He waited, hoping they wouldn’t simply shoo him away for wanting to freeload. At the least, his name usually started conversations. He was fairly certain his father was the only one in the country who had thought it would be delightful to name his son Ridgewalker, in the hope that they would climb peaks together someday. After tramping through mountains for the last few days, Ridge was glad he had chosen a career of flying above them instead of dangling from them.
The younger woman, who probably wasn’t older than twenty, tugged at her mother’s sleeve, her gaze on his nametag. That was promising. Maybe they got a newspaper out here now and then and had heard of him.
“Ridgewalker Zirkander?” the mother asked. She too was staring at his nametag now, either that or his chest was looking particularly fetching. Probably not, given the dirt smudging it, and the fresh-from-the-woods aroma lingering about him. It was a wonder Mara had wanted to be close enough to kiss. “Colonel? The pilot?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He thought about correcting the rank, but he didn’t even remember receiving that rank. It must have been fairly recent.
“I bet he was fighting the dragon,” the young woman whispered.
Ridge nearly fell over. The what?
He kept himself from saying the words out loud, because he wasn’t sure he should announce the hole in his memory to everyone he met, but he looked at Mara. Had she left something out of her story? Maybe they were referring to some new Cofah airship designed to look like a dragon? She shrugged back at him.
“Was the, ah, dragon a problem here?” Ridge asked.
“It killed Shari and One-eyed Gurth and burned down several of our barns.” The mother waved toward the opposite side of their one-street town. “I’ll show you and take you to see Shuron. He’s our mayor.” She handed the bucket of scraps to her daughter.
“I could show him, Ma,” the daughter said and smiled shyly at Ridge.
Ridge made his return smile brief and platonic. He might not be that chaste, but he drew the line at women who were younger than his lieutenants. Besides, he caught Mara glaring at the daughter and didn’t want to start any trouble. He hadn’t forgotten the sword callouses on his guide’s hand or the unexplained peculiarities about her.
“Finish with the hogs,” the mother said firmly. “This way, sir.”
“You can call me Ridge, ma’am.” He walked beside her, curious to see these damaged barns. More than that, he burned to ask for details about this dragon. It couldn’t have been a real dragon, could it? After a thousand years without a sighting?
“No, sir. I don’t think my husband would care for that.” She led them down the main street, an even gravel road kept filled in and level, with a few businesses but mostly houses lining the sides, the frames a mix of log and planks, the steeply pitched roofs attesting to the amount of snow that fell in the winters. “He teases our friend Mirath mercilessly because his wife has one of your newspaper clippings hanging in the kitchen. Framed.” She quirked an eyebrow at him.
She was closer to his age—at least what he remembered his age to be—but still an attractive woman, so he could see why the husband might grow jealous if she showed familiarity to other men.
“Is it one of the ones with my flier in the background?” Ridge asked. “It’s a handsome craft. I’d frame a picture of it too.”
“Yes, of course. The machine is the reason she hung up the photo.” She snorted and pointed. “There’s one of the barns, what’s left of it.”
In a pasture behind a smith’s shop stood the charred remains of a structure, a single half-burned support post and the foundation. He wouldn’t have known what it had been if she hadn’t told him. What weapon did the Cofah have that would have done that? Some bomb? If so, why would they have dropped it on an insignificant mountain village?
“Did you see the... dragon?” Ridge asked.
“Yes. Scariest thing that’s ever descended from the mountains. Huge with gold scales and fangs bigger than the pickets on that fence there. Claws longer than pitchforks. Cold eyes, like those of a snake, but intelligent. It wasn’t just an animal hunting. It was tormenting us, scaring us. It knew exactly what it was doing, and it was enjoying itself.”
As she spoke, all Ridge could do was stare at the charred remains of the building. This was no Cofah airship she was describing, and he had absolutely no memory of any of this.
“I don’t suppose you killed it when you were up there?” the woman asked.
“I really don’t know.”
