The Dragon Blood Collection, Books 1-3

  He leaned out of the shack and found the cabin swaying in the wind, its bottom a few feet off the ground. Swaying. Great, that would make his task even more fun.

  “I don’t suppose you can make the wind stop for a while?” he muttered.

  Sorry, I never studied weather. The usually sarcastic Jaxi sounded contrite, even regretful. Anyway, controlling nature is beyond the capability of all except the most powerful of sorcerers. There may not be anyone left in this time who can do it.

  With a look of disgust for the multi-function tool, Tolemek strode to the cabin. It would be worth hunting in one of the machine shops for finer tools, if there was time. He needed to check the clock first.

  A good idea. As I said, the inside appears very intricate.

  It is. An engineer friend had designed the vessel for him. He had the nickname of Precision for a reason.

  Tolemek peered under the cabin, though the gloom made it difficult to see anything. He slid his hand along one of two support beams that crossed beneath the floor and found a familiar cylinder nestled against one. Even though he had expected it, his heart rate must have doubled or tripled at the irrefutable evidence.

  “I’m going to have to risk a light,” Tolemek said. And hope none of the soldiers on the wall found it strange that a man in a cloak was bent over under their tram cabin.

  Take me out of my scabbard, and I’ll provide it.

  Somehow I suspect whatever light you emit will be even more suspicious to these soldiers.

  I’ll be incognito.

  More because he was afraid he didn’t have much time than anything else, he removed the sword from the scabbard and, since there was nowhere close by to lean it, thrust it into the packed earth beside the cement landing pad.

  You better volunteer to clean and oil me later.

  If I survive this, I’ll do it in a most loving way.

  Save the love for the girl. I just want to be clean.

  A soft yellow glow that simulated lantern light arose from the blade. It was enough to make out the details of the cylinder, including the clock ticking down on the outside.

  Tolemek closed his eyes and blew out a shaky breath. “There’s not going to be time for tool shopping.”

  Less than eight minutes remained.

  Chapter 16

  Once the pirate outpost was nothing more than a carcass floating on the dark water below, Cas and the rest of Wolf Squadron flew in to help the others. With their giant base destroyed, she assumed the airships would give up and head back out to sea, but they lingered, their gunners pounding rounds toward the fliers swooping in and out of their scattered ranks.

  “Strange that they’re putting up this much of a fight,” Zirkander said over the crystal.

  “And not attacking the city,” Blazer responded. “What do they win by shooting at us?”

  “Besides our deaths?” Pimples asked.

  “They might find our deaths satisfying, but that won’t earn them any money or treasure.”

  “The colonel’s head might,” Pimples said. “I hear the bounty has gotten big in Cofahre.”

  “That true, Ahn?” Zirkander asked. “You see any wanted posters with my mug on them while you were held prisoner over there?”

  “Papered on every tree, table, and tent post,” Cas said, though she wasn’t paying much attention to the banter. She had her next target picked out, a small airship that had moved into the harbor after the crash. She couldn’t know its intent for certain, but there was no way she was letting them drop hooks to pull up the fliers—or their power crystals.

  “Huh,” Zirkander said. “Guess the Cofah are too cheap to pay for real wallpaper.”

  By then, Wolf Squadron had closed the distance to the remaining pirates, and everyone fell silent, concentrating on their work. Those manning defenses on the black airship saw Cas coming. It had a row of cannons bristling from the hull on either side, like in the nautical warships from generations past. She kept her eye on them as she swept upward to attack from above.

  Wreckage floated in the harbor down below, some of it still aflame. Cas spotted a figure on a personal yacht, struggling to pull something—someone?—out of the water. One of the downed pilots? She couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that crash, but then again, she had survived her crash. Granted, she had pulled up the nose and skidded across the water instead of dropping straight into it, but she hoped whoever it was had made it.

