“Zirkander,” Ort barked.
Like a hound that had sighted its prey, Zirkander didn’t seem to hear the warning. He opened up with the machine guns, hammering rounds toward the other flier as they came in from behind and to the side.
The other pilot must have still believed he was invisible. Only when bullets streaked toward him did he start evasive maneuvers. He banked and flew closer toward the mountains while sweeping back and forth like a pendulum on a horizontal plane.
Zirkander, heading straight after him, closed ground quickly. Angulus kept his rifle ready, wanting that shot, but he would have had to shoot over Zirkander’s head, and that would have meant unbuckling himself so he could rise up in his seat. Given the general’s propensity for flipping upside down, that seemed unwise.
Besides, his rifle skills weren’t necessary. Zirkander anticipated the pilot’s path—the Cofah’s maneuvers weren’t nearly as gravity-defying as his—and caught him, tearing off the flier’s tail with his barrage of bullets.
The Cofah lost control immediately. He was probably doomed by then, but Zirkander stuck with him and continued to fire. The pilot slumped over in his seat. The nose of the Cofah craft dipped down, and it streaked toward the mountainside with smoke and flame flowing from its fuselage. In seconds, it crashed into the rocky ground, scattering pieces of the burning flier across the slope.
Only when Zirkander pulled up did Angulus realize how close their momentum had taken them to striking the mountain. For a moment, that fate seemed inevitable, as their belly nearly brushed boulders and shrubs before the engine overcame gravity and they soared toward the stars again.
For the first time since the battle had begun, Zirkander looked back at Angulus. “You all right, Sire?”
“I’m... uninjured.” All right was another matter. Angulus looked back toward where those fireballs had come from, toward where General Braksonoth had been incinerated. Braksonoth had worried about him being killed out here. It hadn’t occurred to either of them that he would be the one to die so quickly, so meaninglessly. As Angulus’s breaths returned to normal and his nerves settled, he could already feel the weight of responsibility—and regret—smothering him like a wet blanket. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 4
Kaika dropped her backpack and duffle bag to the ground and climbed out after them. General Zirkander and the king had landed first on the flat ledge, and they had already left their fliers. Nobody was talking yet. If the others were as stunned by the loss of General Braksonoth and his pilot, she could understand why. The air battle was only twenty minutes in the past. They had flown another fifteen or twenty miles and arrived at their destination. Wherever that was.
She tried to make herself look around and check for enemies, rather than dwelling on Braksonoth’s death, but that was hard. She couldn’t believe someone with such a long and accomplished record in the elite forces could disappear just like that. It wasn’t fair. He should have been given a chance to fight. If Kaika saw that damned sorceress, she was going to find a way to blow her into the farthest reaches of the deepest hell.
She ground her teeth as she stalked about, examining their ledge. As far as she could tell, which wasn’t very far thanks to the darkness, they were halfway up the side of a mountain toward the southern end of the Ice Blades. A cliff rose up to one side, one that didn’t seem to hold any caves or other openings, at least none that were visible in the night. On the other side of the ledge, which would have been large enough for a couple of modest houses to perch upon, the ground dropped away. It wasn’t a sheer drop, and Kaika had spotted a trail carving its way down the steep slope as they had landed. Trees rose up, perhaps three hundred feet below, and a coyote yipped somewhere in the forest. A pile of camouflage netting lay on one end of the ledge, but whatever it usually guarded wasn’t there now.
Ort was the last one to climb out of the fliers, his boots hitting the ground at the same time as Zirkander lit a lantern, the soft flame flaring to life. The king was already heading toward the cliff, as if he expected to find something there. A secret entrance? There must be. Nobody had mentioned an emergency landing, so this must be their destination.
Ort stalked toward Zirkander, his fists clenched at his sides.
“I gave you an order,” Ort growled, then surprised Kaika by grabbing Zirkander by the front of his jacket. She didn’t know the stolid general that well, but she had never seen Ort anything but calm, almost to the point of blandness. Now his face, visible by the lantern light, was flushed red.
