“My father brought a unicorn horn back from his travels,” Ridge said.
“Now I’m imagining dragons and horses…” Duck shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Apex, your knowledge could be important on this mission,” Ridge said. “You up for an adventure into Cofahre?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Duck? Can you forage and survive in some random Cofahre wilderness as well as you can here?”
“Ahh.” Duck nodded, understanding his role finally. The kid had practically grown up with wolves, at least according to the stories he told, before his family had joined a farming community so their children could be properly educated. During an exercise the year before, he and three other soldiers had crashed in the swamps off the Temeron Keys, and Duck had kept everyone sheltered and fed until the team had been located. “Yes, sir. Reckon I can forage and survive just about everywhere. There’s ways to test what’s edible and what’s not, even if you’re in a new area.”
“I hope we won’t need your skills…” Ridge had no intention of having his team shot down deep into enemy territory, but he’d make a poor commander if he didn’t plan for every contingency. “But I’d like to be able to call upon them just in case.”
“Yes, sir. I’m happy to go along.”
“Good. We’re leaving in the morning. I’ll have the ground crew prep the two-seaters. We’ll all be flying an extra passenger.” Ridge nodded toward the two captains.
“You’ve selected four pilots, sir,” Apex observed. “Who else is coming?”
“There’s an elite troops colonel that will be leading his men. And the fourth person… I’m going to go check to see if he’s available.” Ridge waved and hurried away before Apex could ask who that fourth person might be. Best to see if Tolemek wanted to come before worrying too much about personality—and history—conflicts.
Still, Ridge could feel Apex’s eyes following him across the hangar as he walked away.
• • • • •
The receptionist in the research building pursed his lips in clear disapproval of the mud Ridge left on the white marble floor when he entered, or maybe at Ridge in general. His flight suit and leather jacket weren’t uncommon wear in the city, but everyone walking in and out of doors up and down the hall wore white lab coats and tidy civilian suits. Mud-free footwear.
Lieutenant Ahn was leaning against the end of the receptionist’s desk. Her boots looked as muddy as Ridge’s, but there wasn’t a line of prints leading from the door to her spot. The receptionist sighed and pushed something under his desk, eliciting a thunk. A door opened down the hallway, and something that looked vaguely like an upturned mop bucket with gears rolled out. Damp sponges between its wheels deployed, wiping the floor clean. Ridge stepped aside for it as soon as he realized it was on some kind of circuit that wouldn’t be stopped for innocent bystanders.
“Tolemek’s lab is this way, sir,” Ahn said, pointing down the hall.
Ridge watched the cleaning contraption for a moment before joining her. “Should I be jealous that a notorious pirate and enemy of the nation works in a much fancier building than we do?”
“From what I’ve seen, the fancy toys are just distractions. The other day, I walked in on Tolemek using his mechanical spinner and some liquid gas to turn milk into ice cream.”
“No wonder the king was excited to turn him into an ally.” Ridge gave the sponge machine another wistful look before they turned into a stairwell and started climbing.
“You could get Wrench or Dantalos from Tiger Squadron to build you a self-propelling mop bucket if you were really motivated, sir.”
“I’m not sure the minds that thought up an ambulatory beer dispenser for the break room could be trusted to create something as useful as a cleaning device.”
“Maybe not.” Ahn led him onto the second floor to a door with a frowning guard standing next to it. His shoulders were slouched, almost in a cringe. Odd. Was he that alarmed by Tolemek’s reputation?
The guard straightened as soon as Ridge and Ahn approached. “Colonel Zirkander, sir.” He glanced at the closed door. “Is… Deathmaker in trouble, sir?”
“I don’t know. Is he not sharing his ice cream?”
A puzzled furrow creased the guard’s brow. “I don’t know, sir. I just mean… another officer. It sounds like he’s in trouble.” He frowned at the door again. “He’s been decent to me. I know about his past, but I didn’t think he’d done anything to—”
Ahn pushed past the guard, a worried frown forming on her own face. She opened the door, and a wisp of smoke wafted out. Ridge hesitated, imagining some experiment gone awry and spilling poison into the air, but the guard had been worried for Tolemek, not because of him. Ahn rushed in without pausing, and Ridge’s heart jumped when a slam almost as loud as a gunshot came from the other side of the room.
