The Cradle of Ice (Moonfall #2)

Chapter 79

79

N YX WATCHED D AAL undo Neffa’s rigging with great tenderness. His shoulders shook, but she didn’t know if it was from grief or fury.

He climbed out of the water and handed her the saddle. It was draped by a tangle of cinches. It looked complicated, but she knew each piece, drawing the knowledge from a blur of memories—both Daal’s and those of the ancient riders of the raash’ke.

The two saddles were not dissimilar.

Daal collected a second one from Mattis, then joined her.

His eyes were pained, pleading. “Ask them.”

She wanted to argue, but she knew there was no other way for them to return to the Crèche. And Daal was right about one thing.

We have done this before.

The knowledge of those ancient riders was buried inside her, inside Daal.

Graylin suspected what Daal was requesting her to do. “You mean to attempt to saddle and mount a pair of raash’ke? To fly back to the Crèche?”

“We must get back somehow. The blistering heat, the lack of fresh water, the sulfur in the air. We won’t last more than a day or two.”

“There could be a chance. Darant had promised to search for us with the Sparrowhawk if we didn’t return.”

Nyx shook her head, remembering her fiery view of the Crèche. “It may already be too late for the Sparrowhawk. ”

Vikas gestured her mute support, “While we’re stuck here, we might as well attempt it.”

Jace stood with his arms crossed. “There are only two saddles.” He unfolded his arms and waved to the others. “What about us?”

Daal answered. “The raash’ke are very good at carrying live prey back to their roosts.”

His words did not sit well with Jace—not Daal’s choice of description, not what he was suggesting.

Graylin looked undecided, but it was not his choice.

Nyx turned to Shiya. “Can you help me reach out to them?”

The bronze woman nodded.

Before joining her, Nyx ran a palm over Bashaliia’s crown. Her fingers brushed his ear, his soft cheek, borrowing some of his warmth, his love, knowing she would need both.

Once done, she stepped alongside Shiya. “I’m ready.”

Together, they stoked up a glow, letting it warm over skin and bronze. Nyx started first with a quiet melody, infused with the memories of raash’ke sharing the air with their bonded riders. She folded in a harmony of her own hopes, refining each note to make her need clear, her desire.

She let those golden threads rise out of her—from both lips and heart. She reached to Shiya, who was ready for her. The bronze woman sang brightly, the music heartbreaking, expressing what was lost, what was longed to be regained.

Nyx knew Shiya had no memory of those past flights, those ancient bonds between riders and winged companions. Still, each note rang poignant and true, rising out of Shiya’s own loss. Her loneliness and need for connection flowed through Nyx’s threads, adding a depth of pathos that could not be ignored.

The threads and tendrils rose high, like golden smoke from an ancient fire.

One of the giants wafted down. Its wingspan was so wide that there was no need for them to flap. Movement and guidance were but ripples in those great sails. It soared high, still hanging back, but it brushed through those golden threads.

As it did, Nyx felt the immensity of its intelligence. It wasn’t just this lone raash’ke, but all of them. Nyx shivered with awe, a mote before a god. It then glided off, riding in a slow spiral up a column of hot air.

There was no answer, no response.

She knew she could do no more and let her song fade. Above, the golden threads dissolved into a sparkle that scattered off, like embers from a dying fire.

“What happened?” Jace asked as she stepped away from Shiya.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “We wait, I guess.”

She had barely taken a few steps, lost in contemplation, when Graylin grabbed her arm, his grip like iron. Vikas stared up with an exhalation of surprise. Jace drew closer to them all.

Daal nodded, satisfied. “They come.”

From the skies, six raash’ke separated from the others. Each was only a tenth the size of the giants, but they were still huge. They swept up the river, one leading, then another. They were followed by a clutch of smaller wings, forming an escort.

The six broke off and crossed low over their group with a rush of hot air. They alighted on rocks and boulders. Dark eyes shone down from those perches. The beasts’ tiny ears pricked tall. Large flaps opened and closed over slitted nostrils. They panted in the heat, showing a hint of fangs. Their wings remained high, ready at a moment to fly away.

Bashaliia warily hopped back, likely remembering his last encounter with a group of raash’ke. But he was not the only one dismayed.

