Dragon's Run Read online

  Drop altitude, she wrote, and flashed him the paper, not realizing the serpentine script until she saw Raiju’s confused look. Fall till course resumed came out in Golden Hills. Yaki swore that if she ever saw Mitsuo again, she’d give him some of his own brain damage to contend with.

  A bell sounded and red glow crystal flared to life next to a panel labeled lower decks. A funnel and voice Yaki hadn’t heard before rasped from the tube. “Captain, it’s a trick; they have weap—-” The light blinked out along with the voice.

  “Nine hells!” Yaki screamed, not caring what language she did it in. She turned back to scribble something to Raiju, but he was already shouting into the talk funnels. Her hand went to her belt where the detonator crystal rested. If she broke it in half now, the entire ship would be blasted to ashes, but the Dragonsworn would certainly be in that half. No, she told herself, jerking her hand away. Not until I have Ishe. Chimon had packed it with the intention of hurting Yaz’noth. Shifting her hand across herself, she drew her sword and ran for the door.

  Gama and Chimon were on her heels as she stoked her inner fire.

  They arrived on the sail deck and found it rapidly emptying of Simon’s compatriots. The Enshadowed were funneling down the stairs to the lower decks. Grim, the huge skeletal man, jerked his head up as Yaki approached. “They broke out of the brig with weapons, Captain.”

  Yaki nodded sharply and motioned for him to follow as she raced for the stair at the far end of the deck, one of the few that did not have a line of Enshadowed. Should have killed them all, Mother whispered in her head. “Yes, Mother,” Yaki grumbled before hurling the guilt and recriminations aside. Later.

  Not bothering with the stairs themselves, Yaki leapt down to the lower deck. A bolt whipped by her head as she fell into a roll at the bottom. As she stood, she saw a Dragonsworn guarding the ladder to the cargo hold hurl his crossbow at her. Yaki caught it by the bow and swung it aside; in the same motion, she stabbed the man through the heart. Her blood sang with rage as she slid her sword in up to the hilt, shortening it as she grabbed him by the throat. The man stared in openmouthed shock as she pulled herself close. His knees buckled and she peered over his shoulder, down the ladder he had guarded. Two more Dragonsworn were waiting for her at the foot of the ladder, each holding a shield and a short sword. Perfectly aligned. Yaki pulled her blade from the chest of her not-quite-dead shield and stabbed it into his stomach. She thumbed the weapon’s crystal; the blade shot out from her captive’s back and pierced the throat of the first Dragonsworn as he stepped up onto the ladder. It missed his spine and continued into the thigh of the second man. The blade pulled back before either of them had fully realized they had been stabbed. Yaki threw the captured body on top of the first as he began to gurgle.

  “Brace! Hold that stair!” Guro’s voice exploded from somewhere below, Yaki heard as she vaulted downward. A second man swung at her before she even landed. Twisting, she avoided the blow but landed awkwardly as her boot clipped the shoulder of man she had thrown down. As she staggered, another sword swung in from the side. Instinct acted before training could kick in: Yaki dodged back and released a plume of flame at her attacker. The swing never completed, the sword dropping from his hand as the orange fire enveloped his head. Yaki swept the flame across the corridor, catching three men in its path. As the first Dragonsworn shrieked, the other two stood in mute surprise for a half a heartbeat before the fact of their seared and burning flesh entered their brains. One dropped his sword as they all attempted to run. Gama appeared, cutting off their path; he knocked one of the panicked men down with a boot to the chest and hamstrung the other as he ran by. Small flames were licking up from wall and floor where Yaki’s fire had touched them.

  “Douse the flames!” Gama ordered, already moving to finish off the burning Dragonsworn. Chimon and Grim followed, Grim whipping off his black cloak to smother the flames. Yaki strode forward and grabbed a talking funnel from its holster.

  “Wolf!” she shouted into the funnel and then held it to her ear.

  “Not hearing much, Captain,” Raiju’s far-off voice said. “Engine room is reporting all clear for now. Everyone else is fighting.”

  Looking around as Raiju talked, Yaki recognized this deck; it was the one she’d been housed on while Scale made its days-long journey to the Golden Hills. They needed to go down one more deck before it widened out into the cargo hold. But there was no stair here. There were only two ways down there, more toward the center of the ship. Guro had planned this well, the bastard. But why? Why now? Why not wait until they were on Yaz’noth’s turf or at least until they were out of range of the city’s guns? Why not just keep up their end of their bargain for now?

