He is thinking unkind thoughts toward me, high priestess, Bhrava Saruth said. I do not believe he would make a good worshipper.
Perhaps some of the other people here could use your help and would be grateful for it.
Finally, Therrik squared his shoulders and strode toward them. He accepted the envelope, then stepped back, careful not to touch her. Sardelle suspected he was thinking unkind thoughts toward her too.
I get the sense that he thinks unkind thoughts toward everyone, Jaxi said.
“Tracking what?” he asked as he pulled out the page.
“I want to see if there’s any chance that Ridge is still alive. Also, the king thought you might like to get out Kasandral and help me find the sorceress.”
His gaze jerked up, fastening onto her face for the first time. His nostrils flared, and his eyes burned, alert and intent. Even with Jaxi at her hip and a dragon behind her, Sardelle shifted uneasily, not sure how to read that sudden intensity. Was he imagining that he might get his chance to use the blade to kill her?
Actually, he’s getting excited by the idea of killing Eversong and redeeming himself in the king’s eyes, Jaxi said.
Oh. He wouldn’t mind working with us if he got his chance to do that? One confrontation with the powerful sorceress had been enough for Sardelle. She would be happy to aim Therrik and the dragon-slaying blade in the right direction while standing back to assist.
I doubt you’d want to turn your back to him when he’s polishing Kasandral around the campfire at night, but he’s not fantasizing about killing you at the moment.
That’s an improvement.
I’ll say. The man does have a lot of violent urges. One wonders about his childhood.
“The king is tired of Eversong wandering around in his country and causing mischief,” Sardelle added, feeling the need to say something since several moments had passed since Therrik had spoken.
He stirred, looking down at the orders again. “I can understand that. All those damned witches ought to be killed.”
A deep rumble sounded from behind Sardelle. Was that a growl? Did dragons growl?
Bhrava Saruth’s neck stretched past Sardelle’s shoulder, his sleek golden head huge next to hers. He glared at Therrik with cold, green reptilian eyes as his tail twitched, then curled about to rest on the ground between Therrik and Sardelle. She blinked a few times in surprise, realizing he was protecting her. It was strange but a little exhilarating too. Was that what Tylie felt when Phelistoth protected her? She wondered why Bhrava Saruth would bother. She wasn’t a Receiver and hadn’t spent years sharing a mind link with him, the way Tylie had with Phelistoth.
You’re his only high priestess right now, Jaxi said dryly.
Therrik looked up, fear flashing in his dark eyes as he realized that growl had been for him. He quickly turned the emotion into a sneer of defiance, or perhaps contempt. “Oh, not her. She’s Angulus’s witch. I mean the ones that make trouble.”
Ah, he’s promoted you from Zirkander’s witch to the king’s witch, Jaxi said. Your career is advancing nicely.
Sardelle knew it was a joke, but it filled her with bleakness. She had no interest in being anyone’s “witch” except for Ridge’s.
“We have to track Zirkander first?” Therrik had taken a few more steps back from Bhrava Saruth to finish reading the note. “I thought they were positive he was dead.”
“We found his crashed flier, but we never found him.”
“Huh. You think the witch has him?”
Sardelle started to say no, but her lips froze before the word fully formed, the thought leaping into her mind again. Was it possible? If Jaxi had sensed Eversong nearby and she had been on the way to the outpost, might she have diverted when she saw the dragon battle? What if she had gotten to him first?
We discussed this, Jaxi said. Why would she bother? I assume it was the crystal or something else in the old Referatu stronghold that drew her here, the same as the dragons. Why divert to get a crashed pilot instead?
I’m not saying it’s likely, just that it’s possible. Ridge was the second-highest-ranking military man in the area then, and he knows all about the outpost. He probably knows a lot of military secrets too—how defenses are laid out here and back at home in the capital. She could have wanted him to... She trailed off, grimacing as her mind finished the sentence. Imagining Eversong dragging him off to torture him for information was almost as bad as imagining him dead.
