Bone stirred impatiently. “The poison will be either in the channels up inside the colony or washed away downriver.”
“It ate the poisoned kethel’s belly,” Chime pointed out. “Just wait.”
Finally, the dakti had transported most of the corpse inside, and the colony grew quiet again. Moon felt the pull of each passing moment. He reminded himself that if the Fell were eating kethel tonight, it might mean that they weren’t eating Raksura. It also might mean that they had finished off all the Raksura days ago, but for the moment he could hope otherwise.
Near the platform the river bubbled and thrashed. Then the kethel lying under the water suddenly broke the surface, drifting limply.
“There we go,” Moon whispered, easing to his feet. If eating from the poisoned corpse had been enough to kill a kethel, it was enough to kill the dakti.
Bone told Bramble, “Tell the others to signal the queens.”
As Moon turned to creep back down the hill, one of the Arbora made a sound, a call that blended into the distant cries of the nightbirds. Following Moon, Chime whispered, “It’s frightening that this was the easy part.”
Moon and Chime met Jade, Song, Vine, and Sand at the edge of the forest.
“Careful,” Flower whispered, sinking down into the high grass with Bone and the other hunters. For once, she was in her Arbora form, and the pure white of her scales made it harder for her to hide.
Jade led the way swiftly down through the terraced plantings. On the far side of the river, Moon caught a flash of gold as Pearl and the rest of the Aeriat approached the colony from that side. Two queens, nine warriors, and me, Moon thought. He hoped that was enough.
They meant to stay on the ground until they were as close to the colony as possible. Everyone had agreed that the force that had kept the court from shifting seemed to have only been in effect inside the colony itself, and not the outer terraces. But if that had changed, it would be better to find out while on the ground rather than in the air. They all had knives and short spears borrowed from the hunters to use when they were forced to shift, though Moon had no idea how good the Aeriat, used to fighting with their claws, would be with the weapons.
The colony was still quiet. No dakti had come out to see about the second dead kethel, another good sign. Jade paused at the moss-covered stone platform that crossed the river. There was no ground entrance in the wall facing this side, and fewer openings in the levels above, which was why they had chosen it. She glanced back at Moon and the others, saying in a low voice, “Everyone all right?”
Moon nodded. He didn’t feel any impulse to shift to groundling. Chime whispered, “So far,” and the others murmured agreement.
Jade pointed to the ledge marking the pyramid’s highest level and the square opening there. Pearl’s group would be heading for a similar entrance on the same level, but on the opposite face of the structure. “Go quickly,” Jade whispered, then crouched to leap into the air.
Moon followed her, a few hard wing beats taking him up to the right ledge. He landed a moment after Jade and hooked his claws into a chink between the stones. Chime landed beside him; Song, Vine, and Sand lighted further along the ledge.
He didn’t hear Pearl and the other Aeriat, but saw Root duck around the far corner, wave at Jade, and duck back.
“Right,” Jade said under her breath, and climbed through the entrance. Moon slipped in after her, Chime and the others on his heels.
Inside was a small room with heavily carved walls, with images of giant groundlings in heavy armor glaring down at them. Jade had already reached the next doorway, which opened into a wide stairwell. Glowing moss had been knocked down and lay strewn on the steps, still giving off enough light to show balconies in the walls, all hung with the big sleeping baskets. Water ran down from a spout high in the wall, collecting at the bottom of the chamber in a pool with floating flowers. Personal possessions were tumbled everywhere, silk blankets and cushions, torn clothing, broken baskets. Behind Moon, Song hissed softly in dismay.
Jade stepped out onto the landing, and paused to taste the air. Moon couldn’t smell anything but Fell stench, couldn’t hear anything but the trickle of water. Jade glanced back at him, mouthing the words, “You feel anything?”
Moon shook his head. Whatever force had stopped the court from shifting, it wasn’t working on them yet.
They made their way down the well, dropping from platform to platform. Jade stopped at a window in the wall and ducked to peer through it. Moon looked over her shoulder.
It opened onto a broad ledge above a large chamber, the same one where the court had gathered on Moon’s first full day at the colony. It was lit by fading glow moss, and the stone platforms across the back were strewn with furs and cushions. A dozen or more dakti crouched near those platforms, picking at a carcass, gnawing bones. Jade’s spines lifted, and she nudged Moon’s arm, pointing to one of the dakti.
It sat a little apart from the others and, at first, he thought it was deformed. But the odd, smooth shape of its back showed that it was missing wings. A Fell without wings? He hadn’t thought that was possible. It looked like an Arbora, short and heavily built, except its scales were black, with the heavier plates of a dakti. Whatever it was, it had to be the creature Flower had seen through Balm. There couldn’t be two strange new Fell invading the colony. I hope, he thought.
Then, on a landing below, a dakti ducked out of a doorway. It stared up at them, aghast, for a heartbeat, then opened its jaws to shriek.
Jade launched herself down the stairwell and landed on the dakti, crushing it before it managed more than a squawk. Moon leapt after her, landing on the platform just above her.
Then Jade suddenly twitched, her spines flaring in alarm, and shifted to Arbora. An instant later, Moon’s claws vanished and he was suddenly in groundling form. He swallowed back a yell, dropping to a crouch to keep from falling. On the platform above him, Song and Vine landed awkwardly, and Chime crashed into a sleeping basket; they all shifted into groundling form. Moon tried to shift back to Raksura, just in case it was still possible. He felt a pressure in his chest, behind his eyes, and nothing happened. This is almost as bad as the poison, he thought, shoving to his feet. At least he still had his clothes, and the long bone javelin borrowed from the hunters.
Jade shook herself, recovering from the shock, and ducked forward into the doorway the dakti had come through. Moon jumped down behind her.
In the big chamber, the cluster of startled dakti leapt up, hissing, to charge at them. Jade blocked the doorway, and the dakti hesitated, unwilling to attack a Raksuran queen even in Arbora form. One conquered its fear enough to lunge at her, and Moon dropped into a crouch, leaning under her arm to stab at it with the javelin. It jerked back, shrieking, but he didn’t think he had hurt it. Oh, we could be in trouble here, Moon thought, ducking away from the creature’s flailing claws as Jade held the others off. Fighting Fell as a groundling was going to be even less fun than it had always looked.
One dakti bounced up to the window above the ledge, flinging itself through into the stairwell and into Song and Chime. Song grabbed its wing and jumped off the platform onto the steps, using her groundling weight to yank the creature out of the air. Chime scrambled after her, swinging at it with his javelin. Vine grabbed a loose stone from a platform and whacked it in the head.
That only took three of us, Moon thought sourly, as Sand braced himself at the window to try to repel the other dakti. This isn’t going to work.