CHAPTER 26

  The floor thrummed beneath us like a train passing overhead.

  We burst up the stairs past Hakashi, shoved the trapdoor open, and flung the hut’s front door wide.

  Out on the plains, the world was ending.

  Three miles away, the central spire stabbed through the cent of Tier Two into the underside of Tier Three. Halfway up the shaft, gaping vents had opened, spewing water like burst arteries. Rivers poured from the wounds, hundreds of feet in the air, slamming into the ground in a deafening roar. White spray blasted out and spread, already forming a churning, silver ring around the spire that was bleeding outward across the pond-studded plain.

  “How long until it reaches us?” I asked Raine, leaning toward her to be heard over the distant thunder.

  She squinted at the spire, lips moving as she ran numbers. “If it stays at that rate… maybe two hours until it hits the hideout.”

  The spire boomed again, and a fresh surge of water burst downward from a newly opened vent.

  “If it stays at that rate…” She said again, less optimistic.

  “ATTENTION, CITIZENS OF MY DOMAIN.”

  The voice rolled across the Tier, loud as if from a nearby speaker system. As if the spire itself had grown a mouth and called across the plains, a beautiful, monstrous voice. Cold. Nerida.

  “VIOLENT CRIMINALS HAVE STOLEN MY TREASURE. IF YOU ARE INNOCENT, SEEK SHELTER IN YOUR BOATS. MY GUARDS WILL INSPECT YOU. IF YOU ARE FOUND IN MY PRECIOUS WATERS, YOU WILL SUFFER BY MY OWN HANDS.”

  Her words echoed off every pool.

  I glanced the opposite way toward the edge of Tier Two. From our location the edge was about two miles of grass plains and reflective ponds away, then a drop to the red wheat fields of Tier One. Above us, the underside of Tier Three loomed a thousand feet up.

  “Dear gods…” Leace shouldered past us, staring at the cascading water. “She’s going to flood everything.”

  “We’re ants under a thunderstorm,” Tevin said, his voice tight with anxiety.

  Leace spun and barreled back into the hut. “Move! We’ve only got one option.”

  We didn’t argue. We ducked back inside, dropped through the trapdoor, and ran through the tunnel to the main chamber. The roar of the flood, even from a couple of miles away, followed us underground like a constant, distant growl.

  “I need to find Rinka,” Sora said, wringing her fingers as we ran. As if on cue, Silas, Rinka, and Jessa rushed in from another passage.

  “What’s happening?” Rinka asked, going straight to Sora.

  “Where’s Lucius?” Sora grabbed her wrist. “We have to leave. Now.”

  “He’s sedated in the wagon. Why? What is that noise—”

  “We’re about to be swimming,” Mel said. “Hey, Head Crier—what exactly is our ‘one option’?”

  Leace didn’t answer her. She strode to the Gurus.

  “Did I hear that correctly?” Kael asked.

  Leace nodded and looked at Rasa.

  “So, we attempt to use it again?” Rasa asked, calm as ever.

  “Do we have a choice?” Leace said.

  Rasa considered it for all of a breath. “I suppose not,” he said. “Interesting. Go ahead. Let’s move.”

  Leace whistled sharply. Several masked Criers fell in beside her. They crossed to a sandstone pillar tucked into a rear corner—seven feet tall, three wide. At her nod, they set their shoulders and heaved. With a gritty scrape, the pillar slid aside, revealing a narrow, dust-choked passage.

  “How many tunnels do you people have?” Zenobia muttered.

  “This one was compromised,” Leace said. “We used it to infiltrate Nerida’s Hall years ago. She found it the last time we tried for the Soul Glass.”

  “And we’re just going to stroll into a route she knows?” Raine asked, hands on hips. “How do we know she hasn’t trapped it? Or stationed half her army on the other side?”

  “We don’t,” Leace said. “But we can’t exactly fly away from the floor. We have to risk it.” She leaned past Raine and yelled. “Come on Criers! Let’s go! Wake everyone! Grab everyone, don’t leave those old Cinders behind too!”