“You’re going to saddle those?” Graylin asked dourly.

“And just look at those claws,” Jace mumbled, focusing on his own means of transport.

“Let me go first,” Daal said.

Nyx stepped next to him. “We’ll do it together.”

She offered her hand.

He took it.

As their palms touched and fingers folded, a familiar fire flared. It felt like coming home. Daal didn’t have much reserve left, so she borrowed only a trickle, enough to cast out a flush of reassurance, of memory again, showing the raash’ke what she and Daal wanted to do. It was the first tentative step to renew an ancient bond.

They headed over.

Three shied away immediately, still wary, hissing in warning. A fourth lost its nerve, too, but a pair remained. Their claws dug into stone. Their brows lowered, studying the strangers with one eye, then the other.

Still awash in that glow, she and Daal approached with great care.

From Daal, a memory was shared with her. She passed it to this pair. It showed a rider securing a saddle, of cinches hitched. It was suffused with the excitement and joy of both rider and mount, along with a deep-seated affection.

This can be yours, too.

One head, then the other, slowly bowed, willing to try. It was far from confirmation, but it was a start. Without saying a word, Nyx and Daal separated, proceeding to their respective mounts. She chose a male, the most like Bashaliia. She let her love for her winged brother shine.

Daal’s mount was a shy female, much like Neffa. Knowing this, Nyx stirred up a memory from Daal that was still inside her—from when he had first trained Neffa. A time of abundant joy, many mistakes, and even more laughter, but underlying it all was a sustained affection and warmth.

She shared it with the raash’ke.

Working in tandem, she and Daal fixed their saddles. They relied on memory, instinct, ingenuity, and some gentle irritated nudges from the raash’ke. She compared her rigging to Daal’s and Daal’s to hers. It took some additional improvisation, but Daal finally nodded his satisfaction.

Nyx wasn’t as sure, but she turned to the others. “Ready?”

They were not—but how could they be?

She crossed around her mount, running a palm over him, never breaking her touch. She lifted a foot into what passed for a stirrup: a small pouch of sharkskin that barely fit her toes, especially in boots. She snugged a purchase, then pushed up. Her knee came to rest in a pocket in a leather side flap. She leaned and lifted her leg over his back.

An orkso saddle—now a raash’ke saddle—sat higher than on a horse. It rested on the withers, near the base of the neck. And rather than dangling her limbs to either side, she bent her legs and balanced more on her knees and toes, keeping out of the way of the wings’ movement.

As she settled her weight, the raash’ke shifted—not to throw her off, but to balance her better. She ran her fingers through the thick fur of his neck.

“You remember this, too,” she whispered, knowing all the raash’ke shared one mind, one memory.

We’ve all done this before.

She crouched low and glanced over at Daal.

He balanced on his knees, clearly more comfortable than her after his years of riding orksos. Maybe he thought the same thing. His gaze swept over to the river, to the bodies resting together. The waters ran clean again, as the orksos’ blood, like their lives, had washed away.

Daal lowered his gaze, his hands coming to rest on the two leather grips at the front edge of the saddle. There were no reins, as there had been for guiding the orksos. Control was all balance, knee pressure, and instinct between rider and mount.

Daal’s knuckles whitened as fury hardened through him. His raash’ke sensed his anger and shivered with a flap of wings.

Nyx knew they needed to keep moving or that anger would loosen Daal’s control, panic the mounts. She lifted higher in her saddle.

“We’re leaving,” she called to the others. “Try not to move. Arms out.”

She took a breath and sent shining tendrils wafting through the air to the other raash’ke. She reinforced what she had already shared with the giant beasts, with the horde-mind. In the past, the raash’ke had ferried Pantheans, latched in claws, tucked close to the heat of their furry bodies.

The four skittish raash’ke accepted this accommodation. They were familiar with hauling captured prey between the Crèche and the Mouth. Only here the route would be reversed—with no feeding allowed.

The four raash’ke leaped off their perches. They swept low and snatched up those gathered along the river’s shore. The plucking was not gentle. The four were snapped off the rock. The one who tried to lift Shiya nearly crashed. It bobbled, fought, and finally found its rhythm, dragging its bronze anchor skyward.

