“I wouldn’t go that far,” Moon said. He turned to Stone and pointed north, toward the leviathan’s head. “The mortuary temple is back that way.”
Stone’s mouth twisted in an ironic grimace. He said, “Let’s hope Ardan’s not expecting us.” Then he shifted.
Stone’s larger body flowed into being so fast that Esom yelped and bumped into Chime as he flinched away. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m just not used to it when he does that.”
Chapter Sixteen
Moon led the way across the dark space, finding the way back toward the mortuary temple. They moved in long bounds, and Chime carried Esom. That had to be rough on Esom, though.
Chime had partially extended his wings so he could make each landing a fairly light one. Esom didn’t complain, but kept a grimly tight grip on Chime’s collar flanges. There wasn’t another choice. They had to move fast and they couldn’t leave Esom behind down here.
The foundations and heavy buttresses above them dropped even lower, the columns grew wider. Then Stone came to an abrupt halt, head cocked as he listened. They all stopped and froze into place. Moon tasted the air, but all he could scent was rot and leviathan. It was hard to hear over the rush of the leviathan’s breath, but he was certain there was a voice from somewhere to the east, not far away. An oddly familiar voice. Incredulous, Chime whispered, “Is that Root?”
Before Moon could answer, River interposed, “Of course it is. He’s the only one who can’t shut up.”
“He’s not the only one,” Moon told him. Stone growled low in his throat and bounded away to follow the thread of sound.
The supporting pillars were closer together through this area, blocking the view, but as they traveled Moon started to make out some movement in the hazy light ahead. At least it was no mystery how the others had gotten down here. Vine and Drift would have seen Ardan’s men enter the mortuary from the main entrance, and had gone back to the tower-camp for help. Now they must be trying to find the underground entrance to the temple, which was what Moon would have done in their place.
Ahead, dim light glittered off scales and Moon spotted the Raksura, gathered with their backs to a pillar. He couldn’t tell what threat they faced… Then his eyes adjusted and he thought in disgust, Oh, that’s typical. The Raksura confronted a large group of the pale armored Thluth.
Moon shot ahead of Stone, River, and Chime. Coming up behind the Thluth, he swarmed up the nearest pillar, hopped to the next to get above them. In the group of Raksura he saw Vine, Floret, Song, Root, Drift… And Balm! She was leading the others, and faced the Thluth leader, her spines bristling. Relief was sharp and almost painful. Balm was alive; he just wished he could tell Jade.
And there was one extra Raksura: Rift was here, too.
Moon saw enough to tell the confrontation with the Thluth was angry. The Thluth seemed to be demanding tribute and Balm and the others weren’t taking it much better than Moon had. The Thluth leader spoke, pushed forward aggressively. Balm lunged to swipe him back.
Then Stone slammed between the pillars and sent the Thluth scrambling frantically away. Moon leapt down behind the leader.
He wasn’t certain if this was the same tribe of Thluth, but apparently it didn’t matter. The leader spun around, saw Moon, and bellowed a wordless warning. It wasn’t needed, since the other Thluth were already loping rapidly into the shadows. The leader bolted away, desperate to catch up with the others.
Chime and River arrived, and Esom staggered away as soon as Chime set him on his feet. Then Karsis darted out from behind the pillar and flung herself at Esom. They hugged each other, speaking rapidly in their own language, Karsis laughing with relief. Moon tried not to be envious.
“Balm!” Chime shouted. He grabbed her in a hug, and released her immediately when she gasped, “Ow!”
“Are you all right?” Chime asked her worriedly, holding onto her arm to steady her. “We couldn’t find you. We thought you were dead!”
“No, I’m fine,” Balm insisted. At close range, she didn’t look fine. She had scratches and dark patches in her golden scales, and her left wingjoin had a dark, livid scrape. She asked, “But what happened? I thought you were trapped.”
“We got out the hard way,” Chime told her. “It was horrible, but it worked.”
Drift greeted River enthusiastically, Root bounced around trying to greet everybody, and the others gathered around, excited, relieved, and demanding immediate answers. Only Rift hung back, watching them uneasily. “We thought the groundling sorcerer had you,” Floret said to Moon. “Balm saw—”
Balm frowned suddenly. “Wait, where’s Jade and Flower?”
Moon said it quickly, to get it over with. “They didn’t get out. They were trapped in that dome we found. We opened it, but then the warden-creatures attacked, and the door slid shut.”
That put an end to all the relieved excitement. Balm hissed in dismay, and looked from Moon to Stone. “Are they all right? Can the sorcerer get to them?”
“We don’t know.” Moon didn’t want to think about that right now. “How did you get away?”
Balm’s spines flicked in agitation, but she let her question go. “The waterling threw me back toward the other side of the chamber, and I hit the wall and fell to the floor. I must have been knocked out for a time. The next thing I knew, some groundlings ran right past me. When I managed to stand, those warden-creatures swarmed me and I flew up the first passage I found. It was the one that went outside to the plaza, where the guards were. They shot darts at me, but I got past them.” Her expression was bleak. “I found Vine and Drift, and we tried to get back in through the entrance in the flooded area, but the magical barrier was still there. So we went to the tower to get the others, and we decided to come down here to look for an underground passage into the temple.”
“That’s where we’re headed now,” Chime told her.
“You brought the solitary and the groundling woman?” River demanded, with an angry gesture at Rift. “What was the sense of that?”
“I told her not to do it,” Drift said. He sounded self-righteous about it, despite the fact that he had a fist-sized swelling around his left eye and another one low on his jaw. Moon hadn’t seen any of the Thluth land a blow, so it had to have happened earlier.
Rift, who had been hovering in the back to listen, twitched uneasily and looked away. Unexpectedly, it was Floret who rattled her spines and said, “The groundling woman showed us where the entrance to this place was, the one above the leviathan’s tail.”
Her voice flat and angry, Balm added, “We couldn’t leave them there. Rift would run away, and if we were all killed, Karsis would be stuck up in that tower unable to get out. I was going to just let her go, but she said she wanted to come along to find her brother.”
Moon flicked his spines at River, and told Balm, “No, you did right.” Stone touched her frills lightly with one claw tip, sympathy and reassurance combined. Moon looked around at the others. “We need to go.”
Balm nodded. “We think it’s this way.”
As the others moved away, Moon stopped her with a hand on her arm. He asked quietly, “What happened to Drift?” If Rift had tried to escape and Drift had gotten hurt stopping him, Moon needed to know.
Balm’s spines twitched at the memory. “He tried to take over the group, so I had to fight him. I didn’t trust him to do the right thing, and I knew we had to get back to Jade fast.” She hesitated, then in a mix of pride and relief said, “When I won, I was still afraid the others wouldn’t follow me, but they did.”