After they had talked out all the details, Moon crawled under some tree roots near the blind and shifted to groundling to try to sleep for a while. There weren’t any more preparations to make. Flower had collected a pack for them containing a few supplies donated by the hunters, but all the collection amounted to was some fruit and dried meat, flints, and a couple of blankets. He was too jumpy to get much rest, and woke instantly when he sensed someone approach.
It was still dark, though he could feel dawn gathering on the horizon. It was nearly time to leave. He eased out of the roots and made out Jade’s distinctive shape stepping silently through the moss and leaf loam. She paused to whisper, “I’ll tell Flower we’re leaving.”
“I’ll be here,” he told her.
Jade vanished into the dark, and Moon made his way to the blind, easing between the bundles of brush.
The small knot of glow moss strung from the roof showed him Stone’s still shape, the slow, deep rasp of his breath the only sign of life. Chime, several hunters, and the two teachers slept in here. Niran was against the far wall, wrapped in a blanket and snoring quietly. Fortunately, Chime was in the outer row of bodies, and Moon didn’t have to step over anybody to get to him.
When Moon squeezed his shoulder, Chime snapped awake immediately, blinking nervously up at him. Moon put a hand over his mouth before he could speak, and nodded for Chime to follow him outside.
Some of the Arbora stirred sleepily, but no one sat up as they slipped out between the walls of brush. Picking his way through the dark, Moon found his hollow in the tree roots again, sat, and drew Chime down next to him. It was too dark to make out expressions, but maybe that was a good thing.
Moon knew the sentries were too far away to hear, but he still kept his voice to a low whisper.
“I need you to look after Niran. Make sure he has food he can eat and that, if you have to move, he’s not left behind.”
“I will, I’ll make certain.” Chime hesitated, his shoulder brushing against Moon’s as he twitched uneasily. “There’s been whispering that you and Jade are going to go somewhere, to get help. If that’s not it, don’t tell me. Then I can’t be made to... If the Fell catch us...”
“The Fell aren’t good ground trackers. They won’t find you here.” Moon hoped that was true, but showing doubt to Chime wouldn’t help anything.
Chime slumped a little. “That’s what Pearl is saying.”
“She’s not always wrong,” Moon admitted, trying not to sound sour about it.
“We can hope.” Chime took a sharp breath. Then he leaned close, and Moon felt warm breath and a sharp nip under his ear. Chime whispered, “Be careful,” and scrambled away.
Moon listened to him make his way back to the blind. This has to work, he thought. It has to.
Chapter Twelve
Moon and Jade left before dawn broke and flew through the day like arrows.
They flew over the jungle, then hills, then the edge of the grass plains, heading toward the mountains. They pushed themselves hard, stopping only briefly to rest, and at the end of each day they were too exhausted to talk about anything except whose turn it was to hunt. Moon thought that was probably a large factor in how well they were getting along.
They were one day into the mountains when Moon started to have some concern about their route. They settled for the night on a ledge on a gentle slope, sheltered by trees made of hundreds of vines, winding around themselves to form tall straggly bundles.
Moon and Stone had come through these ranges at a different point, and the cold, the strong winds and the lack of game had made it a rough crossing. Now the view of the terrain that lay before them was nothing but endless, barren slopes, snow-capped peaks, and sharp cliffs. This way was more direct, but Moon thought that maybe they should have taken an extra day and entered the mountains further south, that maybe Stone had chosen that route for a reason. But it was too late now.
He was about to tell Jade his concerns when she lifted her head, tasting the air. “Fell.” She snarled. “How are they following us? This is ridiculous.”
Moon stood and took a deep breath, holding it to examine the scents. She was right, not that he had doubted; mixed in with rock, damp, the rank odor of the predators that prowled the nearby canyon, was the distinctive taint of Fell. He suppressed a growl, since Jade was doing enough of that for both of them. “They must have seen or scented us when we left the valley.”
Except that didn’t seem possible. The Fell shouldn’t be able to track them by scent; they were flying downwind. And no one could have betrayed them. The others hadn’t seen them leave, and Flower and Pearl didn’t even know which way the Cordans’ settlement lay.
Jade tapped her claws on the rock. “Or...” She grimaced. “The Fell seemed to have a queen’s power over the court. They couldn’t shift to fight or run. This is like a mentor’s power, the power to point the Fell in the right direction to find us, to see us in visions.”
That idea made Moon’s skin crawl. But he didn’t want to give up. For one thing, he still hadn’t thought of any better way to attack the Fell in the colony than the poison. And it wasn’t just the Indigo Cloud court that needed saving. He thought about all the groundlings he had met over the turns, all the cities and settlements. The Fell had already caused enough death and destruction. If they were actually getting worse, somehow becoming more powerful, he couldn’t imagine what that would be like. “We’re close. Once we get past the mountains, we’re there.”
“Yes, I think we should go on.” Jade rolled her shoulders and settled her frills. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Fell just saw us leave, and have been lucky enough to track us. If that’s so, we should be able to lose them in the mountain currents.”
Moon hoped she was right.
They were only halfway through the mountains when the sky turned against them. They had to fight the wind, and the clouds closed in to weep cold rain and ice. Moon thought this was probably the reason Stone had taken the more southern route. Their only hope was that the Fell following them was something less than a major kethel. If that were the case, then it would be just as affected as they were.
After two more days fighting the cold and the wet, they were both exhausted. Then in the late afternoon, Moon caught the hint of wood smoke, and a more acrid scent of hot metal, as if there was a large working forge somewhere upwind. On impulse he followed it. The slopes below them were all barren rock, and wood smoke meant trees and a sheltered valley that might give them some relief for the night.
It was nearly evening when the smoke led them over a pass, and Moon was startled to see the source. Between two peaks, ringed by crags and cliffs, was a groundling city.
It was like a small mountain itself, but made of metal as well as stone, built on a giant circular plateau that seemed suspended in the pass. The buildings were made of heaps of raw stone, forming odd-sized towers, supported by discolored metal beams. In the failing daylight, lamps glittered from windows, and smoke and white steam drifted up from hundreds of chimneys. Moon could make out the shapes of groundlings moving in the narrow streets, but he thought his eyes betrayed him because the city, the whole giant plateau, seemed to be slowly turning.
Moon cut in toward the nearest crag and landed on a ledge where he could get a good view. From this angle, he could see that the plateau beneath the city was probably two or three hundred paces tall, and the edge was studded by thick, heavy pillars, like the spokes of a wheel. Water rushed out from under it, a great torrent falling down to a narrow lake below. The platform wasn’t a natural plateau but a giant wheel lying on its side, turned by the force of the water. That’s new, Moon thought, impressed with the groundlings’ ingenuity.