Blood Charged

by Lindsay Buroker

  Ridge settled on the stone outcropping, the thrusters and heat of the engine melting the snow in the crevices of the rock. He unfastened his harness, climbed down, and turned, intending to give Sardelle a hand, but she hopped down and landed beside him.

  “Let’s go see what you brought down,” she said with a smile.

  “Yes, ma’am.” It was almost strange speaking out loud after all of their silent conversations, but with the propeller stopped and the wind a mere breeze, softened by the snowfall, there was no need. Ridge gazed out toward the steppes for a moment, making sure there wasn’t any obvious sign of pursuit, then headed up the slope.

  “I think that village is exactly what it looked like,” Sardelle said. “Something simple and rural that just happened to have someone stationed in a watchtower. There are probably only one or two soldiers for the post.”

  “One or two soldiers can rouse a village of people with bows and pitchforks.” Ridge grimaced as his boots sank into the snow up to his knees. This was going to be quite the slog, maybe taking longer than he had realized. So much for the night’s sleep—or standing watch professionally—that he had been waiting for.

  Sardelle didn’t debate his statement. They clambered up the slope in silence, though they were soon breathing hard from their exertions. Ridge wasn’t out of shape, but this was hard work. He kept looking up the hillside, hoping to spot the thing, but it had to be close to a half hour before the black wreckage came into sight. The three sets of wings had been torn off in the crash, and littered the mountainside. The rest of the battered body was half sunken into the snow.

  Wiping sweat from his brow, he pushed his way toward it. “Nowon better appreciate his sample. Even if all I feel like lugging back is a screw.”

  Sardelle increased the intensity of the light that had been guiding their way, but stood back to leave the investigating to him. “My engineering knowledge is rudimentary.”

  “And here I thought it was a secret passion when you were summarizing Denhoft’s Theories on Aerodynamic and Aerostatic Flight to me.”

  Her light was just bright enough that he could make out the redness of her cheeks. That wasn’t all from exertion, he didn’t think.

  Ridge stepped toward the wreck, wanting to touch the remains of the hull to see if the black was paint or some strange metal he wasn’t familiar with, but paused, his hand hovering above the fuselage. “It doesn’t have any magical alarms or traps that will go off if I touch it, does it?”

  “None that I can sense.”

  “You didn’t think it was magic before. Are you still of that opinion?”

  “I’m… not sure. I do sense something not entirely mundane, but it’s not like the tools and baubles that sorcerers can make.” She groped in the air with her gloved hands, as if she could find the proper term to explain her feeling there.

  Ridge prodded the hull with a finger. Nothing happened. Emboldened, he patted around the cylindrical hull, searching for an access panel. There wasn’t a cockpit, nor would the contraption have been able to support the weight of a man. It was only a third of the size of a one-man flier. Even the guns were scaled down, though he didn’t doubt that they could have damaged his craft if their bullets had struck. The hull did seem to be painted, so his thoughts of strange new metals were unfounded.

  “Got something,” he said, his gloves sliding over a crack in the side. He pulled out his utility knife and levered the panel open. He expected some burst of light to shine out, something similar to what his flier’s power crystal emitted, but there was nothing of the sort. There were wheels and levers inside with wires all going to a little box. It had been dented in the crash, but he managed to pull it out, not worrying about the wires snapping. He pried it open, then leaned closer to Sardelle’s light.

  A thumbnail-sized glass dome was mounted on something that reminded him of the punch cards used in machines back home. He couldn’t believe the technology he was familiar with could have directed these two aircraft. Not a chance.

  He tilted the little dome toward the light and was surprised when a bubble of air moved around inside. “Huh.”

  “A liquid?” Sardelle asked.

  “A crimson liquid.” Ridge held it toward her. “Is that the source of your not-entirely-mundane feeling?”

  Sardelle nodded without taking the board. Her eyes had grown wide.

  “Dragon blood?” Ridge asked.

