Tolemek rested a hand on the lip of the balloon basket and gave the device a cursory examination. It was comprised mostly of lightweight wicker woven inside a crisscrossing framework of slender metal bars. Hooks clipped to the bars held ballast weights for landing the craft. Tolemek started unhooking them.
“Do you know how to fly a hot air balloon?” he asked.
“I assumed you did. There’s gas in it. You’re handy with gas.”
“There’s gas in the airships. These things get their lift from the heated air. I’ll do my best to steer us to the right ship, if you agree not to use me as bait.”
“How else will we get close to the emperor?”
“With stealth and ingenuity,” Tolemek said. “Look, I don’t want to risk becoming his prisoner. My parents still live in Cofahre, and he could use me to hurt them. Or he could use them to manipulate me. I don’t want to betray Iskandia, but I don’t want to betray my family either. You might be able to walk away after selling me to him or whatever your plan is, but I won’t be able to escape from all of his imperial bodyguards, not when the first thing they’ll do will be to remove all of my gear.” He patted his vials and grenades. “Let’s sneak in and grab him without alerting them to our presence.”
“That might be hard if we’re going up in their hot air balloon.”
“We just have to overpower the guards at the top and throw them overboard.” Tolemek gauged the distance between the airships and the bay. It wouldn’t be a fun drop for the soldiers, but it should be survivable.
“And have them swim to one of the naval ships to raise the alarm? This isn’t the plan Colonel Quataldo had in mind.”
“He’s not here.”
“No, because you sent him off to babysit your sister.”
“Kaika...” Tolemek extended a hand toward her, groping for an argument that would work. “We can do this. I’ll make you some underwater explosives if we both survive.”
“You think that’s possible?”
“Of course. It would just be a matter of creating a waterproof shell to protect the components from moisture.”
Kaika sighed. “Stealth and ingenuity, you say?”
“That’s the plan.” Tolemek threw a leg over the side of the basket. “Do we need to tie up those soldiers and stuff them somewhere?”
“I don’t think so.” Kaika hopped into the basket with him. “By the time they wake up, we’ll either be done... or we won’t.”
Right, they would have either found the emperor—or they would be dead.
Tolemek cut the rope and fired up the burner. He had flown models of these as a kid but did not know if that would give him enough experience to get them up to the appropriate airship. As far as he knew, there were no steering controls, and one had to simply hope the wind was blowing in the right direction.
He needn’t have worried. The balloon lifted diagonally, attached to a slender cable he hadn’t noticed in the dark. It was almost like the tram cars in the mining outpost. His shoulders slumped in chagrin when he saw that the cable wasn’t taking them to the right ship. He also spotted two soldiers leaning over the railing up there and looking down at them, the sides of their faces highlighted by a nearby lantern. They appeared alert and curious. Wondering why the balloon was making an unexpected trip up?
“I believe the big one is the emperor’s craft.” Kaika pointed to the airship next to the one they were heading toward. “They’re anchored close to each other, at least. I have some rope in my pack and a collapsible grappling hook. We might be able to shimmy across.”
“We have to deal with those soldiers first.” Tolemek dipped into another pocket, debating between knockout gas and smoke. He grabbed both.
“Can you throw them up something to think about?”
“Maybe.”
The huge balloon blocked part of his view, and it would be hard to loft the grenades up and over the railing without them bouncing off the balloon or the hull of the ship. If Cas were here, she would make the throw look easy.
“I don’t like maybe. Give me a yes or no. If it’s no, I’ll do something to distract them. Take my shirt off perhaps.”
“Does that work?”
“Of course. Would you shoot a woman wiggling her bosom at you?”
“It depends on if she’s wiggling grenades at me at the same time.” Tolemek leaned out of the basket, lining up his throw, eyeing the narrow gap between the balloon and the railing. It only grew smaller as they continued to float higher, guided by the cable.
“Monarch butterfly,” one of the Cofah called down.
“Passcode,” Kaika whispered.
