“How come you’re not leading this mission, sir?” Kaika asked.
“I tried to nominate myself. Angulus forbade it. He wants me here to direct everything and help if any dragons attack the capital. Oddly, he was disappointed that Sardelle couldn’t go.”
“Technically, I could, but—”
“Absolutely not. My mother would forbid it. As would I. But you’re more likely to accept it from her.”
“Fern can indeed be stern. But I also agree that I’m too far along for dragon-battling adventures.” Sardelle lifted her sword scabbard while Trip wondered if there was a stage of pregnancy at which dragon-battling adventures were acceptable. “However, I’d like to send along some help. Jaxi isn’t much of a healer, but she can cauterize wounds. And as I said, she’ll be able to sense the portal from quite a ways off.”
“Jaxi has agreed to go off with strangers?” Zirkander sounded surprised. “She’s usually particular about who she lets, uhm, rub her pommel.”
“We’re not all strangers,” Kaika said. “Though I prefer rifles and explosives to swords, of course. Swords are such primitive weapons.”
“Well,” Zirkander said, “those words just assured that Jaxi won’t choose Kaika to carry her.”
“Indeed,” Sardelle said. “Kaika is in danger of having something cauterized as we speak.”
“Just try it, Short and Pointy.” Kaika glowered at the scabbard.
Leftie looked toward the window again, this time, probably thinking of jumping out to get away from all these crazy people. Trip, on the other hand, was excited. He had no idea why, but he’d been chosen to go on a special mission by General Zirkander himself. An important special mission. One where he could put his talents to use, strike a blow against the pirate king, and maybe start to earn the reputation that he longed for, one that prompted people to treat him as a hero instead of an outcast.
“Jaxi is amenable to going along,” Sardelle said. “I believe she’s delighted to get out of babysitting duty for a while.”
Zirkander snorted.
“She’s already chosen who will carry her.” Sardelle held the scabbard horizontally in both hands and turned toward Trip.
He blinked. “Me?”
Sardelle smiled. “You.”
He didn’t know what to say.
That you’re honored to be chosen, not worthy of standing in my presence, and that you’ll oil my blade nightly and keep me dry.
Had Trip been near the edge, he might have fallen off the couch again.
4
Deep in the stacks of the Pinoth University library, Rysha rubbed her eyes and fought back yawns. Four lanterns framed the table where she worked, shedding yellow light onto the world map spread across it. The sun had set a while ago—hours ago?—but she wasn’t sure what time it was. She only knew she should be getting some sleep since they were reporting to the hangar before dawn.
After the general’s meeting, she’d washed, changed, and hastily packed, then raced off to meet Sardelle here. Sardelle—it seemed so strange to think of General Zirkander’s wife by first name—had spent a couple of hours distilling her notes. She hadn’t done anything witchy—or was that sorceressy?—during the time, and Rysha was grateful for that. Even though she’d heard of the woman before, and hadn’t been as floored by the revelations as that Lieutenant Leftie had been, she didn’t have any personal experience with magic, or those who used it, and it had been hard to fight the urge to circle her heart with two fingers to ward off evil. A superstitious gesture, but one her grandmother used often, as did many from the older generation.
The magic only concerned her a little. Mostly, she felt honored to have been selected for the mission. She hadn’t expected to get to go on exciting missions until after she passed the elite troops tests and completed the training. She’d joined the army longing to make a name for herself and to show the world that Captain Kaika wasn’t an anomaly, that women could become elite soldiers too. Maybe she was going to get her chance to do that much sooner than she’d anticipated.
“I think she’s back here,” a male voice said, and Rysha dragged her wandering thoughts back to her work.
She could continue to piece together clues about the portal’s location while on the voyage to the Pirate Isles—seven gods, she hoped that worked out, that Neaminor hadn’t sold or traded away the sword—but it would be much easier here in the library than in some tiny open-air flier seat with the wind rushing past at eighty miles per hour.
