It made Jade think about poor Branch, River’s clutchmate, who had been killed by the Fell just before the attack on Indigo Cloud’s old eastern colony. Maybe River could help Root deal with Song’s death. She said, “Briar, go with them and make sure River doesn’t hurt himself.” The scars of the deep claw slashes that had cut through his scales were healing but still visible.
Briar, perched on the roof of the steering cabin, uncoiled and dropped to the deck to follow River and Root. Her spines drooped. Briar was another one who thought this was all her fault, but she had reacted with depression instead of anger. Jade thought, I should have sent her and Chime off with Moon and Stone. Then they’d be so busy trying to keep up they wouldn’t have any time to think. Mostly at the moment she wished she didn’t have any time to think, particularly about whatever Moon and Stone were doing, what might be happening to Bramble and Merit, and to Delin and Callumkal. With the other warriors out of earshot, she said, “Chime. Take a deep breath.”
“I know.” Chime was in his groundling form, probably because he understood all too well just how dangerously tense he was. He buried his hands in his hair and groaned. “I know they’re afraid and worried. I just can’t . . . listen to it anymore.”
Jade squeezed his wrist. “It’ll be all right.”
Chime said mournfully, “It might not be.”
Jade sighed, and pulled him close to press her cheek against his. “I know. Don’t say that to the others.”
She drew back and Chime took a sharp breath and nodded. “You’d better rest, too,” he said, and she let him draw her down the deck toward the cabin door.
The Opal Night warriors, led by Rise, had organized a hunt and brought in enough game to feed all the Raksura, so instead of dried meat and bread, Jade and Balm each had half a grasseater. The hides were covered with short sharp hairs, as hard as metal, possibly due to the spiky vegetation the creatures must feed on. Rise cautioned them about it before leaving them to eat in peace on the stern deck.
“They’re very efficient,” Jade commented to Balm, meaning the Opal Night warriors. It had been a couple of turns since she had been at the Opal Night colony, and she had forgotten how they made Indigo Cloud look like a disorganized mess. She tried not to resent it.
“It makes a nice change.” Balm grinned at her. “I could get used to it.”
Jade pushed her over and Balm rolled on the deck. She landed on her back and looked up at the cabin roof. “Root, are you hungry?”
Jade glanced up but Root had already disappeared. “Is he all right?” she asked Balm.
Balm rolled back to a crouch to continue eating. “I don’t know,” she sighed.
After the meal they went down to their sleeping cabin in the hold to rest. After a brief nap, Jade was almost coherent again when the warrior on watch called out, “It’s Malachite!”
Balm was still deeply asleep, and Jade didn’t wake her when she climbed out of the blankets. She leapt up the stairs and stopped at the railing to watch the small shape in the distance grow gradually larger.
Shade, Lithe, Rise and the rest of the Opal Night warriors had gathered by the time Malachite drew near enough to make out detail. Flicker, Shade’s warrior, whispered, “Does she look mad?”
This nonsensical remark was apparently a running joke. Lithe smiled, the other warriors flicked spines in amusement. Shade snorted and gave Flicker a nudge to the shoulder.
Malachite cupped her wings and lit on the railing, compensating for the wind and the speed of the wind-ship with irritating ease. “Did you find the Hians?” Jade asked, as Malachite furled her wings. At least Malachite’s complete indifference to the customs of Raksuran politeness meant Jade didn’t have to waste time greeting her.
“No.” She stepped down to the deck. She glanced in the direction of Shade and the others, not so much a greeting as checking to make sure they were all still alive and present. “But I found something else. You need to come with me.”
CHAPTER SIX
Jade followed Malachite out over the plain, towards the foothills in the distance.
The territory was even more inhospitable, and the occasional groundling canal curved away from this direction. Jade was glad she had had the chance to eat and rest briefly; when Malachite had said to follow her, she had meant now, immediately, and the reason was urgent.
Malachite had said, “I scented Fell. They’ve been following us at a distance, probably all the way from the coast. They’ve dug in around these hills. Once the wind-ship reaches the end of these plains, they’ll move again.”
Jade had squinted into the distance. “How do we approach them?”
Malachite said, “We fly in,” and leapt into the air.
Jade hissed, looked around at Chime, Niran, and the others. They were all staring, startled and uncertain. She said, “Keep moving. We’ll catch up.”
“Take care!” Niran had shouted after her.
Now they came in low to approach the hills at an angle, sweeping across the stretch of dry sandy ground where the land sloped up. “They’ll see us,” Jade called out.
Malachite didn’t respond, and Jade snarled to herself, I suppose that’s the point.
As they crested the top of the first hill, Jade caught a glimpse of a camp nestled below, where dark shapes moved between makeshift shelters. It was such an odd sight, she thought she had imagined it.
Malachite clearly had no intention of being unobserved. She made a slow circle over the encampment as Jade followed her.
The dakti scouts must have seen them but none took to the air. The Fell had dug into the sandy ground between the outcrops in the base of the hills, creating shallow caves and rough lean-tos made of brush. Dakti peered out from around the rocks, and there were three large pale figures just inside the shadow of a cave. Even from this height, they were clearly kethel in their groundling forms. Jade spotted rough fire pits and the outline of a latrine area. Piles of bones lay nearby, but the broken skulls matched those of the grasseaters the Opal Night warriors had hunted in the plain.
It hadn’t been her imagination. It is an encampment, like the Arbora would make, she thought. Not exactly like; Arbora would have arranged it so it was invisible from the air. But this wasn’t something Fell did. Everything in a flight was geared toward the comfort of the rulers and the progenitor. Those shelters and firepits had been built for the dakti and the kethel.
Malachite finished her leisurely pass and slid across the wind, then dropped to land on a flat rock. Jade followed and landed next to her. Malachite furled her wings and just stood there. Jade did the same, and wondered if they were about to be attacked by the entire flight. It would certainly be a dramatic way to die. She doubted Moon and Balm and all the others would see it that way.
Finally Jade had to break the silence. “The kethel dug caves in the sand. I didn’t know Fell did that.” At least one large flight had used a giant sac, made from the kethels’ secretions, as a kind of shelter, but according to Moon, even it had used fragments of stolen groundling-made ships as supports. It was far more common for Fell to use the ruined remnants of other species’ settlements for shelter, usually while feeding on the other species.
“They don’t,” Malachite said.
Jade tightened her jaw. The urge to disturb that impermeable exterior was hard to fight. “So this is the flight of the half-Fell queen. You want to see her. You want to make sure she isn’t one of your consort’s fledglings.” Queens could see bloodline resemblances that were invisible even to other Raksura; Jade had seen the Fellborn queen only once, briefly, and in the dark. She hadn’t noticed any resemblance to Moon or his clutchmate Celadon, or to Shade, but she might have missed it.