“Have you two tested the water?” Zirkander asked. “Cas was wondering if the streams might be responsible for spreading the disease.”
“I haven’t tested it,” Tolemek said. “Given my experience with the brain tissue, a negative result under the microscope wouldn’t prove anything one way or another.”
“Hm.” Zirkander leaned his head toward Cas. “I think that means we better continue to gather water from the leaves.”
“Agreed, sir.”
Tolemek frowned at Zirkander. Cas didn’t know if it had anything to do with their easy camaraderie, but she stepped away from her commander just in case.
“I haven’t sensed anything off with the water,” Sardelle said, wiping her hands on her leather trousers, “but I will also agree that a negative doesn’t mean much in this instance. It does seem that there has to be some common element that’s causing the animals and the humans to become affected. While there are examples of airborne diseases, there’s usually a sharing of bodily fluids or other close contact. If we’re dealing with a disease.”
“I hope the animals and the people aren’t sharing bodily fluids.” Zirkander grabbed his pack and canteen, waved toward the trail, and headed up, glancing at the permanently grounded raven.
“Likely not, but people do sometimes live in close quarters with domesticated animals,” Sardelle said.
“That winged tiger wasn’t domesticated. I’ve heard those like to munch on people.”
“I know.” She fell in beside him. “I’m sorry, Ridge. I don’t have any answers for you yet.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder for a moment before letting it drop. “It’s all right. We’ll figure it out.”
Cas shouldered her own canteen, trying not to think about the number of times she had filled it from the ground water already on this trip.
Chapter 9
Tolemek stopped counting dead animals after they passed the twentieth one. Every instinct inside his body was crying out for him to get out of this place before it was too late. Like Zirkander, he kept worrying that he was experiencing the first symptom of the illness; he kept catching himself touching his forehead, trying to determine if the beginnings of a fever burned beneath his skin. Cas’s idea to avoid the groundwater was a good one, and he wished he had thought of it earlier.
“I think we’re going to have to camp on the trail, sir,” Duck said. “There aren’t any clearings. If anything, the jungle has gotten denser again.” Denser and darker. A strange mist had rolled out of the undergrowth as twilight approached, one that seemed unlikely on a mountainside. “We—”
A shot fired in the distance, from somewhere behind them. Tolemek tried to meet Cas’s eyes, but she was staring back down the trail, her expression knowing rather than surprised.
“Our pirate friends?” Zirkander asked.
“Possibly.” Cas didn’t sound convinced.
“I’d hoped the crazy natives had taken care of them.”
“Ridge?” Sardelle asked, facing the jungle instead of the trail behind them.
“Yes?” Zirkander asked.
“I think we’re close.”
Tolemek’s heart thumped behind his ribcage. He hadn’t heard again from Tylie, and he kept worrying that he was too late, that the Cofah had somehow sensed him coming and had stolen her away again.
Sardelle stepped off the trail, slipping between two towering fern-like plants, and disappearing into the gloom. Zirkander frowned back toward the gunshot, his hand on his pistol. Tolemek pushed into the ferns. He probably should be concerned about threats behind him, but it was what lay ahead that held his heart.
“We’ll follow her,” Zirkander said. “Duck, do your best to hide our trail.”
“Sir,” Cas said, “should I wait here? See if someone comes up behind us?”
Tolemek froze, his foot halfway over a mushroom-bedecked log. Even though he knew Cas was capable of a great deal, he didn’t want to break up the group. No, he silently urged Zirkander. Order her along.
“Let’s stay together, in case Sardelle gets us irrevocably lost. I’ll let you set a nice trap outside of whatever mud hole we end up camping in tonight.”
For the first time since he had met the man, Tolemek wanted to hug Zirkander. Not enough to actually turn around and do it, but he was relieved to see Cas stepping off the trail behind him.
Tolemek hurried to catch up with Sardelle, who was already disappearing into a dense thicket of reeds. She had worn a distracted expression as she had walked off the trail, and he wasn’t entirely positive she was going to wait for them.
