“Maybe they sneaked her in.” Duck closed the cabinets. “Oh, ask him if he ever saw a dragon. Nobody could miss that.”
“Dragon?” The drunk’s eyebrows drew together, and he glanced at the empty bottle on the floor. “One of them ’kandian dragon fliers?”
“No.” Tolemek released the man, frustrated with his answers, but believing the words.
A shot fired outside.
Tolemek lunged for the door, visions of Cas taking a bullet in the chest flooding his mind. Duck was sprinting for the exit, too, and they crashed into each other. Growling, Tolemek shoved him aside and jumped through the doorway first, his fist raised. He had put away the vial and clenched a small metal ball now, this more of a bomb than a lubricant.
Cas was standing where they had left her, as calm as a swan on a lake. The two men who had been walking down the dock earlier were on the beach now, hustling away, one hunched over and the other gripping his shoulder. Helping him walk?
“What happened, Raptor?” Duck asked.
“They realized I was a woman,” Cas said. “Apparently, there aren’t a lot of them here.”
“Are you all right?” Tolemek could see she was, but bristled at the idea of some thugs propositioning her—or worse. He was tempted to throw his bomb after the retreating pair, but forced himself to lower his arm. Cas had taken care of it.
“Fine. First, they thought I was some boy spying on them. They weren’t that bright. They…” She stepped out from under the eave of the shack and frowned at the sky out over the ocean. “That’s not a pirate vessel.”
Tolemek followed her gaze. A dirigible floated above the horizon, its oblong balloon large enough to blot out a large group of stars and part of the moon. “It’s not Cofah, either,” he said, noting the lack of a ship’s wooden frame beneath it. Instead, a metal cabin hugged the underside of the envelope.
“Looks Iskandian.” Duck glanced at Cas. “Someone coming to check up on us? On the colonel?”
“That’s a civilian model, not a military one,” she said, “but we better tell Zirkander. It’s a long way from home.”
Tolemek walked toward town with them, but his thoughts were on the drunk’s words rather than the dirigible. No women had come with the Cofah. Maybe Zirkander’s father had been wrong. Dragon or not, maybe this wasn’t the right place. If Tylie had never been here, then where was she?
Chapter 4
Cas sagged with relief when she and Tolemek walked into the small second-story room above the drinking and disk-sliding establishment below. They had privacy. Of a sort. Laughter and shouts rose up through the thin bamboo floor every time someone’s clay disk slammed into an appropriately large number of pins at the end of the lane. Every sound was audible in the room.
“At least it’s more private than a tent,” Tolemek said. “Slightly.”
He walked over to a door on a side wall and rapped a knuckle against it. Given that it appeared to be made from sturdy paper rather than wood, Cas was surprised his knuckle didn’t go through. If either Sardelle and Zirkander or Duck and Moe had a good time that night, the former being more likely than the latter, she and Tolemek would hear about it, especially if the noise from the gaming room died down later. The same went for her and Tolemek, she supposed, though he was still wearing his grim, determined face, the one that suggested he was thinking of his mission rather than sex. It was just as well. Cas was thinking of that dirigible. The fact that it wasn’t a military craft relieved her somewhat, but it was possible that a squad of soldiers, along with an officer who outranked Colonel Zirkander, had been sent on a civilian transport to come find them. Kaika and Apex would have made it home by now, and they would have reported to the general, if not the king. Neither person was likely to be happy with Zirkander at the moment. Still, how could they have known where the squadron would go? Zirkander hadn’t even known until he had spoken with his father.
That ship’s appearance was likely a coincidence and nothing more. Maybe Cas would go out later and see who came off when it docked. If it docked. She hadn’t seen any elevated platforms or other landing accoutrements for aircraft—their bumpy touchdown among the pineapples attested to the lack—but the dirigible had definitely been heading toward the bay when last she had seen it.
