“Booby trap?” Tolemek asked.
“Yes. I’m not letting pirates, or anyone else, poke through my laboratory.”
“Laboratory?” He eyed the wooden box under her arm, intrigued.
Sardelle didn’t respond. She was staring intently at the house—or through the walls maybe.
A glint of orange appeared through the snow, and something sailed out of the night to land on the roof.
“Burning fuse,” Tolemek said.
“I see it.”
He thought she might snuff it out with her mind, or whatever sorcerers did, but the burning fuse turned to a blast of white and yellow light, with an accompanying boom. The snow muffled the noise somewhat, but dogs started barking somewhere down the street. Smoke shrouded the building.
Tolemek looked to the fort’s big stone wall, the gray mass rising two blocks away. He had seen soldiers marching up there. It wouldn’t be a secret that the base had been breached for much longer. Shouts rose in the distance, not from the nearby wall but from the direction of the front gate. The soldiers he had left sleeping must have awakened. He grimaced. When he had been coming up with a way to get in, he hadn’t been worrying much about getting out. Of course, he hadn’t been planning on setting off explosives either.
He checked on the house, expecting the smoke to clear to reveal little more than rubble, but it remained intact, not so much as a roof shingle torn free.
“It seems your ordnance team is ineffective,” Sardelle said, her eyes gleaming.
“It’s not my team.”
“They’ve decided not to try again. They’re heading toward the wall in the corner of the fort. I think they’re planning to blow themselves a new exit gate.” She glanced toward the top of the wall, much as Tolemek had done. “I intend to stop them.”
“I’ll help.” Tolemek strode through the snow beside her. He doubted she needed his help, but if he could turn her into an ally, maybe she would help him with his quest, or at least point him in the right direction.
The flat look Sardelle gave him didn’t suggest his help or company was appreciated, but he matched her pace anyway. She had invited him along, after all.
As they crossed the street near the wall, he spotted fewer soldiers than he would have expected running in step toward Zirkander’s house. The bong-bong-bong of that alarm was still going off, so maybe men were being siphoned toward the harbor. Oddly, none of them noticed Tolemek and Sardelle crossing the street.
Tolemek spotted dark figures ahead, angling toward the corner she had mentioned. Hand delving into his sack, he jogged into the lead. He could deal with the men the same way he had with the guards, then tie them up afterward. Besides, he wanted to see who these people were, preferably before a sorceress obliterated them.
The bongs halted as he jogged toward them, trying to soften his steps so they wouldn’t hear him coming. They were doing a lot of nervous pointing and gesturing. Already he had them pegged for lackeys. Goroth wouldn’t have been stupid enough to hurl explosives and let everyone know he was in the compound. But whose lackeys?
When he was within fifteen meters, Tolemek thumbed the activator on his leather ball and chucked it into their midst. They had reached the wall, and two were crouching in the snow, setting something against its base. One noticed the ball hit the ground and jumped back, yanking a pistol free.
“Go ahead,” Tolemek whispered. “Shoot it.”
That would simply free the air-borne sedative more quickly.
The man didn’t shoot the ball though. He kicked snow over it, tapped a comrade on the shoulder, and peered all around them. There was no camouflage to hide Tolemek except for the falling snow, but he had his next weapon ready. He had withdrawn and unfolded a collapsible blow gun, already loaded with special darts. He fired at the same time as the man—the pirate, yes, he wore the unlikely collection of stolen garments that so many of the Roaming Curse favored—spotted him.
Tolemek dropped, rolling to the side, expecting a shot. It never came. The man had dropped his gun to claw at his face. From his belly, Tolemek shot two more projectiles, glad the cold hadn’t yet frozen his black cobwebs, as he called them. These darts were similar to the one he had fired at the guard back when he and Cas had been escaping that fortress. They expanded upon impact and stuck to the flesh like instant glue. A shot to the eyes or mouth was particularly effective.