Ridge strode in, slipping his pistol out of his holster. Towering equipment and cabinets loomed on either side of him, but he focused on the far side of the room, trying to figure out what had caused that noise. But smoke thickened the air, dulling the sunlight filtering in from the single window and dimming the influence of the gas lamps mounted on the walls.
“Tolemek?” Ahn asked.
“Get back, woman,” a man said. It wasn’t Tolemek, but Ridge recognized the voice. “Quit hiding, you pirate coward. Face me like a man, not a child full of tricks.”
“Colonel… Therrik?” Ridge asked. He lowered his pistol. Ahn had her own firearm out and hadn’t bothered lowering it yet.
Ridge stepped forward and pressed down on her forearm. “That’s our commander for our mission. Shooting him would be frowned upon by our superiors.”
“Tolemek, are you all right?” Ahn asked, her arm tense. She lowered the pistol but didn’t put it away.
“That depends on whether this… person is done assaulting me,” came the pirate’s voice from a corner of the room. It sounded like he was hunkered behind a lab station.
“Colonel Therrik,” Ridge said, hardening his voice—he knew Therrik wouldn’t be intimidated by him, but he wanted a serious response, not to be ignored. The colonel was visible in the smoke, his broad shoulders heaving, as if he’d run a sprint. Or been in a fight. His face was covered in soot, lined with sweat streaks. Or maybe those were tear streaks. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting information from this homicidal ass,” Therrik snarled.
“He barged in here, wanting to interrogate me,” Tolemek said.
“We don’t need information from him,” Ridge said slowly, not sure he understood Therrik’s intent. “We’re taking him with us so he can be a mobile resource for us. If he agrees to come, that is. Your method of enticing him to join our quest is lacking.”
Ahn pulled away from Ridge and walked toward the sound of Tolemek’s voice. She kept an eye on the colonel—she’d yet to holster that pistol.
Ridge wanted to warn her not to do anything to jeopardize her career, but Therrik was talking again.
“I’m not taking this hairy gorilla anywhere. He’ll tell us what he knows about dragon blood, if I have to carve it out of him.”
“Come close to me again, and the next grenade I throw will do a lot more than tear up your eyes,” Tolemek said.
Therrik shifted, and Ridge spotted a big knife in his hand.
Seven gods, what was the man doing? “If you’re looking for an expert on dragon blood,” Ridge said, “I suggest you talk to Apex, one of my pilots. He studied archaeology and dragons specifically before joining the military. Tolemek is supposed to come along to analyze the Cofah lab and figure out what they’re making. I sincerely doubt he can do that until he actually sees the lab.” Of course, if Therrik and his team objected to Tolemek’s presence, that might be the perfect time for Tolemek to slip away and find his sister. Ridge wouldn’t want to go into an enemy scientist’s lab without a scientist of his own to point out the booby traps, but Therrik didn’t seem to share that feeling.
&n
bsp; “We’re not taking him with us,” Therrik repeated. “Not on my team, and not on my mission. There’s no way I’d trust that animal at my back, and you’re a fool if you would, Zirkander. Get him back in his homeland, and he’ll turn on us quicker than a cobra escaped from its cage.”
“Anyone want to tell me about this mission I may or may not be going on?” Tolemek rose from behind the lab station, a ceramic oval device in his hand. He gestured for Ahn to join him, as if Therrik might attack her, and he intended to protect her as well as himself.
Ridge didn’t think the colonel’s propeller was that off kilter, but he took a few steps toward the man, anyway, lifting a placating hand.
“That’s what I came to do,” Ridge told Tolemek. “Why don’t you let me handle the, ah, interrogation, Colonel? Your captains are already at the hangar. There was some debate over the packing list. They could probably use your advice.”
