Sardelle joined Tolemek inside a storage area full of shelves and boxes adjacent to the main room. He had already found a lantern and was skimming the labels. There wasn’t another exit, so they risked being trapped inside.
“Here.” He grabbed a box that wasn’t as dusty as the others and tore off the lid. He flipped through the files and yanked one out. Two seconds of reading was all it took before he started shaking his head. “Transferred by order of the emperor. Two days ago.”
“The emperor?” Sardelle wouldn’t have thought the emperor knew of Tolemek or his family’s existence. His dominion was a hundred times more populated than that of her homeland, and in all the stories and histories, he had always been a far more distant figure than the kings of Iskandia.
“It doesn’t mean he personally gave the order.” Tolemek stuffed the file back into the box. “It could have been one of the thousand-odd peons authorized to carry out the law in his name. There’s nothing about where she was sent.” He looked like he wanted to kick over one of the stacks of boxes, but he settled for slamming the side of his fist against a wall and striding for the door.
The bang of a pistol echoed from the hallway, followed by the slam of wood against a stone wall.
“Someone found a way past my disabled door locks,” Sardelle observed. It hadn’t even taken an axe.
Tolemek poked his head into the hallway. They weren’t far from the front door.
“Maybe there’s still time to run for the exit,” Sardelle whispered.
Tolemek jerked back inside at the same time as a gun fired again. A bullet smashed into the wooden doorjamb where his head had been.
“Maybe not,” she amended.
“Guard the door,” Tolemek said, slamming it shut. He locked it and shoved a heavy desk in front of it, then ran for the file room again, his hand dipping into his bag.
Concerned about what he was planning—so far he had proven he preferred non-fatal methods of dealing with people, but he was irritated now—Sardelle brushed across his thoughts. An image of an explosion flashed across the front of his mind.
“Uhm.” She noted the four unconscious people in the main room with her, people whose only crimes were working in an inhospitable asylum. “You’re not planning on bringing down the building, are you?”
“Just a part of it.”
Footsteps thundered up the hall, stopping in front of their door. There were four people out there, and they were shouting for more to help them. The knob rattled.
Tolemek ran out of the file room, slamming the door behind him. “Can you make it so nobody can go out the front or through the kitchen for the next ten minutes or so?”
“I can try… so long as you’re not blowing up the building in a way that people might be trapped and crushed inside.”
His head tilted. “I’m not blowing up anything, simply removing a portion of the exterior wall.”
That… wasn’t what she had seen in his mind. “You were only thinking of blowing up the building?”
“That bit of fantasy might have crossed my mind, but, no, I’m not causing an explosion. Your sword is far better at that than I. Should I be offended that you were reading my thoughts?” His face grew a little sad, as if he knew she didn’t trust him.
A dozen excuses popped into Sardelle’s mind—it was one thing to snoop in another’s thoughts and another to get caught doing it—but she admitted that she wasn’t in the right here. “Yes, you should be. And I should be ashamed for doing so.”
Guns fired in the hallway, and she dropped to a crouch, expecting bullets to plow through the wood. The oak was thicker than that though, and she made it to Tolemek’s side without injury.
“Are you?” he asked.
“Am I what?” She was focused on the men in the hallway. One had an axe now.
“Ashamed.”
“Yes. There are—were—a lot of rules about respecting people’s privacy and not rifling through their thoughts. There are, admittedly, a lot of surface thoughts you receive simply by opening yourself up to those around you, but most sorcerers learn early on to block them out. It’s amazing how tempted you are to break rules when there’s nobody around to enforce them.” An acrid stench reached Sardelle’s nose. “Is that your work?”
“Yes. The doors?”
She lifted a hand and pushed her thoughts past the men knocking the hinges and doorknob off with their axe and to the front entrance. She broke the latch assembly so it would be stuck in the extended position. Such finesse was a little harder across a larger distance, and a twinge of pain started behind her eyes, but she managed to break the kitchen backdoor lock too. She would have a headache all day, but had doubtlessly needed the practice with fine-touch kinesis, anyway.
