Patterns in the Dark (Dragon Blood Book 4) (35 page)

“I’d be better,” Duck said weakly, “if someone was holding my head and fondling my hair.”

“Uh,” Zirkander said. “I guess I could if you want to crawl over here.”

“I meant a woman, sir.”

“Well, if you’re going to be picky, I can’t help you.”

Tolemek hunted around for Tylie and found her climbing to her feet already. She looked like she had been knocked out, too, but she walked toward the dragon on unsteady legs. He had settled on his stomach, his tail stretched out behind him, and he watched her approach, his eyes not so chilly as they had been when regarding Tolemek and the others. Tolemek still wouldn’t call the expression inviting. There was a distinctly reptilian alienness to Phelistoth’s face, reminding him that this was not a human being and couldn’t be counted on to act or feel the way one did.

Tylie walked up to the dragon’s side and leaned against him, her face to his scales.

“Is that, uh, safe?” Zirkander asked quietly, glancing back at Tolemek. As if he knew.

“He did save your life,” Sardelle murmured, gazing up at Zirkander, not shifting her head out of his lap yet.

“He did. But I can’t say I got the impression he was incredibly pleased to be doing it.” Zirkander touched his palm to his chest and shuddered slightly. “He doesn’t have a gentle touch.”

The dragon’s tail had been lying straight out behind him, but it swished a couple of times, then curved around his body. Tolemek had a vision of Tylie being squished by it—even flat on the ground, it came up to her waist—but it curled around her, almost gently. Protectively.

Thank you
, came a whisper into Tolemek’s mind. Tylie. She smiled at him, a gleam of excitement in her eyes that he hadn’t seen since she had been a little girl, plotting some adventure in the woods behind their house.
Be safe.

Are you going somewhere?
Tolemek asked, a hint of panic welling in his chest. This sounded like a farewell.
Sardelle came to teach you.

Later.

The tail tightened around Tylie and lifted her into the air.

Zirkander’s mouth dropped open, and he patted at his side, groping for his rifle.

But Phelistoth merely deposited Tylie on his back, then released her. She sat astride him, as if he were some giant horse, then dropped to her belly, an arm stretched out on either side of his spine. Tolemek reached out, wanting to object. That didn’t look safe at all. Didn’t the dragon riders of old have some kind of saddle? A way to strap in?

Duck pointed at her. “Is she going to—”

The dragon’s legs bunched, muscles rippling beneath the sleek scales, then it leaped straight up into the air, disappearing from view. Tolemek’s heart lodged in his throat. He raced forward, certain Tylie would fall off and be crushed when she tumbled to the ground. But somehow, she hung on as the dragon cleared the ziggurat, spread his wings, then shot even farther upward. He broke through the latticework over the crater and sailed toward the stars. Tolemek’s last glimpse showed him soaring away with Tylie still on his back.

“Uh,” Duck said. “Did the dragon just kidnap Tolemek’s sister?”

“She wanted to go.” Tolemek sighed, feeling bleak—and small. What could he offer Tylie compared to that?

Cas walked over and took his hand in both of hers. She looked up at him, her eyes full of sympathy. They also seemed to say that she was still there for him. “Ready to go home?” she asked.

“I better be. I’m completely out of grenades, potions, and other compounds.” Tolemek slipped his arms around her, closed his eyes, and dropped his face to her hair.

“
Completely?
”

“Completely.”

“I’m almost out of ammo,” she said. “I guess we better hope we don’t have any trouble reclaiming our fliers.”

Epilogue

By the time the weary group limped into town, the noon sun beating down on their shoulders, Tolemek wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week. Perhaps a month.

Little had changed in the pirate haven. New ships were docked in the harbor and new people wandered in and out of the taverns. He didn’t see any sign that the virus had reached the area yet. Maybe it never would. Tolemek would hope for that because without the dragon, he wouldn’t know how to heal those afflicted.

He looked skyward, hoping he might spot Phelistoth and his sister soaring among the clouds. In the jungle, the canopy had been too dense overhead for him to glimpse much of the sky. Alas, he didn’t see anything other than seagulls. They had probably left the island, the dragon wanting to stretch its wings after three thousand years. Tolemek worried for Tylie. She had never been on her own. How would she get by?

