He shuffled back in a rush, bumping into the guard behind him. They were right above Sardelle, with tools in hand to remove the vent covering. She wasn’t going to allow that. In fact… she examined them more closely until she found another of those canisters. She yanked it from the pouch where the second man had it stored. If the vent grate had already been removed, she would have pulled it down into the room with her, so she could stuff it in a cabinet somewhere the Cofah couldn’t use it. Instead she hurled it down the duct behind the guards. She sensed other men nearby, all jerking their heads up in alarm at the sound of the tin can clattering toward them. She contemplated puncturing a hole and letting that gas spew forth, but not when someone had died after exposure to it. She couldn’t do that, even to her enemies. With luck, simply hearing the canister clanging around would distract the men for a time. They would wonder if it might have been triggered, and they would have trouble finding it in the dark.
Good plan. Jaxi sounded tired, exhausted. Even if a soulblade had no physical body that required food and rest, its stores of power weren’t unlimited. Jaxi, too, would need a break to recharge.
When Sardelle returned to the corridor—it was like stepping into a sauna—the increase in energy crackling in the air told her that the vault had been breached before her eyes did. Her own weariness combined with the intensity of the power almost forced her to her knees. She braced her hand on the doorjamb. It wasn’t malevolent power or benevolent power. Just power. A lot of power.
I’m done. Jaxi’s beam winked out.
The light level fell, but there were enough lanterns lit in nearby rooms that Sardelle could see the end of the hall. And she could see a giant hole in the door, its ragged sides melted like candle wax with drops of molten steel spattered on the tile floor.
“That’s impressive,” Sardelle murmured.
Thank you.
“What’s going on up there, Sardelle?” Ahn asked from the front of the corridor, jerking her chin toward the ceiling. Duck stood next to her, frowning upward too.
“A little confusion. We should have a moment before they try anything else.” Sardelle walked to Jaxi, intending to sheath her, but so much heat radiated from the blade that she was afraid the hilt would burn her hand.
Give me a moment to cool down. I’m sizzling. You couldn’t handle me.
No surprise there. You need a dragon to handle your heat.
Jaxi snorted. Alas, he’s not here. Just his blood. And considering how much blood has been carted in here, I doubt he’s in very good condition wherever he is.
“Is it safe to go in?” Ahn had crept up beside Sardelle. Duck remained on guard, or maybe he wasn’t comfortable walking past a naked soulblade and into a vault filled with magical blood.
“Should be.” Sardelle had already searched the area around the door thoroughly and didn’t think any traps had eluded her. “Just watch out for the dripping steel.”
The drips were already hardening, creating a strange image, almost like the top of a cave with numerous small stalactites dangling down. The Cofah would doubtlessly wonder what had happened to their technologically superior door.
When Ahn didn’t rush inside, Sardelle grabbed a lantern and went first. Entering the hole was almost like walking underwater, pushing against the current of power. For her anyway. Ahn breezed inside as if there was nothing abnormal about the place.
There wouldn’t have been room for anyone else in the small vault. A wooden crate in the center took up most of the floor space. It was covered with FRAGILE warnings and shipping labels. The back wall held shelves, mostly empty, with one supporting a rack of test tubes filled with blood. Several empty racks occupied other shelves.
“Does that mean they’re almost out of their supply?” Ahn pointed at the empty racks.
“I don’t think so.” Sardelle touched the crate. “Most of the energy is coming from here.”
“Energy?”
“Yes, I can feel it. It’s very intense.”
“Should we open it?”
Sardelle knelt and examined the shipping labels. It had been checked in at Port Krunlow and Bekany Bay, both along the Cofah coast, but the label that would have mentioned its origins had been ripped off.
Ahn lifted one corner. “The crate is heavy, but two of us could carry it. Maybe we should just take the whole thing.”
“Carry it where? We haven’t figured out how to get off this floor yet.”
“The Cofah are getting here through the vents.”
Yes, and she would have to tell Ridge about that possibility as an access point. And about the canisters. She shuddered at the idea of him running into that smoke.
“Guess we can’t carry this box through a vent though,” Ahn said.
“No. Let’s open it.”
Ahn slung her rifle onto her back and withdrew a big utility knife. Though it looked like a simple shipping crate, Sardelle tried to sense the insides before Ahn broke in. If there was a trap, she couldn’t tell. She had a vague sense of numerous tubes of blood, but their power distorted their surroundings. At the moment, Sardelle would have a hard time sensing her own gender.
Fortunately not something that’s likely to have changed in the last five minutes.
Let’s hope so.
Unless that smoke had some very strange side effects.
I see you’re recovering well from your ordeal, Jaxi.
I’m exhausted. I’m going to need you to carry me out of here.
Sardelle snorted.
At the noise, Ahn paused in the middle of sliding her blade into the crack under the lid and looked up.
“Just… soulblade humor. Carry on.”
“Uh, all right.”
Ahn popped open the crate and pushed aside the top. Inside, packed in wads of dried foliage, lay racks of test tubes. There must have been two hundred and fifty vials, all full of blood.
“Huh. I was sort of expecting them to glow or something,” Ahn said.
