Secrets of Moth (The Moth Saga, Book 3) (28 page)

Torin grimaced as they shot
toward the waterfall ahead.

"Can I use my grapple now?"
he asked.

"Yes, damn you!"
Bailey shouted. "Use your damn grapple!"

He swung the grapple on its
rope. Mist rose ahead. The boat jostled madly. A boulder slammed into
the hull, snapping reeds. Ishel screamed behind them.

"Bailey, hold onto me!"
Torin shouted.

He held the number with one
hand, the rope with the other. Bailey wrapped her limbs around him
and clung. Fallen logs filled the water, slamming into the boat.
Several boulders jutted upon the waterfall's edge, stone teeth rising
around spilling drool.

For a heartbeat, they tilted
over the brink, strangely still, strangely peaceful. Torin could see
the water cascade a hundred feet, slamming into a rocky pool below.

Then their boat went over the
edge.

Torin tossed the grapple. The
iron claws swung around a boulder.

They fell.

The boat came free below them,
plunging down.

The rope snapped taut. Torin's
palms blazed but he held on. Bailey clung to him. They swung on the
rope, swaying through mist and water.

Screaming, her boat shattering
against the rocks, Ishel came tumbling over the waterfall. As she
fell, her eyes met Torin's. She reached out. She tried to grab him.
He kicked, slamming his boots into her belly. She grunted . . . and
she was gone, crashing down into the mist.

"Winky, you crazy bastard!"
Bailey clung so tightly to his neck she nearly tore his head off.

Torin grunted and kicked. They
swung, the water crashing against their backs. His boots hit a
jutting boulder, and he pushed them several feet back.

Battle cries rose above and
arrows rained. Torin looked up to see the Children of Nine upon the
cliff, firing from between the rushes. Torin kicked the boulder
again, and they swung, emerging from the waterfall.

They grabbed a vine that dangled
down the cliff. They climbed down, shielded from arrows by an outcrop
of stone. When Torin reached the forest floor, he wanted to collapse
into the ferns, nurse his wounds, and sleep, but the Children of Nine
still howled above. The tribesmen began climbing down vines in
pursuit.

"I'll race you to safety!"
Bailey said, flashing him a weary grin, and burst into a run.

Clutching the number to his
chest, Torin ran with her. They plunged into brush, disappearing into
a sea of green.

 
 
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:
THE SHORES OF NIGHT

With steel, flame, and gunpowder,
the fleet of sunlight arrived in the last bastion of night.

They covered the sea, a thousand
ships or more, a city of masts, sails, and warriors chanting for the
blood of Eloria. Once there had been eight kingdoms of sunlight; here
they fought as one force, a swarm to drown the night. Their torches
burned, raising smoke that hid the clouds. Their swords and armor
gleamed. Their cannons—once unknown to the sunlit demons and stolen
from the cities they had crushed—turned toward the walls of Asharo
like hundreds of baleful eyes.

Before them—a smaller force,
clustered together—sailed the fleet of Eloria, the combined ships of
fallen empires and one last, free island. Through the dark waters
they rowed, heading toward the crackling armada of the sun. Atop
their decks stood the soldiers of darkness, clad in steel, their eyes
large and gleaming, their skin orange in their lanterns' light. All
stood silent. No cheers rose from them, not even from the halest
warrior. They stood still, staring ahead across the water, seeing
their death approach, for here was their final stand. Here was a last
fight under the darkness—the free children of Eloria, raising steel
for one more battle . . . one last charge before the light rose.

Riding upon Pirilin, the white
dragon of the north, Jin soared above his fleet and cried out for all
to hear.

"Eloria!" His voice
was young and high, but it carried on the wind, and he knew all could
hear. "Eloria, fight with courage, fight with honor, fight for
darkness. We are the night!"

From the a hundred decks rose
the cries of soldiers. Sailors, archers, swordsmen, and gunners all
raised their voices. The cry stormed across the water. "We are
the night!"

Beneath Jin, Pirilin the dragon
coiled across the air, wingless and limbless. She was like him, the
crippled boy born of siblings, his limbs missing, and yet Pirilin was
mighty, and flying in her harness, Jin felt mighty too. A thousand
enemy ships sailed toward him, and they sought to slay him, to slay
all the children of night, but he would be strong. He would be brave.

I
will be a leader.

