Ruta Skadi made haste toward the Clouded Mountain, wind and rain ripping coldly through her body. Reeling in mid-air she aimed her cloud pine once again toward her goal - only to dip wildly again to the left in effort to avoid a swarm of glinting spears shed from the hands of the angels above her. The witch queen Ruta Skadi stayed a mid-level course in her flight. Above her, angels clashed with spears and weapons more formidable, resorting to hand-to-hand combat as their weapons fell from their grasps. Lord Asriel's forces were more varied and brought vicious-looking firing weapons to counter those defending the Clouded Mountain. Asriel's machines creaked and burst into flame above her; shooting fire, shooting lead barbs, exploding as the enemy destroyed them and sent them crashing down onto the forces below.
Sergi, her blue-throat dæmon, let out a sharp whistle and she swooped lower again, towards the other half of the battle. The ground forces were more recognizable to the witch-queen than those in the air; human largely, and human machinery which easily could have traveled from her own world. Her clan had stayed in the air but was assembled largely to the left - and far - side of Asriel's basalt fortress. The witches were valued for their sharpness in aim, picking off those of the Authority's angelic forces which slipped through Asriel's heavy artillery and combat forces.
Another whistle from Sergi, this time low - a warning. She spun and pulled swiftly upward - cutting a vertical flight path through the battle. A cluster of the lighted beings fell past her speeding form, light passing dark. On the vertical path she could only urge herself onward, and faster. In the air attacks were not only from behind you or in front of you; attacks were all around you. The vertical path afforded her some breathing space from the lower battle and she allowed her concentration to stay fully on the path in front of her, knowing her dæmon would attend to their sides.
She blinked quickly against the rain, knowing that this and the raindrops each distorted her invaluable eyesight against possible hazards. A screech - she cried out wildly.
"Sergi"
Small talons dug into her shoulder and she gasped. "I am fine, Ruta. Quickly, we must continue - there!" Her dæmon indicated a small opening in the formation where a portion of the Authority's forces had broken off to attack one of Asriel's flying war machines.
Swooping in her path but maintaining the rise, she concentrated only on the opening - breaking through it and into the upper fight, into the midst of the enemy's forces. Screams around her, pounding down her ability to suppress her own fear. Sergi, warm at her shoulder, injured in some way she had not the time to attend to. Still, she could not feel the presence of Yambe-Akka, and flew on. A tearing, wrenching noise and an explosion in the air and a crowd of angels surged toward her in its wake: whether enemy or friend she had no time for either. She drew a small blade from a pouch at her side and slashed as the first lighted being overcame her path. The angel fell, soundlessly, and was quickly replaced by many more, but she'd passed them by then and their paths no longer intersected. Spears rained down from above, she pulled her flight to the side, swerving as Sergi continued calling in her ear. She hugged herself tightly into her cloud pine branch, as small as she could make herself, hoping the dark night would be her advantage.
A howling behind her - were they being tracked? A spear smacked against the butt of her branch and she curled her legs in tighter. Screams, commands called, and more flashes; all behind her now, but the shape in front of her was no less daunting. No witches attended to the Authority's forces - she could not blend in if she were seen.
Ruta brought her feet down and landed lightly on the edge of the Clouded Mountain. A small shock spread up through her body as she took a step forward. She had landed at the outer bounds of the Mountain, some distance from the main gates if Asriel's maps held true. Bits of fog swirled and wrapped themselves around her ankles, leaving behind what she viewed as the ground of the Clouded Mountain - metals and earth so intertwined and brown as to become rusted dirt, littered with sharp cracks and crevasses she could see straight through, yet still walk over as if they were solid.
Quickly, she ducked behind a series of pointed outcrops patterned in such a strange grid-like way and so angular she dared not think anything she had seen thus far was natural. She hid her cloud-pine branch, taking care to prise up the rocks around her and cover it properly and with care. She scratched a fingernail to the rocks as she laid them over her branch. Bits peeled off or flaked off depending on where she scratched. A few times pieces fell off and melted into a stream of color. She shuddered again, and another shock spread through her body from the ground up. She jumped at the sensation, reminded that escape only became a necessity when her task was finished.
She looked toward the structure in front of her. It was immense, towering above her; an atrocity welded of abused earth distorted so far from its natural form as to incite a taste in her mouth not unlike that of naphtha lamp oil. It was not even something to which she could ascribe the quality of being a single structure. The Mountain was still the rust-stained creature she had seen from a distance, but now she saw more clearly the additions of strange materials. A series of shining spikes somewhere near the top pointed outward in a manner she could not account for. It became a series of squares and overlaps as she took in the structure - something a child could create from many separate elements by spilling them into a pile on the floor.
"Can you fly?" she asked her dæmon, suddenly.
"Yes. My feathers are in order. I only needed to rest a bit"
"Stay here," she instructed. "Leave if you are found and lay this down as a signal for me." She broke a spray of needles from her cloud-pine branch. "If you leave, make your way to Lord Asriel; tell him I've made it here. But flee only if you must. If I return I will need you if we are to escape"
"Yes," her dæmon replied solemnly.
One last look at her branch in its hiding place. She hugged her dæmon tightly to her breast, sadly. A small wet stain darkened her already-black silk bodice, but neither human nor dæmon could avoid the task they were committed to. "I must go, Sergi. I will find this weapon for Asriel, and if possible we can become a force behind the success of this war"
"And we must succeed," her dæmon responded simply, a smile in his tone.
"We must," she affirmed. "Wait for me"
Composing herself, Ruta Skadi began the mental processing which would bring her to a state of being unseen by the humans of her world. She had no convenient room to doubt this ability would work also with angels. She had only a hope and a task and she would carry both with her through the gates of the Clouded Mountain.

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As of the last chapter: a huge thank-you to my new beta-editor Laseri! Thanks for keeping me in line and making wonderful suggestions!