Soulblade (8 page)

“Were there any other fliers with me?” Ridge asked.

“Not that I saw.”

That, he was inclined to believe. If there had been, they would have looked for him when he went down. They wouldn’t have left him for dead. But that brought him back to the question of what he had been doing out here alone in a storm.

“You said it was night? What were
you
doing out here? Especially if there was a storm?” He smiled again, trying to make his questions seem innocent instead of suspicious, but he watched her intently.

Mara shrugged. “There was a lot of lightning and hail too. It was impressive. I’ve always liked storms.”

She pointed toward the goat trail they had come up to find this vantage point, a hike that had left his sore and battered body with more aches. “We should go. You’ll want to get out of these mountains, I presume? I can find a path that will eventually lead us to some villages. We can trade for a horse there.”

Without waiting for him to respond, she headed down the trail. He let his eyelids droop to half-mast, noting that she hadn’t truly answered his question. He walked after her without comment. More questions would only make her warier, but he vowed to pay attention as they traveled.

“I hope you have something to trade,” Ridge said. “My wallet must have washed downriver along with my sock.”

She had been able to provide him with most of his clothing, but the sock had been missing, as well as his cap, goggles, scarf, and the wallet. More than all of that, he missed his little wooden dragon luck charm. He had checked every pocket six times, hoping to discover it, but he either hadn’t had it with him on this flight, or it was hanging in the smashed cockpit he couldn’t reach.

She looked back. “I will handle it.”

Well, that was vague.

She has furs and many skills she can trade
, the voice in the back of his head said.

If it’s that crusty bear fur that smells like mildew, I don’t think she’ll get a horse for that.

She has many skills she can trade
, the voice repeated.

Ridge was tempted to ask what they were, but he wasn’t coming out ahead in the conversations he was having with himself, so he doubted he should encourage them. He prodded at an itch under the bandage that wrapped his head, hoping the voice would go away once his brain stopped hurting.

As they rounded a bend that would take the crash site from view, he gave it one long look, once again doubting that anyone could have survived that landing.

• • • • •

Mist hung over the dense green landmass that stretched ahead of and below Cas’s flier, the sun setting behind an equally green mountain range that ran northeast to southwest in the distance. No glaciers or snowpacks adorned those peaks. Even with the sea breeze tugging at her scarf, and the sun’s intensity fading, Cas sweated beneath her uniform. She had stuffed her flight jacket into her pack earlier in the day, as they had crossed the equator, but she wouldn’t have minded stripping off more clothing. The season should be autumn down here, but she doubted that frost ever blanketed the ground in Dakrovia or that the jungle leaves turned color and fell off.

“Reminds me of Owanu Owanus,” Tolemek called from the back seat. “Except much bigger.”

As they had flown up on Owanu Owanus earlier that spring, the tropical island where they had freed Tylie and discovered Phelistoth, they had been able to see the sea on all sides. According to the maps, the Dakrovian continent was much larger than Iskandia. An entirely different ocean lay on the far side, and they would have had to fly through the night if they wanted to see it. The coordinates the king had provided were on the eastern shore, so that wouldn’t be necessary.

“Have you ever been to this continent before?” Cas wiggled in her seat, hoping they landed soon. Her legs and butt ached from sitting for so long. They had left early and flown the entire day to cross the ocean, the entire day and then some, since they had been following the path of the sun.

“I’ve ordered numerous plants, poisons, and reptile specimens from suppliers in some of the bigger cities down here,” Tolemek said.

“So, no.”

“No. But I’ve perused many catalogues and am quite familiar with the flora.”

“Good to know.” Cas tapped the communication crystal nestled into the grip of her flight stick. “Has
anyone
been here before?”

She had chosen Captain Blazer and Lieutenants Pimples and Duck as the other Wolf Squadron officers for this mission. They were all capable pilots, with Duck and Pimples already knowing about dragons and sorcery. Blazer had more experience than any of them, including an aptitude for mechanical repairs, and nothing seemed to faze her. When Phelistoth had joined them halfway across the ocean, Tylie sitting astride his back and the sun gleaming off his silvery scales, Blazer had merely taken a puff of her cigar and said, “Pretty.” It hadn’t been clear whether she’d meant Tylie or the dragon, since her tastes ran toward women.