  “I… think we should test it before making that assumption. Your king’s report, he didn’t mention anything like this, did he?” She spread her fingers toward the wreck.

  “No.” Ridge pocketed the small board. Nowon was going to get a very interesting sample. “Let’s hope Tolemek has something in his bag for examining it. I can tell you one thing, right now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve looked this craft over from nose to tail, and there’s nothing else on here that could be a fuel source, not that my brain can fathom anyway.”

  “I’m not aware that dragon blood was ever used for fuel. The mind boggles at the notion of a dragon allowing its blood to be used thusly. Or used at all, for that matter. All the legends tell us they were the most formidable creatures in the world. And arrogant and prickly by nature. That said… I don’t know of anyone who was trying to power machines a thousand years ago. Your archaeologist pilot may have more insight, but you were pretty sophisticated if you were using whale oil lamps instead of candles back then.”

  If the king’s spies had learned of this, Ridge understood the reasoning—the urgency—behind this mission.

  His body had chilled, so he waved for them to head back to the flier. The weather wouldn’t be pleasant tonight wherever the squadron landed, but he hoped it would be a few degrees warmer on the flats beneath the mountains. He gave the wreck several long looks over his shoulder as he and Sardelle picked their way back along the trail they had broken.

  “Something else bothering you?” she asked.

  “Just thinking that whatever we’re dealing with, it’s far more advanced than anything the Cofah have brought to Iskandia before. If there are more machines like this, we could be in trouble.”

  Chapter 7

  Sardelle rubbed her arms, shivering in the cold air and watching Ridge try to stifle yawn after yawn. She wanted to drag him off to bed, or to a bedroll, as the case was. Instead, as the midnight snow fell, he was crouching over a map with Nowon and Kaika, pointing and discussing an extraction plan with them, while the other pilots checked the fliers for damage or maintenance needs. A couple of bullets had clipped the wings of Ridge’s craft during the skirmish with the Cofah constructs.

  Since landing, Sardelle had gotten her first good look at the elite troops captains, but they hadn’t done more than give her curious and slightly suspicious looks. The pilots, too, were giving her the squint eye. Duck had been sent off on some mission as soon as they arrived, but Apex kept frowning in Sardelle’s direction. Everyone had to be wondering what Ridge had been thinking in bringing her, especially considering the unorthodox manner in which she had been added to the team. She had been thinking of how she might prove herself to the king, but perhaps she needed to start with them.

  Without revealing yourself?

  I don’t know, Jaxi.

  While Ridge and the others worked, Sardelle loitered near Tolemek, wanting to hear his assessment of the liquid trapped in the bubble. Strange that he was the person here she was most comfortable with now, aside from Ridge. A few weeks ago, she never would have thought she would have any sort of relationship with him, but as the only other non-military person here, she felt a kinship with him. Maybe it was because he was getting even darker glares than she from Apex and from the captains too. Ahn was the only one who saw him as anything other than Deathmaker.

  At the moment, Tolemek was kneeling on a bare patch of ground, a lantern burning beside him as he poked into one of his bags. He was assembling something.

  “A microscope?” Sardelle guessed as the pi
eces came together.

  “Yes, a very small and weak one. My equipment selection was severely limited due to the weight restrictions someone imposed upon me.” He leveled a stare, not at Ridge but at Ahn.

  “It’s not my fault your muscles weigh so much,” Ahn said. “You should be happy we didn’t overheat the engine and fall out of the sky over Hariti.”

  “Yes… my massive brawn is an ever-present burden. It’s amazing I can fit through doorways without having to turn sideways.”

  “He’s just cranky because he doesn’t have all of his beakers, test tubes, crucibles, and snakes with him,” Ahn told Sardelle.

  “Snakes?”

  “And spiders. Haven’t you seen his terrariums?”

  “I haven’t been up to the lab, no.”