“She’ll be able to find you when she comes down, I’m sure,” Cas said from his side, catching him looking up. She carried her weapons as vigilantly as she had when they had first embarked on the mission, including the dragon-slaying sword that she had wrapped in a cloth and strapped to her pack. The thing looked like it weighed at least ten pounds. If she felt tired after the week’s events, she didn’t show it. Of course, knowing her father was out there, probably wanting to put a bullet between Zirkander’s shoulder blades, might keep her alert.

“I told her I lived in Iskandia now,” Tolemek said. “I wish I’d been more specific.”

“Do you really want a dragon knowing where you live?” Duck asked.

“So long as he shows up with my sister.”

“The king might be upset if he heard about a dragon perching on the roof of your lab building.”

“Can’t be any worse than the hideous one Zirkander has dangling in his flier,” Tolemek said.

Zirkander had been in the lead, setting a determined pace along the outer streets of town, wanting to check on his fliers before anything else, but he frowned back at them at this. “My luck dragon is
not
hideous.”

“And it’s not in his flier,” Cas said. “It’s in his pocket.”

Zirkander’s fingers twitched toward his pocket, but he stopped himself. “It kept me alive, didn’t it?”

“Barely, sir,” Duck said. “Maybe you should get a bigger one. Maybe Phelistoth will come perch on
your
house.”

“I don’t know if base security would allow that.” The field where the fliers had been parked came into view, and Zirkander’s attention shifted forward again. He stared, nearly tripped, then broke into a run.

The fliers were still there, but strings of bones were draped all over them—human bones. In addition, the craft were surrounded by pointy poles thrust into the ground with skulls stuck on the top of them. Entire skeletons dangled from the tops of some, and as the breeze blew in from the ocean, the bones rattled and clanked. More than a few of the skulls had rusty knife hilts sticking out of them.

“Uh?” Cas asked. “I better go see what that’s about.” She jogged ahead, not running quite as quickly as Zirkander. But then, she wasn’t as in love with her craft as her commander was. Her rifle, now, that was another matter.

“There’s Moe,” Sardelle said, waving toward the wiry man walking toward the field from another street, a book open in his hands. He had not noticed the return of his son yet.

“Dad!” Zirkander called from the cockpit of his flier. “Care to explain this?” He tossed a femur to the ground, then hefted a skull over his head.

Moe lifted his head and closed his book. “Oh, good afternoon, Ridgewalker. I was coming to check on your devilish contraptions. You wouldn’t believe how much trouble it’s been watching over them.”

Zirkander lowered the skull and looked into its empty eye sockets. “Oh, I might.”

By this time, Cas had climbed into her own flier, and grumpy curses wafted out of her cockpit, along with bones being flung left and right.

“Those are fallen souls who died horribly on account of the curse,” Moe said.

Tolemek, Duck, and Sardelle reached the fliers, and Duck also diverted to check on his craft. Tolemek waited, curious to hear the story.

“That’s the story you spread?” Zirkander asked.

“I didn’t even need to spread it. Fallen souls and curses are part of the local legend, thanks to the indigenous people. And pirates, being a superstitious lot, are quite willing to believe such tales. All I had to do was supply the fallen souls.” Moe waved toward the poles and their skull decorations.

“And you did this for a reason, I presume.”

“Oh, yes. Pirates kept trying to steal your fliers, and the natives were flinging mud at them and other less than savory items.”

Cas tossed a soggy bag out of her cockpit and made a face. “Yes, found one. This hot humid climate turns things aromatic quickly, doesn’t it?”

“I volunteer to ride with someone besides Cas on the way home,” Tolemek announced.

She glowered at him almost as balefully as the dragon had.

“Nobody else wants your hairy pirate butt on their seats,” Zirkander said as he hefted more bones and garbage over the side.

“Sir,” Sardelle said, catching Moe’s eye, “where did you get the bones for your ruse?”

Moe closed his book. “From the catacombs beneath the library, of course. This town has a far more fascinating history than I suspected. I’d only intended to do some research of this archipelago in general, but I may need to stay here for a while.”

“You would like the pyramid, Dad,” Zirkander said, his voice muffled since his head was below the seat, his butt sticking in the air.

Tolemek thought about commenting on the position, but decided he had better help Cas instead. He wanted to go home. And strangely, the image that formed in his mind at the thought was that of Iskandia and his lab in the capital, something to do with Cas’s whispered, “I love you,” perhaps. The memory of that moment made him smile.

