A balmy shadow passed above and Detan tilted his head back, unable to understand what he was seeing. The Larkspur slid in under the cloud of ravenous creatures, drawing hard to a stop just between Detan and Thratia. The ground-anchor was flung from its deck, nearly missing the edge of Happy Birthday Virra!. It bit into the soot-and-ash concoction of the ground, the harpoon at its end spring-released by the pushback so that it gripped the soil and held tight.
The next thing to fall from the Larkspur was Pelkaia.
Detan stared, dumbfounded, as she soared from the ship’s bowsprit, a flat cushion of sel held under her feet completely by will. She hit the ground, knees flexing, sel dissipating but not vanishing – he could feel it, the feather-thin shawl she worked it into, wrapped around herself. Shimmering and distracting, a shifting cloak of light. Not nearly beguiling enough to hide the length of steel that appeared in her hand.
“Pelkaia! No!” Detan called, but she did not so much as glance over her shoulder.
Thratia weighed the cutlass in her own hand, eyed this fresh threat, and smiled. “You’re no more use to me alive.”
Pelkaia did not break her stride. Their blades crashed, steel screeching against steel, the sound piercing through the drone of the bees and Detan’s own sorry yelling. Panic reared up in his chest, bright and wild, as they pushed apart.
Break. Attack. Guard. He didn’t know a lick of the proper terms, could barely recall the word riposte from his ancient schooling, but even to his untrained eye Thratia had the advantage. She was the superior swordswoman. And Pelkaia was tired. Run-down. Desperate.
The weight of holding the cloud bore down on his mind; his fingers took up a tremble not even the deepest of breaths could still.
“Time to go,” Tibs said, impossibly calm. Familiar hands grabbed Detan’s armpits and hauled him upward but he lurched forward, stayed on his knees, unable to peel his gaze away from the blurs of sel and steel.
What Pelkaia lacked in native talent, she sure as shit made up for it in ingenuity. The sel cloud around her she manipulated into sparks of light, threw up tiny walls to cover her feints. He’d never seen anything like it. And he was pretty sure Thratia hadn’t either – otherwise Pelkaia’d be skewered by now.
Thratia parried a thrust hard, twisting so that Pelkaia jerked sideways. The doppel stumbled over ash-slick ground, her side wide open to Thratia’s leisure. Detan called out a warning, but he knew it was no good. Thratia’s blade swung in, almost lazy in its arc, and opened the side of Pelkaia’s hip.
Somehow Pelkaia got a blast of sel between them, bright as day, and shoved it straight in Thratia’s eyes.
“Catari bitch!” Thratia barked.
Pelkaia whirled. The sleek outline of Thratia drew Pelkaia’s blade as a magnet pulls north. The blade skimmed off boiled leather, bit down and caught in thick padding. Detan held his breath as Thratia’s armor peeled open. Before Pelkaia could press her strike Thratia sidestepped and snapped her blade down, batting Pelkaia’s wide.
Pelkaia swore, her shoulder overextended, body pivoting as it moved with the steel. She stumbled, fell hard to one side – hard enough to pop the blade from her grasp.
Trembling, she levered herself to an elbow, reached – scrambling through the scorched dirt – for her weapon. Thratia’s boot pressed into the small of Pelkaia’s back.
“Enough,” Ripka said, taking a halting step toward the fallen doppel.
Thratia looked up. Smirked. “Maybe I will find a use for her alive after all.”
Detan got an idea.
“New Chum,” Detan rasped as quietly as he could. “Be a dear and hold our virtuous watch captain, will you?”
The blessed little steward bowed his head and took a half-step forward to grab Ripka’s arm. It was no great struggle to hold her in place, she was worn through.
Detan caught Aella’s eye, and understanding passed between them. The girl’s face was red, her hair hanging limp and sweaty around her child-pudgy cheeks, but she was ready.
Aella shifted her stance, palms held up toward the skies. She could keep them clear of the backlash – could deaden even the reach of flaming sel. He hoped.
Aella nodded.
“Hey, Thratia! Thratttiiiaaaaa!” Detan raised his voice, praying for all he was worth that Pelkaia would catch his meaning, that she’d ditch what little sel she was still holding onto before he let loose.
“What?” Thratia snarled.
“I suggest you cover your eyes!”
High above, he blew the sel.
A flash so white its very light burned him filled the crater. People cried out all around him, voices so wild with panic he couldn’t tell them apart. Fire boiled in the cloudless sky, great roiling waves of it. Flaming corpses rained down all around them, chitinous bodies turning to charcoal long before they broke upon the ground.
At the moment of ignition he collapsed, Tibs’s grasp doing nothing at all to keep him upright. He laid there for a moment, stunned, drained, watching colors like sunset blossom and blister the sky above. People screamed their fear and their anger all around him, familiar voices merging into one great crescendo of what-the-fuck-did-you-do-Honding. He grunted, unable and unwilling to explain himself.
His anger was gone. He felt… Light. Free.
“Get up, damn you!”
Tibs, good ole Tibs, grabbed him by the wrists and yanked him to his feet. He staggered, his leg reminding him it was in worse shape than his back felt. Tibal shouldered his weight and began to drag him off. He dug his heels in.
“The others!”
“Are fine!” Tibs shoved him forward, the bastard. He was too weak by far to attempt any kind of protest. He tried to turn his head, tried to see what had become of Pelkaia. Of Thratia. But Tibs just kept shoving him along, straight toward the flier’s dangling ladder.
“Sandsdamnit Tibs, let me see!”
Tibs growled low in his throat, a sound so rare that it made Detan’s knees go weaker than they already were. He was about to mutter some apology when Tibs jerked him around, pointing him straight at the scene of the fight. Pelkaia was still on the ground, but she was pushed to her knees and elbows, New Chum and Ripka closing on her fast. Thratia – where? He couldn’t see… oh.
The warden lay on the ground a good ten paces from Pelkaia, curled on her side with one arm flung out. Her chest rose and fell in a reliable rhythm, but that didn’t stop Detan’s stomach from lurching at the sight of the smoke curls peeling away from her, at the scorched mass of her hair. Pelkaia had found something to do with the sel she held, all right.
If Thratia survived this, Detan was a dead man. It might take her a while, but Thratia’d make sure of it. The knowledge settled around him like a mantle, just as heavy as his anger had been. He shuddered.
Thratia’s leg twitched, her head turned.
“Time to fucking go,” Tibs said.
“Wait, the girl!”
“No more waiting!”
“But–!”
Aella pushed herself to her knees and glared at him. “Go, you idiot.”
“I thought–?”
“I didn’t want you around.”
“What?”
She stood and smiled, brushing grey ash from her blue dress. “Callia was always going to fail, Honding. Her circus is all she’s ever cared about – tunnel vision, she can’t see beyond it. And I need her alive, you understand? Alive to stand judgment for her failures. And then, well, I’m the only Valathean-bred and trained body positioned to take the reins she’s dropped. Her manicured heir – everyone knows it. I’m her ward! But you, Lord Honding, could have made things very difficult for me if you’d come around. You and your sour, noble blood.”