'Not him,' she said, tipping her head at Lon. 'The rest of you go.'
Behind them, a dreadful moan issued from the depths of the pit. The blunted arm-stump of the demon compressed as it took the weight of the body below. From the second pallpit, away to their right, an echoing answer came.
'Heart's blood, Nomoru, we will all die here! Deal with this later!'
'Won't be a later,' she said, her voice steely calm, her tangled hair flapping around in the updrafts. 'Weavers and Aberrants everywhere. He knows.' She narrowed her eyes as she looked at Lon. 'Sold us out. Like he sold me out before.'
Kaiku went cold. Lon staggered, his knees suddenly going weak.
'Thought I didn't remember?' Nomoru called over the bellow of the furnaces. 'Thought I was too drugged on root to realise? You gave me to them.'
'Put it down, Nomoru!' Juto said through gritted teeth. 'Whatever you think he's done, if you fire that rifle, you'll be dead before he hits the ground.'
'Never thought you'd see me again, did you?' Nomoru continued, ignoring Juto, focused only on Lon. 'Didn't expect me back. Thought maybe you'd be able to get rid of me. At the same time you got rid of all the others. Juto included.'
'Nomoru…' Juto warned.
'Fixed the obstruction in my rifle,' she said to Lon. 'It'll fire now without blowing up and killing me. Thought you should know.'
'It didn't happen like that!' Lon cried. 'They came for me! I got away, but you were too drugged. You'd smoked too much! I never sold you.'
Phaeca jumped with a shriek as another of the feya-kori's massive arms crashed onto the lower tier of the pall-pit. Through the murk they could see the second one as an enormous silhouette, swelling from the ground as it pulled its body up. The position of the nearer demon's hand-stumps showed that it was clambering out to their right, far too close. At the bottom of the ramp which, they realised in a belated flash, was the the feya-kori's way in and out of the pit.
'Come on!' she shouted at Kaiku over the din. 'Let's go!'
'Not without her,' Kaiku replied, her hair lashing about her face.
'What do you care about her?' Phaeca howled.
'She is one of us,' Kaiku said simply.
'Put it down!' Juto roared, even as Lon tried again to explain to Nomoru what had happened that day, when she had been taken as an adolescent and brought to the Weave-lord Vyrrch, whom she had evaded for days before fortune allowed her to escape during the kidnapping of Lucia from the Imperial Keep.
'You want proof?' she said to Juto. 'Had to wait till I had proof. Went looking around. Weavers are hiding here. Waiting for his signal. He led us to them.'
'No, no!' Lon cringed, almost in tears. 'He sold you! He did!'
He was pointing at Juto, whose face was a hideous rictus of anger. 'Why you gods-damned cur! You'd lie to save your own skin?'
'He's not lying,' Phaeca said.
'What do you know, you cursed she-Weaver?' he hollered over his shoulder.
'You're not a good liar. It's in your eyes,' she replied. 'He's telling the truth.'
A great, dreary moan rose from the pall-pit, and metal screeched as it took the strain of the demon beneath. Nomoru's gaze had moved from Lon for the first time, and was on Juto now. Kaiku dared not look away, but she could sense the massive shape of the feya-kori rising from the pall-pit over her shoulder, could smell its abominable stench.
'You?' Nomoru hissed.
Juto deliberated for an instant, then decided that pretence was not worth it any more. 'You were becoming a root addict, just like your mother. A liability. We could spare you, and it never hurts to be on the Weavers' good side.' He grinned. 'And since your friends over there can't use their powers without giving themselves away, and their rifles are useless like yours was, I think that gives me the advantage.' And with that, he squeezed the trigger and fired.
Kaiku did not even think. Time crushed to a treacly crawl. She was in the Weave before the ignition powder had sparked, was flashing across the distance between them before the ball had left the end of the barrel, and had caught it and torn it apart before it reached Nomoru.
She only just made it. The ball exploded a few inches from the side of Nomoru's face, peppering her in burning fragments of iron and lead. The shot that had fired from her gun towards Lon suffered no such intercession: it hit him dead centre in the forehead and blew out through the back of his head in a crimson spray.
Time snapped into rhythm again. Nomoru flailed backward into the ladder, her hand flying to her face, one side of which was a lashwork of blood. Lon fell to the ground. Juto looked shocked, unable to understand why his target was still on her feet. Then he turned to the Sisters in realisation.
And from above them, a doleful groan, and the Sisters looked up to see the feya-kori towering to their right, half-out of the pit, a slimy mass in the suggestion of a humanoid shape, with a mere bulge for its head in which two yellow orbs fizzed and blazed. Those eyes were turned upon them now.
'Gods,' Phaeca whispered. 'Run!'
Nobody needed another prompt this time. Juto shoved Nomoru aside and clambered up the ladder and away; Nomoru scrambled after him in enraged pursuit, and the Sisters followed. They ran low, hiding themselves in the maze of obscuring pipes, shrinking under the dread regard of the demon. Nomoru was screaming at Juto, who was darting away ahead of them; she was still bent on revenge, apparently careless of the danger they were all in.
The feya-kori dragged its hindquarters out of the pall-pit, emerging from the column of red smoke, rising to its full height of forty feet at the shoulder. Its companion gave a cry, and it responded; then, with a slow and langourous movement, it swept one enormous arm down to crush the four little humans that fled from it.
They felt it coming, sensed the fog sucked away to either side as the stump came towards them, and they scattered. Nomoru threw herself beneath some enormous pressure chamber that was like a barrel of metal in a cradle; the Sisters flattened themselves against a rack of pipes; Juto ran on, seeking to outdistance the blow. The hand slapped down, spraying its acid vileness across the tier. It crashed into furnaces that buckled with the force and blasted steam and burning slag out in furious plumes. But its aim was poor, for they were hidden and it was only guessing where they were; though iron was bent and melted mere feet from Kaiku and Phaeca, they were unharmed.
The Weave was suddenly alive, heavy with activity. Nomoru had not been wrong: it was an ambush. Weavers were here, close by. Phaeca and Kaiku had not noticed them till now, since they were reining in their kana and the Weavers were hiding themselves. The Sisters knitted themselves into their surroundings, trying to become invisible to the searchers; but Kaiku's violent use of the Weave in saving Nomoru had given the game away, and they could not hide for long when the Weavers were on the scent.
Yet across it all was the huge and disorientating presence of the feya-kori, throwing the Weave into disarray. They were simply too massive to work around; they influenced everything with an overwhelming force, confusing the Weavers and the Sisters equally.
The Sisters did not dare to move. They could feel the feya-kori searching for them, like a piqued child looking for ants to squash, its gaze sweeping the pall-pits. Kaiku's heart pounded in an agony of expectation.
Then she saw Juto, spotted him through the buckled pipes before them. He was climbing up to the next tier, still running from the demon. And there at the top of the steps Kaiku saw a pair of Weavers, their Masks turning as they scanned for their quarries. If there had been any doubt as to Nomoru's story, it was dispelled by the sight of Juto heading up towards them, hailing them as he went.
The feya-kori lumbered past them to their right, its steps accompanied by a shriek of metal as it stamped the landscape of the pall-pit flat. It had stepped off the ramp and onto the tiers. Heading for Juto.