The Siren Depths

Chapter Eighteen

The night wore on, and nothing changed. The kethel didn’t move from the deck, and the sac didn’t stop its rapid progress north. None of them slept well and the air seemed to get even worse; thick with Fell stench, stale, and damp, it was making everyone ill. Keeping their voices carefully low so the kethel wouldn’t hear, they talked about using the fire weapon and the oil to escape, and made and discarded a number of plans.

It all came down to the simple fact that even if they could get out of the sac, there was no way any of them could outrun the kethel, whether they tried to carry Lithe and the wounded or not. Moon thought the only way it might work was if some of them stayed behind to try to distract the Fell, while one or two tried to escape. And this would mean abandoning the wounded to die terribly.

As they sat on the floor of the cabin wearing their groundlings forms, weary, sick, and filthy, it was Saffron who finally brought up the inevitable. She said, simply, “I won’t leave Ivory.”

“No,” Floret agreed with a sigh. “I won’t leave Song and Root. I’m not keen on leaving anyone.”

Moon looked around. No one seemed hopeful. He said, “Is anyone willing to run, if we can get you out?” To make it sound less like an admission of weakness, he added, “To tell Opal Night what happened.”

They exchanged a few glances, but no one volunteered. Shade drew his fingers across the wooden deck. He had been quiet through the morning, and Moon had been keeping a worried eye on him. Shade said, “I can’t leave Lithe, or Ivory, or the warriors. Or you.” He lifted his head to meet Moon’s gaze. “I can’t.”

Moon rubbed his face. He hadn’t really expected anything else, but they had all just agreed to die here, and it felt wrong. It felt like failure and surrender. But he didn’t see another way. “All right. That’s settled.” He let his breath out in resignation. “We can’t let the Fell get to this place, whatever it is.”

Floret lifted her head. “The fire weapon.”

Miserable, Chime leaned against Moon’s shoulder and said, “I really don’t want to burn or get eaten, so will you promise to kill me before that happens?”

That was just another weight on Moon’s sinking heart, but he put an arm around Chime and hugged. “Yes.”

Lithe huddled in on herself. “Me too, please.”

Moon could tell he was going to end up killing everybody except Saffron, who was the only one he wouldn’t have minded killing. “Let’s figure out what we’re going to do, first.”

Saffron shrugged. “With the kethel guarding the deck, we can’t get out there with the fire weapon.” She added reluctantly, “So… we use it in here?”

No one seemed happy about that idea. Moon didn’t think it would accomplish anything except suicide. He said, “We need to set the sac on fire. If we set the boat on fire, even with the oil, I’m not sure it’ll do that.”

Chime sat up. “The boat will come apart, and the section that’s not attached to the sustainer will fall on the sac. But the Fell could just cut a hole in it and push the boat out.”

Shade set his jaw, grimly determined. “We just have to get the oil and the fire weapon outside the boat. Maybe I could say I wanted to talk to the progenitor, and get out on deck with it.”

“But you wouldn’t have time to do anything,” Floret pointed out. “You’d be carrying casks of oil and a groundling weapon. That kethel would flatten you as soon as it saw you.”

“We don’t have to go out on deck,” Lithe said suddenly. “We can cut a hole in the bottom of the boat.”

Now that was an idea. Moon said, “We could drop the oil onto the bottom of the sac, then shoot the fire weapon into it.”

Forgetting about their impending deaths, Chime looked excited by the prospect. “There are cutting tools onboard.”

Saffron said, “But what if the Fell realize what we’re doing? If the kethel feels the vibrations through the wood—“

Chime shook his head. “This wood doesn’t vibrate much at all. I noticed that when we first came aboard and slept on the floor. Even with all the groundlings walking around.”

Shade added, “None of you felt it up on the deck when I was climbing around under the boat.”

Lithe said, “And I doubt it would ever occur to the Fell to think that we’d do something to kill ourselves. They’re not exactly good at seeing from anyone else’s perspective.”

Floret agreed. “They’d think we were trying to escape. That might work to our advantage.”

