“Sardelle?” came Ahn’s soft call from the front of the corridor.
“What is it?” Sardelle had been about to finish talking with Ridge and join the two lieutenants—Jaxi was heating up, preparing herself for her attempt to melt the door, and it was about to be far too hot for a human to stand close.
She had no more than reached Ahn and Duck when a soft scrape came from the ceiling in the corner of the big lift room. There was a square hole there that she hadn’t noticed before. It looked like some kind of vent or duct entrance with the grate removed. Ah, there was the grate lying on the floor. Ahn and Duck were both aiming at the hole.
Ridge was asking something, and Sardelle was about to answer when a tin canister dropped through the hole. Duck fired.
“Wait,” Ahn whispered, “we don’t know what it is.” The warning came too late. The bullet took the canister in the side, and smoke poured out of the hole.
It was a different color than the earlier smoke weapon, a reddish-pink this time, and Sardelle’s stomach roiled as soon as the first fumes reached her nose.
“Hold your breath,” Duck said. He kept standing there, like he meant to hold his breath and shoot whoever came out of the duct, but Sardelle’s senses screamed that this was more dangerous than the other smoke, that it had toxic properties.
“Get back,” she whispered. “Both of you.”
She could have made a shield, an airtight bubble around herself, but she wouldn’t be able to attack through it, so she pushed past them and focused on the smoke billowing from the can. She drew air from the room behind her and pushed it against the air in that corner. Her churning stomach made it hard to concentrate, but she managed to squash the smoke into a small area for a moment.
She was debating on how to destroy the canister and the tainted air completely when the first guard dropped through the hole. Well armed—and wearing a mask—he landed in a crouch.
Sardelle waved her hand and ripped the mask from his face at the same time as a second guard landed, this one aiming straight at her. A shot came before she could raise a shield to protect herself. But the shot came from behind her, not from the man. Ahn had leaned around the corner, risking the smoke. The man in the mask pitched to the floor.
The guard who had dropped into the room first had fallen to his knees and was clutching his neck. Eyes huge, he reached for the mask Sardelle had ripped off, but he collapsed before he touched it. She didn’t know whether he was dead or unconscious, but the ramifications horrified her either way.
“Get back,” she repeated to Ahn and returned to trying to confine the smoke. Sticking it back into the canister was impossible, but she did what she should have done immediately. Using the surrounding air again, she pushed the smoke up to the ceiling and into the hole—she could sense more people in the ductworks up there, now that she was looking for them. She tried to usher the gas toward them. It was like trying to throw sand through a hole, but if she could at least get most of it out of their space…
Her stomach interrupted her fight. Clutching at her gut, she ran from the room. She could have vomited right there, but she didn’t want the people in the duct to hear her and believe they had affected her. Instead she ran back to the first observation room, just managing to pass through the doorway before heaving her dinner all over the floor. She gripped the wall, her sides and chest aching from the effort even as she was unable to stop the spasms. What was that gas? She thought of the inhalant Tolemek had created. It couldn’t be related to that, could it be? If it was, would she die in seconds?
Don’t die. I’m working on the door. Getting through it.
Sardelle finished throwing up, but she couldn’t manage the mental energy to respond. Her body was shaking, and sweat poured down the sides of her face. She wanted to collapse on the floor, but that was a mess now, and her dignity overrode her physical weakness. She staggered toward the hall, hoping to find a clean place to slump against a wall. She also hoped nobody would notice the mess she had made if she closed the door behind her.
But Duck was standing in the corridor outside. His face was flushed red and bathed in sweat, and he looked like he had thrown up somewhere too. He gave her a lopsided smile, though.
“You’re human.”
Yes, sorcerers could vomit, the same as anyone else. All she said was, “Apparently so.”
“That’s not.” Duck stepped aside to nod toward the back of the corridor.
Jaxi lay on the floor, where Sardelle had left her, but a bright two-inch-thick orange stream of energy shot out of the tip of her blade, flames dancing along the beam. Sardelle didn’t think the flames were necessary. Jaxi had probably added them for flair.