Therrik glowered at Ridge, that long knife still clenched in his hand. “Sure, I’ll let you and him conspire, then come along on my mission to Cofahre together. That’s not insanity, not at all.”
Ridge didn’t know whether to fight Therrik’s sarcasm with sarcasm of his own or to try to get to the bottom of it. What was the curmudgeon so worried about? It wasn’t as if Tolemek had been working for the Cofahre a month before. He had been estranged from his homeland for years. Besides, he would be surrounded by military officers out there.
Therrik pointed at Ridge’s face. “You may have the king where you want him, but some of us know the truth and aren’t going to let you roam free much longer, not with some witch controlling you.”
Uh, how had they jumped to Sardelle again? What exactly had Therrik been telling the king before and after Ridge had listened in on that conversation? And what did it have to do with Tolemek and the mission anyway?
“You can’t be trusted any longer, Zirkander. It’s not your fault that you were so weak-willed as to fall for some witch’s wiles, but it won’t be a problem much longer.”
“What does that mean?” Ridge whispered, eyes locked with Therrik’s. “You didn’t have something to do with the break-in this morning, did you?” He doubted it, but there were a lot of people gunning for Sardelle all of the sudden. Was it possible they were all part of the same organization? “Or the explosion?”
Therrik managed to look confused and angry at the same time. “You’ll find out.”
Ridge clenched his fists. A threat toward him, he could handle—it wouldn’t be the first. But threatening Sardelle? Oh, he knew she could handle trouble, too, but if some group of people—Therrik’s intelligence buddies?—knew what she was, they might be prepared and come up with ways to hurt her. After all, as powerful as her people had been three hundred years ago, they had been destroyed by soldiers with bombs.
Therrik’s gaze lowered to Ridge’s fists, and a tight smile formed on his mouth. That challenge had returned to his eyes. Ridge knew it would be stupid to get into a fight with the man, but he was sorely tempted when Therrik stalked in his direction. He unclenched his fists and kept his hands at his sides. Therrik might be an ass, but Ridge doubted he would pummel a fellow officer without provocation. Just retired pirates.
As suspected, Therrik didn’t lift a hand as he said, “See you in the morning, Zirkander.” He jostled Ridge’s shoulder as he angled toward the door. Even the simple brush was enough for Ridge to feel the mass of muscle beneath the colonel’s sleeve, and he had to take a step to the side to brace himself. “I trust I won’t see that thing—” Therrik jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “—standing next to your flier when I get there.”
The guard in the hallway—who had doubtlessly been witness to this encounter—scurried out of Therrik’s way as the colonel strode out. The door slammed shut.
“Actually he’ll be standing next to Lieutenant Ahn’s flier,” Ridge said. He supposed it was cowardly to wait until after the door was shut to respond, but he didn’t want to show his cards before he was ready to play them.
Tolemek gave Ahn a hug and walked out into the open. He had lost most of his pirate clothing, including the shark tooth necklace, spiked bracers, and sleeveless vest he had been wearing when Ridge first met him, but he hadn’t cut his goatee or the thick ropes of black hair that hung about his shoulders. Still, he was presentable in the white lab coat and black and grey civilian clothing beneath. Mostly presentable. At the moment, a split lip leaked blood onto the white coat, and he was squinting out of his left eye. He had definitely taken a couple of punches. What was Therrik thinking? Was the man truly that unbalanced? It was hard to explain an officer with twenty years in the military acting so erratically.
Ahn walked over to a sink and wetted a rag. “Healing salve?” she asked.
“There are a bunch of finished vials in that cabinet.” Tolemek pointed.
Ridge leaned his hip against a lab station. He would leave the ministrations to Ahn. “So, Tolemek. Are you interested in taking a trip to Cofahre?”
“To get my sister?”
“To analyze a secret Cofah lab that our spies found. They supposedly have dragon blood and are using it to make weapons.”