  Yaki found Simon in a cluster of Enshadowed around the central stairs that led down into the cargo hold. The majority of them had crossbows and other weapons from the ship’s armory. The rest of them were tending crossbow bolts that sprouted painfully from limbs. Simon himself bled from a ragged tail wound that needed binding. “Captain Yaki!” he hailed her as she ran up, blocking her from the hatch. “They got hand cannons down there!” He took her hand and guided her to look down below from the back of hatch. As the thought I don’t see anyone with hand cannon injuries went though her mind, she caught sight of four person-sized ice statues at the bottom of the ladder, one woman still clinging to it, her face a frosted scream.

  Yaki risked poking her head out to look at the cargo doors in the middle of the ship. That’s where they had left the sledge with the quicksilver. In their haste to stow the prisoners and be off, Yaki had parked it close to the ramp.

  The sledge was gone, but frustratingly, they had left the barrel of fire crystals. Its lid lay open, the fire crystals scattered around it. Why would he leave it in the open like that?

  On the other side of the hatch, a group of four Enshadowed lay prone, crossbows in their hands. The lead woman, who had a long, muscular snake tail instead of legs, popped herself up and squeezed off a shot before rolling to the side. The others quickly followed suit, firing down the line until Yaki heard the distinct bang of a hand cannon, and everyone leapt back from the hatch.

  A blue light flashed from deeper in the hold, followed by the crackling of a rapid freeze.

  Simon pushed her farther back. “They have a stockade built down there. Already lost too many! Simon have plan.” He pointed as two monstrous Enshadowed, one a man who seemed to be made of tentacles and the other of stone, were wrestling a small cannon down from the upper deck. “Patience, Captain. We get them.”

  The ship groaned and the floor lurched. Yaki had no time for patience; they were adrift in the middle of a storm. Grabbing Simon’s furry shoulder, she firmly pushed him out of her path to the hatch. Creeping into the space vacated by one of the crossbow-welding Enshadowed, she found the floor boards were so cold, they burned her knees. Narrowing her eyes, she peered down toward the rear of the ship. A fierce glow shone over a wall of boxes that blocked Yaki from seeing the back quarter of the hold. Guro’s voice could be heard shouting, “Why wasn’t this ready hours ago?!”

  “We didn’t have the fire crystals!” another voice shouted back at him.

  “Guro!” Yaki shouted down into the cargo bay. Would he shoot her, too? Or would he be loath to damage Yaz’noth’s experiment? “Come out of there right now. Whatever you’re doing, it isn’t going to work!” What was he doing? Why would he go there and fortify instead of heading toward the engine room to retake the ship?

  Guro laughed and answered in Golden, “How ’bout you and your monsters back off! Otherwise, I’ll blow that barrel of fire crystals and nobody gets to see tomorrow!”

  A growl rose in Yaki’s throat. That was why he’d left the majority of the fire crystals out in the open. He’d only taken what he needed to do, whatever he was doing.

  “Empty threat, Guro! You hit that barrel and the flame will get you just as much as us. Then no one gets that silver!” Yaki called back as she pulled out the detonator cryst
al.

  The pair with the cannon were hurrying toward the hatch.

  Chimon and Gama’s eyes grew wide. They were standing outside the circle of Enshadowed, unsure what to do. The detonator crystal’s twin would be equally small. Among all those fire crystals, would they have noticed it? She gestured to Chimon, and when he stepped closer, Yaki grabbed him. With unyielding force, she made him look at the barrel of fire crystals. She pointed at it, then at the detonator crystal. Then waved her hand up and down.

  “I-I don’t,” Chimon stammered, eyes following her hand. Silence reigned for several beats.

  “How deep was the crystal?” Gama finally translated.

  “Oh! Sitting on the top.”

  With a grin, Yaki threw the vial and the crystal it contained against the wall.

  The floor bucked beneath her as the roar of an explosion tore through the air.

