Ridge stirred, lifting a hand toward her, but he let it drop again. Uncertain.
“I sense that something’s been done,” Sardelle said when she could find a more normal tone again. “You don’t owe me anything, but if you could tell me where she—the sword—is, I would appreciate it.”
“Actually, I owe you… much. More than what I thought, I’m beginning to realize.”
Was that why he was here? Because he felt he owed her something?
Sardelle swallowed. It was better than not having him talking to her at all, and yet she wished he had come simply because he cared.
“What’s a sherastu?” he asked.
“It’s a title. Mage advisor. We worked alongside the military and the clan leaders to defend Iskandia from the Cofah and other invaders.”
Ridge nodded to himself. “This afternoon, when that owl showed up again, distracting us so the airship could sneak in for attacks, no odd little blasts of wind hit it.”
So, she hadn’t been as circumspect as she had hoped with her attacks. “Sorry. I was busy down there. I didn’t know the fort was under attack.”
“Yes, when the general got the report on the devastation down there, his face turned so red, I thought he would pass out.”
“What happened down there wasn’t intentional,” Sardelle said. “I was just trying to get the sword. If I’d had more time, I could have been more careful. I wasn’t expecting a water source.”
“Nax is certain you sabotaged the tunnels on purpose so we couldn’t pull out any more crystals.”
“I almost crushed and drowned myself in the process. I assure you it wasn’t intentional. Also, these crystals you value so much, they’re meaningless to me. They were our light fixtures.”
“I believe you. I—did you say light fixtures?” For the first time, a hint of Ridge’s humor shown through. Tickled by the concept, was he? Good.
“They hung on the ceilings. Honestly, if you gave me a few days to study, I could probably make them for you.”
Ridge’s response was somewhere between a snort, a cough, and maybe that was a laugh. “Well, that would be one more argument I could make for keeping you alive.” His comment sobered him though. He stepped forward, his face grim. “The Cofah are on the horizon again, or the general might already be down here with his chosen interrogator. He thinks you’re too dangerous to keep alive. You need to… ” He glanced toward the hallway, perhaps making sure the guard hadn’t returned. “You need to not be here when he comes.”
“Did you come to leave the door open for me?”
“Do I… need to do that? That young man out there—” Ridge waved toward the hallway, “—he’ll be back soon, and he respects me. I would rather not have him think I’m a traitor. I just wanted to make sure you knew and that you could find a way out on your own.” He gazed into her eyes. “Can you?”
“Yes. I was waiting for things to quiet down out there, and I was hyperventilating a little because I couldn’t communicate—er, feel—my sword.” Sardelle studied his face. She wanted to ask him if telling her Jaxi’s location would make him a traitor in his people’s eyes—or in his own, which probably mattered more to him, no matter what he had said about the guard. But at the same time, she didn’t want to press him to go against his morals. She could find it on her own. Someone else would have the information and she could, despite what she had told Ridge, access it.
“It’s in an iron box in what used to be my office and is now Nax’s,” Ridge said.
Iron. Of course. It blocked the sensing of magic in a way miles of stone didn’t. Sardelle slumped against the wall. Jaxi was in an office fifty meters away, not at the bottom of some distant chasm. “I see your people haven’t forgotten all Referatu lore in the last three centuries.”
“Heriton studied up after he found that book.” Ridge wanted to say more—his thoughts burned at the front of his mind with such intensity that she got the gist without trying to read him. He wanted to elicit a promise from her that she wouldn’t hurt anyone on the way to retrieving her sword, but he didn’t want to have to ask. He wanted to trust her. He just wasn’t sure anymore.
Though that uncertainty stung, Sardelle chose to see it as a good sign. In time, maybe he would get used to the idea of her as a sorceress. Maybe…
She shook her head. She would worry about that later. For now, she had to escape and retrieve Jaxi before the mob dragged her out for a shooting.
“Thank you for the information,” Sardelle said. “I’ll be careful. Nobody will see me.”
Ridge exhaled slowly, surreptitiously. “Good.”
Sardelle sensed someone walking into the building upstairs. “My guard is returning.”
Ridge glanced toward the hallway. “I’ll try not to find it disturbing that you knew that before I did.” He sighed and looked back at her, holding her eyes for a moment.
Hoping for a kiss would be too much at this point, and yet…
“Want to rub my dragon?” Ridge asked.
Sardelle blinked. “What?”
He fished the wooden figurine out of his pocket.
“Oh.” She offered a sheepish shrug—that was not where her mind had gone—and stuck her hand out. Enh, why not?
Feeling silly, she rubbed the belly of the wooden dragon and handed it back to Ridge.
“Sir?” the guard asked from the hallway.
“Yes, I’m done.” Ridge pocketed his lucky charm. “Thank you, Private.”
The young man squinted into the cell, assessing Sardelle but not quite meeting her eyes. “You’re brave, sir.”
“Uh huh.” Ridge stepped into the hall.
“Is it going to be all right for me to be out here, sir?” the private whispered. “General Nax said the iron door was supposed to keep her from getting out, but I… I also heard—overheard—him tell someone I was expendable.”
