The wind snapped at his hood, and he grabbed it again, holding it over his eyes with one hand. Between the siren and the storm, the streets should have been empty, but there were squads of armed soldiers running to battle stations, horses and steam wagons charging about, and civilians of all ages standing in doorways, holding rifles or swords as they watched the gray sky. A pack of boys in an alley were gesturing with slingshots and clubs, making battle plans.
Any one of these people would be happy to shoot Tolemek if they saw his bronze skin. He hadn’t considered wind when he had chosen the cloak to hide his features. Of course, he hadn’t imagined himself skulking through the city, searching for the source of the fog, either.
Sardelle had promised to come help him after she delivered her box, and he could have waited in the shadow of the butte, but this was his responsibility. He had intended to disable the fog machine so it couldn’t be used tonight. He should have destroyed it. That’s what he would do now. One way or another. As soon as he found it...
The fog seemed heaviest down by the harbor, so he was slipping and sliding down the icy streets, heading in that direction. A baby squalled in a nearby building, reminding him that not just able-bodied fighters were in danger tonight. While he had been with the Roaming Curse, the pirates had occasionally raided small towns, but they had mostly preyed upon other ships and aircraft. Being down on the ground, where he would witness what their destruction wrought, he did not relish this.
“So, stop it before it starts, eh?”
Except he feared he was already too late. A boom rang out from some artillery station at the north end of the harbor. The first of the pirate ships must have been spotted. Not surprisingly, they were coming in on the opposite side of the city from the airbase.
Tolemek had been glancing in that direction often, expecting to see the fliers taking off—and also expecting Cas to be in one of them. The snow made it hard to see anything, but when he reached the waterfront, he was closer to the butte, and he spotted the first of the craft shooting over the edge of the butte, its bronze wings outstretched. Others followed on its tail, struggling to remain steady in the wind, but eventually gaining elevation and arrowing across the harbor toward the cannons firing in the north. From the ground, they truly did look like the dragons of old, or at least like the faded pictures in ancient books, even if their wings didn’t flap and their movements were directed by propellers. According to legend, those old dragons had been gold, silver, and bronze, with the gold being the most powerful—physically and mentally. He wondered if the Iskandians had thought it would have been hubris to color their fliers gold, or if the metal had simply been in short supply.
An armored steam wagon clanked past, and Tolemek hugged the shadows. The fog helped hide him, but the wind was a constant enemy. Had the air been quiet, the gray murk would have risen higher and in greater density. Still, it was thicker down here by the water, so he knew he was heading in the right direction.
Following the line of the buildings on the main street, he jogged along, eyeing the docks stretching out into the choppy dark waters. Believing he might find clues there, Tolemek tried to remember which dock Cas had landed the dirigible on. He didn’t see any sign of the big balloon and assumed he was looking for the remains of an explosion-riddled wreck rather than a gently damaged aircraft.
Out beyond the breakwater, the surf roared, competing with the booms from the cannons and the shrieking wind. A hint of something burning reached his nose, something that smelled of charred rubber, cloth, and machinery, not simply of the coal warming the stoves in nearby buildings. He squinted through the snow and down a long dock. Yes, there.
The envelope covering and frame had been destroyed, as had part of the dock—the metal remains of the cabin, the walls peeled back like warped flower petals, were half-sunken in the water. The surrounding merchant and fishing ships were also damaged, and in spots, nothing but a couple feet of the mast remained above the surface to mark their icy graves. Interestingly, the fog didn’t seem to be coming from that spot. Had someone removed the machine before the explosion?
Tolemek waited for another armored vehicle to pass, then trotted down the dock. Halfway along, the boards grew warped, and some creaked ominously under his weight.
A boom sounded, not from the end of the harbor this time, but from overhead. The first of the pirate ships was visible now, a black shadow against the black sky, only a few running lights making it visible at all. It was hard to tell through the snow, but he thought it might be the Night Hunter. Goroth’s vessel, leading the way, whether he was standing next to the helmsman or not.
