One that hadn’t been attacked yet knelt and fired wildly, eyes bulging as he peered all around the chamber and its multiple exits. He spotted Trip and Kaika.
Trip formed a barrier in front of them, one of the drills Jaxi hadn’t minded helping him refine. Kaika ducked back behind the doorway as the guard fired toward them. Bullets ricocheted off the invisible barrier. Trip hoped one would bounce back and hit the man in the leg.
The next one did exactly that and lodged in the guard’s thigh. The man screamed and dropped his weapon.
Did I do that? Trip asked, horrified.
The powerful must be more careful than anyone else with what they wish for, Jaxi said.
Trip was relieved he hadn’t imagined the bullet taking his foe in the chest. There had already been enough deaths. As unwholesome and disturbing as this cult was, he couldn’t forget that he was the invader here. He did not regret stopping the sacrifice, but he couldn’t accept that killing everyone here was the right thing to do. With the leader gone, that might be enough to end this.
Azarwrath swept another man’s pistol out of his grip and dumped it in the water as he hurled the rest of the guards against the walls. Some groaned and rose to their feet, but others remained where they were or tried to crawl into dim recesses to hide.
Kaika poked her head back around the doorjamb. “That’s disappointing.”
“They’re all still alive,” Trip said, thinking she believed them dead.
“I mean that you didn’t leave any for me to fight. Trip, my skills get rusty if I don’t get to use them now and then.”
“Sorry, you can blame Azarwrath.”
“That doesn’t sound healthy.” Kaika eyed the wall where the last man had struck—twenty feet above the ground.
“Probably not.”
Trip strode toward the river and was wondering how cold the water would be when Azarwrath put his wind-manipulation skill to work again. A cushion of air formed under Trip, lifting him from his feet. The girl outside of the cage had already been staring at him with saucer-like eyes, but she dropped to her knees now. Azarwrath had plucked her guards up and hurled them away without harming her, but she seemed to believe she would be the next target.
“We’re friends,” Trip said, as he walked through the air three feet above the water.
Four more young women stood inside the cage, gripping the bars. The man Kaika had identified as Moe Zirkander watched with his hands in his pockets and his head cocked to the side. He didn’t appear terrified of Trip—maybe he recognized the Iskandian uniform—but he did seem puzzled.
“How are you doing, Rock Cheetah?” Kaika asked from behind Trip. She was being floated across too.
The man peered at her. “I believe I remember you.”
“Your mind is as sharp as your son’s propeller blades.”
“I definitely remember now. Captain Kaika. Deliverer of kittens.”
“Kittens make excellent house-warming gifts. I hear they keep the ravens and turtles away.”
Trip had no idea what they were talking about and simply strode to the cage as soon as his feet touched down. An old, half-rusted lock hung from the gate. He glanced toward a couple of the unconscious guards, wondering if one of them had the key.
If you can’t open that with your mind, Jaxi said, you’ll never master page one of the workbook.
Trip blushed, wondering how long it would take him to learn to think like a sorcerer rather than a typical person.
Probably until you embrace your heritage and realize there’s nothing wrong with being atypical, Azarwrath said.
Not ready to respond to that, Trip imagined himself seeing through the steel casing to the inner workings. The mechanism was simple, and he saw right away how to push the pins against the springs so he could turn the lock. With a few mental nudges, the shank clunked open.
You could have simply melted the lock, Jaxi said. Or snapped the metal.
Is there something wrong with subtlety and finesse?
It’s slow and boring.
In other words, Azarwrath said, no, there is not.
Jaxi did the sword equivalent of sticking a tongue out and phhhhting into their minds.
“How did you get here, sir?” Kaika asked the senior Zirkander.
Trip opened the gate for the prisoners to walk out and waved toward the other girl, inviting her to join them. He tried to look nonthreatening. Given the circumstances of his arrival, that might not be possible.
