“Oh.” The landing pad was gone. The whole open area she had been aiming toward was gone, too, including at least one of the giant propellers that helped the outpost remain aloft. For the first time, she worried that the squadron might succeed in utterly destroying the floating city. “Not a goal I’d normally object to, but now...” She eyed the six giant balloons above. They at least seemed stable still, some coating doubtlessly protecting them from the bullets. She was surprised any of the fliers had carried explosives powerful enough to destroy the landing pad and the surrounding platform. Then another, “Oh,” slipped out of her mouth. The power crystal. If the colonel hadn’t been able to extract it, he might have blown it up. Yes, she had seen one destroyed before. That had been in the air rather than on the ground, but the explosion had sent a shockwave that she had felt, flying far behind the lead craft.
After the debris quit hammering the street, Cas slipped out of hiding, changing her plan. In case the platform was on its way into the ocean far below, she needed to get to one of the ships. As much as she loathed the idea, that might mean returning to Captain Slaughter. He wouldn’t be tickled to see her after she had started that fire, but where else could she go? She wouldn’t be able to sneak onto anything now; all of the pirates would be aboard and fighting. She didn’t even know if any of the ships were left in dock. She halted, groaning as she remembered that Slaughter’s ship had left to deal with the fire.
“Nice job, L.T.,” she grumbled to herself. “Sabotage the ship you need to get away in.”
She jogged in the direction she had last seen it anyway. Or started to. Another explosion came from that side of the outpost. It wasn’t as violent as the last one, but it filled the sky with more black smoke. It was one of the smaller airships, one that was—she snorted—flying a yellow-and-blue Iskandian flag. Or at least it had been. That flag, its pole shattered, was fluttering to the pavement where what remained of the craft was berthed. What remained wasn’t much. Little more than a charred, smoking husk. No less than six fliers sailed away from the destroyed craft, their mission apparently accomplished.
Strange. What had been on that ship that had demanded such attention? Cas had assumed the salvaged flier was the main mission—keeping it and its crystal from being sold to the highest bidder for study—but perhaps that had been a side mission, or even a diversion?
The pirates had marshaled their forces now, and four airships, cannons and guns blazing, chased after the six Wolf Squadron pilots. Smoke drifted from the wing of one flier and from the engine area of another. Cas clenched a fist, silently willing them to get out of there. She couldn’t tell whose craft those were through the smoke and the distance, but she didn’t want to hear of any of her comrades going down.
They seemed to be done with their mission, though, and were forming up to fly away. Smoke notwithstanding, all twelve fliers were accounted for. The pirate ships sailed after them in pursuit, but couldn’t match their speed. One after another, the fliers disappeared into the fog.
A lump formed in her throat. They were going home... and she wasn’t. Had anyone even noticed she was here?
Someone grabbed Cas from behind, pulling her off her feet and toting her toward an alley. She tried to wrench herself free even as she lifted her pistol to aim over her shoulder. A hand clamped down, pinning hers in an awkward position, her finger off the trigger.
A shot fired, but it wasn’t hers. A bullet smashed into the corrugated metal corner of a building, a building she had been standing next to seconds before. Standing and staring, without paying attention to her surroundings.
“It’s me,” spoke a familiar voice in her ear. “You’re about to be the most wanted person on this station. What remains of it.”
Cas stopped her struggles, though she wasn’t sure Tolemek was an ally after what she had done to his ship. Hells, she hadn’t been sure he was an ally before, either. Someone she was using in the same manner as he intended to use her, perhaps. Still, he had just pulled her out of the line of fire.
“I don’t suppose you have a suggestion on how to deal with this new problem?” she asked.
For the first time in she didn’t know how many minutes, the noise was fading around them—the cannons had stopped booming and the guns still firing were on the ships flying after the squadron, their noise muffled by distance and the fog.
“Yeah,” Tolemek said. “Hide.”
