Cloudbound (41 page)

And perhaps, with Dix distracted and Wik still hidden from the guards, Kirit could find a way to get Elna to safety.

Dix reached for the satchel. The brass squares inside knocked together sharply when I grabbed her arm and twisted fast, pinning it behind her, her back to my chest. Now she was between me and the blackwings. She struggled, outraged. “You will not survive this. There's no way out of here without me. There are Laws—”

“Laws are for the sky, Dix. We are of the clouds.” But even as I spoke, two guards had closed on Kirit and Elna. I relaxed my grip enough to step backwards. “Let me show you now what you don't know.” Before her blackwings could react, I dragged her inside the cave, past Ceetcee and a stunned Moc. Hiroli rushed to follow.

The blackwings aimed, but Dix held up a hand as she stumbled to keep up with me. “Let him try to show me something new, to prove he's useful. Otherwise, he's running out of time.”

“No!” Aliati said. But Ceetcee stilled her.

Across the meadow, Elna lay with her head cradled in Kirit's lap. Littlemouths glowed softly in the grass beside them. Beside Doran's body too, now covered in Kirit's cloak. It took great effort to tear my gaze away from my mother. Would I see her again?

“Family is so very inconvenient, isn't it?” Dix whispered. I choked on my answer, and she chuckled. “If you show me what the plates mean, I'll have her taken higher. If she lives long enough. And if you prove to me you have something to teach, perhaps I'll take you higher too.”

“A promise from you is just words made of wind,” Ceetcee said behind us. I looked back at her. She caught my eye and pointed with her chin across the meadow to the tower where Wik hid. A littlemouth pulsed in the mist. “Defend.”

Wik was prepared to act. Was Kirit? Ceetcee coughed to get her attention. Kirit nodded. She was ready if she got a chance. I spoke loudly to distract Dix and Hiroli. “There are secrets down here that can kill you. Others can help you gain knowledge, and increase your value to the city.”

How could we hand the meadow and its treasures over to Dix? With each step farther into the cave, I recalled Ciel's shouts at Laria:
Murderer!
She was that, and more. I gritted my teeth.
We all have principles.
Doran's words.
Some of us hide them better than others.
All I needed was to lure a few of the blackwings into the cave with us, and Wik could take advantage as the others regrouped.

“Many secrets, then?” Dix asked.

I had her interest now. “Like the lighter-than-air. It could take years to understand just one.”

Dix stopped walking. “Then the fewer who see this, the better.” She shouted to the blackwings just coming to the cave entrance, “Stay there. If I do not return, kill the old one. No need for blackwings in here.”

Clouds.

“Only us,” she said. “Until we can determine who will use the secrets best.”

Now that I was committed to this course and trapped within the cave, I had to keep going or risk Elna's life, and the others' too. Doran's need for control was beginning to make more sense: each decision was filled unseen risks.

Moc followed us at a safe distance, humming, causing the end of the tunnel to luminesce. Now or never. “Then I challenge you,” I said, “to look past the inventions, and see the message from the past with clear eyes. See how your actions are repeating a path of destruction that kept this knowledge from us for generations. You believe the Singers were leaders. This is your weakness. You must learn the truth of them.”

“I know all the songs,” she said, tugging to free her arm. “I know the truth.”

I refused to let go. “I'm sure you think you do.”

Moc hummed louder from the door behind me. The littlemouths glowed, and Dix gasped. She turned a slow circle, her face illuminated.

“Living above this all our lives. We would have died without knowing.” She reached for the plates on the walls. The awe in her voice gave me new hope. Perhaps Dix could still love something.

“This is what we are protecting, as our ancestors protected it. Would you fly against this? Would you drain the towers above when the city is so alive, here?”

Was I getting through to her? She scanned the room almost reverently.

“Now you need to see more.” As before, I took her arm and pulled her to the last alcove in the tower, where Hiroli had spent the past days.
Quickly now, for Elna.
She followed me willingly this time. I showed her the marks on the walls, the bones. “They died defending the people of the city. Would you do the same?”

Dix's expression was unfathomable. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her eyes reflected the littlemouths' glow. “I knew I was right. That Rumul was right. The plates are our inheritance. The city needs them. People are willing to die for them.”