“Colonel Quataldo has,” Duck replied. “We’ve been discussing the animals and plants in the jungle. Apparently, there are giant wolves five times bigger than the ones back home. And black panthers that can turn invisible. Massive vining carnivorous plants. Alligators big enough to swallow a squad of troops whole.”

“Is anyone else alarmed that he sounds
excited
by those things?” Captain Blazer asked.

“Not really,” Pimples said. “It just means we can volunteer him to go first.”

“I’ve been here,” Kaika yelled from Pimples’ back seat. “It’s exceedingly difficult to find explosives or ingredients to create explosives in the towns. Last time, I had to wander around some jungle hot springs looking for my own sulfur.”

“Are there any continents you haven’t blown things up on, Captain?” Pimples asked.

“I haven’t been to Subarctic Zharr yet.”

“We’re not going to land and find a wanted poster with your face on it, are we, Captain?” Cas asked.

“Nah, that was a humanitarian mission. I helped them turn aside lava flows on an erupting volcano to save a town. It’s too bad we’re not going there. I could probably get us some of the vanilla bean alcohol they make here. It’s cracking.”

“Colonel Quataldo says none of us will be showing our faces anywhere,” Duck said. “We’re landing twenty miles south of Tildar Dem and walking the rest of the way, so nobody will notice our fliers.”

“Walking past the giant wolves and alligators and man-eating plants?” Pimples asked.

“We’ll stick to the beach most of the way, so we’re less likely to run into hungry predators.” Did Duck sound disappointed?

“Haven’t seen any airships along the coast,” Captain Blazer said. “We just getting lucky or do they not have any here?”

“A lot of merchant ships come down here,” Tolemek said, “and a few of the bigger cities have air and naval fleets, but we’re on the stormy coast. The villages are smaller and more rustic here.”

Cas relayed his words to the others.

“Rustic jungle villages,” Pimples said. “Why would the Cofah emperor marry one of his daughters off to somebody from such a place?”

“The king said her fiancé is a shaman,” Cas said.

“A lot of the Dakrovian shamans come from this region,” Tolemek added, “and if I recall my history, dragons are believed to have originated on this continent.”

Cas caught Tolemek looking over at Phelistoth. The dragon was shadowing them, but Tylie did not have a communication crystal, so they had no way to include her in the conversation unless she or Phelistoth spoke telepathically to the group.

“The emperor has a few shamans working with the air military already,” Tolemek continued, “as you and your squadron have encountered, so this is likely about firming up a treaty to acquire more. I imagine Salatak is worried now that Iskandia has dragon allies.” He glanced at Phelistoth again.

Cas wasn’t sure the silver dragon counted as an
ally
. His willingness to stay in Iskandia seemed to have more to do with Tylie’s choice to train with Sardelle than any interest in helping the nation.

“Did any of you people who are snuggled up to the king’s bosom ever hear where that fireball flinging witch came from?” Captain Blazer asked. She had been among those who had returned in time to battle against the Cofah in their flying fortress, so she had seen firsthand the destructive power of Eversong’s fireballs.

“The king doesn’t have a bosom, does he?” Pimples asked. “He seems fit for someone who sits on a throne all day.”

“You’d have to ask Captain Kaika,” Duck said, a smirk in his voice.

After a pause, Pimples said, “She says our intelligence people haven’t discovered where the sorceress came from yet, just that Sardelle thought she’d come out of a stasis chamber somewhere, much like our dragon friends. She also says—oh, ma’am, I can’t say that.”

Cas snorted, imagining some comment about the king’s chest or his other manly attributes.

An airship approaches from the southwest
, a voice rumbled in her head. Phelistoth.

Cas peered in that direction. Though mists clung to the landmass, the sky was clear over the ocean, and the sun still provided enough light to see for miles. “How far away? I don’t see anything.”

Belatedly, she realized she was speaking to everyone, thanks to the communication crystal, and she did not know if the dragon’s message had been delivered to everyone. She also did not know if he could hear her from his position, about a thousand meters off her right flank.

