Jade stepped forward with Callumkal. Balm moved a step sideways, putting herself between the dakti and Moon, Chime, and Stone.
Callumkal asked Jade, “How do we begin?” He sounded a little uncertain and Moon thought, Good. Overconfidence wasn’t going to help anything.
The angle of Jade’s spines suggested that if they had to do this, they might as well do it thoroughly. She said, “Just wait. There’s no point speaking to the dakti itself.”
Watching uneasily, Kellimdar said, “Does it understand us? If the rulers won’t speak through it, perhaps we could offer to release it to carry a message to them.”
Jade flicked her spines in a negative. “It’s hard to explain, but that wouldn’t work.”
The dakti would know the rulers would probably kill it for showing that much initiative. Moon figured all the dakti who were capable of thinking for themselves and resisting a ruler’s commands were either dead, or had slipped away from their flights and were living happy though lonely lives in a forest somewhere.
Callumkal said, “I’ve heard speculation that they are a group mind, incapable of individual thought. Delin said it was a theory, but nothing was known for certain.”
Jade’s spines relaxed a little at these signs of understanding. “He’s right, we don’t know, for certain. They act as a group mind much of the time, share memories with each other. But sometimes the rulers act as individuals, so we don’t know who has the control, if it’s a group of the rulers or the progenitor or . . . something else. But the dakti and kethel have been bred to be obedient.”
Moon heard Rorra’s boots on the deck behind them and a moment later she stepped up beside Chime. She must not have heard about the dakti, because her expression was wide-eyed and incredulous. She muttered something in a language Moon didn’t know. It sounded exasperated.
Then the dakti stirred and stretched its head up.
Everyone went still. The dakti’s mouth opened and its throat worked. A voice, grating and hollow, said, “So here we are.”
Moon’s skin prickled as if he had just been dipped into freezing water. No matter how many times he had seen a ruler do this, it never got easier. Maybe because the dakti clearly had no choice, no identity once the ruler took over. Maybe because it seemed so easy for the Fell to give up that identity.
Callumkal said, “And who are you?”
The voice said, “A friend. You seem sorely in need of friends.” It would have been a chilling moment, but Stone made a disparaging noise in his throat clearly audible to everyone on the deck.
The Fell spoke in Altanic. Fell always spoke their prey’s language, which meant this flight might come from the eastern peninsula, where that was the most common trade language among groundlings. It also might mean it came from closer to Kish, and just didn’t want to reveal that by speaking Kedaic. Or possibly Moon was overthinking this.
Jade leaned toward Callumkal and said, keeping her voice low, “They always speak that way to groundlings, at first. They always call themselves friends.”
Callumkal made a gesture of assent. “So I’ve heard.”
Kellimdar whispered, “It’s disturbing to see it in practice.”
Moon felt the tension in his chest ease a little. Chime, who had apparently been holding his breath this entire time, gasped.
Callumkal raised his voice to say, “We are in need of friends. We’ve just been attacked by Fell.”
The ruler who spoke through the hapless dakti said, “We attacked the Raksura.”
Rorra, standing with her arms folded, snorted in derision. Callumkal said, “The flying craft did not belong to the Raksura.”
Moon sensed the mood on the deck turn from uncertainty and fear to something more grimly angry. All the Kishan were focused on the dakti, and no one looked at the Raksura. Moon suspected the loss of the flying boat and the dead and injured crew aboard it was not going to be easily excused by any of them. It was a relief.
“So what did they want, then?” Chime whispered. “They could have approached the Kishan like they normally do, tried to trick them. Why attack openly?”
It was a good question. Moon noticed Rorra leaning close to listen. He said, “Maybe because they’re Kishan. Maybe the Fell thought it wouldn’t do any good to try to trick them.”
Stone muttered, “It’s not going to be that simple.”
The fact that the ruler hadn’t answered immediately was telling. Though what it was telling, Moon wasn’t sure. Then it said, “It can’t be discussed in this manner. We must meet with you.”
Callumkal didn’t appear convinced by that argument. “I’m having no trouble discussing it in this manner. Just tell me what you want from us.”
There was a pause. “We want to help you enter the city.”
Callumkal’s whole body went tense. He looked at Kellimdar, who shook his head and muttered in Kedaic, “Playing with us like toys.”
Callumkal said to the dakti, “You have an odd way of helping us, destroying our flying craft, killing our people.”
The Fell said, “That was the Raksura. They attacked us.”
Moon wanted to growl and managed not to. Fortunately, Callumkal and Kellimdar, whatever his doubts, didn’t appear to believe any of it. Callumkal said, “We don’t want your help.”
The Fell said, “But you want to enter the city.”
Jade flicked her spines impatiently. “If you want to help, tell them where the door of the city is. On top of the escarpment? Somewhere on a cliff? Around the base where the water meets the rock? Tell us.”
The dakti made a choking noise, coughed up a dark gout of blood, then collapsed. Most of the Kishan flinched back. After the dakti lay still for a moment, a Janderan approached cautiously and poked it with the butt of a fishing spear. It didn’t move. She said, “It’s not breathing.”
The other Kishan cautiously moved closer. Stone tasted the air, and said in Raksuran, “It’s dead, all right.”
“Abrupt way to end a conversation,” Callumkal said sourly. He turned to Jade. “Will they be back tonight?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced at the sky. “But they will be back.”
“So why did they bother to talk?” Moon asked Stone. Chime leaned over to listen to the answer. “To see if we were still allies with the Kishan?”
“Maybe,” Stone said. “Maybe they just wanted to see how badly we wanted to get into the city.”
Jade had managed to sound skeptical and indifferent about the prospect, and Callumkal had made it clear he wasn’t interested in help from the Fell. But that didn’t tell them when the Fell would attack next, or how.
“They want to keep us here. That’s why they destroyed the flying boat,” Chime said, keeping his voice low. “We could have put all the groundlings on it and taken off downwind, and the Fell couldn’t have tracked us. Now, they have us trapped.”
Balm glanced back, her expression grim. “Hush.”
“They were testing us,” Callumkal was telling the Kishan crew. “Testing our weapons, testing the Raksura.”
Someone said, “But was that all of them? If it was, we can hold them off here.”
Everyone looked at Jade. Her spines tried to rise and she forced them back into a neutral position. She said, “I don’t know. They might have held back part of the flight.”
Balm said, “We need to know where they’ve nested. If it’s nearby, I don’t know, maybe we could get close enough to see how many there actually are.”
“That’s a big maybe,” Stone said. He added, under his breath to Moon, “But it’s a good idea.”
It was a good idea. Moon wondered if Callumkal had a map showing nearby islands, or if there were any flying islands in this area.