“Ah ha, I see a light,” another man said, and Ravenwood recognized the voice. Captain Trip?
“There are lights at the end of every row,” the other man said dryly. Leftie?
Belatedly, she realized they must be looking for her. Did the leader of their mission, this Major Blazer, need the location of the portal now? If so, Rysha would be hard-pressed to provide it with certainty. But Zirkander hadn’t seemed to expect certainty. Pack for a long trip, he’d said, hinting that they would have to check numerous locales.
Three men strolled into view, peering left and right between the aisles of bookcases. Captain Trip looked right at her and smiled.
He hadn’t been smiling much during that meeting, so it was her first time seeing the gesture. It was warm, and he had an attractive face, though his skin was darker than typical for an Iskandian. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Plenty of people had parents from other countries, and during their various invasions over the centuries, the Cofah had left their blood on Iskandian shores in more ways than one.
Leftie was more classically handsome, dark hair and pale skin, a cleft chin and angular features. Women looked twice at him, Rysha was sure, though he carried himself with the kind of cockiness that tended to rub her the wrong way. She’d expected that from General Zirkander too, simply based on his reputation, but he’d been laid-back and easy-going with a smile that could turn a girl’s knees to mush. Even though he was far from her type, and she was positive she wasn’t his, she’d felt a twinge of disappointment that he was married.
“Found her,” Trip said.
“Are you positive?” Leftie tilted his head from side to side and squinted at Rysha. “She’s not wearing any mud. It’s hard to be sure.”
“Ha ha.” Realizing that both Trip and the third man with them, Captain Duck, outranked her, Rysha came to her feet and saluted.
The men weren’t in uniform, and it wasn’t technically required, but she tried to err on the side of professionalism when it came to the army. She wasn’t in uniform, either, but she was most certainly on duty and working.
“We decided to do some team bonding,” Leftie said, after they returned her salute. “Now that we are one. A team, that is.” He offered her his cocky smile. “You’re invited.”
“An honor, I’m sure, but I’m trying to figure out where we’re going.” Rysha gestured at the map. “I’ve heard pilots like to know that before they take off.”
She wasn’t even sure of the exact coordinates of the Pirate Isles. They were on the world maps, but she’d heard that strange things happened in that section of the ocean, and air and sea ships alike had a hard time finding them.
“I’m usually just happy to be in the air,” Trip said, sticking a hand in his pocket as he surveyed the map.
“Not me,” Leftie said. “I like to get up, do my job, and get back home where the comforts are. Such as women. And beer. Oh, and I’ve got to figure out how to sign up for the local hookball league. I’ve heard the capital team is pretty good. They should be excited to have me.”
“No doubt,” Trip murmured.
Rysha rolled her eyes, glad Leftie was a lieutenant so she wouldn’t have to salute or defer to him. He likely had seniority, but the rest of the team should treat them about the same.
“They have signups at the end of every month,” Captain Duck offered. He had some of Zirkander’s laid-back easygoingness, along with a big nose and big ears that made him more homely than handsome, but she would take homely over c
ocky any day.
“Lieutenant Ravenwood, will you come with us to…” Leftie looked at Duck.
“The Black Stag,” Duck supplied.
“Apparently, it’s a regular hangout for soldiers,” Leftie said.
“You can bring your work,” Trip added. “It does seem like it would be a good idea for us all to get to know each other before fighting dragons together.”
“Technically, we’re just fighting the portal, aren’t we?” she asked.
“Dragons could be coming out of it when we get there. And they might not appreciate us wanting to destroy it.”
“I haven’t noticed that dragons are appreciative varmints in general,” Duck said. “Even the ones that are our supposed allies are about as thankful as quail running from the hound you just leashed.”
“Dragons are long-lived, nearly impossible to kill, and extremely powerful,” Rysha said. “They’re used to getting what they want. Gratitude and politeness didn’t play much of a role in their societies, even among other dragons.”