“I’ve been searching for the Forbidden Treasure of Amon Akarth for the last two years, since I located the Lost Treasure of Anksari Prime only to learn it had already been looted. So disappointing. But I made many excellent maps of the underground tunnel system on Echeroh Island. I sold them to the university back home for nearly two thousand nucros, which was enough to fund the supply purchasing for a new mission. Amon Akarth is reputed to have gold and silver, but even better, ancient maps and tablets of a language that predates Old Iskandian and Tvakmar. It’s reputed to be here on Rakgorath. Not, however, in an old dragon-rider outpost full of ridiculously gullible cultists.” He harrumphed and glared at the fallen guards.
“Is it just me,” Kaika asked, “or did he fail to explain how he arrived here with a bunch of nubile virgins?”
“I don’t know, but we should get out of here. Eventually, the rest of the cultists are going to come back.” Trip looked at the huge dragon statue and the sacrifice table under its talons. Now that they were closer, he could see dried bloodstains on the top of that table. He felt queasy.
Did that statue represent Agarrenon Shivar? And if so, had the dragon condoned all this? That cult leader had thought so. Fervently. As if this was something that had been done thousands of years ago when the dragon had presided over his ancestors. But it wasn’t as if the man, someone who hadn’t been more than forty or fifty, had been there all those centuries ago. He couldn’t truly know. These modern-day cultists could have perverted the original message and made a religion out of nothing. Some uneducated, ancient people not familiar with the power of dragons might have seen their magic as godlike and turned Agarrenon Shivar into a divinity without the dragon even knowing it.
“Has anyone seen my notebooks?” Moe peered behind a boulder, then lifted one of the unconscious guard’s legs to look under it. “My maps? My tools? What did these ignorant troglodytes do with all my gear?”
“Trip? Are you ready to go?” Kaika asked. “Or do you need to stare at that statue while you fondle the lock a while longer?”
Trip snorted, glancing at the lock. He hadn’t realized he’d kept it. Shrugging, he stuck it in a pocket. He might find a purpose for it.
It clanked softly against a couple of other metal knickknacks he’d picked up along the trail heading here. Mostly litter left by the locals, but he had a notion that he might repurpose the items to create a toy for General Zirkander’s new baby.
“Oh, sir.” Trip turned toward Moe. “You probably haven’t heard the news. Sardelle delivered a new baby boy just a week ago.”
He expected the man—the grandfather—to exclaim in delight or thump Trip on the shoulder, but he kept searching behind boulders and said only, “Did she? Huh.”
He clambered up on the table and peered behind the slab.
Trip felt dumbfounded by the underwhelming reaction.
“Is it—he—normal?” Moe squinted back at him.
“Sir?”
“She’s a witch. Didn’t you know?” Moe patted around behind the table, pulled out a human arm bone, and tossed it aside. “Can’t believe the boy married a witch.”
Trip shifted uneasily at the condemnation, abruptly not wanting to draw attention to himself or his abilities. Probably too late since Moe had seen him levitate over a river. Though, if he recognized the soulblades, he might think they had been responsible.
In conflict with his instinct to withdraw and hide his abilities, Trip had the urge to lift his chin and say something in Zirkander’s defense. How could
Moe think so little of his son’s wife and family? Sardelle was nice, too, even when she made students practice things a thousand times. How could a father-in-law not like her?
Then Trip remembered Zirkander’s words to him the day they had fished, that fathers didn’t always get the children they wanted. And vice versa.
“I saw the kid,” Kaika said. “He’s bald with a squishy face. Seems pretty normal. No horns.”
“Good. It’s not good to be a witch. Or a world-renowned treasure hunter.” He flung a hand toward the chamber ceiling. “You see the kinds of places it gets you.”
“Yes, remind us again how you got here with the women?” Kaika waved toward them.
They’d gathered around her, giving Trip a wide berth. A couple were whispering among themselves, but the others, including the one who’d been seconds away from being sacrificed, watched the goings on numbly, as if they were too shocked to think and react.