  The music of the Dragonsworn’s screams and the unimmolated condition of her friends told Yaki she had chosen wisely for once. She did not wait for the others to recover from their shock. Leaping through the hatch, she landed midway down the ladder and then kicked off it, hurling herself through the air. The Dragonsworn with a hand cannon fired somewhat belatedly, an ice shell arcing uselessly toward the front of the cargo hold. Yaki took cover behind a cluster of water barrels.

  There, she got her first look at the damage she had wrought. The rear of Scale yawned open to the storm. Sputtering flames outlined the edge of the hole. Yaki swore; all she’d done was set off the charges prematurely, burning some Dragonsworn but not stopping them from launching.

  Above her, a cannon boomed. The shell hit the wall of boxes and they disintegrated in a flash of green energy, an earth shell. No metal there for it to digest, but the sheer force of the explosion reduced their fortification to splinters. It also made a sizable hole in the bottom of Scale, as wide as Yaki was tall. With it and the fire crystal–made hole, the wind howled through the hold.

  And beyond that, a small airship rose from the planks of the hold. One of Scale’s two skiffs had been hidden in the back, behind the boxes.

  Why? Why had they done that? They’d been planning this escape from the beginning. The skiff had been hidden long before they’d shown up on the dock. They had taken the time to stash weapons inside the brig of the ship. Guro had been planning to escape with the quicksilver from the very beginning.

  Guro stood on the desk of the rising skiff, a hand cannon pointed up toward the ceiling. It was an ungainly little craft, appearing to be little more than a shallow bucket with a propeller sticking out of its side.

  The wind screamed as it passed between the two holes, pushing the skiff farther into the ship. The propeller spun up and the craft inched toward its exit.

  “Plug that hole!” Guro shouted before ducking down back into the skiff. Crossbow bolts streaked through the space where he had stood.

  “You’re not getting away, Guro!” Yaki shouted. Enshadowed were leaping down from the hatch now. Guro appeared to be the only Dragonsworn standing with a hand cannon, and he wasn’t firing. Probably because he had a fire shell chambered and was saving it for a very fatal parting shot.

  “You take another step, Yaki, and I light this entire place on fire!” Guro called back.

  “YAAAAAAAAAA!” Someone screamed a battle cry above the volume of the wind. A familiar note—and it all clicked. Guro had to escape with the quicksilver because Yaz’noth didn’t have Ishe anymore.

  Guro turned to see a winged shape dive through the hole in the ship. He dropped into the bottom of the skiff. The small craft juked to the side at the last moment, avoiding a collision by inches. Instead, it crashed to the deck right in front of Guro’s skiff, skidding directly into the hole the earth shell had made. Its nose dipped into the hole and the craft pitched, nearly toppling out. Two huddled figures on the rear bench shrieked but remained attached as Ishe launched herself from the pilot’s seat. She rolled forward and popped up to her full height. Yaki found herself staring down the barrel of her sister’s hand cannon.

  Ishe’s goggled face cocked to the side. “Yaki?” As the barrel began to drift downward, a crossbow bolt slammed into Ishe’s chest with a sharp meaty whap! The force of the impact lifted her off her feet, spinning her in a gruesome half-pirouette before she fell on her side.

  “NO!” Yaki found her voice, springing from her hiding spot, arms outstretched. “Stop firing!”

  An insane cackle burst from Guro as his craft exited the ship. “Now, this is fate itself!” he shouted as the skiff slipped out into the storm.

  Yaki spared him only a glance before flipping Ishe onto her back and peeling the goggles off her face, revealing eyes rolling back into their sockets. “Burn the Seven to the nine hells! I can’t believe they shot you!” Yaki slapped her sister’s meaty cheek. “Come on!”

  Ishe groaned. “Yaki? Are you growling?”

  A feral hiss of frustration escaped Yaki’s lips in response. “Isss-he,” she tried again as she moved the focus of her attention to the bolt sticking out of her sister’s chest. Seizing the fabric with both hands, she tore the flight suit open to reveal the shaft protruding from her right breast blood streaming out around it. Her own people had done this! Yaki turned and sighted the multitude of crew running toward her. She snarled, “Who shot her?! Who?!”

  Gama reached her first, his glasses shining in the red haze of her vision. Yaki grabbed and lifted him by the collar. “Did you shoot her, Gama? I’ll kill you if you did!”

