“What kind of boats are they?” Blazer faced the ocean. Since the beach was set back from the cliff, they couldn’t see far to the north or south.
“Not Cofah or Iskandian models that I’m familiar with,” Trip said.
“Local specialties,” Kaika said. “Let’s hope they’re only armed with cannons if they truly are after us.”
“They’re fast,” Trip said. “They’ll be here soon.”
7
“We can’t abandon the fliers if there are boats full of hostiles coming. Mount back up.” Blazer ran for her cockpit. “If we have to fight them, better to do it from the air.”
Rysha rushed to return to her spot behind Duck, but the roar of engines made her pause.
A gray metal craft sped into view, moving so quickly it bounced over the waves like a rock skipped on a pond. Designed like a dart, it couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet long, but it was almost entirely enclosed, its metal sides appearing to be armored. The two weapons mounted in the prow looked like the latest technology, something similar to the shell guns Rysha had practiced on at the academy.
“So much for being the city that time forgot,” she muttered.
Two more boats sped into view as the twin weapons of the first rotated toward the beach.
Blazer’s thrusters fired, and she flew into the air, Kaika already loaded in the seat behind her.
“Ravenwood,” Duck yelled from his cockpit. “Get in!”
Rysha intended to obey, but she spotted Trip. He left his flier behind and strode down the beach toward the water, the two soulblades held in his hands.
“Go without me,” Rysha ordered, grabbing her rifle and stepping away. Her instincts told her to stay down here and protect Trip in case he got himself in trouble.
Bhrava Saruth’s words about the magic dead zone popped into her head. What if the soulblades’ magic didn’t work here?
Duck’s flier lifted off, leaving her alone and exposed in the sand. Leftie’s craft had also roared into the air.
The lead boat fired, two shells blasting in Trip’s direction. One hit an invisible barrier well in front of him and exploded. The second flew high over his head, the aim wild. It slammed into the cliff above Rysha, blowing up with eardrum-pounding intensity. Shards rained down upon her, and she yelped and jumped to the side before a boulder slammed onto her head.
She gulped. This might have been a stupid idea.
The fliers soared over the boats, noses dipping so the pilots could rain down bullets. The boats fired back, some of their shells sailing skyward now.
The craft were mostly armored, but not entirely. When one motored by, showing its side to Rysha, she spotted a single man in an open cockpit. The sides and top partially protected him, but there was a clear glass windshield, and his back area was open. The fliers might be able to hit him with bullets. Kaika’s explosives would be better. Rysha hoped she had some prepared.
She had nothing prepared and felt useless standing at the back of the beach with her rifle. She might be able to get a shot off now and then, since the boats were circling close to shore, alternating firing at Trip and at the fliers. But right now, she was too vulnerable to relax and shoot.
A couple of large boulders marked the base of that trail up the cliff. Maybe she could use them for cover. She started in that direction, but halted, her foot in the air. The booby traps. She’d forgotten.
Go, Trip spoke into her mind. I’ll guide your steps so you’re not in danger.
He wasn’t even looking at her. He faced the battle with the swords raised, and a fireball blasted from Jaxi’s blade. Azarwrath hurled lightning toward one of the boats as it sped by. It blasted into the armored side, arcing in three directions, one branch hitting the pilot in the back. The man’s scream was audible even over the roar of the waves and the pounding of the fliers’ machine guns. The pilot crumpled to the deck, his entire back blackened. The boat sped into one of the cliff walls, and blew up with a fiery orange explosion.
Trip watched grimly, nothing triumphant about his gaze.
Rysha picked a careful path toward the boulders. For the most part, she chose her steps, but once, an invisible force guided her to the left, closer to the cliff. Trip. He still wasn’t looking at her, and she found it unnerving that he could guide her like that. His words about her possibly resenting him if he was the one to control her sword—and her—popped into her mind.
Something to consider later.