After three shots, he was out, but by then, the sedating smoke from the leather ball had permeated the area. Though Tolemek couldn’t see it from his spot on the snow, he saw the effects. Soon all eight men collapsed.
Rising to a crouch, he looked back to check on Sardelle. To see if she might be impressed, or at least pleased that he had dealt with these people so she hadn’t had to incinerate them or turn them into frogs, or whatever her style was. She was only a few feet behind him, her gaze toward the wall, or maybe the harbor beyond it.
Before he could say a word, an ear-splitting wail started up. It seemed to come from the same amplifiers that had brought the bongs. It also seemed to say that whatever had been going on before was nothing compared to what was coming now.
“Attack,” Tolemek whispered. What else could that alarm be meant to signal?
The aerosol from his ball should have dissipated, so he ran forward to the fallen pirates. He turned them over on their backs, checking faces. Two were covered with his black cobwebs, rendering the features indistinguishable, but a couple of the men seemed familiar, pirates he had seen around the outpost on occasion. He stared in surprise at the fourth man, recognizing him instantly. It was the Cofah corporal who had been seeking asylum.
“Guess you weren’t on the Burning Dragon when it blew up,” Tolemek muttered. “Was your captain, I wonder?” If Stone Heart had survived that attack but lost his ship... he would have a lot of new reasons to loathe Zirkander and the Iskandians.
Do you always interrogate unconscious men?
This time, Tolemek didn’t jump at the voice in his head, but he doubted he would ever find it anything but jarring. No.
Good, because I can’t imagine that with your skills you’d find it particularly effective.
“Your sword has gone from teasing me to insulting me,” Tolemek said when Sardelle approached, carrying lengths of twine that he was fairly certain hadn’t been among the items she took from the house. Unless they had come out of that box. He doubted it.
“That’s how she bonds with a person.” Sardelle tossed him four of the ropes, then knelt to tie the first of the downed men.
“Does she insult you?”
“Hourly.”
Sardelle moved onto her second pirate, and Tolemek hurried to catch up. That siren wailing couldn’t mean anything good. He wondered if Cas had found her squadron yet, and if she was even now preparing to go up into the gusting wind and heavy snow. She had sneered at the snail-like attributes of the dirigibles and airships, but being in one of those little fliers when nature was throwing a fit did not seem like a life-sustaining activity.
“She’s not what I imagined in a soulblade,” Tolemek said to distract himself from worrying. It wasn’t as if he could do anything to help Cas, except maybe find out where Stone Heart was and what he was up to.
Sardelle paused in tying her third man. “You know what a soulblade is? That’s not common anymore. Nor is talking openly about them.” Her lips thinned and she glanced up at the wall. “Nor anything related to magic.”
It occurred to him that she might be as much of an intruder here as he was. Well, no. She must be Zirkander’s guest, but doubtlessly she was down on the books as girlfriend, not sorceress. So what would happen if the army found out?
By this point, he almost expected a threat from Jaxi, but the sword either wasn’t paying attention to his thoughts or was chilled to silence at the idea of Sardelle being caught. Probably the former. From what little he had seen, he doubted much could chill the entity to silence.
“I’ve been researching them.” Tolemek wondered i
f this might be his opportunity to broach the subject with her, to ask if she might know a way to help his sister.
But Sardelle was frowning down at one of the pirates—the former Cofah soldier. She couldn’t have seen him and remember who he was, could she?
“He came to our outpost,” Tolemek said, “blabbing about a battle in the mountains and a mine that Zirkander was guarding.”
She met his eyes, her own blue ones sharp. “And of a strange woman with a glowing sword?”
“That might have been mentioned.”
“I see.” She looked like she might wish to cut the corporal’s throat instead of merely tying him and leaning him against the wall for the soldiers to find, but she kept herself to using the twine. Roughly.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t the time to ask for favors.
“They went this way,” came a call from Griffon Street. The soldier raised his voice, “You men on the wall see anything?”
“No,” someone responded from above, “but we’re looking at...”
