From above, Beliak whistled, then dove to fly at my wingtip. Wik was behind him. “Finding fewer of them now, Kirit. Still some out there, but they’re hiding. Now what?”
I looked out across the city, hearing its towers as much as I saw them. “We have to stay vigilant, but we should start to rest in shifts. Fixing this will take time. Find places for the Singers to bunk on the towers for now.” My voice sounded tired.
“What about the skymouths?” Wik asked.
I closed my eyes for a second. “We’re not taking them back to the Spire.”
He agreed. “And we can’t free them. They’re too dangerous.”
The thought of more killing, even skymouths, made me lose my way for a moment. I tried to think. What would Ezarit do? What would Naton do? Ezarit might find a way to use the skymouths, to keep them for their sinew. Naton might build something to help hold them, away from the occupied towers. They’d trade bad for good.
But many of these skymouths were bred for killing. Even drugged in nets, they were still dangerous. One of my fighters had lost a toe, bitten off after he flew too close to a net.
My fliers grew tired. My own arms and legs ached, my mouth was dry with thirst. Fearing we would make mistakes if we grew too tired, I looked for a tower that did not yet have a flight or two of fighters already resting on its roof.
“I’ll scout for a tower that can host us,” Wik said. He found a breeze that took him southwest and slowly faded into the distance.
* * *
As I watched him go, I realized the rash on my hands from the skymouth’s hide had faded, along with the skymouth’s scent. The caustic oil had finally dried and peeled away. As I flew an updraft, my exposed skin pulsed in scrawls and etchings along the lines where I’d seamed the hides.
In the distance, Nat’s dark wings and those of the Singer flying with him led a line of hunters returning, seeking a place to land. I sighed with relief.
Then the sky opened below us. An enormous mouth, readying to swallow us whole.
The monster of the pens. The one that had devoured Sellis. It had tracked us through the night, hiding and waiting. Now it was upon us.
“Scream, Kirit!” yelled Beliak. “Shout it down!”
I tried. A sour sound, almost a bark, came from my throat. My voice was ruined. I had screamed too long in the Spire just this morning.
So I gripped my knife and dove instead. Angled to meet the thing sideways, its teeth as big as my hands; its eye, oiled and deep like the sky.
No chance this monster would stop, once it got through us. Not until the whole city was stripped bare and ruined.
I dove, my glass-tooth blade aimed straight at its giant eye.
I flew close enough that I could smell it: that acrid scent combined with smoke and blood. I tried to hum, to calm it, but the monster rolled its eye, flipped over backwards and fled, jettisoning behind it an acrid cloud that made breathing near impossible.
I choked on the cloud, wobbling on my wings.
“Kirit, where are you?” Beliak called as Nat’s flight crossed the skymouth’s path. I shouted a warning and tried to right myself.
Nat heard me. He whistled a turn. The Singer in his group signaled wildly and tried to order him back into line.
No! I was upright again, and climbing for them before I knew it. This time, I felt the scream in the back of my mouth, and I hoped that I was strong enough. Loud enough. Horrible enough.
The maw opened. I put myself between it and Nat.
The skymouth grunted and lashed tentacles in all directions. It scrawled motion in a sea of wings, tearing down one flier after another. In the midst of a pass, I jerked to a stop. The skymouth gripped me around the waist with a tentacle and pulled me in towards the rows of teeth. My rough scream had no impact on its intent. My voice faded in my mouth. The monster began to squeeze.
Behind me, Nat held his shot and yelled my name.
The skymouth now loomed as wide as a tower, as angry as the clouds. It shrieked and grabbed even as it drew me in. The fliers dove to stay clear of it, while still trying to make it release me. Arrows studded the invisible giant, but they served only to make it angrier.
The bone battens of my wings began to crack in its grip.
And then I heard a squeal, too high-pitched to be Singer or skymouth. The sleeve of my robe squirmed, then deflated. The littlemouth. I echoed, trying to see it, though I didn’t know if I could in all the noise and confusion.
Yes, barely.
The tiny mouth pulled itself along the tentacle of the monster, a soft moving shape against the harder arm. It cheeped and squeaked, sharp-pitched and noisy, like nothing I’d ever heard. When it reached the maw, moments before I did, it was sucked past the glass teeth. The tiny skymouth spread its limbs, reaching for purchase, stretching. It grasped a flap of the mouth and didn’t let go. It reached for another, and another. It began to choke the monster from inside.
The giant skymouth thrashed. Tentacles loosened as it clawed at its own mouth.
I fell away from its grip, and when a gust from the skymouth’s struggle hit my wings, I rose with the wind until I leveled off on a steadier gust. My wings still bore me up.
As soon as I was steady enough, I turned and flew at the skymouth one more time. On the monster’s other side, I saw Nat dive towards it, arrow nocked to bowstring.
I pulled my own bow and nocked an arrow. Aimed at its eye.
Nat was now out of my sight, hidden behind the bulk of the skymouth. The monster rose between us, reaching and reaching. I dove forward.
The air around me took on the sound of gust and the throttled whisper of tentacles thrashing through the air. My glide became turbulent, but I kept going.
The strangling skymouth, fighting its own internal battle for breath, could not control its limbs. I could see its eye, the size of my head, and hear the liquid in its echoes. I held my bow steady.
My elbows ached against the winghooks. My left forefinger and index held the bolt steady against the bow sight. The rest of my hand gripped the bow hard. The gust I rode now was a steady one, and I’d set a straight course. I checked the wind one last time as I drew the bowstring back to my cheek. I held until I was sure that I would crash directly into the creature if I missed, giving me a chance with my last knife. And then I opened my mouth to scream one more time, drawing all my breath. Hoping I had enough strength left in my voice.
Screaming rendered all other actions, fighting and flying and shooting, sharper. I had become an arrow of sound aimed at the most terrible creature in the city. The monster began a slow turn towards me.
No! The turn of its head would lose my mark.
I panicked and fired as fast as I could. My arrow hit the eye at its nearest point, straight through: white arrow into vast deep pool of dark eye. The tentacles stilled and drooped. The monster began to fall from the sky.
As it tumbled, another acrid cloud spewing in its wake, one long limb reached and wound around my foot. Dragged down, I felt another tentacle wrap around my neck. I looked above me and saw fliers circling and diving.
This is a good trade. Me, for my city. If they sing Remembrance at the end of this long day, those I love will sing of me too.
And then we fell, the monster and I, flipping over and over, weight over wing. Wind tore at my robe and hair as we plummeted towards the clouds and the sharp edges of the broken tower of Lith.
More tentacles squeezed my waist and throat. I realized that I might never feel the impact.
29. RISE
When I woke, it was to cold air and dense clouds, to slick acrid smells and the sound of the wind whistling across blackened bone.