6.0 - Raptor

  Stay close, Sardelle ordered. Everyone. Jaxi and I are making a shield to protect us.

  Can you protect the fliers too? Ridge hoped he wasn’t asking too much, but he didn’t know if they could get off this mountain without them.

  And he thinks Tylie is needy, Jaxi thought.

  I didn’t think that. Ridge did his best to cover Tylie’s and Sardelle’s heads as rocks started falling. Barrier or not, he wasn’t positive they wouldn’t be in danger.

  That was you thinking that, Jaxi, Sardelle thought. Ridge was being fatherly.

  Fatherly. Hardly. He’d been thinking that a father might know what in the hells to do.

  Ah, was that it? I knew someone thought it—and wondered why Tolemek wasn’t here to take care of his sister.

  Boulders tumbled past the cave entrance. One stuck, halving the light inside. Smaller rocks tumbled past, some falling inside, others bouncing away. The light grew dimmer and dimmer as the entrance filled with rubble. Despite the quaking, their roof wasn’t falling, at least not yet. Dust and a few pebbles bounced off Sardelle’s barrier, but nothing more substantial.

  Are you doing that? Jaxi asked.

  Thinking the question was for him, Ridge started to respond, but Sardelle said, No. I thought you were.

  Not me.

  What? Ridge asked.

  Ssh. Jaxi said. Don’t talk for a minute. Or think. Any of you. And don’t move. Don’t make any noise.

  Ridge had no idea what they were talking about, but did as ordered. He tried to still his mind and think nothing of the rocks pounding down the slope outside, of the entrance filling the entire way and leaving them in darkness. The flier crystals had powered down, so not even they glowed to break up the blackness.

  The sounds of the rockfall dwindled and stopped. The entrance remained blocked, but nothing had fallen within the cave itself. Ridge’s back ached from the position he had crammed himself into, his arms over Sardelle and Tylie. Sardelle knelt, also with an arm around Tylie, who was huddled in a ball, with her hands over her ears. Duck was pressed against Ridge’s side, standing utterly still, barely breathing. Jaxi’s order must have been for all of them.

  “He’s leaving,” Sardelle said.

  “He just wanted to trap us?” Ridge asked. “I was expecting him to roast us to a crisp.”

  He wasn’t trying to trap us. Jaxi’s pommel started glowing, giving them some light. He was trying to bury us and smash us into a thousand pieces. Tylie is muting our auras somehow. I believe the dragon thinks we’re dead, and that’s why he’s leaving.

  “Tylie?” Ridge stared down at the girl balled up at his feet. He knew she could speak telepathically with Phelistoth and had been learning things from Sardelle and the dragon, but he wouldn’t have expected her to be the one to save them. “What do you mean somehow?”

  None of us taught her how to do it, Jaxi said. She came up with the idea on her own too.

  “Thank you, Tylie,” Sardelle murmured, resting a hand on her head.

  Tylie looked up, her battered face streaked with tears. “I have to keep doing it until he flies out of range. He sensed me before from a long ways away.”

  Sardelle nodded. “Keep doing it as long as you have the strength. If he thinks you’re dead, all the better. He won’t come back for you again.”

  “I wish I’d figured out how to do it before. Then Phel wouldn’t have been hurt.”

  “I don’t suppose any of you can tell which direction the dragon went,” Ridge said.

  To the northeast, Jaxi said.

  Ridge frowned.

  “That’s the direction of the mines, isn’t it?” Sardelle asked.

  “Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Duck said. “What’s there that a dragon could want?”

  “I don’t know,” Ridge said, “but I hope my message got back to base and that our dragon-hunting airship has been informed that their prey isn’t where they think it is.” He also hoped Therrik was alert up at the fort, not drinking himself unconscious, the way the officer who had commanded the fort before Ridge had been. Magroth wasn’t friendly to soldiers or officers. “We better assume it didn’t and make all possible haste to the mines.”

  Duck looked to the dark, rubble-filled entrance. “Sir, I find it hard to make haste through tons of rock.”

