Before he could chase after Duck and check more closely on him, the snarling face of a Cofah pilot bore toward him from the right. Someone had figured out he wasn’t on their side.
Ridge flew up, knowing the pilot wouldn’t be able to correct his path quickly enough to follow. Bullets raked through the air under his flier’s belly. Somehow, he misjudged the air around him, and he almost smacked into a roaring thruster. Confused, he jerked his craft to the side and toward a lower elevation as heat washed over him.
Once again, he did not compensate fully and get himself far enough away from the thrusters. Usually, his spatial orientation was as good as a bird’s, so his first thought was to blame the craft. Then, with the abruptness of a cannon firing, he realized what was happening. The platform was sinking. In seconds, it might be dropping a lot faster.
All thought of helping other pilots and fighting the Cofah fled from his mind. He arrowed straight for the back side of the platform. He had to get Sardelle. He did look around as he flew, searching for the others. He needed their help to get his team. They needed to pick up three people, and he didn’t have a rope or another seat.
Ridge did not see anybody except Ahn. He cursed. He glanced toward the dirigibles—only one remained in the sky, thanks to Crash’s team’s work, but if Iskandian fliers were still over there, he couldn’t see them. He certainly couldn’t communicate with them.
As he soared out from underneath the platform, all he could do was hope that Ahn had called for someone else to come over. At least the Cofah fliers were not chasing them anymore. Those pilots also must have realized the platform was sinking and that they had more problems than enemy bullets now.
Ridge spotted Sardelle, Kaika, and Tolemek standing atop a tower and waving. Relief and worry mixed in his throat, making a tight ball he couldn’t swallow around. Having no idea what he intended to do, he soared toward them. Ahn was ahead of him, her rope dangling down from her back seat. At least one person would get the ride off that he expected. Could her flier possibly carry the weight of three people instead of two? Ahn was the lightest pilot in the squadron, but neither Kaika nor Tolemek was exactly small.
Ridge? Sardelle asked into his head.
Changed rides. Long story.
How do we…
My lap, he thought. Can Jaxi help you jump?
Uhm. Sardelle glanced over the side at the ocean far, far below.
Something huge inside the fortress snapped, the noise echoing for miles around. The platform lurched downward to a thirty-degree slope. Kaika caught Sardelle and threw her weight back, and Ridge’s heart nearly flew out through his throat. He couldn’t hover in this cursed bucket, so all he could do was fly around in circles, trying to figure out how he was going to pick up Sardelle.
Since the two-man Iskandian fliers had thrusters, Ahn was able to activate them and drop low enough for the rope to dangle down to the tower. She shouted for Tolemek to get on.
Tolemek waved, but pushed Kaika toward the rope. Kaika hesitated, glancing at Sardelle.
“Hurry,” Ridge yelled, knowing it was useless, but if that fortress tilted further sideways, or simply fell out of the air, he would lose all three of them. And that could not happen.
An idea popped into his mind as Kaika leaped and caught Ahn’s rope. Ridge thrust his knee against the stick for a second, yanked out his knife, and cut off a length of what remained of the shoulder harness. He jammed the blade back in its sheath and rushed to tie the strip to the ends of the lap harness he had cut the pilot out of earlier. He tied it so tightly that he would risk stopping the circulation to his legs, but he could worry about that later.
When he finished, he swooped back toward the tower, irritated with how far the craft had flown while he had been cutting and tying. All around him, smoke rose and structures burned. Ahead of him, Sardelle and Tolemek were still on the tower, gripping the crenelated edge to keep from sliding off. Ahn was waving down to Tolemek, urging him to come up, even as Kaika climbed into the back seat.
Tolemek shook his head, pointed, and yelled something. With his fancy scientist mind, he had probably more accurately performed the calculation that Ridge had been worrying over earlier. With him and Kaika in the back, that craft would be too heavy to fly. An anguished expression contorted Ahn’s face, but she must have seen Ridge turning to come in, for she maneuvered away from the tower top.
