More gunshots fired. They sounded closer this time.
“Are those coming from the lab?” Cas thought of her father. He was the epitome of stealth, so it was hard to imagine him getting caught in a firefight. But what about Tolemek? Would he start shooting at his own people? Or was it more that his own people were shooting at him?
She quickened her step, soon passing the others to stride along at Sardelle’s side. The gunfire stopped. She wanted to break into a run, but Zirkander was lagging behind, despite a determined set to his jaw.
They turned a corner at an intersection and almost stepped on a body. The dead man had been flipped over and slouched against the wall, his neck sliced open.
“That’s my father’s work,” Cas said quietly. Maybe he was the one shooting people in the lab after all.
“Handy,” Zirkander muttered.
Sardelle pointed down the new passage. “We’re almost there.”
“Anyone else disturbed by the people eating brains?” Zirkander asked, stepping past the body and waving a hand toward the carvings on the walls.
“I was hoping that was merely cereal in a skull-shaped ceramic bowl,” Duck said.
“I’m trying not to look,” Sardelle said.
Ignoring the decorations, Cas reached the next corner first. A hint of an odor lingered in the air, something that made her nostrils sting. They had reached the lab, but it was a mess. One of the big glass walls was shattered, and furniture had been shot up and toppled. Fancy chemistry apparatuses were smashed all over the tables and floor.
A twinge of disappointment ran through her. Tolemek wasn’t there. Even though she knew he was hunting for his sister, and she had no idea where the girl was, Cas associated Tolemek with labs. It would have felt right for him to be here.
“Look,” Sardelle breathed beside her, then pointed at the lab, or rather through the lab, to the huge figure on the other side of it. The dragon might have looked up at her earlier, but it wasn’t moving now. Its head lay between its arms, almost like a snoozing dog.
“A very big dog.” Cas didn’t see anyone in the lab, but she approached the door with her rifle at the ready. Those furnishings could hide an army, and there were curtained doorways on one wall too. “What’s the plan, sir? Smash everything that isn’t smashed? Find any vials of blood and take them for Iskandia?”
“Find the vials,” Zirkander said. “And then… Sardelle, how would you like to chat with a dragon? Convince it to leave the Cofah and join us? Or at least fly off to some remote island that isn’t affiliated with either government.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be able to fly anywhere. It—he—is dying.”
Cas was listening to them as she opened the door to the lab, the top half of it, anyway. The bottom had been sawn away. Or maybe burned away? She touched the edge, thinking of Tolemek’s corrosive goo. Had he been here already? Maybe he had caused all the damage. But then where had he gone?
She stepped inside. The odor was stronger, despite a fan sucking air through the ceiling. She paused inside the doorway, her shoulder blades itching. They weren’t alone. She was sure of it.
“Any ideas on how to keep the Cofah from continuing to use him?” Zirkander asked. “As a military man, I have to admit my first thought is to blow up this installation, the same as we did with the volcano, but my father would kill me if I destroyed ancient ruins. I’m also skeptical as to whether I brought along enough explosives to handle it.”
“I would say set him free, but I’m worried he’s willingly working with them,” Sardelle said.
Duck followed Cas into the lab. “Someone made a mess in here.”
“Someone who may still be here,” Cas murmured.
“Ah?” Duck glanced at her face, then raised his rifle too.
They went in opposite directions, Cas along the stone wall with the doorways in it and Duck along the glass. She stopped when she reached the first curtain. It was swaying slightly on the wire it hung from. Because of the ventilation fan? Or because someone had just brushed past it?
Cas looked back at Sardelle, wondering if she could sense anyone else nearby. But she was drifting across the center of the lab, her gaze locked on the dragon’s form, a pained crease to her brow. Maybe his presence was overwhelming her senses, or even hurting her. Either way, Cas would have to search the old-fashioned way.
She nudged the curtain open with the muzzle of her rifle. A dark, unlit hallway stretched ahead of her, the sides lined with crates and stacks of books. The Cofah had humped a lot of gear up here along those narrow jungle trails. They must have cleared a real road somewhere that led all the way down to the water.