“Done,” she said. “It’s a good thing the windows are all too small to climb through.” The idea of trying to break a hundred more locks made her brain hurt even more.
Tolemek led her into the file room, where a cold draft and a surprising amount of light greeted them. A large circular hole in the back wall now provided a window onto the snowy ridge beyond the building. The wall was more than six inches thick. Smoke wafted from the edges of the hole.
“You did that with a vial and an eye dropper?” she whispered, following him to the new exit.
“A flask and a specially treated wire brush, actually.” Tolemek made sure nobody was waiting outside, then hopped through, landing in the snow. “I suggest we run.”
Sardelle clambered through awkwardly, not wanting to touch the smoking edges with her hands, but took off at top speed as soon as she landed. They slogged through the snow, this time heading straight down the steep slope instead of bothering with the road.
“We’ll have to steal horses,” Tolemek said over his shoulder, checking on her and the looming towers of the asylum as well. “No trains in the station, and the guards down there are probably on their toes right now anyway, watching for vagabonds.” He waved at the empty tracks running through the middle of the town.
“Not surprising.” Sardelle sucked in large breaths of cold air. Plowing through the snow wasn’t easy, and she stumbled more than once. “We might have to steal skis instead of horses. Or a dogsled.”
“The main road into town has been cleared,” Tolemek said dryly. “The tracks too.”
“And where are we going with our stolen horses?” Sardelle was ready to return to Ridge, but she didn’t know if Tolemek would want to beeline for the nearest library to look up those flowers.
He hesitated before answering her. “Wherever she is, we’ll probably need airships or sailing ships—or fliers—to reach her.”
The fliers may not be available.
What?
The camp has visitors.
* * *
Ridge sat backward in the cockpit of his flyer, a spyglass to his eye as he tracked the airship through the holes in the camo netting. The craft was still sailing along on the same course, heading toward the mountains, but there was a lot of activity on deck. The soft thwump-thwump-thwump of its propellers drifted down from a thousand feet in the air. Its massive balloon blotted out the sun and much of the sky.
“I think they’ve figured out we’re in here,” Ahn whispered.
All of the fliers were packed and ready, everything except the camouflage stowed for takeoff. They would have to abandon the poles and netting and take it as a loss. Their propellers weren’t running yet—the noise would be a giveaway—but they could start them at a touch. The fliers’ glowing energy crystals were covered, so the light wouldn’t seep out. It shouldn’t be noticeable from afar in the daylight, anyway, but they couldn’t risk that something would glint or gleam. Even a spyglass reflecting the sun could be visible from a long distance away, and that would instantly tell those watching that something fishy was going on inside the mound tucked into the base of the foothills.
“Maybe not,” Duck whispered. “They haven’t stopped. They’re still floating toward the mountains.”
T
hey hadn’t stopped, but they weren’t moving at anything near their full speed. And all those people running around on deck made Ridge nervous. He slid into the cockpit, fastened his harness, and rested his fingers on the propeller ignition button. He ought to give the order to fly right now. Only his knowledge that the greater mission was at risk of failing if the fliers were discovered stayed his hand. More than that, Nowon and Kaika would be at risk if the soldiers guarding the installation were alerted.
Still, he had a hunch they were in trouble if they didn’t move.
“It’s time,” Ridge said. “We’re taking them on.”
“Are you sure, sir?” Apex asked.
He was going to have to be. Ridge mashed on the ignition switch, and his propeller ripped to life. “Follow me,” he said, then remembered to tap the communication crystal to activate it. Otherwise his people wouldn’t be able to hear him over the noise of their own propellers roaring to life.
He rolled toward the break in the camo net at the back, a gap large enough for the fliers to escape through. He almost knocked over a pole, but squeezed past without dropping the netting. The last thing he needed was to get his propeller tangled in his own camo.
