Kallorek was wrong: Larkspur didn’t come at them sideways. She came at them head-on.
Her skyship (because everyone had a fucking skyship, Clay was starting to think) cleaved like a blade through the clouds ahead. The thing was enormous: as vast as a Phantran dreadnought, sails upon sails splayed like the webbed claws of a sea hag. Clay counted her engines—two, four, six—and he saw crossbow turrets bristling along either rail, each manned by a monk in whipping crimson robes.
For a moment he feared the dreadnought would smash right through them, but suddenly The Carnal Court was diving. Moog was back at the helm, frantically spinning the orbs. Larkspur’s ship snarled overhead, her black hull lit by the static glow of the Court’s own sails, and Clay saw the bold white letters stamped along its considerable length.
DARK STAR.
Larkspur’s skyship banked steeply, and the thralls on their turrets took aim. The first few bolts punched harmlessly into the deck. The monk behind one rail-mounted crossbow lost his footing and sailed into the sky. He was attached to his turret by a leather harness, but the skyship was dropping so fast the momentum snapped his back in the air.
“It’s gonna hit us!” Clay yelled, but Gabriel pointed over his shoulder.
“No it’s not.”
A pair of sparkwyrms passed overhead, dragging a net of radiant electricity between them. The Dark Star altered course, pulling sharply upward, and Clay lost sight of it in the clouds.
“We should land,” he told Gabriel, but his friend said nothing for a long while. “Gabe, we—”
The oceanic roar of tidal engines cut him short. Larkspur’s skyship was above them again, careening between shafts of blue lightning. Clay looked up in time to see a dozen red-robed monks come spilling over the side. They dropped like stones at first, but then clutched their robes so that the wind billowed inside them, turning their free-falls into plunging glides. One of them lost his grip on the side of his garment and fell shrieking into the dark. Another came in high, his scream cut short as he collided with a static sail. The current set his robes aflame an instant before it reduced his bones to ash.
The rest of Larkspur’s thralls managed to land with varying degrees of success. They bore no weapons that Clay could see, but Matrick staggered toward one and took a roundhouse kick to the chin that knocked him flat. Another tried something similar with Ganelon, but the warrior took hold of the poor fool’s leg and flung him overboard.
Clay hadn’t noticed the dark shape in the midst of the monks, but suddenly Larkspur was among them. She settled gracefully on the rain-slick deck, a hunting falcon in the company of lesser birds. The daeva’s black armour gleamed like polished obsidian in the rain. The wind whipped her hair across the pale beauty of her face, and Clay felt a wave of compulsion crash over him. His heart stuttered even as his mind shrieked at him to do anything but stand there like a bloody mooning idiot.
She folded her wings and withdrew the paired swords on her back, sharp enough to cut raindrops as she gave each an exploratory slash. The monks formed a defensive ring around her and struck poses that suggested they considered themselves dangerous regardless of whether or not they were armed. Clay, for lack of evidence to the contrary, felt inclined to believe them.
“Matrick Skulldrummer!” yelled Larkspur, casting her gaze around the deck.
The king staggered to his feet. He gave his head a shake and yanked the knives from his belt. The daeva used a blade to point him out to the circle of red-robed thralls. “Take him alive. Kill the rest.”
So much for prebattle banter, thought Clay as the monks exploded outward. Two rushed Matrick, another two set out for the helm, and four of them leapt to intercept Ganelon, who was standing with Kit near the opposite rail. The warrior had Syrinx in hand and was glaring at Larkspur’s back. The final pair came for Clay and Gabriel, flanked by the daeva herself.
“Go help Moog,” Gabe urged him.
“But—”
“He can’t fight while he’s flying the ship!”
Clay nodded at Larkspur. “But she’s—” was as far as he got before Gabriel pulled Vellichor from its scabbard. The flat face of the blade was the bright blue of an alien sky, and as Gabriel lifted it to his shoulder Clay saw a wisp of cloud, a flock of birds in flight, and then a light so bright he turned his face away. When he looked back it was merely a sword, albeit one whose blue-green blade gave off the scent of wet earth and clean summer rain.
“She’s nothing I can’t handle,” said Gabe, with enough confidence that Clay decided to obey.
Moog was weaponless but not entirely helpless. He’d doffed his magic hat and was hurling honeyed hams and bricks of hard cheese at his assailants. Clay took the first one by surprise, bowling him over and pinning him to the ground. The monk swiped clumsily at his head, so Clay pinned down the offending hand and hit it with his hammer. The bones cracked under the blow. “Sorry,” he muttered pointlessly. The man screamed and nearly bucked him off, so Clay brought Wraith down on one of his knees.
The second man punched Clay square in the face. He felt his nose crack like eggshell as his head snapped back. The monk went for his exposed throat, but Clay brought his shield up in time to deflect the fist into his nose again, which hurt like hell, but likely saved his life.
Blackheart weathered a flurry of blows as Clay reeled backward. His attacker gave him no space at all, and when he brandished Wraith the monk kicked his arm so that Clay struck his own face with the butt end of his hammer.
“Aaaaoooow!” he whined. The monk let slip a self-satisfied smirk.
Tendrils of cold snaked through Clay’s head, chilling his ears and sheathing his brain in what felt like ice. He had the bright idea to block his attacker’s next strike shortly after the next strike—another blow to his face, surprise!—had already landed. Clay fell on his ass, dazed, and before he could recover the monk kicked him in the chest. His head hit the deck hard, which might have hurt a lot more had his skull not been numbed by cold, and the man’s bare foot pressed down on his throat.
There was blood in his mouth, rain in his eyes, but no air in his lungs, which was about to be a serious problem.
Suddenly the pressure on his neck let off. Clay gasped and blinked the swirl of black stars from his vision. He saw Moog holding his hat like a loaded crossbow. The monk was screaming; his eyes were squeezed shut, his face drenched in a steaming red liquid that Clay might have mistaken for blood were it not for the smell, which was awful.
Seizing the advantage, Clay swung his hammer at the monk’s crotch. There was a wet-sounding crunch, and the man crumpled in a mewling heap. Clay pushed his body off him and mumbled another apology—because, enemy or not, when you hit a man in the nuts with a magic hammer the least you could say was sorry.
The wizard helped him stand. “That was cruel,” Moog said.
“So was tossing hot soup in his face,” said Clay. “Was that—”
“Infernal’s Breath, yes. Bad enough when it gets in your mouth, let alone your eyes.” The wizard actually looked guilty. “But he was trying to kill you!”