This time when Malachite crouched to leap, Jade matched her and they burst into the air together.
Malachite hit the first, largest kethel in the throat. Jade struck its shoulder and scrambled up past the horns, going for its eyes. She had known Malachite’s size and strength gave her an advantage, and she had seen how fast she was in battle. But it was still a shock that by the time Jade reached the kethel’s head, dark blood fountained up from its throat and its wings flapped in frantic alarm. Jade shoved off it, twisted away from a wild grab by the second kethel, then landed on its back. She spared a glance down and saw the half-Fell flight rise out of the hills in a black cloud.
Malachite was so fast, leaving so much carnage in her wake, it was hard for Jade to find targets. She caught glimpses of Consolation tearing through the other flight’s rulers, and her dakti and kethel attacking in a smart, coordinated fashion completely at odds with the way Fell usually fought. By the time Jade ripped open her kethel’s eyes, got knocked sideways from a tail slap by another one, recovered to claw up two rulers, and shredded a half dozen dakti, the attacking flight was in confused retreat.
Malachite shot past and Jade followed her to circle down to land on a hilltop.
As Jade’s claws hit the sparse grass, Malachite dropped two severed ruler’s heads and shook her claws to get the blood off. It was usually important to sever and bury the rulers’ heads, to keep the rest of the flight from being drawn to them. Since the rest of the flight already knew exactly what had happened to their missing rulers, Jade supposed Malachite had only done it to make a point.
As if she needed to, Jade thought. Two of the attacking kethel lay sprawled in the lee of a hill, and the rocky ground was dotted with the corpses of dakti.
The half-Fell circled now, the kethel staying in the air to watch the other flight retreat, while the dakti and rulers started to land back at their camp.
This whole fight should have been impossible. You couldn’t ally with Fell. It was impossible to ally with a being that didn’t see you as anything except prey. But none of the half-Fell flight had even tried to use the confusion to strike at Jade or Malachite.
Jade spotted Consolation circling down toward them. She told Malachite, “We have to get back to the wind-ship.” The Fell had been coming from the wrong direction to have found it, but they couldn’t take any chances.
Malachite flicked blood off her spines and turned away.
Consolation cupped her wings to land down the hill, and called out, “You’re still leaving?”
Malachite paused to look back at her. “We have to return to others who travel with us. We care for each other the way you care for your flight.”
Consolation hesitated, spines signaling confusion, but so erratically it was hard to tell if the gesture was intentional. Then she said, “I’ll keep following you.” It should have sounded like a threat, but it had the air of a stubborn fledgling refusing to obey their teachers.
Jade heard Malachite say, “I’m counting on it,” just before she followed her into the air.
The sun was starting to sink into the horizon by the time they came within sight of the wind-ship again. Jade hissed with relief to see it floating along undisturbed, Islanders on the deck and the glint of scales from the warriors on watch atop the cabins and the mast. But she wanted a private conversation with Malachite, and the ship would be no place to have it.
One of the raised water channels was below. Jade dipped her wings toward Malachite, then turned down toward it. As Malachite followed her, Jade landed on top of a supporting pylon, not far above the water.
The channel was thirty or so paces wide, the water clean except for windblown dirt and the thick purple leaves of the vegetation around it. Patterns and unreadable writing were carved on the channel’s bottom, faded with age. Jade let her gaze follow it, trying to get her thoughts in order. This was not going to be an easy conversation, at least for her.
Malachite landed neatly on the rim of the channel, her dark foot claws curving around it. “We can use the half-Fell to our advantage,” she said, as if continuing a conversation they had already been having. “If the Fell are as agitated as Consolation said, the half-Fell flight may deflect their attention.”
It wasn’t going to get any better, so Jade blurted, “How did you— You made Consolation forget you were there.”
Malachite stared at her, the only sound the lap of water in the channel.
Jade persisted, “I know you can do that to other Raksura. You can do it to Fell?”
Malachite said, finally, “It’s possible.”
“Can you hear them?”
“No.” Malachite stood there like a statue. Then she added, “It’s unnecessary.”
“You can make them hear you.” It had finally started to come together for Jade. All the different things she had noticed herself. The brief accounts she had heard about the destruction of Opal Night’s eastern colony, the rescue of the prisoners taken away by the Fell. What Malachite must have done to rescue those prisoners. Hearing how Consolation had killed her progenitor and taken over the flight, and how the dakti or kethel or both had turned on the older rulers, had finally made Jade understand. She asked, “Is that how you killed the Fell that attacked your colony? You got inside the progenitor’s mind. Without her, the rulers couldn’t make the kethel and dakti obey.”
Malachite looked down, but it didn’t feel as if she was avoiding Jade’s gaze. She touched the water with one claw tip and watched the minute change in the flow. She said, “I made her obey me, and it broke her control over the flight. Many of them killed each other.” She looked up, pinning Jade with her gaze again. “They were not adept at functioning without her. And she had made the dakti and kethel hate each other very much.”
Jade moved her spines in understanding. “Teach me how.”
Malachite’s head tilted. It wasn’t quite amusement, and it wasn’t quite a threat. “It isn’t something that can be taught. Not entirely.”
Jade felt the burn of disappointment. “Are you sure?” She realized an instant later it was a stupid question, a fledgling’s impatient question, but Malachite didn’t react to it anymore than she would have if Jade had said something intelligent.
“You have to want it very badly.” Malachite looked away into the distance, toward where the flying boat would be by now. “But you must be careful of what you want.”
“I don’t want it,” Jade said honestly. “But I might need it.”
Malachite’s tail twitched once. “I hope you don’t,” she said, and then turned and launched herself into the air.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Court of Indigo Cloud, in the Reaches
The arrival of Celadon, the sister queen of Opal Night, and her two hundred warriors went better than Heart had expected.
Celadon had been greeted formally by Pearl, then taken up to the queens’ hall for tea and to meet Ember. Since Opal Night was already a bloodline ally, Heart and the other chiefs of the Arbora castes had stayed in the greeting hall to help with sorting warriors and supplies.
Indigo Cloud’s colony tree was large enough to take in a much bigger group than this without crowding, and most of the preparations had revolved around cleaning out unused bowers and getting the lights and heating stones ready. The teachers had been sorting the food stores and bringing in everything ready to harvest, with the hunters working hard to bring in more game to preserve. Even though Malachite had said her warriors would be prepared to do their own hunting, they still had to be ready to supply a number of meals. They had also warned the Kek, the people who lived under the roots of the colony tree on the floor of the Reaches, and made every other preparation for Fell attack that anyone could think of. Heart just hoped it would be enough.