Ridge grimaced. His amnesia had been a problem for him before, but now he worried that it—and his absence—might be a problem for a lot more people. Was he missing out on some big battle that was going on? A battle with dragons?
He rubbed his forehead. More than ever, he needed to get back to civilization and figure out how to get his brain functioning on all thrusters again.
• • • • •
Cas stood guard as Pimples cut the last of the prisoners free. As with the others, the man raced into the swamp, glancing at the stitched wound on his arm as he ran. He never looked back.
“I hope that wasn’t a mistake,” Pimples said.
Cas lowered her rifle when it became clear that none of their captives planned to return for revenge, at least not immediately. She and the others had kept their weapons, so the thieves shouldn’t be a problem, at least until they could resupply. If Tolemek’s threat worked, they wouldn’t try to gather reinforcements and return. Cas was more concerned about the dragon Phelistoth had sensed. Quataldo, Kaika, and Tolemek had still left, carrying on with the plan. The colonel had said it was possible the dragon had nothing to do with them. Cas doubted they would be that lucky.
“I don’t think there’s time for it to become a mistake. One way or another, we should be done with this mission and in the air in three days—more like two, now.” Cas nodded toward the darkening sky, visible over the river. “Besides, we would have run out of food if we’d had to feed all of them.”
“Aw,” Duck said from a stump he had claimed as his own. “I could have found something to feed them. I’ve been tempted to go hunting, see if I can find some of those giant critters.”
“It’s been my experience that giant critters aren’t easily taken down by standard military rifles,” Cas said.
“Didn’t say it would be easy.” Duck winked.
“Better watch out,” Captain Blazer said from under the camo for her flier. “Might be some of those critters are eyeing us from the trees and thinking about hunting you.”
“I can handle them.”
“Predators don’t always fight fair, you know. An alligator might do more than use those ears for handles.”
Duck scowled and touched a mud-crusted lobe. “That’s not funny, Captain.”
“No? Why am I giggling into my tobacco tin?”
Blazer had been rolling a fresh cigar for the last hour, working toward precision, apparently. Assignments like this didn’t keep the team that busy, and they had already done their best to clean and check their aircraft, a challenge thanks to the pervasive mud. Against logic—and gravity—Cas had found the dark sludge all over her propeller blades and crusted in the casing for the power crystal, so she’d had to spend an hour wiping everything out. If General Zirkander had been here, he would have led the group in some physical training, but nobody had responded enthusiastically when Cas had brought up the idea of calisthenics. They were planning to move the camp in the morning, so that would give them something to do.
A splash sounded in the river. Critters, as Duck called them, giant and otherwise, seemed to find the waterway an excellent place to drink and hunt. At dawn, as Cas had been watching Tolemek, Kaika, Tylie, Phelistoth, and Quataldo depart, she had spotted a twenty-foot alligator swimming across the river. The animal activity had increased throughout the day, and she wondered if the dragon’s presence had kept it to a minimum the night before. Sardelle and Tolemek had said they could sense his powerful aura, even when Phelistoth
was in human form, and Cas wouldn’t be surprised if animals could too.
She had been patrolling their camp before Blazer had decided they should let the prisoners go, so she returned to the task. She had barely gone a half a circuit when the swamp grew silent, abruptly and noticeably. Frogs ceased croaking, the fish in the river stopped jumping, and the birds in the treetops halted their squawking and chirping. Her comrades looked toward the trees. Duck hopped to his feet, his rifle in hand.
Cas continued to the river so she would have a view to either side of their reed-choked inlet. She stepped lightly, not wanting to break the silence or draw attention to herself. Something was out there.
On the muddy bank, she climbed onto the roots of a large mangrove and crouched where she could see the camp and the waterway in both directions. She kept the rough bark of the tree at her back and grew still, scarcely breathing as she blended with her surroundings.