  “Jaxi?” Ridge gave a pat to Sardelle’s sword scabbard, wondered if Jaxi liked pats, and asked, “Would you be able to melt those boulders or fling them away?”

  I prefer having my blade oiled to being patted. By handsome young men with a nice touch.

  “So if Duck rubs your blade, you’d melt those rocks for us? Because I can order him to do that.”

  Duck gave him a funny look. “I feel like I’m only hearing half of this conversation, but I’m not sure I want to hear the other half.”

  “Jaxi likes young men with good hands,” Ridge said.

  Young, handsome men, Jaxi thought. Duck has big ears.

  “I promise I’ll find someone suitable to your tastes.” Ridge extended a hand toward the rubble. “Colonel Therrik likes swords.”

  Now you’re just trying to annoy me.

  “Did she reject me?” Duck asked. “I feel like the omega wolf that just had his pee covered by the alpha’s pee.”

  Ridge should have known better than to speak aloud in a conversation with Jaxi. “Nah.” He thumped Duck on the shoulder. “She just wasn’t sure about your hands after witnessing that landing. Come on. Let’s see how much rubble we’re dealing with.”

  Approximately twenty feet, Jaxi said. It’s going to take me a while. Especially if you want to be able to get your fliers out of here.

  That would be ideal.

  You might as well take a nap.

  Sardelle slipped out of the alcove and found a place to lay Jaxi so she could aim a beam of energy at the rubble. Ridge did not like the idea of napping or standing uselessly around. If that dragon was heading toward Magroth, his team needed to get out of here as quickly as possible to help. Nobody else could get there in time. Magroth hadn’t had a telegraph station when he’d been there, probably because nobody was supposed to know the remote outpost existed, and he doubted that had changed in the last few months.

  After placing her sword, Sardelle stopped beside Ridge and clasped his hand. “Might as well rest. This will take a while. Jaxi was almost as depleted by the dragon as I was, and that’s a lot of rock. Also, her energy beam uses oxygen, and she’s concerned about burning up all of our air.”

  “I appreciate her concern. I’ll have to find her two handsome young men to oil her.” Ridge spread his arm, and Sardelle leaned against his chest. He pulled her into a hug and rested his chin on her head.

  “I need to check on Tylie, heal her when I gather some energy.”

  From the way she was slumping against him, he wasn’t sure if she should try. They had thrown everything they had at that dragon and hadn’t even given it a hangnail. It didn’t seem like Phelistoth had bothered it much, either, and that was alarming. Would Kasandral, a human-made sword, have the power to do more than another dragon?

  When Sardelle didn’t move and seemed on the verge of dozing off, Ridge looked over at Tylie. “I can get my first-aid kit out and patch her up until you’re ready.”

  Tylie had been walking—and clinging to his shoulders—with minimal difficulty, so she couldn’t have been too grievously injured, but she was clearly scared and might appreciate some attention. She was sitting with her back to the cave wall, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs as she watched Jaxi. The sole lighting came from the soulblade, which now glowed an orangish-red. Jaxi had started to melt a hole in a large boulder, and the scent reminded him of the geysers outside of the Cofah volcano.

  “I’ll do it,” Sardelle murmured, her head resting on his shoulder. “Just give me a minute.”

  He tried to exude energy for her to use, though he doubted it worked that way. He stroked her hair. She had it back in a braid. He liked it
when she wore it down, but that wasn’t practical for flying—or dragon fighting, he supposed. “This isn’t quite the private room I had in mind for us for tonight.”

  “I knew that wouldn’t happen.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was fairly certain you would end up in a private room talking work with Therrik.”

  “Well, this might be an improvement over that, then.”

  She chuckled softly, kissed him, and walked over to sit next to Tylie and take her hand. Ridge thought wistfully of the last time he and Sardelle had been trapped in a cave together. That time, his men had been considerate enough to get trapped in their own caves. He supposed this was just as well. Sardelle would be too tired to roll around on a bumpy stone floor this time.

  “I can stand guard, sir,” Duck said. “If you want to get some sleep.”