Standing on the dock with nothing for cover, Tolemek felt vulnerable. He hustled along. Best to get this business taken care of quickly. He told himself that Maktu, the helmsman, couldn’t pick him out from way up there, and wouldn’t know he had turned against the pirates—and betrayed the captain—anyway, but his shoulder blades itched as he advanced on the remains of the freighter.
Spot fires still burned, on the dock and on wood that had been spat into the nearby water. All that awful wood paneling. Tolemek picked his way into the remains of the cabin, searching for clues. At first, he avoided looking in the navigation area or toward engineering, not wanting to see the bodies of the men he had knocked out, men he assumed had been killed in the explosion, but he couldn’t search for clues without looking everywhere, and something soon became apparent: there were no bodies. Either they had been thrown free, or whoever had plucked out the fog machine had arrived in time to pull Goroth out too. Stone Heart? Most of the captains wouldn’t risk themselves for each other, and would just as soon take over another captain’s ship rather than help him return to it, but Stone Heart must have seen some value in saving Goroth. Which meant Tolemek had another enemy skulking around down here. Goroth wouldn’t forgive his betrayal.
The wreckage didn’t offer up a single clue, other than confirming that the fog machine was gone. Tolemek looked up and down the waterfront, then up at the sky. An airship could have come in and extracted everything, but not without the Iskandians noticing. It hadn’t been snowing yet when that explosion had gone off.
With the broken boards of the dock threatening to drop out from beneath him, Tolemek scanned the harbor itself. The sky was less dim than it had been a moment before, for more pirate ships were appearing beneath the clouds, their decks lit, and the fliers were streaking out to meet them, their hulls burnished orange by the glow of their power crystals. Even so, Tolemek’s gaze almost skimmed past the dark shape bobbing in the waves beyond the docks.
“Not an airship,” he whispered. “A sailing ship.”
The Roaming Curse did have some, though they might also have recently acquired this one. He couldn’t see any identification—he could barely make out the ship—but who else would be foolishly sitting out there in the harbor on a night like this? Someone planning to lead the raid portion of the attack?
Realizing he might be visible to whoever was out there, thanks to the fires still burning around the wreck, Tolemek ran back up the dock, into the shadows and fog. He followed the waterfront, eyeing the smaller vessels tied up here and there, and finally selecting a yacht with a lifeboat. There was nobody about on the docks to complain about theft. He dropped the smaller boat, found two oars, and climbed in.
He hadn’t rowed more than five meters when a cannonball screeched out of the sky and slammed into the yacht. Wood shot out in every direction. Tolemek dropped into the bottom of the rowboat as debris pelted its sides and flew overhead.
He gulped when he sat up, returning to the oars. The yacht was still upright, but he doubted it would be for long.
With the fog over his head, he didn’t see how someone could be aiming for him, but it was hard not to think that way. He rowed into the harbor, regardless. If he had to swim over to that ship to disable the fog machine and deal with Goroth and Stone Heart, he would. It had occurred to him, as soon as he had seen the fog, that Cas might believe he ha
d been lying to her, that he had never attempted to disable the machine in the first place and that perhaps he hadn’t left his people behind after all. He did not want her thinking that.
Gunfire spat overhead, one of the fliers swooping low. Tolemek thought it might be diving toward the dark craft in the water, but it came up under one of the airships, scouring its belly with bullets. Was that Cas? He had no way to know. There were more than twenty fliers up there.
Though it took longer than he would have liked, he rowed north first, so he could come at the ship from the seaward side rather than from the city, where the lights might silhouette him, fog or not.
You’re wasting your time.
Tolemek almost dropped an oar. Jaxi, again. After he and Sardelle had parted ways, he had assumed the soulblade wouldn’t communicate with him further. He wouldn’t have expected it to have such range—he was still surprised it talked to him at all. He had assumed that was something reserved for the relationship between blade and handler.
