Patterns in the Dark (Dragon Blood Book 4) (17 page)

“We’ll have to ask our dragon expert about that.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, toward Sardelle presumably.

Cas wished Apex hadn’t been sent back to Iskandia. For this conversation, she would rather talk to him than Sardelle.

“I’ll admit I’m hoping for a non-violent solution,” Zirkander said. “Like maybe we can use our pretty smiles and charisma to talk the dragon over to our side, or to at least convince it to leave the Cofah and become a neutral party.”

“Do pretty smiles affect dragons?”

“I don’t know, but the old songs claim the bard Frontier Festyr had the ability to tame a wild horse with a grin. They didn’t even take care of their teeth back then, so I ought to have the advantage.” He clapped her on the shoulder. “I want to see what the exact situation is before plotting dragon slayings. What’s your second question?”

“It’s tied in with the first. I get the sense that for Sardelle, the dragon, whoever he’s working for, is a relative of sorts. Or that she feels that way toward it. Will she allow us to… do what needs to be done?”

“I don’t think it’s likely it’s a relative, given that she’s from Iskandia and he’s… from
here
apparently.” Zirkander waved toward the top of the mountain. “Part of some long lost clan of dragons that’s been hiding out in this remote area, maybe. It’s more likely he’s related to that tiger back there.”

Cas grunted.

“But Sardelle is practical. I think if a peaceful solution can’t be reached, she’ll understand. And help us.”

Cas hoped that was true. She wasn’t as certain that Sardelle would be able to be objective about the dragon.

“Either way, you might not want to think about the possibility overmuch,” Zirkander said.

“Because Sardelle’s sword might hear?” The possibility of having it or Sardelle reading her mind made Cas uncomfortable.

“Because the
dragon
might hear. I figure if Jaxi can get in my head and root around, a dragon would have even less trouble. Just because it didn’t respond to whatever mental message Jaxi and Sardelle sent, that doesn’t mean it’s not aware of us coming. And if it’s aware of us coming, the Cofah might be too.”

“Comforting.”

A faint odor reached Cas’s nose. She held up her hand, stepped on a log, and peered into the brush to the side of the trail. In the thick shadows beneath the trees, it took her a moment to see anything besides leaves, but then she spotted another carcass, a deer-like creature this time. More of it had been devoured than of the tiger. Tastier meat perhaps.

“Another dead animal,” she said when she hopped down. The others had caught up.

“A lot of them here,” Duck said.

“I’m not sure two is a
lot
,” Zirkander said. “This is the wilderness. Animals kill and eat each other.”

Something plummeted from the sky and landed on the trail twenty meters ahead. Cas had her rifle pointing at it before she knew what it was, but she didn’t fire. There was no point. It was a big bird, a type of falcon, and it was already dead.

Duck cleared his throat. “Is
three
a lot?”

“Maybe,” Zirkander said.

“Does anyone worry that it might not be right healthy to keep heading up this mountain?”

“Trust me,” Zirkander said, “it’s on my mind. Every time I cough, I’m sure it’s going to end with me keeling over, after I go crazy and try to pummel everyone in the party.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Had
he been coughing?

Tolemek lifted his chin. “You could try, Zirkander.”

While the men exchanged speculative stares, Cas headed toward a stream trickling past, parallel to the path. She had to clamber over a log, push past a thorny bush that wanted her rifle for a souvenir, and slip down the side of a mossy rock, nearly landing in the creek, but she made it. “Everything is a fight here,” she muttered.

She unslung her nearly empty canteen and dipped it toward the clear rippling water, but froze with its mouth an inch away. She looked up and down the stream, half-expecting more carcasses to be littering the area. They weren’t, but a new thought had jumped into her mind, chilling her. What if the water was the problem? What if it was the way the disease was being transmitted? Or what if it wasn’t a disease at all, but some poison or toxin that the Cofah were dumping into the streams as part of an experiment? An experiment that they wouldn’t undertake on their own soil, but one they might try on a remote island, assuming nobody would report their vile work here?

“Cas?” Zirkander called. “Are you coming back, or did you decide it was time for a bath?”