“Yes, I got the gist of the dragon blood problem.” Tolemek scowled toward the closed door. “Who was that, anyway? He neglected to give me his name before he started hurling me against walls and lab stations.”
Ahn returned to his side with the rag and a vial of greenish-gray gunk that looked about as appealing as thirty-year-old ration bars. She twitched a finger, and Tolemek lowered his face.
“That, should you choose to join us on this mission, is our commanding officer,” Ridge said.
Tolemek’s lips twisted into a displeased grimace. “Maybe I’ll stay here.”
“Ahn’s going.”
“Maybe I’ll go.”
Ridge smirked. “I’d make a joke about the tractability of those newly in love, but…”
“You’re too busy being tractable for Sardelle?” Ahn asked, then tacked on a belated, “Sir.” She was dabbing the green stuff on Tolemek’s wounds with far more gentleness than anything other than her gun usually received from her.
“Oh, I’m way past being tractable and on the verge of doing something really stupid to make sure she’s safe.” Ridge was worried about Therrik’s words and worried about what had happened to Sardelle this morning. She was being targeted by people who seemed to know who and what she was. Leaving her here while he went away on an extended mission… he couldn’t do it. Nor did he want to simply send her to his cabin. For one thing, she might not go—he certainly couldn’t pretend to have any ownership of her or a right to give her orders. For another, these people already knew she was connected to him. His cabin wasn’t a secret, nor was it a long distance out of the city. They would figure out to look there. On the other hand, she was interested in going to Cofahre…
“That woman can take care of herself,” Tolemek said. “If you think she needs you to engage in stupidity on her behalf, you’re delusional.” Something about the way his eyebrows rose suggested he thought Ridge was delusional anyway. Enh, he wouldn’t be the first to think so.
“Possibly so,” Ridge said, “but I’m also thinking of the success of our mission. I’m a little concerned by the unpredictability of Fists as our team leader.” He tapped his fingers on the cool granite surface of the lab station. “Tolemek, do you have any potions that could cause a man to lose consciousness for a time?”
“Potions? I’m not some witch stirring up a concoction over a cauldron, you know.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“He’s an expert at knocking people out.” Ahn gave him a fond smile.
Ridge tried not to shudder at the double implications of the word. He knew Ahn wasn’t referencing Tanglewood, or anyone Tolemek might have killed with his potions, because she wouldn’t beam up at a man who could take pride in such things; she didn’t even approve of her father’s career, and he usually killed criminals and thugs who deserved i
t.
“If you could give me something in pill form, that should work… extremely well.” Ridge smiled as a plan solidified in his mind.
“A pill? Does this look like a pharmacy?”
“Definitely a pill,” Ridge said, ignoring the sarcasm. “Maybe you could even give it an appealing flavor.”
Tolemek made an exasperated noise.
Ahn was squinting suspiciously at Ridge. “What exactly are you planning, sir?”
“You two will both find out, providing you’re at the hangar before dawn.” Ridge smiled and headed for the door.
“My sister?” Tolemek asked.
Ridge stopped, his hand on the knob, and looked over his shoulder. Tolemek might come along simply because Ahn asked him, but he would be a truer ally if there was something more concrete in it for him. “How far is she from Brandenstone?” he asked, naming the closest city to the coordinates he had been given.
“A hundred and fifty miles.”
Ridge hated to make promises he couldn’t keep, but if his plan with the pill worked, keeping it shouldn’t be that much of a problem. Keeping his career once he returned to Iskandia, that was more of a question.
“We’ll get her,” he said and walked out the door.
Chapter 4
After showing her temporary visitor’s pass, Sardelle hurried through the gates of the army fort and toward the darkening residential streets that housed Ridge’s little cottage. She clutched a heavy book to her hip, a historical tome that held information on secret orders of the past. In truth, she had no idea if the women who had been spying on her belonged to something as ominous or sophisticated as a “secret order,” but the similar dress they all wore made her suspicious of organizational underpinnings. She wished she had seen one with her eyes, and not just her senses, so she could have spotted any pins or markings that might be used to identify them.