05 Dragon Blood: The Blade's Memory (44 page)

“Uhhh,” was all Ridge could manage, not sure whether the great silver dragon soaring through the air was
their
dragon, the one they had released from the pyramid, or if the Cofah had found another one buried in a stasis chamber along with their sorceress. Even if it was the dragon they had saved, that didn’t mean the creature was working for their side now.

“It’s Phelistoth,” Sardelle said as Ridge spotted someone riding atop the dragon’s neck, unfazed by the wings flapping behind her. Tolemek’s sister.

That made Ridge feel better. Even if Tylie was Cofah, she wouldn’t do anything to harm Tolemek. Indeed, as the dragon swept toward the tilted tower—toward the entire tilted platform—he realized what she intended to do. Phelistoth spread his wings, coasting down and landing, the great claws wrapping around those low wall of the tower top. Tolemek appeared small next to the massive creature, but he did not hesitate in approaching. Phelistoth crouched low and Tolemek scrambled up his side to join his sister on the dragon’s neck.

Sardelle leaned away from Ridge’s chest, frowning down at him.
You’re injured.
She lowered one of her hands from his shoulder to his ribs, her touch so light that he barely felt it.

Yeah, my chest challenged a wall to a duel. The wall won.

A warm sensation radiated from Sardelle’s fingers, like some balm sinking through his skin and soothing his battered nerves.
I don’t think I can heal you until we’re on the ground, but I’ll try to lessen the pain.

Thank you.
Ridge glanced over his shoulder, wondering how much longer that fortress could float up there. His flier had already descended a thousand feet, but that did not keep him from spotting movement on a tower at the far side of the platform. A Cofah flier swept down in a maneuver that wasn’t quite as fancy as Ridge’s had been and picked someone up. Sardelle groaned. Sunlight glinted off armor, and Ridge had a good idea as to who had been rescued.

As Phelistoth leaped away from the tower, Tolemek’s added weight doing nothing to bother him, the final snap came from within the fortress. One second, Ridge was flying along beside and below it, contemplating his route to the hangar. In the next second, the final thrusters gave out, and the entire structure plummeted. The draft it created was enough to rock his flier as it passed, but then it was gone, sinking into the ocean far below, no longer a threat to Iskandia.

The lone dirigible left in the air limped out to sea. The remaining Cofah fliers—Ridge was proud of his people when he saw how few remained—also headed for home. If Ridge had been able to communicate with his squadron, he might have ordered a pursuit, to take down the Cofah before they could return home and report, but he couldn’t continue to fly with Sardelle in his lap and his engine groaning pitifully. He doubted many of his people’s craft were in any better shape. He hoped they hadn’t lost anyone else.

No
, Sardelle murmured into his mind as she stroked his chest lightly.
Going after them would be a bad idea. Despite our best effort to bury her, they still have their sorceress.

You buried enough.
Ridge would savor the memory of the giant fortress sinking into the blue ocean for a long time.
Shall we go home, my lady?

Please. I know Jaxi is squishing something that I want to see working later tonight.

I assure you that with your healing skills and the proper motivation, everything will be working.
He had better not promise too much since he did not know how much being healed would take out of him. He also couldn’t feel his legs at the moment.

I’ll think of some good motivation. Kaika has been offering tips.

Ridge snorted, but admitted to a sense of intrigue, as well.
Then I shall look forward to being motivated.

Good.
She kissed him on the neck and laid her head on his shoulder.

Ridge tilted them toward the airbase far below, more ready than ever to go home.

Epilogue

Sardelle clasped her hands in her lap so she would not fidget. In her past, three hundred years in her past, she wouldn’t have been nervous about being invited to a dinner gathering with the king at Harborgard Castle. Oh, she might have felt out of place, but mage advisers had often been brought in to political meetings, and she had gone along on a few. That had been before she had played a role in killing the king’s wife and demolishing a section of his castle.

“I think he’s decided not to throw you into the harbor,” Ridge whispered, leaning close enough to brush her shoulder with his.