  “The lab assistant has assured me the creatures will be tended,” Tolemek said, pulling a slide out of a case. “It’s largely the Micon Burner I’m missing right now. It’s useful for sterilization, combustion, and heating my hands when they’re cold.” He grimaced and flexed his fingers—he had removed his gloves to set up. “Zirkander, can I break this bubble?” He held up the board from the wreck.

  “Did Nowon get to look at the intact sample?” Ridge asked.

  The captain trotted over before Tolemek could answer and knelt beside the microscope. Tolemek handed him the board with its captured liquid and fiddled with the microscope settings while Nowon studied the machine innards by the light.

  “Interesting. If this is what they’re doing with the dragon blood, it’s not at all what my brother thought. He mentioned weapons, yes, but the last I heard, he believed the Cofah were going to inject it into humans to enhance people, possibly giving them the power of the sorcerers of old.”

  “Maybe they tried and that didn’t work.” Tolemek took back the board. He jabbed a needle into the back of it, drawing out some of the liquid inside the bubble without breaking the glass.

  “Perhaps,” Sardelle said, “they still bear the prejudices toward sorcerers that their ancestors did. In my studies, I’ve learned that the Cofah had a… purging similar to the one on Iskandia.” She swallowed down emotion that welled up into her throat, reminding herself that this was distant history to these people and that they wouldn’t understand how recent it all had been for her. Except Ridge. She caught him gazing across the camp at her, his eyes gentle with understanding. “Supposing it’s actually possible to give a human being powers by injecting dragon blood into their veins—and I don’t know if that’s feasible or if such blood would be rejected or destroyed by the immune system—the Cofah may fear that in creating sorcerers, they would be bringing about their own destruction… or creating their own masters.”

  Nowon was watching her intently. “What is your specialty?” he asked. The and-why-are-you-here hung unspoken in the air.

  “I am a student of healing and history,” Sardelle said, then glanced at Lieutenant Apex. He’d only known her as an archaeologist, as per Ridge’s cover story. Would he be suspicious if she now claimed a doctor’s talents?

  But he was frowning at the microscope. “Aren’t we prematurely believing we have dragon blood? I fail to see how it could be acquired unless the Cofah have found dragons, and that’s highly unlikely.”

  Sardelle imagined some sealed amphora that could have been unearthed by archaeologists. Or miners. But even if someone a dozen centuries ago had found a dead dragon and exsanguinated it for some reason, the blood couldn’t still be alive today.

  “I’m taking a look now,” Tolemek said, “though I confess I don’t know if dragon blood looks different from human blood at the microscopic level or not. I’ve never seen any before nor seen it described in textbooks. Dragons predate modern science. They predate most primitive science too.”

  Sardelle found herself leaning over his shoulder as he peered into the microscope. Nowon did too. Even Ridge came over, apparently more intrigued by the results than by his map.

  “The cells are still alive,” Tolemek said. “Interesting. There’s no nuclei in them, so it’s not human blood. Nor is it mammal blood. The cells are large, but that doesn’t necessarily mean much. Frogs have larger cells than humans.”

  “There’s nothing that reeks of magic, eh?” Ahn asked.

  “There are anomalies. You’ll have to let me know what qualifies as reeking of magic.”

  “Weird concoctions that have a creepy blue glow even after all the lights are turned off at night.”

  Tolemek frowned over at her. “I assure you there’s nothing magical about Illumination Goo Number Four. Bioluminescent plankton are the source of that glow. I captured the dinoflagellates from your own harbor.”

  Nowon and Ridge shifted uneasily, and Apex openly scowled over at Tolemek. It might have been the talk of magic or the reminder of Tolemek’s scientific nature—and what he had done with it in the past.

  Ahn noticed the reactions and looked like she wished she hadn’t spoken in the first place.

  “Like a jar full of fireflies,” Sardelle suggested, though she suspected Tolemek might have applied some magic without even realizing it—she had seen the evidence of that in a number of his concoctions—if only to keep the plankton alive indefinitely. Like her, he would have to tread carefully in the modern world.

