“What did you discover?” Meraz asked.
Gabe shook off Ofelia’s odd reaction. “Kimotak was right. They’re down there.”
“How far away?”
Ofelia said, “I took him about a mile west and a half mile south. We followed the largest cave system I found earlier.”
Meraz consulted her map. “Do you know where they’ll emerge?”
“No. The caves are complicated, splitting into several smaller systems that are still large enough to bring a lot of people through. If I had to guess...”
“Guess.”
With a shake of her head, the Earth Mage spat, “Anywhere. In the camp, outside of it. I just don’t know.”
Meraz sucked in a deep breath. “They’re still over a mile away. That gives us time, and moving through caves isn’t like marching along a flat road.”
“No it isn’t,” Ofelia agreed, “and these caves are far from direct routes, but we don’t know how many Alarians are coming. There may be other groups closer to us.”
“Castillo, are you capable of searching the grounds of the camp with Suelo?”
“No.” It came from Suelo before Gabe could answer. “I can’t, Captain. I’m exhausted. Carrying him is difficult. I’m not used it and you’ve had me working constantly for the past hour at impossible tasks. He might be able to do it, but I can’t.”
“You expect us to wait in ignorance, then?” Meraz asked, deceptively mild.
“I would do it if I could,” Ofelia shouted. “Don’t you think I’m just as scared as everyone else? I want to get out of here. I want to live to see my son again. If you make me go back down there and I lost all my strength, I could become trapped underground.” She swallowed hard, cheeks flushed with exertion and emotion. “The greatest fear an Earth Mage has is losing their magic while in the ground and not being able to get out.”
Gabe shuddered in sympathetic horror. Bone Mages felt the same way about death.
The captain regarded the trembling Earth Mage with an unreadable expression. Gabe wondered where the understanding, kind woman who had come to him when he’d provoked Tonio had gone. Then, Meraz had been willing to see his side of the situation and had empathised. Now, he could find no trace of that woman in the captain.
“Might I remind you, Mage Suelo,” Meraz said, soft but firm, “that we are at war. Hundreds of soldiers put their lives at risk every day. They’re scared their strength might fail them at precisely the wrong moment, that perhaps they won’t pull the trigger fast enough or miss a parry. Yet they stand up each day and put that fear aside and do their job. Just because you rose above the nameless masses of the Third Estate, earned yourself a Name and robe, does that give you more right to live than them?”
Ofelia flinched, head bowed, shoulders heaving.
“Answer me, Mage.”
“No,” Ofelia whispered.
“Correct. Rest for ten minutes, then you’ll search the ground under the camp.”
Ofelia nodded.
Meraz looked at Gabe. “Castillo?”
“I’m good to go.” Though he didn’t really think he was. Ofelia’s fear of becoming lost underground had taken root in his chest. If she lost hold of her magic down there, it wouldn’t just be her dying.
David stalked into the tent, eyes narrowed, face intent. He hauled Gabe to his feet and gave him a rough shake.
“Where is he?” the Immortal Soldier asked, deadly quiet and serious.
“Who?” Meraz demanded before Gabe could.
“My prisoner is missing. His bonds were cut.” David gave Gabe another bone jarring shake. “Someone helped him escape.”
“And you think it was me?” Gabe put both hands against David’s chest and pushed, realising too late that his left hand was still bare.
The darkness he had felt when David was a mutilated body on his table sprang out and wrapped around Gabe. It coiled up through his hand and into his chest, choking off air and strangling his heart.
David dropped Gabe as if he’d burned himself. Light returned to Gabe and he pulled in a deep breath, willing his heart to beat again.
The tent flaps parted and Lieutenant Botello entered. “Captain, the first two dirigibles are away. Most of the non-urgent personnel were aboard, along with fourteen wounded from the encampment and a Sacerdio to tend them.”
Meraz nodded. “And the rest of the dirigibles? How long until they’re ready?”
“Engineer Chispa estimates another quarter hour. Two dirigibles have made it here from the encampment as well, carrying soldiers and wounded. We also have the remaining land-yacht.”
