“Shit. There goes the plan.”
“What’s wrong?” Nico asked Rasia. As Rasia had predicted, the scavengers launched out to accost them the moment Rasia’s ship came into view of the Graveyard.
“Those scavengers aren’t Crimsons,” Rasia said. “This should be interesting.”
Nico frowned at that news. She adjusted the collar around her neck, modified with enough room for her to take a full breath. Azan had done a great job on it, and she hoped all his effort wasn’t for naught.
Rasia stopped the windship, and Nico climbed down the stairs to meet with the scavengers. Zephyr and Kelin followed behind her. Suri and Azan were both absent, tasked with preparing the distraction with the other ship. Hopefully, things were going to plan on their end.
“Where is Timar, Han of the Crimson Scavengers?” Nico asked. It was Rasia’s idea for Nico to take the lead. The more attention on Nico, the less attention on Rasia.
“We kicked that shroud out a day ago,” the scavenger answered. “We represent the Serpentines. Timar might no longer be in control of this territory, but the Cobalt-Serpentine alliance is aware of Timar’s deal and is willing to honor it.”
“Fine. I offer to willingly exchange myself for Kai-ji. In addition, my kull will also come with me,” Nico said, motioning to Rasia, Zephyr, and Kelin. “They will ensure that my jih leaves the Graveyard as promised.”
The facehunters shared several glances with one another, trading silent words, before the leader nodded.
“Come, Ohan, and we will take you to your fate.”
The facehunters led them to a small, covered path into the forest. Another facehunter jumped atop Rasia’s ship and steered it through a wider road.
The biology of the fauna fascinated Nico. She spied plants she’d never seen before and flowers of colors the temple gardens would be envious of. She walked atop fertile soil that she wanted to pick up and carry to the more stubborn arid fields of the outer wings.
As they walked farther in, the lullaby of the Graveyard’s bones grew ever more haunting. Unlike the Great Elder, which was alive and buzzing with energy, these bones slumbered. Nico caught snatches of mumbled words, brief yawns, and fragments of a dream.
As Rasia claimed, they had walked ten vibrations to reach the base camp. Hopefully, Azan and Suri were minding the time and keeping schedule. The scavenger base looked as Rasia described it, the only difference being a slender figure who sat atop the wooden throne. The figure wore a large elaborate green bark mask. Two familiar khopesh blades laid across their lap.
A larger figure wearing a black mask and holding a wicked bone axe over their shoulder leaned a leg on the throne’s arm support. The tree of heads created a morbid chorus at each shift of the wind.
“Is this her?” the Serpentine Han asked in a thick scavenger accent. This scavenger was born here, and Nico tried to wrap her mind around the generations that had called this rough and beautiful place home.
“We believe so.”
“They could be lying,” the Cobalt Han said, pointedly eying Nico. “Don’t they have gold-eyes?”
“Not all are born with the eyes?” One of the facehunters said, rounding the sentence with a question, unsure.
“I could perform magic,” Nico suggested, “but you would have to take off the collar.”
The Serpentine Han curled a finger toward a pair of cages. Between the bars of those cages, Nico found faces she recognized from the oasis, including Faris, Loryn, Rianis, and Gysen. All their faces lifted in hope at the sight of her.
The facehunter retrieved Neema, hands bound, from the cage. Her braids had come undone, all her dragonglass beads lost, and her hair was now matted into clumped strips. Neema’s curves had sharpened, and the pointed angles in her face could be replaced for knives. Immediately, Nico felt guilty for all the friction between them before.
The Serpentine Han asked, “I am told the Ohan was first placed on your kull. Is this her face?”
“It’s a lie!” Neema yelled out. “They don’t have him! Your jih is gone!”
A facehunter jerked Neema back. Another lifted their sword and plunged down the blade to behead Neema on the spot.
The facehunter’s sword froze in mid-air. Every pump of their blood now in Nico’s control. It was not the intended signal, but Rasia didn’t hesitate.
Rasia raced forward with scimitar in hand and sliced off the facehunter’s head, sending it flying into the massive tree trunk. Rasia immediately turned to attack the Serpentine Han, who flipped over the throne to land with Rasia’s dual khopesh turned against their owner.
Zephyr scooped up Neema and cut through her restraints.
The scavengers recovered quickly, and the Cobalt Han shouted orders to attack.