“Ziggurat?” Moe flipped open his book again. “I read about that in here, and the dragon-worshipping culture that built it, but it’s believed that the jungle took it back centuries ago.”

“It didn’t, but it’s not in the best shape anymore. There were some explosions… and a dragon flew through the roof.”

“Explosions?” Moe’s eyebrows flew up. “Ridgewalker Meadowlark Zirkander, did you blow up priceless ancient ruins?”

“Meadowlark?” Tolemek mouthed.

I understand that was his mother’s contribution
, Jaxi shared.

“It wasn’t me,” Zirkander said. “Why assume it was me? I was busy trying not to die from some horrible disease. Sardelle, tell him.”

“You
were
thinking of toting those kegs down the corridor to bring down the roof on the Cofah,” she pointed out.

“But I didn’t actually do anything.” Zirkander flattened a hand to his chest. “I’m innocent.”

“Ridgewalker,” Moe said sternly. “I don’t think you understand how important history is and how irreplaceable relics from the past are.”

“How am I getting a lecture when I’m the one who came back to a flier full of bones and… seven gods, is that goat poop?” Zirkander’s lip curled. “Sardelle? I need you to wave your hand like you did before, that move where you clean the seats of disgusting organic matter.” He cast a plaintive look in her direction.

“Need any help?” Tolemek asked Cas from the ground next to her cockpit.

She shook her head, but she wasn’t looking at him. She had stopped cleaning and was frowning up at the sky, a hand shadowing her eyes.

At first, Tolemek thought she had spotted the dragon, but the creature flying through the sky was mechanical rather than living. A bronze Iskandian flier buzzed out of the clouds over the ocean. Now that Tolemek had seen a true dragon, the craft was truly laughable—what would Phelistoth think when he encountered his first one? Or a Cofah airship?

“That’s Wolf Squadron,” Cas said.

Zirkander, who had been arguing back and forth with his father about the sanctity of ancient ruins and how they shouldn’t be damaged, even if they had been taken over by enemy troops, looked up. The flier descended toward the harbor, and a few shouts went up from ships docked out there, pirates who must have thought this heralded a raid. But the lone craft veered away from the town.

Zirkander lifted a hand—fortunately, he wasn’t holding any skulls this time—and waved. “That’s Apex.”

The flier circled and came in over the trees to land in the field, bumping along the uneven ground and flattening two of the poles before coming to a stop nearby.

“That’s definitely Apex,” Zirkander added dryly.

“Captain Kaika is with him,” Cas said.

“I see that.” Zirkander hopped down from his flier.

Tolemek hung back, doubting this had anything to do with him.

Cas dropped down beside him. “That’s odd. I could see why Apex might be sent to check on us—though I’m not quite sure how he found us, since we’ve been island hopping—but why would the general send Captain Kaika back?”

“Perhaps he found out the ziggurat had only been partially blown up,” Tolemek said.

Moe frowned at him.

“Sir,” Apex blurted, practically flinging himself out of his cockpit. He landed on a couple of bones, but kicked them aside, barely noticing them. Usually, Duck was the young careless one; Apex was Tolemek’s age and not nearly so brash. “I’m so relieved we found you.”

“How
did
you find us?” Cas asked.

“The dragon and this island are in the news back home. We’re not sure who the source was. It’s chaos in the city right now. And we weren’t sure you would still be here, either.”

“Let’s have the report, Lieutenant,” Zirkander said.

“The king is missing, sir. The queen is in charge, supposedly, but she hasn’t addressed the people, and nobody’s seen her outside of the castle.”

Zirkander accepted the news with a worried frown but nothing more explosive. Until Apex spoke again.

“Sardelle’s face is on wanted posters all over the streets of the capital. As a witch.”

Zirkander thumped his fist against his thigh. “Damn, what’s been going on while we’ve been gone?”

“Nothing good, sir. We had to sneak away to warn you. Colonel Therrik has been put in charge of the flier battalion, and you’ve been declared AWOL.”

“
What?
” This time Zirkander cursed so vehemently that Apex backed away, sending a worried look up to Kaika. Tolemek wondered if Sardelle would be offended that this information drew more of a distressed reaction from Zirkander than the news about her bounty. “
Therrik?
” Zirkander went on. “That buffoon doesn’t know anything about flying except how to puke in the back of my craft. He’s in a different brigade altogether. He
was
. Where’s General Ort?”