Having no response for it, Tolemek tossed his first grenade. He threw the second before it landed. The first sailed upward and over the railing, clunking onto the deck behind the two men. Smoke spewed forth, and one turned toward it. The other lifted a rifle, pointing it at Tolemek. He ducked into the basket as the second grenade landed, this one bouncing off the top of the railing and almost hitting the soldier in the face. He jerked his rifle up, deflecting it. He clipped it, and it ricocheted onto the ship instead of falling over the side. Good.
Crouched in the basket, Tolemek waited for shouts to arise from above. It always took twenty or thirty seconds for the knockout grenades to work, even in ideal conditions, and with the sea breeze stirring the air, this was less than ideal.
“Climb out,” Kaika whispered.
“What?”
They were less than ten feet from the railing, with the hull of the ship blocking most of their view now. The deck would be in sight in seconds.
“That was too easy,” she whispered and slithered over the back side of the basket with a dagger in her mouth. She hung from the lip, then lowered herself further by gripping the metal framework.
Tolemek hesitated, then slung himself over the side as well. His foot slipped as he tried to find a grip that would allow him to hang on the outside, using the basket to block the soldiers’ view. He looked down, the water of the bay appearing black in the weak pre-dawn light. The warships looked like toys. He gulped. Had he truly intended to toss the guards over the railing? A drop from this height would not be good for one’s health.
Kaika hung on the basket beside him, her head below the level of the lip. “I think we’re past stealth and ingenuity. Do we make a ruckus here, or go back to the barter-you-as-bait plan?” She spoke around the dagger in her mouth, her teeth clenched on the back of the blade.
“We threw grenades at them. You don’t think we’re past bartering?”
“They weren’t deadly grenades.”
“Dragon!” came a cry from the deck above them, from the front of the airship.
“So?” someone much closer to the balloon responded. “It’s our ally. The emperor made a deal with it.”
“This is a different dragon. A silver one.”
The basket bumped as it made contact with the railing.
“Now, while they’re distracted,” Kaika whispered, then disappeared around the side of the basket, crawling as easily as if she were a spider.
Tolemek wasn’t sure the soldiers would be that distracted, but his arms and legs were already tired from holding his body weight from his fingers.
“Where are they?” someone by the railing asked. “The basket is empty.”
“Someone threw that grenade. Hawibbs is knocked out.”
With more daylight, the men would have easily seen Tolemek’s fingers, which gripped the lip of the basket. He poked his head around the corner opposite the one Kaika had gone around, thinking he might be able to clamber over to the railing and pull himself onto the ship before someone noticed. But a row of soldiers waited at the railing.
“There,” someone cried.
Tolemek ducked back as a soldier fired. The hells with that plan. He lowered himself, his forearms aching from the effort. He had to let his legs dangle as he maneuvered under the basket, gripping the metal bars with shaking fingers. This was idiotic. Why hadn’t he let Ka
ika use him as bait? They might have gotten all the way to the emperor before being shot at.
He found Kaika dangling from the bottom of the basket already.
“We have a problem,” she whispered. “There are eight of them up there.”
Rifles fired, and the basket splintered above them, bullets slamming into the wicker. The soldiers thought they were still hanging from the back side. Sooner or later, they would figure out that Tolemek and Kaika dangled from the bottom instead. Not that it mattered. Their arms would give out whether the soldiers started shooting lower or not. Unless...
Tolemek eyed the side of the ship. Were they below the level of the deck? Maybe.
He made sure he had an excellent grip with his left hand, then let his right go long enough to dip into one of his trouser pockets for the corrosive compound he had used in the jail. In a move he could never replicate in a less desperate moment, he used his teeth to unscrew the lid.
“Got a hand free?” he whispered.
“Possibly for up to twenty seconds,” Kaika whispered back.
“I need a bunch of that—” Tolemek jerked his chin toward the jar, “—smeared on that.” The second chin jerk went toward the hull. “There’s a brush attached to the bottom of the jar. Make sure not to touch the substance inside with your hands.”