Don’t worry, pirate boy. You and your microscope are important to us.
I had no idea my fate mattered to you. He jumped around a lichen-covered boulder and slipped into the reeds, having to walk sideways to squeeze through. Mud squished beneath his boots.
It’s more the microscope than you, Jaxi replied.
You have a fondness for inanimate objects? I suppose that makes sense.
What is that supposed to mean? Does someone want his pack to increase to its actual weight?
You better not do that unless you want Sardelle to deal with that dragon alone. Which might happen anyway if Tolemek couldn’t keep up with her. The reeds poked and pushed at him, some too thick to easily be pushed aside.
The dragon isn’t the next problem.
What is?
Jaxi didn’t reply. Wonderful. Another mystery. Just what he needed.
Tolemek pushed out of the reeds, only to step in deeper mud. Mosquitoes nipped at his exposed flesh. He hesitated, wondering if he should pull out a light. Twilight had grown so thick beneath the canopy that it might as well be night, and he didn’t want to step into a sink hole.
“Sardelle?” he called softly.
Crunches came from behind him, along with a grunt that sounded like it belonged to Zirkander. Tolemek planned to wait for him until a faint yellow light reached his eyes. Jaxi’s golden glow? If so, it was quite a ways ahead.
He risked walking farther into the mud, keeping his hands on branches in case the dubious ground gave away. As he moved along, the light grew more pronounced. Now he could see the silhouettes of the mosquitoes buzzing in front of his face. He wasn’t sure if that was an improvement or not.
“Over here,” came Sardelle’s soft call from the side.
Tolemek jumped, realization sending a hot tingle through his limbs. If she was to the side, that wasn’t Jaxi’s glow he had been following. No, the more he considered it, the more it appeared natural. He couldn’t see flames, but it seemed like the glow from some lantern. Or given the distance, a campfire or bonfire was more likely.
Though he wanted to push ahead and see who was up there burning wood, he veered over to Sardelle. He winced with each step, since the mud sucked at his boots noisily.
“It’s drier over here,” Sardelle whispered as a further incentive.
He climbed onto higher ground and joined her behind a gnarled tree. She did have Jaxi in her hand, but the sword wasn’t glowing. A good idea, if there was someone up ahead.
“Is that a campfire?” he whispered. “Are there people up there?”
Duck and Zirkander joined them, their heavy breathing suggesting they had been fighting reeds and mud, as well. Tolemek peered past them, searching for Cas’s slight form. She hadn’t disobeyed orders and stayed behind, had she?
“A fire, yes,” Sardelle said. “And people.”
“And a dragon?” Zirkander asked.
Sardelle hesitated. “Yes.”
“Still not talking to you?” When she didn’t answer, Zirkander shifted his weight, his clothing rustling. “Or is it?”
“It didn’t say anything, but I—Jaxi—had a sense of it warning us away with its mind. Ordering us away, was actually what she said.”
“How did it warn or order without words?” Tolemek gazed toward the distant yellow glow, torn between wanting to wait for Cas and wanting to see what lay ahead.
“Th
ere were images. Of death. Unpleasant death.”
He wished he hadn’t asked.
Cas slipped past Duck and Zirkander.
“Nice of you to join us,” Zirkander said.
“Did you hear the scream?” she asked.
“No.”
“It came from the same direction as the gunshot. There are definitely two parties out there.”
“Pirates and crazies?” Zirkander asked.
“I don’t know.”
“We haven’t seen any signs of other natives since starting the climb up the mountain,” Duck said.
Zirkander sighed. Tolemek pushed past Sardelle, heading for the glow.
“Watch out for the drop,” she said.
He halted, eyeing the mist curling around his legs. “Drop?”
“Twenty feet ahead.”
