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relief.
The decatur looked up, then leaped to his feet, holding out a hand as if to stop something.
Taya craned her neck over her shoulder and saw a lictor standing on the side catwalk, aiming an air rifle
at her.
Lady! She swerved, soaring up and to the right to put the crosswalk between her and the gunner.
A series of sharp, metallic pings warned her that the lictor was firing again. Taya had no idea where the
bullets had gone buried, perhaps, in the enormous grinding cliff of gears behind her but they hadn't hit
her.
A crosscable nearly caught her and sweat broke out on her forehead as she swept beneath it. The lictor
who'd fired at her lowered the barrel of his rifle to the catwalk floor, unscrewing its used air reservoir.
Out of the corner of her eye, Taya glimpsed a second lictor running along the catwalk, trying to keep
abreast of her. He was carrying a rifle, too, but he was moving too fast to aim.
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"Stop shooting! she shouted, furious.  I'm not your enemy!"
Or was she? Were the lictors secret Torn Cards, working for Alister? Or her heart leaped could
Alister be innocent, somehow snatched from death to protect the Engine?
Another burst of warm air swept up around her. She spread her wings to catch it, letting the thermal pull
her up and over the crosswalk, away from the level the shooters were on.
Alister's head was tilted upward, and he held a hand over his eyes to shade them from the bright glare of
the incandescent lights as he stared past her.
Taya tilted to see what he was looking at.
"Oh, no!"
Cristof must have heard her shout, because he was plummeting down, a dark winged shape hurtling
through the empty space between the mountain and the Engine. He was falling fast, his wing-clad arms
spread wide but their ondium feathers slotted open to let the air whistle past their metal edges.
Taya swiftly calculated the angle of attack she'd need to intercept his fall. He was wearing enough
ondium that it wouldn't take more than a glancing blow to drive him back toward the catwalks, but she
had to hit him without getting their wings tangled together. A conscious icarus who was out of control
could help a rescue attempt by locking his wings up, but frightened fliers all too often caught a rescuer's
wings in their own.
Then Cristof swept his wings down, awkwardly emulating the strokes she'd taught him. His flightfeathers
snapped shut and his descent slowed. Taya held her breath, watching him fumble through the morning's
lessons to angle himself toward the crosswalk.
Lady, he was freeflying! Badly, to be sure, but the ondium counterweights she'd packed into his suit
were giving him the margin of error he needed to keep himself aloft.
She tilted, trying to catch the last wisp of her dissipating thermal.
Then she saw the second lictor swing his rifle around.
"Cristof! Taya shouted at the top of her lungs and plunged down, angling herself sideways so that the
stretch of her metal wings would be between the gunman and the outcaste. Her leg protested the twist
needed to steer with her tailset, but the maneuver worked. The lictor started as she swept past him, and
his shots went wild, lead pellets ricocheting off the walls and machinery around them.
She pulled out of the dive and saw Cristof backbeating hard, his feet aimed at the crosswalk where his
brother stood. Alister stood motionless, watching his brother with an expression of sheer incredulity.
One of Cristof's heavy boots hit the railing and he hovered there a moment, suspended, teetering.
Taya swooped over him.
Alister reached out and grabbed his brother's keel, yanking him down to safety.
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Cristof's soles hit the iron crosswalk. He slipped an arm from the wingstruts and swept it upward, his fist
slamming against Alister's chin and snapping the decatur's head back.
Taya turned and saw both lictors running toward the crosswalk to assist Alister. She circled wide, her
wings teetering as she lost the current she'd been riding. Then she turned and aimed herself for the top of
the crosswalk.
Her timing was almost perfect. She swept over the crosswalk just as the riflemen stepped onto it. They
ducked, instinctively throwing their arms over their heads, and one of the air rifle barrels clipped the front
edge of her left wing.
The impact tore the weapon from the man's hands and sent it falling into the chasm, but it also threw her
off-balance. She spun, struggling to right herself. The Great Engine loomed before her with sickening
speed.
Backbeating as wildly as Cristof had a moment before, Taya jerked her ankles from the tailset and lifted
her feet in front of her. Her thick boot soles hit one of the Great Engine's giant spinning gears, hard. Her
left foot slipped against a slick coating of machine oil, but the other got enough of a grip to push her back,
away from the mechanism, as the gears teeth ground against each other. She snatched her feet away
before they could get trapped. Sweat dripped down her face, running along the edges of her flight
goggles.
She fought her way back up again.
Cristof had his needlegun out and pointed at Alister, but in his haste to subdue his brother, he'd forgotten
to lock his wings up and out of the way. One of the floating wings had become tangled in the iron railing,
trapping him in place.
The lictor who'd lost his rifle drew a knife. With one hand, he grabbed Cristof's trapped wing and
yanked on it, trying to distract the exalted while he waited for a chance to use the blade. The other
rifleman pressed against the far railing, leaning backward as he tried to aim his weapon at Cristof without
risking Alister. Taya swore. She'd missed the lictor who'd replaced his air cylinder.
Then she heard the hissing that signaled a new release of hot air from the steam engines below. Thanking
the Lady, she caught the updraft and aimed herself at the crosswalk, starting high and angling down at a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]