Page 127 of Fortune's Blade

And then the lights went out.

It happened between one blink and the next, to the point that, for a moment, I thought my brain was on the fritz again. But I wasn’t unconscious, and I could hear Louis-Cesare reassuring me. Not what he said, but the rumble in his chest against mine.

After a moment, I began to be able to see intermittently, as there were cracks in the enveloping darkness, cracks that I finally recognized as gaps in an overhanging tunnel of rock. One that we were flying through at mind numbing speeds, to the point that the dim moonlight did nothing but strobe the scene, showing me little. Until a city emerged from the enveloping rock, so fast that it basically slapped us in the face.

It was the capitol, as the crack-boom of one of the great guns made clear, at almost the second we appeared. The sound was so deafening in the enclosed cavern that I thought my head was going to explode, and what I could see wasn’t any more reassuring. The city had already sustained damage, and more was coming.

We had exited whatever shortcut through the mountains Regin had found and flown right into a crowded street filled with running, screaming pedestrians of all species, many sheltering children in their arms, and most with bags of possessions thrown over their backs.

But there was no refuge here, with buildings shattering and coming down as huge fireballs boiled through the city. One hit a nearby tower, strewing massive blocks of stone across the street; another tore by overhead, sending the huge amount of dust that was in the air for some reason curling up behind it, lashing our faces and burning our eyes; and a third hit Antem a glancing blow, causing him to whip about with a snarl on his bloody maw. Not surprisingly, fires had broken out in numerous places, adding black smoke to the mix that made it hard to breathe, much less to see.

But people could see us, and the appearance of two of the creatures currently attacking the city brought pandemonium to the fleeing civilians. Regin shouted something, but for once, the great voice didn’t manage to reach far enough to reassure them, or even to hit my own ears. But it must have his son’s, because we swooped up and landed on the same rooftop a moment later.

It was higher than most of the street, to the point that I was surprised that the dragons had been able to get there at all, as I could have reached out and touched the end of the nearest stalactite. There were masses of them hanging down from the cavern’s ceiling, sparkling in the reflected flames like uncut diamonds, and quivering menacingly every time one of those cannons went off. Which was pretty much constantly, to the point that the limestone forest overhead was chiming almost as loudly as the guns.

I didn’t see much of the cavern that didn’t have them, meaning that flying above street level was basically out. Columns of rock also speared down in places, far enough to block whole avenues, forcing people to go around. Only where they were going, I didn’t know, as outside was—

Not good, I thought, as an explosion rocked us, almost causing me to be thrown off my feet. A fireball had caught something flammable in a nearby building, which went up like a bomb. And caused the screaming in the surrounding streets to ramp up to a decibel level I hadn’t thought possible.

“Why are there no shields?” Louis-Cesare was yelling.

“Good question,” Antem rumbled and transformed, because he’d clearly made the same assessment on the chances of flying anywhere that I had.

Louis-Cesare and I slid down Regin’s back, dropping onto the roof. And allowing him to transform a second later, causing a bunch of fluttery, drained fey to fall to the rooftop beside us, their desiccated, staring faces looking up accusingly. I looked back at them and then all around, at the exploding, chiming, burning city, and had another of those dizzying, you-are-in-over-your-head moments I had been experiencing ever since I got here.

I mentally slapped myself, because I was here and I had better get a goddamned grip.

The building moved under our feet, causing me to stumble. It was in the area nearest the cavern walls, so had probably been weakened by the parking job the pixies had done. At least, I truly hoped it wasn’t like this everywhere, as I had to get across the city to the portal that Antem claimed Dorina was likely headed to, which . . .

Wasn’t looking fun, I thought, as several stalactites cleaved off the ceiling and fell like massive icicles, one shattering in the street below and one spearing down onto a nearby building, which fortunately had a stone roof.

Not all of them did, and there were a lot of icicles. Or to be more accurate, there were a lot of limestone daggers poised to fall on whatever was left of the city once the dragons finished with it, not that they were in here yet. One of the reasons I couldn’t concentrate was the relentless boom-boom-boom of the mega cannons that the fey were firing non-stop at the attacking army.

I wondered how much ammo they had. I wondered what happened when it ran out. I wondered why I was wondering, because the answer was freaking obvious, Dory!

And then Louis-Cesare was shaking me. “All right?” he all but screamed in my face.

I nodded, and then shook my head. I had no idea what they’d been saying, and not just because of the distraction of being in a city coming down around my head. I’d been there before, but the cannons—

They need to reach the controls for the shields, echoed through my mind. If they don’t, everyone will die. I told them we would take it from here, all right?

I looked at him like he was crazy, because I’d just been calculating the odds of making it across this place with them. And they hadn’t been good! Going without wasn’t just insane; it was futile.

And I hadn’t come this far to die without getting out of the goddamned city!

No, I thought as hard as I could. We’ll go with them.

I didn’t explain any further. I couldn’t think well enough, and wasn’t even sure that my answer got through. But I guessed so, because Louis-Cesare turned and shouted something at the dragons, and then a very tactile tail was wrapping around me, was throwing me onto a spreading mass of scales, was—

“What is he doing?” I screamed, because Antem had been the one to grab us this time, throwing us on his back less than gently, although that wasn’t the problem. The problem was—goddamn!

My head jerked back, my hands scrambled to find purchase on the great mane, and my legs flexed uselessly as there was nothing to hold onto. And if I thought that Regin had been insane in the air, I now understood that he had been doing everything possible to give us a smooth, controlled ride. Because his son . . . did not.

Antem took off like a bat out of hell, ignoring the fact that flying was all but impossible in here, and made it happen anyway. He dodged the masses of stalactites with the liquid speed of a snake swimming through water, with them coming at us so thick and fast that I could do nothing except hang on, getting whiplash. And wondering what would happen if we plowed into some of the ones as big as houses that must have been growing for hundreds of years.

I decided not to think about that, right before we brushed one too closely, scattering chunks across the great back and sending cold, limestone dust flying into my face. And had another break free just after we slid underneath, and fall, crashing to the ground somewhere very far below because this city wasn’t level. Wasn’t close to level, I realized, staring down at chasms and then almost slamming face first into a cliffside springing up out of nowhere because we were breaking every speed record known to man.

Nor was it looking like a single city. From what little I could grasp in between the obstacle course from hell, it looked like maybe a dozen smaller ones that had been squashed together and built on top of each other and—and it was a mess, an utter jumbled mess, and it was getting worse. Because, in the short amount of time we’d had, Steen’s creatures had started to make it past the cannons.

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