She pulled the stopper out and dumped the clear liquid into the water. The healer was the only one she regretted, but then the healer was the one who had probably made the poisons Vendoin had used on everyone on the sunsailer.
She hoped Vendoin and Bemadin died in pain.
As she closed the cover, the pipes whooshed as someone used one of the water sources somewhere in the ship. That’s that, Bramble thought.
She rolled up the empty skin and hid it under a pile of bags, then slipped back out of the hold to the corridor. She leaned against the door, bracing herself. Now she needed to try to release Merit. If there were too many Hians blocking her way to him . . .
Let’s see how much damage I can do before they catch me, Bramble thought, and crept up the corridor.
After Moon made a couple of brief experiments, it became obvious that a number of the insect-lizards liked the bug paste enough to follow it anywhere. Fortunately they were indifferent to Raksura in either form, and didn’t seem to notice Moon or Stone except to zip out of their way at the last instant. They were only about as long as Moon’s forearm, and their mouths were small furry scoops meant for inhaling small bugs, but there were hundreds of them and in combination their tiny sharp claws could have done some damage had they been so inclined.
Watching their preparations in the gathering darkness, the kethel followed Moon and Stone down to the valley. Plowing through the high grass behind them in its groundling form, it asked, “What do I do?”
“Stay back and don’t eat anybody,” Stone told it.
It didn’t seem satisfied with that, but didn’t object.
Once night settled over the valley, Moon took flight toward the Hians’ boat. He carried Stone in his groundling form, and Stone carried the packet of paste.
A cloud of the insect-lizards followed them up and over the rocks toward the beach, their buzz and whir a dull roar easily covering the sound of Moon’s wingbeats.
The bright beams of the distance-lights were created by the same moss that kept the boat aloft and made the Kishan’s other tools work. The two lights on the starboard side moved in slow patterns over the cliffs and beach, and the two on the port side crossed the sky, watching for anything approaching by air.
Moon had memorized the pattern earlier, and went down the cliff face to the beach in a series of controlled drops, careful not to outpace their insect escort. He and Stone huddled behind a rock at the edge of the beach as the cloud clustered around them, and one insect-lizard landed on Moon’s head. The boat’s distance-light passed over them, then hesitated and returned. Stone, jammed between Moon and the rock, breathed, “Don’t move.”
Moon managed not to, even with the damn insect nuzzling one of his frills. The light made the cloud buzz around even more wildly. Then the beam moved on, the two Raksura hidden by dark rock and silver sand and the flitter of hundreds of iridescent wings.
One distance-light moved down the beach and the other swept over the waves. Moon tightened his hold on Stone and leapt into the air.
That created a vulnerable moment when the rush of air from his wings caused the insects to drop back, but they caught up with him again.
Moon had gauged his angle of approach carefully, and came up under the flying boat’s stern. As the next roving distance-light swept past it caught only the cloud of insects trailing him.
Stone was strong enough to hold on to Moon’s collar flanges without help, so Moon had both hands free to catch hold of the thick wiry moss of the boat’s hull. The boat was stable in the air, and the moss absorbed sound and vibration, so he knew no one had felt his landing.
Stone freed one hand to carefully smear the packet of paste onto the moss, then Moon climbed up the hull away from the now very excited cluster of insects. He stopped well below the boat’s rail, and Stone swung around to grip the moss. It made Moon nervous; Stone’s groundling form was strong, but it wasn’t as if he had claws. “You’ve got it?” he said, keeping his voice below a bare whisper.
“Yeah, go.” Stone started to haul himself up the hull toward the rail.
Moon climbed away toward the bow. He heard a couple of Hians move along the deck, but their steps weren’t hurried.
The steering cabin on this boat was in the center section, lifted above the hull to look down on the bow deck, with two levels of wide windows. One small distance-light lit the bow.
The idea was for Moon to look for the prisoners in the front part of the boat and Stone the back, and Moon hung just below the railing, trying to decide how best to get into the cabins. There were no windows in the lower hull, like there had been on Callumkal’s flying boat. He sensed movement on the deck and realized he had come too far forward. He swung sideways, then hissed as a flash of bright light blinded him.
Above, someone called out in alarm and more voices echoed her. Moon’s luck had just run out. He could have dropped off the boat but getting back up to it without the insect-lizard cloud as cover would be impossible; Stone would be on his own.
Moon made the decision in a heartbeat. If he couldn’t help search for the prisoners, he could provide a distraction.
He swung over the railing, shifted in mid-motion, and landed as a groundling in the center of the light on the open deck. As he stood up out of a crouch he heard shouts and startled footsteps outside the circle of illumination. He could just make out the open galleries on either side of the raised steering cabin that would make good vantage points for the Hians. If someone shot him with a fire weapon, this was going to be a short distraction. The weapons had to shoot a small wooden disk first, that allowed the fire to find its target, so Moon would have some warning. If they used the artifact weapon on him, he suspected there would be no warning at all.
Then from somewhere above him, Vendoin’s voice spoke in Altanic, “Moon. I didn’t expect to see you. I assume the others are with you?”
“I thought you assumed the Fell ate us?” Moon replied in the same language. He placed her location in the steering cabin near a side window or door.
“The moss told us the sunsailer reached the shallows. The others are with you, then?” There was a trace of what might be impatience in her voice. Maybe she didn’t want to talk about the chaos of her retreat from the sunsailer.
“They sent me ahead to talk.” He knew she wouldn’t believe that he was alone, so there was no point in trying to convince her of it.
“That seems unlikely, to me. I know how your queen prizes you.”
Moon bared his teeth briefly. “Well, you never really knew us at all, did you. Just like we never knew you.”
The silence lasted a beat longer than Moon expected. “So what did your queen send you to say?”
“You didn’t talk to the Bikuru who lived near the Hian scholar in the river trade town. They had her maps and writing. Now we have them.” If his and Stone’s theory was wrong, and Vendoin had been able to find whatever she had wanted in the scholar’s house, this was probably the point where Moon would get burned alive.
This time the silence stretched. The lights had drawn swarms of tiny nightbugs, and the insect-lizards from the mounds zipped around just out of range of the illumination. The air was humid and sweat stuck Moon’s shirt to his back. His night vision was ruined by the lights, but he tracked the position of the armed Hians watching him from the deck and the platforms off the cabin above by their breathing and the way their bodies blocked the breeze.
Then a door opened in the side of the steering cabin. Vendoin’s voice said, “Do not move, Moon. I would dislike killing you.”
Moon snorted in derisive amusement. A group of Hians moved out onto the gallery, into the light. Moon had never seen so many handheld fire weapons, even when the Fell had attacked the sunsailer. He recognized Bemadin first, then Vendoin. Then his attention was riveted by the scent of nervous Raksura, and two more Hians dragged Merit forward.