Edge of Worlds (The Books of the Raksura) (4 page)

“—and I wasn’t talking to you.” He looked up at the smaller branch arching above them.

Jade perched up there, partially concealed from this angle by the drooping fronds of a fern tree that had taken root on the broad branch. She said, “Not every problem can be solved by you trying to get yourself killed.”

“Not every problem,” Moon agreed. He looked down toward the platforms nestled in the branches across from their vantage point. “But this one could be.”

The suspended forest was made up of layers and layers of these platforms, formed when dirt built up in the entwined mountain-tree branches until it had enough depth to grow grass, form ponds and swamps, and support entire forests of smaller trees. The platform their quarry might have gone to ground in was unusual in that another mountain-tree had taken root in it. Usually when this happened, the sapling mountain-tree died off or fell when its weight grew too heavy. This one was apparently intending to survive.

It was already a few hundred paces tall, its smaller canopy mingling with that of the mountain-tree that supported the platform, and its trunk was a good hundred paces around. Its roots had grown through the dirt of the platform and twined around the branches below it, and there was plenty of room to hide in that extensive and complex structure.

Jade said, definitively, “If anyone’s going to be bait, it’s me.”

Moon twitched his spines at her. “That is not fair.”

Jade snorted. “You sound like Frost.”

Moon had been teaching Frost and some of the older fledglings how to hunt, but there was no way he would have let any of them even come along to watch this. He had had to grow up the hard way, and while he was determined to teach all the fledglings how to take care of themselves in an emergency, he meant them to have a more normal Raksuran upbringing, which included comfortable nurseries guarded by determined Arbora and no fights to the death with suspended forest denizens. He pointed out, “Frost hasn’t done this before. I have.”

Jade’s sigh was part hiss of irritation. It didn’t sound like she would change her mind anytime soon.

Chime said, “This thing is too smart to be lured out by a Raksura acting as bait. If it wasn’t, we would have killed it already.” He added, “Maybe we need a mentor.”

He had a point. Moon just wished they could get this over with. He had been restless enough lately, worrying about the dream.

Ferns fluttered on the branch above, and Jade said, “I am not dragging a mentor all the way out here to tell us this damn thing is hiding under that sapling. We already know that.”

Moon had to say, “Probably hiding under the sapling.”

Jade swung down onto the lower branch to stand next to him. Exasperated, she said, “If we still can’t find this thing by twilight, I’ll—”

Then Chime said, “Wait.”

Moon turned. Chime had kept his gaze on the arched roots winding through the platform. He continued, “There was movement. Wait . . . There it is again.”

Jade stepped to Chime’s side and crouched to follow his sightline. She said, “At the base of the root that’s almost at the edge of the platform.”

“Yes.” Chime’s spines flicked in excitement. “I thought I saw the ground ripple. Now there’s a furrow.”

Moon saw it now, a too-perfect circle in the moss-covered dirt, next to one of the sapling’s roots. It shaped the outline of something with a big round body. Too big. But the Arbora had all agreed that the creature had attacked from under the top dirt and moss layer of a platform.
Maybe they only saw a small part of it
, Moon thought. Maybe the rest of it had been hidden. It would explain the warriors’ difficulty in following its trail.

Jade dove off the branch collar and spread her wings to drop silently. Moon jumped after her, and heard Chime’s claws scrabble on the wood as he scrambled to stay with them.

Jade landed on a branch a hundred or so paces down. It was closer to eye level with the platform that had the sapling, though still far enough away to keep the predator there from sensing their presence. At least, Moon hoped so.

As Moon landed beside Jade and furled his wings, Balm climbed out of concealment behind a big knot of red tree fungus. She said, “You saw something?”

“Chime did.” Jade pointed out the furrow for Balm, then glanced around at the surrounding branches. Another dozen or so warriors were hidden in various spots around them, some well-concealed, others peeking curiously out. “Now we just have to figure out how to do this.”

Balm leaned back to pass the word along to Briar, who was still crouched behind the fungus. Chime said, “Can we just . . . leap on it? All that dirt on top of it should keep it from reacting too quickly.”

