Soulblade (40 page)

Ridge pulled on the brake, grimacing as the hedges came up far too quickly. Without a harness, Mara might have been thrown from the cockpit, but he wrapped an arm around her, reacting on instinct before he could consider the merits of letting her go.

Such a gentleman
, a female voice said into his mind—her voice. She grinned and lifted a hand, fingers splayed toward the windshield.

The hedges flew out of the way, bushes torn from their roots and flung into the air before the nose of the flier smashed into them. Broken branches and stray leaves smacked against the windshield, and Ridge nearly caught a twig in the eye. They neared the back wall quickly. He couldn’t pull the brake any harder. His feet pressed against the floorboard, and his back was molded to the seat, with Mara molded to
him
.

Whether it was luck or her applying some of her magic, the flier stopped inches from the wall. Mara seemed supremely unconcerned. She slung her legs over the side of the craft and dropped to the ground.

Aware of guards streaming from the walls and out of one of the castle side doors, Ridge unbuckled his harness. His legs were rubbery, but he had to get out, to try to keep Mara from hurting anyone. He glanced toward what remained of the hedges. It wasn’t much. Had she done that with her
mind
? Or some gods-given power?

“General Zirkander?” a man asked.

No less than twenty guards formed lines behind the tail of the craft, their rifles pointing toward Mara’s chest. A couple of those rifles pointed at the unorthodox flier, too, with its distinct lack of military or royal paint colors. Ridge was surprised nobody was pointing a weapon at him. Nonetheless, he climbed down slowly without making any abrupt movements.

The man who had addressed him wore a guard captain’s triple gold sword rank pin on his uniform collar and a brimmed cap with a matching emblem on the front. He alternated frowning at Ridge and at Mara, who wore a vacant expression, as if none of this was of concern and her thoughts were elsewhere.

With a jolt, he realized that might be the exact case. Could she search for Angulus with more than her eyes?

“General?” the captain asked again, focusing his frown on Ridge. “Are you...
you
?”

What was Ridge supposed to say to that? With his missing memories, he wasn’t sure he could honestly answer that with a yes. His hesitation seemed to worry the guards, because they shifted their weight and traded uneasy glances.

“More or less,” Ridge said and tried a smile. He was, after all, known for his irreverence. “Am I not on the king’s appointment calendar?”

“Sir... you’re supposed to be dead.”

“In a crash in the Ice Blades?”

The captain nodded, glanced at Mara, then looked expectantly at Ridge.

Mara wasn’t acknowledging Ridge or any of them. Was he to be left to the introductions, then? What would happen if he blurted out that she was a witch? He wasn’t about to walk her to the king’s office. But if all of these men attacked her, would she attack back? To greater detriment? What choice did he have? He wasn’t going to help her along in this. He’d already been too much assistance, whether intended or not.

“I survived the crash,” Ridge said. “This, ah, lady—” was lady the correct term for someone who could tear up hedges with her mind? “—is my—” He tried to say captor, very blunt, very unmistakable. But the word would not come out. It was as if an anchor tied his tongue to the bottom of his mouth.

Maybe the captain had seen those hedges fly from their roots, because the frown he turned toward Mara was extremely suspicious. “Sardelle went looking for you, General. She didn’t find you?”

“Who?” Ridge asked.

The captain’s gaze lurched back to his face, his eyes widening.

The lieutenant next to him leaned close and whispered, “Maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s a dragon. They’re supposed to be able to turn into humans.”

Even though he’d heard about dragons multiple times now, the statement stunned Ridge so much that he was late defending himself. The notion that they existed still struck him as crazy, and how could one possibly turn into a human? That didn’t make sense.

“You are wasting your time with us,” Mara told the guards. “There’s a dragon coming, a
real
one.”

“Sure there is,” the captain said, then hissed at a couple of men whose concerned expressions had lurched skyward.

An alarm wailed from somewhere in the city, and Ridge stiffened. That alarm was only sounded when Cofah airships or pirates were spotted on the horizon.