Through the mist, on the third tower, I saw a struggle. One guard fell from the tower. Another called for support. Had Wik been captured?

More blackwings circled Kirit and Elna. Djonn and Aliati had been moved to join them. Elna's eyes were closed, and Kirit stared at the tower where Wik had been. Her hand went to her knife.

I whistled the windsign for “defend.” Kirit repeated it. She shifted Elna in her arms so that if she had the chance, she could lift her and run. And while the guards yelled at her to be quiet, I saw a small littlemouth pulse in the mist, farther from the meadow: the old tower windsign for “justice.” Wik was still out there. Balance. Justice. We would try to take the guards, at least for a moment. Long enough for Kirit to fly Elna away.

“Quiet!” Dix shook her head, staring at the lights. “This is all ours now.”

I swallowed hard. Doran had accused me of planning too many things on the wing, even as he'd done the same. But we'd prepared, and we had no other options. That was the greatest risk of all.

 

32

GRAVITY

We emerged from the cave in time to see a blackwing pull Wik from behind the second tower.

Below us, in the meadow, blackwings surrounded my friends. Aliati shielded Elna with her body, while Kirit stood, preparing to fight. Our last plan had failed. When Dix discovered the Spire below, she would be even more resolved to silence us, as the Singers had done generations ago to those who lived in the meadow.

A roll of thunder in the distance. Soft raindrops splatted the lichen and made the ferns bob in the meadow. Water beaded on Dix's furled wings and on the shoulders and backs of the guards.

Beyond the ridge wall, darker clouds gathered. We needed to get inside before lightning struck. Unaware of the risk, the guards herded us all to the meadow's center.

“I'll take the satchel now, Nat,” Dix said, ignoring the rain.

“We hoped to show you the true history of the city. Where we came from. Where we may be heading.” A dim rumble of thunder echoed in the clouds.

I gripped the satchel's straps tight as she reached towards me.

“Thank you for this.” She pulled a brass plate from my bag. Held it up to show the blackwings. “The former councilor from Densira is right. There is a vast library of knowledge in these towers, and we will search them all. Several of these Lawsbreakers know how to translate it. We can't kill them yet, but we won't let them escape.”

Dix waved a hand, and the guards drew back to encircle us. Hiroli knelt and rewrapped her foot.

Elna, in Aliati's arms, groaned and shivered in the rain. “At least let her shelter inside,” Aliati said. “The artifex too. Otherwise, they'll become sicker. If they sicken, we won't help you.”

Dix nodded and signaled three of the guards. “Take these three inside.” The guards lifted Elna and, with Moc's help, escorted Djonn into our cave. They took Aliati too.

When Dix turned back to us, she spoke first to Hiroli. “The Singers shared with us only a little of their knowledge. Now that I know more, thanks to your friends, I can better decide what the city needs. How to use that knowledge. Who should know it. We'll have no more problems with the northwest soon. Meantime, this area must be controlled. None must know about it above the clouds.”

Her blackwing guards shifted, the words sinking in.

Dix put her hand on Hiroli's shoulder. “You will remain here, as valley guardian.”

“Guardian?” Hiroli paled, and laid one hand on her own throat. “No. It's not safe. You said you'd take me with you, that I'd manage the artifexes—”

“I know what I said, and think of it. All of this knowledge. You'll learn so much. The guards will help you. Djonn will remain here too. You'll need all the help you can get.” She tied a tether around Ciel's waist and handed it to Hiroli. “And the brother, too.” Hiroli shook her head in disbelief and shock.

“For those who can't, or won't share their knowledge?” Dix looked directly at me. She threw a kavik in the air, and it flapped off. “You have a short time to say your good-byes.”

Everyone in the cave. Everyone on the meadow. My family, my friends. They were mine, not Dix's. I shouldered the satchel with the brass plates. Dix hadn't seen any reason to take it from me, because she thought everything in the meadow was hers now.

I knelt beside Doran's body and wrapped my hand around the bone hook Ceetcee had planted in the meadow.

We had one more thing to teach Dix.

Gravity.