“Sardelle is all those things, and she still says thank you if you give her a mango tart.” Duck smiled, and Rysha assumed it was a joke. Even if Sardelle was a genuine sorceress, she wouldn’t have anywhere near the power of a dragon. No human sorceress ever had. At most, a human could have half dragon blood, but nobody alive today was half dragon or anywhere close. Thanks to the thousand-year gap when there’d been no dragons around at all, as Sardelle had said, most people were extremely far removed from their scaled ancestors.
“She’s not really three hundred years old, is she?” Trip asked Duck.
“Nah, she’s in her late thirties. She was in some kind of mage stasis chamber, I think she called it, where she didn’t age or anything for all that time, and then she accidentally got dug out by some miners and woken up.” Duck spread a hand. “It’s a long story about how she and the general met, but you can ask ’em about it if you want. They’re not shy about sharing. Only, uh, don’t ask for all the details. There are a lot of… libidinous bits. For old people, they’re randier than rabbits in a briar thicket.”
“Old people? How old are you, Duck?” Rysha asked.
“Twenty-eight.”
“And you think someone in her late thirties is old?”
“Well, Sardelle seems real mature for her age, I guess. And Zirkander, he’s into his forties, I think. Though he is pretty young for a general. Now General Ort, he was an old humorless stick. You two are real lucky to be here under Zirkander’s command.” Duck waved at Trip and Leftie. “He doesn’t get mad unless you really, really screw up, and he’s not afraid to stand up to anyone on your behalf. He’ll even get in a row with the king if he has to. Wish he was leading this mission. Not that there’s anything wrong with Major Blazer—I’ve been on missions with far worse commanders—but it’s sad that Zirkander doesn’t head up Wolf Squadron anymore. I used to fly with him, you know. He hates being behind a desk instead of in a cockpit, and he fought against that promotion. But overall, it’s good that one of our own is running the battalion.”
Rysha was starting to wonder if there was a pilot alive that didn’t have a crush on Zirkander.
She rolled up her map, blew out the lanterns, and picked up her pack, sensing that the men would stand around and talk all night if she didn’t agree to go with them. Perhaps they would wander off once they reached the Black Stag, and she could work. Though at this point, she had looked over all her notes and Sardelle’s notes at least three times and didn’t think she could narrow her guesses down to fewer than five.
• • • • •
The Stag was far too noisy for work, but Rysha cleared herself a table in the back and rolled out her map anyway. The table wobbled alarmingly and had gum and other indeterminable substances stuck underneath it. She found a coaster and placed it under one of the legs, trying to even it out. It wobbled more. She sighed.
Duck and Leftie went straight out into the crowd to mingle, both zeroing in on a group of women. Rysha wondered just how much “getting to know each other” and bonding as a team would happen tonight. They looked like they would rather get to know strange women in a horizontal capacity.
Better strange women than her, she supposed, since she couldn’t imagine herself spending horizontal time with either man. Not that they’d given her contemplative looks. She wore trousers and a sweater, the clothing not much more revealing than army fatigues, and her spectacles… Well, she’d cleaned the mud off them. And removed the strap. She knew she wasn’t unattractive, but she also didn’t get ogled on a regular basis. Or an irregular one, either. But she’d been picked first for sports teams all through school, thanks to her height and a knack for causing competitors from other teams to underestimate her. She might look like a librarian, but she could hurl a hookball from one end of the field to the other without it bouncing.
Trip stood with his hands in his pockets near her table, his back to a post, alternating between looking uncomfortable and watching two fiddlers try to out-fiddle each other on the stage. Rysha caught him glancing over at her and the map a few times, but sensed that he didn’t want to bother her if she was working. She had a feeling this evening out hadn’t been his idea.
She wondered why the men hadn’t invited Captain Kaika. Maybe because she was older than they were—no doubt considered “old people” by Duck’s standards. Though she was a captain, she ought to have been a major or even a colonel, given how long she’d been in the service. Maybe she, like Zirkander, had fought against promotions to ensure she could keep doing fieldwork. Rysha had a hard time believing she was anything except a dedicated and reliable soldier. It was hard to imagine her getting into trouble and suffering demerits and demotions. From everything she’d read about the captain, she was reliable and good at her job.