Meraz absorbed this new information. “Good, good. More dirigibles are just what we need. Get as many of the remaining non-urgent personnel into one of the dirigibles from the encampment. We also have the supply ship the first of the escaped soldiers brought here. Use it as well. Tell Pena to forget about the equipment. We’ll leave it behind. There’s no time to waste now.”
Botello saluted and left.
“Mage Suelo, looks like you just got yourself a reprieve. If we can get all of our people out of here in the next quarter hour, you won’t need to go below again.”
Ofelia nodded, though she didn’t look relieved.
“Mage Castillo, go see to the wounded. Those capable of further transport go onto the second of the dirigibles. Do the bare minimum needed for the rest. After that, I want everyone who has a chance of survival in the air and gone.” She gave him a hard, uncompromising look. “No matter what.”
Guts tying themselves in knots, Gabe left. It was only when he was back at the hospital he realised David had disappeared some time during Botello’s report. Not that he cared.
Kimotak and five of his men were at the hospital, stretchers empty as they filed out. The Valleymen were calm, as if the new situation were nothing unusual. Kimotak nodded to Gabe but didn’t say anything, leaving with his fellow natives.
Inside, the ward was chaotic with moaning wounded and frantic Sacerdios. They’d lost Manuel with the first evacuees, leaving Dina, Agata and Nacio to tend twenty odd seriously burned and injured soldiers. As if sensing his arrival, Dina turned to Gabe. She had soot and blood smudged on her face and robe, a woman with only one leg clinging to her arm and yet she appeared calm.
“The worst are in those beds,” she said, pointing, then went back to tending her own patient.
On his way to those she’d indicated, Gabe stopped close to her. “We have a quarter hour, then all of us are getting on a dirigible and getting out of here. Do enough to make them stable, nothing more. We have to get every one of these people out of here.”
It was a contradiction of Meraz’s parting words to him. He wasn’t about to leave anyone behind. He hadn’t capitulated to the military desire for balance yet, he wouldn’t do it now, here at the end.
Dina saw his determination and though she was a dutiful military Sacerdio she nodded.
“Thank you,” he said, then went to see his patients.
He worked fast and ruthlessly, leaving finesse behind in favour of rough, brutal surgery. Healing was something that could be done later, all he needed to do now was stop the bleeding, seal the holes and pack wounds, then move on. He discarded his glove, abandoning himself to the magic, letting it tug him through the broken bodies before him, seeking out the worst of the injuries, the most life threatening. His awareness of the rest of the hospital faded into the background.
Gabe worked through the first four beds quickly, but when he turned to the fifth, the accumulated weight of burns, breaks and open wounds caught up to him. He staggered and caught himself on the wall, breathing through the surging pain, blinking his eyes back to focus.
“Mage?” Dina touched his shoulder.
“Give me a moment.”
“It’s time to go.”
He looked up. Most of the hospital was empty. It was just him, Dina and the final soldier on the bed beside them. Shoulders weighed down by the straps of bags, Nacio waited by the door for
them.
“Our dirigible is loaded and just waiting for us,” he said.
Gabe nodded. “Right, you go, Nacio. Dina and I will bring the last patient and tend her on the dirigible.”
Both Nacio and Dina shook their heads.
“It’s overcrowded as it is,” Nacio said. “There’s barely room left for us, let alone another stretcher.”
“There won’t be room for any of us to work,” Dina added, her hand a sympathetic pressure on his arm.
Here he was again, back at this horrible decision. Did he let this woman die here, or insist on taking her away and perhaps saving her, perhaps simply delaying the inevitable because he couldn’t do anything during the flight? What would be best for her? Was Ismael right and should he let her go to the Shadows to rest in peace?
Gabe looked at the soldier. She was missing a leg from the knee down, one arm was blackened with deep, potentially fatal burns and bandages wrapped her chest and stomach, an arc of blood staining the white material from under her left breast down to her navel. He looked at her face.