  Cas popped a few rounds into the balloon, being careful with her ammunition. She had already fired a lot of rounds, and there were numerous targets left floating in the sky. She got the incendiary bullet she wanted, and it pierced the dirigible, hydrogen going up in flame.

  “Those new bullets are effective,” she observed. Usually they just had to punch as many holes into the envelopes as possible, target the engines, or drop explosives.

  “Yes,” Zirkander said. “Enjoy it now. We just got some intel that the Cofah are coming up with countermeasures.”

  “They can’t reinforce their balloons any further, or they’ll be too heavy to achieve lift,” Apex said.

  “No more balloons. They’ve already launched a number of experimental craft akin to dragon fliers. Short-range, since they still don’t have a fuel source equivalent to our power crystals, but they’re building special ships to carry them to their destinations.”

  “That’ll make things interesting,” Blazer said.

  “Something to worry about another day,” said the Tiger Squadron leader. He and his men hadn’t been vocal on the communication crystals much since their two fliers went down.

  “Agreed,” Zirkander said.

  A few cannonballs whistled past Cas before the airship drifted downward, narrowly missing the yacht, but they weren’t close enough to worry about. She climbed back up to join the others, only to realize that most of the airships had disappeared from the aerial battlefield. More had gone down in the harbor and the rest were finally retreating. Limping back out to sea.

  “Let them go or give chase?” someone asked.

  Zirkander hesitated a moment—he might be renowned for all of the aircraft he had taken down, but he wasn’t a bloodthirsty man at heart. Still, pirates were pirates, most of them cutthroats as well as bandits, and Cas wasn’t surprised when he said, “Take them down. We don’t need them making repairs and harassing Iskandian ships another day.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Fulfilling the orders didn’t take long, though the storm made the flying a challenge regardless, as the snow was gusting sideways again, the clouds thicker than ever overhead. When they turned for home, she could barely see the city or the airbase. Landing was going to be tricky. Her shoulders had been bunched into knots for the last half hour, and the thought did nothing to relax them. She wondered if Tolemek was the kind of friend—or more than friend—who could be convinced to give a girl a massage. Or would she even find him again when she landed? Maybe he had already gotten what he sought from Sardelle and was on his way out of the city, using the chaos to disappear before anyone noticed a criminal in their midst.

  Cas found that thought depressing.

  • • • • •

  The snow had turned to hail. It was pelting the landing pad all around Tolemek’s feet, and bouncing off his bare arms. The wind whipped his cloak about him like a flag on a pole. He kept waiting for someone to notice him—and the glowing sword. He had no idea what he would do when that happened. Seven minutes remained on the timer.

  It wouldn’t be easier to work on it inside the shack? On a table? Then I could glow in the shack, and it would be less obvious to onlookers.

  “I’m trying to get it off,” Tolemek said, his back twisted and bent awkwardly, so he could look up at the cylinder. “The morons nailed it—” he couldn’t help but make a strangling noise at the idiocy, “—to the floor. They may have damaged some of the wiring inside. In fact, I’d be shocked if they hadn’t. I have to be very, very careful.” Thus far, between the screwdriver and the file
pieces of his tool, he had managed little more than to pry the end open. “If I can get to the wiring that connects the clock, I should be able to stop the countdown. That’s the most important thing.”

  You may want to stop talking aloud. Most of the pirate threat has been dealt with and the fliers are returning to the base. Some soldiers are coming down off the wall as well.

  In other words, his odds of being caught had gone up. And Cas was on her way back to the base. To land right in time for his fatal invention to go off? He groaned. How could this night get worse?

  “Watch out on base,” someone shouted from the wall. “The gate guards were knocked out. Intruders inside.”

  “Sound the alarm!”

  “That’s how,” Tolemek muttered. He tried to make his fingers work faster, but they were numb and clumsy from the cold. He had already dropped his tool twice.

  Jaxi dimmed her light, probably trying to avoid notice, but that only made it harder for him to see. And he very much needed to see right now. The wire he needed to disconnect threaded through a nest of other wires and between two of the ampoules.

