Blood Charged

by Lindsay Buroker

  “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 b
roken 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.”