Rysha loaded her rifle as Trip and the other pilots descended for a landing atop the cliff and behind the crashed airship. There were still only three people in sight, scruffy men in mismatched clothing. They looked far too bedraggled to cause trouble, but if they were pirates, they couldn’t be trusted. Besides, three people seemed a small crew for an airship of that size. Had the others all died in the crash?
Now that they were closer, she believed her earlier statement in regard to its size and carrying capacity to be true. But her conviction that their small team could fix it with the limited tools they had along wavered. The airship appeared slightly more complicated than a wobbly table.
Before, the deflated envelope had hidden much of the ship itself from view, but now she could see that the port side had serious damage, as if it had smashed hull-first into the rocky cliff top. The balloon itself was riddled with rips and bullet holes.
“Looks like some of our Cougar Squadron buddies may have been responsible for this,” Leftie said.
“We’re a few hundred miles south of our territory,” Trip said.
“Maybe the pirates got away after the ship was damaged and flew as far as they could.”
“Could be.”
“Lion Squadron could be responsible,” Blazer said as her wheels touched down. “Their base is an hour’s flight to the west.”
“Yeah, but nobody else pummels pirates as mercilessly and effectively as we do,” Leftie said.
“These pirates got away,” Trip pointed out.
“Not that far away.”
Rysha kept her eyes on the three pirates as the fliers settled onto the wind-scraped cliff. They carried weapons, pistols and cutlasses on their belts, but they all kept their hands away from them. One did glance toward the trees a few times. Those trees were a few hundred yards away, the start of a dense and dark forest that could hide a lot.
“Jaxi says there are more men in the trees,” Trip said quietly.
Blazer had stood up to climb out, but she hesitated. “They have weapons?”
A pause, as Trip apparently got the answer. Leftie frowned toward the forest, then brought something to his lips and kissed it before slipping it back into a pocket. A luck charm?
“Yes,” Trip said, “and they’re fondling them in anticipation as they look at us.”
“Fondling?” Duck asked.
“Jaxi’s word. I am but her mouthpiece.”
“How many are there?” Blazer asked, slipping a pistol from her belt but staying low to do it so the pirates on the ground wouldn’t see.
“Twelve,” Trip said.
“The whole rest of the crew then. All right, I’ll go talk to these three with Duck and Leftie. Kaika, why don’t you take our expert Cofah fighter and go visit those tree huggers? You, too, Ravenwood.”
Rysha’s heart started hammering as soon as her name came up. She was training for the elite troops, so she should be ready for a battle like this, but so far, all she’d done was practice hand-to-hand combat with her peers and instructors. The skirmish with the overly friendly man in the bar had been the closest she’d been to a real fight, and he’d been tame compared to pirates, people who would gladly murder her to steal and sell her equipment.
“I’m ready to go,” she said, even though she wasn’t, “but are we sure approaching them across all that empty rock is a good way to do it? If they start shooting—and why wouldn’t they?—we’ve got nowhere to hide. Maybe better to take cover in or behind the airship and wait for them to come to us.”
“I’ll go along,” Trip said. “Jaxi says she can make a barrier around us as we walk over. We just can’t shoot from inside it, so she’ll have to lower it if we’re actually going to fight.”
“You’re going to fight, Trip?” Leftie asked. “I’d follow you into any battle where you’re in a cockpit with guns at your disposal, but you’re no sword dancer.”
“I was planning to dance with my pistol, not Sardelle’s sword.”
“Even more alarming.”
“Just do it,” Blazer said. “These three are getting suspicious.”
With that, she swung her leg over the side and hopped down. She walked toward the pirates with her rifle in her arms and her cigar casually tucked into the corner of her mouth. The wind had whipped some of her shoulder-length blonde hair free of its bun when she’d been flying, but neither it, nor the fact that she was a woman, made her look soft or like someone who could be taken advantage of out there.
Rysha tried to channel some of her courage, wanting to be like Blazer and Kaika. Strong, dependable, and just as capable as her male counterparts.
Duck and Leftie jumped out of their cockpits and jogged after Blazer to walk at her side as she approached the pirates.
Trip hopped down, joining Kaika and the Cofah, Dreyak. The man hadn’t said a word during the entire flight, at least not that Rysha had heard. She slid out of the flier, her rifle in hand, before anyone could wonder why she was taking so long.