He
didn’t look nervous. His eyes gleamed with good humor, and he was as handsome as ever, with his hair freshly cut and his face shaven. His dress uniform, the breast of the jacket full of medals, added to his dashing air. Alas, he did not smell like lavender today, having moved back on base and returned to using military-issue bathing products. Fortunately, he also did not smell like pine trees or cockpits, or any of the other things he had thought would make a pleasing scented soap for men.

“Are you sure?” Sardelle murmured back. “He’s hard to read. Half the time, when he’s joking, I’m not sure if he’s joking.”

“I think if he’s joking at all, then it’s a good sign. I’ve heard from General Ort that Angulus can have quite the temper when riled.”

King Angulus had not yet joined them at the gathering, so Sardelle did not know if he would be joking tonight or not. She and Ridge sat along one side of a long wrought-iron table, sharing it with their comrades from the last few weeks and enjoying the fragrant air in the solarium. The glass-lined and plant-filled room had been far enough away from Kaika’s bombs that it did not appear to have suffered damage, and through luck or fortune, none of the flying fortress’s artillery weapons had slammed into the castle during the battle. Other parts of the city had not been so fortunate, and nobody would soon forget that attack.

“Is General Ort back on duty?” Sardelle asked. She knew Ridge had been eager to return all of the bigger problems to his C.O.’s lap, so he could go back to being a simple squadron leader.

“Yes. He refused to take any time off, even though
his
lighthouse prison was apparently less opulent than the king’s. He and the other officers that the queen ordered rounded up lost a lot of weight while they were crammed into a dank, windowless room for weeks, and that was on top of having received injuries during the initial kidnapping. But I think it was not being able to keep his boots polished and his uniform ironed that really riled Ort up. When we broke down the door, he came out swinging and looked ready to chew bullets. I’m just glad Angulus knew where they were, so we could collect them easily enough.” Ridge swirled the beer in his mug and smiled. “I didn’t mind being the one leading that rescue. A few of the generals stuck with Ort aren’t my biggest cheerleaders. Maybe they’ll feel more kindly toward me now.”

“You don’t think that would be more likely to happen if you stopped strolling irreverently into their offices and throwing your boots up on their desks?” Sardelle asked.

He snorted. “Who’s been telling you that I do such things?”

Sardelle sipped from her glass and smiled innocently over at him.

“He would have liked this,” Duck mumbled from the other side of Ridge, a beer stein cupped in his hands.

“The beer or the castle?” Ridge asked.

“The castle. The history. Apex would have had stories.”

“Yes.” Ridge patted Duck on the shoulder, then lifted his mug. He looked around the table, meeting the eyes of his comrades.

All of the Wolf Squadron men and women who had fought had been invited to the gathering, along with Tolemek, Sardelle, and Kaika. Some sat around the table with them and others stood in twos and threes, talking quietly while they waited for the king. Only Cas was missing, a fact that had left Tolemek brooding and silent tonight. Even the return of his sister did not seem to have brightened his mood for long. Tylie was staying at Ridge’s mother’s house tonight, washing up after her travels and playing with the cats. Sardelle had no idea where the dragon had gone off to.

Better you not know,
Jaxi said.
When last he flew into my range, he was munching on a sheep.

A wild sheep or a shepherd’s sheep?

I didn’t ask.

“To Apex,” Ridge said when everyone was looking. “And to Masser, as well. Fallen comrades taken from us too soon.”

The others raised their mugs and thumped their fists on the tables three times as they drank. Sardelle did not feel like one of Ridge’s pilots, even after all they had been through, but she replicated the gesture quietly and sipped a dry white wine from her glass. Tolemek only stared into his mug, the beverage barely touched. Like her, he would probably never feel entirely comfortable here, a white wolf amid all the grays. Still, none of the pilots were making superstitious hex signs at either of them. It was an improvement, the first of many, she dared let herself believe.

The somber moment was replaced by laughter as Pimples tried to convince Duck to take him to visit some noble ladies they had been discussing off and on tonight, vintners who lived in the countryside. Sardelle assumed they were the same women Duck and Tolemek had helped kidnap the night of the castle infiltration, but she could not imagine how Duck had turned them into friends. He must have been charming, to keep those women from holding a grudge.