“Energy doesn’t glow. It just is.”
Ahn sniffed. “Smells good, though. I assume that’s this stuff and not the blood.” She picked up a handful of dried leaves and flowers.
Sardelle stared at the foliage. It had clearly been used for nothing more than insulation, to keep the tubes from breaking, but that purple flower… She plucked it out of Ahn’s hand.
“Something wrong?” Ahn asked.
“I’ve seen this recently,” Sardelle whispered.
“Where? It looks tropical.”
“On the wall of an asylum room two hundred miles from here.”
• • • • •
They found a third dead Cofah at the top of the last set of stairs. The man had been killed in the same manner as the others, with a slit throat. Ridge, Tolemek, and Apex had already fought their way past a group of scientists whose hearts hadn’t been in the battle. They had hurled a few flasks of smoking compounds at them, but the men and women had looked like they had been in the middle of packing. Either way, they hadn’t been trained warriors and had fled as soon as Ridge’s team proved capable of putting up a fight. Not wanting to shoot civilians, Ridge had let them go. He hoped he wouldn’t regret that later.
As they stepped over the body, Ridge wondered once more who was inadvertently helping them storm the mountain. All of the kills had been recent.
“I wonder if we’ll stumble across our ally soon,” Apex said.
“I’d like to stumble across the rest of our squadron first.” Ridge led them down a wide corridor with glass-walled labs on both sides. These were similar to the ones on the level below, and though he didn’t see anyone scurrying around, there were also boxes and bags out, half stuffed with equipment and notebooks. “Were they packing because of us? Or do they know something we don’t know?”
A soft clank came from above. Ridge jerked his rifle upward. There were no floating lanterns on this level, and shadows cloaked the ceiling. A long moment passed, and nothing moved. He lowered his weapon, but vowed to glance u
pward often. At this point, Ridge wouldn’t be surprised by anything they crossed. In addition to the laboratories, they had passed chambers full of half-assembled fliers and unmanned craft, along with rooms full of devices for containing and studying the steam and hot water from the geyser field.
Tolemek walked to a lab table full of beakers and a complicated maze of glass tubes—Ridge couldn’t guess what it was for, though some green liquid rested in a spherical ball in the middle of it. A notebook open on the table was what drew Tolemek’s eye. He stared at the page, then flipped to the front, then glowered at the glass apparatus.
“Something important?” Ridge wanted to keep going, to find the others and the blood and to figure out a way to escape, preferably while destroying most of the scientists’ work on the way.
“I thought so,” Tolemek growled, sounding more like a riled bear than a man.
“What?” Ridge asked.
“That formula they hit us with downstairs, it seemed familiar. This is my work. Based on it anyway. It looks like someone lifted my notes from a few years ago and mailed them here.” Tolemek slammed the book shut. “If it was Goroth, I’ll kill him again.”
“Their fliers are clearly based on our designs,” Apex said. “The Cofah seem to struggle with originality.”
Tolemek gave him a flat look, knocked the apparatus on the floor with a great shattering of glass, and strode onward.
“Good idea,” Ridge said. “Let’s make sure the enemy knows exactly where we are at all steps in our journey.”
Tolemek was too busy stalking and glowering to respond. Ridge jogged back into the lead. The lift doors were visible at the end of the lab area. All they had to do now was find a way to reach Sardelle and the others on the other side. A side that was unfortunately blocked. He glanced upward. She had mentioned a top level where the hot air balloons were kept. Maybe there was a way to go up and over.
Ridge?
Yes. We’re close.
Men have been attacking us through the vents. You should be able to reach us the same way.
Ridge grimaced, imagining gunfights in a snarl of tight duct passages.
They’ve quieted down now, Sardelle added. I think they may be leaving to try something else. If you do run into them, be very careful. They have cans full of a smoke that’s killed one person and made the rest of us sick. A big enough inhalation might kill anyone. Her words came with an image of pale red smoke blowing out of a canister.
Wonderful.
Perhaps better news is that we’ve gotten into the vault and have the dragon blood.
Ridge lifted his head. That was better news. How much is there?
A crate full. Carrying it out as is might be problematic, but if we split the burden between all of us, it might be doable.
The king had wanted samples. But the true mission was to deny the Cofah of this resource. No sign of the dragon itself, eh?
The crate came from, well, we’re not sure exactly, but a tropical region. It’s traveled quite a ways to get here.
Oh? I’d hate to think the Cofah could simply… order more.
Maybe your next mission will be to find the source. If the king is still talking to you when we get back.
Ridge snorted. A legitimate concern.
There’s more. Tell Tolemek… Oh, wait. Jaxi is communicating with him.
Tolemek had stopped walking and his glower had changed to an expression of confusion.
I’ll explain further later, Sardelle went on, but Tolemek’s sister may be caught up in all of this somehow. Either to get at him or for… other reasons. It’s possible she’s been moved to the same location as these vials came from.
Strange. Do you—
The elevator doors slid open, revealing a cluster of crimson-uniformed guards, all wearing protective vests and all carrying rifles or—
Ridge cursed. Was that a rocket launcher?