Tolemek inched forward, keeping his hands on the branches again. After the mud, he expected a sinkhole, but Sardelle’s “drop” was much, much grander. The trees thinned, then fell away, and he found himself gaping into a giant circular depression. A crater. There was a place back home that his father had taken him to as a child, where an asteroid had slammed into the earth, leaving a mile-wide depression. This was a much greener and more lush version of something the same size. He looked skyward, surprised they hadn’t seen it when they had flown over the area, but the stars weren’t visible. A latticework of vines and leaves arched over the crater in a dome that extended to the trees along the rim, blending seamlessly with the canopy.
“That should not be possible without supports beams,” Tolemek said slowly, wrestling with the engineering aspect. “Support trees, anyway.”
“It’s magical,” Sardelle said as she approached, as if she were stating the most obvious thing in the world. “Very old magic that’s been here for a long time. Centuries. If not millennia.” She waved toward the center of the grassy crater at an ancient stone structure. It resembled a mix between a pyramid and a ziggurat, with its tiered levels worn at the edges and coated with thick moss. The ruins rose at least fifteen stories, the top even with the rim Tolemek and the others stood upon. A dirt road meandered up to a rectangular opening in the base—an entrance to the structure. Two large bonfires burned in giant stone braziers on either side. Another brightened the inside of the fang-filled maw of a dragon head statue at the top of the ziggurat. “There’s magic coming from the pyramid too,” Sardelle added. “Some old artifacts, perhaps. I’m sure I would have sensed all of this when we flew over the area if not for the dragon’s overwhelming presence.” She sighed. “I’ve been using that for an excuse often, it seems. It’s just… This makes it hard for me to imagine a world where dragons were once the norm. Or at least were only moderately rare.”
“Should we be standing here with that man on guard down there?” Cas whispered from behind them.
Tolemek hadn’t noticed anyone, but he stepped back behind a tree, trusting her eyesight. He stared into the shadows of the recessed doorway, finally picking out an armed man standing against the wall inside. A man armed with a rifle, not a bow or bone knife. The gloom hid the details, but Tolemek thought he made out trousers, boots, and a long-sleeve shirt, such as a Cofah soldier might wear.
“Let’s follow the edge of this pit around to the side,” Zirkander murmured, also tucked behind a tree. “See if we can approach without being seen. Maybe there’s another way in. Assuming we want to go in.” He glanced at Sardelle.
“The dragon is inside,” she said.
“Funny how that doesn’t answer the question as decisively as one would hope,” Zirkander said.
“How would a dragon get inside a pyramid like that?” Duck asked. He was crouching behind them, his face and clothes so spattered with mud that he almost looked like he had attempted to camouflage himself. Maybe he had. “That door is more human-sized.”
Sardelle only shrugged.
“We’ll go around the top for a ways,” Zirkander said. “But don’t think I’m not noticing that if we had stayed on the trail, it would have wound around and come out right over there.” He pointed along the rim, about fifty meters to their left where a trail led out of the jungle and down the sloped side of the crater in switchbacks. Zirkander made a show of plucking a broken reed out of his hair, then scraping a sticky web off his shoulder.
“The guard is looking in that direction.” Sardelle smiled gently. “You were wise to follow me.”
“Uh huh. Ten nucros says he’s looking at his feet and wondering what superior officer he irked to get stationed in this remote hole.”
“Actually, he’s looking up the road, sir,” Cas said. “Attentively.”
“He seems concerned,” Sardelle said.
“About his lack of career prospects.” Zirkander pointed. “Back away from the edge. We’ll see if we can find another way down without resorting to machetes.”
Sardelle followed last, and Tolemek wondered what she sensed from the man, or if she was merely guessing at his thoughts. He couldn’t even see the guard’s face in the shadows. Cas’s nickname of Raptor apparently had as much to do with her eyesight as her aim. Sardelle had never mentioned it, but maybe Cas had a smidgen of dragon blood in her family line somewhere too.
A low, throaty growl came from the brush ahead.
“Now what?” Zirkander touched his pistol, glanced toward the crater, then pulled out his machete instead.
Another growl came from ahead and to the right of the first one. A pack of wolves or coyotes? Between the darkness, the trees, and the mist, Tolemek couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead.