Sometimes it was easy to tell that Chime had come late to being a warrior. His knowledge of how to attack things from the air was still sporadic. Keeping his voice low, Moon started to explain, “Digging itself just under the surface like that is probably an attack position—”

The predator burst out of the ground, spraying dirt and moss clumps, with so much force the mountain-tree sapling shook. It leapt forward off the platform, the round armored body blossoming with grasping limbs. Diagonal bands of flesh snapped out from under the upper shell. Moon snarled in astonishment. Chime said, a little unnecessarily, “Wait, it’s got wings!”

Jade launched herself into the air as the predator dove toward them. Moon knew she was going for the eyes or the head, and he leapt off the branch and aimed for the chest.

Moon swept in as the limbs on this side flailed at him. He twisted under and in toward the predator’s lower body, getting a brief glimpse of small mouths surrounded by tiny tentacles lining each jointed limb. It jerked at the last second and he missed, hitting its side below the first row of limbs instead of the underbelly. Then its body snapped upright as something knocked the creature backward; that had to be Jade, landing on the head. Hopefully an irritated Raksuran queen was more than this thing had counted on.

Moon held on with all his claws, trying to see a vulnerable point. He had temporarily lost his bearings and wasn’t sure which way was up and which down; the sinking feeling in his stomach told him they were freefalling. The thing must be a glider and Jade had knocked it right out of the air.

A limb groped for him and he slashed it away, then managed to get a look up toward the head. Jade ripped at the predator’s face but she was far too close to that wide mouth. The limbs reached up to drag at her. The armor around the cheeks moved and Moon’s heart thumped in terror; the creature might be able to extend its jaw to close on her.

Before he could yell a warning, Jade planted a powerful clawed foot in the creature’s jaw hinge. Moon heard a gurgling noise go through its body. That would hold it for a moment, but they were still falling and running out of time.

Moon couldn’t see any vulnerable point nearby and scrambled down the armored body, headed for the back end. If there was any other opening, it might be down there.

He reached the rear section and saw a thin spot in the armor around a puckered opening. He stabbed his claws into it. The predator jerked, its body contracted, and Moon looked back in time to see Jade swing out of range of its mouth.

Then he heard Balm shouting, “Drop, drop, now!”

Moon yelled, “Jade, drop!” and let go.

The predator tumbled away, but a stray limb slapped Moon in the head. He rolled and managed to get his wings out, his eyes filling with pain-tears. He squinted to see and made out Jade, just a blurry blue shape cupping her wings to slow her fall.

The predator fell toward the mist barrier hiding the lower levels of the forest. It rolled upright and shot its wings out—and then something large, dark, and fast knocked it out of the air.

Moon let his breath out in relief, flapping to stay aloft. He had wondered where Stone was.

There was a flurry of motion, some of the predator’s limbs went flying, and the two combatants fell below the mist. Moon landed on the nearest branch, a little winded.

Another warrior dove down, aiming to land beside him. Moon saw the vivid green scales with the blue undersheen, and growled.

River landed anyway. One of his virtues was that he wasn’t afraid of Moon, even though every time they had fought, Moon had won. River said, in disgust, “That was typical.”

Over the past couple of turns River’s position had moved from insisting that Moon was embarrassing the court by existing to insisting that Moon was embarrassing the court by not behaving like a proper consort. Moon said, “You need to find another reason to hate me and we can just talk about that all the time.”

“There’s so many to choose from, I get confused.” River flicked spines in derision.

Moon sighed. He decided to try honesty. “You thought Jade and I were going to get killed and it scared you and this is the only way you know how to say it.”

That worked. River snarled and fled the branch.

Stone reappeared, flapping up through the mist, carrying the creature clutched in his front claws. Its lower body hung open, guts dripping out. Stone circled around and dropped it on the platform.

Moon jumped off the branch and banked down to land nearby. Jade beat him there. As Chime, Balm, and the other warriors swept in, Stone shook his spines out and dragged his claws through the tufts of grass to get the foul-smelling ichor off them.

Stone shifted down to groundling to say, “Were you trying to kill it or just annoy it?”