Tree branches stood in the way, and Tolemek couldn’t see where the soldier might be pointed, but guessed the harbor. With the snow, he doubted any ships would be visible yet, but they had to know something was out there.
“Looks like the investigative team is approaching,” Tolemek said, glad they had finished tying the unconscious men. “I’m presuming we don’t want to be found here?”
“No.” Sardelle pulled a rope out from under her cloak—there was definitely no way she had come out of the house with that. “Loop this around that dragon head up there, please. Climb up, then help me up. I’ll keep the men on the wall distracted.”
“As you wish.”
Wondering when he had gone from thinking to interrogate the sorceress to taking orders from her, Tolemek made a loop of the end of the rope and tried for the indicated target, one of several dragon-head downspouts. It took him a few tosses, but he eventually lassoed one of the protrusions. He shimmied the fifteen feet up to the top, his vials clinking softly in his bag, then turned to help Sardelle.
“Catch,” she whispered, and tossed the wooden box to him.
It wasn’t heavy, and he caught it easily. His hands, wanting for mittens in the cold, were strangely warmed by the wood’s touch. Something else magical? He was tempted to peek within, but Sardelle was nearly to the top. He helped her onto the walkway.
“Down the other side?” he asked, pointing to the street below.
She shook her head mutely, looking toward the harbor, not the street. “You know anything about that?”
When Tolemek turned, following her gaze, it was all he could do to keep from cursing. The snow had let up momentarily, and he could make out a layer of fog rising up from the harbor and curling through the streets of the city.
“No,” he whispered. “I disabled the machine. Anyway, it was inside the freighter. The freighter that blew up.” This couldn’t be his doing. It couldn’t.
Sardelle gave him a long, penetrating stare.
Tolemek dropped his face into his palm. Goroth might be dead or imprisoned, but his vision was going to come to pass. The fog and the snow were going to bury the city, and the armada was going to do its best to devastate it.
He peered through his fingers toward the butte, where the number of lights had doubled. Was Cas already there? Preparing her flier to go out in that mess? He groaned, wishing he could tell her to come back to him instead.
“Come on,” Sardelle said, pointing to the street. “We need to get up there before they take off. I have something that will help them.” Her voice lowered, and the wind almost kept him from hearing her next words. “If they’ll accept it.”
Chapter 14
Cas bounced from foot to foot, almost wishing she had run up the path to the top of the butte instead of taking the aerial tram. She knew from previous experience with bets and stopwatches that the tram was faster, but it didn’t feel faster. The weather was getting worse by the minute, and she feared the squadron, wanting to deal with the threat before the storm began in earnest, would take off without her. It was only at General Ort’s insistence that she had taken the time to sprint to the barracks and change into her flight uniform and grab her goggles, scarf, and cap. Granted the sturdy boots and fur-lined jacket were more appropriate to the winter weather, but if she missed catching up with the colonel and the others, and if they found trouble out there—trouble she might have advised them on—she would pummel the nearest target with bullets, whether it was something living or not.
“You’re lucky you’re heading up at here at all, ma’am,” the sergeant operating the tram said, the wind nearly stealing his words. It was gusting hard from the north, and the cabin, supported only by the cables above, rocked under the weather’s influence. Taking off would be extremely challenging. He waved at her shifting feet. “I’m about to close the tram down for the night. Inclement conditions.”
“Better keep it running. Pirates are coming to attack the city.” Even as she spoke the bong-bong-bong alarm bell escalated to an undulating siren call.
The sergeant asked something, but Cas burst out of the tram cabin as soon as they reached the butte. She sprinted for the hangar, scarcely paying attention to the icy ground beneath her feet. She threw open the door and nearly crashed into someone’s back. Two men were standing there, discussing something while controlled chaos—pilots and the ground crew racing to and fro, preparing the fliers—went on in the hangar in front of them. The man on the right was the only person who could wrinkle a leather jacket and scarf—and the rest of his uniform—on a consistent basis, so she knew him from behind: Captain Crash Haksor. The man on the left had his cap tilted at a familiar rakish angle.