Sardelle isn’t always chatty. I get lonesome.
What do you mean I’m wasting my time? Do you know who’s out there? If it were a boat full of fishermen too cheap to pay the dock fees, he would feel idiotic for this long side trip.
Your people. And they know you’re coming. Might as well go straight up to them.
And get shot?
They’re not going to shoot you. They have something far worse in mind.
Tolemek went back to rowing. The waves and wind were trying to push him to the south, and he would shoot past the craft if he wasn’t careful. What might that be?
Something that I’ll kill you over if it comes to pass.
Given the soulblade’s sense of humor—if one could call it that—Tolemek’s first thought was that Jaxi was joking. But there was no follow-up to suggest that was the case.
Are you and Sardelle nearby? He wondered if he would need help—and if they would be willing to give it—in dealing with the pirates.
Not yet. A family was hurt. Sardelle stopped to heal them, ignoring the fact that if they figure out she used magic to do so, they’ll turn around and accuse her of witchcraft, which will get her killed in this town, no matter who her boyfriend is.
The exasperation in Jaxi’s tone made him think Sardelle might do such things often.
She was trained as a healer. She’d probably even heal you.
You wouldn’t?
I wasn’t trained as a healer, so I wouldn’t have to make that choice. Besides, I know what you’ve done to my people.
With the side of the dark ship looming ahead of him, Tolemek had enough to worry about without wondering how a sword knew all of his secrets, but he caught himself breathing shallowly and rapidly anyway. His hands had been cold earlier; now he could feel sweat slicking the oar grips. Jaxi had bad timing.
What were you trained to do? Tolemek wasn’t sure why he asked; he probably didn’t want to know.
Pyrotechnics. Along with the word came a quick impression of a young woman, little more than a kid, with red hair in pigtails, grinning as she hurled streams of fire at an encroaching Cofah army.
A dark figure walking along the deck of the ship stopped and leaned against the railing. Yes, Jaxi was right. Whoever was out there had been waiting for him.
As the rowboat glided up to the larger ship, Tolemek dipped into his bag of vials and gadgets. He touched one of the leather balls, but bypassed it, fingers delving for a hard cylinder in the bottom with a pull-tab top. Several other shadows had joined the first. Given the roar of the sea and the buzz of the propellers overhead, it was amazing that he heard the loading of rifles, but the sound of bullets being chambered cut right across the water to him.
“Good evening, Mek,” came Goroth’s voice from the shadows, utterly calm, as if there weren’t fliers and airships battling overhead. “Why don’t you come aboard? We have something to chat about.” It was a stranger’s voice, nothing of the years of friendship in it. Tolemek knew he had made his choice, and he didn’t regret it, but he also hadn’t expected to have to face Goroth again a mere hour after sticking a needle in his neck.
“That might not have a salutary effect on my health,” Tolemek said.
“Oh, we’re not planning to kill you. We’re planning to have you watch. From a distance. You’ll have to let us know what distance would be suitable. And how long we have to wait before going ashore. We’re here to loot, after all, not become victims of our own craftiness.”
“What craftiness would that be?” Tolemek croaked. His mouth had gone dry. Goroth’s allusions were obvious, though Tolemek didn’t see how it could be possible. After seeing Tanglewood and hearing about Camp Eveningson, he had destroyed all of the canisters of the death gas. Very carefully. In a crematorium, with a device for delaying the dropping of them into the fire, to ensure he was far, far away when it happened. It had been a mistake to invent something so deadly that it terrified even him, but he hadn’t truly understood that until that day.
“Stone Heart here was kind enough to see our freighter’s distress and come pull us out before the authorities charged up. He even took care of those authorities with that explosion, so there wouldn’t be any witnesses to his arrival. And I, though confused and betrayed, had the presence of mind to grab the bag I brought with me before he set the charges, the bag that I’d packed with a canister taken from your laboratory years ago.”