  Wait, I have an idea, I thought.

  Fern heard my plan and agreed. It sounds crazy but I think it could work.

  Around us, Criers scattered. Boots skidded on the stone, while the flood’s muffled roar was a growing background sound.

  “Strongest to the front,” Aer called, slotting Criers into positions with quick jabs of his hand. “If there’s resistance in the tunnel, I want a wall ready.”

  “Hold up,” I shouted.

  Leace was mid-order, barking what to carry and what to abandon. Heads swung toward me.

  “What, Erik?” she snapped.

  “How much rope do you have?” I asked.

  She blinked. Aer answered. “Odd question. Several thousand feet, at least. Why?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” I said, tapping my temple. “How about we split up?”

  “With what other escape route?” Leace said, hands on her hips.

  Raine, Sora and I led the rope team—which consisted of the bulk of the Criers, the Firebrands, and every Forgeman who either couldn’t use Breath—into a dead sprint across the plains. Leace, the Gurus, and the other five Forgemen who could use breath, took the hidden passage. The idea was to have the strongest fighters go through the known passage, and the weaker ones with us.

  Raine flew point in Third Form, low above the ground, gliding across the field on a storm cloud. I stayed in base form to conserve strength. Behind me, Criers and Cinders lugged coils of rope over their shoulders as we trudged through the plains as fast as we could. Silas and Jessa staggered under bags of metal and tools, that Silas couldn’t possibly get rid of, while Rinka and Sora pushed a small wagon over the dry ridges between pools. Inside, Lucius lay tied down and bandaged to mid-thigh. They’d taken the legs clean, above the knee and drugged him up with a load of pain killers. Today they needed him compliant and portable.

  “Heyyy, where are we goinggg?” Lucius slurred as the wagon rattled.

  “Shh, Lucius. Just rest,” Rinka murmured, smoothing his hair.

  Raine flew up high, scanning behind us, and I continued running ahead.

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  We hit the planned spot ten minutes later—a flat patch of grass just beneath the edge of Tier Three’s ceiling with enough solid, pool-free ground to set up on.

  Belen and Weiss, the two other Head Criers, dropped their rope coils and instructed everyone to tie the ropes they carried to eachother, making one long rope. Then, they walked over to me with Aer and Jorik.

  “What is your plan?” Belen asked. “Have us climb a thousand feet? That will take hours for—what—nearly a hundred bodies?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “That tunnel is a choke point. Nerida knows it. It’s still worth using, but we can’t put everyone into that bottleneck. So most of us go up here—the non-fighters, and anyone too weak to be in tunnel fight. As for climbing, no—we’ll cheat. Jorik?”

  “Yes?” he said.

  I walked to Silas, plucked two metal bars from his haul, and brought them back to Jorik. “Resonance Breath works on more than just Soul made material, right?”

  Jorik frowned. “Resonance rearranges a material’s structure. We use it on soul-work because that is where it matters, but… in theory, any meterial would respond I suppose.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  I stepped into a clear spot, let the Chimera’s power rise out of my marrow and turned into my Third Form. Some of the Criers paused to stare, seeing their first transformation.

  “Keep tying,” I growled. The startled and got back to tying ropes together.

  Silas hustled over and added two more bars. “Extra anchors,” he said, knowing exactly what I was about to ask them to do.

  “Thanks Silas, now, clear the space,” I said stretching my wings out.

  I grabbed all four metal bars in one fist, scooped Jorik around the waist with the other, and kicked off. Flying while carrying a grown man and an armful of metal wasn’t graceful, but after several heavy beats of my wings, I muscled us up toward the lip of Tier Three.

  “Explain!” Jorik shouted over the wind.

  “Anchor points,” I yelled back. “For the ropes. Something they can run through without cutting.”

  “I don’t understand!” He said.

  “It’s a pulley system!”

  We crested the edge.

  Beyond the lip, Tier Three ground stretched into a maze of cramped, sagging buildings, covered in darkness. It reminded me of Tier One’s slums, except none of the buildings were identical.