Therrik was staring at her, waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know,” Sardelle said, “but I want to start with him. If he is out there, he may not have much time. Angulus said you were a good tracker.” She smiled, hoping he might be more amenable to working with her if she proved herself pleasant. She wouldn’t flatter him unduly, but Angulus had said Therrik had survival skills.
Instead of looking pleased, he scowled. “You’re on a first-name basis with him, are you?”
What? Everyone called him Angulus. Granted, they usually prefaced it with King, but even the newspapers referred to him by first name.
She shrugged and said, “He’s asked me to work in the castle as a healer.” Maybe that would explain the familiarity to Therrik’s satisfaction.
All he did was grumble and turn his back. “Twenty years I’ve served him, blood and soul, and who does he trust? Some strange witch woman who’s been here for three months and climbed into his bed.” He stalked away as he spoke, disappearing down the stairs.
“That’s hardly accurate,” Sardelle said.
No, we’ve been here six months now.
He is surly, Bhrava Saruth observed. I don’t believe he will be bringing me an offering.
He’s getting the sword, Jaxi said a few minutes later.
Not to use on us, I trust, Sardelle said.
Probably not. He’s stuffing underwear into a pack too. It appears he’s getting ready for a trip.
Good. Sardelle gazed toward Goat Mountain and the white-capped peaks looming behind it. We’re coming, Ridge.
• • • • •
After clunking his knee against three stumps and a rock, Tolemek found Cas standing guard beside a tree overlooking the river. If not for his growing ability to sense people the way Sardelle did, he might have stumbled into the water before finding her, assuming she hadn’t said anything. Between the layers of thick foliage and the clouds that had rolled in, blotting out the stars, the night was darker than the inside of a dragon’s stomach.
“Are you looking for me?” Cas murmured. “Or for a private place to relieve yourself?”
“I wouldn’t have come this far for that.”
“We’re only ten meters from camp.” Camp was an ambitious term for what they had, which was the camouflaged fliers parked in the mud and people hunkered on the lumpy mangrove roots, the only dry things around, aside from the patch of land they had turned into their prison.
“What’s your point?”
Tolemek couldn’t see Cas crinkle her nose, but when she said, “Men are gross,” he had no trouble imagining it.
“Does that mean you’re not interested in cuddling?”
“Probably not when I’m standing watch. You’re supposed to be sleeping so you can leave before dawn. Colonel Quataldo said you, he, and Kaika have to get an early start.”
“I heard. I suppose you, Blazer, Duck, and Pimples get to sleep in.”
Tolemek understood why the pilots would be staying behind, since they had to be able to swoop in and pick up the kidnappers once they had collected the emperor, but he wasn’t tickled at the idea of going in without Cas. He would have preferred to stay behind and let the two elite forces soldiers handle sneaking in on their own, but Colonel Quataldo wanted him—and his collection of grenades and salves—along. Tolemek did not know whether he should feel honored or not. He had a hunch the colonel also wanted to ensure Tylie—and Phelistoth—would stay nearby, something that might be more likely if he went.
An ominous growl, followed by
a loud splash, came from fifteen or twenty meters downstream, and Tolemek jumped.
“Oh, I don’t think we’ll be sleeping in,” Cas said. “Not with prisoners to guard and a swamp full of creatures that want to eat them. And us.”
Tolemek also did not like the idea of leaving Cas and the others to keep watch over twelve men who would spend the next three days trying to escape or otherwise make trouble. The pilots had to worry about the imperial airship patrolling the coast too.
“It would be better for you if there weren’t prisoners to guard,” Tolemek said.
“We can’t let them go, and I don’t think anyone is going to agree to a mass throat slitting.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that, but I have an idea. One that relies upon my dreadful reputation, assuming it’s made it to this continent.” He wouldn’t know if it had until he saw how the men reacted.
“What is it? Have you run it by the colonel?”
“Not yet. I need to see if Captain Kaika will help, since she can speak the language here. But first, I need you to know that I have something of yours.”