  Nails or not, he was going to have to risk removing the canister. He needed better conditions for working on it—better conditions located in a place where the soldiers wouldn’t spot him. Where he could find such a place in the next seven—no, damn it, six—minutes, he couldn’t guess.

  Holding his breath, he slid the first of the two nails free. The end of the canister drooped down, but nothing happened to the innards. And now for the second nail...

  The tram cabin lurched.

  Tolemek dropped his tool. “What are you—”

  The operator up top is calling for the cabin.

  “No, he can’t. Not now. That’ll be even worse. The pilots—”

  But the cabin was already rising. Tolemek snatched up his tool, stuck it in his mouth, and leaped. He caught the edge of the cabin bottom with his fingers. For a moment, he stared at the cylinder, now dangling from a single nail and being battered by the wind. This would not end well.

  He debated on grabbing it and simply trying to tear it the rest of the way free, but he dared not. For all he knew, that nail was snugged up against one of the ampoules, and jerking it to the side would break the glass.

  Tendons straining, Tolemek pulled himself into the cabin by his fingers. He turned and flopped onto his belly, hanging halfway outside, hoping he could reach the canister. Now he could barely see it. The soft glow of the soulblade, still stuck in the dirt below, faded as the cabin rose, creaking and groaning on its cable. Not to mention that he had left Jaxi behind for any passerby to pick up.

  Reason Number Two why nobody in your family will be trusted with a soulblade.

  Tolemek pressed his feet into the sides of the cabin to brace his body, then folded himself in half, bending under the floor. He found the canister by touch, though without being able to see what he was doing, he was terrified he would detonate it. Or drop it. With the cabin being pulled toward the top of the cliff, the ground growing farther and farther away, it became a certainty that a drop would break the ampoules. Or maybe even detonate the dispersal mechanism. His father had once told him that men didn’t cry, but he was on the verge of tears of frustration.

  You can do it. Also, Sardelle is coming.

  I wish I knew how that could help me. Tolemek had levered the other nail out a millimeter or two, and he switched to the tool’s pliers. Keeping an iron grip on the canister with his free hand, he pulled at the nail, being careful not to wiggle it. Engines roared overhead as fliers landed on the top of the butte. Can you stop this thing? There was no time to try and explain to the soldiers up top what he was doing and that they had to let him continue.

  The cabin lurched to a halt. Tolemek’s feet slipped an inch, and he almost lost his tool again.

  Thanks. Hail beat at his face, and his leg muscles quivered from holding up his weight. He pulled the nail out, letting it drop, and lowered the canister. Carefully, so very carefully, he eased it and himself back into the cabin.

  I can’t even see how much time is left on the clock. I need a light, Jaxi. Is there anyway—

  Something blurred through the doorway, and a clank sounded on the floor beside him. Before he could guess what it was, the soulblade lit up, its glow a brighter yellow this time. He might have asked how she had levitated herself up here, but his eyes were riveted to the now-visible clock.

  Sardelle is down there. She threw me.

  Tolemek finished opening up the outer casing, but his shoulders were slumped. Two minutes. There wasn’t time, and the fat tip of the screwdriver wouldn’t work for the small, inner casing. He opened the knife blade. He would simply cut the wires holding the ampoules inside. If he lucked out and didn’t trigger the bomb, maybe he could separate the poison from the detonator.

  She says she’ll teach your sister if we all survive this.

  At another time, any other time, Tolemek would have found the news wonderful, but in his heart he knew there was no chance. Not enough time. Sweat dripped down his brow. His fingers kept moving, but they couldn’t move fast enough, not with the clunky multi-tool.

  He glanced at the sword. It seemed magic should have some kind of solution for this. Had science surpassed the old ways and become the more powerful? If only—

  Tolemek froze. “Jaxi, pyrotechnics.”

  Yes...

  Thinking of the explosion on the boat, he asked, “How hot of a fire can you make? And can it instantaneously be that hot? Or does it warm up slowly?”