Ridge snorted. “Nax is expendable. You’ll be fine, soldier. Now, shut the door, eh? We wouldn’t want her to escape.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.”
The door thumped shut, and if the men spoke further, Sardelle didn’t hear it. An iron door? They thought that would keep her in here? If they had lined the whole cell in iron, it would have kept her from sensing or communicating with the outside world, but it wouldn’t have done anything to nullify her actual power. Still, Sardelle couldn’t help but feel very alone again when the key thunked in the lock. Ridge had helped her, but she also had a feeling that had been a goodbye as well.
* * *
Ridge hadn’t taken more than three steps out of the confinement building when shouts started up on the wall.
“They’re coming again.”
“To the weapons!”
Ridge couldn’t spot the airship in the night sky yet, but he trusted the lookouts. He jogged not to the wall but to the flier perched on its landing legs near the frozen stream, its hull as clean and rust-free as it was going to get. He wasn’t surprised to find Captain Bosmont standing next to a wing, the engine already humming in the back of the craft.
“Ready for that test run, sir?” he asked.
Ridge glanced toward the horizon. “Yes.”
“I figured you might be. Got her as ready as I could while everyone was worrying about our witch.”
Ridge’s jaw tightened at the word witch, but he didn’t correct Bosmont. That didn’t matter now. Getting in the sky and helping the fort did. “Thank you, Captain.”
“If anyone can take that airship down, you can.”
Ridge climbed into the cockpit. “I appreciate your faith.”
“Good. But you should also know, if you wreck this baby I spent so many hours on, I’m going to hunt you down in whatever level of hell they stick you in.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Captain.”
“Oh, and one more thing, sir,” Bosmont said, a grin splitting his broad face. “I made a little something extra for you, to keep you warm up there.”
“Chicken soup?”
�
��Not exactly.” The engineer winked. “They’re down by your feet.”
No sooner had Ridge slid into the stitched up leather cockpit seat and pulled his harness across his chest when an irritated call came up from below. “Where in all the cursed realms do you think you’re going, Colonel?”
“To stop that airship, General.”
“Were you going to ask for permission first or just do whatever you felt like, as usual?”
Ridge smirked down at the man. “The latter, naturally.”
He fired up the lift thrusters, drowning out Nax’s reply. He was going to be in so much trouble after this was all sorted out that it hardly mattered what he did at this point. Maybe if he took down the Cofah airship, his disrespect—and his dalliance with Sardelle—might be forgotten or at least treated with lenience. And if he failed utterly against the Cofah, the only threat he had to worry about was Bosmont’s.
When the thrusters pushed into the earth, the engineer and general scurrying back, and the flier inched off the ground, Ridge let out a relieved breath. If he hadn’t gotten off the ground, he would have felt idiotic about his insubordination. But the craft responded to his touch, if more sluggishly than he would have preferred. The crystal in the back glowed, illuminating his control panel. At least that was at full power. A ceiling light. The ridiculousness of it all almost made him throw his head back and laugh.
Later. The Cofah ship was visible now, not hovering above the distant peaks, but sailing straight toward the fort.
Ridge hit the switch that lowered a cover over the crystal, and the light disappeared. No need to make it obvious to the enemy that he was coming. His hands knew the controls well; he didn’t need to see to fly this craft.
As it rose above the fort walls, wind whipped through his short hair, and the chill air burned his ears. Usually he would have a leather cap and goggles, but he hadn’t been expecting to fly out here. All of his piloting gear was back in his locker on base. Tonight, he would have to make do without. One way or another, he doubted he would be in the sky long.
Once he had enough altitude, Ridge nudged the controls, taking the flier toward a rocky ridge the airship was paralleling. Maybe he could sneak behind her that way—the dark metal hull blending in with the bare slope—and attack from behind while the Cofah were focused on the cannons and rocket launchers in the fort. The soft clink-thunks of the engine shouldn’t be audible over the wind and the airship’s own machinery. He hoped.
Ridge took the flier to a higher altitude than the airship, though he was careful to keep the rocks behind him, and not the snow. He would stand out like a beacon against a white backdrop. Higher was often better, though, especially with airship captains who rarely took their slow-moving craft into battles. When they did, they were often used to looking down to drop bombs, not up to fend off attacks.
The men on the deck were visible as Ridge passed by, bundled so heavily against the icy wind that they seemed to waddle from place to place. The number of people manning the cannons disturbed him. Not only that, but the sheer number of cannons. He supposed he should have expected that, based on the damage the craft had done to the fort during its last attack. Clearly this particular airship had been created for war, maybe even specifically for this mission: to destroy the only source of the Iskandian dragon flier power supplies.
Ridge was tempted to bank and veer in, tilting his wings as he flew by so he could strafe the deck with his bullets. They were preparing something to one side, a smaller balloon and a big basket. An escape craft? Something for launching bombs? Or maybe for delivering troops. He almost attacked it, but he wanted to go for a more important target on his first run. He could only surprise them once.
The flier passed the airship, and, staying above them, keeping the stars at his back, he glided through a turn. He grimaced at the pull in the controls, the jerky way the craft responded. Tonight’s run might be all she had in her. He could only hope it was enough.