  I set Jorik down, dropped the ingots, and slammed my chimera fists into the metal. After three heavy punches into the metal, the bars flattened. The impact rattled my bones, but the pain was minor enough for me to ignore. I then bent the softened steel into two U-shaped anchors with a smooth bar between them. Then, I pressed the feet of the U-shapes against an exposed plate in the floor of the Third Tier.

  “I’m not sure this will hold,” Jorik said. “I’ve never attempted to use Resonance to build like this.”

  “Well, make sure it is strong. Make sure it does hold,” I said. “Your kids are going to hang from this.”

  He swallowed, then drew Breath, and hummed.

  A thin ring of blue mist haloed his mouth and the back of his head. Under my hands, the metal softened like clay and sank into the plate. I pressed until the anchors welded deep and the crossbar fused flush with the deck.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Jorik cut his Breath, and the mist dissipated. He tugged each anchor, then the bar, with both arms. They didn’t budge.

  “It worked,” he said. “On ordinary steel.”

  “Sometimes you have to think outside the box,” I said, scooping him back up, and dropped us off the ledge, using my wings to slow our descent.

  Halfway down, I looked out toward the spire. The silver ring of flooded water had grown into a hungry lake. The waterline had passed the halfway mark between spire and hideout, and was still spreading fast. Something vast and dark moved beneath the surface, circling, like a big whale.

  Not good, Fern said.

  I know. I don’t even want to think about that. We still have some time, I said.

  We hit the ground hard. I sucked in a breath and rolled my shoulders as we rejoined the rope teams.

  They’d been busy. Coils were laid out in the dirt, ends already tied together, making the entire piece, at least two thousand feet long.

  Good, I thought. But the join knots would snag under load.

  “Jorik,” I said. “We’ll need Resonance at the joins too.”

  He nodded. He, Aer, Belen, and Weiss walked the length of the rope, humming low. At each knot they breathed blue mist into the fibers, and under their hands, the hemp threads merged until the whole span became one smooth line, no bumps, knots, and no snags.

  “Rig the harnesses,” I said.

  We didn’t get fancy. Weiss and Belen whipped slings around hips and shoulders, making crude seat harnesses that wouldn’t flip or choke under weight. Silas and Aer hammered a spare steel ring into a buried post and used Resonance to fuse it to the ground, deep and secure. We wrapped the hauling side of the rope around it in two turns, making a rough capstan for leverage. It wasn’t a proper winch, but it was enough to keep us from getting yanked off our feet.

  “Why not just fly us up one by one?” a Crier asked.

  “Because by the time we did, that—” Raine jabbed her chin toward the expanding lake “—would be at our knees. We have to beat the floodline.”

  We started with Jorik and his kids, plus seven Criers—ten bodies clipped into the line. I instructed the Firebrands, Sora, Raine and I to be the ones to pull the rope and get the Criers out first.

  “Ready?” I called.

  “Ready!” Jorik called, giving both thumbs up.

  “Hold tight. Cinders, pull.”

  We leaned into the rope. The capstan creaked as it turned. The line stretched and lifted, taking the first ten off their feet. They swung for a moment, then they were hoisted up and up toawrds the Third Tier edge.

  “Keep every pull consistent and slow,” Hakashi called. “No jerking.”

  “I thought you said you were fine with the kid in charge,” Hyper said through gritted teeth.

  “I am nervous, okay?!” Hakashi snapped. “Careful!”

  “Look at ’em,” Hyper laughed. “Halfway already, you worrywart.”

  The ten riders shrank to dots against the bottom of Tier Three. A double-tug came down the rope—Jorik’s signal that they made it to the top and were unloading.

  “Hold!” I barked.

  We locked the line around the post. I squinted, pushing my Chimera sight, and saw Jorik braced on the lip, hauling his kids up, then the other Criers. We inched slack so he could work the next harness loose. One by one, the weight bled off until only the ballast stone Silas had tied at the end remained.

  “Release,” I called.

  We let the rope slip. The ballast thudded back to earth.

  “It worked,” a Crier breathed.

