The Cloud Roads (33 page)

Halfway across his foot slipped, and he stumbled on a suddenly uneven surface. It was a grate, a big one, made of the same material as the rest of the hive. Moon crouched and tasted the air. The acrid odor was stronger here.

Then a large clawed hand shot up through the grate to wrap around his lower leg. Moon nearly yelled in panic, managed to turn it into a low hiss, and tried to wrench free. The hand yanked at him, hard enough to drag him down between the bars. The waterskin of poison slipped off his shoulder. Desperate, he scrabbled for purchase on the bar, but the weight dragging him down increased a hundredfold and his claws slipped off the slick surface.

He fell down into a dark space and landed hard on rubbery ground. Something slammed down top of him, a big hand pinning his chest. A creature with a large round head with bulbous, multi-faceted eyes loomed over him. Its skin was dull green, with a soft slick texture.

A deep, raspy voice from somewhere to the left said, “What is it?”

“It’s a Fell,” another voice replied.

“I’m not a Fell!” Moon glared up at the creature looming over him. They were speaking something close to Kedaic, and he answered in that language. “I’m a Raksura, a consort. Look at the back of my head!”

There was a startled pause. His eyes adjusted, and he could see they were all around him, looming shapes. One said, “There are Raksura to the south.”

“Still shifters, still dangerous,” another replied.

“It smells strange,” someone else added.

“You stink, too,” Moon said, suppressing a snarl. They meant the metal-mud, but at the moment it was adding insult to injury.

Then the first voice said, “Let it up.”

The creature let go of him, and Moon rolled away, getting to his feet. He looked around, but there was nowhere to go.

The big chamber was full of the creatures. They were all taller and broader than he was, with heavy iridescent shells across their backs. Their wings were thin and fine, nearly translucent, and folded back along their bodies. Moon rubbed his chest where the creature had pinned him. They were strong, too. “You’re Dwei?”

The one that seemed to be the leader loomed over him, demanding, “Did you see others? Others like us?”

“What?” Then he remembered the shells. “I saw shells, down below in the groundling city. The Fell ate what was in them and threw them down into the ruin.”

It jerked back as if Moon had struck it, then turned away. A noise rose up from the others, like wood rattling, that resolved into a raspy groan. The sound conveyed dismay, disbelief, grief. It made Moon’s scales ripple uneasily.

Still facing away from him, the leader said, “Every two days, they took five of us away. They said they took them elsewhere, that if we did not resist, we would see them again.”

In the sense that eventually you’d all end up dead,
Moon thought, swallowing down a hiss. The Fell were using the Dwei as a convenient food source while the flight stayed here. Some of the dakti could be left to fend for themselves or eat each other, but the kethel and the rulers had to feed at regular intervals. It made it even stranger that they hadn’t done this to the Raksura at Indigo Cloud, that they had left even the dead intact. But this was typically Fell behavior, dangling hope the same way they did to their groundling prey. He just said, “They lie.” The Dwei groaned again, more faintly this time, pain and grim acceptance. “What is this place?”

The leader didn’t answer, but one of the others, he wasn’t sure which, said hesitantly, “We kept our crops here, the dorgali and matra we grew in the cliff tunnels. The Fell forced us in here and blocked the door. They only come to take some of us away.”

The leader swung back around, staring accusingly down at Moon again. “Why are you here?”

He didn’t see any reason not to answer. “They attacked our colony. We drove them off, but they took some of our people. I followed them here.”

One of the others held up the waterskin. The leader said, “What is this?”

Moon hesitated, but what were they going to do with it, tell the Fell?

“It’s poison. It only works on Fell.” He wasn’t going to tell them it worked on Raksura, just in case they decided a test was necessary. “It makes them sick, keeps them from shifting.”

“That doesn’t exist.” The leader looked at the waterskin. “No one has heard of this.”

“It exists,” Moon said. “Groundlings made it.”

With deep skepticism, it said, “And the Fell drink it.”

“No.” Moon held onto his patience. “The groundlings drank it and the Fellate them, and died. That was the only way they knew to make it work. We put it in the water in our colony.” He then admitted, “I can’t use it that way here. The rulers would have passed on a warning about poisoned water before they died.”