She meant the Fell might prepare for Raksura escaping out of the hole in the boat, but not for oil and fire. If they could set a kethel on fire, it would be even better. Moon said, “Let’s get started.”

The first obstacle they encountered was the hull of the flying boat.

They had found some cutting tools during their first search of the cabins, and Moon thought that the small saw would be all they needed to cut through wood that seemed so light and fragile.

While Floret and Saffron kept watch, and Lithe tended to the wounded, Moon, Chime, and Shade went to the stern hold, where the bottom hull of the ship flattened out. They brought a couple of the lamps to light the area, and the soft glow of the spelled illumination was more than enough in the low-ceilinged space. They moved bales of supplies aside, Chime used ink from Delin’s store to mark out a square large enough to dump an oil cask through, and they got to work.

But the rounded blade of the saw, sharp as it was, could barely be forced through the wood.

After Moon and Shade working together managed to cut only a few fragments out, Moon said in exasperation, “I thought Niran was afraid the Arbora’s anvils would break the hull of the Valendera. This stuff is like iron.”

Chime grimaced. “Blossom was in charge of the repairs to Niran’s boats, and she said it turned out to be a bigger job than she thought at first. Now I know what she meant.” He used his claws to pick apart a chip. “I think an anvil is the only thing that would go through this. It’s not like wood from an ordinary tree. It’s all woven through with some sort of fiber. I wonder if they get it from the sea bottom.”

Moon leaned over to look. Chime was right: the outside appeared to be wood, but the inside was more like a thick leaf, shot through with a fibrous web that must make it extremely strong. Shade picked up another chip to examine it, and Moon said, “It makes sense. These boats travel so far, they’d have to be tough.”

They looked at each other in dismay. Chime admitted, “We can still cut it; it’s just going to take longer than we thought.”

Shade set the chip down. “But we were all worked up to kill ourselves today.”

They stared at him. He winced. “I was trying to make a joke. It didn’t work?”

Chime snorted, half in amusement and half in despair. Moon gave Shade a push on the shoulder. “Help me look for something to sharpen the saw.”

They took turns, working in teams of two, all the rest of the long day. Lithe tried using her magic to heat the section they wanted to cut through. It seemed to help a little, but Moon honestly couldn’t tell whether it was their imagination or not. They had to sharpen the saw frequently, and Moon began to worry that it would break. There were others onboard, but none as well-suited to the task as this one, and if they had to use another it would take even longer.

They weren’t cutting the wood completely through, leaving the outermost membrane intact to keep the cut piece from sagging and revealing their activity to any Fell that might be climbing or flying below them. It would make pushing the piece out a slower process than Moon would like, but this way was safer.

By that night everyone was exhausted and could barely force themselves to eat. Moon’s head was pounding and his stomach revolted even at the idea of bread and water. He would have thought it was a lingering effect of Russet’s poison, except that all the others clearly felt the same way. The only ones who were breathing well were the wounded; the healing sleep seemed to protect them from whatever it was.

“It’s the air,” Lithe said, wearily wiping her face. “It’s turning into a poison. The sac has to let in some fresh air, or we’d all be dead by now. But there must be too many Fell inside it.”

“Will it help if we block off the holes in the boat?” Saffron asked. There were small perforations at points in the sides of the hull, to vent the cabins.

“I think that might just kill us faster,” Lithe admitted.

They kept working through the night.

Moon woke suddenly, finding himself slumped over on the deck in the main cabin. His head felt clear for the first time in two days, and the pain in his temples had faded to a dull ache. Shade and Lithe sprawled nearby, stirring in their sleep. Saffron, leaning against the wall near the door and technically on guard, sat up blinking as if she had just woken. It felt like late morning.

Moon tasted the air; it was distinctly fresher, even under the Fell taint. “They must have opened the sac,” he said aloud.

Saffron stumbled to her feet. “We’re still moving.”

Maybe enough dakti had died off that the rulers had decided to let in some fresh air. Maybe we’re almost there, and they opened it to send out scouts. There was no salt scent in the air; it was impossible to tell how close or how far away the sea was.