“I told you,” Mara said smugly, crossing her arms over her chest. “There’s a dragon approaching from the direction of the mountains. Go look. We’ll wait.” Her gaze flicked toward the side door that the guards had streamed out of, and Ridge had the distinct impression that she would
not
wait, that she would go inside and hunt down Angulus.

Another alarm blared, this time from the direction of the front wall of the castle, its wail echoing that of the one in the city. The captain ordered a few of his men up to the wall to check, but he kept his rifle pointed toward Mara.

“Sir, who did you say this is?” the captain asked.

Mara lifted a hand, and Ridge stepped toward her, worried that she would fling these men aside as she had the hedges. Weaponless, he did not know what he could do, but maybe if he surprised her, he could knock her down and run into the castle to warn the king.

Even as he reached for her, she flicked a finger, and the remaining guards flew backward. Rifles fired, but the bullets did not strike anyone. Ridge tried to grab Mara’s wrist, but she spun toward him, and a wave of power sent him stumbling back.

“You owe me your life,” she growled at him.

“I owe the king my allegiance,” Ridge said. “And wasn’t it your
sword
that saved me?”

“You want to help the king? The castle? Maybe you should fly up there and try to stop that dragon.”

As soon as her last words came out, a cry came from atop the wall, one of the captain’s guards. “There
is
a dragon coming,” the man verified. “It’s not Phelistoth. It’s a huge gold dragon. And it’s coming right at us.”

Ridge had no idea who Phelistoth was, but fear and worry coursed through his veins at the thought of a dragon attacking the castle.

Go take care of it
, Wreltad said.
Better you not be in the castle for this.

For this?
Ridge clenched his fist and tried to grab Mara, but once again, he was pushed back by some invisible power.
The assassination of my king?

She won’t let you stop her,
Wreltad warned. Then, he changed tacks.
Isn’t a dragon more of a threat to your people than a lone assassin could ever be?

You tell me. Is it?

Go see for yourself.

“Go deal with it, Zirkander,” Mara said, waving her hand toward the flier. If she knew about the conversation Wreltad was having with Ridge, she did not show it. Not that it mattered. Her words were compelling, far more than they should be, and he found himself walking toward the craft. He forgot the threat she represented; all he could think about was the dragon that was coming.

There weren’t any other fliers parked on the landing pad behind the castle. The soldiers on the walls had cannons, rocket launchers, and big artillery guns, but he was the only one here who could fly up and confront a dragon face to face. It sounded like a suicide mission—would a dragon be susceptible to bullets or would they bounce off? The various paintings and statues he had seen that immortalized the ancient creatures had always shown them as huge, nearly indestructible.

“To the guns,” the captain ordered, shouting to be heard over the wailing alarm. “Enemy dragon incoming.”

It all felt surreal, like some strange dream—or nightmare.

Go
, Wreltad said again.
Go deal with that dragon and its riders.

Ridge could not disobey the order. He wasn’t even sure he should. He jumped up to the cockpit once again and maneuvered the flier away from the wall. As soon as he turned toward the torn strip of grass ahead of him, he realized the obvious, that he would not have enough room to take off. Without thrusters, he would never achieve lift in time.

I’ll see to it that you do
, Wreltad said.
Just get out of here.

Mara was jogging for the side door, completely unopposed since all of the guards had raced up to defend the walls. Ridge realized that Wreltad might be trying to save him from Mara. At the least, he was trying to get Ridge out of the way. Was there
truly
a dragon out there? Or was this some diversion? A witch’s illusion?

He worried that he was being fooled and that his king would be killed while he was dithering in the sky, but the same compulsion that had forced him into the cockpit now forced him to take off. Before the craft had crossed half of the courtyard, it lifted into the sky.

The gold dragon came into view as soon as he cleared the wall, a powerful creature flapping massive wings as it soared over the city. The sight stunned him, the first dragon he’d ever seen. Or at least, the first dragon he could
remember
seeing. Either way, it did not look like an illusion. Maybe Wreltad truly had wanted him to fly up to protect his people, not just to get him out of Mara’s way.

How Ridge might offer that protection, he did not know. Terror flowed through his limbs as his flier buzzed away from the castle, heading straight toward the dragon. Down in the streets, people screamed. Sirens continued to wail.