Cas strode past the room’s small bed and opened double doors that looked like they led to a balcony, thinking it might have a view of the bay. They did have a view, but there was no balcony. The opening simply fell away into the alley below, an alley that smelled of urine and mold. Lovely. Higher buildings blocked much of the view of the water, but she made out the tip of the dirigible balloon around the end of one. Yes, it had definitely come in.
“Cas?” Tolemek was sitting on the edge of the bed. “Can we talk for a moment?”
She was reluctant to close the door, but the odor wafting up from below encouraged it. Besides, looking at the balloon wouldn’t tell her anything. She would need to be closer to see if the craft sent people down.
“What is it?” Cas joined him on the side of the bed, wondering if he might have sex in mind, after all. She had been tense all day and wouldn’t mind a release. Or a massage. Or a bath. Perhaps all three. Their room lacked washing facilities, but there might be something off the hallway. Maybe. Her previous time spent as a prisoner on a pirate ship had not suggested that such luxuries were important to them.
“The port master hadn’t seen Tylie.” Tolemek gripped the edge of the narrow mattress with both hands, fingers curling around it.
“So? From the glimpse I saw of that man, he would be lucky to find his prick with both hands.”
“Yes, but—” Tolemek blinked and looked at her. “Did you call it his prick? I haven’t heard you use… uhm, call it that.”
As if she wasn’t in the army and hadn’t used much worse language. Granted, she usually did her cursing in her mind, but still. Had she truly not spoken of genitals with him before? Maybe she had been on good behavior, subconsciously trying to convince him she was a lady worth wooing. She snorted. Or maybe her agitation was showing. She should definitely bring up massages.
“It was on my mind,” she said.
“The port master’s prick?”
“No, yours. Though I thought we might wash it first.”
“Ah.” A hint of a smile touched his lips, one of the first he had shared in a while. Good. “Hold that thought, please. I wanted to ask…” The smile faded, replaced by a frown. “Maybe I shouldn’t bring it up.”
“The prick?”
“No.” He looked like he might elbow her in the ribs, but he wrapped an arm around her shoulders instead. “Listen, Cas. I appreciate having you here. I’ve kept my quest to help Tylie a secret for so long, afraid nobody would understand, that nobody else would care.” His tone turned bitter. “My father certainly didn’t.”
“I know. I understand. I’ll be glad when you find her, and I hope Sardelle can help her.”
“Yes.” Tolemek dropped his hands into his lap and stared at them. “Cas, have I… been too focused on finding my sister? I’m glad that you understand how much finding her and fixing the wrongs I’ve done, at least this wrong, means to me. But I don’t want you to feel neglected. I care for you very much. I think…” He looked at her face, his dark eyes like pools of uncertainty, almost vulnerability, their expression at odds with his rugged visage. “I know. And I want you to know. I love you.”
The naked statement caught Cas off guard, especially after they had been joking. She hadn’t expected such a serious conversation, such a serious subject. “I… was just looking for a massage tonight.”
Tolemek’s mouth twisted, and he looked away.
“No, sorry,” she blurted, grabbing his hand, even as she winced. Women were supposed to know how to handle the sharing of feelings, weren’t they? But she had no idea.
Cas might have felt a childish adoration for Zirkander when she had been younger, but she had never professed her love for anyone, and she didn’t know if
she was ready to do so now. She cared about Tolemek, certainly. When she had thought that pit trap in the Cofahre lab had killed him, an intense feeling of loss had swept over her. Was that love? She tended to equate love with wanting to marry a man, birth his children, and spend all of eternity with him. So many female soldiers she had known had left the service soon after they had gone starry-eyed and proclaimed love for this or that man. Those women had traded their careers for staying at home and being mothers, and Cas couldn’t imagine wanting that, not at this point in her life and maybe not ever. Was that something Tolemek wanted? Was he thinking they should marry eventually? And have children? And that she should quit the squadron? No, he had never hinted of such a thing. She should not make assumptions. Even though she had the distinct impression he would be happier if she didn’t work for Zirkander.
She pushed her hand through her short hair, probably tearing a few pieces out. Tolemek shifted beside her on the bed.