One of the boats roared close to the beach again, hardly disturbed by the waves rising and crashing to the shore. She paused and lifted her rifle. The boat’s side was to her, the open part of the cockpit in sight, so maybe she could get off a useful shot.
But Azarwrath’s red lightning sprang out first. Once again, it curled around the armored vessel, reaching the pilot even in the steering compartment. An instant later, one of Jaxi’s fireballs swallowed the entire boat.
An explosion blew farther out over the water—Kaika had dropped a bomb from her flier. It must have missed, because the boat sped away from the smoke and flames, turning and angling its guns upward to return fire.
The boat the soulblades had attacked didn’t turn, its pilot presumably dead. It ran up onto shore, making it almost all the way up the beach before its momentum stopped. What had been gray metal was black now, and nothing stirred inside the craft.
Rysha reached the boulders and hid most of her body behind them, leaning out only far enough to fire. If she got the chance. The battle had moved farther away from the beach. She counted at least four more of those boats. She didn’t know if the fliers had taken any down, or if Trip’s soulblades had been responsible for all the crashes. As quickly as the boats moved, she could understand why the fliers would struggle to target them, especially when the armor protected ninety-five percent of them.
Trip and the soulblades hurled more attacks, this time at targets she couldn’t see but that she was sure he sensed. There was nothing wrong with their magic, and she felt silly for having stayed down here. He didn’t need her to defend him, and she would have had a better angle for sniping from the air.
She looked up the trail, thinking of climbing higher so she could see the battle better. But someone was up there, near the top of the cliff. Two someones. They wore loose white clothing and hoods that hid their faces, so she couldn’t tell if they were men or women. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that one was waving a spyglass and pointing at the beach, at Trip, while the other pointed a rifle at him. At his back.
Did the soulblades know? She had no idea if Trip’s barrier was merely protecting him from the front or if it wrapped all the way around. She did know he had to be lowering it every time the soulblades attacked.
Rysha jerked her rifle to her shoulder and aimed. The angle was horrible, with the rock half-hiding the sniper’s body, but if she hit any part of him, that would make him think twice.
The figure leaned over the edge, and she imagined his finger tightening on the trigger, even if she couldn’t see that far. Rysha fired first.
Her bullet skipped off the rock at the man’s feet with a blast of dust. Damn it. She fired again as he jerked his rifle down to point at her. His buddy dove out of her sight, but she had a good look at the first man. Her bullet slammed into his forehead as he fired.
She threw herself sideways into the sand, knowing the boulders did nothing to cover her from above. Her enemy’s bullet slammed into one of them, and shards of rock flew. Rysha scrambled around to the other side of the boulder, glancing toward the water to make sure a boat wasn’t in view, one that might shoot her in the back as she hid from the threat above.
Twin chimneys of dark gray smoke wafted up over the waves, and one of the fliers buzzed past overhead, but that was all she saw. Good.
Rysha leaned out, rifle pointed at the clifftop. She was positive she’d hit the sniper in the forehead, but she hadn’t done anything to the second man. She waited, her heart banging against her ribcage, with her fing
er on the trigger. But the second man didn’t stick his head out again.
He might run along the cliff to find another spot, another place from which to attack Trip. Trip, who may or may not be aware of the threat from behind and above him.
Though she risked being caught in the open, Rysha ran up the path, legs pumping as she headed for the first switchback. She kept her rifle pointing upward, her head tilted back, watching the clifftops.
A couple of times, she risked glancing toward Trip. She happened to be looking down as the water receded alarmingly, revealing all manner of seaweed-covered rocks and kelp beds on the sandy bottom. Trip waved his hands, and a huge wave appeared in the distance. A tidal wave. Seven gods, was he creating that? It might smash the boats to shore, but it might bury him and his flier too.
Movement caught her eye up above. The figure in white.
Glimpsing a rifle in the man’s hands, Rysha fired before she had a chance to aim fully. The figure leaped back out of sight again. She didn’t know if she’d hit him. Assuming not, she ran faster, her thighs burning. The climb would have been steep and arduous under any circumstances.