Nothing stirred on the river. The trees cast deep shadows along the banks. Overhead, heavy clouds suggested it would rain that night, and the air felt close and thick, with the scents of vegetation denser than they had been when the team had first landed. The faint roar of the ocean drifted up the river, but the swamp remained quiet and still.
Out over the ocean, the dark bow of an imperial airship came into view. It was more than two miles away and flying parallel with the coast, so it shouldn’t be looking for the Iskandian fliers, but Cas leaned her back harder into the tree, nonetheless, as if she could disappear into it. She caught Pimples looking in her direction, and she pointed to her own eyes, toward the airship, and then toward their camouflaged fliers. The others wouldn’t be able to see the craft from their positions.
Pimples whispered to Blazer and Duck, and they ducked under the camo netting of the nearest flier. Cas remained on her perch, trusting the branches and the distance to hide her.
The airship continued up the coast, the rest of its body coming into view, and then the bow disappeared behind the trees. This one had a darker hull than the one from the day before, and gold and silver paint embellished the sides.
Cas tugged out a collapsible spyglass, hoping to glimpse the name on the side. Only a handful of Cofah military craft were notorious enough for her to know them by name, but maybe...
“The Sprinting Eagle,” she read, the gold letters passing before the lens of her spyglass as the airship continued onward.
The emperor did not travel out of Cofahre often and, as far as she knew, did not have a designated aircraft, but the Eagle belonged to the royal family and ferried his offspring and important dignitaries around. It rarely flew away from the mainland where Iskandian fliers might chance across it, but everybody was briefed on what the royal ships looked like. This one might be taking the princess to meet her groom. Unless she was already in Tildar Dem. Then this could be the emperor’s ship.
When it disappeared from sight, Cas rose from her crouch, intending to hop into one of the cockpits so she could contact Tolemek. Thus far, the crystals had remained silent with no communication from the other group. There hadn’t likely been anything to report, but this was important, and she needed to warn them.
Even as she lifted her foot to hop down from the roots, something else flew into view out over the ocean. Cas froze. A dragon. A gold dragon.
Phelistoth had been right. This had to be one of the ones that had been freed from the cavern. Cas didn’t think it looked like Bhrava Saruth, the dragon that had saved her from dying, but there were two others she had never seen. This one was huge, as large as the airship it was following.
Its head swung to the side, looking up the river. From two miles away, Cas couldn’t see the eyes, but dread made her freeze, her foot dangling in the air. She felt certain that its sight was keen enough to see her.
As the airship had before it, the dragon soon passed out of sight, disappearing behind the trees. For several long seconds, Cas remained unmoving, her thoughts whirring. What did the dragon’s presence behind the airship mean? That it was working with the empire? With the emperor?
Before she was conscious of making a decision, Cas found herself leaping from her perch. She splashed through the mud of the inlet, water tugging at her thighs and mud sucking at her boots. She barely noticed. She pushed her way out of the murk on the far side and ran toward the beach.
“Back shortly,” she said as she ran.
“Raptor!” Blazer barked after her. “Where are you going?”
Afraid to yell, afraid the dragon would hear them, Cas continued her sprint without responding. Ducking between trees and leaping puddles and rocks, she ran as fast as she could, following the river toward the beach. Would she make it in time to spot the dragon and the airship? Would seeing them tell her anything more than what she already suspected?
Birds flapped out of the reeds as she ran, dodging trees. She glimpsed movement out of the corner of her eye and ducked when her instincts screamed for her to do so. A giant snake hissed, its long tongue darting out, and its head moving toward her. Thanks to her timely duck, it missed her, but she forced herself to slow down, to watch her route more carefully before plowing forward.
By the time she reached the beach, she had run past three snakes, a giant black panther that sprang away, and something that had growled at her from a bamboo thicket. Her breaths came in pants, and her legs felt like lead. She paused between two trees instead of running into the open, and turned her eyes down the coastline. It was lighter out here than in the swamp, and she could still pick out figures against the clouds. Large figures.