“No, that is a special soul.” Sardelle turned toward the open end of the corridor. “Ahn?”
“Here,” Ahn called softly. “There are more vent grates in that room. I’m watching them, but we should check in those little rooms too.” Her face was also flushed, and her hands shook, but she hadn’t dropped her gun, and she looked like she would die there in the mouth of the corridor rather than leave her self-assigned post.
“Ridge and Tolemek are alive,” Sardelle said.
Ahn glanced back at her.
“Apex too. I thought you should know before you decided to get suicidal defending us.”
“Good.” Ahn didn’t deny the suicidal bit. Hm.
“I’ll watch with you,” Sardelle said. “I’ll know how to react now. Canister goes back up into the hole before it explodes.”
“Or some idiot shoots it,” Duck muttered from behind them.
“I’m sure it was designed to spit the gas out anyway,” Ahn said.
Sardelle’s stomach gave another little twinge. She wasn’t sure if she had gotten enough of the gas out of the room to keep them from suffering further deleterious effects, but she hoped so. That guard still wasn’t moving. The first one had been shot dead, but she felt compelled to check on the second. If he was still alive, she might be able to do something for him. But he must have caught an entire lungful of that gas, or maybe his body tolerated it less well than others. Either way, he was dead.
Remembering that she had been communicating with Ridge when all of this had started, Sardelle reached out to him again. Ridge?
Sardelle, you’re all right?
She decided not to mention the vomit. Or the fact that her belly was still shivering with the aftereffects of that vile concoction. Tolemek must have a like-minded soul here. She shuddered, imagining going up against that person.
For the moment, we’re fine. Still stuck, but fine.
Good. We’re trying to get to you. We’re—
Busy? Sardelle guessed when a moment passed without a response. She stretched out, trying to find him in the maze of a mountain, but she ran into the Cofah first. There were more guards moving around in the ducts above the front room, and a pair of them were crawling along on elbows and knees, making their way over the laboratories. They must be angling for a vent in one of those observation rooms.
She almost missed Ridge’s response of, Yeah.
We have more trouble to deal with here, she told him. Be careful. I’ll check on you as soon as I can.
Wait, Ridge added. Do you know how those soldiers blew up your mountain three hundred years ago?
What? I mean, why do you want to know?
I’d like to do the same thing here, if possible. After we leave.
Sardelle shuddered at the idea of collapsing the mountain with people in it, even if they were Cofah soldiers and scientists making deadly weapons to fling at her homeland. She didn’t have an answer for him anyway. I don’t know what they used exactly. It was all a blur of running to the meeting point and assuming others would make it too. I didn’t see any of the detonations myself and don’t even know if it was some form of magic or not—though it seems strange that they would have used magic against the very magic users they feared and wanted to destroy.
All right. A determination accompanied his words, like he meant to succeed with that plan, one way or another.
She trusted he would warn her in advance, so she would worry about the most pressing problem first.
“Ahn,” Sardelle whispered, “two are trying to come in behind us. I’ll be right back.”
Ahn gave her a quick salute. There wasn’t likely any thought behind it, beyond acknowledging her words, but it made Sardelle smile anyway. It was as if she had been accepted as part of the squadron. Who knew vomit would do that?
She walked back toward Jaxi. Heat was rolling off that vault door, and noxious smoke as well—their lungs would all need the attention of a healer after this—but Sardelle couldn’t tell if the soulblade had broken through yet. She would ask for an update after she dealt with the two guards.
She slipped into an unlit observation room. Whatever lay beyond the glass in this one, it was too dark to tell. What lay above the ceiling was more concerning. Enough light seeped in from the corridor that she made out a vent in one corner. She closed her eyes and once again located the approaching men. Inspired by Jaxi’s heat wave, she applied some energy of her own to the bottom of the duct, close to the vent. Her mind ached, and her eyes felt gritty, like she needed to close them for a few hours—or a few days. She had been expending too much of her power and feared her muscles were trembling from more than the effects of that poison. Still, she managed to heat the thin duct metal nicely and was rewarded with a yelp of pain when the first man reached it, placing his hand on the hot spot.