She was leery of this plan of directly approaching their would-be ambushers, but had to trust that a soulblade could indeed shield them. Logically, based on all that she’d read, it seemed probable, but emotionally, it was hard to entrust her life to magic.
“Stay behind us, recruits,” Kaika said, looking at Rysha and Trip, then waving for Dreyak to walk beside her toward the trees.
Trip’s lips twisted, his expression saying he wasn’t amused at being called a “recruit.”
“Just don’t get too far ahead of me,” he said, following them. “Ahead of Jaxi.”
He had attached the scabbard to his belt, opposite his pistol. Interestingly, he strode forward with his hand on it instead of the firearm. Maybe Jaxi wanted to dance, even if he didn’t.
Rysha walked at Trip’s side, her rifle in her hands, her finger on the trigger. She’d done well in the marksmanship courses, and had competed at archery competitions as a girl, so she trusted her aim. But she also knew her hands would shake when adrenaline coursed through her veins. And she was less confident in her close-combat skills. She’d already been told she would have to practice a lot more to pass the elite troops tests. Her natural instincts ran contrary to punching people in the face.
They were less than halfway across the open rocky expanse when the first shot fired. Surprisingly, it came from behind them instead of the forest.
Rysha glanced back in time to see Blazer grappling with one of the pirates, trying to tear a pistol from his hand. Duck and another pirate wrestled on the ground, rolling over the bruising rocks. Leftie was running for cover behind the wrecked airship, zigzagging and jumping as the third pirate fired a pistol at him.
“Is that barrier up now?” Rysha demanded, jerking her rifle up, jamming the butt into the hollow of her shoulder.
“Only ahead of us,” Trip said.
That was all Rysha needed to hear. She sighted down the long barrel of her rifle and fired at the man firing at Leftie.
Leftie had reached the airship hull and leaned out, his pistol ready to shoot. But Rysha’s bullet slammed into the pirate’s thigh first. She could have shot him in the head, but they might need some of these men alive for her ruse.
She snorted at the excuse her mind made. She just didn’t want to kill people, and she knew it.
Could she truly do all she dreamed of doing if she shied away from that?
When the man hunched over, yelling and grabbing his thigh, Leftie took advantage. He fired twice, the bullets slamming into the pirate’s chest.
So much for leaving men alive for her ruse.
Gunfire came from the forest, and Rysha whirled to face the ambushers. Blazer and the others would have to deal with the other two pirates on their own, which she trusted they could do.
Bullets skipped off the rocks all around Rysha and her team. Some of those should have hit them, but Jaxi’s invisible barrier was in place.
“Charge,” Kaika yelled, raising her pistol aloft.
Dreyak bellowed, “Let the sun set on the spilled blood of our enemies,” and ran at her side, an ornate Cofah pistol in one hand and a scimitar in the other.
Trip drew the soulblade and ran after them, more worried, Rysha sensed, about keeping close enough so they wouldn’t be out of the range of Jaxi’s barrier than about the sun setting on blood he spilled.
Also concerned about staying behind protection, Rysha sprinted to keep up with them. Bullets continued to skip off the rocks all around them, and her instincts told her to flee the other way instead of closing, but she didn’t obey them.
The shadows lay thick below the towering pines in the forest, and Rysha couldn’t see their pirate ambushers until they were almost among them. Finally, as they ran under the canopy, her eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting, and she spotted men leaning out from behind trees. At least six of them. But there were twelve, she remembered.
She also remembered Trip saying Jaxi’s barrier had to be lowered if their team was to fire back. Though she feared not being within its protection, Rysha let herself fall back to take a position behind a redwood tree so broad two or three of them could have hidden behind it. But she didn’t intend to hide, merely use it for cover while she fired at their enemies.
A strange sensation, as if she’d walked through a thick soap bubble, came over her, and she realized Jaxi’s barrier must have shifted to surround the group. It didn’t matter for her now.
“You’re on your own,” she whispered to herself and leaned out from behind the tree, exposing as little of her body as possible as she looked for the likeliest target and also tried to identify where all twelve of the pirates were.
Dreyak roared and flung himself at two men charging out from behind a tree and running at him with cutlasses raised. They must have given up on firing at him.
