I slammed into him at full speed, pushing him towards the cliff edge. He staggered back to the edge of the ramparts, and then we pitched over into nothingness.
And, for just a second, we were in wide-open air, falling. Plunging towards the rocks below.
Then we hit – not jagged rocks, but cloth pulled taut, giving way beneath our bodies, bowing just enough to catch us. It was the sheets and blankets we’d smuggled out of Jin’s room, strung out between Izz and Maz as they surged upwards in the shape of two huge Rocs, bursting through the smoke from the gunfire. I heard surprised cries from below; their huge wings buffeting the assembled crowd violently as they flew higher over the mountains until we were out of range of both guns and any kind of air magic the Albish army could turn on us.
I was still trying to catch my breath as Sam struggled next to me, panicked and still blind. ‘Stop squirming!’ I shouted close to his ear over the sound of rushing air as we flew.
‘Am I dead?’ Sam asked too loudly in his own language, still twisting.
I yanked the blindfold off, and he blinked his startled blue eyes at me, taking in my face, the wings above my head that were carrying us to safety, and the endless open sky above that. His head jerked from side to side, seeing Jin on Maz’s back to our right, Tamid on Izz’s to our left.
‘You’re not dead,’ I shouted over the wind, as the enormous sling swung precariously in the wind. ‘Now stop moving before you kill us both.’ He did as he was told, lying perfectly immobile as we rushed over the mountains, up, across and down, until we were back over the desert. I could feel the sand nearby even before I felt solid ground as the twins landed, setting the sling down gently.
Jin slid off Maz’s back, pulling me to my feet, while Tamid stayed stubbornly seated on Izz. Jin checked me over quickly, looking for any new wounds. He wouldn’t find any. I didn’t grow up in the shadow of a weapons factory without learning a thing or two, like how to turn a bullet into a blank.
Sam let us haul him to his feet, but as soon as we let him go he collapsed back to sitting on the ground. ‘On second thought, I’m not going to do that.’ His words were calm, but his voice was shaking. ‘Standing seems a little ambitious right now.’
Jin dropped into a crouch across from Sam. ‘You all right there?’ he asked him as he set to work on Sam’s shackled hands. There was a note of tension in his voice, but Sam wasn’t going to notice it. He didn’t need to know what had passed between me and Jin last night about saving his life.
‘Well.’ Sam seemed to take stock of himself. ‘My legs don’t exactly seem to be working. And I have pledged my allegiance to so many different gods that I am not going to be able to be faithful to them all.’ He was babbling at a frantic pace. ‘I’m guessing being caught being unfaithful to a god is probably twice as unfortunate as being caught being unfaithful to a woman. And I’m still not sure I’m not hallucinating all this.’ He squinted up at me. ‘But other than that, I’ve had worse days.’
‘It’s only dawn,’ Jin said as the shackles came free with a satisfying click, falling into the sand. ‘It could still get worse.’ He clapped Sam on the back amicably as he got to his feet.
‘So, just to be clear –’ Sam rubbed at his newly freed hands – ‘why exactly am I not dead?’
‘Because you’re one of us.’ I reached down a hand to help Sam to his feet. He looked steadier now. ‘Which means you’re ours to execute for treason, not theirs.’
Sam squinted up at me for a moment. And then a grin split his face, a real one.
‘Shut up,’ I warned him. I could already see the beginnings of something smart on his tongue.
‘I always knew you had a soft spot for me.’ He clasped my fingers, letting me pull him up.
‘Only for your knack for getting us out of a tight spot.’ I let go of his hand. ‘Come on, we need to keep moving.’
Sam was still getting his bearings after nearly dying, but his gaze flicked quickly around from me to Jin to Tamid, who was still refusing to look at anyone from where he sat.
‘Where’s the princess?’ he asked.
Ah … Leyla.
Jin’s traitor sister was the one thing he and I were able to agree on. She was a burden to our rescue mission, at best, a liability at worst.
So we’d left her. And I’d scrawled out a note for Bilal that I’d handed to one of his soldiers to give to him.
Take care of her. She might be your last line of defence if the Sultan comes knocking.
Leyla might be trouble for us, but she would make a decent shield for Iliaz as a hostage. She might keep the mountain from being burned off the map before we got back.
‘She was extra weight,’ was all I said in answer to Sam.
‘And if there’s one advantage to travelling without a whole army,’ Jin said, tossing his compass from one hand to another, the needle still pointing due south, ‘it’s being able to move quickly.’
Chapter 16
Flying got boring after a while.
After the initial rush of leaping into the air, the desert shrinking below, the wind whistling an excited tune in our ears as we soared higher above the ground than wingless creatures were ever meant to … after all that wore off, it was just a whole lot of waiting. Hot sun tracking our every mile, arms cramping from clinging to Maz’s back, the wind drowning out any chance to talk as we headed south, following Jin’s compass. We flew further west than the compass told us to so that we could fly close to the mountains that ran along Miraji’s border. It was better than heading due south across the desert, risking running out of water before we found Eremot.
We were headed south without an army, or a plan, or any idea what we were facing. But the way I saw it, there wasn’t a whole lot else to do now except follow Jin’s compass and see what we found at the end. Every day we wasted was another day our friends were imprisoned. Maybe in danger. Maybe dying.
It was the end of our first day of travelling when I noticed the landscape was starting to look familiar. A break in the thankless stretch of desert, a break in the endless view of golden sand and blue skies, a jagged break in the ground: the Dev’s Valley.
My heart skipped as I craned over Maz’s back, peering down below us. We were skimming over the northernmost edge of it; it was the same path that we would take home if we were coming back from the north. Returning from a mission for Ahmed. With Shazad next to me. Because somewhere far below us, hidden in the twists and turns of those canyons, was what used to be our home, the wreckage of the rebel camp.
The desperate reckless urge hit me to ask Maz to take us down. Maybe if he could just land in the valley we could go home again. I could shoo away all the sand that I’d buried the camp in when we had to escape and unearth it like some ancient relic. We could all be safe again, for a little while. But that was foolish. We were too far from that home now.
Instead we stopped near the city of Fahali just as the sun was beginning to set. As close as we dared land near civilisation. A side effect of escaping by the skin of our teeth was that more than just Leyla had been left behind in Iliaz. Food, weapons, water skins … a whole lot of things that we were bound to need on the way south.
‘Sam and I will go,’ Jin said, counting out the small stash of money we had. ‘It’s not safe for Demdji these days.’
‘Because you both think that being from halfway around the world is less conspicuous?’ I stretched my legs, sore from a day of gripping on to Maz’s feathered back.
‘I mean …’ Sam scratched the top of his head – ‘I’d say I’m definitely less conspicuous than blue skin and blue hair.’
‘Hey!’ Izz said, even as Maz, in the shape of a large lizard, managed to look offended.