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 upward 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.
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.
He forced himself to run, passing bodies—and body parts—strewn all over the floor. His beleaguered stomach threatened another round of spasms. On the floor behind a column, there was an inert form that wasn’t wearing the crimson Cofah uniform, but the gray and blue of Iskandia. Ridge forced aside his sickness to run to Apex, afraid he was already dead.
Apex’s uniform jacket was covered in vomit, his limbs were trembling, his face was drenched with sweat, and saliva beaded at the corners of his mouth. Unfocused eyes stared at the ceiling, and his weak breaths rasped in his throat. Ridge stumbled to his knees beside him and clutched his arm.
“Apex,” he said. Uselessly. What more could he say that wouldn’t be a lie? Ridge knew a dying man when he saw one.
“I don’t know why everyone’s vomiting,” came Tolemek’s voice from a toppled bookcase a few feet away. He heaved the obstacle away and dragged out his bag. “Some Cofah tinkering with the formula.”
“Can we discuss that later?” Ridge snapped, annoyed with the science analysis. If Apex had another minute, he’d be shocked. He needed… what, Ridge didn’t know. “You know what this gunk is? Can you do anything?”
Apex blinked, his eyes focusing on Ridge. Tears welled in them. “Should… should’ve listened,” he whispered, then took a deep breath, or tried to. He didn’t seem to be getting the air he needed.
Tolemek dropped down on the other side of Apex, digging in his bag. He pulled out a jar and a syringe. Ridge held his breath, hoping that was some kind of cure—and that it could be delivered fast enough. And that it would work. What did that mean? A Cofah tinkering with the formula? Was this something of his? That same death toxin that had almost been unleashed in the capital?
With quick, efficient movements, Tolemek filled the syringe from the jar. “I’m not going to try to make a deal with you, Zirkander, but I’d appreciate it if you keep this piranha off me in exchange for this.” He pulled out a knife, cut open Apex’s trouser leg, and jabbed the needle into his thigh.
Apex didn’t react. He didn’t even seem aware of them anymore.
“What is it?” Ridge whispered, watching his lieutenant’s face, hoping this was some miracle cure.
“Atropine. I make it in my lab from the deadly nightshade plant.”
“Nightshade?” Ridge lunged across Apex and grabbed Tolemek by the shirtfront. “I thought you had a cure, not a poison.” Was all of this just to end Apex’s suffering? Seven gods, Ridge could have done that with a knife.
“Relax, Zirkander. It’s not enough to poison him.” Tolemek picked up Apex’s wrist, his fingers resting on the pulse. He watched the lieutenant’s face and ignored the death grip Ridge had on his shirt. “Even if the Cofah altered the formula, it’s still an organophosphate. The symptoms match up, and I can tell from the abbreviated whiff I got.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But Ridge let go of Tolemek’s shirt. Apex’s eyes had widened, and his breathing had grown less raspy.
“That’s what you get for making paper fliers during your science classes.”
“I—”
Movement behind Tolemek drew his eye. A crimson-cloaked figure was dropping down from the ceiling, not ten feet away.
Ridge remembered his rifle—back on the floor where he had left it when he had been vomiting and worrying about Apex. He clawed at the pistol on his belt, but the guard already had a weapon pointed at him. Ridge threw himself to the side and whipped his own gun out at the same time as a shot fired.
He expected a bullet to the chest, but it was the guard who reacted, stumbling forward, then spinning around. Another shot fired. The man tumbled to the floor. Ridge raised his aim to a second guard, who had been in the middle of lowering himself from the vent. He’d paused at the sounds of gunfire, and started to pull himself back up, but Ridge caught him first. His shot struck the man in the side, and the man dropped like a brick. Two more shots—not his—were fired from somewhere behind the Cofah men, both thudding into the figures on the floor. The guards didn’t move after that.
