The Cloud Roads (35 page)

Panic abruptly overcame numb shock, and Moon knew he had to make her kill him. He couldn’t let her take him, birth another clutch of half-Raksuran monsters to attack other courts, to destroy even more groundling cities, to move across the Three Worlds like a plague.
They wouldn’t stop.
They didn’t know how. All they knew was breeding and eating, and they would do it until they killed every living creature intheir reach.“Because you’re Fell.You’reabominations,andyou destroy everything you touch.” A shadow flickered in her eyes, and he knew the strike was true.“In Saraseil,Liheas touched me,and it ruined everything.It just took turns and turns for me to know it.”

She hit him, an open-handed slap that knocked him off his feet. Half-stunned, he tried to roll away from her, but she grabbed him by the hair. Moon clawed at her arm, kicked, trying to wrench away even if he lost most of his scalp, but she pulled him up onto his knees.

A dakti careened in, bounced off the ceiling, and landed near Janeas. It spat out words in the Fell language, hissing and clicking madly.

Ranea dropped Moon and turned to the dakti. Moon scrambled away, watching her warily. He saw Janeas move away as she stepped past him, as if the ruler wasn’t eager to get within arm’s reach of her either. Ranea grabbed the messenger dakti by the head, lifting it off the ground and shaking it, giving it a sharp order. It repeated the words, gasping this time, probably from the pressure of her hand on its skull. She dropped the dakti and strode to the nearest window.

Moon staggered to his feet and followed her at a careful distance. He wasn’t sure what he was going to see, but he was hoping for an unexpectedly large number of Raksura. He caught the edge of the window and looked down.

The two kethel who had been lying on the hive floor were gone. No, not gone. He squinted, peering down. They were in groundling form, two big muscular bodies, sprawled unconscious near the shaft down into the ruin. Other smaller bodies were scattered around them.
Dakti, the dakti that ate the kethel’s scraps,
Moon thought in relief. The Dwei had really done it! They had given the poison to five of their number, then sent them to be eaten by the kethel.

He looked up to see Ranea staring at him, her eyes brilliant with rage. She said, “You did this.”

“No. I was here.” In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have smiled when he said it.

He saw her hand lift and tried to duck away, but the blow caught his shoulder, knocking him sprawling. Tasting blood from a bitten lip, he rolled over to see her standing over him.
You got your wish. She’s going to kill you.

Behind him, Janeas said, “He must have brought some of that groundling filth here.”

Ranea turned the furious glare on Janeas. “When you found him you should have searched him, searched the Dwei.”

“I didn’t find him; that was Venras,” Janeas said, sounding bitterly pleased. “Demus saw through his eyes. Demus should have told him to search. You’ve put him above us all. Such things should be his decision.”

She stood there a moment, fists clenched, shivering with rage, as if unable to decide who she wanted to kill more, Moon or Janeas. Then leaned down to grab Moon’s arm and dragged him upright. She tossed him at Janeas.

“Watch him.”

She stepped away from them and shifted. Dark mist swirled around her for a heartbeat, forming into a shape that was something out of a nightmare. Her scales were the matte black of Fell, without the colors or undersheen of Raksura, and the texture was coarse. Her wings had the leathery hide of the dakti, and her head was crowned with both an armored crest and Raksuran spines. And she was big, half again as tall as Moon’s shifted form.

She stepped forward and leapt out through the window, her wings snapping out as she dropped from view. The messenger dakti struggled up and jumped after her. Janeas stared after them, gripping Moon’s arm until the bones ground together.

Think of something,
Moon told himself. Ranea had killed a ruler for no reason, for trying to salvage their sick plan and bring her at least some of the Arbora she wanted. Janeas had to see that his own chances of survival rested on her whim. Moon said, “You can’t think this is a good idea.”

Janeas said nothing, but he didn’t hit Moon, either.

Moon persisted,“All the Fell at Indigo Cloud are dead.You don’t have enough here to fight us off, and the Aeriat know not to get near that thing now.”

The mentor-dakti chittered warningly, and Janeas snarled at it.