“Hide?” Fleeing had figured more prominently in her mind.
“The captain will need time to repair the ship, which was damaged even before the attack.” His face was next to hers, since his arm was still holding her against his torso, so he couldn’t glare at her, but he was probably trying to anyway.
At least he didn’t seem furious about the fact. But then, he could be hiding it. Cas had seen him vent frustration, however briefly, in that empty library, but when it came to dealing with people, she had a feeling he was the type who could be utterly furious with a person yet never show it... until it was too late for his target to respond.
“I won’t be able to protect you, either,” Tolemek went on, “not after your squadron just laid waste to half the ships in dock. Hells, they’ll want to lynch me when they find out I brought you here. Unfortunately, we can’t leave until the captain does some repairs. So, yes. Hide.”
“On the station, or off? I only ask because I’m questioning the air worthiness of this outpost right now.”
“It’s not going to drop out of the sky. I’ve seen the blueprints; there’s a lot of redundancy built in.”
“Did you by chance have a hand in designing it?” Cas asked.
“Just some of the defenses. Like the fog. Which didn’t fool your people one iota today. If I thought you had any dragon blood, I’d suspect you of calling out to them somehow.”
Cas shuddered at the idea of having witch blood, or even being accused of having it, but she forced a sarcastic indifference into her tone. “If I could do that, I would have called out for them to take me with them, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“Now that we’ve settled that, would you mind putting me down? And letting go of my pistol hand?” She had another pistol and could reach it with her left hand, but wasn’t inclined toward shooting him at the moment.
Tolemek let go of her weapon, and the arm around her waist loosened. She slid down him, her toes touching the debris-littered pavement.
A pirate jumped around the corner, pointing a pistol into the alley. Cas cursed—of course the man who had shot at her would try again. She reacted on instinct again, firing a split second before Tolemek dragged her toward refuse bins against the wall.
“Damn,” he whispered, stopping in the middle of his lunge. Cas’s shot had taken the pirate in the forehead. “That’s uncanny.”
No, that was having a dad who had been training her to follow in the family business since she had been old enough to toddle. She wished he hadn’t taught her so much indifference when it came to drilling people with bullets, but perhaps it served her in this situation.
“I’m ready for that hiding spot now.” Cas waved the pistol. “I’m getting low on the ammo I purloined from your trunk.”
Tolemek nodded toward the far end of the alley. “This way.”
Since all she had managed was to get herself shot at when she had been choosing a route, she was content to let him lead. She would be even more content if darkness would fall. With pirates streaming about on high alert, it was going to be hard to sneak anywhere. She reloaded her guns and strode after Tolemek, though she couldn’t help but gaze toward the sky in the direction the squadron had flown off and wish she were with them.
• • • • •
Tolemek saw the longing looks Ahn sent in the direction the fliers had gone. He chose not to tell her how relieved he was that the squadron had departed without destroying the outpost, his ship, or her. He wasn’t sure when he had started to feel responsible for her safety, and ferocious toward things that threatened i
t, but when he had been charging around the station, dodging shrapnel and searching for her, he’d had men take one look at his face and then flee the other way. If he’d had a weapon capable of shooting down those fliers, he would have.
The attack squadron had annihilated Stone Heart’s Burning Dragon. Though he had wondered briefly at the notion that Ahn might have somehow summoned them, he had a feeling the Iskandian military had been tracking that Cofah corporal all along. They must have realized someone had survived the battle at their secret mines and wanted to ensure that he didn’t report back to his people.
Tolemek stuck to the alleys, picking a route that would lead to the opposite end of the outpost, though at the shouts he started hearing in the streets, he wondered if a closer hiding spot would have been better.
A cry of, “Ten gold coins to the man who finds her,” from a nearby street did not sound promising at all. Tolemek had hoped the attack would have delayed that administrator from relaying the information on Ahn’s presence, but it seemed not.