“Sorry,” she mumbled again, realizing she had been silent for a while. “I didn’t mean to make light. I’m just—I don’t know if I’m ready… I mean, I like you, Tolemek. More than like. You’re very…” Seven gods, she was mangling this. Why hadn’t he warned her first, so she could rehearse something?
“Never mind. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Tolemek stood up, and her hand fell away. He took a couple of paces and stopped, facing the door, his chin to his chest.
Cas swallowed, knowing she had hurt him by not having the right words, by not saying his words back to him. But she did not want to lie or utter something she did not fully mean.
“Cas?” He lifted his head, but continued to face the door instead of her. “If you have to choose between going with Zirkander to find the dragon and going with me to find Tylie…” He finally turned back toward her, his dark eyes intent. “Which will you choose?”
She held back a grimace. It had occurred to her that this question might come up over the course of this mission, and she didn’t want to have to make that choice. “I don’t understand,” she said, more to buy time to think than because she didn’t. “Don’t we still believe that your sister and the dragon are in the same place?”
“I hope they are. I’m not certain of it, especially after talking to the port master. I thought I would ask around more tomorrow, see if anyone recognizes her.”
“The colonel wants to leave tomorrow.”
Tolemek’s jaw tightened. She shouldn’t have mentioned Zirkander.
“But I think your answers are going to be where this dragon is,” Cas hurried to add. “Why the Cofah took your sister and how she ties in with the creature. It makes sense to stick with the, uh, the others. Besides, we might need your help. If there’s another big Cofah research facility…”
“We.” Tolemek gazed at her, as if she had inadvertently given her answer, and it did not sit well with him.
She didn’t know what else to say. She was on the clock, not out here on some personal quest. It wasn’t about picking Zirkander over him. Her duty was to follow her superior officer. That was it. If she ran off on some side trip with Tolemek, she would be absent without leave. She would be risking her career. Maybe he did expect her to choose him over her career.
“It won’t take us that long to get there and look around,” Cas said, afraid Tolemek truly thought he needed to go off on his own and search elsewhere. “It’s less than forty miles from here to the base of the mountain. Granted, if there’s not a path, that’ll be slow going, but I can’t imagine it taking more than three days each way. We’ll be back in a week. You’ll either have your answers, or you’ll have more of a clue as to where to go to find them. To find her.”
“Yes, of course.” Tolemek turned back toward the door. “If we’re leaving tomorrow, I better go back out tonight and ask around.” He touched his vest pocket, where he kept the pictures of the flowers and one of his sister, as well.
Cas stood. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“No. Stay here. Get some rest. The bath you’ve been wanting.” He gave her a quick smile over his shoulder before opening the door. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“I’ve been wanting that bath for you, too, you know,” she called after him.
He lifted a hand in parting, then was gone.
“Men,” Cas grumbled, then wished she had turned that same question on Tolemek. If the situation demanded it, would he choose her over his sister? No, she was glad she hadn’t asked. She didn’t want to get angry and say something she would regret. She would find the washroom, clean up, then go back out again and see what that dirigible was doing here. The number of pirate ships in port didn’t suggest this would be a popular tourist area.
* * *
Finding the washroom proved more difficult than Cas expected. She had to go back downstairs, then push past sweaty natives mingling with sweaty pirates of various ethnicities, most shouting at each other in broken Cofah. She found a hallway and started checking doors. None of them had pictures or words or even graffiti that might have identified the contents. The second door she opened revealed a man peeing in a hole in the ground. He smiled over his shoulder at her, too drunk to be embarrassed, at least she hoped that was the explanation for why most of the stream was splashing off the tiles. Grimacing, Cas backed out, deciding to try the rest of the doors before resigning herself to the men’s latrine.
The next door held a storage room full of casks of rum, but behind the fourth, she found Sardelle. She was standing with her chin in her hand, considering a hole similar to the one the drunk man had been defiling.
“Sorry,” Cas said when she looked up. “There don’t seem to be locks. I’ll wait.”