He leveled the craft and headed toward the back of the airship. If this one was true to other Cofah designs, the engines would be in the rear, hidden below decks and behind those wooden planks, planks that might be reinforced with metal. The airships might look a lot like the Cofah sailing ships that plundered the seas, but they were more advanced, usually with superior defenses. His guns could still do damage though. And he could always target the balloon, though it would take a lot of holes to let out enough gas to bring it down.
With the lights of the fort visible between the deck and the balloon, Ridge struck. He squeezed a trigger, and guns blasted, punching holes into the rear of the ship. Shouts arose on deck, just audible over the wind. Men raced for cannons at the back of the deck.
Tears burned his eyes, streaking back into his hair, and Ridge again lamented his missing goggles, but he didn’t falter in his mission. He kept firing until those men were close to targeting him, then he pulled the nose up, hurling a few rounds into the balloon before rising above it. He slowed his speed as much as he could, putting that balloon between him and the deck so he would seem to disappear to those below. The flier would drop out of the sky if it tried to pace the airship, so he made tight circles above it. He couldn’t see the Cofah any more than they could see him, but he hoped he had them consternated—and distracted.
A boom came from the fort, the first cannon firing from the walls. The ball sailed by a few meters to the side of the airship, but another cannon blasted on the heels of the first. Those on the airship deck should be busy now. Time for Ridge to do some more damage.
He guided the flier away from the balloon, rising again so it would be difficult for them to see, then swooping around to target the airship from the rear once more. That was the intent anyway. Something streaked out of the darkness, arrowing right at him.
A cannonball, that was his first thought, but that would have moved too quickly to see, and this was bigger anyway. Much bigger.
Ridge banked hard, his left wing tipping toward the sky. The object—no, the creature—blurred past him, missing by inches. Far more agile than he, it turned back toward the flier before he realized what he was dealing with. If he hadn’t seen it before, he would have been mystified, but this wasn’t the owl’s first appearance.
Ridge swooped left and right, trying to make a difficult target for the creature, even as he distanced himself from the airship. He didn’t want to be visible to their cannons while the owl distracted them. It screeched, raising all the hair on his body. Not only was the unearthly cry eerie… it was close. He glanced back, searching for it against the snowy peaks and the stars, but it was playing the same game he had with the airship. Only better. How could a mechanical contraption rival the grace of nature? Granted, some sorcerer had perverted the creature, but it still had all the agility of a bird of prey.
Something slammed into the top of the flier. Metal screeched in Ridge’s ear. He shrank low in his seat, though he kept his hands on the controls. He twisted his neck and glimpsed spread wings and beady yellow eyes—the cursed thing had its talons locked around a bar on the frame. It wasn’t more than three feet from Ridge. The cockpit was partially enclosed, but not fully. A giant owl could slip its talons in and slash his neck.
“So attack it first, eh?”
Easier said than done. Ridge banked hard, shaking the creature free. Then he accelerated, flying over the fort. He wasn’t sure it was the best direction—with that idiot Nax in charge, Ridge might very well get shot down by his own people—but it was the only way that offered room to accelerate without having to climb over a mountain.
He pushed the engines to maximum power, hoping the owl couldn’t match the speed. In a dive, a bird could drop as quickly as his flier, but surely wings couldn’t flap as quickly as propellers rotated. He twisted his neck again, looking behind him. His own personal flier back home had mirrors, but he hadn’t thought to install them here. Silly of him not to anticipate attacks by giant birds.
The owl was trailing him, its massive wings flap
ping, but falling behind. Ridge thought about trying to pull up right before he hit the side of the mountain ahead—hoping it would be so intent on chasing him that it smashed into the rocks—but he reminded himself that this wasn’t another pilot-flown machine, this was a bird, something far more agile than his flier. Especially this flier.
Instead, when he had pulled ahead as much as he could without running into a mountain, he banked hard, turning back toward the owl. He lined up that dark silhouette, which was easier to see with the lights of the fort as a backdrop, and pounded ammunition into it. He remembered that their bullets hadn’t done much in that canyon, but the flier’s big guns had more power. He hoped it was enough.
Ridge hit it. Many times. But the owl kept coming. It flew straight at him.
With visions of it tangling in his propeller, he swerved at the last moment. The creature clipped his wing, and the flier shimmied like a top spinning on an old cobblestone drive. The nose of the craft dipped, and the rocks and snow of the hillside below filled Ridge’s vision. He forced himself to keep a loose grip on the controls, though his instincts cried for him to yank on them, to pull the flier up before he crashed. Instead he waited for the wings to find equilibrium again, then eased the nose up. He swooped so low to the ground that snow sprayed in his wake, but he started climbing once more. An intermittent kerchunk-clink joined the engine’s regular noise.
“A little longer,” he murmured to it. “Hold out a little longer.”
He searched all around for the owl, hoping he had injured it enough that it couldn’t continue to fly, but not daring to believe that was the case. Nothing streaked out of the sky at him. Maybe, just maybe, luck had favored him.
Beginnings: Five Heroic Fantasy Adventure Novels Page 104