“I don’t suppose he’s lost his grandmother and is looking for help finding her,” Ahn said.
“Grandmothers aren’t much of a fixture here.” Tolemek ducked into an alley behind one of the few brick buildings, stopping by a series of metal boxes on its back wall. He spun a lock on the biggest one and entered a combination. “Unless you count that lady who runs the laundry service and keeps all the cats. She calls them her children. And her children are prolific.”
Ahn pointed to the box he was opening. “If that’s access to the control panel that will allow us to blow up the entire station, I think we should make sure we have a way off first.”
Apparently she had escape on her mind, not cat-granny jokes. Appropriate, he supposed.
“Nothing so sinister.” Tolemek opened the door and slid a few levers from a neutral position to the maximum setting, then closed the panel. “It’ll thicken the fog more.”
He led Ahn toward another alley entrance. “I can’t believe Stone Heart had a flier squadron tailing him all the way from the mainland and didn’t notice it. He’s an experienced captain. It’s unthinkable.” He looked at her, in case she might want to posit an alternative theory, but she kept her mouth shut. Her expression was particularly grim this evening.
Tolemek supposed it wouldn’t mean anything to her if he said that he was starting to find even her grim expressions attractive. Maybe it was just the fact that her bruises were healing nicely, and her face had taken on a more normal shape, but he doubted it. He almost grinned at the memory of that cabin boy explaining how she had tricked him into dropping his trousers and holding an innocuous flask of liquid over his head until he had figured out a way to escape, something he might not have been inspired to do if not for the smoke wafting past the porthole.
Ah, but what was he to do about these inconvenient feelings? Nothing. Whether or not he had stopped considering her the enemy, he knew she still considered him one. And rightfully so. Attraction or not, he wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity of using her to get to Zirkander, especially if Zirkander had a witch ally who knew something about soulblades. To finally have a real lead on a quest that had occupied all of his free time for the last three years... he couldn’t pass up that opportunity.
“Am I looking inscrutable?” Ahn asked. “Or is that the look you wear when you’ve forgotten the way to your secret hiding spot, and you’re trying to remember it?”
“I was—” Tolemek stopped and listened as no fewer than ten men strode down the nearby street, their weapon-laden belts jangling. He drew Ahn into the deep shadows of an alcove. “I was merely waiting for the fog to deepen so we could move on with less risk of discovery.”
“Huh, that’s interesting.” She peered into his eyes.
“What?”
“Seems like I’ve been around you for long enough now that I can tell when you’re lying.”
Tolemek avoided her eyes, looking at the cheap veneer on the wall on the other side of the alley instead. “All right, I was scrutinizing you.”
“So long as you weren’t contemplating unique and effective torments as revenge for me stealing some of your goo and making a mess with it.”
“No.” He gave her a curious look. “I didn’t get a chance to see much of the damage, but from the report I heard, you could have done much more.”
This time, she avoided his eyes. “I just wanted to escape, not annoy your captain so much that he’d devote the rest of his life to hunting me down.”
It was silly, but he wished she’d said he was the one she didn’t want to annoy. Tolemek thunked his head against the wall and reminded himself that feelings would only distract him here.
“I’m not sure he’ll appreciate your solicitude,” he said, “but I do. Come, the fog has thickened. We ought to be able to reach the spot I have in mind without being noticed.”
“What is this stuff made from anyway?” Ahn waved at the soupy air as she followed him into a space between two buildings that was too narrow to be considered an alley.
“My special proprietary blend.”
“In other words, you’re not sharing your secret?”
“Not until you renounce your Iskandian citizenship and agree to become my loyal lab assistant.”
Ahn snorted. “Sure. I’ll send in the paperwork tomorrow.”
Tolemek stepped out from between the two buildings, only to halt and squeeze back into the crack. Pirates carrying guns and lanterns were striding down the street that he and Ahn needed to run down to reach the next alley. It was only twenty meters away, but a party was coming from the opposite direction as well.