Zirkander didn’t look surprised. He merely stood there as Ort gripped his jacket, his knuckles tight against his skin.
“I told you to get the king out of danger, and you went after that other flier,” Ort said. “Did you think that was one of your soldiers behind you, someone trained to die fighting if necessary?”
“No, sir,” Zirkander said, his tone more sedate than usual. “But he seemed to be enjoying himself. He shot a Cofah pilot.”
“Enjoying himself?” Ort glanced toward the king, who was touching the rock wall beyond the influence of the lantern’s light. “He just lost General Braksonoth. And we lost Chast, damn it.” Emotion thickened Ort’s voice, regret now mixing with the anger.
“I know that, sir.”
Kaika shifted her feet, uncomfortable watching the exchange. As Ort continued to chastise Zirkander, she plucked her rifle from her gear and walked the perimeter of the ledge. She peered into the darkness below more closely this time, searching for light or any sign that more trouble might be out there. Like that sorceress. Kaika couldn’t know for certain that it was the same person that she, Sardelle, and Tolemek had fought in the bowels of the sky fortress, but her gut told her it was. She had seen those fireballs before.
Aside from the coyotes, the forest was still, with no sign of humanity for as far as the eye could see. She walked over to join the king, who had now taken out a lantern of his own. He was still touching the cliff, a different spot now.
He looked at her. “There’s a rock that protrudes that you can twist. Somewhere around here. I’ve never been out here in the dark before.”
He sounded apologetic that he couldn’t wave his hand and open whatever secret door it was they were looking for. He appeared uninjured and none the worse for the battle, but he was wearing his royal mask, his thoughts impossible to discern. Braksonoth was someone who had reported directly to the castle at times. Angulus might have known the general better than Kaika had. He’d been responsible for her missions for the last few years, but they had never interacted outside of work. She’d rarely been back in the rear long enough to get to know any of her senior officers well. Still, she knew Braksonoth’s expertise had been vital to their military and his death was a tremendous loss to the kingdom.
“Sorry we lost the other team, Sire,” Kaika said. She was awful at condolences, but felt she should try. Maybe it would matter to him.
“So am I,” he said quietly and returned to grabbing rocks.
Kaika shouldered her rifle and joined him. The cliff was cool under her hands and damp from a recent rain. She tried to find protruding rocks by the dim light of the lantern, then looked toward the ground, wondering if there might be a path worn in the stone.
She spotted something light colored against the dark rock a few feet away and walked over to look more closely. It turned out to be a small strip of clothing caught in a crack in the rock. A piece of someone’s shirt torn free in a rush? She rubbed it between her fingers. Or maybe part of a dress. There was a hem on one side, and it wasn’t sturdy fabric, nothing like a military uniform.
“Are there women out here, Sire?”
Angulus joined her. “Two of the scientists are women, yes.”
“This isn’t wet.” Kaika held the scrap out to him. “When did it rain? This morning, right? Then it cleared up this evening. At least back home.” She eyed the damp rocks, guessing the weather had been about the same here.
“You think
whoever’s garment this was went in or left after the rain? That probably means it would have been after Colonel Troskar left the facility and flew home to warn us.” Angulus frowned at the rock wall. “That doesn’t make sense. The murders had already happened by then. If anything, the soldiers and scientists should have stayed inside. Well, maybe not. Braksonoth said the threat originally came from inside. Something about a tunnel.” He thumped his fist on the wall. “I should’ve spent more time with Troskar, gotten more information from him, and from Braksonoth. Now it’s too late.”
His mask was fading again, a hint of anguish slipping through. Kaika’s instincts were to back away and let him be alone, the same as she had with Ort and Zirkander, but she laid a hand on his arm instead. He had lost his wife in the last month and now someone he’d worked with for years, if not decades.
