The Oud had been busy since she’d last been here. The landscape was torn open—not torn, she realized with amazement. They’d stripped away what had lain on top to uncover roadways and stone stairs. A set lay before her, winding and worn, and of no use to Oud, which likely explained why they’d continued to dig deeper to either side. Aryl could imagine Marcus being grateful to have something easier for his feet.
Easier and better cover. She took the stairs, careful to keep to shadows. The rumble was coming back toward her.
Aryl showed her teeth. Good. Now to see. She eased around an exposed rock wall.
Busy indeed. A structure had been partially freed from the cliff face, curved and elaborate, as flawless as those she’d seen beneath the Lake of Fire and uncovered by the Strangers at Site Two. Hoveny ruins.
Things left by the long-dead didn’t concern her.
What came toward her, its low rumble vibrating through the soles of her feet, did.
She’d made fiches the size of her hand glide through the air, of dresel wing, thread, and sticks. She knew the amazing aircars of the Strangers, the noisy winged flyers of the Oud, had been carried by an esan’s doubled wings.
How could anything like this fly?
Aryl clutched her pendant, almost deafened. The machine descending before the cliff was larger than the buildings behind her. Twenty—more—aircars could have fit inside it. Like the Oud flying machines, fire came out of it. Like the Humans’ aircar, there were no wings.
Her eyes narrowed. Scars marred its skin. There were objects fastened to it, or protruding from it. Along its underside, what must be feet. On its back? Those objects were sharp and aimed forward, like horns or knives. Best to assume they were as dangerous as they looked.
The fire ceased, as if turned off like a glow; with that, the rumble ended, but the machine wasn’t silent. It whined as it came to rest, feet adjusting to the uneven ground with a series of metallic clangs. Suddenly, even the whine stopped.
Silence. Aryl’s ears buzzed.
A ramp extended like a tongue to taste the dirt. Above it, a door opened into the belly of the machine.
And out they came . . .
Interlude
UNTIL THIS MOMENT, STANDING TOO CLOSE to the sky in Yena’s canopy or on a mountain ridge—closely followed by dangling from the claws of an esask over a mountain ridge—had been the former Tuana’s idea of situations to avoid repeating at all costs. Enris dropped his hand from the now-stable tunnel wall, tested his legs, and moved being underground when the ground itself shook to the top of his list.
Trust Aryl and the Yena to chase after the cause.
“That was—unpleasant,” he commented.
“That?” His uncle chuckled, not unkindly. “Always happens when Oud run their machines in nearby tunnels. Shakes up some dust, nothing worse. Josel?”
The hole had opened into a well-lit tunnel; a tunnel which promptly and unhelpfully branched in four directions, all strewn with Oud gore. Not for long, Enris noticed queasily. Normally skittish iglies clustered around the larger splots of green, paying no attention to Om’ray and their boots as they crowded to get at the stuff, shoving one another vigorously with their jointed legs. Those pushed out of place flashed alarm and complained with
“Through here,” the unChosen announced, pointing to one of the identical tunnels.
All Josel had done was quickly step inside each tunnel mouth and back again. Having been lost among the Oud once, Enris hesitated. “Why that one?”
Netta bumped him forward. The twins, also identical, were his height and strongly built, even for Tuana. “She knows.”
“She does,” Suen assured him. “Josel’s Talent tells her where there’s been movement lately—and how much. This was the busiest tunnel.”
A useful Talent for a Runner, who would normally avoid any space in use by Oud. Enris gestured gratitude and was rewarded by a shy smile.
Galen waved Josel ahead; the rest of the Tuana followed. But Suen delayed a step to let Enris come beside him. “I want to thank you.” He spoke quietly. A Runner habit, not to risk mindtouch near Oud.
“Thank me?”
“For what you did for Naryn.”
Suen d’sud Annk was once S’udlaat. The family resemblance was there, in the fine lines of his face, the thick red-brown hair. The difference was in the openness of his face. Suen was not an Om’ray of secrets, though he had Power. And he was the closest family Naryn had left, cousin to her mother, heart-kin to her father’s brother. The closest she’d ever had, Enris thought. Suen had not only sheltered Naryn when she’d fled the Adepts; every time she’d had run off in tears, furious or petulant or both, it had been to him.
Enris shrugged. “Glad I could help.” However complicated the result.
A frankly doubtful look. “She doesn’t make friends.”
A not-question, like the Tikitik. “Not easily,” Enris agreed, but something made him add, “She’s found one in Aryl. You know that.”
