His scales scraped against a folded metal arrangement that was probably meant to shutter the window, then he landed in a crouch. The room was wide and high-ceilinged, the thick walls carved out with shelves stacked with pottery jars and casks. Jade stood still, her foot claws retracted to keep from making noise on the stone floor, her head tilted toward the door. From this angle, Moon saw it opened into a larger space towards the center of the tower.
The shouting and fire weapons outside covered subtle sounds, but there was movement somewhere past the door. Moon stepped up beside Jade, ready to work out a plan with silent gestures, when Jade bolted through the door.
With a growl of surprise, Moon bounced after her and slammed into three dakti. He ripped the first one apart almost before he registered that Jade rolled across the floor, her claws clamped into a ruler. The second dakti clamped onto Moon’s head and ripped at his shoulders, opening gashes in his scales before he disemboweled it and tossed it aside. The third had almost reached a doorway before Moon caught it and snapped its neck. He turned, hissing, as Jade shoved to her feet, shaking the ruler’s blood off her claws.
This was the central stairwell of the tower, a large round space with various doorways, the spiral of the stairs leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Daylight fell down the open shaft, the heavy metal sliding door pushed to the side. A groundling lay in a dead crumpled heap by the wall across the way, one outstretched hand still reaching toward the stair.
A vibration shivered through the floor as the weapon above them worked again, and outside fire roared. Moon hoped that Stone had stayed on the ground, that he wasn’t the target. Jade stepped toward the stairway. Her expression was a grimace of doubt. Moon knew why; there was no way they could get up through that opening without the Fell having the advantage. They’ll rip our heads off as soon as we stick them up there, Moon thought grimly. Trying to distract them from the outside would be. . . . His gaze fell on the bulge of a large ceramic tank tucked up against the ceiling, right below where the large fire weapon must be. The flying boats had those same kinds of tanks for their motivator. Like those, this one had tubes leading up to it from the floor. And it had levers along the side.
As Jade eased forward, Moon tugged on one of her frills and pointed to the tank. She hesitated, then flicked a spine in agreement, in a way he interpreted as it’s worth a try.
Moon started toward it, keeping his steps silent. Jade flanked him, her attention on the spiral stair. Moon swarmed up the wall to the tank and pulled the levers. Something inside gurgled and the tubes made a whooshing noise. Above them the weapon coughed again, then there was a thunk and a noise like something large gagging.
Moon shoved off from the wall and Jade hissed, “Go, go, get out—”
A progenitor dropped out of the trapdoor and landed beside the stairs. She was huge, and she had her clawed hand wrapped around Ceilinel’s neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“There! There he is!” Heart said. She crouched on a flat rock half-buried in the heavily forested ground below the Kish towers, with First, the half-Fell dakti beside her. Vine and Serene perched in the branches above her. Parties of Indigo Cloud and Opal Night warriors hid all through the trees and heavy vegetation around them, trying to approach the Fell taking shelter in the emplacement. Heart called softly, “Stone, it’s us!”
Stone’s dark form flowed up on the rock and First retreated with a noise of alarm. Stone shifted to groundling and said, “I know it’s you, what are you doing here?”
He looked just the same, weathered and gray, but dressed in groundling clothes that had seen hard use. Heart flung herself into his arms. “I’m so glad you’re all right! We heard—And I had a vision—Is Moon all right?”
“He’s fine, he’s fighting Fell on the boat with Jade.” Stone grabbed her shoulders and looked down at her, baffled. “What are you doing here?”
Vine began, “There are Fell in the towers—”
Stone snapped, “I know there are Fell in the shitting towers!”
Serene finished, “—and we chased them here from the Reaches!”
“Pearl let you do this?” Stone demanded.
“Pearl’s leading us, with Malachite,” Heart told him.
Stone stared down at her, then slowly grimaced, still half incredulous. “Pearl?”
Heart felt a tug on her tail as First whispered, “Ruler has a groundling.”
Heart’s gaze snapped upward. Through the trees she saw a dark figure climb the outside of the nearest tower, a struggling figure tucked under its arm. She hissed in dismay.
“That’s Thiest, the groundling captain. I was looking for her,” Stone said. He shifted and leapt upward to batter the tree canopy aside.
Heart took the opportunity to tell Serene, “Better tell Pearl we’ve found Stone and Jade.”
Serene twitched her spines in acknowledgement and hopped into the foliage, disappearing with hardly a rustle. Vine edged sideways, his head craned to watch Stone.
Stone landed with the groundling in one hand and what was left of the ruler in the other. First sunk further behind the rock.
Stone set the groundling beside Heart and tossed away the ruler’s crushed body. He shifted out of his winged form as the groundling Theist stared at Heart in blank shock. She was gray-skinned with dark braided hair, her chest and shoulders badly scratched, bloody furrows from the ruler’s claws. She breathed hard and seemed stunned, though she clearly recognized Stone. He told her, “We can help your crew, but you have to tell them to stop the fire weapons so we can approach.”
She shuddered, then her expression cleared as she gained control of herself. She glanced at them all, then nodded sharply. “I can do that. Just get me back to the craft.”
Moon didn’t move, his heart pounding in his chest, suddenly aware he was dripping blood onto the floor. Jade let out a slow hiss. Ceilinel was still alive, her eyes wide, her face darkening as she was half-strangled by the progenitor’s grip. This was the biggest progenitor Moon had ever seen, towering over Jade. But he scented fresh blood on her, a smell that made his claws involuntarily contract with the urge to rend. She was wounded, terribly wounded, somewhere under the plates of her scales.
The progenitor said, “You attack us with consorts, too? You are so confident in our destruction.”
Moon held his spines flared though his heart had just contracted in hope. So there are Raksura here somewhere. Jade snarled, and didn’t correct the progenitor’s assumption. She said, “This place was a trap and you flew right into it. You should kill yourself now to save us the trouble.”
There’s two of us, Moon was thinking, we could take her. Maybe we could take her. If they could do it before more rulers or dakti arrived. But it would get Ceilinel killed. Ceilinel wasn’t his friend, but she was right there and still alive and Moon had seen too many groundlings torn apart by Fell.
The progenitor’s head tilted and Moon realized the roar of the flying boat’s weapons had ceased. Outside it was eerily quiet.
Then Pearl whipped down through the trapdoor and hit the floor in front of Moon and Jade.
Jade flinched back. Moon was so shocked he nearly screamed, but managed to keep the sound to a strangled gasp. Yes, that was really Pearl, facing down a progenitor, here somehow from across the Reaches.
Moon had never seen Pearl’s fully extended spines from this angle; when she was this angry, he was usually in front of her. Her growl was higher-pitched than Stone’s but it made his ears ring. Pearl was always impressive when she was fighting but the force of her presence now was hard and vital, the air around her charged like lightning.