Nico summoned a dense fog. Despite the cover, the Cobalt Han came charging through the mist, straight toward Nico.
Steel flashed across the Han’s stomach, the shoulder, twice in the neck, in such quick succession Nico could barely follow.
The Cobalt Han dropped dead, and Kelin winked cheekily before sprinting for the cages.
A vibration trembled the ground.
At least Azan and Suri’s part had gone according to plan—Nico heard a distant roar—or maybe not.
Kai thought he dreamed the first vibration, then jolted out of sleep when the second didn’t stop. Timar ducked under a tooth decorated with a floss of vines and looked out over the Graveyard.
From this height, Kai could make out a dot—a windship?—breaking over the horizon, followed by massive sprawling shadows. The shadows formed into tentacles and rolling sand hills. They multiplied, and multiplied, until Kai counted at least twenty gonda bearing down on the Graveyard.
“It’s Rasia.”
“And the ohani. Another windship approached two kulls ago,” Timar said. All this time, she had been scanning the skyline for Nico’s windship, planning to swoop in after the inevitable fight weakened both Nico and the rival scavengers.
The windship baiting the gonda disappeared onto one of the wide ship roads of the Graveyard. Entire bones tilted and moved as the gonda cracked the border. Like ants, scavengers fled the bones from all sides. Thousands raced to get away.
“That kid is rutting brilliant,” Timar spat as she watched the chaos, too far to touch them just yet. Entire bones were tossed to the side, ecosystems and trees disrupted as the gonda trampled through.
“Time to go,” Timar said.
She collected her weapons and supplies. Kai spied the distant tail of Timar’s previous encampment and wished he could make out what was going on.
A mighty roar rattled the bones.
A gold dragon burst out the sky, shattering clouds, and chased after the gonda feast. Aurum. Kai doesn’t think that was part of the plan.
“Elderfuck,” Timar cursed out and yanked on Kai’s collar chain.
The dragon’s attention shifted, and a zap went through Kai’s spine when their eyes met. Kai recognized something familiar but distant, faint and hazy like déjà vu. The dragon’s maw opened. Fire condensed on their tongue. Timar jerked Kai by the arm, into the dank neck, and a blaze consumed the mountainous skull.
“Are you crazy?” Timar asked.
Kai stumbled after her, slipping and stumbling as she led him through the neck to a windship she had hidden at the back of the skull. Despite the interspersed trees, ideally, it looked like you could drive the windship all the way down the spine, but it was going to be one elderfire of a ride.
Timar prepared the windship to sail, attention largely focused on periodically checking the dragon making circular sweeps overhead. Kai trailed after her on deck as much as the chain allowed. He glanced at a handful of rope at his feet. He’d waited for days, searching for that right moment.
Kai hit the deck with a thump.
Timar couldn’t reach the steer at the back of the windship with Kai collapsed at the front. She whipped around, the chain rattled, and she cursed. Timar stomped over and reached down to grab him.
Kai snapped up and looped the rope around Timar’s neck, tightened the knot, and held on for dear life. He pulled with all his strength, arms shaking, as Timar struggled against him.
They rolled across the windship. Kai’s back slammed into the other side, but he refused to let go. If there were a moment Kai needed his body to not fail him, it was now. He held tight, straining. His shoulder burned as if on fire, but he refused to give up and fought for every arduous vibration until finally Timar sagged beneath him.
Kai dropped the ropes. Where he held on, the rough fibers had scraped off his skin. His fingers ached at the stiffness. Timar lay unconscious across him while he blinked in disbelief. He did it. Kai might not be improving at the pace he wanted, but sometimes his body proved it was far stronger than he gave it credit for.
During the struggle, Timar’s bone mask had tumbled off.
A large X crossed her face.
Kai reached into Timar’s shirt, between her breasts, and pulled out the collar key. Kai unlocked the collar and chucked it overboard. He sucked in two great lungfuls. The best breaths he had ever taken.
Kai made sure to secure Timar with the rope, just in case. Then, he stripped Timar of her clothes. The pants were surprisingly big, so he used her breast wrap as a belt. Kai grabbed Ava-ta’s sword, the one that had been passed down in his family for generations and tied it to his waist.
Kai grabbed ahold of the windship steer and stared down the length of the dragon’s curved spine.
“You can do this,” Kai said, and reminded himself, “You’re a damn good windeka.”