  No, I can burn something instantaneously. But the temperature? I don’t know. I’ve never measured it.

  “I need hot. The melting point of iron. Can you do that?”

  Easy.

  Tolemek lifted the canister, the wires and half-removed ampoules threatening to spill out like fish guts. “You’re positive?”

  There were only thirty seconds on the timer.

  Yes. What do you want me to do?

  “Burn these ampoules with as much heat as you can make.”

  That won’t... release the toxin?

  “Not at the melting point of iron. The gas will be vaporized. Hurry,” he whispered, his eyes like cantaloupes as he watched the clock ticking down.

  A strange tickle went through his mind. Jaxi reading his thoughts? He hadn’t sensed her before, but maybe she was tearing through his mind at some deeper level, making sure he wasn’t lying. As if he would lie when he was fifteen seconds from dying too.

  Can I just vaporize the whole thing?

  “Yes!”

  Throw it outside, so I won’t burn you.

  Tolemek would gladly take some burns if they succeeded, but he chucked the canister into the storm anyway. It disappeared into the snow and hail, at least to his eyes. Just throwing it from him wouldn’t do anything to save him though. He needed...

  “Now, Jaxi. Please.”

  A small flash of orange lit the sky for a moment, then disappeared. Tolemek held his breath, not that doing so would make an iota of difference if he had been wrong.

  Well, Jaxi said after a moment, during which nothing happened and Tolemek’s heart remembered to start beating again. That was anticlimactic.

  Tolemek flopped back onto the floor and laughed. Magic trumped science after all.

  The cabin lurched and started moving. His humor faded. He was about to be delivered to a pack of soldiers. After what he had just gone through, he supposed it didn’t matter much.

  Sardelle was in earnest when she promised to teach my sister?

  Yes.

  If I am unable to do so, will she find a way to extricate her from the sanitarium too?

  A pause followed, Jaxi relaying the message perhaps. Yes. Sardelle has been lonely for her own kind and had planned to seek out others with dragon blood, regardless. After this, she says she’ll even teach you.

  Tolemek snorted. What would she teach me? I don’t have dragon blood.

  Jaxi snorted back—an impres
sive feat for a soul without lips or a nose. Blood is hereditary, genius.

  But I never—

  Please, you think science accounts for all of the things you’ve made?

  Tolemek found himself gaping at the ceiling in stunned silence when the cabin clanged to a stop.

  • • • • •

  Cas had never appreciated the feel of pavement under her feet more than she did after climbing out of her flier. Her landing had been better than expected, with the wind easing up for her, though she had chewed on her nails, watching some of her comrades land. Lieutenant Solk had nearly gone over the edge of the plateau, with one wheel hanging off when the craft came to a complete stop. Her face had been whiter than the snow around her when the ground crew had thrown cables around the craft, pulled it fully upright, and hauled her out of the cockpit.

  Mishaps notwithstanding, everyone in Wolf Squadron had made it, though there would be drinking later to honor the fallen Tiger Squadron men. She had gotten the names. Both officers had been well-liked.

  When Cas, walking beside Captain Blazer, Crash, and Apex, noticed a holdup at the top of the tram, she slowed down, a hint of unease returning to her stomach. Several people were leaning over the edge of the cliff and pointing downward. Had some airship slipped in to do some damage? Or... this couldn’t have anything to do with Tolemek, could it? No, she had left him at the other installation, chatting with Zirkander’s “archaeologist.” Of course, Sardelle had made that appearance to deliver the communications devices. What if Tolemek was around too? Around where people might spot his Cofah skin and pirate garb?

  “What’s going on?” came the colonel’s voice from behind them.

  “Unknown, sir,” Apex said.

  Cas chewed on her lip. Zirkander fell into step beside her, and they soon joined the group.

  “It’s moving now.” The tram operator waved an apologetic hand. “Not sure what the delay was, but it’ll be up in a few seconds.”