Jade growled in despair and they jumped for the last landing. The others reached the bottom and bolted through a tall archway out into a hall. Moon spotted Balm, Merit, and—Kalam, braced just outside the door holding a Kishan fire weapon that was almost bigger than he was. River was braced behind him, ready to steady him when he fired the weapon.
Moon and Jade dove down the stairs together, Moon breaking left and Jade to the right. She let go of Stone as they rolled across the pavement of a broad hall, and Stone came to his feet, already shifting into his scaled form. Moon landed hard and rolled into a half-crouch. Still by the doorway, Balm looked up the stairwell. Merit stood a short distance away, doing a hasty headcount of warriors, Arbora, sealings, and groundlings. “They’re all here!” he called.
“Wait, wait,” Balm said, then, “now!” She leapt back from the doorway.
The waterlings flooded down the stairwell, claws hooked into the rock, their jaws open to reveal maws filled with spiny teeth. Kalam pulled the lever back on the weapon and released it. Little wooden disks shot out of the tubes below the big barrel and struck the stairwell and the first group of waterlings. As they surged forward, the weapon erupted in a bolt of fire.
It washed up the stairwell and waterlings shrieked in agony; the stench of burned fish filled the air. The force of it shoved Kalam backward and River caught him, keeping him on his feet.
Vendoin was suddenly standing over Moon, saying, “Quick, quick, this way!”
Moon shoved to his feet, yelling, “Jade, this way!”
Jade started to drag warriors upright. “Come on, that way, follow Vendoin!”
Rorra, still floating on her pack with Delin, came toward them. “Where are we?”
“In that hall, where the trap was, but further on, a good distance past it,” Vendoin said. She started away, flashing her distance-light into the darkness ahead. “Merit had a vision—”
The warriors and Bramble staggered up and after Vendoin and Rorra, Merit urging them on. The waterlings retreated up the stairs, away from the bodies caught in the blast. The fire lit up the stairwell, the sticky substance of the bolt still burning in scattered clumps stuck to the walls. “Again?” Kalam asked over the screaming waterlings. “I have three more shots.”
“No, let’s go,” Balm said, waving him away. River helped Kalam lift the weapon and sling it over his shoulder. Then Kalam used his flying pack to lift off and head down the hall. Moon motioned for River to follow the others and fell into step with Balm and Jade as they started to run. Stone guarded their retreat, backing away from the stairwell and keeping his bulk between it and the Raksura.
They bounded down the hall, following the others’ lights, and Moon hoped it wasn’t far. Behind him, Stone growled, and he knew it meant the waterlings were still coming. Though hopefully far more slowly.
Ahead, lights swung around and started to disappear down another stairwell. Moon, Jade, and Balm reached it to find Kalam and River waiting. Kalam asked, “Should I shoot again from here?”
“No, the boat’s not far,” Balm said, with a glance at Jade. “We’d have to wait for those things to catch up.”
Jade’s spines signaled agreement. “Keep going, maybe they won’t follow us to the boat.”
Maybe, though Moon doubted it. But Balm was right that this wasn’t a good place to make another stand. The stairwell was much wider, and the waterlings could spread out across it and avoid Kalam’s weapon.
They started down the uneven stairs, Balm telling Jade, “You were right about this hall being the way through the city, but you have to go along the canal to avoid the trap. There’s a lock, though, and the Kishan are trying to get through it. The other canals are connected, but they all dead-end—”
“Merit scryed all this?” Jade asked as they hit the next landing.
“Not all of it. We thought it would be Fell chasing you,” Balm said.
Moon hissed as he cleared the next set of stairs. He hoped Merit hadn’t actually scryed Fell inside the city. They had about all they could handle now.
They reached the archway at the base of the stairs and found Vendoin already there, waiting with four Janderi, all armed with smaller versions of the fire weapons. “Are those creatures still coming?” Vendoin called as the Raksura spilled out onto the pavement. They were on a walkway paralleling a canal, and Moon’s sense of direction said it was the one they had tried to follow from the hall above. That had certainly seemed like a good idea at the time.
“They’re still coming, but not as quickly,” Jade answered. The Raksura gathered around, breathing hard from exertion, spines twitching. Rorra and Delin hovered nearby. To the watching Kishan crew, they probably seemed unmoved. To Moon, everyone looked exhausted and half-shattered by nerves. Jade shook her spines out. “Where’s the boat?”
“It’s up this canal, not far.” Balm glanced at her, obviously worried.
“We need to hurry,” Kalam said. “They said if they get the lock open before we get there, they’ll go on without us.”
“Your father is going to leave you behind here?” Jade asked, startled and skeptical. Moon found the idea unlikely too.
“Well, no,” Kalam admitted. “But I don’t want him to have to go against everyone.”
“Fair enough,” Jade said. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was a long walk before they saw the sunsailer’s lights. If the waterlings had made a serious effort to catch them, they would probably have all been eaten because Moon wasn’t sure they could have moved fast enough, even with the Kishan weapons as cover. Stone shifted to groundling about halfway along, and said quietly to Moon, “They’re following us, but they’re up there, in that hall above us.” He jerked his chin up.
“Why?” Moon wondered. “Are they just that territorial? Or hungry?”
Stone hissed under his breath. “That’s a good question.”
The lights grew brighter until Moon could see the battered sunsailer floating in the canal. It faced a huge mold-covered metal door stretched across the hall, blocking the way. From the curving pillars on each end, and the huge gears built into the sides, it looked as if it was meant to raise up to let boats pass below. But it was so old, the dark patina glinting under the lights, and it looked like the mold might be eating it.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” Chime said, weary and sour.
“And the other canals are blocked?” Moon asked, glancing back at the others.
Sounding irritated, River answered, “Yes, they all stop further back. This is a stupid city.”
For once, Moon agreed with him.
The Janderan on guard on the deck saw them and called out. A group was on the walkway, examining or working on one of the pillars. Lights flashed as they turned and Moon spotted Callumkal.
He came toward them, relief plain on his face. “We thought you were lost in this place—”
“We knew where we were, we just couldn’t get back,” Jade told him. Moon could hear an edge of irritated defensiveness in the husky quality of her voice, though he was fairly sure the Kishan couldn’t.
A ramp had been stretched from a break in the boat’s railing to the walkway. Moon was glad to see it, since he wasn’t sure most of them could have made the jump right now. His calf and knee, where the waterling had grabbed him, was one solid ache. As Rorra and Kalam told Callumkal about the waterlings, Moon trudged up the ramp with the others to the deck.
Kellimdar was there, sorting through a pile of tools with two Janderan. He seemed unflatteringly startled to see them. “You returned? We thought . . .”
He let that trail off. Bramble plopped down on the deck and said, “What, you thought we’d decided to live here?”