Moon managed to stand, one leg tingling as circulation returned, and limped down the passage to the stern hold. Shade and Lithe trailed after him. The deck creaked overhead as the kethel stirred restlessly.

In the hold, Chime and Floret were just sitting up. They had both shifted to groundling, and were bleary and confused. “We fell asleep.” Chime yawned. “Is the air better?”

“The Fell opened the sac.” Moon crouched beside the cut section and felt it to see how much was left to go. Two sides of the square were finished, and the third had about a pace left. He leaned on it with both hands and applied his full groundling weight; it gave a little, but didn’t seem like it was ready to tear or break. But they wouldn’t need to do the whole section, just enough to push the flap down. They could always pour the oil out if they had to, but he thought knocking holes in the casks and dropping them would spread it faster, and prevent the Fell from stopping the fire before it was too late.

Then Saffron ducked into the hold, her spines flared. “More Fell just landed on the deck. A ruler spoke through the hatch, said they want to see Shade.”

Moon hissed a curse. They had just run out of time. They all stared at Shade. He stared back, startled. Then his spines shivered, and he said, reluctantly, “We can’t take the chance that they’ll come down here and see this. I have to go up on deck.”

“I’ll go with you,” Moon said. Chime stirred as if he might protest, but said nothing.

Shade took a deep breath. “You don’t have to.”

Yes, Moon did. He said, “They’ll expect it, because I did before.”

They left the others waiting anxiously, and started down the passage.

At the base of the steps, Shade stopped, his spines flicking in agitation. He squeezed his eyes shut, steeling himself. “Do you think they’re going to make me… do that again?”

After last time, the Fell knew Shade would do anything to protect the other Raksura, and there was no reason for them not to use that advantage. And there was no point in lying about it. “Probably.”

Shade made a noise somewhere between a hiss and a moan of despair. “At least the groundlings are dead. It doesn’t hurt them.”

Fell liked their prey to be freshly killed. There might have been captive Aventerans alive somewhere in the nest, kept for the next meal. Moon wasn’t going to tell Shade that.

They went up on deck, and Moon pushed the hatch closed behind them. It was hard to tell if there was still an opening in the sac somewhere or not. The light through the membrane was dim and murky, but while the air wasn’t fresh, it wasn’t painful to breathe, either.

As they stepped cautiously out from behind the steering cabin, Moon saw their kethel guard half-curled around the mast. Its legs and arms hung over the rails, and the big ugly horned head rested on the deck. Its eyes were slits, watching them with interest. Thedes stood near it, and dakti perched on the railings like particularly ugly carrion birds.

Thedes smiled at Shade. “We would speak with you again.”

Shade twitched nervously. Maybe he had been hoping, up to this moment, that the ruler wanted something else. “And you’ll kill the others if I don’t come, I know.”

“You make us sound cruel,” Thedes said, with complete conviction.

“Cruel?” Shade hissed. “Why do you have to make it sound like everything you do to us is our fault?”

Thedes didn’t answer that one. He said, “This time, the other consort will stay behind.”

Moon felt a rush of relief, then a rush of guilt for it. The Fell knew he had an influence on Shade, and they didn’t want him present for whatever persuasion they were planning. “Shade…” He couldn’t say “Don’t do what they want,” when refusing to cooperate with the Fell might get one or more of the others killed. What he wanted to say was “Remember you’re a Raksura,” even knowing it was stupid and would probably damage Shade’s resolve more than it would steady it.

“It’s all right.” Shade swallowed back fear. He met Moon’s gaze and said, “I know who I am.” Then he turned, and followed Thedes over the rail.

They sprang to the first web-like support, then the next, disappearing into the dimness in the direction of the nest.

The kethel made a deep noise of amusement. Moon snarled and went back down to the hold, careful to slide the hatch closed behind him.

The others gathered nervously in the passage. He led them further down into the boat, in case the kethel was listening. “Did they say what they wanted?” Lithe whispered.

“No.” Moon reminded himself that this didn’t change their plans. “We need to keep working. When Shade comes back, we’ll use the weapon.”