Ridge empathized and approved of Tolemek’s selfless choice, but he could only pick up one of them, and there was no way it wasn’t going to be Sardelle. As he swooped down toward the tower, he flipped over, flying upside down toward her.
Stick your arm up, and get ready, he thought, praying she was listening and praying that his battered body would hold together so he could do this.
Sardelle’s eyes widened, but she did as he ordered, standing as straight as she could on the tilted tower and stretching her arm upward. Hanging upside down, he headed in, lowering his own hand. His brain hurt at the thought of how precise he had to be with his flying to grab her. The harness cut into his lap, and he was all too aware of how little kept him from tumbling out of the craft.
He lined it up for the final approach and reached for her hand. Another tremendous snap sounded from within the fortress. Ridge lunged, afraid the platform would fall lower and that she would drop out of his range, that he would lose her.
The tower did tilt farther downward, but Sardelle jumped and clasped his arm as his fingers wrapped around her wrist. The extra weight suddenly hanging from his body sent such intense pain through Ridge that he almost lost her.
He gritted his teeth, black dots darting through his vision, as the flier engine groaned, and he lost altitude. Fortunately, he was already past the tower, and there was nothing but five thousand feet of air between him and the sea. As slowly as he could, he rotated the craft back to upright. As he did, he pulled Sardelle into the cockpit with him, panting to try and control the pain. As a fresh torment, her sword scabbard jammed against his crotch—Jaxi perhaps making up for not being able to melt his balls earlier. But he had Sardelle. That was all that mattered. He pulled her close with one arm and guided the flier away from the fortress with the other. Sardelle gripped his shoulders so tightly, they would probably fall off when he landed, along with his legs and his ribs, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Ridge was half-tempted to ask her if she could heal him while they were in such awkward positions, but he had left Tolemek up there, so he couldn’t relax yet. He searched the sky, still hoping one of the other fliers in the squadron would realize someone needed help and sail over. Ridge’s own craft was sinking slightly, and he knew he had to go straight down and land before his engine overheated. This flier was not designed to carry two any more than Ahn’s could carry three.
“Look,” Sardelle said, gazing behind Ridge’s head.
He craned his neck and spotted two things: Crash’s two-man flier had come out from behind the dirigible and was arrowing toward the platform, and something else much larger than his craft was also arrowing toward the platform.
“Uhhh,” was all Ridge could manage, not sure whether the great silver dragon soaring through the air was their dragon, the one they had released from the pyramid, or if the Cofah had found another one buried in a stasis chamber along with their sorceress. Even if it was the dragon they had saved, that didn’t mean the creature was working for their side now.
“It’s Phelistoth,” Sardelle said as Ridge spotted someone riding atop the dragon’s neck, unfazed by the wings flapping behind her. Tolemek’s sister.
That made Ridge feel better. Even if Tylie was Cofah, she wouldn’t do anything to harm Tolemek. Indeed, as the dragon swept toward the tilted tower—toward the entire tilted platform—he realized what she intended to do. Phelistoth spread his wings, coasting down and landing, the great claws wrapping around those low wall of the tower top. Tolemek appeared small next to the massive creature, but he did not hesitate in approaching. Phelistoth crouched low a
nd Tolemek scrambled up his side to join his sister on the dragon’s neck.
Sardelle leaned away from Ridge’s chest, frowning down at him. You’re injured. She lowered one of her hands from his shoulder to his ribs, her touch so light that he barely felt it.
Yeah, my chest challenged a wall to a duel. The wall won.
A warm sensation radiated from Sardelle’s fingers, like some balm sinking through his skin and soothing his battered nerves. I don’t think I can heal you until we’re on the ground, but I’ll try to lessen the pain.
Thank you. Ridge glanced over his shoulder, wondering how much longer that fortress could float up there. His flier had already descended a thousand feet, but that did not keep him from spotting movement on a tower at the far side of the platform. A Cofah flier swept down in a maneuver that wasn’t quite as fancy as Ridge’s had been and picked someone up. Sardelle groaned. Sunlight glinted off armor, and Ridge had a good idea as to who had been rescued.