“If we have to fight, that guard’s going to hear it,” Duck whispered.
“I know,” Zirkander said.
“Sardelle, can you convince them to go away?”
“Trying,” she said softly. “There are eight, and their minds aren’t normal. They’re not hungry, and they know we’re a threat, but they’re experiencing… something hard to describe. Anger? Madness?”
“The same craziness as everything else around here is experiencing?”
“Probably.”
A third growl came from ahead and to the left, followed by the panting of other animals. The creatures seemed to be standing close together so far. Tolemek reached for his vest. He hated to waste his formulas on wildlife—who knew how heavily guarded that ziggurat would be?—but they had to get in.
“Hold your breath,” he said, then flung a glass bulb of liquid at a tree ahead of them.
It shattered, and he winced at the sound, but he didn’t think it would carry to the bottom of that crater. Had it been daylight, he would have seen the chemicals turn to smoke and vapor, but all he could tell now was that the glass shards tinkled to the forest floor. And the animals reacted.
A growl turned into a startled yip, then a snarl. The branches shuddered, then something charged at them. Zirkander was still in the lead, and he raised his machete, readying himself. The tangled overgrowth and close branches scarcely left room for defense. Certain he would need help, Tolemek drew a dagger and stepped forward. But the first beast, a great shaggy black wolf, was already leaping through the air, fangs snapping toward Zirkander’s throat. He swung the machete, striking it in the side of the head at the same time as the creature burst into flames.
Zirkander stumbled back, nearly crashing into Tolemek. The wolf cried out, but its pain was short-lived. Within seconds, all that remained were charred flakes of ash that wafted to the ground.
Zirkander faced the brush, ready for another attack. But no more movement stirred the foliage.
“The rest seem to be sleeping,” Sardelle said, stepping up to his shoulder.
“I see.” Zirkander nodded to Tolemek, then told her, “I thank you for the help, but in the future, you needn’t react quite so quickly. Give me a chance to impress you with my fighting prowess before you incinerate my enemies.”
“That was Jaxi. She was concerned.”
“Not about the proximity of my arm hair to her inferno,
apparently.”
“She thought you might become infected if it managed to bite you,” Sardelle said.
“Ah, in that case, I applaud her initiative.”
Tolemek pushed his way forward through the brush. With his sister so close—he hoped—he didn’t have patience for chitchat. He stepped past several slumbering wolves, glad the tranquilizer had worked quickly. Jaxi might have set the jungle on fire if her inferno had been any larger. The guard would surely have noticed that.
Please, I have pinpoint accuracy.
Tolemek shook away the intrusion. He just wanted to get to the side of that ziggurat so the guard wouldn’t be able to see them descend, then find a way inside. If he had to plow through that soldier to get to Tylie, he would do so, but he hoped there might be another door that wasn’t guarded. If nothing else, he might be able to climb up to that dragon head on top and find a way in from there—someone had to be coming out to keep that fire lit.
Actually, the fires are magical.
Tolemek sighed.
You might want to talk to me, Jaxi pressed. I have news.
What?
I believe I’ve located your sister inside.
Tolemek paused, resting his hand on the damp bark of the nearest tree. Is she… Can you tell if she’s all right? He had heard her voice, so he knew she was alive, or at least had been the day before. But he had no idea what she was doing here or what state she was in.
I can’t tell much with that dragon blowing his big, scaly aura all over the place, but she’s alive.
At this point, Jaxi’s lack of reverence didn’t surprise him, but Tolemek did wonder at her wisdom of speaking of a dragon thusly, a dragon that might have big ears.
Actually, dragons are like snakes—no external ears. They hear with their minds.
Maybe they have big minds then. Can you tell where Tylie is in the ziggurat? If he could find that back door in, maybe he could find a way to get to her without ever having to deal with the dragon. He could leave that to Zirkander. He would be willing to help, but a lot more willing once he knew Tylie was somewhere safe and unlikely to get caught in the middle of a Cofah-Iskandian battle.