But Shade didn’t come back.

They finished cutting the third side of the panel, all but the thin layer that held it in place. The oil casks and the fire weapon stood ready. The day wore on into evening, and they sat in the big cabin, and waited.

Lithe covered her eyes. “What could they be doing to him?”

No one wanted to answer that question. Moon just said, “If we’re right about what they want, they need him alive.” He didn’t think the Fell would kill Shade, not after all these turns of trying to create or find a crossbreed Raksura. But he was desperately afraid of what the Fell’s guide wanted with him, and what the Fell would do to him in the meantime.

Chime twitched uncomfortably. “Maybe they’re trying to… convert him. They think he’s one of them—”

“He’s not one of them,” Saffron snapped.

They all stared at her blankly, and she hissed at them. “We were in the nurseries together with him, and Lithe, and the others. The crossbreeds. We played together, ate together, slept together. There’s nothing different about them, except the way they look.”

Her voice choked with emotion, Lithe said, “It’s all right.”

“It’s not all right.” Saffron hunched her shoulders. “He’s a consort of my court. I should have protected him. Onyx and Malachite—Ivory—What would they say to me?”

Saffron looked so despairing, Moon had to quell an impulse to try to comfort her. He didn’t think she would appreciate it.

Wearily, Floret said, “Moon, what should we do? What if he doesn’t come back? If the Fell show up and kill us all before we can destroy the sac…”

Moon groaned under his breath. He knew it wasn’t the right decision, but he just couldn’t do it. It didn’t make sense; it shouldn’t matter whether they all died together or separately. But it did matter. He had to give Shade more time. “We’ll wait until morning.”

No one slept much, and the time passed so slowly Moon almost wished for the bad air again, that had made it so easy to slip into unconsciousness. The morning came, and as the sun rose higher in the sky somewhere outside the sac, Moon knew they couldn’t wait any longer. He said, “We have to do this now.”

The others looked bleak, but no one objected. Chime sighed and reached for the saw. “I’ll start—” Then Chime dropped the saw and reeled over, clutching his head.

Moon grabbed for his shoulders, easing him to the floor, his first instinct that Chime had somehow cut himself badly, though how he had managed it was a mystery. Lithe must have thought so too because she jumped up and elbowed Moon aside to lean over Chime.

But Chime gasped, “I heard it, the voice. It’s close now. It knows the Fell are here, it can—Ow!” He wrenched away from Lithe, pushed himself up, and shook his head furiously, then pressed his hands to his temples.

“Chime—” Moon began, and Lithe hushed him hurriedly. She said, “I’m not sure what he’s doing, but I feel like we should let him do it.”

Moon hoped that “I feel” was a mentor’s certainty and not an ordinary guess. He made himself sit still and wait. Floret watched Chime nervously, and Lithe flexed her claws in anxiety. Then Chime broke his stillness with a shudder. He rubbed his eyes and lifted his head. His face was drawn, his expression frightened. “Oh, that was bad.”

“What happened?” Moon demanded, in chorus with Lithe.

“I heard the voice, I saw into it, and it could see the Fell. They aren’t like individuals, they’re like… one being.” He waved a hand helplessly, still frazzled. “I know we knew that, that the rulers share memories, but this was… I couldn’t stand it, and I had to push it out of my head.” He told Lithe, “It was like how you look into someone’s mind, but in reverse. I wasn’t sure it would work, but it did.”

She patted his shoulder. “I’m glad it did. If it or the Fell had known you were there, it might have been much worse.”

“What did the voice say?” Moon asked. “Could you—” Then he felt the deck sway under him, a sudden cessation of motion that must have rocked everything in the giant sac. Floret hissed, “We stopped.”

Chime winced, as if bracing himself to give very bad news. “I only heard part of it. But I thought the voice said, ‘Come to me now.’”

Moon pushed to his feet as the others stared at Chime. We waited too long, he thought. “Get the oil and the weapon ready. I’m going up on deck.”