"I fight with you, Eloria!"
he cried down to his soldiers. "Pirilin fights too. Cast back
the sunlight!"

Pirilin roared beneath him, and
a second roar answered hers. To Jin's right, black scales flashed.
Strapped into the saddle, he turned his head and saw Tianlong fly
with him, the black dragon of the south, his beard red, his horns
long. Upon the beast rode Empress Hikari, clad in lacquered plates, a
bow in her hand. Her visor was pulled down, shaped as a snarling
face, and her hair streamed from under the helmet, a white banner.

"We fight together, Jin!"
she cried out to him across the wind.

Less than a mile now separated
the fleets. The Timandrian vessels covered the sea. His friend Torin
had told Jin about the forests of Timandra, the trunks of strange
living creatures called 'trees' rising together. This must have been
how a forest looked, a thousand masts rising. The sunlit sailors
jeered at the smaller Elorian fleet. Their drums beat. Their horns
blared. Their soldiers shouted out, calling for the death of
darkness. Upon their decks, their archers nocked arrows, and their
gunners lit fuses.

"Eloria, light your
cannons!" Jin cried from his dragon. "Light burning arrows
and light the darkness."

Across his ships below—a fleet
so small by the wrath of the day—archers dipped arrows into
braziers, lighting the tips. Gunners lit cannons' fuses. The night
ships sailed forth, their oars moving to the beat of drums, their
battened sails opened wide for extra speed. Their iron
figureheads—shaped as dragons—spewed smoke to conceal their
locations.

With countless battle cries, the
fleets of both day and night fired their weapons.

Arrows sailed through the night
like ten thousand comets, their tips ablaze. With blasts that nearly
deafened Jin, cannons spewed fire and iron. Across the two fleets,
flames blasted, wood and clay shattered, and sails burned. Men
screamed and fell.

"Hang tight, little one!"
Pirilin said beneath him. The white dragon twisted her head, looked
at Jin, and grinned toothily. "Ready yourself for some battle."

With a roar, Pirilin turned back
forward and dived.

Wind shrieked around them,
whipping Jin's hair. They flew across the masts of their own ships,
dived across the water, and charged toward the enemy.

Timandrian carracks rose ahead,
larger and bulkier than the Elorian ships, their sails wide. Archers
fired from their decks, and Pirilin roared again, dodged the
projectiles, and dived.

"For Eloria!" Jin
cried as the dragon lashed her tail, clubbing a ship's mast.

The mast crashed down, spilling
a sailor. More arrows flew and Pirilin soared. Arrows clattered
against her scales, snapping and doing her no harm. Jin shouted
wordlessly, feeling more afraid, excited, and alive than ever before.
At his side, he saw Tianlong plow into a second ship, ramming its
hull. Planks of wood cracked, water gushed into the ship, and the
black dragon soared through a stream of arrows.

Beneath them, through clouds of
smoke and flying metal, the two fleets crashed together.

Figureheads—shaped
as dragons on the Elorian fleet, shaped as animals of land and sky on
the Timandrian fleet—rammed into hulls. Sailors screamed and fell.
Planks thudded down and warriors ran from deck to deck, swinging
swords. Cannons blasted and flames raced across sails. Masts cracked
and smoke billowed over the battle.

Jin shouted as Pirilin rose and
dipped, lashing her tail. An arrow scraped across his cheek and blood
dripped, but he felt no pain.

The battle seemed to last for
hours, maybe for entire turns. Flames lit the water and red smoke
covered the sky. The arrows flew, the cannons blazed, and blood
filled the water. When Jin looked behind him, he saw the city of
Asharo perched upon the coast. The walls rose above the sand, and the
black pagodas rose behind them, thick with archers.

Behind
those walls, the people of the night hide—mothers and children,
elders and babes. We cannot let those walls fall.

"The ships are breaking
through!" Jin cried out.

A dozen Timandrian vessels had
crashed through the Elorian fleet. Charred but still topped with
soldiers, the carracks made their way toward the city. In the east,
Jin saw a dozen more Timandrian ships smash through a squadron of
Elorian junks, navigate around the sinking vessels, and sail toward
the coast.

"Pirilin, they're going to
reach the city!"