Finally, she neared the top. She forced herself to slow down. For all she knew, a hundred more snipers might be crouched up there.
She poked her head around a rock outcropping and spotted the first figure she’d shot right away. The form lay crumpled and unmoving among boulders near the edge of the cliff. But where was the other person?
The lumpy, rocky terrain, with clumps of cactus pads thrusting up from soil pockets, offered numerous hiding spots.
Rysha climbed off the trail and risked pulling herself up onto a boulder so she could see over the terrain.
A tremendous splash came from the beach below, and she gasped as that tidal wave swept in, towering over Trip’s head. He hadn’t moved. It swept over him, and he disappeared from sight as the wave crashed in, swallowing the entire beach. Water slammed high against the cliff behind it.
Horrified and captivated, Rysha almost missed the movement to her left. She whirled and spotted white behind a clump of cactus.
She fired an instant before she rolled off her boulder perch. The crack of a firearm sounded as she dropped to the ground.
Rysha had no idea where the shot went, or if she had hit her target, and cursed herself for being distracted. She scrambled behind the boulder and checked her bullets before sticking her head out again. She knew precisely how many shots she had left before needing to reload, but she needed a few seconds to gather herself. Sweat dripped down the side of her face, and her hands shook from the near misses.
Knowing she couldn’t risk delaying long—her enemy might already be creeping toward her—she took a deep breath and peeked around the far side of the boulder. She jerked her head back, expecting the man to fire right away.
But she didn’t hear the crack of a rifle. Nor did she hear the booms of explosions from below. Wind swept across the clifftop, the roar of the ocean diminished from her lofty perch. As much as she wanted to peek below and see if Trip had survived his own tidal wave, she had to deal with the immediate threat first.
Rysha poked her head out again, this time for long enough to give that cactus a good look. A myriad of thorny pads grew out in all directions, but they didn’t entirely hide the white of the man’s clothing behind it. He appeared to be curled up on the ground. Injured?
She thought about waiting him out, but remembered Trip’s warning about more people inside the outpost. There could be reinforcements already on the way.
Keeping her rifle trained on the man behind the cactus, Rysha crept out from behind cover. She advanced in a low crouch, her finger on the trigger. If the man so much as moved, she would fire again. She doubted the cactus pads would stop a bullet.
The breeze whipped at his loose white clothing, and she almost mistook it for movement from the man, but she kept from firing. If he was already dead, there was no point in wasting bullets. If he was only injured, it would be good to question him. She wanted to know if all this was because the inhabitants didn’t welcome visitors, or if someone had known Iskandians looking for a dragon were coming—and if that someone objected to that. It was hard to imagine that news of this mission had leaked or would interest many people besides Trip, but Rysha wouldn’t rule anything out.
As she stepped around the cactus, the man finally moved. His hood had fallen back, revealing bronze skin and short black hair. Blood dripped from his mouth, and pain furrowed his brow, but he looked at her with clear, cogent eyes. The hand pointing a pistol at her chest was steady.
Rysha smoothed her expression, trying not to let him know she was worried—terrified. Her rifle pointed at his chest, so he did not have the advantage over her. Except perhaps in knowing that he was already dying and that he had nothing to lose.
“We have a healer,” Rysha said. “You needn’t sacrifice yourself. Tell me why you attacked, and I’ll ask him to come up and take that bullet out of your chest.”
And the one out of his shoulder. Judging by the red stains to his dusty white clothing, she’d hit him twice. The one to his chest looked to have hit a lung, and his wheezing breaths lent credence to that.
“It is… my oath,” he rasped, more blood dripping from his mouth, spilling onto the dry parched earth under his head. “Sacrifice.”
His accent was like nothing Rysha had heard, neither Cofah nor Iskandian, though he spoke the language that, thanks to the empire’s millennia of conquering, was common in most of the world.