Moon considered that response, the fact that he had given a ruler a chance to gloat over him and the ruler hadn’t taken it. He had always thought rulers only cared about themselves, that the survival of the Fell as a race wouldn’t bother them as much as a threat to their own scales. Except apparently that wasn’t the case at all. There weren’t that many rulers in Fell flights, and what was that like, to live surrounded by dakti and kethel who differed from trained animals only by their active malice? Maybe rulers... cared about each other.
Kathras cared about Liheas, or at least cared that I killed him.

Moon wet dry lips and said, “Kathras was dying when he found us.”

Janeas made a sound, an exhalation of breath that wasn’t a hiss. Moon said, “He could barely stay in the air. She made him fly himself to death to catch up with us, through mountain currents, ice storms. There were two of us. We could stop. One could rest while the other hunted.”

Janeas flung him down, and Moon struck the rubbery floor face-first. Standing over him, Janeas snarled, “You killed him. I saw it.”

Moon pushed himself up enough to look at him. His nose was bloody and it was hard to breathe.

“It was easy, because he was already dying.” He pointed back to the dead ruler that lay rotting in the cool air. “Just like she killed him—” Janeas took a step forward and Moon shoved himself back. “—for no reason. Because he tried to obey her orders. He tried to salvage her stupid plan.”

Janeas lunged forward. Moon rolled, pushed to his feet, and backed away.

“You think there’s any place for you, for the other rulers, once she does this? She needs dakti and kethel for slaves, not—”

Something flashed past the window, and Moon flinched back, thinking it was Ranea returning. But whatever it was had fallen straight down past this level. Then he heard a crash from somewhere below.

Janeas froze, head cocked toward the sound. An instant later, something else fell past the window, and this time Moon saw it: a big clay jar, one of the storage jars he had seen in the ruin.

Janeas strode to the window and Moon stumbled after him.

The jars had struck the floor of the hive and somehow burst into flame. Black smoke streamed up as fire spread across the floor.

Dry metal-mud, packed into the jars, and set on fire,
Moon realized, and the surge of hope was almost painful.
That has to be Chime’s idea.
They would be dropping it on the outside of the hive, too, with any luck.

Another ruler flew toward them from the far side of the hive, banking in to perch in the window. It was Venras, the young ruler who had found Moon with the Dwei. He spoke to Janeas in the Fell language, and though Moon couldn’t understand the words, the panic was obvious.

Moon stepped back from the window, looking at Janeas. “They’re going to burn you out, kill anything that tries to escape—”

Janeas whipped around and grabbed him by the throat. His claws pricking Moon’s skin, he said, “We have their Arbora, and you. They won’t burn this place while you’re here.”

Moon couldn’t help grabbing Janeas’ wrist, but he forced himself to stand still, not to try to curl his body up to use the disemboweling claws he didn’t have.

“There are plenty of Arbora left alive in the colony. They don’t need these.” It didn’t matter if it was true or not, he just had to make Janeas believe it. “And they don’t want me—”

Janeas stepped close, hissing into his face. “You’re their only consort—”

Moon didn’t have to fake the bitter amusement. “The reigning queen ordered me to leave days ago. They know what Kathras said. They know you came to Indigo Cloud because of me. They only let me stay this long to help fight you.”

Janeas stared into his eyes, and must have read the truth there. He snarled, his hand closing around Moon’s throat, cutting off his air. Moon frantically pried at his hand, tried to kick, then his vision went dark.

The terrible pressure stopped. He hit the floor, gasping in a breath with the jolt of impact. His throat and lungs ached, and for a moment he couldn’t do anything but huddle on the floor and breathe. He managed to look up and saw Janeas coming out of the inner chamber, half-carrying the older Fell progenitor.

She was a little bigger than the ruler, but her scales looked soft, and her armored crest was much smaller, as if she hadn’t been meant to fight. She leaned heavily on Janeas’ shoulder, her half-furled wings drooping.

Janeas led her to the window where Venras still waited. Venras spoke again, jerking his chin at Moon. Janeas just shook his head, stepping up to the window, pulling the progenitor after him.

They’re leaving,
Moon thought in dizzy relief. And Janeas didn’t want to kill Moon because he knew if he did, Ranea would follow him in a fury.
That part’s not so good.
If the queen-progenitor returned in time, she could take Moon and still salvage her plan for a crossbreed flight. Janeas was leaving Moon behind as the distraction he needed to escape.