“No…” She stared down at her canteen, afraid now to fill it. But she had already filled it from water sources in the jungle. They all had. It might have looked clear, but Tolemek had said whatever was affecting those people’s brains was too small to see, even with his microscope.

“No, you’re not coming back, or no you’re not bathing?”

Foliage crunched behind her, and Duck and Zirkander came into sight. Cas stood slowly, facing them with her canteen.

“The water, sir. I realized we might have a problem.” Cas shared her thoughts, half hoping one of them would tell her that she was being silly, that diseases—or manmade poisons—couldn’t be transmitted that way.

Zirkander studied the stream and rubbed his jaw—he, Tolemek, and Duck hadn’t shaved for a few days, and Cas thought the scruff looked scratchy and grimy. “I would have expected Tolemek or Sardelle to mention something if we had to worry about the water, but maybe that was an incorrect assumption.”

“Where did they go?”

“They’re crouching over that dead raven, head to head, pointing and discussing it. I’m trying not to find their newfound interest in corpses alarming.”

“Scientists are strange,” Duck said. “Sorceresses, too, I suppose. But maybe they’ll save our lives.”

“I would be amenable to my life not needing saving.”

Cas frowned down at her canteen, puzzling over how to top off her supply without risking more exposure. Or did it not matter at this point? Had they already been exposed to what was making the rest of the jungle sick?

Duck took her canteen, stepped across the stream, and stopped in front of a bush with broad leaves. He folded one, held the mouth underneath it, and captured an impressive amount of water that ran off. “As long as it keeps raining every day, we gather water this way.”

“Did you lick the leaf first?” Zirkander asked. “You’re sure that’s not a poisonous bush?”

“I’ve actually been testing a number of shrubs along the way here—you can start out rubbing a leaf against your skin to see if there’s a reaction. And I’ve eaten some of the fruit. We have supplies for a few more days, but you never know when they’ll run out.” Duck nodded at the big-leafed shrub. “I wouldn’t eat this fellow, but the leaves aren’t toxic to humans.”

“I knew there was a reason I brought you along,” Zirkander said. “Those keen wilderness survival skills.”

“Yes, sir. They’re what keep me in high demand with the ladies back in the capital.” His mouth twisted wryly.

Back in the barracks, Cas had heard stories of Pimples’ dating woes, but Duck didn’t usually talk about his personal life. Or maybe she didn’t pay attention. She’d always had that tendency to focus on work instead of romance—especially the romantic lives of others—until a certain pirate had fallen into her cockpit.

Zirkander clapped him on the shoulder, filled his own canteen with the water from the leaves of an identical bush, then headed back to the path. Cas accepted her canteen from Duck, thanked him, and returned to find Tolemek and Sardelle standing up. Tolemek tucked something into an inside vest pocket. Some sample he had taken? Cas didn’t look too closely. Whatever Duck thought, she wasn’t interested in studying brain bits up close.

“Have you two tested the water?” Zirkander asked. “Cas was wondering if the streams might be responsible for spreading the disease.”

“I haven’t tested it,” Tolemek said. “Given my experience with the brain tissue, a negative result under the microscope wouldn’t prove anything one way or another.”

“Hm.” Zirkander leaned his head toward Cas. “I think that means we better continue to gather water from the leaves.”

“Agreed, sir.”

Tolemek frowned at Zirkander. Cas didn’t know if it had anything to do with their easy camaraderie, but she stepped away from her commander just in case.

“I haven’t sensed anything off with the water,” Sardelle said, wiping her hands on her leather trousers, “but I will also agree that a negative doesn’t mean much in this instance. It
does
seem that there has to be some common element that’s causing the animals and the humans to become affected. While there are examples of airborne diseases, there’s usually a sharing of bodily fluids or other close contact.
If
we’re dealing with a disease.”

“I hope the animals and the people aren’t sharing bodily fluids.” Zirkander grabbed his pack and canteen, waved toward the trail, and headed up, glancing at the permanently grounded raven.

“Likely not, but people do sometimes live in close quarters with domesticated animals,” Sardelle said.

“That winged tiger wasn’t domesticated. I’ve heard those like to munch on people.”

“I know.” She fell in beside him. “I’m sorry, Ridge. I don’t have any answers for you yet.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder for a moment before letting it drop. “It’s all right. We’ll figure it out.”