“They’re launching something,” Ahn shouted.
“Aircraft?” Ridge asked, thinking of the unmanned fliers. He cleared the netting and jabbed the thruster switch. A steep slope rose right ahead of him, so there was no time for a runway-style takeoff.
Explosive, came a warning in his mind. Get out of there.
“Move,” Ridge barked, not questioning the sword. “It’s a bomb! Out, now!”
He was already in the air, angling up and away from the Cofah craft—he had wanted to pick up speed and come in from above rather than risking its guns from below, but he craned his neck, trying to spot the bomb.
“I hit the gods damned pole,” Duck said.
“Don’t worry about the netting,” Ahn said. “Go straight up.”
Cold wind scraped across Ridge’s cheeks and whipped his scarf about, but he spotted his target. The bomb. He swooped toward the falling cylinder, firing and hoping. If the airship hadn’t been so far above them, there never would have been time, but if he could catch it as it dropped through his sights…
He wasn’t sure he hit it until it exploded with an ear-splitting boom. A fiery sun filled the sky above the camo mound, shrapnel flying in every direction. Ridge ducked as he flew through the explosion zone. Shards slammed into his windshield, and glass cracked. The camo netting itself had been close enough to the blast that it caught fire, and flames leaped up from what had appeared to be a mound of earth a moment before.
He wondered if he had been responsible for hitting the bomb or if the sword had helped him.
That was you, hero. Our flier got out, so I was worried more about what’s going on up there now.
Our flier. Ridge supposed it was good that Jaxi, secured beneath the back seat, considered herself in the same predicament as he even if she might survive an explosion.
Might?
Knowing he would be a target to the airship above him, Ridge didn’t take the time to respond. He banked and picked a weaving route through the air. He also checked on his people as he swooped about.
“Did everyone get out?” he asked, searching the sky. There was Ahn and Apex… “Duck?”
“Over here, sir.” Duck sounded miserable, but he sounded alive too.
Ridge finally spotted him. He wasn’t in the air—his flyer was bumbling and rolling across the snowy steppe, a portion of the netting tangled in his propeller. “Figure that out and get into the air, Duck.”
“Yes, sir.” So that was what mortified sounded like.
Ridge streaked into the air, knowing he would have to distract the airship for a while before his team could form up and fly north, as he had planned. His lack of preparedness embarrassed him. He should have known all along that the Cofah would spot them. What a mess.
A cannonball screamed over his wing, reminding Ridge to focus on the fight and worry about being embarrassed at their showing later.
Jaxi—what did you mean earlier? What is going on up there now?
He didn’t get an answer. He would have to see for himself.
With his unpredictable zigging, he dodged three more cannonballs on his way up. He finally climbed above the airship, firing rounds at the big gray envelope as he rose. He had a look at the deck on his way up and tried to guess what might have been worrying Jaxi. He caught a glimpse of something in the back near the cabin—several large metallic somethings, but the balloon blocked his view before he could identify them.
Duck’s flier had shaken free from the netting and found the air, more than a mile out over the steppes. It would be a couple of minutes before he circled around and got into the fight, but Ahn and Apex were rising behind Ridge, also evading the cannons firing in their direction.
“Keep the men on deck busy for now,” Ridge said. “Remember, we don’t want to bring it down until we reach the mountains. Finish your coffee and join us, Duck.”
“Very funny, sir.”
“It’s my wit that keeps me in the general’s good graces.” Ridge left a few holes in the airship’s balloon, then dove down to follow his own instructions. He aimed at the gunners manning the cannons, but even more, he wanted a look at those metal machines. Were they some kind of new weapon?
A circular disk spun out from an unusual launcher on the aft deck. Ridge avoided it easily, but it surprised him by exploding in the sky. Even from twenty meters away, the force rocked his flier. He kept control, but a cable moaned ominously.