Ridge stood, his pistol in his hand, not sure whether he was about to welcome an ally… or something else.
A figure in a torn crimson uniform stepped out from behind a pillar, a Cofah shotgun in one hand and a pistol in the other. Ridge tensed. But the person spoke at the same time as he recognized the bruised, swollen face.
“I wasn’t expecting you here, Colonel,” Kaika said.
Ridge swallowed. “We weren’t expecting you, either.”
Kaika looked fierce and scary at the same time as she looked battered almost beyond recognition and wearier than death. “We thought… they said you were dead, and we saw bodies hanging by the door. Wearing your uniforms.”
“Yeah.” Her eyes closed and she took a shuddering breath. “Nowon is dead. I couldn’t figure out how to get into the vault. I questioned a couple of guards and scientists, but they didn’t know. They kept saying the woman who knows isn’t here. I’ve been hiding out—I think they thought I was dead, too… after that acid trap thing… whatever it was. But I tricked the scientist who tripped it, pushed her in, then stuck her in my uniform.” She was walking toward them as she spoke, her steps slow, her shoulders slumped, as if firing those last shots had taken all of her meager reserves.
Ridge lifted an arm, not knowing if she wanted a hug, but she damned well looked like she needed one. So did Apex, whenever he was strong enough to sit up and receive one.
Kaika slumped against his side, accepting the arm around her shoulders. “I’ve been skulking around for days, using what I could find—what I could recognize—to make explosives.”
“Explosives?” Maybe someone else had his plan in mind.
“I thought if I couldn’t get to the dragon blood, I could blow up the mountain so nobody else could, either.” She looked at him warily. “The king… I mean, I didn’t talk to him directly, but Nowon said he didn’t want any of this to survive to be used against us.” She waved toward the laboratories. “And I don’t think he knew about half of what they’ve been doing here. Or even a tenth. Are you going to countermand that? Because I was about to light the fuse, but I heard the gunshots and thought—I figured it must be you people. Who else knows this place is here? I didn’t want to blow you up.”
“Those are the kinds of words I like to hear from my officers. My enemies too. Listen, Sardelle and the others have the dragon blood.” Ridge pointed at the lift, in the direction he believed them to be. “So let’s not blow this place up yet. If we can get to them, we can bring back some samples for the king and our own scientists.” He tilted his chin toward Tolemek, who was helping Apex sit up. Apex still looked like something an alley cat had coughed up, but some of the color had returned to his face. “Then we can blow up the mountain.”
“Let’s make sure we figure out how to get out before considering that route,” Tolemek said.
“Welcome back, Captain,” Apex said. “You look awful.”
Kaika looked at Ridge and jerked a thumb at Apex. “The man knows he’s sitting in his own puke, piss, and shit, right? I can’t possibly look worse than him.”
Apex’s face paled a little again as he looked down at himself. Ridge was glad he had only caught the tail end of that smoke—and had ejected most of his own vomit onto the floor. He had notions of a romantic reunion with Sardelle, and that was always easier without puke plastered on one’s shirt.
“He does now.” Ridge nudged Apex’s boot with his own. “Hope you brought a change of clothing, man. Otherwise we might not let you into our hot air balloon.”
Apex’s expression grew even more mortified. Good. If he could manage to look mortified, he couldn’t feel that awful anymore.
Ridge?
Here. We’ve met some of your ceiling rats. And their smoke bombs.
Did everyone make it?
Thanks to Tolemek, yes.
Good. We’ve separated the vials into bundles for different people to carry. Should we try to reach you or wait to be rescued?
Ridge snorted softly. Somehow I doubt the people who figured out how to get into that vault are truly in need of rescuing.
That depends on whether you want Jaxi randomly melting walls.