  Ridge snorted to himself. Duck must have caught his longing gaze toward the floor. No, sleep wasn’t what was on his mind. It wasn’t even dark out, as far as Ridge knew. More than anything, even floor-rolling, he wanted to get to the outpost.

  “Thanks, but I think Jaxi will fry the nuts off anyone who tries to get in through the hole she’s making. I’m going to check the fliers.”

  Chapter 6

  Cas watched the snow-covered peaks of the Ice Blades growing on the dark horizon, the clouds and rain clearing as the night deepened. She doubted she would see a dragon out there amid the stars before Tolemek sensed it nearby, but one never knew. He was so busy with his experiments that he hadn’t even noticed her slipping out of his lab. She couldn’t resent that, not when he was working on a weapon to use against the dragon, a weapon that might keep her from having to take Kasandral out of the box. Her stomach twisted in knots at the thought of even unlatching the lid.

  “This thing is slower than a slug at a slime-slicking race, isn’t it?” Captain Kaika asked, ambling up to join her at the railing. She flicked a finger toward the dark ground, where fields and farmhouses had given way to forest. She wore a pistol and dagger on a utility belt full of pouches, and also carried a rifle slung across her back. A woman ready to face some trouble.

  Knowing what that trouble entailed, Cas would prefer it waited until Tolemek came up with his weapon.

  “A slime-slicking race?” she asked. “Did you get that expression from Lieutenant Duck?”

  “Nope, but the fellow who used to say it all the time was from the backwoods. Don’t think he was raised by wolves. Though he did howl like a wolf in bed.” Kaika scratched her jaw. “I never could decide if that was flattering or off-putting. I don’t mind the man having a good time, but I better be getting some joy too. Know what I mean?”

  Cas decided it was a rhetorical question and that she didn’t need to answer. She had no interest in discussing her joy, or sharing details of past partners’ habits. Not that there had been that many. She did not lament that. She only cared about finding one person with whom to share… joy. She hoped that there would be time to make things right with Tolemek, to let him know that she cared. He made her laugh, and he understood, even when she wasn’t sure she wanted to be understood.

  “Is it true you’re having joy with the king, ma’am?” a new voice asked from behind them. Cas hadn’t heard Pimples’ approach. He was also wearing all of his gear, and Cas wondered if she had missed a meeting about preparing for something.

  “’Course not,” Kaika told Pimples, then winked at Cas. “What’d the general say, Lieutenant?”

  “He said no.” Pimples flopped against the railing next to Cas.

  She watched him warily. They had been in Wolf Squadron about the same length of time and had endured hazing from the veterans together, so she considered him a friend, but she hadn’t been sure how to act around him since he had kissed her after she’d returned from being a prisoner in Cofahre. She hadn’t thought she had ever flirted with him—she didn’t even know how to flirt—or encouraged anything romantic, so that had surprised her as much as it had surprised the rest of the squadron, all of whom had been witnesses to the kiss.

  “I even offered to take Raptor and her sword,” Pimples said.

  “What?” Cas faced him, a jolt of unease darting through her belly and all concerns about kisses fleeing her mind.

  “The captain and I thought we could take a flier out and have a look around, try to locate our dragon. General Ort said not to go looking for dragons until we’re ready to deal with them, specifically until Sardelle is with us.” Pimples wrinkled his nose. He was close to twenty-five but could still have passed for fifteen, especially when he made silly faces.

  Cas slumped against the railing, relieved Ort had turned him down. She did not want to go anywhere with that sword, and she agreed that it would be wiser to wait until Sardelle and Zirkander caught up with them.

  “Are we just going to go hover over the old weapons facility and wait for them to join us then?” Kaika drummed her fingers on her holster.

  “Guess so,” Pimples said. “I don’t see why we couldn’t try to find where that dragon is hiding.”

  “If you find him, you could end up dead,” Cas said.

  “We wouldn’t fight him by ourselves. Just find him, then turn around and come back.”

  “What if he gave chase and you couldn’t make it back?”

  “Our fliers can go eighty miles an hour. There’s no way a dragon can outfly us.”