“Watch the disks,” he said. “They’re bombs.”
Ridge looped upward, then flipped and came down again, this time gunning for the man hurling those disks. His bullets strafed the deck, and his target ducked down behind the big artillery weapon. Ridge shot at it, hoping he might cause one of the disks to explode.
“The Cofah have been busy upgrading their weapons this past year,” Apex observed.
“They could have had the technology for a while,” Ridge said, not taking his eyes from the launcher he was targeting. “They’re probably trying things out at home before revealing them to us.”
“Or maybe they just think we’re so unimportant that they don’t bring their best equipment when they attack our homeland,” Ahn said.
“I don’t have a problem with that,” Duck said. “I have trouble enough with our own equipment.”
“So we see.”
One of Ridge’s incendiary bullets found the ammunition pile. The explosion demolished the launcher and blew away a chunk of the deck and railing.
Before he could congratulate himself, a grim-sounding Ahn spoke. “Those are fliers. Manned ones this time.”
“Four of them,” Apex added.
Ridge banked, turning away from the smoke and fire he had created, and coasted along the length of the airship, closer than he should have dared—he wanted to see what his pilots had seen. Yes, the metallic contraptions he had glimpsed earlier had wings, bodies, and propellers. These must be the new Cofah fliers he had heard about. They were in motion, too, rolling along the deck, toward an opening in the railing. They were picking up speed to take off, using the airship as a launching pad.
A number of Cofah warriors with rifles were racing toward Ridge’s side of the deck. He turned his belly toward them and flew down and away. They weren’t going to catch him gawking. A few bullets streaked in his direction, but they missed as he bobbed and dipped.
“Now’s the time,” Ridge said. “Head north. Let them think we’re afraid of them.”
“Afraid?” Duck said. “I can’t wait to see what they can do.”
“This from the man who got his propeller tangled in his own camo netting,” Apex said.
“Well, I wasn’t planning on challenging them personally. I thought I’d fly around, distracting them so Raptor can tear into them with her guns.”
“What are you going to do to be
that distracting?” Ahn asked, rare amusement in her voice.
“Haven’t you seen me in the annual Harvest Show? I juggled pumpkins last year while flying with my foot.”
“Yes, that was the third time you ended up in the harbor.” Ridge took point, and the three other fliers fell into position beside and behind him. “We didn’t put that one on his official record, since he was flying in some retired festival plane for a private businessman, one who will be carrying more insurance for future festivals, I understand.”
“The flier was still perfectly serviceable after the event,” Duck said. “And it wasn’t as if I crashed. Water landings are a legitimate option. The passenger fliers that take the doctors around in the country do them all the time.”
“Those fliers have floats instead of wheels.” Ridge twisted to look behind him. The four Cofah craft were in the air and had formed a modified arrowhead formation, not dissimilar to that of Ridge’s own squadron. He wondered if the empire had studied Iskandian techniques. Either way, the enemy fliers were coming after them, and it looked like the airship was giving chase too.
“A minor detail,” Duck said.
“They’re not as fast as us,” Apex said. “They’re falling behind.”
“Ease back a bit. Let them think they can catch us. In fact…” Ridge fished in the emergency supply kit fastened to the side of his seat. He pulled out a flare, lit it, and tossed it into the foot well of the seat behind him. It would fall out as soon as he flew upside down, but in the meantime, a stream of gray-blue smoke poured from the end.
He wobbled his wings and started dipping, then pulling back up, as if he were having trouble controlling the flier.
“That’s an act, right, sir?” Duck asked.
“Yup, pretending to be a little injured.” By now, the snow-covered steppes had turned into snow-covered mountain slopes, with thick stands of evergreens blanketing the hillsides below. They flew over a craggy ridge, and more peaks rose up, along with numerous rocky cliffs and crevices. “I believe I’m going to have so much trouble that I nearly crash in that canyon.”
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