Lithe followed him to the base of the steps. “What are you doing? If they’re taking Shade to this creature—”

“I don’t know,” Moon told her, and shifted to his winged form. “I want to try to see what’s happened.”

Moon pushed the hatch open and climbed out onto the deck. The boat jolted suddenly, so hard it almost knocked him off his feet. He looked up in time to see their guard kethel launch itself into the air, hard flaps of its leathery wings tearing the supports of the sac as it fought its way upward. Dakti still perched on the boat’s railings, some watching the kethel leave, others eyeing Moon.

He looked toward the nest and saw several dark shapes take flight. He spotted the progenitor by her size and the smaller headcrest; the others were rulers. At first he thought Shade wasn’t with them, then he saw one of the rulers carried someone in groundling form, a pale-skinned shape with dark hair. Shade, Moon thought in despair. Too late to stop them, too late to do anything. Then he heard a thump behind him and whipped around.

Another Fell had landed on the deck, and for a moment he thought it was a young ruler. It had a slender build and was no taller than his shoulder. Then he got a better look at its head and sexual organs, and realized it was the young progenitor he had glimpsed in the nest.

She stepped toward him, deliberately menacing. “You’re left all alone.”

Her voice was almost identical to the older progenitor’s, but there was a higher-pitched, unformed note to it. Moon lifted his spines and bared his teeth. A glance toward the hatch told him several dakti had moved to block it. He didn’t want them to get the idea to go below. He said, “Aren’t you a little young for this?”

She stopped. It was always hard to read expressions on Fell, and always a mistake to attribute normal emotions and reactions to them, but he thought she was taken aback. He added, “Are you even pubescent yet? I thought you were a dakti at first.”

She lunged at him and he sprang away from her and landed at the opposite end of the deck. A dakti leapt at him and Moon jumped and spun, catching it across the belly and chest with his foot claws. He landed on his feet and it dropped to the deck in a bloody heap.

A rustle ran through the other dakti, as if the quick dispatch of their companion had just roused their bloodlust.

The progenitor rasped, “Brave. But you run from me.”

“I don’t like you.”

She eased forward. “I think I would like you. My progenitor told me the skin of Raksuran consorts is like silk.”

Moon needed a rapid change of subject. “Is that all she tells you? Nothing important? She left you behind here like the dakti; am I your prize for staying out of her way?”

She straightened and her armored crest suddenly lifted and expanded out into a fan shape. Moon had never seen a Fell do that before; that he was seeing it now was not a good sign, but at least he knew he had hit a nerve. She said, “I know everything. She left me here to command her other children.”

“You don’t even know who the guide is.”

“No one does. We know what it will give us. That is all that matters.”

The Fell don’t even know what they’re walking into, Moon thought. Obviously the Fell’s idea of judging risk was different from anyone else’s. And they had dragged Shade along with them. He thought he might manage one more question before the progenitor figured out what he was doing, but she stalked forward. “The warriors haven’t even come out to defend you. They must not value you very highly. Or perhaps they’re afraid—” She froze in startled realization and whipped toward the hatch.

She knows. She had realized that if the warriors hadn’t come out after all this jumping and growling, it was because they were occupied inside.

Moon flung himself at her as she lunged for the hatch. He connected with his claws, then ripped away from her wild grab for him. The dakti shrieked and leapt at him.

A crack and a thump sounded from inside the boat. Then something whooshed just below the hull and brilliant light flashed. The dakti halted in confusion and the progenitor went still. Then she leapt to perch on the railing.

Moon reached the rail and leaned over to see flames leap up the supports and webbing some distance below. Then what must be the second cask, open and releasing a stream of oil, bounced off another clump of webbing and fell further down, vanishing in the dimness of the sac. Then a ball of fire struck the oil-splashed material and burst into so many sparks it was like stars in the night sky. Moon winced away from the bright shock, his vision going white for an instant.

Dakti screamed and the young progenitor keened in rage. Moon’s eyes cleared just as she backhanded him. The blow knocked him sprawling across the deck. Dazed, he rolled over in time to see another fireball shoot up from the bottom of the boat, angled upward toward the nest. It hit the bulky structure and exploded again into eye-searing fragments. That thing works much better than we guessed, Moon thought, stumbling upright. No wonder Delin had had it hidden away in his cabin, away from any accident.