“Lieutenant Ahn reporting for duty, sir,” she said around a lump in her throat.
Cas had barely gotten her hand up for a salute before the two men spun toward her and she found herself engulfed in a hug. She wasn’t even sure who it was, as she found her feet lifted from the ground and her face buried in the shoulder of a jacket, inhaling the scent of worn leather. Someone thumped her on the back, which was followed by the sound of boots pounding the cement floor, and a lot more thumps. And more hugs. And more time spent with her feet in the air. It was overwhelming, and as much as she appreciated the enthusiasm, she had to fight the urge not to wriggle free and escape for a gasp of fresh air. She reminded herself that they had all thought she was dead. The other women, Captain Blazer and Lieutenant Solk, were the only ones who didn’t try to pick her up, though they did clap her on the shoulder. Blazer’s usually-irritating head pat was a welcome expression of affection this time, due to its sedateness.
Cas was about to say something to the officers—her friends—gathered around when a straggler ran up, grease smearing his hair and snow dusting his shoulders. Lieutenant Pimples Averstash had been the youngest member of Wolf Squadron until she signed on, and he surprised her by pushing everyone aside to give her a fierce hug and a big kiss on the cheek. It actually might not have been on the cheek if she hadn’t turned her head in time. That was surprising—they’d always been friends, but she hadn’t known he had cared that much—and she couldn’t find words for a moment.
“Cas, I lo—missed you,” he blurted.
She tried not to look like the proverbial antelope in the hunter’s sights as she stared at him, but doubted she managed.
“Lieutenant Averstash,” came the colonel’s drawl from the side. “I know you’re happy to see Ahn, but do you really think it’s appropriate to kiss your fellow officers?”
Averstash released Cas’s arms and skittered back, amidst stares, smirks, and chortles from the rest of the onlookers. Cas might have thanked Zirkander, but his brown eyes were glittering with amusement, and he wasn’t bothering to hide his grin. She glowered at him. His grin broadened.
“Of course it’s appropriate, sir,” Averstash said, rubbing the back of his neck—it was flushed almost as red as his cheeks. “I’d kiss you, too, if not for the be
ard shadow. It looks itchy.”
“I’ll be sure not to shave anytime soon then.”
“Donkey ass,” Lieutenant Solk muttered to Averstash and elbowed him in the ribs.
“Sir?” one of the ground crew asked, jogging up to Zirkander’s side. “Your flier is ready. Shall we get one ready for the L.T. too?” He nodded at Cas.
“Hells, yes,” she said, relieved there was something in the hangar for her to fly. With poor W-48 at the bottom of the ocean, she had no right to a craft, but she had been praying Zirkander would deem her valuable enough to give her another without a long wait. “I didn’t run across the city just to see these toad-kissers off.”
“You heard the lieutenant, Grashon. Wipe the dust off W-5.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The rest of you cloud-hoppers, mount up,” Zirkander called, his voice ringing in the hangar. “It’s time to get these fliers in the air before the mosquitoes get here.”
Cries of, “Yes, sir!” answered him, and men and women charged for their cockpits.
The colonel drew Cas aside, gave her a quick one-armed hug, and said, “It’s fantastic to see you here alive. I didn’t know if Crash had been delusional when he said he saw you on that pirate outpost. I want the whole story when there’s more time, but I need as much intel as you can cram into two minutes now. This is a retaliatory attack from the pirates, we’re guessing?”
“Yes, sir. They’re bringing their whole armada.”
“Armada?”
“All of the ships that were there for your attack and their big station too. You know that fog?” Cas searched his eyes, wondering how he had found the outpost in the first place, when the pirates’ mobile location and their shroud of fog had kept the authorities from finding it for so long.
Zirkander nodded once, an odd hint of tension, or maybe wariness, entering his eyes at the question.
“The advance party, the ship they had me on, brought the machine for making it, and was planning to blanket the harbor so we’d have a hard time seeing them to fight and protect the city.”