*   *   *

With pops and cracks, the hook slid from the ground. I stood atop the pattern Ceetcee and Djonn had woven out of ancient wingframes and tools and felt the bones shift.

Then I unfurled my wings. Seeing me do that, Kirit and Wik followed suit. Then Ciel. The ground slid, then began to pit visibly. The meadow shook.

Hiroli stared, then fumbled with her wings, tangling them in the tether that held Ciel. I lunged to cut the tether, Dix's voice in my ears: “What did you do?”

But it was too late, a wing-sized portion of the meadow collapsed, and then more of it where the guards stood, and all of us slid into the void amidst clumps of lichen and ferns.

The noise the meadow made as it collapsed sounded like the city rumbling. Like the world ending. The smell of fresh-turned dirt and crushed greenery filled the mist.

As I tumbled, I saw others above me falling too, scrambling for solid meadow turf. One blackwing already flew free below. Hiroli tried to grapple Ciel. Kirit and Wik, wings locked, turned in the air. Ready for battle. In the meadow's underpinnings, a gaping hole was still growing, though still more of the woven platform held fast.

A blackwing dangled from the plinth. Doran's body tumbled into the void below. I fell too, then righted myself. Wind caught my wings and the silk filled.

Dix clung to the meadow platform, feet kicking, her wings half furled. Four blackwings tumbled through the hole in the meadow and swooped below her to help their leader right herself.

Kirit flew a tight path around the shadow-towers, pursued by the guard who'd killed Ezarit and Doran. She held a glass-tooth knife in each hand. I joined the chase, locking my wings. Drew my bow and sighted, fighting the wind. The guard didn't know how to fly below the clouds. Kirit led him on a weaving path through the building storm. I finally saw my shot and let the bolt fly.

It struck him in the wing and passed through. Blood spattered on the silk as it shuddered and tore. The murderous guard curled. His wings folded and he fell, my arrow sticking from his side.

I circled once to make sure he wasn't coming back. Kirit flew beside me. There was no triumph in her expression. She looked worried.

“The northwest,” she shouted. “We can't leave them unaware.” We slowly banked around another tower, to the deep void beyond. We dove to build up speed and caught a gust that shot us towards the northwest, flying pinion to pinion. It was coming on evening. Dix's blackwings would have pulled her from the shadows by now. They would attack soon, either us or the northwest. Ahead, we saw Wik chasing Hiroli through the clouds, blocking her wind and making her fight to stay aloft, exhausting her as she pursued Ciel.

Blackwings raced behind us. An arrow swooped past, narrowly missing me.

Hiroli dove at Wik as thunder cracked overhead, then lightning. She drew a knife—my knife—and threw it. The blade tumbled between Wik and Ciel as lightning streamed the sky again. We smelled the bolt's acrid passage, but I'd closed my eyes against the light, not wanting to be blinded. The residual light made bone look creased, wingsilk pocked, and the clouds as solid as bone.

Hiroli shrieked and fell far behind, panicked. Perhaps unable to see. Two of the guards went after her, and the rest of us climbed away into the lighter clouds.

Wik managed to fly another guard tight against a tower. She scraped a wing and spun into the clouds. The remaining blackwings went after their fellow guard instead of pursuing us.

“Rise!” I whistled, and the other three flew with me. We circled to find a strong gust, and this time, we rose into the upper cloud as one. Even Ciel on her fledge wings. We were so used to the lower cloud darkness, everything felt brighter here, even in the storm.

Thunder rumbled and rain stung our skin as we flew northwest, towards Mondarath and Densira. Toward home.

We still had our bows. Our new glass-tooth knives. We couldn't deliver to Mondarath the brass plates as I'd planned: the blackwings were too near for us to climb the tower and fight.

But Kirit was right, we had to warn the northwest quadrant. To protect my home—and Ceetcee's and Beliak's, Elna's. We'd left Laria to fend for itself; we wouldn't leave Mondarath.

“If rumors of what happened at Laria have spread, word of the cloudlight might have spread too,” I called to Kirit, who still flew close on my wing. I hoped that was the power of myth and rumor. “We could try to signal from the clouds.”

“If no littlemouths are clinging to the tower sides, we'll have to risk the blackwings in force above the clouds,” she shouted back. It was a big if.