Kaika dropped to a knee behind a log and used it to fire over.
“You’re out from behind the barrier,” Trip called. “All of you.”
Dreyak bowled one pirate over and slashed at the other, his scimitar whipping toward the man’s neck. Kaika fired at a man firing at her from behind a tree. As Dreyak rolled behind a boulder and took cover, Rysha spotted someone else aiming at Kaika, someone who had a good angle to strike her.
She swallowed, tried to still her breathing enough that it wouldn’t affect her aim, and fired a split second before he did. Most of his head hadn’t been visible to her, but she’d seen his pistol and the hand holding it. Her bullet slammed into the back of that hand. He yelped and jerked back out of sight.
Trip, the only one who wasn’t under cover, at least not visible cover, drew the attention of their enemies. He stood with his weapons in hand, but lowered, as if he wasn’t sure yet what he should do. That made him an easy target, and no less than four men started shooting at him.
Rysha sucked in an alarmed breath, but the bullets bounced away before they struck him. Jaxi’s barrier was still up, at least for him. He gazed toward two of his assailants, two men using the same large cedar for cover.
Rysha aimed at the one closest to her—part of his butt and shoulder were visible. But before she could fire, Trip ran at them, the soulblade held aloft.
A fiery glow burst forth from the sword. One of the men in his path stumbled back from the tree, his face coming into Rysha’s view, his eyes wide. His buddy reached for him, as if to pull him back behind cover, but Trip got there first.
Wielding the soulblade rather than using his pistol, he slashed the weapon toward the pirate with blinding speed. The sword moved so quickly, it seemed to leave an orange streak of light in the air.
The pirate tried to block, stepping in and lifting an arm, but Jaxi descended with the fury of a god, knocking aside the block and biting into the pirate’s neck. The soulblade sliced all the way down into his torso, cutting through muscle and bone as if it were warm butter.
The second pirate tried to spring at Trip, but he whirled and thrust the blade into the man’s stomach. Once again, his enemy was too slow to block.
Trip yanked the sword free and raced off to engage another pirate, heedless of the men firing at him. Nothing was hitting him.
He sprang over a log, swinging the soulblade in front of him as he flew through the air. Tings sounded with each swipe, and Rysha realized he was deflecting bullets. Even though she knew Jaxi had to be guiding him, it boggled her mind that such speed and anticipation was possible.
Rysha glimpsed movement off to her left and tore her gaze from Trip. A pirate was trying to sneak up on her.
Cursing, she eased around the back side of her tree to avoid his line of sight, hoping she wasn’t exposing herself to someone else as she did so. The man fired, and bark splintered and flew free. She crouched on the other side of the tree, debating whether to try and outmaneuver him at this game or to stay put. Three pirates lay dead around Dreyak, their blood exposed to sunsets, and he was trying to goad a fourth into attacking. Kaika had downed two from her spot behind the log, and Trip was moving through the rest like a whirlwind.
Could Rysha simply wait for someone fiercer to handle the one shooting at her? Someone with a soulblade, perhaps?
But that was cowardly, and she knew it. Besides, that one was in a position where he could fire at any of the four of them. If Rysha did nothing, he could shoot Kaika in the back.
She dropped to one knee and started to lean out to fire, but paused and grabbed a long stick on the ground instead. She tugged her black cap off, stuck it on the end, and thrust it toward the opposite side of the redwood.
The bang of a gun came immediately, tearing the cap from the stick. She leaned out on the opposite side, hoping it would take the pirate a couple of seconds to realize it had been a ruse. He fired again, not at her, but toward the spot where her cap had been.
She spotted his hand, pistol, and part of his jaw. Choosing the hand for her target again, she fired. And nailed him. The pirate cried out, dropping his weapon.
She assumed him out of the battle, but he charged around the tree and ran straight toward her, his cutlass raised in his left hand. Fury burned in his dark eyes as he sprinted toward her.
Forcing herself to remain calm, Rysha aimed at his chest and fired. Only to hear the soft click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. She hadn’t been counting her rounds. She was out of ammo.
Though she had more in her ammo pouch, there wasn’t time to reload. Only a few feet away, the pirate sprang toward her, his cutlass swiping for the top of her head.
