“You want to kill the Jandera. You don’t have to kill us.” It was a terrible thing to do, to try to offer the Jandera up in place of the Raksura, but desperation made Moon say it. And if they were lucky, no one would have to die. No one except the Hians in this chamber.
“I can’t control the spread.” Lavinat seemed distracted, but Moon wasn’t willing to chance it. She had the concentration of a careful predator. “But unless we destroy the Fell in the east as well, and in the outer Marches and the plains and the drylands, then this is all for nothing.”
There was a shout from the tunnel and the two Hians in flying packs floated out. The figure they shoved along could have passed as a groundling, a big soft-skinned one with braided hair and a kilt that was much the worse for wear. Kethel staggered, clutching its head. The bruises it had collected since they arrived on the docks stood out dark against its pale skin.
Lavinat’s stare was concentrated enough to be a furious frown on any other groundling. “Jendon, what is this?”
“He says he’s from a wind-ship,” Jendon reported. “It must be docked above us, if they’re in these tunnels.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Moon saw Lavinat look down at him. She’s suspicious. Moon rasped out, “Tlar, you should have run the other way!”
“The Fell are everywhere,” Kethel sobbed on cue. Moon found it unconvincing, but he hoped the Hians found other groundlings as hard to read as he found them. Kethel at least kept its head down, hiding its fangs.
Navin said, “Lavinat, we are running out of time. How much longer before—”
Lavinat snapped, “Get him out of here. Throw him back in the tunnel. Kill him.”
Kethel looked up, making its eyes widen in dismay and horror. Some of that was probably real. This was not going the way they had hoped; they were still too far from the cradle. But Moon gathered himself to leap at Lavinat. They had to do this now, Lavinat wasn’t going to let Kethel get any closer.
A Hian reached for its arm and Kethel pushed to its feet, swaying away from her and a few steps closer toward the cradle, faking unsteadiness. “Please,” it rumbled.
Moon shifted just as Lavinat shouted, “Kill him!”
Kethel flowed into its huge scaled form and shot across the chamber to slam into the cradle. The blow shattered the silver lattice and sent the weapon flying. Moon hit Lavinat and sunk his claws into flesh. As they hit the floor he felt the metal of the fire weapon against his scales and had an instant to know she had turned toward him just as he struck her. That the little disks the weapon used to direct its fire were on his chest. Then blinding heat washed up between them.
Moon shoved away from her. For a terrible instant he was numb, but the stench of burned flesh choked his throat and lungs and he knew what had happened. The wave of pain hit a heartbeat later.
He rolled over, desperate to cling to consciousness, to his scaled form. It felt like hot coals buried beneath his skin, like something was in his chest trying to claw its way out. The floor vibrated as Kethel collapsed, fire washing over its scales. The artifact clattered to the floor just past its body.
Kethel spasmed and lost its scaled form, its large groundling shape coalescing with bloody red and black patches instead of skin. Lavinat shouted a desperate command and a Hian ran forward to grab the artifact. But as her hand closed on it she pitched forward and fell to the floor.
The other Hians stared at her, then Lavinat. She took a breath, flexing her hands on her fire weapon, the blood from Moon’s claws running down her arms and chest. Moon had a bitter moment of satisfaction.
But the slate surface of the map was almost above him and he saw spots of red light form on it, like glowing drops of blood. The light started to grow, then to spread in rivulets.
Lavinat said, “It’s still working, it’s working,” her voice thick. Her hands tightened into fists. “Finally.”
Moon tore his gaze away from the slate. He couldn’t watch anymore. They had been wrong about the cradle, wrong, and they couldn’t stop this. He met Kethel’s gaze where it sprawled on the floor. Its expression was torn between despair and rage. It tried to shove itself up and collapsed again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The flower door opened at Shade’s touch. Jade flung herself through but no Hians waited beyond. It led only to a corridor winding down in a spiral. It was barely fifteen paces wide, too small for Stone’s shifted form.
Hissing under her breath, Jade went first, with Stone and Rorra and the others behind her. A tight sensation grew in her chest, the feeling that the delay had been too long, that they had lost their chance.
As she rounded the third turn down, a wooden disk from a fire weapon clattered against the wall barely half a pace from her head. Jade snarled a warning to the others and dove below the stream of fire, then leapt forward into the legs of the Hian with the weapon.
The Hian screamed and went down, the weapon’s fire flowing over the ceiling. Two more Hians stood behind the first, and one tried to run and the other tried to trigger her weapon. Balm, Saffron, and River leapt over Jade and slammed into them. Jade ripped her claws across her Hian’s throat and pushed to her feet.
“They know we’re up here,” Balm said grimly, shaking the blood off her claws.
“Then we have to hurry.” Jade flung herself around the next turn. The corridor opened into an empty round chamber with an opening in the floor. Painful doubt made Jade freeze for an instant. There were no doors. But the Hians had come this way . . . Or at least, had thought this chamber worth guarding.
She motioned the others to wait, then stepped to the opening.
It was a short vertical shaft. A climbing bar spiraled around it, but the bottom rungs had been broken or melted away. She couldn’t see into the chamber it led to, because it was blocked by a dark flat shape, suspended in the air not far below the end of the shaft . . . Jade leaned closer, squinting to see. It was a stone, like a piece of slate, and red spots of light glittered on it, flowing across it like water. Aside from the red lights, it looked like the thing that Vendoin had described to Rorra and the others. She drew back. “That has to be it.”
Spark stepped forward to look, and her spines signaled agreement.
Jade pushed away from the edge and turned to the others. “We need to—” She caught sight of Merit’s face and froze. Merit’s expression was like someone had gutted him. He met her gaze and looked away, but his flattened spines didn’t even twitch.
He’s had a vision, Jade thought. A bad one.
Stone saw her and turned to Merit, but Rorra handed him her fire weapon. “Hold this, please.”
As Rorra pulled the flying pack off her shoulders, Jade forced her spines down and tried to make her expression neutral. We’re not dead yet, she told herself.
Rorra was saying, “I used most of that canister getting through the blocked shaft.” She opened the flap at the top of the flying pack and the acrid scent of the moss flooded the room. River winced and Briar sneezed. Rorra pulled out a ceramic container, a tall thin jar with a stopper on both ends.
“Is that more moss?” Shade asked, stepping closer.
“Yes, this tool and the pack work off the same sort of canister.” Rorra handed him the flying pack, took the fire weapon back from Stone, and began to fit the canister into place.
Jade waved her forward. “If you can lean over the edge, I can hold onto you.”