Jharav also stood at the top of the steps, a huge smile on his face. At his side was his wife, Ustila—a quiet girl much younger than he. Amahli knew, from grownup talk that she certainly shouldn’t have been overhearing, that following Xiang’s attack on the settlement, Ustila had refused to let any man come near her for more than two years. It had caused a great deal of surprise, therefore, when she had wedded Jharav following the death of his first wife, whom he had brought out from Taibeth in the colony’s early days. Amahli liked Ustila—she was gentle and kind. She was glad that the girl had found happiness with dear old Jharav.
The retired warrior bowed low. “My dear old friends,” he began, “allow me to be the first to welcome you to your new home.” He drew a deep breath. “Who would have thought, when first we met as foes in the Tower of Incondor, that we would one day stand here, having achieved so much ...”
Oh no, Amahli thought. Once Uncle Jharav began in this vein, he could go on without a pause for hours. But as the daughter of the colony’s leader, she had been brought up to deal with such dull formal occasions. Composing her features into an attentive expression, she fixed her eyes to the front and let her mind begin to roam.
There was no end to it. Once Jharav had finished, Petrel began to speak.—Amahli sighed, and exchanged a long-suffering look with Oriole. It was too much to ask to keep staring in front of her—the girl’s mind was already wandering and now her eyes began to follow. She was just gazing up at the pointed turret that contained her room, and wondering what it would be like to wake up every morning and look out of that window at the river, when her attention was caught by a movement in the adjacent sky. At first she thought it was just a wisp of grey cloud coming out of the north; then she realized that it was traveling against the other clouds, counter to the wind. What in the world could it be? A gigantic flock of birds, perhaps? Yet what were those tiny flashes of bright light in their midst? She squinted up into the bright sky, trying to get a better view.
Suddenly a sharp jab in the ribs made the girl gasp. “What are you doing?”
Nereni hissed. “Pay attention!” Then her eyes widened as she followed the direction of Amahli’s gaze up into the sky. “The Reaper save us!” she gasped.
“Eliizar! Jharav! Beware—we’re under attack!”
And then the Skyfolk came screaming down from above, the light flashing on their swords and spears, and their faces masked in sinister black.
Pandemonium erupted. The crowd in the gardens broke and ran screaming for cover, leaving a swath of trampled bodies behind. Nereni grabbed Amahli’s hand and dragged her across the terrace toward the house, dodging through a confusion of running figures, while arrows came hissing down around them like a black and deadly rain. From the corner of her eye Amahli saw that Ustila was running with them, and that Eliizar and Jharav had drawn their swords and were flanking the women in a brave but futile attempt to protect them.
Amahli felt herself buffeted by a blast of air as Finch and Petrel took off almost simultaneously. Almost immediately she was drenched and half-blinded by a hot and stinking downpour, and a ball of mangled flesh and bloody feathers that was almost unrecognizable as Finch hit the flagstones right in front of her. Amahli screamed, and took her hands away from her face sticky and glistening with the blood of her friend’s father; her father’s friend.—Where was her mother? Amahli looked around wildly, but Nereni had vanished.—Eliizar and Jharav were nowhere to be seen. The terrace was covered with fighting figures, winged and unwinged, and further skirmishes were being waged in the air above her head, raining down great gouts of blood—and worse. The air shook beneath the burden of curses, groans, and screams.
Through a break in the crowd, Amahli saw her friend Oriole kneeling over the body of Finch, one fist pushed into her mouth and her eyes wide and blank with shock, oblivious of the proximity of flashing swords from a confrontation that was being fought right over her head. Amahli grasped at the chance to submerge her own terror in some purposeful deed. Dodging through the melee, she ran to her friend, dropping down on all fours and ducking beneath the lethal blades of tile settler and his winged assailant. Grabbing Oriole’s hand, she tried to pull her friend away. “Ori, come on! You can’t stay there—you’ll be killed!”
Oriole looked at her, wild-eyed, without the faintest trace of recognition.
“No!” she shrieked. “Leave me alone!” Hands extended into claws, she lunged at Amahli—and ran right into the gleaming arc of a descending sword. Blood fountained up from her neck as her head lolled drunkenly to one side. To the stricken Amahli, it seemed to take her friend’s body forever to crumple and hit the ground. Her vision seemed to be darkening at the edges. Blessedly, the hideous world was receding, speeding away from her and growing smaller as it went....
The cracking blow across her face was hard enough to take her breath away and rock her head back on her shoulders. Dazed, she looked up into the white face of Tiercel. “Don’t faint now, you idiot,” he yelled. Only when she felt the wrenching pain in her shoulder did she realize that he was trying to haul her along by one arm while he brandished a sword in his other hand with more enthusiasm than skill. Looking up, she realized that the fight had moved a short distance away from her. Suddenly desperate to put the scenes of horror behind her, Amahli scrambled unsteadily to her feet and let him tow her toward the house.
They had almost reached the safety of the building when there was a whine of wings overhead and a shadow swept across the girl’s vision. She felt a hand pluck at her shoulder, and cried out in fear. Tiercel whirled, his face set with determination and thrust his sword upward. There was a strident shriek of pain, the hand fell away, and a body thudded down almost on top of Amahli. The Skyfolk warrior had been a young woman—with her long, dark hair and dark eyes she could have been Amahli’s older sister. For an instant Tiercel stood staring at the body, frozen with shock and horror. This time, it was Amahli’s turn to pull him away from the gory scene. Then they were running again, the dripping sword in Tiercel’s hand leaving a bloody trail behind them.—The fighting was thick around the door—a small knot of defenders was holding the entrance against a dozen or so Sky-folk. Tiercel dodged round the side of the house, tugging Amahli after him, and broke a window. He laid his cloak over the pieces of shattered crystal in the bottom of the frame and the two of them scrambled inside. From the rooms above them came the sound of more splintering crystal. Tiercel’s grip tightened around her fingers. “Is there anywhere we can hide?” he shouted at Amahli.
“Yes—the cellar. This way.”
Amahli knew every inch of the house. At a run, she led Tiercel to the rear, where the cellar door with its flight of long, dark steps led downward from the kitchen. They had no light—they simply had to scramble down the stone steps as best they might, pulling the door shut behind them. The cellars seemed to go back a long way. Amahli held tightly to Tiercel with one hand and felt her way along the wall with the other, trying to remember the way the vaults were laid out. At last she round what she was looking for—a narrow alcove that extended back beneath the stairs themselves. “In here—quick.”
It was a tight squeeze. They huddled there, pressed together, scarcely daring to breathe while they listened to the screams and sounds of destruction coming from above. After a time, the thumping and crashing died away, and everything went horribly silent. After a moment, Tiercel found his voice. “Maybe it’s safe ...” He got no further. From the house above, the crackle of fire swelled into a roar.