Not seeing any movement down the hallway, Cas let the curtain fall shut again. Doorways opened up in that direction, but she might get herself lost in a maze if she started checking each of them. Besides, the lab was what they needed to secure.
A soft clank came from one corner of the room. Zirkander lifted an apologetic hand. “Just me. Looking for their stash of dragon blood. I’m assuming they have some here, and I intend to liberate it from them. Or at least make sure they can’t send it off to power any more unmanned fliers.”
“You would think the dragon would be mad about them taking its blood,” Duck said.
“His blood,” Sardelle murmured. She had crossed the lab and stood with her hand pressed against the shattered glass wall that separated her from the dragon.
Cas hoped she wasn’t planning to go out for a visit. It—he—might appear unconscious now, but that could be a ruse. Maybe he was trying to lure them in, so he could more easily attack them. He might be the very reason that wall was shattered. Had he seen Tolemek and tried to get to him?
“It—he should want to work with us instead of them,” Duck grumbled. “But the way he called out ‘intruders’ when he spotted Cas sounded about as promising as a fox with its snout down the vole’s den. Promising to the vole, anyway.”
Cas checked behind the second curtain. The hallway and its contents were almost identical to the first.
“Something happened over here,” Duck said.
“Something happened everywhere,” Zirkander said.
“Yeah, but the ground is all chewed up over here. It’s strange. Like acid burned it.”
Acid? Or some goo that Tolemek had concocted? Cas turned the corner and headed toward Duck. She passed Sardelle, who still had her hand pressed to the glass. Cas thought about suggesting that someone should be standing guard back in the tunnel they had entered through, but she didn’t know if Sardelle might be communicating with the dragon or trying to learn something important. Besides, Zirkander was facing the door as he poked around, and he still held his pistol.
“There’s a big grate in the ground too,” Duck said.
“Perhaps,” a familiar voice said as Cas walked up, “you could open it and help us out?”
She rushed to the grate, barely noticing when she clanked the end of her rifle on a table and knocked over an empty beaker. “Tolemek? Are you all right?”
“So long as you’re not some assassin who seeks to shoot one of us, we’re fine.”
“Us?” Duck asked. “Did you find your sister?”
“Yes.”
Cas pulled open the grate, worried anew by his mention of an assassin. Had her father attacked Tolemek? Driven him down there? If so, why would he have left them there instead of finishing his grim task? “Did my father… did you see him?”
A long pause came from below, and a woman whispered something Cas couldn’t make out.
“Your father?” Tolemek asked.
“He’s here. I would have told you, if you hadn’t run off.”
“I didn’t run off. I strode boldly away. Duck, I’m going to boost Tylie up to you. Will you help her out?”
“Of course.” Duck stepped past Cas and crouched beside the hole.
“I hear some voices in the distance.” Zirkander had moved to the door and stood with it open, his ear cocked. “Might wa
nt to move things along. We may have visitors soon.”
Cas hesitated, knowing she should go over and stand by the door with him to prepare for an assault, but also longing to see Tolemek, not to mention the sister that had been a part of his quest for years.
She came into view first, a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl of sixteen or seventeen—the layers of dirt smearing her face made it hard to guess more than that. The Cofah obviously didn’t think their prisoners deserved bathing rights. Her gaze slid past Cas, barely registering her, and focused on the dragon. Her eyes were glassy, vacant.
Duck caught her beneath the armpits and lifted her to the floor. Tolemek jumped, his fingers wrapping around the edge of the pit. He pulled himself up and hugged Cas. He was grimy, too, and smelled strongly of that unpleasant smoke, but she hugged him back, relieved he hadn’t gotten himself killed when he had been running—striding boldly—off on his own.
“I’m sorry,” Cas said. “Is my father the one who forced you down there?”
