Orlind (33 page)

Three kreeays
picked up devices and sped away. Llan grabbed hers, steadfastly
refusing to look behind her. She had it! Up she went and over the
trees, gripping the baton as if her life depended on it, trying not
to think of draykoni hard on her tail.

Only three so
far,
Pensould reported.

Three’s
enough,
she replied.

Agreed. This one has to be fast.

Fast indeed, for
the Lokants didn’t wait for all four birds to be clear before they
began detonating the devices. Ori and Avane were the first to make
their drops, letting the devices settle in the joints between wings
and body. Both explosives blew up as Llan and Pensould approached
and she watched, horribly fascinated, as the wings sagged and the
mech began to drop.

Now!
yelled Pensould. He went for the neck, two draykoni flying hard
behind him. In the wine-red hide of one, Llandry recognised Isand -
the draykon she and Pensould had woken themselves, the one who had
started this war in a bid for revenge. She had to fight the sudden
desire to drop her device on Isand instead. This bitch had hurt her
mother!

Llan!

Pensould had
dropped his device and was spiralling away, swerving madly in his
attempts to avoid the teeth of the draykoni on his tail. Llan
hesitated, expecting the device to blow.

It didn’t. They
were waiting for her. She swooped down...

... and was blown
suddenly off course by a staggering impact that jarred her bones
and set her head buzzing madly. A claw-swipe from the third
draykoni had hit her hard, and in the rush of pain she feared that
something may be broken.

But she could
still fly. Adopting Pensould’s evasive technique, she forged on,
whirling side-to-side and up and down, just barely keeping herself
out of the draykon’s mouth.

There! She
reached the neck, the baton fell, and she barrelled away. The
device blew, and a terrific draykon-shriek told her that the live
beast had been caught in the explosion.

Three down, only
one to go! Llandry felt like cheering in spite of her bruises, but
something else was wrong. Ori was shouting something.

Something about
Avane.

...
caught under the wing! She’s down!

Cold fear
clutched at Llandry’s stomach. She angled in the direction of Ori’s
voice, gripped with dread. If Avane had fallen from this height,
she couldn’t possibly have survived. And she wasn’t
answering...

She saw Ori and
Pense ahead of her, pelting into the trees. Llandry followed close
behind. The foliage hid them from their draykoni pursuers, which
was a blessing, but it also threatened to hide Avane from them. A
minute inched by as the three of them searched, ignoring the
activity of the Lokants below as the white-hairs worked on the
downed mechanical.

Then Ori gave a
cry of mingled horror and triumph, and dived. Following his lead,
Llandry saw Avane a little way below. She had fallen onto the cap
of a moderately-sized glissenwol, and she was in human shape. She
must have lost her grip on her bird-shape when she lost
consciousness, but had the tree broken her fall enough?

Ori reached her
first and shifted into his human form.
She’s alive,
he
reported.
But she’s unconscious and badly hurt.

Ori, stay and
get her some help,
said Pensould.
Llan, we have about two
minutes to finish this.

Why
two?

Because the rest of the draykoni are on the way.

She didn’t ask
how he knew. The two of them rocketed back into the skies and went
for the collection point at a speed that felt sufficient to rip
Llandry’s wings from their sockets. She was so damned tired; her
muscles screamed their objections, and she was seriously beginning
to fear that they wouldn’t hold her for much longer.

Oh well. All the
more reason to finish this, and fast.

Only
two explosives! Where to? The wings?

No.
That will bring it down, but it won’t wholly incapacitate it. The
Lokants will be in trouble. We’ll have to aim for the mouth,
Minchu.

The
mouth?!
she shrieked.
That’s insane.

It is,
he
returned grimly.
But it’s the only way to be sure. Both devices
in the jaws.

Llandry didn’t
even have time to feel afraid. The two draykoni had taken up
stations on either side of the mechanical, and behind her she could
feel a host of draykon minds bearing down upon them.

See, they’re
waiting for us to go for the wings,
Pensould observed. How did
he sound so calm!
You first, Minchu. Watch the
teeth.

Llan’s brain was
shrieking expletives at her, but she ignored it. She focused on the
mechanical’s jaws, suddenly grateful for its habit of snapping at
anything mobile. All she had to do was get close enough, and time
it perfectly... shoot inside, drop the device and get
out.

Simple.

Before she had
time to think about it further, she was through into the mechanical
mouth, only narrowly dodging its metal teeth. The rest happened
without her being aware of it; somehow she loosed her grip on the
baton, waited until that enormous mouth opened and shot out
again.

Fine. Now
Pensould...

But she didn’t
have time to wait for him. The draykoni roared and charged her as
one; she dived and dropped, using her superior agility to the
utmost to evade them. She just had time to swerve around and
check... yes! There was Pense emerging from the maw, device
delivered.

Then the teeth
snapped down and Pensould’s cry of pain split her mind. He’d
misjudged his exit. She could only watch, helpless, as the bright
blue bird fell from the mech’s mouth and disappeared from
view.

PENSOULD!
she shrieked.

No reply. All
sound was drowned out by the twin explosions as their two devices
were detonated. Llandry didn’t wait to see if their ploy had
worked; she could think only of Pensould.

Llan? What’s
happened?
Ori sounded harassed. Had he got Avane out of
danger?

Pensould’s hurt. Ori, I’m going to need you!

But Avane
-
I can’t
-
she’s still
under.

Llan didn’t
answer him. She had found Pensould. It wasn’t hard to spot him, in
fact, as like Avane he had lost his assumed shape as he lost
consciousness. Only for him, the natural shape was his draykon
form.