  He laid his hands on her wrists as smoke drifted up into her eye. “Yaki! Please! She’ll be okay. Simon has a few med crystals. Calm down. No one can understand you. Just calm down, please.” His eyes pleaded.

  Yaki’s heart burned as hot as molten metal, but that wasn’t what hurt. She wanted to break every bone in Gama’s body simply to communicate how it felt to see that someone on her own god-rotting side had skewered the very person she had damned herself to save!

  Gama dangled in her arms, although not very high off the ground, given his height. “Yaki?” he asked with a very unsure voice.

  With a disgusted snort, she tossed him aside. He stumbled, barely catching himself to avoid falling.

  Simon approached with his head bowed. A small medical crystal lay in his palm. “Captain, we are sorry for the accident.”

  She snatched it from his hand and held it to her lips, blowing on it as if she were coaxing flame from an ember. Even as she coaxed the little crystal’s dull light to a fierce glow, a small voice reminded her that she shouldn’t do this. Others needed this crystal too.

  Another voice answered that one. How many lives have you ruined for your sister’s life? Why stop now? Mother’s voice.

  Hating herself, Yaki pressed the kindled crystal right beside the shaft and wrapped her fingers around the shaft of the crossbow bolt. Blood bubbled up around the wood. It had hit almost in the same spot where the tree had skewered Yaki herself an eternity before. With a deep breath ,Yaki pulled gently on the bolt.

  Gama knelt beside her, holding a white bandage ready. Stupid boy, hadn’t she tossed him away?

  A groan of remembered pain flowed up from Ishe as Yaki pulled the blood length of the bolt free... A gush of frothy blood came with the point. Sticking the crystal in the hole, Gama pressed the bandage over the wound.

  Yaki let the bolt fall from her fingers and felt at Ishe’s neck. How cold she felt, but in the icy wetness of Ishe’s skin she felt a strong pulse. Relief flooded her. The Death Panther’s mark did not tingle nor purr. Yaki offered her god thanks. Moving to the side, she picked up Ishe’s limp hand and hugged the arm to her chest. Hot tears of relief streamed from her good eye.

  “She’ll be all right, then?” a voice asked.

  Yaki remembered that Ishe had not been the little craft’s only occupants. Sparrow clutched a shivering Blinky to his chest as Enshadowed helped him over the side of the boat. And a woman Yaki didn’t recognize, lanky and long with black hair streaming from under
her flight cap. She watched Ishe with a strange intensity, almost possessive.

  Yaki nodded and was about to let go of Ishe when the cargo bay filled with an orange-red light as a projectile nearly the size of Ishe’s little boat streaked by.

  The Golden Hills cannons had found them.

  That would be a warning shot. There would be a second warning shot that would fly in a few minutes’ time. If a white flag wasn’t visible by its light, then the third would destroy Scale.

  “What now, Captain?” Simon asked as she handed back the much duller medical crystal.

  She gave the ratman a sad smile. “Captain of Scale” proved to be a fleeting thing. Yaki mimed writing to Gama and he produced a small notebook and pen. Yaki scribbled on it and handed it back to him.

  He read it, looked her dead in the eye, and said, “No. I’m not leaving without you and neither is anyone else.”

  Yaki blinked; didn’t he get it? If everyone abandoned ship except for her, they’d all get away. Ishe would be free, that was the important thing, while she herself paid for everything she’d done, one way or another. And if the Steward chose death, then at least that would stop the heart from changing her any further.

  Jabbing a finger at the notebook, Yaki made her other hand open and close like a mouth.

  Gama screwed up his mouth and pressed his lips together into a thin line.

  “The sail deck will fly a flag of surrender, and then all of us will take the remaining skiff and escape into the storm,” he read, heavily editing what she had written.

  Yaki shot him an angry look.

  He returned a grin. “If you want to punish me, Captain, you’ll have to stay alive.”

  “Did she just try to go out like Mother?” Ishe coughed weakly, and everyone’s gaze fell to her gray face. “I didn’t wriggle out of a dragon’s chains to trade them for the Steward’s. That won’t save us, anyway; Yaz’noth is going to sack the city next. Iron tithes and tits, Yaki, think.”

  Yaki wanted to shout, “I had a sword shoved through my blood-cursed head today! I can sacrifice myself if I damn well please!” But she didn’t, because insulting her sister would be no fun if the bitch couldn’t understand her.