“Evening, pretty thing,” a bearded man with a pipe drawled, ambling toward Rysha’s table, wobbling as he approached. He carried a mug of beer, the liquid sloshing around even after he stopped. He glanced at the map. “You bring homework to a bar?”
“Something like that,” Rysha murmured.
His gaze shifted to her chest. Maybe someone liked her sweater, after all. Not that she wanted some drunk man’s interest.
“You must be a student, eh? I like students. Pretty. Shy.”
Ugh, he sounded like he liked preying on students.
“I’m not that shy.” Rysha stood up, a little pleased that she had an inch or two on him.
Not that men were always intimidated by tall women, but she figured she could defend herself against unwelcome advances from her feet better than from the chair. He had a gut and would have slow reflexes from the drink. He was no Sergeant Branigan, Cofah infiltrator.
“No?” Unfortunately, he looked intrigued rather than intimidated. He sipped from his mug and looked her up and down, gaze lingering on her breasts, the sweater curving noticeably around them. “I don’t mind aggressive women, either. You can take the top if you like.”
It took her a moment to realize that he meant in bed. She wasn’t a virgin, but she also wasn’t used to strangers jumping right to sexual suggestions. Who had suggested this pit of a pub, anyway?
“I’m not interested,” Rysha said.
“No? You were quick to stand up and look excited.” He set his mug down, leaving a beer ring on her map. “Why don’t we try a dance, see if we’ve got any rhythm together?”
“No.”
“Come on. Just a quick dance.” He was already close, but he stepped closer, reaching for her waist—or maybe her ass.
She caught his wrist, squeezing hard enough to, she hoped, deter him. “Go away.”
Indignation, or maybe anger, flared in his eyes. “Don’t care much for women telling me what to do.”
“Get over it.” Rysha released his wrist and stepped back, but he came after her, reaching for her again, that anger still in his eyes, as if he meant to teach her a lesson.
Tired of subtlety, she caught his wrist again, an
d this time yanked it as she brought her heel down on his foot. He yelped, and she kicked his leg out from under him, grunting as his weight toppled toward her. But she had the strength and leverage to deal with it. She spun him, jerking his arm up behind his back, and thrust him toward a roughly hewn wooden post. His face smashed into it, and she hoped a legion of splinters rammed up his nose.
He struggled, trying to bring his strength to bear, but she had his arm twisted in such a way that she could make it hurt if he fought her. After three attempts at trying to escape her lock, he slumped in defeat.
“You going to leave me alone now?” she asked, yelling in his ear to be heard over the music. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to their little squabble.
“Yeah,” the man grumbled.
She released him and stepped back, fists ready to come up if she needed to defend herself again. He sneered at her, straightened his shirt, walked to the table to get his beer, then strode away.
Rysha looked for her teammates, wondering if any of them had noticed the exchange. Leftie had his lips locked to some woman’s, but Duck, who’d ended up chatting with a couple of short-haired men who were probably soldiers, was watching her. He gave a thumb-to-fingers circle when their eyes met and lifted his mug toward her, as if he’d assumed she could handle herself all along. She admitted that pleased her more than if one of them had come running over to rescue her.
“…sure look like a Cofah,” came some growled words from the next post over, a lull in the music allowing Rysha to hear them.
“Yeah, he does. Shifty. Like a spy,” a second man said.
Rysha started, realizing they were talking about Trip. Two big, muscular men had him backed up to the post. They were short-haired and in uniform, and she recognized one from her infantry battalion, though she didn’t know his name.
“I’m a soldier,” Trip said, a hint of indignation in his voice. “The same as you. Lieuten—Captain—Trip.”
“Oh, ho, an officer, is it?” One of them shoved Trip in the shoulder. “Most officers know their ranks. Unless they’re Cofah spies.”