“Oh?”
“Actually, it’s from Duck’s flier.” Tolemek opened his hand where she would see it. A warm yellow glow escaped from his palm.
“You were able to get it out? I thought your fancy blood might be useful.”
“Yes, my fancy blood and a screwdriver.” Tolemek closed his fist on the communication crystal, cutting out the light. “It’s smaller than I realized. I’ll need to fasten it to something so I don’t lose it, but we’ll be able to keep in touch with your group and let you know when we need company.”
“Good. I don’t think smoke signals would be effective here.”
“Not across forty miles.” Tolemek grimaced at the march they had ahead of them. Even if they followed the beach, it would take all day and into the night, and he didn’t know if they would be able to stick to the beach, not if enemy airships cruised by regularly. They probably couldn’t risk flying closer, either, lest they be spotted. “Let me see if I can get anything to come of my idea.”
He started to move away, but Cas caught his arm.
“Be careful out there,” she urged. “I wish I was going with you.”
“I wish you were too.” He bent his head and found her cheek with his lips.
“Just so you know,” Cas said, her voice so soft he had to lean closer to hear her, “Wolf Squadron’s orders are to protect the flier that’s carrying the emperor at all costs. Right now, the plan is for Blazer to get him. The rest of us may have to stay behind, deal with pursuit so they can get away.”
“So the rest of us are expendable?” he asked dryly.
“It would seem so. I hope you left the recipe for your healing salve behind.”
He snorted. “It takes magic as well as ingredients. Nobody would be able to duplicate it.”
Cas brushed his hair away from his face. “Then we should try to make sure you return home too.”
“Let’s all return home.”
“I’m amenable to that.”
“Good.” The second time, he kissed her on the lips, not pulling away until she lowered her head and murmured something about being on watch.
Not liking the way that kiss had felt like a goodbye, Tolemek hugged her and returned to the camp. He washed his hands thoroughly, a challenge in the muddy environment, then dug a lantern out of his pack, along with a scalpel, a spool of suture, and a few chips of calcite that would be harmless under the skin. To be on the safe side, he doused the chips with his healing salve, which should keep an infection from taking root.
“Captain Kaika?” he murmured, picking his way through the mud to where she slept on a knot of roots.
“Yeah?”
“Can I borrow you for translation purposes?”
“That’s not the usual proposition men give me in the middle of the night.”
“It’s not the middle of the night,” Tolemek said. “Only a couple of hours past dusk.”
“I guess that changes things.” She pushed herself to her feet with a soft splash as her boots landed in the mud. “What do you need?”
“I want to perform surgery on our prisoners and for you to tell them what I’m doing. What I say I’m doing.”
Kaika paused a moment, either to rub sleep out of her eyes or to regard him like he was a crazy man. “Does Cas ever tell you that you’re odd?”
“No,” he said.
“Huh. You should keep her then.” Kaika grabbed her rifle, having no trouble finding it in the dark. “Lead on, surgeon.”
Tolemek turned his lantern up to full strength, swinging it at his side as he approached the prison. He whistled to himself to draw attention. A few open eyes watched him, the light glinting off them. Tylie had healed everybody to the best of her ability, with his salve helping, so the men were not in pain now. This ploy might have worked better if they hadn’t healed the men, but he hadn’t thought of it until he had lain down to rest.
“Which one first?” he asked Kaika.
She gave him a quick what-are-you-doing look, then nudged one with her boot. “This one tried to shoot me earlier. I think he was one of the ringleaders.”
“He should be punished then.”
“Of course.”
“Translate, please. Oh, and tell them my name, will you? My pirate name. In case they haven’t already guessed.”
Kaika nudged the closest man again and said a few words. He hoped one of them was Deathmaker.
A few of the men shifted on the ground and glanced toward the trees. One’s shoulders hunched as he tried to pull his tied wrists free. Tolemek found the reaction promising, at least for the purposes of this exercise.