“You have something that belongs to me,” Rasia said as she circled the Serpentine Han. The fog of Nico’s magic swirled around them. The ground vibrated faster and faster. Nothing mattered but her opponent. She’d never killed a scavenger Han before. “Do you know who I am?”
The Han tilted the green bone mask. “Names and faces mean nothing here, kuller. Only strength.”
Rasia brandished the scimitar straight with both hands, arms up, the gleam of the bright metal pressed to her face like a mirror. She lowered to attack. So did her opponent.
They charged.
Rasia blocked the double beat of her dual khopesh and slashed horizontally. The Han twisted around the scimitar with impressive flexibility. Rasia often found herself cutting at air. A smile crossed her face, and her hips dipped to the rhythm of countered blows.
A low kick aimed for Rasia’s wounded thigh, but earlier that morning Rasia had wrapped the dirty bloody bandage around the wrong leg. Rasia took that hit with ease, bony foreleg against femur, and Rasia stabbed the scimitar with relish into the serpent’s leg, straight through, staking the blade to the ground.
The Han slashed as they folded. Rasia jumped over the attack and, without mercy, landed both knees to the Han’s chest. The Serpentine Han slackened, and their grip loosened. Rasia picked up her khopesh with triumph and kissed the flat of both blades. She sorely missed their balance.
Rasia kicked off the Serpentine’s mask and found a child, a couple of years younger than her. Too bad. The kid had been better than Rasia at that age.
“I offer you to Death. You were a worthy hunt.” Rasia said as she crossed her swords at the Han’s neck. Rasia slashed her swords apart. “All hunters are hunted.”
A gonda crashed through the scavenger base.
Some scavengers turned their attention to the giant monstrosity that invaded their camp. Some scavengers fled, others turned to fight, but a majority aimed for Nico in a last-ditch effort to collect the bounty. Nico tested the ground with her feet, determined her balance, and held her glaive against her forearm.
They all came at her at once.
Nico ducked under a swinging mace and swept the facehunter off their feet. She splashed an arrow out the air, then speared through the facehunter’s chest. Her first kill. Nico barely had time to linger on it. She brought her glaive up and a sword screeched off the polearm. Nico dropped her shoulder, spinning with gravity, and kicked the facehunter’s mask right off their face. Nico spun back around and slashed across the facehunter’s neck.
Nico lashed a whip of water across a wave of attackers and flowed around her polearm, like rain-river flowing off the Elder’s back, and slashed from one bone face to another.
Nico seethed when an arrow cut her arm. She reached for the archer, wrapped a stream around their throat, and splashed them from the tree branches.
Metal chimed behind her. Nico turned and found Rasia cutting down the attacker at Nico’s back.
Nico fought because she had to. She fought to protect herself, and those who needed saving. Nico didn’t know what she expected to find in Rasia’s blood-speckled face, perhaps the wild bloodlust and feral battle rage of aged legends. It surprised Nico to discover that in the heat of battle, Rasia reminded her more of a musician.
Like Kenji-ta lost in music.
Kenji-ta’s best songs were the pattern-breakers. The ones that acknowledged the Grankull’s long tradition of musical tales, of chords people memorized, and melodies they hummed at work. He played with that framework, establishing patterns to upend expectations, playing with syncopation, twisting and swooping and turning notes into songs you’d never heard before. Rasia was a similar musician. She created her own beats, then upended them. Rasia twisted and swooped and turned, and everyone was stuck dancing to her tune. For Rasia, battle was a song composed on the fly and a thrilling dance all in one. It was rhythm.
Nico moved to Rasia’s beat, in perfect understanding, and pressed together back-to-back.
Rasia’s sword played notes behind her, chinking off metal and cutting slick through flesh. Nico added to Rasia’s song with her own notes of breath, building a harmony, combining tones. They danced with each other. Water splashed. Blood dripped. Metal struck metal. Facehunters screamed and gurgled and choked. Feet drummed as facehunters broke and ran.
Nico and Rasia breathed heavily against each other at the end, staring out at the piles of bodies that surrounded them. None who have killed as many as they have should feel as if they were having the greatest time of their lives. And yet, Rasia turned to Nico, eyes bright, grinning as if seeing Nico for the very first time. Nico couldn’t stop her own smile. Rasia and Nico’s forms were precise, their techniques things of envy, no strokes or breaths wasted. A beautiful awe-inspiring melody Nico could never have composed on her own.
Perfection.