As Phelistoth leaped away from the tower, Tolemek’s added weight doing nothing to bother him, the final snap came from within the fortress. One second, Ridge was flying along beside and below it, contemplating his route to the hangar. In the next second, the final thrusters gave out, and the entire structure plummeted. The draft it created was enough to rock his flier as it passed, but then it was gone, sinking into the ocean far below, no longer a threat to Iskandia.
The lone dirigible left in the air limped out to sea. The remaining Cofah fliers—Ridge was proud of his people when he saw how few remained—also headed for home. If Ridge had been able to communicate with his squadron, he might have ordered a pursuit, to take down the Cofah before they could return home and report, but he couldn’t continue to fly with Sardelle in his lap and his engine groaning pitifully. He doubted many of his people’s craft were in any better shape. He hoped they hadn’t lost anyone else.
No, Sardelle murmured into his mind as she stroked his chest lightly. Going after them would be a bad idea. Despite our best effort to bury her, they still have their sorceress.
You buried enough. Ridge would savor the memory of the giant fortress sinking into the blue ocean for a long time. Shall we go home, my lady?
Please. I know Jaxi is squishing something that I want to see working later tonight.
I assure you that with your healing skills and the proper motivation, everything will be working. He had better not promise too much since he did not know how much being healed would take out of him. He also couldn’t feel his legs at the moment.
I’ll think of some good motivation. Kaika has been offering tips.
Ridge snorted, but admitted to a sense of intrigue, as well. Then I shall look forward to being motivated.
Good. She kissed him on the neck and laid her head on his shoulder.
Ridge tilted them toward the airbase far below, more ready than ever to go home.
Epilogue
Sardelle clasped her hands in her lap so she would not fidget. In her past, three hundred years in her past, she wouldn’t have been nervous about being invited to a dinner gathering with the king at Harborgard Castle. Oh, she might have felt out of place, but mage advisers had often been brought in to political meetings, and she had gone along on a few. That had been before she had played a role in killing the king’s wife and demolishing a section of his castle.
“I think he’s decided not to throw you into the harbor,” Ridge whispered, leaning close enough to brush her shoulder with his.
He didn’t look nervous. His eyes gleamed with good humor, and he was as handsome as ever, with his hair freshly cut and his face shaven. His dress uniform, the breast of the jacket full of medals, added to his dashing air. Alas, he did not smell like lavender today, having moved back on base and returned to using military-issue bathing products. Fortunately, he also did not smell like pine trees or cockpits, or any of the other things he had thought would make a pleasing scented soap for men.
“Are you sure?” Sardelle murmured back. “He’s hard to read. Half the time, when he’s joking, I’m not sure if he’s joking.”
“I think if he’s joking at all, then it’s a good sign. I’ve heard from General Ort that Angulus can have quite the temper when riled.”
King Angulus had not yet joined them at the gathering, so Sardelle did not know if he would be joking tonight or not. She and Ridge sat along one side of a long wrought-iron table, sharing it with their comrades from the last few weeks and enjoying the fragrant air in the solarium. The glass-lined and plant-filled room had been far enough away from Kaika’s bombs that it did not appear to have suffered damage, and through luck or fortune, none of the flying fortress’s artillery weapons had slammed into the castle during the battle. Other parts of the city had not been so fortunate, and nobody would soon forget that attack.
“Is General Ort back on duty?” Sardelle asked. She knew Ridge had been eager to return all of the bigger problems to his C.O.’s lap, so he could go back to being a simple squadron leader.