He and the others were still twenty meters from the end of the room. “Take cover,” he barked and lunged to the left, toward a lab table piled with books and equipment.
Apex and Tolemek lunged right, finding a thick column to hide behind. The Cofah spotted them right away, and bullets were skipping off the marble floor before Ridge had fully flung himself behind the desk. One struck the pile of books atop it, knocking a tome off onto his head.
“Because my head hasn’t taken enough damage this week,” he grumbled.
He shot a couple of rounds around the side of the desk, trying to take out a few of the guards before they rushed into the room and also found cover, but another clank came from the ceiling, this one louder than the last. A vent grate dropped to the floor behind Apex and Tolemek. A canister rolled out of the opening in the ceiling, smoke spewing from a hole in the top.
Ridge fired at a shadow moving above the vent. He didn’t know if he hit the person, but nobody else came through after the canister.
Tolemek’s eyes widened when he spotted the smoke, or maybe when he smelled it—his nostrils flared and he grabbed Apex. “We have to move.”
Apex shoved him away, refusing to leave the protection of the column. “People are shooting at us!”
A barrage of shots came from the lift area, punctuating his words. Some men had stayed inside, jamming the doors open somehow, and others had lunged behind two columns closet to the lift.
“Get away from that smoke,” Ridge yelled. “Sardelle said it’s deadly.”
A bullet slammed into the back of his desk, and he had to look away before seeing if they complied. The impact hurled one of the drawers onto the ground and made him rethink his hiding spot. More bullets skipped off the floor all around him. He didn’t know if he was going to get a chance to run to a new position. He couldn’t even lift his head to check on Apex and Tolemek.
Another round slammed into the back of the desk, this one cutting a hole. If he had been hunkering closer, it might have cut a hole in him.
Ridge scooted back, bumping the drawer that had fallen out. Glass clinked. There were several vials and flasks full of colored liquids. He grabbed a few and lofted them over the top of the desk toward the lift. He had no idea what they did, but he doubted the guards did, either. Maybe they would get worried and run back to the lift, or maybe he would get lucky, and the mixture of chemicals breaking onto the floor out there would smoke and hiss terrifyingly.
A whiff of the red stuff that had been thrown through the vent reached him, and his stomach clenched. Sardelle’s warning thundered to the front of his mind again. He would have to risk changing positions now. The shots coming from the lift had slowed down. Maybe his chemical cocktail was doing something. Or maybe the guards were readying themselves for a more deadly attack. Those two men with rocket launchers filled his mind.
Ridge rushed to reload his rifle, then threw the rest of the drawer’s contents and burst out from behind the desk. He fired as he ran, and by luck struck one of the men holding a launcher. The Cofah had just stepped out of the lift with the weapon. The bullet took him in the neck, but it was too late. He had already fired.
A floor-shaking boom erupted from the desk Ridge had been hiding behind. The rocket obliterated the metal frame and all of its contents. Even though he had left the position, Ridge still felt the force of the explosion. It slammed into his back, and he caromed off a column, then stumbled to the floor. He scrambled behind a bookcase before the Cofah figured out where he had gone. Paper confetti flooded the air, floating down everywhere. It was all that remained of the books and papers on that desk.
Taking advantage of the confusion, Ridge rolled into a crouch on the other side of his hiding spot and fired several rounds. He was closer to the lift now and could see the men behind the columns. They were facing the explosion—or maybe Apex and Tolemek were occupying their attention—so Ridge had a good shot at them. He fired twice, taking two men in the legs—those vests they had on were blocking shots to the torso—before the others adjusted their position behind the column and started shooting back at him.
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He ducked back behind the bookcase. There were two pieces of furniture back to back; he hoped they would be thick enough to stop bullets. A queasiness had come over him, and he fought against a growing urge to heave the contents of his stomach.
Get back. To the wall. As far as you can. Away from the lift and those men. That was Jaxi’s voice, not Sardelle’s, but Ridge obeyed it, nonetheless.
Using the bookcases to block his movement, he crawled between two workstations, around a column, and kept going until he reached the wall. At the same time, a second explosion rocked the laboratory. Even though Ridge wasn’t as close to this one, it still hammered him into the wall. Furniture toppled down all around him, with glass shattering and breaking as it landed on the floor amid books, drawers, and the gods knew what else.
Ridge scrunched up against the wall, holding his breath, not sure if something toxic might be flowing out of those broken containers—and not sure he should be breathing the smoke in the air, either. Parts of the ceiling had fallen, too, and he spotted cracks in the column nearest him.
It’s all right now. I’m communicating with Tolemek too. He’s the one who threw that explosive.
“Zirkander,” came Tolemek’s voice, weary and pained. “You better be alive. I need someone to help me find my dragons-cursed bag before your man dies.” A slam sounded, a desk being kicked, and Tolemek cursed and started shoving more things around.
Ridge pushed to his feet, but he didn’t make it far before the nauseating feeling that had assailed him before returned fivefold. He clutched his belly and tried to calm his system, but his gut roiled anyway. He dropped his rifle and vomited all over the floor before he managed to stumble away from the wall.
The Dragon Blood Collection, Books 1-3 Page 76