CHAPTER 403: 403: RANK UP TO FIVE STAR PART TWO

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Alka didn’t ask. She dropped her head. Her beak slid under the belly of the shell with a scrape that made teeth ache. She levered. The shell rose an inch. Two. Three. She got her beak under the middle, clamped, and lifted.

Kai felt the world move. He could not tense. He could not help. He could only trust her.

Azhara grabbed Alka’s feathered wings and hauled herself up, one knife in her teeth, one in her hand. Skyweaver jumped and grabbed with both hands where feathers turned to leather near the wing root. Her wings buzzed once and helped her climb.

"Up!" Alka grunted around the weight. She launched. Wings beat. Sand blew. Spears reached up and scraped plates and caught nothing. The shell left the ground. Three stars jumped and missed. A four-star threw a rope and caught nothing but air.

Mardek leaped and slashed with his dagger at Alka’s throat as she rose. He cut a line across a feather quill. It bled as a single drop and then dried in the wind. He screamed in rage and threw the dagger up at her eye. It hit the shell and bounced, turning end over end, and fell point-first into the sand and stood there quivering.

"Cowards!" he roared up at the sky. "Run! Run and die at your doors!"

He turned on his line. "Form! Drums! Before dawn we reach that mountain! Nets packed! Ladders! Water! Move!"

Orders ran. Hands moved. Fear turned into work.

Alka climbed with all she had. The shell hung heavy from her beak. Azhara lay along her back and pointed knives outward at anyone who thought to leap high and grab a leg. Skyweaver held on with bleeding hands and kept her wings wide to steady the weight.

The camp fell away. The ring became a blot. Torches became a smear. Drums rolled out like thunder. The cold air hit hard. Alka’s breath sawed. She kept going.

[Ding! Shell phase: 6:26 remaining.]

"Drop point!" Skyweaver croaked against the wind. "North ridge!"

"Too close," Azhara shouted. "East cut! The old dry stream!"

Alka shifted left a degree at a time. She could not spare a single extra beat. The shell’s mass pulled at her neck. Her jaw ached. Her wings burned. She set a rhythm in her head and forced her muscles to obey it.

Below, Mardek watched and shook blood from his nose into the sand and smiled a broken smile that had too many teeth. He had never been so angry. He had never felt so alive. He spat again and pointed.

"You —captains— count your lines. No food. March light. We use the night. We do not rest. We do not lose him. If I cannot break him under my hand tonight, I will break his door under my feet before the sun stands up."

A runner skidded to a halt beside him, panting. "Vice General — the word to the other allies?"

Mardek didn’t think. He said what his guts told him. "Send it. Tell them: I have the white hair in hand. I drove him to his nest. If they want a share, they can keep up — if they can. If they cannot, I take the mark alone. Move!"

The runner sprinted.

Another man came, eyes big. "Sir—three-star losses are heavy. Four-star lines—"

"Do you think I am blind?" Mardek snapped. "Count dead later. March now."

He looked up again. The bird was only a dark shape now, moving toward the broken line of the east.

"Run," he said again, louder. "Run so you can hear me coming."

Up in the cold, Alka’s wings beat. The old dry stream came into view — a black cut, lower than the rest, with low banks that would hide a shape even from a low flyer.

"Down," Azhara said. "That line. There."

Alka folded one wing, then the other. They dropped. She spread both at the last blink and took the weight, legs forward. They hit sand hard. The shell thumped down. It didn’t crack. Azhara rolled off and came up kneeling. Skyweaver slid, staggered, and caught herself on the bank.

"Silvershadow?" Azhara rasped.

"I am here," came the whisper from the dark cut. He stepped from shadow with Miryam cradled to his chest and set her gently in the sand beside the shell. His broken hand was swelling. He held it close and did not look at it. "She is safe. She did not sleep much. She did not cry much."

Miryam crawled to the shell and pressed both paws to the plate. "Papa," she said. "Wake up."

"He can’t," Skyweaver said softly, kneeling. "Not yet, little princess."

[Ding! Shell phase: 5:02 remaining.]

Azhara looked east. The line of torches had already moved. Drums were steady. They would be here. Not yet. Soon.

"Alka," Azhara said. "Go back. Bring the girls at the ridge if you see any, or cut a drum line if you can without being caught. If you can’t, don’t. Do not be brave for no reason."

Alka shook her head once, hard. She meant "I bring you in, I do not leave you."

"You bring us out," Azhara said, eyes fierce. "Do not waste time. We are not a glory story. We are a door. Go."

Alka held her eyes for a heartbeat. Then she nodded, opened her wings, and launched. The air filled with cold again and then she was gone.

Skyweaver wrapped an arm around Miryam’s shoulders. "Breathe. He is fine. He is inside. He will come out soon."

Miryam nodded hard. "I will sit. I will not cry. I will count to one thousand."

Silvershadow made a low, quick laugh that was not unkind. "Count by tens," he said. "It goes faster."

Miryam looked at him as if he had given her a gift. "By tens," she said seriously, and began, "Ten, twenty, thirty..."

Azhara stood with knives out and eyes on the east cut. "Shade," she said without looking back, "if you can move your fingers at all, set a trip at the lip. Low. Two finger height. They will not see it."