“I didn’t have time to choose a better approach. I didn’t want it to get away.” Jade circled around toward the creature’s head.

Moon told Stone, “We were slowing it down for you, because you’re old.”

Stone’s expression was eloquent of the wish to slap Moon in the head. He said, “Slowing it down by throwing yourselves into its mouth? Did you think it was a picky eater?”

Chime said helpfully, “I think it only looked like they were doing that from a higher angle.”

Jade prodded a broken gliding wing with her foot-claws. “Why didn’t we know this thing could fly?”

Balm looked pointedly at Briar, whose spines drooped in dismay. Briar had been in charge of the group of warriors who had tracked the creature here. Briar said, “We thought it was climbing between platforms on branches. I guess this explains why we kept losing its trail.”

It did explain that. Moon was inclined to be sympathetic, especially now that they knew the warriors hadn’t actually lost their quarry and they hadn’t been stalking an unoccupied platform all this time.

Jade seemed to agree. She let her breath out and looked around at the gathered warriors. There were twenty of them here, female and male, older and more experienced like Vine and Sage, and younger and possibly even more experienced like Song and Root. After three days taking turns hunting and tracking, they all looked tired and bedraggled. Jade said, “No one’s dead, and we got the stupid thing. That’s all that matters.”

The warriors all flicked spines in relieved agreement. Stone didn’t look impressed, but then he usually didn’t.

Sand, who had been watching the surrounding branches, said, “Jade, Aura’s coming back.”

Moon turned to look. The four warriors who had been scouting the surrounding clearings were circling down toward the platform. Jade stepped forward as they landed. Their spines all twitched anxiously, but none of them seemed to be hurt. Aura said, “Jade, we found something you need to see. There’s a groundling flying boat.”

Everyone stared, the dead predator temporarily forgotten.

“Serene found it,” Aura continued. Behind her, Serene nodded, her spines signaling excited confirmation. “She heard something and went to check it out, and there it was.”

As Aura paused for breath, Moon asked, “Golden Islanders?” The Indigo Cloud court had had to borrow wind-ships from a Golden Islander family of scholars and traders for the long journey from the old colony in the east to the Reaches. Moon had friends among them that it would be good to see again. From the way Chime’s spines had just lifted with excitement, he felt the same way.

“No, not them.” Aura still looked worried. “It’s not a wind-ship, not anything like one.”

That wasn’t such good news. Jade frowned. “What was it doing? Did you see what sort of groundlings were aboard?”

“It’s just floating there,” Serene said.

“We couldn’t see anyone aboard,” Aura added. “We didn’t get too close. We didn’t want them to see us, and we were afraid they might be looking out through the window openings.”

This ... could be a problem
, Moon thought. He found himself meeting Stone’s sour gaze. Yes, the Golden Islanders were the only groundlings who would be visiting the Reaches for a good reason. And if this flying boat wasn’t just hopelessly lost, it might be looking specifically for the Indigo Cloud colony tree.

“It’s not a leaf boat?” Chime asked. There were groundlings who lived in the lower, swampy parts of the Reaches on the forest floor, who could build some forms of flying transports. But they never came up as far as the top of the mist, let alone the suspended forest. “Does it look like it’s from the swamps?”

“It could be from the swamps, but it doesn’t look anything like a leaf boat.” Aura’s expression showed she knew that that was not a good sign. “I don’t think it’s from the Reaches at all.”

Jade hissed through her fangs. “Balm, you and Chime, and Vine, Aura, and Serene come with me and Moon. The rest of you get back to the colony.”

“You don’t think—” Chime began, and then settled his spines. “No, of course not,” he answered his own question.

Moon was certain he had been about to say,
You don’t think this has anything to do with the Fell
. This was the first unusual thing to happen since the night of the shared dream and it was hard not to wonder. Though it was also hard to imagine what a strange groundling boat would have to do with the Fell. It couldn’t be a request for help; strange groundlings usually thought Raksura were Fell.

Stone said, “I think I’ll come along too.”

Jade flicked her spines at him. “I was counting on you.”

They flew through the green caverns of the suspended forest, following as Aura and Serene led them toward the flying boat.