  “You don’t think so? I wouldn’t take that bet.” Cas had never seen Phelistoth fly at full speed, but she remembered him soaring away from Owanu Owanus with Tylie on his back. His speed had been comparable to a flier, and he hadn’t appeared to be trying that hard.

  “Oh really?” Pimples asked. “How fast can they go?”

  “Phelistoth has never run sprints for me so I can clock him.”

  “You call him by name? Have you talked to him? What’s he like?”

  Kaika turned a curious eye toward her at the question. Cas hadn’t interacted with the dragon since he had returned, so she didn’t truly know. She also hadn’t spoken to Sardelle or General Zirkander much lately. They would be the ones who could answer this question. Her only impression of Phelistoth came from the pyramid. He had seemed big, scary, and powerful, even when sick. And he hadn’t been pleased to have Iskandians crawling all around him.

  “I don’t—”

  A boom sounded in the distance, somewhere ahead of the airship. Kaika gripped the railing and stared toward the mountains.

  “Was that a gun?” Pimples peered over the railing toward the forest instead of outward.

  Cas shook her head. That had definitely come from the mountains and from an elevated position.

  “No,” Kaika said. “Explosive. Shh.” She held up a finger and listened intently.

  Cas and Pimples stopped talking, but there was other activity on the deck, a soldier scrubbing the barrel of one of the big guns, someone below shouting for more coal for the furnaces, the creak and groan of the thick steel cables that tethered the craft to the oblong balloon overhead. When the second distant boom came, Cas couldn’t pinpoint the source any better than she had with the first. It was an explosion, though. She agreed with that assessment.

  “Did you hear that second lesser echo?” Kaika asked, still staring ahead, toward the mountains. “That’s a Tiger-10, I’m sure of it.”

  She thumped her fists on the railing, spun, and raced in the direction Pimples had come from.

  “What’s a Tiger-10?” Pimples asked.

  “Tigers are a line of Cofah explosives.” Cas only knew because she’d had some thrown at her. “Were we expecting any Cofah out here?” She had only been told about the dragon, but she’d arrived late to that meeting in the king’s office.

  Pimples shrugged. “Nobody’s told me anything. I’m not even sure why I’m here, instead of one of the more experienced pilots. Probably because I’m expendable.”

  Cas frowned at him. “I’m sure that’s not it. Did someone say that?” Her hackles bristled at the thought of
someone picking on him. Hazing was tradition in the flier squadrons, but calling someone expendable would be going too far.

  “Nah, I just know I don’t get that many kills. I’m not anyone who gets picked for special missions usually. Not like you.” Pimples smiled sadly at her. The gesture did not seem to hold bitterness or envy. No, his words usually didn’t. Just self-deprecation.

  “You’ve never crashed, either, nor been hit by anything but a glancing shot off a wing here and there,” Cas said, reasoning aloud as she considered why he might have been chosen. Had Zirkander picked him? Or Ort? “You’re squirrelly up there. And you can do calculations in your head. Most of us carry a pen and notebook jammed in our flight suit pocket.”

  “I do too. That’s part of the uniform.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not plotting vectors to solve wind correction problems like the rest of us. You use yours to draw house plans.”

  “True.” He smiled wistfully. “Want to see my latest? It’s two stories. With a tower!”

  “How’re you going to pick one design when you actually save enough money to build a house?”

  “Aw, I’ll never have enough. Not unless I put my house way out in the country and build it all by myself.”

  “I think that’s what General Zirkander did with his cabin. A place to get away from his legions of fans.”

  “I don’t have fans. Or that many friends. Nothing to escape from.”

  Cas waffled between telling him to quit being morose and giving him a sympathetic nod—it wasn’t as if she was good at making friends, either. Before she had decided which to do, Kaika came thudding across the deck toward them, a bag slung over her shoulder. Other soldiers were spilling out of a hatchway behind her, heading toward the big shell guns. A corporal with a spyglass raced for the crow’s nest attached to the front of the ship between the deck and balloon.

  “We’re going out,” Kaika announced with a grin. “Pimples, you’re flying me. General Ort himself is taking you out, Ahn.”