“You feel you have to sacrifice yourself? Why?”
Her shoulder blades itched, and she wanted to take a moment to look around, to ensure nobody was creeping up on her, but she dared not break eye contact. She sensed that if she did, he would shoot her.
“Sworn… to serve. Brother… Brotherhood of… Dragon.”
“The Brotherhood of the Dragon? I’ve never heard of them. Why do they want me and my friends dead?”
“Just… the infidel. The usurper. He will not… not usurp. We… not follow… unworthy one.”
“The infidel? Is that Trip?” Rysha couldn’t understand how these people knew anything about Trip, but they had definitely been aiming at him. “I think you have the wrong man. We’re from Iskandia. We’re not here to usurp anything.”
The man’s eyes widened. “He comes.”
The finger tightened on the trigger, and Rysha’s instincts kicked in. She fired and flung herself out of the way.
The rocky earth pummeled her when she struck it, but she sprang to her feet and whirled back. Blood spilled from a new hole in the man’s chest.
He should have cried out in pain—or died outright—but he seemed too far gone to feel pain or be fully aware. He held his pistol, staring at it in confusion. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Bleakly, she realized his gun must have jammed when he fired at her. That might have been all that had saved her from taking a bullet to her own chest.
A shadow appeared, and Dorfindral thrummed at her hip, wanting to be taken out of its scabbard. She turned, her rifle ready, but she was almost positive she knew who approached. The sword hadn’t been complaining about the snipers.
“Trip,” she said in acknowledgment, lowering the rifle.
He stopped at the man’s head and looked down. The man moaned, trying to pull his trigger one last time, though he wasn’t aiming at anything now. Once again, the pistol failed to fire.
His arm finally slumped to the ground. His fingers opened, and the firearm fell free of them. As the man stared up at Trip, his eyes glazed over. A few seconds passed before Rysha realized he’d stopped breathing.
“Did you…” She stopped herself from asking if Trip had killed the man with his mind. He wouldn’t do that. Besides, with the injuries the man had received, it was surprising that he hadn’t died earlier. “How did you survive that tidal wave?” she asked instead.
Trip’s gaze shifted toward her, and there seemed a hint of sadness in it. She worried he
was reading her thoughts, that he knew she had, only for a second, wondered if he would use his powers to kill a defenseless man.
“You’re not even wet,” she observed.
“The swords shielded me, then lifted me over it and to safety as the water receded. I had to shield my flier myself since they were less concerned about it. Good thing I figured out how.” He smiled, though it was quick and faint. He looked tired.
“You’ve figured out how to create tidal waves?”
“Apparently. I realized…” Trip gazed out toward the edge of the cliff and the ocean beyond. “Jaxi said something earlier, that I would regret it if my hesitation to use my power got friends hurt. I started thinking about ways I could quickly end the fight instead of standing there trading blows with them.”
“Makes sense.”
“The tidal wave destroyed the boats when the water threw them against the cliff. All the pilots were killed instantly or quickly drowned.” He continued to stare into the distance, his face bleak, his eyes haunted.
“It is a great power to wield,” she said, “and I can see why you want to be careful with it—I’m glad you want to be careful with it—but I think that was going to be the end result no matter what. Kaika was dropping bombs on their heads, and I watched your soulblades turn two of the pilots into charcoal.”
“True. But I wish I’d found a way to simply dissuade them from attacking us. I’ve hesitated to study mind manipulation, but what if I could have convinced them to forget they saw us and go back to the harbor? They might have been reprimanded by their superiors, but it would have saved their lives.”
“Maybe. Or maybe they would have simply come after us again, by land if not by sea. This Brotherhood of the Dragon seems to think you’re here to usurp something. Also that you’re an infidel.”
Trip’s brow creased, and he looked back at her. “What?”
“That’s what this fellow said.” Rysha waved at the dead man, then stepped back. It didn’t seem right to stand around and have a chat over a fallen warrior, or whatever he’d fancied himself.