The progenitor spread leathery wings and sprang into the air. She flapped frantically, jumping from one web support to the next, headed for the nest. Sparks still fountained up from the projectile, streaking through the wood and debris. The oil casks had all fallen below the ship, and the nest was too far above it to be splashed by the spray, but the sparks caught anyway and little tongues of flame sprung up in the dark mass. It’s all that dry wood, Moon thought.

The dakti leapt into the air after the progenitor, and they headed for the nest. They were all focused on it, ignoring Moon completely. Their clutches are inside, Moon realized, and had to squelch a surge of guilt.

Floret and Saffron burst up from the hatch, ready to fight, surprised by the empty deck. Smoke rose up from below and Moon went to the rail again. He jerked back as a shape scrambled toward him, then realized it was Chime climbing up the outside of the hull, the fire weapon slung over his shoulder with a makeshift strap. Below Chime, toward the bottom of the sac, Moon saw flames flicker in the webbing and supports, obscured by the heavy smoke. A kethel thrashed around down there, trying to pull the burning material free.

Chime swung over the railing and explained, “I fell out when we forced the panel open, so I just stayed out here.”

“Get the kethel!” Moon pointed.

Chime turned around and took another projectile packet out of the bag. He struck the wick against a small rough panel on the side of the weapon, and it sparked into flame. Then he pushed it into the tube, pumped the handle, and aimed down at the kethel. The weapon fired with a muted thunk, the packet bursting into a fireball as it flew through the air. “Once it’s lit, you have to shoot fast,” Chime muttered.

Floret reached Moon’s side. “Lithe’s staying below with the wounded.” She hesitated. “Was there any sign of Shade?”

“Yes.” Through the rapidly rising smoke, Moon saw the projectile hit the kethel’s back and explode into burning fragments. It howled in rage and pain. Its flesh didn’t seem to catch on fire and but the weapon had obviously hurt it. Thrashing, it dropped down into the burning mass at the bottom of the sac and vanished. And Moon glimpsed daylight, real daylight. “The sac’s open.”

“What?” Chime and Floret leaned over to look. Chime added, “Yes, there’s a hole, I see it!”

The lower part of the sac, where the oil and burning debris had collected, was dissolving in the heat and flames. Red and orange light shone up from it, illuminating the smoky haze as if all the air was on fire. But Moon couldn’t tell if the opening in the sac was big enough. “Can you lower the boat down through there?”

“I can try. If we’re not too low already—” Chime stared at him, startled. “You think we can escape?”

“No,” Moon told him, “but I think we should try.”

Despair and hope warred in Chime’s expression, but he handed the fire weapon and the bag of projectiles to Moon and darted for the steering cabin. Moon said, “Saffron, go with him!” Someone needed to guard Chime if the dakti returned.

Saffron bounded after Chime, and Moon turned to Floret. Flickers of fire glowed all over the nest, obscured by the smoke, and the Fell would never be more distracted. He pointed toward the part of the sac where the rulers had flown with Shade. “The progenitor and the rulers went that way with Shade. Try to get out through the sac and go after them. If there’s no chance to help Shade get away, follow and see where the Fell are taking him.” Moon was counting on the fact that Jade and Malachite and Stone were certain to track the Fell here eventually. How soon depended on whether Celadon or any of her warriors had gotten away or not. Somebody had to be here to tell them what had happened.

Floret cocked her head. “Why ask me and not Saffron? She’s from his court; she has to protect him.”

Moon hissed in impatience but answered her. “Because she won’t leave Ivory, and you know I won’t leave Root and Song.”

Floret hesitated, but then dropped her spines in acknowledgement. “Yes, I do know that.” She stepped away. “Good luck!”

Floret sprang into the air, flapped hard, and disappeared into the heavy smoke and haze rapidly filling the sac. The boat started to drift down, jerked as it hit a support web. Moon lit another projectile and shoved it into the weapon, pumped the lever and fired down toward the bottom of the sac. Judging by the resultant explosion, it hit something, though he couldn’t see what.