She can melt the whole place if she wants. Oh, wait. “Where are the explosives, Kaika?” Ridge asked.
The captain pointed toward the floor. “Lowest level, support columns. I’ve never done a cone-shaped building before—” she outlined the mountain form with her hands, “—but I found the architectural blueprints, so I think it’ll go down smoothly.”
Ridge wondered if he and the others had been battling those statues on the ground floor without ever noticing explosives nestled in the shadows of the walls.
“How do you get them to go off all at once?” Tolemek asked. He had repacked his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and appeared ready to march.
“I found some timers I could modify to use. I haven’t set them yet. The lift is watched so I haven’t been using that. Been climbing all over this place. I haven’t slept in… I don’t even know what day this is.”
Ridge clasped her shoulder. “The day we get out of here and go home. Would you be terribly offended if I sent you back down there to set those timers now?”
Kaika slumped a little, but she said, “No, sir.”
“Can you give us… three hours?” Ridge thought they could find the others and the way out Sardelle had mentioned in less than two, but couldn’t imagine there was a need to make it close. Other than the fact that the Cofah might find the explosives if they were given more time to do so.
“Most I can do with the clocks I found is an hour,” Kaika said.
“Oh.” That would be close.
Sardelle? he asked, hoping she might be monitoring his mind or whatever it was telepaths did to communicate with non-telepaths, but he didn’t receive a response. Guess she wasn’t obsessed enough with him to want to stalk his every waking thought. Probably a good thing for his sanity. And hers.
“Sir?” Kaika said. “This is why I was sent. Nowon was supposed to get the blood, and I was supposed to destroy the research facility.” She gazed past him, at the wrecked furniture and lab, or maybe at nothing. “I can stay behind to give the rest of you more time to escape.”
And get herself killed if she couldn’t get out in time, if not in the explosion then in trying to pick a path through those geysers.
“No, we’ll all get out of here together,” Ridge said. “Set the timers, and meet us at the top floor. There are hot air balloons that we can launch from there to escape.” Or so he had been told. He hoped Jaxi’s assessment of the mountain proved accurate, or they would all be in trouble.
“Yes, sir.”
“I can give you some company if you’d like, Kaika. To watch your back while you work.” As soon as he said it, he realized he would have to be that company. Tolemek might be needed to burn a way in to free the others, and Apex would be lucky to walk out of here of his own accord.
Or so Ridge thought. Apex pushed himself to his feet, using his rifle for support. “I can help her, sir. I’ll, ah, grab one of these Cofah uniforms since mine is in… disrepair. We might be less likely to be shot if we look like them anyway.”
Ridge lifted his eyebrows, wondering if Kaika would want someone who had almost been dead ten minutes earlier. He wouldn’t have much energy.
From the way her lips screwed up thoughtfully—or was that dubiously?—Kaika was mulling over the same thing. By this point, she might be desperate enough for company to take him anyway. Ridge felt bad about sending her down to the bowels of the mountain again, but she was the demolitions expert. He wouldn’t know where to begin to set the charges.
Kaika finally thumped Apex on the shoulder. “Fine. You can hold my rifle while I tie knots. Let’s go.”
Surprisingly, Apex perked up at this offer. Or maybe it wasn’t so surprising. Ridge remembered that Kaika had kissed him the last time they had seen each other. Duck, who had been more openly ogling her, hadn’t received similar treatment.
Before heading away, Apex looked back at Tolemek. “Thanks for the help.”
It wasn’t exactly a peace offering or an apology for all the digs he had taken at Tolemek, but maybe it was a start. Ridge didn’t know, but he hoped so. He didn’t want to have to reassign Apex to the other side of the continent to ensure he wouldn’t come in contact with his nemesis.
“You’re welcome,” Tolemek said.
“Well, Tee,” Ridge said as the other two walked away, “shall we find our ladies?”
Tolemek looked up at the open duct access point. “Yes. It was foolish of us to misplace them in the first place.”
“I agree.”