“No, at my sister’s suggestion—” a strange, almost bewildered expression flashed across his face, “—we hid down there. I didn’t know who was coming or what he wanted, but she thought he was extremely dangerous. He certainly was quiet. I wasn’t sure he was gone until I heard you talking up here.”
“Ah, I was going to be alarmed if he was making a new hobby of stealing men’s shirts and stuffing people into holes.” She patted his bare chest, wondering how he had lost it. He still had his vest—its various vials and tools prodded her through the leather.
“No, but Cas…” Tolemek stepped back to look her in the eyes. “What’s he doing here? Did you know he was out here?”
“I knew someone was out here, at least I suspected it, but no, I didn’t know he was the one following us until an hour ago. He warned me not to come in here.” As if she would have abandoned her team, her friends. “He wouldn’t say who sent him or what—or who—he’s after.”
“He came in here, but I don’t know if he found what he sought. I think he heard you coming and left.” Tolemek turned toward his sister—she was staring at the dragon, much as Sardelle was, as if some enthralling theater troupe were performing on the creature’s back. Cas could only assume that those with sensitivity to magic felt something she didn’t. Oh, she sensed the power emanating from the being—it hung in the air, as tangible as if it curled around them like a thick mist. But she had no trouble looking away and focusing on other matters.
“Tylie?” Tolemek touched her elbow. “This is Cas, that’s Duck, and that’s Sardelle over there. She’s the one who might be able to help you.”
Tylie glanced at Sardelle, shook her head, and pointed at the dragon. “He’s the one we have to help. You have to find a cure for him. He can’t last much longer. If he dies…” She swallowed, her voice thick with emotion. “We can’t let him die.”
Tolemek spread his hands, giving Cas a quick what-do-I-do look. She had no idea how to help him. Tylie was more cogent than Cas had expected, but she sounded younger than she should have for her age, like a child with a simplistic view of the world.
“I doubt that’s within our power to stop, Tylie,” he said gently.
“Duck?” Zirkander called softly. “Want to help me over here? We’re going to have a fight on our hands soon. It sounds like they’re gathering all of their forces.”
“Maybe we could find a back door out of here.” Duck waved toward the dragon’s chamber. “Or if you still have the rope, maybe we could climb back the way we came. Assuming the dragon won’t eat us if we go out there.”
“We’re not done here yet,” Zirkander said. “We should probably destroy the lab—the rest of the way—and then we have to make sure the Cofah can’t get any more blood.” He frowned thoughtfully at the dragon. “Though I suppose if he’s dying anyway, that solves that problem for us.”
Tylie hadn’t been paying much attention to the conversation, but these words made her whip around and stare at him. “We’re not going to let him die. Tolemek won’t. He’s a great scientist. He can find a cure.” She looked around her, eyes growing wide as she seemed to see Cas, Duck, and Sardelle for the first time. She shrank back toward Tolemek. “You’re Iskandians. Tolemek, they’re…”
“Friends,” he said firmly. “I’ll explain it all later, but I’ve found sanctuary in Iskandia. I’m working there. They gave me a lab of my own. And I have…” He stretched a hand toward Cas, but didn’t finish the sentence.
She wished she had given him a less nebulous answer back in the pirate town, let him know that he did have her. He hadn’t lowered his hand, so she clasped it and nodded.
Tylie frowned doubtfully at that handclasp, but she didn’t comment again on the company. She gripped Tolemek’s arm. “You can save him. I know you can. You’re so much smarter than any of the scientists here that were studying the disease.”
Tolemek had been shaking his head, but he paused at her last words. “They were studying it? You didn’t say—earlier you didn’t seem sure they were actually doing that.”
“They said they were,” Tylie said, but her words didn’t sound confident.
“Actually, it makes sense that they would have been,” Sardelle said. “Some of them were dying from it, too, after all. And Tolemek…” She glanced toward Zirkander and lowered her voice. “If the dragon isn’t a compelling enough reason for you to see if you can find a cure, Ridge has started showing symptoms of the disease.”
“That’s supposed to make me want to help?”