The leader blinked slowly, milky membranes sliding up to cover its eyes, then sliding down again. “You killed rulers with it?”

“And kethel and dakti. I saw a kethel drink the water and die. Another kethel ate its corpse and died.” He couldn’t read any emotion in the Dwei’s faces, couldn’t tell if they believed him or not. “Show me where the door is. I’ll go up through the grate and let you out.” It would be easier to find where the Arbora were kept with a lot of angry Dwei rampaging through the hive.

Someone in the back said, “The door is sealed only with a stone, but a kethel guards it.”

That didn’t sound encouraging, but Moon wasn’t ready to give up the idea of a massive distraction that would let him get further up into the hive. “Maybe I could find a way to—”

Something moved in the chamber above. Moon went still. He heard the faint clicking of dakti climbing across the grate. The Dwei made that sound again, the rattling groan. The leader cut them off with a sharp clack of its jaws. Then it called up toward the grate, “The Raksura is here!”

Moon stared at it, incredulous. “No!” He scrambled back, hissing, but the Dwei surrounded him. He made a wild leap, trying to reach the wall, but hands grabbed his legs, yanking him down again. Thrashing wildly, he clawed at their hands, flared his spines. His claws tore their thick skin, but they slammed him down to the ground. Pinned face down, heavy Dwei hands on his back, he growled, “Are you stupid? You think they’ll let you go for this?”

He could already hear grating stone from the far end of the chamber; the kethel must be moving the rock away from the entrance. The Dwei in front of him moved away, clearing a path for the kethel. The leader leaned over him, saying in a raspy whisper, “We know they will not.”

The floor vibrated as the kethel entered the chamber. Blood from the Dwei that he had scratched dripped on Moon’s back; it was clear and smelled like jasmine. Past their legs, he caught a glimpse of the kethel, its dark armor streaked with sand, lowering its head to menace the Dwei with its horns. The Dwei scattered away, releasing Moon, but as he pushed himself up, the kethel shot out a hand and grabbed him.

Moon hissed in furious terror, digging claws into the finger that was like an iron band across his chest. The kethel stared down at him, eyes dark with malice, and Moon knew it meant to eat him right here. He bitterly promised himself to do as much damage on the way down its gullet as possible. Suddenly, pain shot up his back, his neck, snapping his head back. He yelled, heard his voice drop and change as the pain washed over him and he shifted to groundling.

The kethel dropped him, and Moon landed in an awkward sprawl, no chance to catch himself. Panting, he rolled over, suddenly hyperaware of the cool damp air clinging to his clothes and his far more vulnerable groundling skin. He braced shaky arms to lever himself up. It was the same force the mentor-dakti at the colony had used, but far more violent.
They’ve got another one here,
he thought, looking up blearily. A ruler, still armored in Fell form, now stood beside the kethel. It seemed smaller and younger than Kathras, but no less dangerous.

The ruler tilted its head. “A consort. Just what we wanted.” He hissed out an order in the Fell language; Moon had heard it before but it had never sounded so close to Raksuran, as if he could understand it if he just listened hard enough.

A score of dakti raced around the kethel. Moon snarled, flailing away, but they swarmed him. He kicked one, managed to smash its kneecap, then got slammed back to the ground, three or four on top of him. After a second stunning clout to the head, the world swung out of focus.

The dakti lifted him up above their heads, their claws caught in his clothes, his hair, scraping at his neck, at his back where his shirt was pushed up. The oily texture of their hands on his groundling skin made him want to scratch himself bloody, fight until they killed him. He forced himself to stay limp, to play dead, and keep his eyes slitted.

They carried him out of the chamber, and he could hear the grating sound as the kethel rolled the rock back into place. It was dark. He couldn’t see anything but a ridged roof overhead. He knew they were going up, through a tunnel or passage that went up in long spirals. He memorized the route as best he could.

Finally they passed into a place with fresher air and daylight. Moon let his head flop to one side, and saw one wall of the passage was open to a vast space, lit by wan daylight falling from somewhere high overhead. It had to be the open center well of the hive.