It was Rayen par Torin, one of the very few survivors of the tunnel ambush, the one who’d struggled so hard to tell Gabe about Rafe. Here she was again, in his hospital, needing his help.
“Gabriel,” Dina whispered.
“We have to go,” Nacio repeated.
Gabe stared at Rayen, knowing he should leave her behind. “Yes, go. Both of you. Now.”
Dina tugged at his arm. “You’re coming with us.”
“No, I’m staying for my patient.”
“There’s nothing you can do in time to save her,” Dina said.
“I can get her stable and then we can get out on the last dirigible with Meraz and the officers.”
Dina knelt beside him. “Then I’ll stay with you.”
“No!” Nacio shouted. “Dina, don’t be stupid. Let him endanger himself, not you as well.”
“He’s right.” Gabe pushed her away. “You have to go.”
“I’m your Head Sacerdio. If you stay, I stay.”
He couldn’t let her. It would kill him if something happened to her because she stayed. “I’m your superior. I command you to go.”
“Dina,” Nacio said, inching toward the door. “Just do as he says. Let’s go.”
Chin set stubbornly, Dina shook her head, lips pressed tight against the emotion burning deep in her eyes.
“Dina,” Nacio tried again.
Dina whirled about and shouted, “Just go, Nacio. I’m staying with Mage Castillo and that’s final.”
Nacio flinched as if she’d hit him. He stared at her for a moment, taking in the anger on her face, then he glared at Gabe before slamming through the door and leaving.
“He was just thinking of your safety,” Gabe muttered.
“And I’m just thinking of yours. We both know you’ll get caught up in healing this woman. You need someone here to keep you aware of what’s going on.”
“But anyone could have done that. You should have gone.”
“I’ll only get on a dirigible when you do.” She reached for the few supplies left. “We need to work fast if we’re to get out on the last dirigible.”
Rayen’s breathing was shallow and erratic. They’d wasted too much time arguing already.
He began with her leg, laying his left hand just above the knee, going deep, looking for the severed blood vessels, sealing them off as he went. Once that was done, Dina unwrapped the bloody bandages and they assessed the ragged stump, noting that with the bleeding stopped, the rest could wait. While Dina rewrapped it, Gabe moved on to the arm. It was like a rare steak, charred on the outside, still mostly raw inside. The blood had cooked in the veins and circulation had stopped to what living tissue remained. It would have to go from the shoulder down.
“Dina, can you go to the command tent and find out how much time we have?”
“If they’re going to plan, they’ll do a final run through of the camp to make sure everyone is out.”
Gabe gave her a grave look. “I think the plan’s been forgotten.”
“Keep working,” she said confidently. “They’ll find us here.”
Captain Meraz wasn’t a woman to panic even under the most horrendous stress, but Gabe wasn’t so certain of anyone she might send to check the camp. What if they missed the hospital?
“Please go.”
“If it’ll make you feel better.”
“Thank you.”
Alone, Gabe severed the arm, cutting away the dead flesh and giving the wound a rough clean. Tidying up could be done later. Turning his attention to her chest, he cut away the dirty bandages, peeling them back from the long cut.
The first thought was it was too neat. Almost surgical. A clean, precise cut through skin and muscle and into the abdominal cavity, but not so deep as to damage internal organs.
“Gabe?”
Pulling back from Rayen, Gabe looked up to see Ruben walking down the aisle to him.
“What are you still doing here?” the Fire Mage asked. “You were supposed to be gone with the last lot of dirigibles.”
“There wasn’t room for this patient. Dina and I stayed to treat her.”
“Dina? Where is she?”
“I sent her to the command tent to let them know what we were doing.” Gabe’s stomach clenched.
“I didn’t see her there,” Ruben said, quickly adding, “I’m sure she’s fine,” when Gabe blanched in panic. “She’ll be there now, and Meraz probably kept her at the command tent. We’re leaving in the next couple of minutes. You have to come now.”
“Just let me seal this wound. It’s not complicated, it won’t take long.”