Forty miles away
, Phelistoth responded.
It is following the coast toward us.

“Our coordinates for landing are another thirty miles down that same coast,” Duck said. “That’ll be a problem. Even if it’s a merchant ship out of another country, we don’t want it spotting us. If it’s an imperial ship, we
definitely
don’t want it spotting us.”

As far as Cas had heard, the Cofah did not have radio technology yet, nor did they have anything like the communication crystals that Sardelle had made for the fliers. Still, they could get messages around quickly enough, and being identified at the very beginning of their mission would not be good. The emperor might turn around if he heard Iskandian fliers were in the area.

“Shall we land early?” Cas asked.

“Colonel Quataldo says yes,” Duck said. “We’ll look for a protected area that appears unpopulated.”

In the seat behind him, Quataldo leaned over the side, a spyglass to his eye as he considered the coastline. He tapped Duck’s shoulder and pointed.

“Follow me down,” Duck said.

“I guess we get forty miles of crocodiles and carnivorous plants instead of twenty.” Cas remembered the vile tentacled creature that had tried to drag Tolemek to the bottom of a river on Owanu Owanus. It was hard to shoot at something underwater, and she also didn’t care for the idea of vines and tendrils snaking out to wrap around her legs.

“You’re not scared, are you, Raptor?” Captain Blazer asked. “I saw you pack your sniper rifle, and with your aim, I’m sure you can shoot anything before it kills you.”

“Shooting is problematic when you’re sneaking up on a town and trying not to be heard.”

“I’ve seen you take down Cofah warriors with rocks and sticks before too.”

“I know which part of a Cofah warrior you aim at. I’m less certain with carnivorous plants.”

“The part trying to eat you, I imagine.”

“Rocks and sticks?” Tolemek asked as she dipped the nose of the flier downward, following Duck toward a beach far below. “You haven’t mentioned that story.”

“An early survival training mission on a deserted island that wasn’t that deserted. A Cofah ship had wrecked on a reef on the far side.”

Gusts of air battered at her wings as they switched from following the air currents to flying against them. The beach Duck angled toward was more rock than sand, with algae-coated boulders rising amid clumps of green vegetation that curled around them. Cas was glad they were flying the two-seaters with their thrusters. Finding a landing strip down there would have been impossible.

A wide river emptied into the ocean, and Duck turned to follow it, cruising low over the water. Cas took the rear, letting Pimples and Blazer go ahead, and she scanned the sky in both directions before descending below the tops of the mangrove trees lining the banks. At the far edge of the horizon, an airship had come into view, the dark shape hovering in an azure sky deepening with the promise of twilight.

When she checked behind her, she twitched in surprise. Phelistoth had been behind her, but he was nowhere to be seen now. Had he already dipped into the trees? Or had he not been paying attention to Quataldo’s instructions? If that airship spotted a dragon, it was just as likely to send along a report that might keep the emperor from landing here.

Shaking her head, Cas dipped lower, skimming along the water. She had to trust that the dragon had the sense to stay out of sight—after all, he had been the one to warn them about the approaching craft. Besides, she had her own team to worry about. The buzz of their propellers seemed twice as loud with the noise echoing off the wall of mangroves. She hoped the roar of the ocean would muffle the sound farther out and that the airship was still too distant to hear anything.

Huge birds squawked and flew up from the thickets of exposed roots as the fliers cruised up the river. Though alarmed by the noise, some of those birds were as large as Cas was. Were all the animals down here giant? If so, she had little trouble imagining dragons evolving in this climate.

With the trees and foliage so dense, Duck had to fly a couple of miles inland before finding a spot to park the fliers. Even then, the inlet wasn’t ideal, consisting of mud and shallow water choked with reeds rather than hard earth. Cas ended up flying farther upriver while waiting for the others to find landing spots. There wasn’t much room for maneuvering in the muddy cove. After a minute, she did a loop, skimming past outstretched branches and flying upside down so she could turn around without rising above the treetops.

“You
are
Zirkander’s protégé,” Tolemek said.