“We’ll figure it out, Sire. Zirkander’s good, and so am I.” All right, Zirkander was good in the sky, and investigating mysteries and murders wasn’t exactly her job, but she had worked through a few puzzles in her day. True, Nowon had been the one to figure most of those out, but if examining some explosion site was key here, she could definitely do that.
Angulus looked down at her hand on his arm, and she withdrew it, suddenly feeling presumptuous. He wasn’t some colleague; he was her king. Was there a rule about commoners touching royalty? Even if the lines weren’t as strict as they had been in centuries past, there probably was.
“Thank you, Kaika.” He tilted his head as he met her eyes. “Or do you prefer Astuawilda?”
“I prefer to shoot people who call me that,” she said, wincing at the sound of the terrible syllables. “But since you’ve already been shot at tonight, I’ll just politely inform you of my preferences.” She realized she was being presumptuous again—or had that been a threat? Was it her fault that he seemed like a colleague rather than a monarch right now, dressed in plain travel clothing with his sweat-dampened hair sticking up in numerous directions? “Sire,” she added belatedly.
He didn’t seem to notice her irreverence, or the threat. “Technically, I don’t think our flier was shot at. We just had a fireball flung in our direction. Of course, my eyebrows were nearly seared off.”
“That’s probably a suitable punishment for using my first name.” She winked before she caught herself. What was she doing? Flirting?
His eyebrows twitched upward.
“Uhm.” Kaika cleared her throat and studied the cliff wall. “That protruding rock must be around here, huh?”
“Yes.” Angulus reached over her head and twisted a rounded rock. “Step back.”
A thunk sounded, followed by a scraping noise, and a clink-clink-clink of a chain unwinding. Kaika scooted to the side as a rectangular section of rock swung outward. It was large and heavy, revealing a cement tunnel wide enough to drive a steam carriage through. The passage was unexpectedly well lit. Lamps dangled from the ceiling at regular intervals, metal cages surrounding light bulbs. Electricity was still new in the capital, and Kaika had only seen such lamps a few times. There had been talk about getting wiring run to the military forts and flier hangars, but nothing had come of it yet. She certainly hadn’t expected some cave in the middle of nowhere to be so equipped.
“Sire,” General Ort said, jogging over to join them. “As the ranking officer here, I feel it’s my responsibility to keep you safe. Given that there are no troops stationed at their posts—” he waved to the ledge and also to the tunnel, which was empty of everything except those lamps, “—as I was led to believe there would be, we should return to the capital immediately. It’s not safe for you to be here.”
Zirkander walked up, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He wore a rifle across his back, but he hadn’t yet unpacked his flier.
Angulus looked at him. “Is that what you think, too, Zirkander?”
“I think I’m curious and would like to explore that tunnel, Sire.”
Ort glowered at him, his boot shifting, as if to kick his colleague in the shin. His expression never changing, Zirkander lifted his boot and set his foot down outside of Ort’s reach.
“But I do agree with General Ort insofar as your safety is concerned,” Zirkander added. “I can take you back. Ort and Kaika can look around, or they can come back too. Whatever you think is best. We’ll get Sardelle and maybe Tolemek if you’re willing to bring him out here. Then we can come back better equipped to deal with that sorceress.” He grimaced.
Sardelle had said the other sorceress, somehow woken from a centuries’ long sleep, was far more powerful than she was. It had taken Sardelle and Tolemek to distract her while Kaika set explosives in that flying fortress. And distract her was all they had done; neither of them had come close to killing the woman.
Angulus looked at Kaika. Was he asking for all of their opinions? Since she was just a captain, she was surprised he would care what she thought.
“Whatever you want to do, Sire,” she said. “I’m with you.”
She hoped that being with him wouldn’t involve her being sent home. That empty tunnel beckoned to her, promising a mystery and maybe some danger inside. Hadn’t he said something about spies and strange explosives? She could barely keep from trotting inside to explore on her own.
“Good,” Angulus murmured softly, the words seemingly just for her. He smiled slightly before turning back toward the generals. “We might be in danger all over again if we fly back. We have to assume the sorceress is still alive, and she may have more people with fliers out there. She might be able to track us down again, perhaps by the magic in the energy crystals powering our craft.”