Before Nyx could wish it or say it aloud, her mount burst upward. Caught off guard, she slid in the saddle. Her rump caught the lip at the back, keeping her in place. Her hands, as white-knuckled now as Daal’s, latched hard to the grips. Her stomach sank deep in her gut.

She glanced in time to see Daal’s raash’ke take flight, too.

Bashaliia leaped after them.

She swung back around, balancing between terror and joy. Other smaller raash’ke were swept up in their wake, giving chase, following them, forming an escort.

She hunkered low, struggling to find her seat, her balance. Then after a time, without needing to think about it, she found a hand tightening at the exact right moment. Her knee shifted on its own as the raash’ke made a turn. She settled lower, letting the wind whip through her hair. She kept her face down, protecting her eyes, searching ahead with just the peripheral sight past her brows.

It all felt… right.

She recognized what was happening. It was an awakening of old memories, blurring instincts and reflexes of the past with hers now.

And it wasn’t just her.

The raash’ke under her slowly responded, too, remembering, falling into a familiar rhythm of balance between rider and mount. They circled a wide path out of the Mouth, using the rising hot air as much as the strength of wings. A peek back under her elbow showed the fiery spread of chasms and fissures.

They climbed away from it and swung toward a broken cliff of ice, the westernmost edge of the Shield. The air quickly cooled, and the world darkened, lit only by the stars, the moon, and the reflection of both off the ice.

She leaned harder, staying closer to the hearth under her. She didn’t need to tell her mount where to go. That had already been shared.

The raash’ke swept higher, fighting to crest over the ice cliff. For a breath, Nyx believed they wouldn’t make it. She prepared for a crash—but at the last moment, with a hard beat of wings, they cleared the edge. It was so close she swore she could reach down and brush her fingers over the ice.

As they continued, her mount skimmed across the Shield, rising and falling with its contours. Stars glinted overhead like broken shards of ice. The air grew colder, frosting her back, her hair. She hugged tighter.

Ahead, she spotted the other four, clutched tight to warm bellies. Far to the side, she caught a glimpse of Daal, curled close to his saddle. On her other side, Bashaliia sped with her, occasionally rolling through the air with unbridled joy.

Nyx risked letting one hand free. She ran her fingers through the cold edge of her mount’s shaggy fur to the hot warmth beneath. She sang softly, only because it felt right. She suffused her appreciation, shared her exhilaration. She bared her heart, her gratitude for her mount’s bravery.

Slowly, he sang back, echoing the same. This wasn’t the horde-mind, just her mount, a lone raash’ke discovering a miracle. Still, she sensed that greater presence watching her from the shadows, silent and immense.

Finally—too soon—the world ahead vanished into a wall of steam, marking the rift into the Crèche. She let her song sink to a whisper. She was not ready to return to screams, terrors, and fires.

Let’s just keep flying forever.

Still, she knew that could not be. Ahead, the others—one by one—vanished into the steam. Then she was in it, too.

The sudden warmth took her breath. The steam blinded her, stinging with sulfurous brimstan. She squeezed her eyelids against that pain. She felt her mount shift into a shallow dive. As he did, he keened sharply, casting forth ripples of sound and bridle-song. Even with her eyes closed, she felt those golden waves wash back to her, returning with contours and shapes, delineating the steamy world.

She could pick out the others spiraling below.

They wound around and around. Just when she thought it would never end, they shot out of the mists and into open air. The emerald sea spread below them. The ice cliff climbed to the right. Between them ran the stretch of beach.

It was not hard to discern Iskar’s location. A dark pall of smoke cloaked a swath of sand and sea. As if sensing her desire—or reading it in the whispers of the song she maintained—her mount swung lower, heading toward the smoky scar.

Closest to Iskar, the pall had spread far out to sea. She could no longer tell if the Hálendiian ship was still blockading the village’s docks. Even the Sparrowhawk had been swallowed away, hiding its fate.

Ahead of her, other raash’ke spun a circle, swinging Nyx’s friends under them, waiting for guidance. Above, an escort of smaller bats shot out of the mists like dark arrows. The air filled with wings.

Daal appeared farther out, circling wide.

She could only imagine how he took in that view, of Iskar burning, the wreckage in the sea, the bodies along the beaches.

Still, she could guess where he focused his fury.