  “Oh,” Ridge said. “That would make a useful light, I guess.”

  Tolemek fished in his bag. “I’ll test the blood for an electrical current or some kind of charge that might suggest… enhanced properties.”

  “We saw it power an aircraft and shoot at us,” Ridge said. “You don’t think that’s proof of enhanced properties?”

  “It’s possible someone was using magic to control the craft from afar.” Tolemek withdrew a device similar in look and size to a thick compass, but with bolts for attaching wires.

  Ridge met Sardelle’s eyes. She shook her head once. She would have felt something like that.

  Tolemek attached probes on wires to the testing contraption.

  Galvanometer, Jaxi supplied.

  How do you know that? Are you poking around in his thoughts?

  Of course not. I’m simply a student of the sciences.

  And tools that hadn’t been invented yet when last we walked the world?

  We’ve been free for weeks now. It’s not my fault you haven’t applied yourself to catching up and acquiring a modern education.

  Why don’t I believe you, Jaxi?

  I have no idea, but that is dragon blood as sure as I’m a powerful sorceress residing in a sword. You people could just ask me if there’s any uncertainty with these things. Also, you might want to keep him from poking around in there.

  What? Why?

  Before Jaxi could answer, one of Tolemek’s needles brushed the damp blood on his slide. A sizzle sounded, charging the air, and he was hurled away from the microscope. He flew several feet, knocking Ridge over, before landing on his back. His already unruly hair stuck out in more directions than usual, as if he had been struck by lightning. His eyes were frozen open, stunned.

  Stunned… or dead.

  Afraid his heart had stopped, Sardelle rushed to his side, laying a hand on his chest. It hadn’t stopped, but the beats were jumpy and erratic. Healing electrocution victims was not something she had much experience with, but she did her best to sooth the muscle and return it to its usual beat pattern. Fortunately, Tolemek’s body seemed able to recover with minimal intervention. He gasped in a breath and blinked a few times.

  “Are you all right, sir?” Apex asked.

  He and Captain Kaika had come to either side of Ridge, each offering a hand to help him up. Ahn rushed to Tolemek’s side, frowning with concern and clasping his hand at the same time.

  “Yes, fine. Thanks.” Ridge waved his soldiers back and sat up, propping an elbow on one knee. He waited until Tolemek lifted his head and was clearly alive, then asked, “Should I feel jealous that you rushed over to check on him before me?”

  Sardelle couldn’t imagine he’d
had many occasions in his life to be jealous, at least not of women choosing other men over him. “From what you’ve told me and from what I’ve garnered from your superior officers, if I fell to the ground beside you every time someone knocked you on your lower cheeks, all the skin on my knees would be scraped off.”

  “Probably true,” Ridge said.

  “Lower cheeks?” Captain Kaika’s lip wrinkled up in disbelief. “Who says that?”

  “She’s very proper,” Nowon observed.

  “It’s called being civilized,” Ridge said, rolling to his feet, “And well-mannered. Unlike most soldiers I know.”

  Sardelle raised an eyebrow. She was accustomed to soldiers and knew that they would often choose different words to describe the anatomy, but it was a novelty to have them teasing her. She tried to decide if that signaled a modicum of acceptance or if it simply meant she was an aberration for more reasons than one.

  “My manners are perfectly adequate,” Nowon said.

  “Mine aren’t,” Kaika said.

  “That is a truth.”

  “Are you all right?” Ahn murmured to Tolemek. She didn’t seem the type to fling herself onto a man to demonstrate love and relief, at least when others were around, but she had a firm grip on his hand.

  “I think so.” He rubbed his head. A charred scent lingered in the air around him.

  “So, what did that teach us?” Ridge brushed snow off his hands and his… lower cheeks. “Besides that it’s a bad idea to stick a little metal prong into a strange blood specimen.”