Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (46 page)

“This place is awful,” Bramble agreed.

“Keep moving,” Moon urged them. Behind them, he could hear a sliding, scraping movement growing louder, closer.
They’re following us
.

Something had woken the waterlings, but Moon would swear they hadn’t made enough noise to wake a sleeping fledgling. Maybe the waterlings had felt faint vibrations through the rock. Or maybe they were sensitive to Rorra’s distinctive scent and interpreted it as an attack.

Jade led them past several dark doorways, then the corridor suddenly opened up into a large chamber and the welcome sight of an open stairwell leading down. Jade said, “We need to keep going, I don’t want to risk this one.”

“You don’t think we came far enough from the trap in the hall below,” Delin clarified, breathing hard as he jogged after Bramble. “That we might enter it again if we go down now.”

Rorra directed her distance-light across the space and they saw it was only the first of several large chambers. “She’s right, we should keep going, there are more stairwells ahead.”

“Faster,” Stone said. “They’re not far behind us.” Then he shifted.

Rorra used her pack to lift up and shoot forward to scoop up Delin. The warriors and Bramble started to bound, covering ten to twelve paces in a single jump, and Stone was careful not to outpace them. The combination of stronger flying muscles and fear could have let Moon outpace all of them but he stayed in the rear, making sure the rest didn’t fall behind. He was sure Jade would have objected to this but fortunately she was a little too busy at the moment.

They crossed two large halls, their lights revealing half-seen carvings and shapes. In the second, Bramble yelped a warning and they slid to a halt. Rorra’s light swung around to catch a giant face looming from the end of the hall, but it was made of stone. “Statue,” Jade said. “Keep moving!”

They surged forward again and Moon was left with an impression of a smooth triangular head, no visible nose, with small eyes to either side. It might have been a sculpture of a builder, or maybe just something from a story. And now he could hear the rasp of claws on the stone floor, the swift slide of heavy bodies. “They’re in the first hall,” he said aloud. They could hide the lights, look for a doorway to another route, but the chances of being trapped in one of these dead-end passages or rooms was far too great.

Ahead, Jade reached the next stairwell. She called out, “Down, down this way! It’s got to be far enough.”

Moon threw a glance back and saw roiling movement in the shadows. It had to be far enough, because the waterlings moved too fast. With Delin still holding onto her, Rorra dropped down. Bramble, Chime, and Root dove after her. Jade motioned for Song and Briar to follow. From below, Bramble called, “Stone, the stairs turn down here and it’s too narrow for you!”

Stone snarled, and shifted to his groundling form, saying, “This shitting place!”

Jade caught Moon’s arm and half-shoved him down the stairs. She grabbed Stone and jumped after him.

Moon hit the first landing in a crouch, waited for Jade, then dove down the next set of stairs with her. The lights flashed sporadically as the Raksura jumped and dove and scrambled and jumped again. Rorra’s distance-light was mostly steady, Delin directing it toward the stairs so they at least had some idea where they were going. This would be a bad time for someone to run into a wall and stun themselves.

Moon heard the rush of movement above them, the scaled bodies slapping into the walls, claws scraping as the waterlings flowed down the stairwell like water. An acrid stench of rot and fish filled the air.

Below, Bramble took a tumble down the stairs but rolled to her feet at the bottom and kept going. The waterlings were gaining on them.
We’re going to have to stop and fight to give the warriors a chance
, Moon thought, then Rorra shouted, “Light ahead! Someone’s down there!”

I hope it’s someone we know
. Moon hit two more landings, as ahead Song missed and catapulted herself shoulder-first into the stairs. Root stopped and half-started back. Briar yelled, “Keep going!” and scooped Song up and jumped down to the next landing.

Two more landings and there was just enough light for Moon to glimpse a familiar scaled face looking up at them from the bottom of the stairwell.
That was Balm
, he thought. He wondered if he was hallucinating.
How did they find us?
And it really didn’t matter, because even if River and Merit were with her, three more Raksura weren’t going to be much help against what was after them. Beside him, Jade gasped, “No, no, not them too—”

Rorra and Bramble yelled warnings, and Balm’s voice echoed up, “Come on, it’s all right, just hurry!”

Maybe they had a plan. Moon hit the next landing with Jade and said, “Just trust her!”

Stone gritted out, “Listen to him.”

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.”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

I
t 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?”

This part of the deck was brightly lit and littered with metal tools of obscure purpose and coils of various sizes of line, and several jars of the moss. The Kishan had obviously been working on the lock for a while.
At least we won’t starve now
, Moon thought wearily. He just hoped the waterlings tasted good.

The others followed them up the ramp and a Janderi woman started to help Rorra take off her harness. Delin staggered toward the hatchway, and Merit hurried to help him. Callumkal stood with his arm around Kalam’s shoulders, obviously nearly overcome with relief that he was alive. He said, “What did you find? Was Merit right about the trap?”

Jade turned to answer, though her spines were drooping and she had clearly used up every ounce of energy she had left. Moon decided he was going to take drastic action. He stumbled a little, then shifted to his groundling form and collapsed. Jade caught him with a startled hiss, and Moon went limp. It wasn’t difficult. Losing the weight of his wings after all this time made him dizzy, and every muscle ache acquired in all the previous hours increased tenfold.

He heard Callumkal, Kalam, and Vendoin make exclamations of concern and dismay, and Jade said, “I need to—”

“Of course, go on,” Callumkal urged her.

Jade lifted Moon and he heard the hatch swing open. The light visible through his eyelids faded and he felt the change in the air as she carried him inside. He heard the others trailing after her, then Chime asked worriedly, “Is he all right?”

“Yes,”Jade said, her voice tired but dry. “I was particularly impressed by how he rolled his eyes back in his head before he fell over.”