Setting his hand to the wound, Gabe sent his magic downward. Feeling around, he confirmed no organs had been harmed. It had either been an incredibly lucky blow, or deliberate, but unless you were Saint Damacia, luck like that just didn’t exist. Gabe expanded his search.
“Dear Luz,” he breathed.
“What?” Ruben demanded. “I thought this wasn’t supposed to take long. We really have to go.”
“We can’t, not yet. There’s something in here.” He caught Ruben’s eye. “I think someone cut her open and put something inside her.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s not flesh or bone. I can only feel it as a block to my magic.”
“Let me try.” Ruben knelt beside Gabe. “If it’s metal I should be able to sense it by the heat of its forging.”
Gabe held his breath as Ruben ran his hand over Rayen’s chest. He didn’t touch her, his magic reaching through the gap, sending a flush of heat down Gabe’s back. Frowning, Ruben moved his hand several times.
Ruben gasped and pulled his hand back. He stared at Rayen, then at Gabe, mouth working but unable to find any words to say.
“What is it?” Gabe demanded.
But Ruben simply surged to his feet, grabbed Gabe and hauled him up as well.
“What?” Gabe shouted.
“We have to go, now!” Ruben shoved Gabe out from between the beds and toward the door. “Go!”
“But Rayen—”
“Trust me, she’s lost to us. Just run!”
Ruben’s sheer panic urged Gabe out of the building, the Fire Mage snapping at his heels.
“Keep running,” Ruben shouted.
Gabe ran and suddenly, heat and sound exploded behind him.
Then something hit him hard and he knew nothing more.
Chapter 19
David watched the second to last dirigible take off in a blast of dirt and noise. Even with as little experience as he had with the contraptions, he knew they strained the engine to get such a fast lift-off. Only one remained now, reserved for the captain, officers and mages.
And David and Rafe.
David just had to find Rafe first.
His barefoot tracks had been easy to follow from Castillo’s tent, as had the three sets of booted counterparts running alongside them. Away from the tent, t
hey fell into single file, one after the other, their prints overlapping so David could barely discern the boy’s bare feet amongst the rest. The small group made a point of crossing as many other tracks as they could, finding great rivers of disturbed and scuffed dirt, but no matter the tricks they played, they hadn’t counted on the centuries of experience the Immortal Soldier had under his command. If he could track a single thief from Ibarra City to the Fournier Chasm, across two duchies, through a dozen cities and over the Great Lakes of Valdez, then he would have no trouble following this lot in a small space like the camp.
At first he’d feared the boy and his liberators would board a dirigible and leave him behind, but it soon became apparent they weren’t even trying. Their goal, David discovered, was to avoid detection and stay in camp.
Then he came across something disturbing.
Signs of a fight. Just the four of them, no new combatants. They scuffled and wrestled amongst themselves in the deep shadows between two native huts. David traced the edges of the disturbed ground, looking for the final outcome. He found it in two sets of footprints heading in slightly different directions. The first was two lots of booted feet, one walking, perhaps dragging the other behind. Drops of blood indicated a freely bleeding wound on the second person. The second set, however, showed the boy running, his barefoot prints spaced wide and smeared—as if escaping. Had Rafe not cared for his liberators? The fourth person chased him, booted prints stamped on top of the boy’s. Ignoring the other trail, David set out after his prey, and his prey’s other hunter.
He caught up to them on the far side of the camp.
Crouching in deep shadows, David watched the boy. Rafe was pressed against a wall several huts away, flattened to the mud bricks as he tried to catch his breath. Still wounded, he was in pain from his desperate fight and flight, favouring his injured knee and pressing a hand to his damaged ribs.
There wasn’t much time. David had dodged the Fire Mage as he did a final run through of the camp. He had to get the boy and go.
Before he could advance, a shadow shifted between him and his prey. Rafe’s other pursuer moved silently, coming from between two huts, the dark grey of his clothes blending almost perfectly with the shadows. David’s enhanced eyes picked out the arming sword worn across his back and the blackened dagger held at the ready. He stopped just shy of revealing himself, using the walls and darkness for cover as he checked the open ground.
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