  “No celebrating,” Aer snapped. “Next ten. Move.”

  We found a rhythm. Haul ten. Lock off. Tug signal. Release. Repeat. Mist from the oncoming flood kissed our necks, whenever the wind shifted, sending paranoia through me.

  I prayed Nerida couldn’t jump from those tiny droplets.

  Lucius went next—double-wrapped around his chest and thighs, Jessa’s tinctures keeping him limp and quiet. Once his bundle disappeared over the edge, only the Firebrands remained on the ground.

  Raine, Sora, and I took over the capstan for the last haul. Hyper, Heda, Srilick, and Hakashi, tied themselves into harnesses.

  “Alright, Sora, we need all the extra strength we can get to lift these up,” I said. “Let’s see the new infusion.”

  She nodded and closed her eye. Feathers and fur rippled out over her skin. Her jaw lengthened into something halfway between wolf and owl. Her arms stretched, and her bones made hollow noises cracking as they grew. Dark brown, feathered wings burst from her back. Her Third Form was an Owlwolf, a beast with fierce and sophisticated hunting styles against it’s prey. We hauled the rope back, all three of us in our Third Form, and carried the Firebrands up to the Third Tier edge. Once they were secure and off the rope, we dropped the pulled system and I told Sora to test her flying.

  She stretched, and flared her wings, while hopping around. Each jump she flew higher and then drifted slowly down.

  The second try was better, and she flew higher before falling. But, on the third try, she kept herself in the air and flew in a few circles.

  The ground shook faintly under my feet, and the roar from the spire groaned across the growing lake.

  I turned.

  The water had eaten the distance to the hideout and then some. What had been scattered silver pools was now a coiling aluminum sheet of water. That massive shadow moved beneath the surface, giving me an unsettling feeling. Then, it breached the surface and jumped out of the water.

  It had the darkness of an oil spill, it was the size of a ship, and when it crashed back to the water, the slap of its scales hitting the sruface echoed across the Tier like a gunshot. Each lunge sent waves racing around it.

  Nerida was hunting the plains for us.

  “Good,” I said. “That means she hasn’t found the tunnel team yet.”

  “Shit, she’s really coming for us” Sora whispered. She flicked a glance at her fresh wings. “You sure flying comes naturally?”

  My own wings flexed, aching to spread. Raine floated a few inches off the ground, lightening gathering around her feet.

  “Fear’s a natural teacher,” Fern hissed quietly from my tail.

  “Not helping,” I muttered.

  “You’ll be fine,” Raine said. Her voice sounded like it had a built in echo when she spoke in her Third Form.

  “Yeah, I suppose,” Sora said, flexing her talons. “Still remind me why why we didn’t just go up with them.”

  I pointed past them toward the onrushing flood. “Because we need to keep her occupied. Don’t want her to follow them, or go back to looking for the others in the tunnel.”

  “And when do you want me to use Pulse?” Sora asked. I had Leace teach the other Forgemen how to activate it before we left, much to the Gurus chagrin.

  “When we are in a better position to use it. I’ll let you know,” I said.

  Across the plain, less than three football fields away, Nerida’s massive form launched, breaching and diving, driving the flood forward. Every leap brought her closer.

  She’d seen enough to guess what we were doing, helping the others escape with the rope.

  She was coming to stop it.

  “Cut it, Fern,” I said.

  His snakehead tail slid over my shoulder. In one smooth motion he drew the Ashsteel blade and slashed through the rope where it wrapped around the post. The free end of the rope hissed up toward Tier Three and vanished over the edge. Then, the tail end fell into a pile at our feet. No one was getting that rope back up there without wings.

  I met Raine’s eyes. Then Sora’s.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  They nodded.

  We kicked off together towards the spire.

  My wings snapped open, catching the air. Raine rose on a column of wind, and Sora flapped hard, wobbling once, twice, then she steadied, and her Owl-Wolf form found its balance.

  We climbed higher into the air, beating our wings fast, above the drowning ponds and the advancing lake, straight into the path of the ship-sized monster leaping out of the water to meet us.