Ort blinked. He might not have considered that they had been tracked. Zirkander nodded grimly, not appearing surprised.
“Also, I have people in here,” Angulus went on, tilting his head toward the tunnel, “people I hand-selected for this project. People who were led to believe that this was a secret facility and that they would be safe, no matter what kind of work they produced. At least two of those people are dead.” He frowned down at his hand, rubbing the piece of fabric between his fingers. “And I’m afraid there’s been more trouble since Troskar left to report that. I’m going to take a look.”
“Sire,” Ort started to protest.
Angulus stopped him with an upraised hand. “I agree that we need help. I want you to go back to the capital, Ort. Find Sardelle. You’ll bring her out here personally and anyone she thinks could be useful in dealing with the situation.” He frowned again. Not certain about Tolemek? “I also want you to tell Colonel Porthlok from Intelligence. He knows about this place. Have him pick a few solid men and bring them out. In fliers. I don’t want an entire dirigible crew to know about the facility.”
“Duck, Crash, and Colonel Sankoft from Tiger Squadron would be good,” Zirkander said. “Duck was with us on the Cofahre mission and knows quite a few secrets already. The others are trustworthy.”
“Tenderfoot and Vart from my company would be good for tunnels,” Kaika offered, not sure whether her suggestions for personnel would be considered here.
“You heard them, Ort,” Angulus said. “Hurry, and get back out here.”
“Sire.” Ort removed his cap and pushed sweaty hair back from his forehead. “I agree that there are still threats that we might run into if we fly back, but leaving you here without any guards...”
Kaika frowned. She wasn’t a bodyguard, but she could keep Angulus alive unless they faced truly overwhelming odds. “I can watch the king’s back, sir.”
Ort’s expression only grew bleaker. She tried to tell herself that he had never seen her shoot or fight and didn’t know that she was damned good at her job, but it didn’t work. She found her lips curling back in a challenge.
Zirkander slapped her on the back. “We both will. Only Kaika will do it effectively. Look, General, if you hurry, you can be back shortly after dawn. Five hours round-trip, and it won’t take long to get everyone. Sardelle’s in my new cottage outside of the city, the one th
at hasn’t been blown up yet. I figure fate is waiting until I’ve selected a new couch and really settled in to let that happen.”
Zirkander offered a smile, but neither Angulus nor Ort was looking at him, nor were they looking at Kaika. They were staring at each other, Angulus appearing stubborn and annoyed, and Ort appearing very similar.
“It’s not open for discussion, General,” Angulus said. He did relent and add, “We won’t go far. You’ve been into the testing chamber and seen the labs. It’s a defensible area. We’ll wait there for you to return with more troops.”
“Defensible against normal people, maybe,” Ort said. “What if that sorceress shows up here?”
“We left her twenty miles back. Unless she has a flier waiting for her, she won’t make it here before you get back, assuming you leave soon.”
“She might have a flier.” Ort sighed, but finally dipped his head in acceptance. “Stay safe, my liege.” Though propriety only demanded a salute, he dropped to one knee and touched his forehead before rising and walking stiffly toward his craft. “Ridge, see me to my flier.”
It seemed a strange request, since his flier was less than ten meters away, but Zirkander walked after him without comment. Angulus pocketed the fabric and took a couple of steps into the tunnel.
Kaika started after him, but paused, catching Ort’s whispered words, words that clearly weren’t meant for her—or the king—to overhear.
“What do you think about knocking him out, tying him up, and throwing him in the back of one of our fliers?” Ort asked. “It’s for his own good. It’s ludicrous for him to be out here.”
Zirkander shook his head. “I think we’d both lose our heads if we succeeded.”
“He wouldn’t kill us for trying to save his life. I don’t think.”
“Our careers, then.” Zirkander’s hand lifted toward his flier, as if to reach out and stroke it.
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