“It’ll turn out well enough,” Thordin rumbled, interrupting his thoughts. “You’re all as prepared as you can hope to be, and seems to me that you’ve got more ability to reason than whatever monsters Cariocecus has recruited to his aid. Of course, that assumes that I’m not soundly mistaken about the ability of—what did you call them, Phelan?”
“Camazotzi,” Phelan supplied, staring down at his plate.
“Aye, well. Unless I’m soundly mistaken about their abilities, the advantage is yours.” Thordin frowned, glancing between them. “The claws don’t cause the same kind of problems the dirae’s do, do they?”
“Not that we’ve noticed,” Matt said, finally sitting down near the fire and letting Tala foist a plate onto him. His guts had turned to lead in his belly, but he’d eat anyway, if only to make sure he had a source of energy that wasn’t adrenaline and fear. “Honestly, they seem to do a little more damage throwing us around than with their claws.”
“Either way, it’s not going to be a problem because they’re not going to get close enough for that,” Phelan muttered. “The wards are going to hold and we’ll just shoot them until they decide to quit the field and move on.”
That’s the plan, anyway. Matt frowned at his plate. I hope it works. “What if they just…fly over us?”
“These things can fly?” Thordin asked, looking between Matt and Phelan.
“Not really,” Tala said, turning away to tend the frying pan over the fire. “Seems like they ride updrafts and downdrafts.”
“How do you explain what happened to Drew and Care and Jay, then?” Matt asked, glancing up at her.
“They never actually saw them fly, now did they? Just gliding. No flapping, just gliding.” She shook her head. “It’d be hard for something that big to be as heavy as they are and still somehow manage to fly. The wingspan isn’t big enough to support it.”
Matt just blinked at her. How the hell does she know this shit?
She gave him a knowing smile. “I do my homework on this crap, Matt. Not like I’ve got a lot that I can be doing other than hanging around here. There’s a lot of books that came out of that library. Someone ought to read them, right?”
“R-right,” he said. “I guess I didn’t think about that.”
“Apparently not,” she said with a smile, then glanced toward Thordin. “So in final answer to your question, no, they probably cannot fly unless some kind of magic lets them do it. Their apparent physiology indicates that they can’t fly on their own.”
“What are we talking about, now?” Thom asked as he joined them by the fire, his leather jacket unzipped and his sword belted around his waist. “Someone see something I should know about?”
Tala snorted and started fixing another plate. “Just your brother-in-law and I arguing about whether or not the camazotzi can fly.”
Thom just stared at her. “Why aren’t you below yet?”
“And let you people try to fend for yourselves when it comes to food? I don’t think so. I want all of you to be alive to fight today.” She thrust the plate at him. “When you guys blow the whistles, I’ll round up Angie and head on down, my promise to God.”
He gave her a hard look. Phelan laughed.
“Give it up, fear fiach. This isn’t a fight you’ll win.”
Thom gave a little growl as he accepted the plate that Tala offered him. “I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, since you’re the one feeding me.”
“Probably not,” she agreed. “Where’s Marin?”
“Checking on Jay, Neve, and Cameron,” Thom said as he started eating. “She was going to see if they needed help getting below, since they probably will and that’s not something we want to be scrambling to take care of at the last minute.”
“Gee, that sounded like a hint,” Tala said. “Next time, I won’t make you breakfast.” She was grinning, though. “I’m not helpless, Thom—not yet, anyway. I can still run and dodge. Maybe I’m a little rounder than would be safe in a fight, but I could even do that if it came to it. So quit your worrying and eat your breakfast.”
Matt choked on a laugh right alongside of Phelan. Thordin choked on his bacon, coughing. Thom glared at all of them and hunkered down to eat his breakfast.
“Think my sister needs help?” Matt asked as he wolfed down his breakfast.
“She might. Why?”
“Just trying to think of reasons not to go back outside for a little bit longer,” Matt admitted. “I’m still getting feeling back in my hands.”
“You need better gloves,” Tala said.
“I’ll have to worry about that later,” he said. “Usually it’s not a problem. I’m usually wearing those heavy welders since I’m working up at the forge.” He finished up with his plate and tucked it into the wash bucket. “I’ll go see what I can do to help her.”
“Send Care to me after she’s got Jay settled,” Thom told him. “Jac, too, if she’s there helping, too.”
“Sure thing,” Matt said, then turned to go, leaving the warmth of the fire behind him.