Flying low, barely higher than the treetops, the airship had drifted a couple of miles down the coast. She didn’t have any better a view of it than before, but what she saw told her much. The dragon flew lazily about the craft, circling it, coasting, and definitely not attacking. Had a battle been going on, she would have heard the booms of cannons and seen the flash of gunpowder being ignited.
With sweaty fingers, she dug out the spyglass again. She had to wipe her palms before she could manage to open it and growled in irritation at the delay. Finally, she got it pointed at the airship in the cloudy sky.
As she had suspected, the shaven-headed Cofah soldiers were not preparing for battle. Many of them had tense postures as they watched the dragon circle, but nobody had a weapon raised.
“Correction,” she mumbled, halting her perusal of the deck when she chanced upon two queues of soldiers, pistols and swords in hand. They weren’t aiming at anything, but were ready to defend themselves—and the person standing between them, a bald man with loose flowing purple garments trimmed in gold.
Cas had never seen Emperor Salatak, but those were the colors of royalty in Cofahre.
He leaned his hands against the railing, looking out toward the dragon. Cas couldn’t see his face or the dragon from this point of view. The soldiers and the hull, railing, and deck structures on the airship were in the way. Cas clambered atop a rock, no longer worrying about being seen as she tried to get a better view. Was he talking to the dragon? Communicating with it? Judging by his stance, he did not appear concerned.
“Not good,” Cas mumbled.
The dirigible turned a few degrees, following the coast as it continued south, and she lost sight of the emperor. She lowered her spyglass. It didn’t matter. She had seen enough. She needed to warn Tolemek and the others. Since Tylie and Phelistoth were with them, the group might be in more danger than if Tolemek, Kaika, and Quataldo had gone in alone. It seemed likely that if Phelistoth had sensed this dragon, it would be able to sense him right back.
At only a slightly slower pace than before, Cas ran back up the river. More snakes hissed and animals growled as she passed through, but luck was either with her, or their hunting instincts were subdued in the wake of the dragon’s passing. She made it back to the camp without running into trouble.
Once again panting, she came to a stop as soon as the others spotted her. Pimples had rolled back the camo netting from the front of his fli
er and sat in the cockpit.
“You need to contact Tolemek,” Cas blurted without preamble.
“I’d ask if General Zirkander let you go haring off on your own,” Blazer said, her cigar lit and tucked in the corner of her mouth, “but I know he didn’t. Next time, ask permission, Lieutenant.”
Blazer didn’t usually pull rank, but even in the dark, her irritation was evident. Cas resisted the urge to bristle—they had probably been worried about her and wondered if they had been spotted.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “Pimples?” He hadn’t activated the communication crystal yet, and she bounced on her feet, tempted to clamber up into her own cockpit. “The emperor’s airship just went past, along with a gold dragon, a gold dragon that appears to either be allied with him or in the process of forming an alliance. The others need to know.”
Duck spat. “What’s a dragon want with that curmudgeon of an old stick?”
“I don’t know, but—” Cas pointed at the cockpit. Why wasn’t Pimples obeying? “Pimples?”
He glanced at Blazer before meeting her eyes again and sighing. “We already tried to contact the others.”
The dread Cas had felt earlier returned, settling heavily in her stomach. “And?”
“They’re not answering.”
Chapter 6
Sardelle paced about on the rocky bank of the river, her senses reaching up and down the valley as she hoped to catch a glimpse of Ridge’s aura. Bhrava Saruth flew overhead, searching from the sky. Colonel Therrik was walking along the water’s edge, his gaze toward the ground.
It had been an hour since Bhrava Saruth deposited them in the canyon, and Therrik had finally recovered some of his color. His face had been paler than chalk after riding with Sardelle on the dragon’s back, and he had thrown up behind a boulder as soon as they had landed. Sardelle was relieved he hadn’t done that in the sky. She couldn’t imagine what she would say to Bhrava Saruth as she cleaned his scales; somehow vomiting on a dragon seemed a far greater crime than doing so in the back seat of a flier.