The dragon growled beneath him,
spun in the sky, and flew in pursuit of the Timandrian ships. Fifty
now sailed away from the raging battle, heading toward the coast.
With a roar, Pirilin swooped, lashed her tail, and cracked the hull
of a caravel. The ship listed and water roared in. Arrows flew and
Jin screamed as one whistled by his ear. The dragon soared, then
plunged down and swung her tail again, cracking a second ship. Men
fell into the water. The walls of Asharo loomed ahead, crackling with
torches, awaiting the assault.

Jin whipped his head from side
to side, seeking Elorian support, but the other ships still sailed
deeper in the sea, engulfed in smoke and flame. Tianlong the dragon
roared in the distance, too far to aid them. Everywhere else he
looked, Jin saw the enemy ships sailing toward the walls.

Pirilin dipped to attack another
vessel when cannons blazed.

All Jin saw was smoke, blood,
flame.

The dragon screamed and wind
shrieked.

They crashed into the water with
a force that rattled Jin's teeth, pounded his body like hammers, and
knocked his head so far back he thought his neck might snap.

Iciness engulfed him. Jin
shouted and bubbles rose. They sank. They bobbed up, broke above the
surface, and Jin gulped air.

"Pirilin!" he shouted.

She groaned beneath him and her
blood filled the water. The enemy ships surrounded them, arrows flew,
and Pirilin sank again. Jin cried out underwater.

"Pirilin! Fly!"

He could see the light of
lanterns above the water, gleaming like stars in a murky sky.
Pirilin's blood rose around him, coiling and dancing. She swam
underwater then breached again, and Jin took a deep breath and
coughed out water. The other ships sailed farther away now.

"Jin . . ." said
Pirilin, turning her head in the water. Her eyes were glazed and
blood trickled down her forehead. "Watch over them, Jin . . .
watch over the night."

Her eyes closed.

She sank.

They plunged back into the
depths, sinking between bubbles and dancing blood.

"Pirilin!" Jin cried,
strapped into his saddle, but she would not wake.

The lights above grew distant.

Jin thrashed, struggling to free
himself from the saddle. With no limbs, how could he unbuckle his
harness? His lungs ached for air. The water seemed to crush him,
pushing against him with the force of a constricting boa. He screamed
into the sea, thrashing, banging himself against the straps, knowing
that he'd die, that he would forever remain under the water with
Pirilin, that—

One strap snapped free.

Jin struggled with renewed
vigor. A second buckle opened, and like a fish squirting out of a
fisherman's hands, Jin blasted upward.

He wriggled his torso. He swam
like a fish, pushing himself upward, head aching, lungs blazing, only
heartbeats away from breathing in water. He wouldn't make it. He was
too deep, too slow. He had to breathe, his lungs were collapsing,
he—

Pain exploded. He opened his
mouth for a deep breath.

He burst over the surface.

Air flowed into his lungs and
stars floated across his eyes.

He lay on his back, floated, and
looked around him. The battle still raged in the northern waters.
Hundreds of ships were firing cannons and arrows, and countless
soldiers vaulted from deck to deck. In the south, many Timandrian
ships were still sailing toward the walls of Asharo, and more kept
joining them. Burning flotsam bobbed around Jin. The body of a sailor
floated by him, then sank.

"Pirilin!" Jin
shouted, seeking her. Surely she had managed to swim above the
surface too. Surely she couldn't have died; she was a great, ancient
dragon, wisest among them. "Pirilin, please!"

A roar sounded above and scales
flashed in the sky, and hope leaped in Jin, but it was Tialong, his
scales black and his beard red. The dragon dived toward him, smoke
pluming between his teeth. Gentle as a mother wolf lifting her cub,
Tianlong held onto Jin's tunic with his teeth and lifted him.

"We have to find Pirilin!"
Jin said to Empress Hikari who sat in the black dragon's saddle.
"She's hurt."

Tianlong soared higher, turned
his neck around, and placed Jin into the saddle too. Hikari wrapped
her arms around him, held him close, and kissed his head.

"We must go to the city
now, Jin," she said. "The fight will continue."

When he looked below him, Jin
saw that the naval battle was over. The Elorian fleet lay sunken;
only the tips of their masts rose from the water. Burning flotsam and
floating bodies covered the water. The enemy fleet—hundreds of its
ships still sailed—was moving toward the city. Across the warships,
men were lowering rowboats into the water. Troops chanted inside the
landing craft, heading toward the beaches.