Without another word, Jai Long took off.
He couldn't sense any trap in the pack. There was nothing in there that gave off any power. No sealed Remnants or easily triggered constructs, which he had expected. Still, he'd have to check it for mundane traps when he had a chance.
Even if Wei Shi Lindon really had helped them out of goodwill, they had quite a journey ahead of them. Their cursed valley was little more than a legend, though evidence suggested it did exist somewhere to the west. If nothing else, they could find a peaceful place for Jai Chen to grow familiar with her new spirit.
And they would escape the net of the Jai clan. That was the important part. This was a new start.
Whether the heavens allowed it or not, they would never see Lindon again.
Chapter 10
The Skysworn didn't refer to their enormous cloudship as a ship. It was more like a floating city on the clouds, and they treated it as such.
It looked like a jagged fortress of midnight-black stone, each building peaked and sharp. The largest facility was in the center of the cloud, a broad tower that loomed over all lesser structures. It matched the image Lindon had of a dark lord's stronghold, and the rest of the city was his evil fortress in the sky.
It was not at all the image he would usually associate with the Skysworn, a group of sacred artists dedicated to preserving justice and the rule of law.
Renfei and Bai Rou had come down to gather Lindon and the others to bring them onto the clouds above. Lindon wasn't sure if they were chosen as familiar faces, or if they were simply the only two with free time, but he was strangely glad to see them. He didn't know them well, but at least he knew their names.
The massive Bai Rou, his face shaded beneath his woven straw hat, marched in front of them down the paved streets. He pushed his way through the crowds, clearing the way for the people behind him.
Renfei followed behind, the cloud over her head bobbing with every step. She seemed far less serious and more relaxed now that they were aboard the heart of Skysworn power, and she quickly explained why.
“We call this city Stormrock,” she said, as they walked past row after row of tall obsidian buildings. “Costs a fortune in wind scales to keep it aloft every second. If the empire didn't have so many Underlords on wind and cloud Paths, we would never be able to fly it at all. This is the home to almost two million people, when it needs to be, and only about five thousand of those are Skysworn or trainees. The rest are our families, as well as the merchants and farmers and such that we need to be self-sustaining. The Redflower family has quite a presence here, and in times of emergency it actually serves as their family headquarters as well.”
Lindon vaguely remembered the Redflower family: just as the Arelius served to clean and sanitize the Empire, the Redflowers provided food and irrigation, even to those corners of the Blackflame Empire where farming would usually be impossible.
Sure enough, the streets were bustling. People cried out greetings when they saw the green armor of the Skysworn, or else they tried to entice Renfei or Bai Rou into buying some trinket or another. If not for the fact that their party needed medical attention, Renfei said, they would normally have stopped and interacted with at least a few of the city's people.
Yerin lay on Lindon's rust-colored Thousand-Mile Cloud and Cassias lay on a green one provided by the Skysworn. Yerin insisted that she could walk on her own, but she didn't get up. Cassias didn't struggle at all, and Lindon thought he might be asleep.
The people swarmed around them, all going about their ordinary lives, and only the passage of a couple of Skysworn could break their routine.
Well, that, or Orthos' irritation.
The sacred beast had woken up sore and irritated. Not only was he bruised and battered from the crash, but now he was on another cloud instead of solid ground. Only the size of this cloudship had appeased him; when he was inside the city walls, he couldn't tell that he was in the sky at all. Still, he snorted smoke at anyone who passed, and every once in a while pulled up a chunk of the street and munched on it. No one stopped him.
Lindon had thought they would make a strange sight; they had two Skysworn with them, a giant lumbering dragon-turtle, and an old woman drifting on spider's legs. Even he and Yerin would stand out in a crowd, and Cassias was always visible thanks to his golden hair among the sea of black. Not to mention that two of their number were covered in blood and using floating clouds as stretchers.
But despite the admiring looks at the Skysworn and the fearful ones at Orthos, they didn't stick out as much as he would have imagined.
Paths of all kinds were represented here on the streets of Stormrock. A woman passed over their party without looking down from a book she was reading, a half-dozen tentacles extending from her back and swinging her from building to building. A pack of fiery dogs passed through the middle of the street, following their leader, who had a golden crown on his head. They were conversing in quite ordinary human speech about which of them should guard their territory that night. A set of triplets wrapped in identical white ribbons watched the party pass, their eyes in eerie sync.
Words floated in midair, as though the characters had drifted up of their own volition: “Mother Lin's Parlor,” “Goldhammer Soulsmiths,” “The Restaurant in the Sky.” It took Lindon longer than he cared to admit to realize that they were floating business signs, and that realization explained the other signs that were etched in physical material above each building's mantle.
“Second-ranked Soulsmith in the city available for commissions.”
“Ranked number one of all mixed bowls in the city (vegetable-only category)!”
“Number four purveyor of Thousand-Mile Clouds for civilians, but number one in value!”
The experience of the city reminded him of his first arrival in Serpent's Grave: he'd been overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, and smells of the city then too.
But this time, it didn't take him long to notice a key difference: a level of consistent unease. They were high enough that the red light was beneath them, so there were no bloodspawn here, but they must have picked up on something.
Each salesman who called out to the Skysworn also asked them what was going on. Almost half the shops they passed were in the process of packing up and closing. And most of the looks they encountered were nervous and unsteady rather than hostile or curious.
It remained so until they made it to the center of the city, where the Skysworn's true headquarters were. That overwhelming spire that Lindon had noted earlier towered over the rest of the city, and its entrance was guarded by a quartet of men and women in green armor. Two of them also had emerald wings, and they were spread as though to stretch them.
Orthos snorted smoke at one of the guards, but the young man didn't seem to notice. Instead, he asked Bai Rou if there was any news from outside. He seemed as nervous as any of the civilians outside, but Bai Rou reassured him in a steady voice.
Renfei had been keeping up a steady history of the city as they walked in, but Lindon paid closer attention now that they were within the heart of Skysworn power.
She whispered to one of the guards, who flew off over the wall. Skysworn hurried everywhere, the courtyard bustling like a wasp's nest, but Renfei stood calmly in their center.
“We wait here for the healers to arrive,” she said. “Ordinarily we could take them right in, but we're preparing for a new class of Skysworn applicants, and we don't have anyone in urgent danger of death.” She glanced at Cassias as she said this.
“In the meantime, let me tell you about the Starsweep Tower. All these facilities are exclusive for Skysworn and trainees.” Jerking her thumb over her shoulder, she indicated a door of swirling blue light behind her. Lindon only knew it was a door because of the bronze framework and the goldsteel handle at the center. Otherwise, he would have thought it was a portal or a barrier of madra.