Zephyr and Kelin protected the oasis kids’ retreat. Kelin slashed with his curved dagger and reaped swathes of facehunters before they realized they’d been hit. Zephyr crushed them with his sword, often shattering bodies to the ground. The child of the Scorpion, and the child of the Crane, both from opposing Tent Hans, fought side by side.
A few other oasis kids had picked up weapons and assisted in covering the weaker ones’ escape. Neema pursued every scavenger who crossed her path, and she was so focused on going after those who had imprisoned her that she paid no attention to the flailing tentacles.
“She’s going to get herself killed,” Rasia sneered. “I’m not saving her ass again.”
“I’ll take care of Neema,” Nico said. “Distract the gonda.”
Nico tackled Neema to the ground, right before a tentacle sailed over their heads.
The gonda’s attention shifted toward Rasia, who raced in the opposite direction beating a stick to an amphora. But not even a gonda could deter Neema’s war path. Neema rolled back up and threw a knife into the neck of a fleeing scavenger.
“Neema,” Nico said, catching her by the arm. “I know you’re angry, but you’re making the situation worse. Go with the others.”
“No. I want to help. We can kill these scavengers and slay the gonda. I know I can do it,” Neema argued, despite not having the strength to wrestle out of Nico’s grip. Nico feared Neema might faint.
“Neema,” Nico said, more urgently. “You need to go. I owe you a gonda. I owe you that, I promise.”
“Ohan!”
A body lunged in front of her. Nico caught the slackened body and stared aghast at an arrow pierced through the child’s back. Blood spread quickly through the tattered linen shirt.
Neema swiped a pottery shard off the ground and hurled it at the sniper in the tree. The sniper crashed through the branches.
“Rianis,” Nico exclaimed when she recognized the face, one of the kids from back at the oasis, the female who had told Nico the truth about what happened to Kai.
“You remembered my name,” the child croaked.
Nico pressed her hands to the wound and tried suppressing the blood flow with her magic, but the arrow had pierced the heart. There was nothing she could do. Rianis’s life drained a river out of Nico’s hands.
Neema looked at the dead kid with a bitter expression. “What about her gonda?”
Zephyr and Kelin approached them at a run.
“All the Forging kids and no-faces have been freed,” Zephyr reported, then glanced down at the bloody body in Nico’s lap. “All the ones alive.”
A roar, much louder and closer than the first time, rattled the bones, visibly bending and shaking the air. Any scavengers left dropped their weapons and ran. Nico looked toward the sky. With the Graveyard’s thick density of brambles and bone, she couldn’t see the dragon but felt every beat of its wings, like a drum, in her chest. Across the way, Rasia froze with a giddy grin plastered on her face.
“Did you hear that?” Kelin snapped, panicked. “What was that?”
“Zephyr, take the body. I’ll cover your retreat.”
Zephyr hesitated, unwilling to leave Nico to face a dragon without him.
“Go,” Nico insisted.
Nico couldn’t save Rianis, but she was determined to make sure her bones got home. Zephyr nodded reluctantly. He reached down and scooped the body over his shoulder. A powerful wing beat pressed against their heads sent Neema tumbling. Zephyr caught Neema’s faint with the swoop of his free arm and threw her over his other shoulder.
“Kelin. Cover him.”
Kelin didn’t have to be told twice. He ran as fast as he could for the trees.
Nico turned back toward the still thrashing gonda. She had to make sure it didn’t follow the others. The entire camp had emptied out and no one else remained to keep its attention but Rasia and Nico.
How fun.
Nico lunged out of the way when a tentacle came flying toward her. The gonda reared back, hissing, when a sudden arrow punctured the flailing limb. Suri and Azan emerged from the trees, arrow drawn and fan axe ready.
“We’ve got the windship positioned on the main road, and the Forging kids are on their way. They’ll wait for us at the windship. We’re here to cover your exit,” Suri said.
“This gonda is too dangerous to be left alone. We need to take this thing down,” Nico replied.
A loud clang struck the air. Rasia had thrown the amphora against a far-off tree trunk, briefly distracting the gonda. Rasia rolled over while the gonda chopped away at the poor tree.
Nico turned to Rasia. “We need a plan.”
Rasia jolted back, surprised Nico had deferred the decision-making to her, but Nico tried to learn her lessons: Listen to the person who knew what they were doing. Besides, Nico had no doubt Rasia had come over to tell them what to do anyway.