Jaxi snorted.
He convinced the ladies that he had rescued them from an evil sorceress who had stolen their carriage
.

He rescued them, eh?

Nobly and bravely, yes.

Was Tolemek noble and brave too?
In the chaos of the following day, Sardelle never had gotten a chance to ask what had happened with those women.

He played the role of Duck’s loyal henchman.

No wonder he’s been in a dour mood.

I think that has more to do with the fact that he helped kill hundreds of his people. Either that, or he’s upset over Cas.

Some of both, perhaps.
Sardelle had started thinking of Tolemek as a dependable ally and sometimes forgot he had grown up in Cofahre and fought in their army for years before becoming a pirate.

More laughter broke out as the squadron made bets and speculated on Pimples’s likelihood of “making it to the end of the runway” with a noblewoman.

Sardelle squeezed Ridge’s arm, then left her seat to sit in the empty one next to Tolemek.

“Are you going to be all right?” she asked softly.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Tolemek said.

“Which is why you’re scowling into your mug so fiercely that you’re making the foam wither.”

Tolemek did not smile at her attempt at humor.

More soberly, Sardelle said, “I hope the king has already said as much, but please know how much Ridge and I appreciate your help with destroying the fortress. I’m sure all of the pilots do here, and in time, I hope everyone in the city will learn how instrumental you were in protecting them.”

“I don’t care if anyone knows. I don’t want a prize.”

Sardelle groped for something else to say, but she did not have any words that would take the blood from his hands. Maybe he wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

“I chose to study the field I did,” Tolemek said. “I don’t need sympathy—I don’t
deserve
it. You pick a path where you don’t know what lies at the end, then that’s your fault for not checking a map. I’m just… in an uncomfortable position now. Your king wants more weapons, more defenses, and I know exactly who they’ll be used on.”

Sardelle turned her palm upward and spread her fingers. “So what if you pick a new path?”

Tolemek frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“Not every scientist makes weapons. There are other ways to be useful, perhaps ways that would help humankind.
All
of humankind, not just Iskandians.”

Tolemek grunted noncommittally, but the faintest hint of speculation entered his eyes.

She would not press him. She wasn’t even sure if she should, since she did not know what deal he had made with the king for his lab.

“Have you been able to talk with Cas at all?” Sardelle hadn’t seen much of her since the air battle. She knew Cas wasn’t staying on base, though, and she knew Ridge was worried about her. Everyone in her squadron was, especially since the true story hadn’t come out, so they didn’t understand her absence.

“Some, but she’s mostly avoiding me. I don’t know why. It’s not as if
I
would judge her.” Tolemek took a deep swallow from his mug.

“I’m afraid it’s about her judging herself.” Sardelle had thought about seeking her out a couple of times, but suspected she was one of the last people that Cas wanted to see right now. “She probably needs some time, so the edge dulls somewhat.”

“I know. I’m not pushing her to talk. But I wish she would let me—” Tolemek glanced around, then lowered his voice. “I wish she would let me take care of her. And that she would stop trying to resign.”

“Ridge is doing his best to thwart that.” Sardelle smiled faintly. “Apparently, she’s left three resignation letters on General Ort’s desk this week, which have all accidentally flown out the window, become illegible due to ink spills, or burst into flames. I suspect Jaxi of colluding with him to make these accidents happen.”

I know nothing of these letters of which you speak.

You’re a worse liar than I am, Jaxi.

That can’t be possible.

“I heard she saved Zirkander’s ass up there.” Tolemek looked pleased, either at the idea of Ridge needing his lower cheeks saved or out of pride that Cas had performed well. Maybe both.

“There’s a reason he doesn’t want her to resign.”

More servants were coming in with drinks, and a set of six guards filed into the sunroom. Assuming Angulus would join them soon, Sardelle left Tolemek to his drink and returned to Ridge’s side.

“Any news about Ahn?” Ridge asked as she sat down.

“How do you know that was the subject of our conversation?”

“For a second there, Tolemek looked wistful instead of brooding.”