Then the dakti stopped. He caught a glimpse of a round opening in the floor, right before the dakti flung him down into it. He fell a short distance, struck the rubbery ground, and rolled to his hands and knees, prepared to be swarmed again.

The dakti had dropped him into a shadowy chamber, light falling through long horizontal slits in the far wall. He looked up to see an opening high in the ceiling, set up into a short shaft. The dakti crouched around it and pulled some kind of translucent cover into place, sealing the opening. He looked around the chamber, and caught startled movement in the shadows. He froze, tasting the air. He scented frightened Raksura.
Frightened Raksura other than me,
he thought. “Who’s here?”

Someone said suspiciously, “Who are you?”

Before he could answer, a female voice said, “It’s Moon, the solitary—the consort Stone brought.” Arbora in groundling form edged into the faint light, watching him warily: four females, two males, all young enough to be barely out of adolescence. Their clothes were dirty and ragged, their hair lank from little access to water.

With breathless hope, another one asked, “Is Stone here?”

“No.”
At least you’ve found them, and they’re alive,
Moon told himself. It didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment considering he didn’t see any way he could get them out of here. He got to his feet, moving away to see more of the chamber. “They only took six of you?”

“Yes,” the first woman answered. She had skin the color of dark honey, curly bronze-colored hair, and she was beautiful, even past the dirt and the fatigue. “They brought us here in a sac. We were the only ones in it. They let us out when we got here, then shoved us into this room.” She added, “I’m Heart, and that’s Gift, Needle, and Dream.” She nodded to the other females, then to the two males, “And Snap and Merit. They’re all teachers, and Merit and I are mentors.”

“Not that it’s done us much good,” Merit said, sounding rueful. “None of us can even shift. We don’t know how they’re doing that.”

“How’d you get here?” Snap demanded, still watching Moon suspiciously.

“I followed the kethel.” He stopped, staring at them for a moment. They were all beautiful, their skin every shade from warm brown to coppery red to light amber. They were all more than a head shorter than Moon, but they were strong and well-proportioned. All young, all healthy, and two of them mentors.
They picked them for breeding stock,
he thought uneasily. The Fell still meant to make more crossbreeds. Unable to keep the whole colony, they had probably meant to take all the young Arbora, leaving the older adults and the sterile warriors behind, but they hadn’t had time. “Are you all right? They didn’t do anything?”

“Not yet.” Heart looked up at him, brow furrowed as she read his expression far too accurately. “Why are you looking at us like that?”

“No reason.” He had to get them out of here. He stepped back and jumped for the side of the shaft. He caught the ridge around the edge and dragged himself up handhold by handhold until he reached the membrane that sealed the opening. He pushed at it, but it refused to budge. The texture was stiff and slick, as impermeable as glass.

Below him, Snap said in frustration, “It’s no use. We stood on each other’s shoulders to get to it, but without claws we can’t get through.”

Moon kept prodding at the edge, looking for a weak point, but he was afraid the boy was right.

Heart asked, “But where are the others? Did the hunters get away? Knell said he saw—”

Moon’s fingers slipped and he dropped back to the floor. He absently wiped his hands.
And if you got it open, what were you going to do then?
The dakti were still up there, guarding them.

“The others are fine.” He gave them a meaningful look and jerked his head up toward the opening. The Fell might be listening; with Moon here they would have to realize that Jade and the other Aeriat couldn’t be far behind, but he didn’t want to spell it out for them.

Heart subsided, and the others held back frustrated questions.

Watching him carefully, Needle said, “At the colony, there was a ruler who said Pearl had left us, that she wouldn’t be coming back. He said they were waiting for Jade to join them, then we were going to leave the colony and go somewhere else.” She made a despairing gesture. “Here, I guess.”

Moon paced around the chamber, investigating the shadows. It was big enough for a few Dwei to sit or sleep in comfortably, and nearly featureless. “I think I saw that ruler. Right before Pearl tore his head off.”

There were some gratified hisses, and Needle hugged herself. She said, “I knew the ruler was lying.” She shot a fierce look at the others. “The queens are going to save us.”

They were still watching him worriedly, and Gift said, “But why did the Fell bring us here? And why us? If they just wanted to eat us. We’re small, and not much of a meal.”