“Check between those buildings,” someone called, not from either of the groups in the street but from the block they had left.
“These search parties are getting a little too organized for my tastes,” Tolemek muttered.
“We can handle it.” The click of a gun being cocked reached his ear.
“Let me take care of it. These are... Ahn, I can’t be seen with you if you’re going to run around shooting everyone on the station. These are my people, my allies.”
“Yeah? I saw some of them looting one of the shops earlier. Loyalty seems fleeting here.”
“Some of them are closer allies than others.” Tolemek lifted a hand to forestall further arguments—or derisive commentary on the pirates—since the parties had made their way closer. They were going to cross paths right in front of his position. He lowered his voice to a murmur and added, “Don’t shoot unless it’s an emergency. And watch the route behind you.”
“Understood.”
Tolemek remained still, hoping the fog and the shadows might hide him. Maybe the men would simply walk past without noticing.
“Who’s that there?” One of the pirates lifted a lantern in Tolemek’s direction.
He leaned his shoulder against the corner to block the view of Ahn. “Deathmaker.” He made his voice as chill and forbidding as he could manage. Meanwhile, he slipped a hand into a pouch at his belt. Though he hadn’t stopped by his cabin since the meeting, he always kept a few vials and contraptions with him. The pirates might be the only people in the world he could claim as allies, but that didn’t mean he trusted all of them.
The men exchanged glances with each other.
“You seen the Wolf Squadron girl?”
“They say she came in on your ship,” someone in the back of the group added. “With you.”
“She escaped our ship, yes. I don’t know anything about it. I was called out here to fix the fog. It’s thicker than porridge.” Indeed, it wafted down the streets, curling about the legs of the pirates. Tolemek might be able to roll something out there without them noticing. The other group was approaching, so he decided to wait. Maybe he could hit both parties at once.
“Yeah, getting worse by the minute. What happened?”
“One of the fliers hit the control panel and damaged it,” Tolemek said.
A tap came at his shoulder. �
��The ones behind us are looking up the alleys,” Ahn whispered.
“Strange that the Iskandians found us through it,” one of the men said.
Tolemek slid a leather-wrapped sphere out of his pouch.
“They say there’s a witch working for Zirkander now,” the man went on. “Maybe she helped him find us.”
Huh. Word from that meeting had gotten out quickly.
“What?” Ahn whispered.
One of the pirates squinted at Tolemek. “There’s not someone behind you in that crack, is there?”
“No.” Tolemek pointed toward the roof of the building across the street. “Think I saw someone move up there though. Anyone got a reason to spy on you boys?”
Not all of them looked—more than one man squinted at Tolemek—but he didn’t care. He armed his sphere and bent slightly, to roll it toward the center of the groups without letting it make noise.
He slipped a hand behind him to push at Ahn. They would need to back out of the range of the odor that would soon be disseminated. But she had already moved. He glanced back, afraid she had left for some reason. She was in the center of the narrow alley, down on one knee, fog whispering past her shoulders as she aimed a pistol toward the opposite end.
“What is that smell?” one of the men in front demanded.
“The fog,” Tolemek said. “I’d best see to the repairs.” He backed into the alley, wrinkling his nose as he caught a whiff of his concoction, a faint rose-petal scent not quite masking the more sinister chemical odor beneath it. He would have to work on that, so long as he didn’t pass out from inhaling his own knock-out gas first.
He squeezed through the alley toward Ahn, his shoulders brushing the walls, and knelt behind her.
“You shouldn’t need to fire,” he whispered. “The search parties I was talking to will be unconscious shortly, and we can go that way.”
In the deepening gloom, he could barely see her, but he thought she nodded. Another half hour and night would fall, making it easier to move about, but he hoped they had reached the spot he sought before then. Every moment they were out in the open, they risked being caught—or shot.
The Dragon Blood Collection, Books 1-3 Page 35