Rysha jerked her rifle up with both hands, holding it horizontally above her. The cutlass slammed into the barrel, the screech deafening as metal scraped along metal, her joints aching under the power of the blow. While his arm was up, she stepped backward to give herself enough room to slam a kick into his abdomen.
He twisted when he saw the boot coming, but not fast enough. She caught enough of him to make him stumble back. But he recovered quickly, growling and raising the cutlass to run in for another attack.
She braced herself, intending to block again with her rifle, if she could, but he looked past her shoulder. His eyes bulged, and he shifted his cutlass, raising it in a block.
Trip leaped past Rysha and brought the soulblade down like an axe. It sliced through the cutlass instead of knocking it aside. And it sliced through the pirate too.
Rysha grimaced and looked away. The man died instantly, but it wasn’t a pretty sight.
Trip’s eyes burned with an intensity that alarmed her—and surprised her. She would have expected it from their bloodthirsty Cofah, but Trip had been so mild-mannered around her so far. The savage joy on his face as he tore his blade free left her uneasy. She’d seen similar expressions on the faces of comrades engaged in sporting competitions, but this wasn’t sport. This was killing.
She started back behind the tree, figuring more enemies would be ready to fire, but silence replaced the chaotic noise of the battle. She could hear Trip’s heavy breathing as he lowered the soulblade and searched around for more enemies. She also heard the roar of the ocean drifting up to them, but little else. It slowly dawned on her that nobody else was going to shoot at them.
She looked at Trip warily, wanting to thank him for his help, but her tongue fumbled when she saw the blood spattering his face and his brown jacket. He looked like an executioner, which was exactly what he’d been, rather than the quiet, somewhat awkward officer who’d flown her to her family’s home.
But the savage expression of a few seconds ago was fading, something of the calm, rational man returning. When he met her eyes, she read wariness in his, and she wondered if he’d seen her concern regarding him. She did her best to smooth her face and her feelings. This was the same person. He’d simply been using—or being used by—a soulblade, a powerful magical sword.
“Thanks, Trip,” she said. “I made a rookie mistake, not counting my rounds.”
He offered a lopsided smile. “I know all about rookie mistakes.”
“We all alive?” Kaika asked, brushing herself off as she rose from her log. “Injuries?”
“I’m fine,” Rysha said. “Thanks to Trip.”
Even if Jaxi had been responsible for that display, she wanted to give him credit. Perhaps because of his youth or just that he was new to Wolf Squadron, nobody seemed to give him much respect.
“I’m also uninjured,” Trip said.
Dreyak was prowling around them, going from fallen pirate to fallen pirate. He thrust his scimitar into one, mercilessly ending the man’s life. He, too, was covered in blood, and he probably liked it. He was a far grimmer comrade than Trip.
His dark eyes shifted, looking over to meet hers, and she stepped a little closer to Trip. She told herself it was a coincidence, that the Cofah couldn’t have heard her thoughts, but it didn’t reassure her much.
Dreyak went back to checking on the pirates, killing any he found still alive. Rysha wanted to protest this treatment, even if Kaika didn’t seem to think anything of it, but leaving the men here, injured and alone in a remote forest, might not be any better. They would die from the elements or wolves or mountain lions. She didn’t think anyone on her team was a healer. What had Jaxi said? That she could cauterize wounds? Not exactly healing.
“We’re going back to check on the others, Dreyak,” Kaika called over her shoulder as she waved Trip and Rysha toward the crash site.
Dreyak looked toward the heavens, threw back his head, his bloody scimitar in one hand and his pistol in the other, and roared.
Rysha gaped at him.
“This was a good battle,” he announced, then pointed at Trip. “I did not realize we had a soulblade among us. Excellent. A powerful and useful weapon.”
“I prefer guns and explosives,” Kaika said.
Dreyak, looking at Trip, ignored her and said, “You should let me wield it, boy. Do you even know what that blade is capable of?”
“She lets me know on an hourly basis,” Trip said coolly, turning his back and walking toward the edge of the forest.
“To be a warrior and see the light die in your enemies’ eyes is the greatest gift,” Dreyak announced loudly.
Whether it was a general statement or if there was some message there for Trip, Rysha didn’t know, but she also turned her back on him and jogged to catch up with Trip. She’d had enough of this dark forest and the killing.