More gunshots sounded right above them.
“As if a burn is the largest of my problems right now,” she muttered.
He did not tell her that it would do more than burn, that it would eat all the way through to the bone and into it. He didn’t want to alarm her further. Their positions were already cause for plenty of alarm.
“Did we get them?” an eager soldier asked. He sounded like he was leaning over the railing.
“I didn’t see anyone fall.”
“It’s too smoky up here to see anything. Someone kick that grenade over the side.”
Kaika maneuvered herself close to the hull and let go with one hand to find the applicator brush for his compound. It was a good thing she had long arms. She swabbed the brush in the jar and reached for the hull, barely touching it with the end, but she did manage to spread a circle of it. Not as large of a circle as Tolemek would have liked, but he thought they could make it work.
“Is that enough?” she whispered.
“The dragon’s landing on the emperor’s ship,” someone called. “Do we shoot it? Or let them deal with it?”
“Is it attacking? Maybe this one wants to make a deal too?”
Tolemek winced at the idea of Phelistoth making a deal with the emperor. “Can you put the lid back on and—”
Kaika’s hand, the one gripping the bottom of the basket, slipped. As her fingers fell away, Tolemek dropped the jar and reached for her, horrified as he imagined her plummeting all the way to the bay below. She surprised him by grasping onto his legs before she had fallen more than a couple of feet.
The extra weight startled him, and he nearly lost his grip. He jerked his other hand up, barely catching a bar. His already weary arms trembled under the additional burden, and only sheer terror gave him the strength to hold on. Between Kaika and her pack full of gear and explosives, that had to be close to two hundred pounds hanging from him.
“Sorry,” Kaika whispered, even as she climbed up him, trying to get to the basket again. “My natural instincts are to grab on.”
“I’ve heard that,” he panted. “Try to knock out the hole.” Sweat slithered down the sides of his face. If his hands grew damp, there would be no way he could keep holding both of them up.
More gunshots came from above. Tolemek didn’t think the soldiers were shooting at them this time—the bullets didn’t snap into the basket.
Kaika kicked toward the hull of the ship. Her boot connected with a thump that should have made Tolemek wince, but he was too worried about not falling to care if the soldiers heard them. His formula had burned a hole, and the wood fell inward after Kaika’s third kick. When she let go of him, it was such a relief to his shaking arms that it took him a moment to check to see if she’d fallen or found her way inside the ship.
Sweat stung his eyes, and he squinted through the hole and into the gloom of the interior. Kaika leaned out, waving at him. Tolemek reached for a new handhold closer to the edge.
“The emperor is ordering the dragon shot,” someone yelled as cannons or other big guns fired in the distance.
“Come help me with this basket,” a soldier growled from right above Tolemek. “Get back here, you idiots.”
Tolemek swung his legs toward the hole, his heart lurching when his fingers slipped. His hips made it as far as the hull, but his upper body fell too soon. He flailed with his legs, trying to find something to hook them around. Hands gripped his thighs as his butt smacked the bottom of the hole, and his torso fell free. He might have tumbled out if not for Kaika.
“I’m not strong enough to pull you in. Figure something out,” she ordered, her voice strained.
Tolemek peered up at the basket, the balloon, the railing, and the hole. He wriggled his hips, trying to ease himself in. He managed to get a hand up to grab the edge of the hole. Inside, Kaika had her legs planted on either side of the opening, bracing herself as she held onto him. With a heave, he hauled himself the rest of the way inside. They tumbled to the deck together.
Had there been guards waiting inside, they both would have been shot. Tolemek’s body refused to do anything but lie there and pant.
“Guess we should thank Phelistoth for being a distraction.” Kaika rolled to her hands and knees, pushing Tolemek’s leg off her.
“Given his reason for being there, I’m not sure that’s necessary.”
Tolemek struggled to stand, using a bulkhead for support. Oddly, his legs were quivering as much as his arms.