“Exactly why I came over here,” Rasia said. “There are too many trees for the gonda to navigate well above ground. Get it away from the clearing and into the trees. Use its limited mobility to our advantage. Suri, use your arrows to strike the tree trunks. The noise will confuse the gonda away from the rest of us. Nico and Azan, focus on the tentacles. I’ll go for the hearts.”
“Should I use my magic?”
“No. We might need the magic for the dragon.”
Rasia concluded the plan by clanging her two swords together. She charged the gonda, shouting all the way.
“Come on, let’s go. You heard her,” Nico said.
Rasia led the gonda into the trees. Suri’s arrows thudded and vibrated in the wood, throwing off the gonda’s sense of sound. It thrashed and crashed into bones and vines. Nico found herself tripped up, unused to the territory, while Rasia boldly jumped from one land feature to another.
Nico slid under a fallen log and stabbed her glaive into a tentacle sliding by, pinning it. Azan jumped from the brush and cleaved his fan axe straight through it, cutting it clean in half.
The gonda twisted and roared in pain, creating the opening for Rasia to dart in. Suri’s arrows shielded Rasia’s charge. Rasia landed on the gonda’s main body and dissected flesh to the hearts of it.
The gonda shuddered, then stilled.
The sky darkened drastically, sunshine to darkness in the blink of an eye.
“Get to cover!” Rasia shouted.
Nico looked up as the wingspan unfolded to block out the sun. Rasia leaped behind one of the tailbones. Azan pressed behind a tree trunk. Suri tripped. She wasn’t going to make it.
Nico rushed in front of Suri and sucked in the largest breath her lungs could handle, and audibly, frighteningly, she could hear the dragon do the same.
Fire consumed the sky. Nico erected a wall of water, shielding her and Suri from the onslaught. Quickly, the heat grew unbearable. Her wall of water thinned and hissed with steam, burning the air and blurring the vision of the dragon into shadows.
“Go!” Nico commanded. Suri hesitated, but only for a moment before scrambling out of the path of the fire and into the trees. But Nico couldn’t move, bearing the onslaught. The flames went on forever and ever.
Nico stood her ground.
Either Nico or the dragon was going to run out of breath first.
Nico wasn’t going to hold. Rasia needed to do something before Kai’s jih was burnt to ash.
Fire had erupted everywhere through the trees and brush, consuming the entire Graveyard in flames—everything but the bones. The aged bones of old dragons lay unfazed and unbothered. The tailbone Rasia hid behind didn’t bend or distort under the heat. Rasia eyed her two dragonsteel khopesh, and a wisp of a plan formed in her head.
Rasia plucked up a broken, elongated shard from the ground, splintered off from a nearby tibia in the gonda’s rampage. She tested the weight and found the aged yellow bone resilient enough to heft like a spear. She sheathed her dual blades and used one of her waist cloths to tie the large splinter over her shoulder.
Rasia hopped the tailbone. She ducked underneath a fallen tree, caught herself on an overhanging branch, and pulled herself up. She climbed the trunk, jumped to the next tree, the next bone, until she reached the highest crest she could reach: the topmost branch in the tree of severed heads.
Below her, Nico’s impressive tidal wave shrank smaller and smaller. In the corner of her eye, Rasia noticed something unusual, something coming fast down the spine—a windship. It certainly wasn’t Timar. That scavenger wouldn’t be steering toward a dragon.
Rasia hefted the bone spear and aimed it at the dragon’s eye. She reevaluated. Then aimed at the dragon’s throat.
Rasia pitched the makeshift spear to the wind. Like throwing bones.
Only a dragon can defeat a dragon.
The spear cracked through the scales and embedded deep within the dragon’s throat. Aurum screeched in pain, shaking trees and vibrating air. The onslaught of fire ended. The dragon coughed out black ash, wheezing, then turned, infuriated, in Rasia’s direction.
They came roaring toward her, talons wide and reaching. Rasia jumped, barely missing the talons as they ripped into the tree and yanked up deep roots. Severed heads rained from the sky. The dragon twisted with the tree, tossing it, before roaring and retreating into the clouds.
Rasia fell.
Suddenly, an updraft slowed her descent. The wind cradled her. Rasia floated gently, like a feather, into familiar arms. She smirked at the sight of Kai’s wonderfully gorgeous face.
“I knew you’d catch me.”