began a slow turn towards me.

No! The turn of its head would lose my mark.

I panicked and fired as fast as I could. My arrow hit the eye at its nearest point, straight through: white arrow into vast deep pool of dark eye. The tentacles stilled and drooped. The monster began to fall from the sky.

As it tumbled, another acrid cloud spewing in its wake, one long limb reached and wound around my foot. Dragged down, I felt another tentacle wrap around my neck. I looked above me and saw fliers circling and diving.

This is a good trade. Me, for my city. If they sing Remembrance at the end of this long day, those I love will sing of me too.

And then we fell, the monster and I, flipping over and over, weight over wing. Wind tore at my robe and hair as we plummeted towards the clouds and the sharp edges of the broken tower of Lith.

More tentacles squeezed my waist and throat. I realized that I might never feel the impact.

 

29

RISE

When I woke, it was to cold air and dense clouds, to slick acrid smells and the sound of the wind whistling across blackened bone.

I moved fingers and toes carefully, thankful for even this minimal range of motion. Pain was everywhere. I was grateful for that too.

I moved my right leg and shrieked. A blur of bone tangled in gray cloth, soaked with blood.

I turned my head in time to get sick on the floor and not all over myself.

My fingers touched my lenses, tried to wipe them clean of fog and splatter. Carefully, with my left hand, I pulled them away from my face. The dim light of the cloudbound tower was enough to show me finally what the hides had done to my skin.

Silvering paths, swollen and red on the edges, wormed across my hands, palms and backs both, in curls and blots.

I was marked everywhere the hides' seams had touched me. My fingers brushed my cheek and forehead, and I felt ridges there too. They curved and curled like the ligaments of the skymouths I'd covered myself with. My hair was burned away in places. I could feel the scars on my scalp. Only my eyes, nose, and mouth had been spared, where the lenses held the hides away.

I swallowed dryly. I needed to see where I was, and find water if I could.

Testing one arm, then the other, I found I could move them without screaming. Careful not to move my leg too much, I sat up slowly. My wing was stuck. It wrenched me back, and I moaned in pain.

“Kirit?” a voice shouted from far away.

“Here!” I tried to call out. My voice sounded very loud and rough in the silence. “In here!” I wanted to laugh. I did not know where I was, but I kept shouting until a shadow crossed over my face. Someone stepped into the tier and jostled whatever was pinning my wing down. I groaned again.

“Oh, Kirit.” Ezarit's voice. I felt her light touch on my cheek.

Behind her, Nat said, “I told you we'd find her,” and Wik chuckled softly.

“Your song will be very long, Kirit.”

They were here. I was here. They'd found me. I smiled weakly. “I'm not finished yet.”

Nat came into view, limping on a bone crutch. Wik, the tattoos on his face contorted by a deep frown, appeared beside him.

He handed me a small sack of water.

With Wik's help, I sipped and coughed, then sipped again.

Ezarit tore bandages from her robes, then looked for a way to brace my leg. “We need herbs, honey, and some more battens,” she said to Wik. “There are supplies at Densira.”

Wik handed the water to Nat. Disappeared from my view. A moment later, he rode a breeze past the tier, headed for Densira.

“Did we get them all?” I asked.

Nat shook his head. “Not yet. Wik and Macal were helping the towers and the Singers work together. The traders have taken the Spire. They've destroyed the pens.”

“And the littlemouths?”

“The ones I found are safe. They seemed to have stayed out of sight, in the clouds. They didn't like the skymouths any more than we did.”

“We will have to find new ways to make bridges,” I said. “No more sinew.”

Ezarit nodded. “We will have to find new ways to do a lot of things.”

“But,” said Nat as he freed me from the tentacles of the skymouth, “there's enough of this monster to last a long, long time.”

I hoped the city could make use of that time to heal.

Wik returned with Elna and Ezarit's supplies. Ezarit mixed an herb poultice and bound my wounds, using the remains of my wings to brace my leg. They brushed my new marks with a honey salve, tsking at the strange patterns on my skin.

Ezarit touched the lenses with a finger and smiled at me. “They are lucky, for sure.”