No glissenwol
could have broken that fall. He was too big, too heavy. He lay on
the ground, motionless; even from the skies Llandry could sense the
extent of his injuries.

She landed beside
him and turned human, sick with fear. Calling his name both aloud
and in her mind, she dropped to her knees beside him.

He wasn’t
breathing. His heart wasn’t beating. There was nothing left here
but a mountain of inert draykon flesh. Llandry could only stare,
struck dumb and helpless with grief and disbelief, hollow despair
stealing her strength and her presence of mind.

Llan?
Ori’s mind-voice was frantic.
Tell me what’s going
on.

He’s
gone.

Gone?
You mean the draykoni have –

I
mean he’s dead, Ori. Pense is dead.

Chapter Twenty Three

Given the outcome
of their previous attempt, Ana was understandably reluctant to take
Eva and Tren to Krays’s Library again. They had to waste precious
time talking the stubborn and frightened woman into granting them a
return passage. In the end, Eva had to promise that this would be
the last time. She did so with discomfort. Only one more chance at
Krays’s secrets? They would have to make sure that nothing went
wrong this time.

Maintaining a
stubborn, disapproving silence, Ana took them to a quiet,
little-used room in the Library. The chamber was deserted, but
still the woman was extremely tense. She kept hold of their wrists
for a full minute after they arrived, standing still and alert as
she listened for alarms.

To Eva’s relief,
nothing happened. She, too, had suffered doubts about the efficacy
of the devices she and Tren carried. After all, Iwa had said they
“should” be up to date, but hadn’t been able to confirm that with
perfect certainty. A sigh of relief escaped her when another minute
passed without the alarms sounding.

‘
I’d
be fast,’ Ana said, speaking in a half-whisper. ‘Krays isn’t the
only dangerous one around here.’

‘
Superfast,’ Tren agreed.

Ana chewed on her
lip, staring at each of them in turn in some kind of indecision.
Then she reached into her cloak, unfastened something from her belt
and handed it to Eva. It was a collection of small metal objects
like the ones Krays had worn. They didn’t look like any keys she
had ever seen, but somehow she recognised their
function.

‘
That’s it, now,’ Ana said, looking like she already regretted
the action. ‘If you’re found with those, it’s all over for
me.’

‘
Thank
you,’ Eva said, with true gratitude. Ana was taking a risk indeed,
and a useful one, for they wouldn’t get far in here without
keys.

‘
They
won’t get you in to everything, mind,’ Ana warned. ‘You will have
to find your own way into the more secret areas.’

She vanished
without waiting for a reply.

‘
Hold
still,’ Tren said. ‘I’m doing the invis.’

Eva held still,
watching with fascination as her own body gradually disappeared.
Then Tren faded out too.

‘
The
difficult part will be keeping together,’ she mused. ‘Already I
have no idea where you are.’

Tren’s hand slid
into hers and gripped tight. ‘Stay close,’ he said, and she could
hear the smile in his words. ‘That’s the best way. Ready to
go?’

‘
Almost. Can you hide Rikbeek too?’

‘
Ah,
good thinking.’

Eva plucked the
gwaystrel off the fabric of her coat and held him out. His small,
fur-dusted black body hovered weirdly atop her invisible hands,
until he too disappeared.

I need you to
check for dangers,
she said to him.

His refusal was
immediate, and emphatic. He was busy... sleeping.

Not
negotiable, Beek.
She threw him into the air, unsettled by the
fact that she couldn’t see if he took flight or not.

A quick, sharp
pain lanced through her ear. Putting up her fingers, she found the
dampness of blood.

Yep, he was on
the wing.

Be
alert, Beek. We’d like to stay alive, if at all
possible.

He sent her his
grudging assent, bit her once more for good measure and winged
away. She kept part of her mind with him, tracking his progress as
he headed for the door.

‘
He’s
in flight,’ she told Tren. ‘He’ll warn me if he sees any mechs. Or
people.’

‘
So
what’s the plan?’

‘
Limbane said this Library is smaller, but otherwise a faithful
replica of his, didn’t he?’

‘
I
remember something like that, yes.’

‘
Then
we know where to go.’ Eva started walking, but Tren’s grip on her
hand held her back.

‘
Eva,
wait. You’re not thinking of the reading room, are you?’

‘
Why
not? I wouldn’t be surprised if his study is in the same place as
Limbane’s, and that would be where to find the best
information.’

‘
Probably, but it’s also the most dangerous place for us to go,
because the chances of finding Krays there are high. Also, how are
we going to get in? Even if we manage to enter the room, Krays will
have separate locks on anything important, and there’s no way Ana’s
keys will work on those. It would be futile, and borderline
suicidal.’

Frustrated as she
was, Eva couldn’t argue with that. He was quite right. ‘What else
do you suggest?’

‘
Well,
all of this began because of Krays’s machine design projects.
That’s what Limbane wanted to look at. If he’s moved them all here,
they’ll probably be in the labs and the workshops. Why don’t we
head there?’

‘
Agreed. Let’s go then, quickly.’

By the time they
reached the door, Tren had somehow managed to get in front of her.
He kept her behind him as he opened the door and checked the
corridor outside. Then he led her out of the room, still
maintaining his protective stance in front.

‘
You
don’t have to do that,’ she whispered, annoyed.

‘
Yes I
do.’

‘
I’m
quite capable of-’

‘
Don’t
bother arguing,’ he muttered. ‘If we run into a whurthag mech, it
will have to go through me to get to you.’

‘
But-’

‘
I’m
not budging!’

One of the
downsides to being female was her relative lack of height. She was
tall, but Tren was several inches taller, and he had a stride to
match. Trying to get ahead of him was futile.