Venras twitched around to take the old progenitor’s other arm, and the three of them dropped out of the window.

Moon staggered to his feet. Demus had crept forward to watch Janeas leave. It saw Moon looking at it and growled, flexing its claws.
That thing has to go now.

It was smaller than a real dakti, and much scrawnier than a real Arbora, though its teeth and claws looked sharp. Moon looked around for a weapon, and spotted an unlikely one.

Watching Demus, he went to the platform where the dead ruler lay. He rolled the body over, dumping it out of the brocade coat it wore. Shaking out the heavy cloth, he paced toward Demus.

It crept backward, its spines bristling. It rasped in Raksuran, “She’ll claw the skin from your body if you touch me.”

“She’s going to do that anyway.” Moon didn’t hesitate, still stalking the creature, angling to one side, forcing it to move back toward the pool of water.

“Don’t kill me.” The tone changed from threat to plea and Demus crouched, trying to look helpless. “Please.”

“Then take the shifting geas off me and the Arbora,” Moon said, still moving forward, “and run away.” It seemed a rational choice to him, but then this thing was a Fell.

Demus crouched low, whining, then suddenly leapt for Moon’s head. Moon lunged toward it, swinging the heavy coat up. It hit the fabric and then him, bowling him over backward. Moon wrapped his arms and legs around it and rolled, trapping it in the heavy brocade, pinning it with his weight. Demus clawed with frantic strength, its jaws clamping onto his shoulder through the fabric, but its claws caught in the heavy material, just long enough for Moon to roll them both toward the pool.

They fell into the cold water and Moon caught a breath before he went under, using his weight to shove the creature to the bottom. Desperate, Demus wrenched an arm free and clawed at his side, tearing through his shirt and the skin beneath. Moon pinned its hand with his knee and held on grimly, staying under until his lungs were about to burst. Hoping the damn thing would be too distracted to hold the geas on him, he tried to shift.

It felt like it had when he had resisted Pearl. The pressure in his chest and behind his eyes was increased a hundredfold by the pressure to breathe, the growing pain in his lungs. Then suddenly something gave way, and wings and spines formed on his back; scales spread over his skin.

Moon lifted up, getting a much-needed breath. Demus was limp in his hands. Moon pulled the coat aside and snapped Demus’ neck just to make certain.

The relief of being able to shift was overwhelming; the claw scratches, bruises, everything faded into minor irritations. He shook the water off and jumped for the passage above the pool, reaching it in one long bound.

As he raced along the open passage, flames spread across the bottom floor of the hive, and thick smoke streamed upward, obscuring much of the center well. He heard the buzzing flight of Dwei below him somewhere, and the muffled roar of a kethel. The Dwei must have overwhelmed the single remaining kethel and escaped their prison.

Several dakti still guarded the doorway to the Arbora’s chamber. When Moon landed among them and ripped the first two open, the others scattered, diving off the ledge into the smoky well. Moon crouched to rip open the door membrane, calling down, “Heart? Can you all shift?”

“Yes!” He saw Heart looking up at him, bright blue in her Arbora form. “Moon, did the others start the fire?”

“Yes! Come on out; we’re leaving,” he told her, looking warily out at the central well. Clouds of smoke obscured the view, giving him only glimpses of dakti flying wildly around.

Merit scrambled out of the shaft, followed rapidly by Needle and Gift. Crouching next to Moon, his spines bristling nervously, Merit demanded, “How do we get out?”

Good question.
Moon couldn’t risk trying to fly the Arbora out one at a time, and the openings in the wall made a climb up or down impossible. He would have to lead them out the way he had come in, whether it was on fire or not. Then he made out a large dark shape, banking through the smoke, heading back toward the progenitor’s chamber.
Uh oh.
Ranea was returning and Moon was out of time. “Run, that way!” The startled Arbora stood and Moon gave Merit a push to get him started. “Now! Take the first turn down!”

Dream was just climbing out of the shaft with Snap and Heart behind her. Moon dragged them out and tossed them after the others. He ran after them, keeping his eyes on that dark shape.

Merit reached the open passage in the wall first, the turn into the long spiral ramp that led down through the hive, and looked back to Moon for instructions. Moon waved at him to keep going.