Cas shouldered her own canteen, trying not to think about the number of times she had filled it from the ground water already on this trip.

Chapter 9

Tolemek stopped counting dead animals after they passed the twentieth one. Every instinct inside his body was crying out for him to get out of this place before it was too late. Like Zirkander, he kept worrying that he was experiencing the first symptom of the illness; he kept catching himself touching his forehead, trying to determine if the beginnings of a fever burned beneath his skin. Cas’s idea to avoid the groundwater was a good one, and he wished he had thought of it earlier.

“I think we’re going to have to camp on the trail, sir,” Duck said. “There aren’t any clearings. If anything, the jungle has gotten denser again.” Denser and darker. A strange mist had rolled out of the undergrowth as twilight approached, one that seemed unlikely on a mountainside. “We—”

A shot fired in the distance, from somewhere behind them. Tolemek tried to meet Cas’s eyes, but she was staring back down the trail, her expression knowing rather than surprised.

“Our pirate friends?” Zirkander asked.

“Possibly.” Cas didn’t sound convinced.

“I’d hoped the crazy natives had taken care of them.”

“Ridge?” Sardelle asked, facing the jungle instead of the trail behind them.

“Yes?” Zirkander asked.

“I think we’re close.”

Tolemek’s heart thumped behind his ribcage. He hadn’t heard again from Tylie, and he kept worrying that he was too late, that the Cofah had somehow sensed him coming and had stolen her away again.

Sardelle stepped off the trail, slipping between two towering fern-like plants, and disappearing into the gloom. Zirkander frowned back toward the gunshot, his hand on his pistol. Tolemek pushed into the ferns. He probably
should
be concerned about threats behind him, but it was what lay ahead that held his heart.

“We’ll follow her,” Zirkander said. “Duck, do your best to hide our trail.”

“Sir,” Cas said, “should I wait here? See if someone comes up behind us?”

Tolemek froze, his foot halfway over a mushroom-bedecked log. Even though he knew Cas was capable of a great deal, he didn’t want to break up the group. No, he silently urged Zirkander. Order her along.

“Let’s stay together, in case Sardelle gets us irrevocably lost. I’ll let you set a nice trap outside of whatever mud hole we end up camping in tonight.”

For the first time since he had met the man, Tolemek wanted to hug Zirkander. Not enough to actually turn around and do it, but he was relieved to see Cas stepping off the trail behind him.

Tolemek hurried to catch up with Sardelle, who was already disappearing into a dense thicket of reeds. She had worn a distracted expression as she had walked off the trail, and he wasn’t entirely positive she was going to wait for them.

Don’t worry, pirate boy. You and your microscope are important to us.

I had no idea my fate mattered to you.
He jumped around a lichen-covered boulder and slipped into the reeds, having to walk sideways to squeeze through. Mud squished beneath his boots.

It’s more the microscope than you
, Jaxi replied.

You have a fondness for inanimate objects? I suppose that makes sense.

What is that supposed to mean? Does someone want his pack to increase to its actual weight?

You better not do that unless you want Sardelle to deal with that dragon alone.
Which might happen anyway if Tolemek couldn’t keep up with her. The reeds poked and pushed at him, some too thick to easily be pushed aside.

The dragon isn’t the next problem.

What is?

Jaxi didn’t reply. Wonderful. Another mystery. Just what he needed.

Tolemek pushed out of the reeds, only to step in deeper mud. Mosquitoes nipped at his exposed flesh. He hesitated, wondering if he should pull out a light. Twilight had grown so thick beneath the canopy that it might as well be night, and he didn’t want to step into a sink hole.

“Sardelle?” he called softly.

Crunches came from behind him, along with a grunt that sounded like it belonged to Zirkander. Tolemek planned to wait for him until a faint yellow light reached his eyes. Jaxi’s golden glow? If so, it was quite a ways ahead.

He risked walking farther into the mud, keeping his hands on branches in case the dubious ground gave away. As he moved along, the light grew more pronounced. Now he could see the silhouettes of the mosquitoes buzzing in front of his face. He wasn’t sure if that was an improvement or not.

“Over here,” came Sardelle’s soft call from the side.