They were in some officer’s cabin, an officer who was on duty, apparently. The bunk was neatly made with boots tucked into a cubby underneath the thin mattress. The built-in wooden furnishings and the gray and blue painted walls made Tolemek pause as memories slammed into him. He had once occupied a cabin very similar to this as a lieutenant aboard a military airship. Later, he had risen in rank to captain, but that command had lasted less than three weeks before Zirkander’s Wolf Squadron pilots had annihilated his ship. What a strange twist that he considered Iskandia home now.
“Come on.” Kaika waved from the door. “We have less time than before to find a way to the emperor’s ship, and it won’t take them long to figure out where we went.”
Tolemek dashed sweat out of his eyes. “Agreed.”
Kaika peeked out the door, then eased out. Tolemek hurried after her. The passageway lay empty, but the pounding of boots sounded above their heads as soldiers ran to stations.
“You dropped that jar, didn’t you?” Kaika asked.
“Unfortunately, yes. I valued my life slightly more than it.”
“Only slightly?”
“It’s one of my best compounds.”
“I can see why. We’ll have to go up to the deck. Too bad. I wouldn’t have minded burning a hole on the other side and trying to throw my grappling hook from there.” She headed for weak light filtering down from the end of the passageway.
A ship’s ladder led upward, dark treads visible on its steep steps. Dawn was brightening the sky more and more with each minute, and it would be hard to sneak across the deck. Tolemek patted himself down, hoping he hadn’t lost more than the jar. He was still lamenting the loss of that communication crystal. Fortunately, most of his pockets had buttons, and fasteners secured his belt pouches. He unclasped one and fished out two smoke grenades.
“Let me go first,” he whispered when they reached the base of the ladder.
An eardrum-shaking roar came from outside. Phelistoth? More cannons fired in the distance, but this sounded much closer.
Tolemek scurried up the ladder and poked his head outside in time to see a dragon flying across the front of the airship, its wings almost touching the railing. It was a go
ld dragon, not a silver. A huge gold dragon. The female.
Judging by her direction, she had come from inland. She streaked toward the emperor’s airship. And toward Phelistoth. He flapped away as she approached. She turned to follow him. They flew out of sight, above the envelope of the airship, but screeches and roars drowned out the shouts of soldiers.
Kaika swatted him on the back of the knee. “Get moving. There’s our diversion.”
“Right.” For good measure, Tolemek armed his smoke grenades and rolled them out onto the deck. The soldiers he could see were riveted to the dragon fight, but even so, they might notice two strangers skulking behind their backs.
Tolemek darted through the smoke toward the railing closest to the emperor’s ship. When Kaika joined him a couple of seconds later, she already had her rope and grappling hook out. She started swinging it immediately.
The smoke fuzzed the air around them, but the breeze had not abated—if anything, it was stronger up here. Tolemek worried that a soldier who glanced in their direction would be certain to see them. He pulled out his pistol, since he’d lost his rifle in the basket-climbing fiasco, and he watched Kaika’s back as she worked.
Her hook sailed toward the other ship, but came just shy of hitting the railing. Tolemek winced, aware of the soldiers on the deck over there. Most of them were looking toward the dragon fight, too, and Kaika was aiming for the rear of the ship, but there had to be forty men near the railings over there. Someone was bound to glimpse movement and spot them.
The alarmed cry came from their own ship, not the other one. A soldier saw them through the smoke. He was in his undershirt, with his boots untied, and he didn’t have a rifle. That didn’t keep him from shouting for his comrades to help.
Tolemek hated to make noise, but he fired.
He hoped the roaring dragons would drown out the sound, but that was a vain hope. Phelistoth and the female had moved off and were fighting over the trees now, their tails occasionally visible as they flew about each other. Phelistoth looked like he was trying to run away.
Several soldiers turned toward Tolemek and Kaika.
“Here,” she barked, shoving the end of the rope into his hands. “Tie this.”