Using pulleys and sinew ropes, climbing beside me on sinew ladders, they eased me out of the clouds and to the broken top of Lith, where two more Singers waited.

They'd made a sling to hold me, to carry me back to the city's center.

“No,” I said. “I will fly.”

Wik began to protest, but the Singer nearest me slipped off her wings without a word. I stood, one-footed, on the edge of Lith, as my friends tightened my wingstraps.

Ezarit approached, waving Nat back. She cinched the second strap tight against my shoulder, then checked the first. “On your wings,” she said, then squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, glad she was safe.

The clear blue sky filled with birds. Cooking smells wafted from the nearer towers.

When I unfurled my borrowed wings, the afternoon breeze filled them. I leaned off the edge of the tower and fell into the wind, the footsling bracing my leg. I rose as the strong breeze buoyed me up. Nat was right. Flying was simple. Landing would be hard.

Turning to catch the crosswind, I saw Elna being lifted back to Densira by the second Singer. Ezarit accompanied her. The first Singer rode the sling Wik and Nat carried between them. We passed through the city, and I felt many eyes watching us from the sky and the towers.

Wings of all colors wreathed the Spire. The thick bone wall of the Singers' tower had become a lattice, open to winds and light.

I curved my wings and dropped slowly to the top of the Spire, curling my leg gently and letting a waiting Singer brace my descent. The gusts passing through the lattice played the Spire like a flute: notes rose soft and continuous from the mouth of the Gyre. The tower seemed solid enough, though it would never house Singers again. We had to change. To rejoin the city.

Quietly, beneath the strange new notes of the Spire, I heard singing. On Varu and Narath, and other towers too, my neighbors stood atop their towers, singing new songs and old. Some words were familiar. Some were words I couldn't yet make out. I heard my own name in the mix.

I opened my mouth and sang back, notes without words, my rough harmonies weaving with the voice of the city. Together, we made a new song.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Books don't happen out of thin air. In the case of this book, and all that come after, I've learned so much from many people.

My heartfelt thanks to my amazing editor, Miriam Weinberg, who brings sparkle and light to dark corners, always. Your insights have fractal-ninja powers. To my agents, Russ Galen and Rachel Kory, who believe in this book, this world, and in me, and their doing so set so many things in motion. To Patrick Nielsen Hayden, who gave the book its proper title, and to Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who encouraged me to find my people.

To the artists, production staff, publicity, and sales pros at Tor, especially Stephan Martiniere, Irene Gallo, Lauren Hougen, Heather Saunders, Ana Deboo, Patty Garcia, and Ardi Alspach, and the printers and binders.

To my mentors and teachers. To James D. Macdonald for believing in me when I didn't. To Elizabeth Bear, Stephen Gould, Sherwood Smith, Scott Lynch, and the amazing staff, instructors, and students at Viable Paradise. To Nancy Kress and Walter Jon Williams and everyone at Taos Toolbox. To Gregory Frost, Michael Swanwick, and Jon McGoran for taking in a new transfer to the Philly scene. To poets Heather McHugh, Eleanor Wilner, Charles Wright, Rita Dove, and Larry Levis. To Puckie Thomas, who never let me slack at anything. To Hillary Jacobs and Julie Schwait.

To my colleagues and peers—my Bruisers, especially Kelly Lagor, Nicole Feldringer, Chris Gerwel, Lauren Teffeau, Sara Mueller, and former Bruisers Wayne Helge, Phoebe North, Douglas Beagley—to Alex Shvartsman, Sandra Wickham, Lou Berger, Oz Drummond, A. C. Wise, Siobhan Carroll, Sarah Pinsker, Jodi Meadows, Jaime Lee Moyer, Amanda Downum, Karen Burnham, Max Gladstone, Liz Bourke, Natalie Luhrs, Raq Winchester, B. Morris Allen, Jay Reynolds, E. Catherine Tobler, Stephanie Feldman, Lawrence M. Schoen, Chris Urie, and E. C. Myers. To the OWW, Codex, B.org, Novelocity, and GeekMom. To Alasdair Semple, who made me a game.