Chapter 153: The Bellwyrm Bit Ninebell

The bellwyrm bit Ninebell, and Hest put both broken bars between its teeth.

Iron struck white enamel. Its upper jaw stopped above Valea’s back, close enough for rainwater to run from one long tooth onto her coat. Hest braced one bar across the lower fangs and drove the other upward with his shoulder.

"Move," he told her.

Valea crawled out beneath the creature’s tongue. She took her bent road knife with her.

Rill still hung from the arch by his chain. Slate pulled from the Red Aeries side, dark wings beating against cloud, but the hook had buried itself in Ninebell’s bronze. Every retreating beat tightened the links across Rill’s chest.

Between the wyrm’s teeth, a crushed bell called in Jiang’s longer beat.

Sound vibrated through the jaw. The bellwyrm shook its head and tore one of Hest’s bars free. Old copper trapped between its other teeth answered at different pitches. It could hear the prey in its own mouth and could not reach it.

Ninebell gave it plenty of other things to bite.

Its snout swept toward the fallen street bells. Bronze vanished between the jaws. Roof stone followed. It chewed once, spat broken masonry across the street, and followed the next ringing piece.

Mottle’s homebell rang next.

Hest had dragged the ordinary bell beside Pava’s screen. Its rim knocked against his boot when he lost the bar, producing one blunt note.

A narrow pupil found it.

Behind the fallen hide, the female emperor shifted the chick higher over her feet. The male lay against her other side, unable to move before the bite reached them. Jiang saw the line between the homebell, the wyrm, and his family.

"Give me the red strap," he said.

Ilex understood before anyone else. "It will follow the homebell."

"It will follow the sound."

Aylin caught the torn strap where it hung from Mottle’s breast harness. "And what will be attached to the sound?"

"A convenient black-and-white handle."

"I dislike this plan personally and medically."

Jiang nudged the strap toward her. "Improve the release."

Jaws snapped at Hest. He rolled the homebell between the two remaining teeth and used its curved side to keep them apart. Pava dragged Ilex’s screen backward. Kedra caught Rill around the waist before the chain crushed another breath out of him.

Aylin worked while everyone else bought her seconds.

She passed the red strap through the homebell’s open buckle, then laid the wide middle across Jiang’s lower breast rather than his injured shoulder. One end returned between his feet. The other ended in a loop he could catch with his beak.

"Pull here and the whole thing falls away," she said. "Do not let it climb under your left coat."

"If it climbs there, I will be busy being eaten."

"That was not permission to stop listening."

Jiang put his good foot inside the lower loop. Wide webbing spread under the sole instead of closing around his ankle. His bad leg could trail without carrying the load.

Behind the hide, the female emperor gave one hard call.

He wanted to answer in the changed beat the infected bell could not predict. Pain waited along both sides of his throat, and the wyrm was already carrying his last voice away. Spending another call would make the choice for him when a better target appeared.

Jiang answered with his ordinary rough sound.

Nothing new came from the bell in the creature’s teeth. Its fixed longer call continued. That was the answer he needed.

Hest kicked the homebell toward him.

Jiang dropped to his belly and took the weight through the red strap. Wet cobbles gave him the closest thing Ninebell had to ice. He shoved with his good foot, steered with the edge of one web, and let his rigid body slide.

Mottle’s homebell rolled behind him.

Its first strike against stone made the bellwyrm turn.

Jiang dragged the second note away from the emperor family. The jaw followed, shedding roof grit and ropes of cloud. Hest fell clear as the teeth left him. Valea pulled Rill’s buried hook loose with her road knife, and Slate’s next wingbeat hauled the rider through the threshold.

Jiang reached the smithing gutter before his bad leg caught beneath him.

His belly turned sideways. The red strap climbed toward the damaged left coat exactly as Aylin had warned. Its edge pressed the loose shoulder binding into raw skin.

He caught the release loop in his beak.

The bellwyrm struck before he could pull.

The homebell disappeared beneath its upper jaw. The red strap went taut. Jiang left the street, dragged toward a mouth large enough to hold Ninebell’s rain.

Aylin caught one foot. Her injured hand failed around the webbing. She fell forward and kept both arms around his leg, allowing the wyrm’s pull to drag her across the cobbles rather than losing him.

Aylin shouted against the scrape of stone, "Release it!"

Jiang bit down on the loop.

His cracked beak slipped off blood-wet leather.

The copied call rang above him from between the teeth. He could change his beat and make the black-green bell expose itself again. That would not free the strap around his body.

He turned his head and caught the loop from below.

Mottle hit the bellwyrm in the cheek.

She came on two hind legs with the wounded wing clamped against her side. Ilex remained on Pava’s screen, one hand lifted but no line or command between them. Mottle had seen the jaw take Jiang and chosen a target she could reach from the ground.

Her shoulder drove the wyrm’s head sideways.

Jiang tore the release loop open.

The red strap ran free across his belly. Aylin rolled with him into the smithing gutter while the homebell vanished between the wyrm’s teeth.

Mottle bit the black-green infected bell.

Mottle’s teeth scraped the infected copper. The wyrm flung her across the street before she found a grip. She struck on her uninjured side, slid through rain, and rose with blood on her breast. The wounded wing stayed folded. Her amber eyes remained on the thing in the arch.

Rill landed beside Ilex after Slate pulled him back across. "The road is closing around its neck."

Valea drove her bent knife beneath the lower frame. Bronze had begun folding inward, not because she controlled it, but because the wyrm’s long body was retreating toward open cloud.

Slate caught the creature’s jaw chain and pulled. Hest drove his one recovered bar into the soft corner beneath its tongue. Kedra and Rill added their weight to the hook line.

The bellwyrm backed through the arch.

It carried Mottle’s swallowed homebell and the black-green bell caught in its teeth. Jiang’s copied voice faded into cloud as the long body turned toward the distant nursery cliffs.

Mottle lowered her uninjured shoulder beside him.

Ilex used Pava’s screen to drag herself close. Her splinted knee could not hold her, but her hand found Mottle’s throat feathers.

"She cannot find that false bell in cloud," Ilex said. "Can you?"

Jiang looked through the narrowing arch at the bellwyrm climbing toward the nests.

Then he looked at the back of a wyvern who had just chosen to bite it for him.

His emperor body knew water, ice, and the comfort of solid ground under its belly.

Mottle waited for his answer with the sky behind her.