“No, no. I believe it’s a communal lavatory and washroom. There’s a second hole, you see.” Sardelle stepped back, extending a hand. There wasn’t any sort of divider for privacy. At this point, Cas was glad she wasn’t supposed to pee out the door and into the alley from her room. Men might be able to handle such feats, but it sounded messy to her.
“Not quite up to the standards of the Iskandian capital.” Not that Cas cared. She had peed in more uncomfortable places during her army training. “Did you say washroom?”
“Apparently. There’s a hose, and that bucket has a sponge in it. I was just debating if one put the water down here when one was done or…” Sardelle sighed and lowered her hand. “It’s not that I haven’t roughed it in the past, but I was hoping for a warm bath after nearly being annihilated by that volcano.”
“It’s warm out. We could go dip ourselves in the bay.” Cas was mostly joking—she hadn’t planned to take anyone with her to spy on the dirigible—but Sardelle’s brows rose thoughtfully.
“That might be more hygienic.”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing the sewer dumps out over there somewhere.” If there was a sewer. For all Cas knew, the holes in the ground might simply drain into a pit in the alley.
“You didn’t see the sponge, did you?”
Cas peered into the bucket and made a face. “When you said communal, you did mean communal, didn’t you? And, uhm, used.”
Sardelle smiled. “Let’s check out the bay. I’m curious about that dirigible.”
“You are? I mean, I was going to investigate it myself, because I’m concerned trouble may be following us, but I thought you and the colonel might, ah…” Cas rocked her hand, deciding to keep the gesture vague instead of employing one of the cruder ones to suggest coitus.
“He’s having his beer with his father. I thought I should let them bond. Besides, I don’t think Moe is that enthused about me.”
“Because you saved our lives and our fliers?”
“Because I knocked him unconscious and he woke five thousand feet up in the sky.”
“Ah.” Cas pushed open the door. “To the bay then.”
After she retrieved her pistol and rifle—Sardelle already had her sword belted around her waist, having perhaps had an inkling of how scary the washroom experience might be—they
pushed their way back through the crowd. They passed the wooden lanes stretched out for the disk-pushing game and noticed Zirkander and Moe were standing at a small, high table, one lacking chairs. Zirkander wore a goofy sun hat that kept his face in the shadows while sipping from a mug of beer. A second one rested in front of his father, who was trying to read something in his journal by the light of a candle. Sardelle walked over to the table, rested a hand on Zirkander’s shoulder for a moment, said something in his ear, then kissed him on the cheek.
After Cas’s uncomfortable discussion with Tolemek, she couldn’t help but envy their ease. Sardelle probably hadn’t hesitated to proclaim her love.
Zirkander clasped her hand, then turned the gesture into a farewell salute. Despite her earlier words, Moe didn’t glower at Sardelle. He didn’t seem to notice her at all. Cas wondered if he was noticing his son.
“I have a theory as to why Ridge became such a daring hero,” Sardelle said with a wink when she returned to Cas’s side and they were heading for the door.
Cas glanced back at Moe. “To try and impress his dad?”
“Or maybe just in the hope of being noticed.”
It was strange to think of Zirkander that way. Like Duck had said, he was the big hero in the hangar. To imagine him as a reckless boy craving his father’s approval was indeed odd.
Relief flowed into Cas when she stepped outside. Even though the city was alive with raucous crowds and noisy from the drums and zithers flowing out of pubs along with the howls of animals in the jungle, it felt peaceful after the smoky, loud interior of the building. She felt better as soon as the night air wrapped around her. The humid, sticky air clung to their bodies, but the heat was not as intense as it had been earlier.
“Ridge promised me he would also bathe in the bay later,” Sardelle said as they walked down the main street toward the beach. Several men lounging on porches or leaning against street posts eyed them as they passed, but Cas had her rifle, and Sardelle had her sword, and nobody approached. “Sitting behind him and then Lieutenant Duck on the way here was… an olfactory experience.”