Ridge tightened his grip on his flight stick. He didn’t know if it was in his power to stop the dragon, but he would do everything he could to try.

• • • • •

The houses of the capital city sprawled out below them as Bhrava Saruth carried Sardelle and Therrik toward the harbor. They had closed the distance, but had not yet caught sight of Ridge’s flier in the air ahead of him. Bhrava Saruth was confident that the alarmed birds in the sky had told him the truth of Ridge’s position, which was why they were angling toward Harborgard Castle instead of the flier base.

An alarm wailed in the city, and Sardelle shook her head bleakly, positive that it was for the dragon’s approach instead of for the enemy who had apparently flown into town on Ridge’s lap.

You’re not going to get over that, are you?
Jaxi asked.
Will you forgive him if Taddy is controlling him?

I’ll forgive him if the soulblade is controlling him—
Sardelle refused to call an ancient sorcerer’s soul Taddy—
but I doubt I’m an evolved enough human being to forget it completely.

I’m not either. I plan to do my best to melt Taddy into a steaming pile of molten ore. If I can’t do that, I’ll at least mock him horribly while Kasandral cleaves him in half.

Sardelle thought about pointing out that Jaxi and Kasandral had clashed in battle once and that soulblades were strong enough to defy cleaving, even from dragon-slaying swords, but she spotted a flier rising above the castle walls and all thoughts except for one vanished from her mind.

Ridge.

She squinted? Was it him? It had to be—that flier wasn’t painted bronze like the military ones.

The one-man craft turned toward them. She reached out as the figure came within range of her senses and confirmed it was Ridge before her eyes could verify that determination. A wave of giddiness washed over her, and she bit her lip.

Ridge!
she called into his mind, certain that he was coming to greet them, perhaps to guide them in to the castle so the artillerymen on the walls wouldn’t be tempted to fire.

But instead of returning her telepathic greeting with a pleased cry of her own name, alarm flared in Ridge’s thoughts. Alarm and
fear
, as if he believed her some enemy out to kill him.

Another voice?
he wondered.
Now who? Are you the dragon?

No, it’s me. Sardelle.

How many damned witches are there in the world now?
Frustration and confusion swamped him, but he gripped his flight stick with determination, heading straight for Bhrava Saruth, his other hand reaching for his machine gun triggers.

Sardelle closed her eyes, hurt even though logic told her not to be, that he was naturally frustrated if he’d been dealing with Eversong and had never known—couldn’t remember—her.

Jaxi?
Is there any chance you can fix him?
Sardelle was the healer and might have a better chance of that, but she would need to be close enough to touch him to get a feel of how the sorceress—or her soulblade—had affected Ridge’s mind. Jaxi had the superior range, so maybe she could see the influence first and discern how to break it.

Jaxi did not answer immediately, and Ridge’s flier drew closer quickly. Bhrava Saruth had not altered his course, and they would collide if neither of them diverted.

I don’t think so
, Jaxi said.
I don’t even know what I’m looking for exactly. You know my specialty is burning things into ashes, not fixing brains.

Yes, sorry.
Sardelle kept her disappointment to herself. It had been too much to hope for.

All I can tell is that he’s positive this dragon is his enemy. I’m not sure he’s put any thought into who the two people riding on his back are.

Bhrava Saruth,
Sardelle thought.
Please prepare to shield yourself. He’s—

The first blast of gunfire interrupted her. Ridge’s bullets streaked straight toward them. They bounced off an invisible shield, but that did not keep the dragon from making a disgruntled comment.

High priestess, your mate is shooting at me.

Yes, I noticed. I’m sorry. We believe the sorceress is controlling him somehow. Please don’t do anything to hurt him.

Ridge fired again, his flier almost upon them now. He veered upward and to the side to avoid crashing into Bhrava Saruth. He looked down at them as he flew past, meeting Sardelle’s eyes for a second. The lack of recognition in his face stung her to the core. She had expected something similar to the expression Cas had worn when under Kasandral’s control, one that showed her wrestling with herself, her horror at how she was being used. But Ridge didn’t know her at all. It was like meeting the eyes of a stranger, a stranger who thought she was the enemy and someone to be killed.