“I destroyed all of the samples,” Tolemek said. His rowboat had reached the larger vessel and was bumping against its side.
“Not all of them. I took one before you left to destroy them,” Goroth said. “I couldn’t let you make that much power disappear at a whim, not when I might one day need it.”
“All this time, you had that canister in your cabin?” Tolemek choked at the idea, imagining a strong wind striking the ship and the canister being knocked over and activated in some cabinet, the poison blasting out to kill everyone aboard.
“Well insulated, I assure you. I’m not a fool.”
“What about when the first Night Hunter was shot down last summer? Did you have it in your cabin then?”
“I did, and I retrieved it before we had to abandon the ship.”
Tolemek pushed his hair away from his face, not caring that his hood fell back too. The past didn’t matter. What mattered was... “You have it on this ship now?”
“No, my old friend. It’s already been deployed in the city, the timer set. It’s in a place where it can do maximum damage. You’ll never find it.”
“Maximum damage. You mean kill the most people.”
“Yes,” Goroth said. “Yes, I do. How convenient that it’ll destroy all of the resistance, yet it will leave the contents of the banks and museums untouched.”
“It won’t destroy all of the resistance,” Tolemek said, trying to sound calm, though inside he was alternating between quailing and raging. He looked up to the sky. The fliers, always conscious of the threat of ground fire, usually stayed high above their enemies. They should be high enough to survive the release of the death gas, but what would they come back to when they landed? A city full of dead, their organs boiled, their skin melted off from the inside out. And Cas... what would she think? That he had double-crossed her. That all along he had been working with Goroth.
“What use is a fighter squadron without a populace to defend?” Goroth asked. “They’ll be too busy mourning to trouble our retreat. Our retreat with cargo holds full of loot. The Cofah might even give us a medal for destroying the capital city of their enemy, something they’ve failed to do in hundreds of years of war.” Goroth propped his arm on the railing, leaning closer to Tolemek. “Climb aboard. As I said, we have questions for you. We want to make sure we don’t get caught too close.”
“Do you,” Tolemek whispered. And then what? They shot him once they were safe? Some offer.
“Yes, and, believe it or not, I have no wish to see you killed this way, either. Come back to the Night Hunter with me. All will b
e forgotten. Or, if not forgotten, at least forgiven. So long as you continue to help make me a powerful captain with few who will contest my right to reign.”
It sounded more like he wanted to be a king than a captain. Tolemek rubbed his face. He needed to figure out a way to locate the canister and stop the aerosol from being released. For Cas, for the people of the city, and... for his own sanity. He couldn’t darken his soul with another Tanglewood. He just couldn’t.
“Captains,” came a terse call from the bow of the ship. “There’s another boat approaching from the starboard side.”
Two of the figures who had been aiming their rifles at Tolemek jogged to the other side, disappearing behind the cabin. Several remained, and Goroth would doubtlessly be armed, too, but it might be the best chance Tolemek would get. He traced the pull tab on his canister with his thumb. He could blow up the ship with the contents, but if everyone aboard was dead or unconscious, who would tell him where the canister was? The timer could be set for a maximum of an hour, so he didn’t have much time. If they had already set it and returned to this boat...
“Friend of yours?” Goroth asked casually, though there was an icy layer to his voice, a suggestion that it had better not be.
“My only friend here is up there.” Tolemek pointed to the sky.
“I see.” Goroth’s tone was even icier.
Perhaps saying “only” had been a mistake. Laying down the cards too early, letting Goroth know he refused the offer.
“It’s dark,” came the soft call from the other side of the ship. “Looks abandoned. No sail up, no oars. Like it’s floating free, but, uh, it’s coming straight at us.”
A premonition tickled Tolemek’s senses. He had never experienced any of his sister’s talent for magic, and didn’t think even she, in her more lucid moments, could speak into other people’s minds, but he called out with his thoughts nonetheless: Jaxi?