He readied another projectile and fired it up at the nest. There were several packets left, and he struggled between the urge to fire them all off or wait until he could spot another kethel or a better target. The nest wasn’t burning as well as the supports and webbing at the bottom of the sac, but then it hadn’t been splashed with lamp oil.

A scatter of dakti appeared out of the smoke, dropped to the deck and charged him. Moon slung the weapon over his shoulder and lunged to meet them.

One flew at his face and as he slashed it aside another one grabbed for the fire weapon. It missed the metal tube but its claws caught the bag with the projectiles and yanked it off the strap. Moon lunged for it but the dakti yelped derisive laughter and threw the pouch over the railing.

Over the railing, right above the fire burning on the supports and at the bottom of the sac. Moon yelled, “Saffron, Chime, get down!” He dropped and covered his face.

The fire below made a terrifyingly loud whoosh noise and heat washed over the deck. Moon waited for the flash of light leaking between his fingers to fade, then jumped up. Dakti sprawled all over the deck, or reeled from the stunning brightness of the flash.

Slashing and tearing at the half-blind dakti, dodging their attempts to pile on top of him, Moon felt the deck sway as the craft sank down toward the bottom of the sac. Choking smoke filled the air until he couldn’t even see across the boat. There must be an opening in the top of the sac somewhere, because the smoke kept streaming upward; it was the only thing that let them all keep breathing. He hoped that meant Floret had gotten out.

Heat washed over the deck and flames rose past the nearest railing. Moon slashed open the belly of the next dakti who flew at him and tossed it over the side. Flying boats, kept in the air by the sustainer that allowed them to drift on the lines of force that crossed the Three Worlds, could only go so far down to the ground. Moon had seen one get as close as twenty or thirty paces but he wasn’t sure if Chime knew how to make the boat do that. If the sac was already low in the air, they could be trapped in the flames.

A dakti hit Moon from behind and knocked him to the deck. He stiffened his spines and rolled to impale it, then lifted his feet, catching another with his disemboweling claws when it tried to dive on top of him. It fell away, keening, and he rolled forward to shake the dying one off his back. He stood up and recoiled in shock.

The rest of the dakti had fled and the deck was level with the burning surface of the sac, sinking into an inferno. The intense heat stung in the cuts and slashes in his scales, seared his eyes, and the stinking smoke boiled up. Past the ring of fire, Moon could see the sac wasn’t burning away nearly as fast as he would have liked. The splashed oil and falling debris had managed to catch this part of it on fire, and it was slowly eating away at the rest, but the whole sac was not going to burn.

The good part was that the boat didn’t seem to be on fire either, even though fragments of burning web landed on it. The plant material it was made of must be just as resistant to burning as cutting. Moon hurried to put out the spots he could reach anyway, singeing his scales to stamp on them. He found a stray projectile packet that must have fallen out of the bag and hastily collected it; if flaming debris had landed on it, they would have discovered just how flammable the boat was.

Then suddenly the boat dropped past the fire and they were in open air, so fresh and strong and salt-scented it was like a welcome slap in the face.

It was late afternoon under a sky stained with gray clouds, and they were on the edge of a rocky coast. Gray stone slopes led down to a narrow ribbon of beach washed by waves. Dozens of islands dotted the deep blue water, some just scatters of peaks standing above the surface, others large domes of rock that supported small jungles of greenery. They covered the water as far as Moon could see.

Moon looked up at the sac, the great mottled mass looming over the little boat. From here the small size of the burning hole was frighteningly obvious; a little smaller and the boat would have been trapped.

Moon crossed the deck in one bound and reached the steering cabin. Chime had both hands on the steering post. Saffron guarded the entrance. From the slashes in her dark copper scales, she must have fought dakti as well. Moon tried to talk, realized his throat was raw from the smoke, and gasped out, “You all right?”

She nodded, coughed harshly, and managed to ask, “Where’s Floret?”