“Yes. He refused to take any time off, even though his lighthouse prison was apparently less opulent than the king’s. He and the other officers that the queen ordered rounded up lost a lot of weight while they were crammed into a dank, windowless room for weeks, and that was on top of having received injuries during the initial kidnapping. But I think it was not being able to keep his boots polished and his uniform ironed that really riled Ort up. When we broke down the door, he came out swinging and looked ready to chew bullets. I’m just glad Angulus knew where they were, so we could collect them easily enough.” Ridge swirled the beer in his mug and smiled. “I didn’t mind being the one leading that rescue. A few of the generals stuck with Ort aren’t my biggest cheerleaders. Maybe they’ll feel more kindly toward me now.”
“You don’t think that would be more likely to happen if you stopped strolling irreverently into their offices and throwing your boots up on their desks?” Sardelle asked.
He snorted. “Who’s been telling you that I do such things?”
Sardelle sipped from her glass and smiled innocently over at him.
“He would have liked this,” Duck mumbled from the other side of Ridge, a beer stein cupped in his hands.
“The beer or the castle?” Ridge asked.
“The castle. The history. Apex would have had stories.”
“Yes.” Ridge patted Duck on the shoulder, then lifted his mug. He looked around the table, meeting the eyes of his comrades.
All of the Wolf Squadron men and women who had fought had been invited to the gathering, along with Tolemek, Sardelle, and Kaika. Some sat around the table with them and others stood in twos and threes, talking quietly while they waited for the king. Only Cas was missing, a fact that had left Tolemek brooding and silent tonight. Even the return of his sister did not seem to have brightened his mood for long. Tylie was staying at Ridge’s mother’s house tonight, washing up after her travels and playing with the cats. Sardelle had no idea where the dragon had gone off to.
Better you not know, Jaxi said. When last he flew into my range, he was munching on a sheep.
A wild sheep or a shepherd’s sheep?
I didn’t ask.
“To Apex,” Ridge said when everyone was looking. “And to Masser, as well. Fallen comrades taken from us too soon.”
The others raised their mugs and thumped their fists on the tables three times as they drank. Sardelle did not feel like one of Ridge’s pilots, even after all they had been through, but she replicated the gesture quietly and sipped a dry white wine from her glass. Tolemek only stared into his mug, the beverage barely touched. Like her, he would probably never feel entirely comfortable here, a white wolf amid all the grays. Still, none of the pilots were making superstitious hex signs at either of them. It was an improvement, the first of many, she dared let herself believe.
The somber moment was replaced by laughter as Pimples tried to convince Duck to take him to visit some noble ladies they had been discussing off and on tonight, v
intners who lived in the countryside. Sardelle assumed they were the same women Duck and Tolemek had helped kidnap the night of the castle infiltration, but she could not imagine how Duck had turned them into friends. He must have been charming, to keep those women from holding a grudge.
Jaxi snorted. He convinced the ladies that he had rescued them from an evil sorceress who had stolen their carriage.
He rescued them, eh?
Nobly and bravely, yes.
Was Tolemek noble and brave too? In the chaos of the following day, Sardelle never had gotten a chance to ask what had happened with those women.
He played the role of Duck’s loyal henchman.
No wonder he’s been in a dour mood.
I think that has more to do with the fact that he helped kill hundreds of his people. Either that, or he’s upset over Cas.
Some of both, perhaps. Sardelle had started thinking of Tolemek as a dependable ally and sometimes forgot he had grown up in Cofahre and fought in their army for years before becoming a pirate.
More laughter broke out as the squadron made bets and speculated on Pimples’s likelihood of “making it to the end of the runway” with a noblewoman.
Sardelle squeezed Ridge’s arm, then left her seat to sit in the empty one next to Tolemek.
“Are you going to be all right?” she asked softly.
“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Tolemek said.
“Which is why you’re scowling into your mug so fiercely that you’re making the foam wither.”
Tolemek did not smile at her attempt at humor.
More soberly, Sardelle said, “I hope the king has already said as much, but please know how much Ridge and I appreciate your help with destroying the fortress. I’m sure all of the pilots do here, and in time, I hope everyone in the city will learn how instrumental you were in protecting them.”