“Will you assist me and hold the lantern, Captain?” Tolemek held up the vial of flakes and shook them. They tinked softly against the glass. “I plan to insert these devices under the skin of each prisoner before we free them. They will allow me to track them, and they will also allow me to kill them from a distance, should I deem it necessary. Such as if they attempt to inform anyone that they saw us.”
One of the prisoners cursed under his breath, leading Tolemek to assume at least a few of the people understood their language.
“Oh?” Kaika squinted at the vial. “For the rest of their lives or for a limited time?”
“For the rest of their lives. Translate, please.”
Kaika spoke in a casual tone to the men, as if she were discussing meal preferences. From the way some of the thieves’ eyes grew round, he trusted she was doing more than that.
Tolemek grew aware of someone behind them, and he glanced back to find Colonel Quataldo standing in the shadows, his arms folded over his chest. He did not say anything, but his lips were thin with displeasure. Perhaps Tolemek should have run this by him first.
He shrugged. He would perform the surgery. It would be up to the colonel if he wanted to let the men go. Tolemek just wanted to leave Cas with as few problems as possible back here.
“Nobody’s volunteering to be first,” Kaika said.
“No? A pity. The procedure is quite painless. Let’s do that one.” He pointed to the man she had nudged.
The thief rolled away from him. He bumped into one of his comrades and did not get far.
“Colonel,” Tolemek said. “Will you assist me by holding the subject?”
Quataldo walked over wordlessly. He shot Tolemek a narrow-eyed look, but that was his only objection. With ease that suggested more strength than it seemed his lean, wiry form should possess, he hauled the big thief to his feet.
“Where do you want him?”
“Close enough to the light that I can see what I’m doing.” Tolemek pointed to roots protruding from the water nearby. “Drape his arm across those and push his sleeve up.”
Quataldo did so while crouching behind the man with a knee in his back. He was very effective at making it so that his prisoner could not struggle. Tolemek remembered the way he had dropped three of the thieves before
Cas had even started shooting. In Angulus’s atrium, he had seemed an unassuming enough man, but Tolemek had since decided Quataldo wasn’t anyone he wanted for an enemy.
Tolemek set about his work quickly, slicing a slender line in the man’s forearm. The prisoner gasped and tried to pull away, but Quataldo held him fast. The shallow wound should not hurt much, but it was good that the thief was worried about this. He would be less likely to doubt Tolemek’s words, less likely to tattle on the Iskandians. All they needed was three days of silence. Then his team would either be gone or captured. Or dead.
Tolemek inserted one of his flakes into the wound, digging in to make sure it would be embedded deeply enough that his prisoner could not easily scrape it out. The man gasped again. Considering the thieves had been trying to kill his group, Tolemek did not feel too badly about causing a little pain.
“If you try to take it out,” Tolemek said as he finished up, now stitching the cut closed, “it will send poison into your bloodstream that will travel to your heart.”
Kaika, who stood nearby while holding the light, translated.
“Your heart will stop within three minutes.” He held the man’s eyes as Kaika translated, making his face as grim as possible. Sometime after he had started working in his lab in Iskandia, he had tucked his pirate attire into a cabinet, shaved his goatee, and donned clothing typical of the locals. He’d left his hair long, though, the ropy locks tangled and wild, since he believed it made him look fiercer, less like someone people would want to chance irritating. He tried to summon all of that fierceness now as he held the thief’s eyes.
The man only held his gaze for a second, then whispered something to Kaika.
“He says he’s sorry,” she said. “They shouldn’t have been greedy. He has a family, two small girls, and he sends the money he earns from crocodile skins and meat home to them, so they can get by. The fliers were too good to pass up. It could have sent his girls to school.” Kaika snorted. “I don’t believe his story.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tolemek said, keeping his tone hard so the man would find him more daunting. “So long as he knows he won’t make it back to that family if he betrays our position. Make sure he understands.” He gripped the man’s forearm, his thumb pressing on the fresh sutures. “Do you understand?”