Wind swifts. I catch Flutter’s eyes. They’re human, brown and sad. She nods at me.
I’m seized by the unshakeable notion that I will never see her again.
“Get your men and horses, Mehmet,” I say through a tight throat. “You must leave now.”
Confusion in the courtyard. Wind swifts flash down like meteors, but they don’t dissipate. As they hit ground, they spread out in spiderwebs of burning green, crackling as they flow over the stones.
An eerie man cracks his whip through one, and the swift sizzles through, arcing for his hand. The eerie man howls and drops his whip, cradling his hand. There’s a smell of burning flesh.
Two cloaks surge up from the stones and smother swifts in their wings. Cobble crunchers swarm from the walls, carrying coils of wiring. Soon the courtyard is cris-crossed with metal and flashes of light.
And still more swifts come, landing on eerie men’s shoulders and setting tents and bedding on fire.
“Don’t touch them!” I yell to Mehmet’s men. “Just get your horses and go!”
Great warm bodies and a clatter of hooves all around me. Flutter grabs at Daral’s sleeve. “Keep him safe, Daral. Keep Kato safe. Promise me!”
I expect Daral to pull away, but he puts his hand over the pale ones clutching his arm.
“Promise!” she insists.
Mehmet’s on his horse, and he’s holding a jittery mare by the bridle.
“Get on, Flutter!” I pull her away from Daral, and throw her into the saddle. She mists and for a moment I’m afraid she’s going to fly apart.
And then she’s solid again, still looking at Daral. Her lips part. “Trust…”
A swift lights up above her head, and every one flinches from the unnatural brightness.
“Go!” I slap the horse’s flanks and the mare leaps forward. Mehmet calls out, half battle cry, half order and the whole group of them thunders out the gate. Another flash of green, lighting up the confusion, and I glimpse Grip’s face, smug and satisfied.
So, this was his doing, eh? Bastard.
I turn to Daral, tense and alert next to me. “We have no more time,” I say. “Take this and go to Makai. I’ll be following you there shortly, one way or another. We need that angel craft.” I hand him the angel key; watch his face blanch as he realizes what he’s holding.
“Careful,” I grunt, as his hands spasm. “That’s our only bargaining chip. Now get out of here.”
I turn my back to him. If he wants to put a knife between my shoulder blades, now is the time.
He doesn’t. He’s gone.
I plant myself at the doors of Kaal Baran, between the fleeing riders and the stalking swifts.
I pull out my sword, and it fits into my iron hand as if it were always meant to. A distant life stirs within it.
Swifts don’t have eyes, but I sense them all turn to me. They swing around, these creatures of burning green fire, the crazed lines of them white-hot within the flames.
They skitter towards me, scoring burn lines into the stone. The air sizzles. I brace myself, and my spiders run along my nerves, frantically spinning out a pathway for the incoming lightning.
The first swift leaps at me. My vision’s a net of green and my ears are full of crackling. Heat blasts into my face; I lift up my sword and swing.
A jolt in my hand, pain sears through me. My throat tightens, a scream shapes itself on my lips…
And then its gone—all that voltage, dissipating into my shoes, into stone and dirt.
I stand there, shaken, sword point dipping down to the ground. My flesh hand spasms, my thighs tremble.
More swifts dash at me, and I slash and thrust. Heat builds up in my sword and my iron hand, my spiders channel it back down to the point, which glows hot and red. Every now and again a jolt runs into my arm. Dots of red and black pain pinprick my vision.
A swift attacks on my left, I glimpse its green in my periphery. My mind screams Move! My iron hand and sword are already crossing over, but the rest of body, stunned and stupefied, is slow, too slow…
I’m not going to make it.
Low dark shapes scurry across the courtyard, a shining thread stretched between them. The swift flies into the cable, sizzles into a green line all along it. A pop goes off, shards of stone fly up into the air.
I cringe.
The smell of something warm and organic, with a slight hint of singed fur, and Leap’s in front of me, a broken board in one hand and his coiled whip in the other.
“Leap,” I slur. “Get out of the way.” Damn, even my teeth are buzzing.
He turns a wild face at me, large lips pulled back from his many sharp teeth, displaying dark gums. His hair lies flat against his head.
“No! Leader in danger….” He ends on a howl, his muscles bunched.
I drop the sword, grab the back of his neck with my iron hand. He twists, incredibly fast, and his claws rake across my arm, tearing cloth and ripping into the skin underneath.
I cuff him across the ear and give him a shake. “Stop it! Now listen to me.”
He stops squirming and I breathe into his ear. “Let the Highwinders come. Their quarrel is not with you, but with me.”
“Ironhand,” he growls. “I’ll never—”
Drat that pack instinct. I box him again, hard. “I want them to take me. This is the best way. Keep your men out of trouble. Watch and wait for my signal.”
I push him away from me. He looks back at me, like a kicked puppy, but I scowl ferociously and he turns and smacks another eerie man across the head. “Listen, you—”
I turn to look at one of Kaal Baran’s walls, now glowing silver. Cloaks slide off it, and puddle into the courtyard, slipping through cracks in the stone.
Cloud looks at me a moment. I shake my head, no.
She, too, mists down.
I pick up my sword and sheathe it.
Cobble crunchers give disgusted cries