“The cultist bastards saw me in town and kidnapped me.” Moe stood up atop the table, looking all around from his elevated position. “I don’t think my notes are here. We can’t leave without them.”
“Why did they kidnap you? You don’t look like a very succulent sacrifice for a dragon.”
Moe huffed. “No kidding. They recognized me—my reputation precedes me even in this benighted place, you understand—and thought I could lead them to their dragon god. They’re certain he’s alive and in Linora again now that other dragons are about. I can’t believe these fools didn’t know where their own religion was founded.”
“Do you know where Agarrenon Shivar is?” Trip asked.
“I know where he was buried three thousand years ago. Jralk Mountain over there.” Moe waved toward a wall. “At the edge of the mountain range over there.”
“Uhm, I’m fairly certain he was alive about twenty-five years ago.”
“Don’t be foolish, boy.” Moe frowned at him. “Captain. Are you old enough to have that rank?”
“General Zirkander thinks so.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter how old and wise you are anymore. As long as you spin upside down in one of those horrific flying contraptions and shoot other people in horrific flying contraptions.” Moe hopped down from the table, surprisingly spry for someone who looked to be in his seventies.
“Why didn’t you tell the cultists what they wanted to know?” Kaika asked, her determination to question the scatter-brained man admirable.
“Oh, I did. They didn’t believe me. As if I don’t know what I’m talking about. Do you know how many tombs I’ve researched over the years? To say nothing of all the temples, ziggurats, pyramids, crypts, and ancient towns buried by volcanos I’ve visited in person. I’m more knowledgeable than—”
“We could use some help,” came a call from across the river.
Trip had been focused on Moe and hadn’t had his senses extended to watch for enemies—or friends—heading their way. Blazer and Duck walked through the doorway under the balcony, supporting Rysha between them, her feet dragging along, her chin drooped to her chest. Unconscious? His heart stuttered. Dead?
No. As soon as he brushed her with his senses, he felt that she was alive. She wasn’t unconscious, either, not completely. She seemed to be floating in and out of awareness, her body flushed with fever.
Trip ran and sprang out over the river, willing himself to sail across it but hardly caring if he failed. He would swim to her if he had to. But his momentum and whatever power he half-heartedly applied carried him more than forty feet to the other side.
Duck’s eyes widened as he landed, but Trip only spared him a glance. He sprinted to the trio and slipped his arms around Rysha. Duck and Blazer let go, and Trip lowered her to the ground.
Azarwrath? He narrowed the focus of his senses, seeking and finding her injury. He also found something flowing through her blood, a malevolent presence spreading through her limbs and heading for her heart. Can you help me?
Of course. It’s venom. We will destroy it, and then lend her some of your energy to help her body recover from the ordeal.
Trip nodded, relieved that Azarwrath didn’t sound daunted. He just hoped the soulblade wasn’t pretending it was a simple problem to keep Trip from worrying. When he should worry. He touched Rysha’s fevered cheek, and even though she didn’t groan or even react, he could feel pain radiating from her.
Azarwrath had mentioned dealing with the venom first, and he could sense tendrils of the soulblade’s power spreading into her body, but Trip willed some of his own energy to flow into her right away. He wanted to make sure her body had the resources it needed to heal. And he longed to take away her pain. Even if it meant drawing it into his own body. Was there a way he could do that?
Since Azarwrath was busy with the venom and Jaxi wasn’t a healer, Trip simply tried to make it happen through sheer will. He envisioned all of her pain disappearing, a tingling warmth flowing into her, much as he’d experienced when he’d been healed by Sardelle, and he imagined crushing every tiny mote of venom within her.
Rysha gasped, stirring in his arms. He opened his eyes to check her face, terrified that he’d made it worse.
She stared up at him, her eyes bright. And clear of pain?
Harrumph. Azarwrath buzzed on his hip. If you didn’t need my help, you could have said so.
What do you mean?
You healed her, genius, Jaxi said. Leftie would suggest that you give her The Look and collect a kiss.
Leftie is kind of an ass.