“I sent her after Shade. I didn’t think we’d make it out.” The coast seemed empty, with no sign of her or the progenitor’s group.

Chime, wild-eyed but determined, snarled, “Neither did I, believe me! Where do we go now?”

Moon had no idea; he had never expected to actually survive to this point. But there were no undistracted Fell to see which way they went, and if they could get the boat and the wounded far enough away, he could double back to look for Floret and Shade.

The cliffs ran back from the shore, turning into rocky canyons with peaks shaped by the wind into rounded pillars and arches. Moon pointed to a gap between two sloping cliff faces. “Inland, downwind, fast.”

Chime leaned on the steering lever, bringing the bow around to point in the right direction. At least the wind was with them, though Moon wasn’t certain if trying to open the sails for more speed was a good idea or not. All his instincts about wind and how to ride it didn’t seem to apply to this craft, and he didn’t want to get swept into a mountain by an errant gust.

As the boat drew further away, he saw the three kethel supporting the sac from above were flapping in confusion, the smoke pouring up over them. Two were trying to tug the sac inland and one was pointed back toward the sea. Dakti had come out the top and buzzed around them, in and out of the smoke, adding to the chaos. With the wind rushing in through the bottom, the fire had turned the whole sac into a chimney. Dealing with that should keep the kethel nicely occupied.

“How did you make that big burst of fire right as we started down?” Saffron asked, blinking into the wind. Her eyes were red and streaming from the smoke.

“Dakti got most of the projectiles and threw them in the fire.” Moon decided the sail was worth a try. “Let’s get the—”

“Kethel!” she snapped and pointed toward the sac.

Moon turned in time to see the big dark shape drop out of the burning opening. It flapped its webbed wings, shaking off sparks and flaming debris, then caught the wind and headed straight for them. Moon pulled the fire weapon off his shoulder, readied and loaded the last projectile, aimed as best he could and fired.

It clipped the edge of the kethel’s wing and exploded into bright fragments. The kethel roared and jerked away, then plummeted toward the rocks below. But it twisted out of the fall and flapped hard, climbing rapidly toward the boat.

That’s that, Moon thought. He dropped the empty weapon, snarled, “Stay with the boat,” at Saffron, and sprang to the railing. He snapped his wings out and fell into the air.

Flying against the wind slowed him down but the kethel was advancing so fast it didn’t matter much; he cut straight towards its face, slashed, and then twisted away from a grab. He hadn’t connected but the creature was already furious, and it had seen that he was the one who had fired the weapon at it. So when he dropped toward the cliffs it dove after him.

Moon knew he had to keep the kethel’s attention and last long enough for the boat to lose itself in the mountains. He slid left and right in the wind, flapping to keep his speed up. The kethel closed with him, so near that its hot breath rushed over him.

He flew in close to a cliff, skirted dangerously along the rocky face, fighting the gusts that tried to push him into it. He felt the kethel behind him, too close, and tipped his wings up and fell to the side and away.

The kethel scraped along the cliff in a flurry of dust and rock, then shoved off it with one foot. Moon dipped down towards a rounded peak, losing track of the kethel for one dangerous heartbeat. Then it slapped him out of the air.

He bounced off rock with stunning force, just managed to pull his wings in, then tumbled down the slope in a rush of pebbles and dust. He clawed at the rock to stop his headlong fall and caught himself on a ledge.

Dazed, winded, he looked up to see the kethel climbing down the slope toward him, its big claws crunching into the gray rock, its mouth open in anticipation, fangs gleaming.

As the kethel loomed above him, something big and dark dove in and struck its back. It flattened the kethel against the cliff face and the kethel flailed and writhed to try to dislodge it. Its clawed hand slammed down next to Moon and a small avalanche of rocks rained down on him. He scrambled along the ledge, trying to take flight but the kethel’s bulk was too close and its huge wings beat frantically around him. In an instant it was going to crush him.

Then he caught the scent of familiar Raksura in the wind and somewhere below him, Jade’s voice shouted, “Moon, jump!”

Moon’s heart leapt, and he rolled off the ledge into open air.