Cas frowned at him, and so did Sardelle. Tolemek sighed and lifted an apologetic hand. “Sorry. No, you’re right. We’ve all been exposed at this point, so it would be useful to find a cure. Maybe if they’ve already made some progress…” His face grew bleak as he looked around the lab, taking in the broken equipment strewn all over the floor, as well as the bullet holes lacing the cabinets. “I’m now wishing I hadn’t so wantonly shot up the place.”
The crack of a pistol made Cas jump. “Sir?” she asked—it had come from the doorway.
“I think that was a scout.” Zirkander waved toward the corner of the corridor that led to the lab. “I scared him off, but I’m sure he’ll be back.”
More rifles fired, and bullets blasted against the glass wall a few feet away from the door where the colonel stood. Tolemek grabbed Tylie and pulled her down behind a desk. Cas ducked, too, but she planned to head for the door to help Zirkander as soon as she was certain a bullet wouldn’t fly through the wall and take her in the face along the way. The spray had damaged the glass, sending spider webs of cracks out in all directions.
“Guess I didn’t scare him off, after all,” Zirkander said. “The glass is thick, but it’s not going to hold forever. We better take this into the tunnels, try to back them off so Tee doesn’t have to worry about a bullet in the head. Because he’s going to find a cure for us, right?”
Cas glanced back in time to see Tolemek’s scowl.
“Yes, because curing diseases is so often the work of a half hour.”
All Cas could do was wave and hope he could do it, hope that whatever the Cofah had been researching would help him along.
“Wait,” he called as Duck and Sardelle headed after her. “I don’t mean to sound needy, but if there truly is an assassin skulking about, it would be nice if someone watched my back while I worked. It’s hard to concentrate when you’re expecting a bullet between your shoulder blades at any moment.”
Cas paused. He was right. For all she knew, he was her father’s target. Zirkander and the others might need her marksmanship on the front line, but… She looked back at Tolemek. He needed her. Sardelle had the power to keep the Cofah at bay. She could—
“I’ll watch him,” Zirkander said, surprising her by coming up beside her. “You’re more fit than I am right now. I can manage to sit on a desk and point my pistol at any shadows that move, but you’ll be more capable of keeping them from advancing. Duck will help you, and Sardelle will be there to
o.” He nodded at Tolemek. “Jaxi said she would help you, Tee.”
“Did she? Joy.”
Cas shook her head. “Sir, I should stay. It’s my fault that my father’s here, and I should be the one to protect Tolemek.”
“I don’t see how it could possibly be your fault that you’re related to him and he’s here. But I wasn’t opening this up for debate.” Zirkander jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Another spray of bullets fired, but this time, they bounced away before striking the glass. Sardelle must have raised one of her shields. Did she truly need the help of a couple of riflemen? Maybe she could hold off the Cofah on her own.
“She’s not as effective with the dragon’s presence muting her awareness,” Zirkander said, as if he had guessed her thoughts. “And she said she would be busy watching over Tolemek’s shoulder.” He touched his temple. “She’s the only other person here likely to know how to help with this cure. I need you to protect her. You and Duck.”
Cas knew she shouldn’t hesitate, but she couldn’t help but feel she was the best person to protect Tolemek and Tylie if her father showed up. She knew him; she’d been trained by him. She met Tolemek’s eyes, silently asking what he wanted. But he was no help. He gazed back at her for a moment, then walked over to a desk full of books and handwritten journals. He put his back to her and dug into the notes.
“Lieutenant,” Zirkander said. “I’m not making a request.”
“Yes, sir.” Cas glanced once more at Tolemek’s turned back, then headed for the door.
*
While Tylie watched from the corner, Tolemek flipped through the logs, scanning the entries as quickly as he could, hoping he would find what he needed in the mess. And hoping that what he needed was actually there. The Cofah might not have spent any time looking for a cure, instead accepting the losses of their troops as a necessity in order to obtain the blood.
Patterns in the Dark (Dragon Blood Book 4) Page 22