Glad you’ve noticed.
“Rysha?” he whispered, lifting a thumb to touch her cheek again.
“Trip.” Tears appeared in her eyes, but he didn’t sense pain from her. “I didn’t want to die without helping you. Or without my parents knowing. Or because a stupid spider bit me.”
“A spider?”
Had a spider poured that much venom into her? He didn’t have a healer’s experience, but he would have guessed a giant rattlesnake or something comparable.
“The spider weighed about fifty pounds,” Duck said dryly.
“I’m sorry,” Rysha said, her eyes locked to Trip’s, neither of them paying attention to anyone else. “All I’ve found so far is a rubbing of a railing.”
“I don’t know what that is, but I’m sure it’s lovely.” He pulled her higher off the ground so he could wrap his arms around her.
She slid her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. “Thank you,” she mumbled, then repeated it in her mind. Thank you, Trip.
I’m glad I was here for you, he thought back before he could consider if she would object to telepathy. And that I could do something.
Her grip tightened around him, fingers curling around the back of his neck. This close to her, he sensed her thoughts. He hadn’t been trying to wall himself off, so they flooded over him, how she’d been certain she would die and had been devastated it would have meant not being able to help him complete his quest. How she would have left him here in some dingy outpost to figure everything out for himself. She was relieved that wouldn’t happen now and thought how nice it would be to kiss him. But she wouldn’t, not with the others looking on. If only they would go away. She could truly thank him, wrapping her arms and legs around him and pulling him down to the floor, sliding her tongue across his lips and—
A twinge of discomfort came from Rysha, and he pulled back, afraid he was leaning too much of his weight on her. He mentally drew back, too, abashed that he’d been reading her thoughts, invading her privacy. And more abashed because he hadn’t wanted to stop. He’d wanted to urge her to make those thoughts a reality, and who cared who was looking on?
“You’re poking me with something, Trip,” Rysha said.
“I’ll bet,” Blazer muttered from a few feet away.
Rysha rolled her eyes and pointed a finger at one of Trip’s shirt pockets, the one he’d stuck the lock and his other metal scraps in.
“Oh, those are my finds.”
“Finds?�
� She slipped her fingers into his pocket and drew out a coiled piece of tin, the lid from a fish container. One of her eyebrows arched. She put it back and pulled out the rusty lock. “You’re still a very odd boy, Trip.”
“I know. You still like that, right?”
“Yeah, I do.” Her gaze dipped to his mouth, and there seemed to be a promise of later in her considering look. He hoped so.
“Shit, where did our treasure hunter go?” Kaika asked, peering over the heads of the young women gathered around her.
What were they supposed to do with these women? Trip hadn’t considered that when he’d been determined to rescue everybody. Could they get back to the city by themselves? Showing up there didn’t seem like a good idea for the team. But at least one of those girls had an Iskandian accent, so she probably wasn’t a native. Where had these thugs gotten their sacrifice victims?
“Who?” Blazer asked.
“We found Moe Zirkander in a cage with all these girls.”
“Zirkander? Is that—”
“The general’s papa, yes,” Kaika said. “I think you met him at one of the barbecues a couple of years back.”
“He’s here?”
“Well, not at the moment.”
Trip turned, reaching out with his senses as well as looking with his eyes. Moe had left the chamber, but Trip located him nearby. “I believe he’s looking for the notebooks the zealots took from him.”
“Notebooks? Yes, I should take some notes too.” Rysha peered around, seeing her new surroundings for the first time. “And more rubbings. Is that a pre-Arkrovian dragon statue?” Her thoughts had clearly turned from kisses as she rolled to the side to push herself to her feet.
“I think you’ll need to rest a while first.” Trip held his hands out, wanting to stop her from rising, but settling for staying close enough to catch her if she fell.
“This is hardly an infirmary. Those people are still searching the—erg.” Rysha wobbled before she made it higher than her knees. She lifted a hand to her head, and Trip caught her as she swayed.
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