She stirred, lifted her face. “You’ve been flying this whole time?”
“Only way to get here.”
“That’s insane.” She didn’t sound too surprised, her voice thick with sleep. “Since we’ve actually survived and gotten this far, it might be time to discuss a plan.”
“I’ve been mulling one over.” Scorio beat his huge wings powerfully so that they forged forward anew, rising slightly through the sere air. “My name’s been slandered. I’ll need to keep a low profile and look for friends.”
“Your friends are all dead,” said Naomi harshly.
“There’s one who might help. Ravenna, with House Kraken.”
“Oh, right.” Naomi’s tone turned stiff. “I forgot about your connection. It lasted all of what, one night?”
“House Kraken’s been crippled by Praximar. She’s got reason to loathe him. We reached an understanding that night. She might be willing to orient us, help us understand how the city’s changed. Perhaps arrange a meeting between us and Octavia.”
“Steer clear of Autocrators. They’re nothing but bad news.”
“We can’t afford to be choosy. We’ve lost the element of surprise. I doubt they’re afraid of us, but they’ll be wary. Word might have reached the city of Davelos’s death, and they’ll know we’re behind Evelyn’s assassination. Dameon will want his revenge, and Praximar will be furious that I’m still alive.”
“He will, won’t he?” Naomi sounded satisfied. “Poor Praximar. No matter how hard he brings down his heel, he still can’t crush you.”
“We’ll go to ground in the ruins, then find a way to contact Ravenna. I might walk around the Narrows, see if we can’t reach out to Feiyan and Helena without endangering them. First we get information as to the lay of the land, then we plan our strike.”
“You know, at first I found your impossible optimism aggravating. What was more infuriating was that I couldn’t beat it out of you. Since then you’ve not only continued to defy the odds, but you’ve survived and succeeded at almost every turn. I consider Praximar and Dameon both as good as dead.”
Scorio snorted. “I’m honored.”
“How do we get into the city proper? We’ll be stopped at the stairwells.”
“See these wings?”
Naomi laughed, surprised. “You’re just going to fly right in?”
“Worked for Imogen the Woe.”
“I find that comparison troubling.”
“So, hopefully, will Praximar. We dive down, hit the streets—”
“And outrun House guards and Great Souls all the way to the ruins? Let’s just fly straight down along the sun-wire. They know we’re coming. By the time they react, we’ll be past them and gone to ground.”
Scorio considered, beating his wings once more. “Just fly straight through all of Bastion.”
“Better than attempting it on foot, I say.”
“Let’s have that as our primary plan, then. If it goes wrong, we dive for cover.”
“Deal.” Naomi hugged herself and lay down against his back once more. “Wake me when we’re there.”
Scorio drew ever closer, the huge muscles of his back weary and aching but his mind yearning for arrival, for an end to this reverie of desert and memories. The walls loomed massive, traffic concentrating into trickles that fed themselves into the main quarterly gate at their base.
To land and walk within?
No.
Scorio strained and fought for height, shortening his wings slightly so that he could beat them quicker. Higher he flew, the wind growing sharp and cutting, toward one of the great cataclysmic gaps in the leaden wall’s face.
A few travelers below noticed him, looked up, pointed. The whale ship platform was a good distance away, and Scorio flew in below its line of sight. Nobody walked the walls. They were too massive, too cold, too bleak and inhospitable for sentries.
Naomi stirred again and startled as they glided through the ragged gap. The wind grew concentrated and funneled them through, so that Scorio accelerated past the raw stone wound and shot out into the sky above the huge enclosed plain.
Activity swarmed below. Caravans and travelers made their way to sky cranes and stairwell entrances, minute and inching along. House guards stood attentive and in larger numbers.
Lookouts scanned the skies, and several saw him at once, blowing whistles and pointing frantically up at them.
“Hold on,” said Scorio grimly, his heart pounding in excitement. “Here we go.”
He furled his wings about Naomi’s slender form and dove into the frigid air. Faster and faster they fell at a steep slant, aiming into one of the huge open expanses that led down into Bastion itself. Voices were raised in shouts, and a slew of golden fuzzy motes the size of Scorio’s fist flew past them, a few bursting against his Shroud while others simply glommed on and began to pulse ever brighter.
Guards and Great Souls tracked their descent, a handful sprinting around the sky cranes, people milling, faces upturned in surprise and fear.
A boomerang of white light flew toward them but Scorio shifted his wings a fraction, tilted to the left, and veered just shy of the attack as it blasted through his former trajectory.
“It’s coming back around!” shouted Naomi in his ear.
There had been Great Souls stationed on the main hub itself, and now they raced along the great ivory and steel bridge alongside the open segment he’d chosen. One of them raised her hands and a great translucent bubble appeared over the entirety of the space, its surface iridescent and glimmering.
“Hold on!” shouted Scorio as more attacks flashed by them, unable to track their descent for his terrible speed.
“Scorio, we don’t know what that—”
Scorio interlaced his fingers behind his neck, pressed his forearms tight under his jaw so as to brace his head, and slammed into the surface horns first.
It wasn’t brittle, but rather gave way before him, sinking rapidly and encapsulating them both within a bubble. His speed began to dramatically lessen as the bubble-enclosed tunnel behind them lengthened and narrowed, and then Naomi shifted into the Nightmare Lady and lashed out with her tail even as Scorio slashed forth with his talons.
The thick, rubbering surface about them shredded and they fell free.
All of Bastion lay beneath them, the sun-wire burning Amber bright, the city rolled up along the inside of the cylinder, complex, endless, a hive of humanity after the endless wild desolation of the hinterlands. The heat and smells, the smoke and humidity, the sounds of tens of thousands of people working, hauling carts, living, breathing, filled the air, and Scorio felt as if he fell into a yawning maw of life that was about to close about them.
But then his stomach lurched as he began to fall not down but to the side, his wings shifting intuitively to catch the new plane upon which he soared, and the side of the cylinder became the city below him, over which he flew hundreds of yards up, streets and avenues, rowhouses and mansions, squares and fountains, grand domes and narrow alleys.
Scorio adjusted on the fly, his gorge momentarily rising as the sun-wire burned bright and hot above them, and then he laughed, wings outstretched, and flew higher and higher.
The sun-wire’s brilliance was scorching hot, but the closer he got the more rapidly the city revolved beneath them, his lateral swoop as he flew deeper needing to traverse less sky so that far below them wards spun by faster than a man could sprint.
“Good idea!” Naomi had shrunk back down, and her voice was alive with savage glee. “Make it so they can’t track us through the air!”
Bastion overwhelmed the senses. Everywhere he looked he saw life piled atop itself, buildings extended ever upward, others ruptured by Imogen’s attack and rendered nonsensical, guild halls and palaces, traffic clogging streets and market squares shielded by awnings. Plane trees and graveyards, towers and shops, an endless hive that promised intrigue and wealth, desperation and greed, complexity and ambition.