Moon launched himself off the wall, veered away as River did the same. Root went too low and almost ended up in the water, then flapped his way to an unsteady recovery at the last moment.
Moon flapped upward. The first group of dakti shot toward River and Root. Their night vision must be dazzled by the distance-lights, and they hadn’t seen Moon, his dark scales fading into the night. He waited until they bunched up, nearly on top of River, and then hit them from above.
Dakti shrieked and tried to scatter as Moon tore through them and slashed their wings, slapping them out of the air. River slammed through a knot of survivors who tried to regroup and Root came up from below to tear through three stragglers.
Chasing stray dakti, keeping them away from the escarpment, Moon rapidly lost track of time. Suddenly he was circling, looking for prey and finding none in sight. The sunsailer still held its own, closer to the escarpment than it had been but not impaled on any rocks. The Kishan had managed to turn one of their weapons to point down over the side. The fire bundles thumped down into the water, glowed under the waves like some strange sea creature, then went out, but it was working. The huge sealings who had managed to get close stayed back from the hull, thrashing angrily in the water.
Moon gained some more altitude, trying to get a look at the situation further out. He saw Jade and the female warriors circling, driving off or killing the dakti who darted at them.
A small number of dakti were the only ones trying to get to the sunsailer, because most of the other Fell were attacking each other.
Moon stared, trying to make sense of it. He saw distinct swarms of dakti, striking at each other and falling back. Rulers flicked back and forth, darting at each other. Near the beach, three kethel fought in a confusing mass of wings and tails. Another dead one lay in the waves, next to the one that had been killed last night. Taking advantage of the situation, Stone dove on one of the sealings, snatched it up in his claws, and flung it away across the water. What the shit is going on? Moon thought.
Movement in the water caught his eye and he swung around, but it was Bramble, just pulling herself up onto the docking platform. She ran over to the pillars, studying them in the light of a glowing sea-weed clump Merit must have made for her. Moon growled under his breath at the danger she was putting herself in. But he realized that while Delin and Chime and Merit had all made extensive drawings of the symbols, it was all sitting back on the ship, because Moon and Jade hadn’t given them any time to go get it. Bramble must have needed to check on what exactly was carved into the pillars.
A group of dakti came in low over the water, past the bow of the sunsailer, and River and Root dove for them. Moon hung back, waiting to see if it was a distraction. But the Fell fighting with each other near the island couldn’t be a distraction. Not unless it was the dumbest distraction anyone had ever thought of in the long and varied history of the Three Worlds.
Then Moon saw a dark shape swoop on Bramble. He dove, pulled in his wings and arrowed down. Closer, he saw it was a ruler, and it had her pinned to the dock platform. Moon had never been blind with rage, the way he had heard some groundlings describe it. He had been so consumed with killing that it blotted out all rational thought, and that was what he was now.
He snapped out his wings at the last moment to retain control over the strike and slammed into the ruler. He knocked the ruler away from Bramble and down onto the stone dock. They slid a good twenty paces, the ruler on the bottom. Moon reached to tear the stunned ruler’s throat out. Then a voice behind him called, “Let him go!”
He twisted around. Another ruler gripped Bramble’s shoulders. Then he saw it wasn’t a ruler; it was the half-Fell queen.
She had the Fell crest and the Raksuran spines like Shade, Moon’s half-Fell half-clutchmate, and her scales were matte black, like a ruler, like a Raksuran consort. The light from the ship caught a reflection off a web pattern of contrasting scales, like a queen’s. Her voice harsh, speaking Altanic, she said, “You let him go, I let her go.”
Moon, now terrified as well as enraged, was paralyzed for an instant. If I let him go, he’ll kill me and she’ll kill Bramble. You couldn’t bargain like this with Fell, you couldn’t. Fell lied like it was breathing, they didn’t see any other living thing as sentient.
Then the Fell queen pushed Bramble away. Bramble staggered, then scrambled out of reach, toward Moon.
Moon, almost by reflex, dragged the ruler upright and shoved him away. The ruler staggered, then ran to the queen.
Bramble reached Moon’s side, panting, wild-eyed.
The queen caught the ruler around the waist and leapt into the air. Moon shoved Bramble behind him and spun to watch the queen, certain it was a trick. But she spread her wings, caught the wind, and vanished into the night.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bramble choked on her first attempt to speak, then managed to gasp, “So what was that?”
“I don’t know. Are you all right?” Gripping her shoulder, Moon could feel her trembling.
“Sure.” Bramble wiped an arm across her face. “I need to get back to Delin and Merit.”
“Why’d you come over here?” Moon picked her up and she clung to his collar flanges. “For the symbols?”
“Yes.” She tightened her grip as Moon leapt into the air. “Delin didn’t have a chance to bring his notes and he couldn’t remember the different ways they were all pointing and I wasn’t sure which ones he was trying to remember.”
Moon landed on the top of the pillar and gauged the distance to the cliff wall. From this angle he saw Merit and Delin, huddled on the ledge, examining something. Merit had made several clumps of vegetation and sea wrack glow, and there was just enough light to make out their shapes. Chime had climbed up about thirty paces and clung to the wall.
Moon crouched low, and Bramble tucked her head down. He pushed off as hard as he could, flapped once for stability and distance, and hit the side of the cliff. He slid down a little, getting a close look at the coral substance covering the rock as it cracked and fragmented under his weight. His claws caught hold and he started to climb toward Chime.
As Moon reached him, Chime scraped at the rock, exposing more carved symbols in the light of a clump of moss he had jammed into a crevice. “Any luck?” Moon asked.
“Not so far.” Chime peered at him. “You’ve got Bramble?”
“I almost got eaten by Fell,” Bramble informed him. “I’m climbing down, I need to tell Delin which symbols.”
“What?” Distracted, Chime stared at her as she transferred her grip from Moon to the rock face and started down.
“The half-Fell queen is out here,” Moon said. From the yelling below at Bramble’s reappearance, it was obvious that her decision to jump in the water and swim to the dock hadn’t been approved by Merit or Delin.
Chime groaned with dismay, and went back to scraping at the coral growth.
Moon half-twisted around so he could watch their backs, holding on with one hand. From the sunsailer, he heard metal creak and groan under the strain. He asked, “What are you looking for?”
It was a vague question under the circumstances, but Chime answered, “Merit said there was a good chance the door doesn’t open from the outside, because when the city was alive, someone would always be there to open it for visitors. They wouldn’t want just anybody to be able to get in.”
Moon saw movement in the air near the sunsailer, a dark shape, more than one dark shape, just on the edge of the light. Then a blue figure flashed past and hit the dark shape in midair. He gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to fling himself off the rock and join the fight. “That’s not encouraging.”