northwest to God knows where. They had just begun descending the hillside when Kenan stopped short and pointed at the road. “What’s that?”
Syfax didn’t bother to look. He knew his eyes weren’t good enough to see anything more than fifty yards away. “What’s it look like?”
The lieutenant fished the binoculars from his pack and peered through them. “People on the road. Maybe half a dozen of them. On horses, coming this way.”
“Anything special about these people, kid?”
“All men, in matching blue coats. Rifles in the saddles and sabers on their belts.”
Syfax closed his eyes for a minute to ask God why he had absolutely no luck. “How the hell did they find us so fast?”
“It’s like you said, major,” Taziri said. “People saw us pass overhead. I guess there was a garrison in that last town we passed over. But those soldiers don’t know who we are. They’re just coming to investigate. We can probably just walk right past them.”
“Walk?” Syfax looked back at the girl in purple, the woman in bright blue, and the scowling Italian. Then he looked at himself and the pilots in their regulation orange flight jackets. “Yeah, that’s not gonna fly. We don’t exactly look like locals. And if they hold us for even a day, they might get wind of what happened back in Valencia. These guys might not have telegraphs, but they still use pigeons. We’ll need to stay off the road. We’ll head south cross-country and hope we strike another road toward the coast.”
Taziri winced and jerked her head back at the passengers. “Cross-country?”
Syfax sighed and curled his freezing hands into fists a few times. “Nah, you’re right. Scratch that. These folks need a road, a short road to a warm bed, or else they’ll be dead on their feet in a few hours. What do you think, Ziri?”
She pointed at the road. “We head the other way. Northwest toward Madrid. On the map, it looks to be a day and half away on foot.”
“Wait, you want to go north? We’ll never get home if we start circling around the whole country trying to dodge soldiers while staying on the nice comfy roads.”
“But I know someone in Madrid, major,” Taziri said. “Do you remember the day of the assassination? The Espani fencer with that foreign woman wearing the feathers? They were in all the papers. I met him after the attack before he left the palace. His name’s Quesada. He personally saved the queen’s sister and children. If we can get to him, I think he’ll help us. He’ll at least feed us and point us in the right direction to get home safely.”
Syfax grimaced. Nah, it’s all wrong. Heading in the wrong direction, on the roads in plain sight, looking to rendezvous with a dubious asset? “Sorry, captain, I’m pulling rank on this one. We go south. It may be the worst three days of their lives, but if we take this bunch south then we’ll have the best chance of getting home alive, sooner than later.”
“It’ll be the last three days of their lives if we take this bunch south, cross-country, in the Espani winter. And rank?” Taziri looked at him sharply. “You may outrank me, major, but you’re only in command of security.”
“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure surviving in hostile territory counts as a security problem.”
“Wrong. I’m in command of transporting our passengers and all decisions regarding their transport are mine to make. As long as we avoid the soldiers and play this smart, there won’t be any security problems. We go north, and it will take as long as it takes.”
If it weren’t for the three stragglers with them, he would have insisted on the hard march through the woods to the south. That’s what we would have done back in the Atlas Mountains, back in the army. But this is the Air Corps where the chain of command is some sort of committee tea party. What the hell am I doing here? He spat in the snow. “It’s a bad plan.”
“It’s a reasonable plan,” Taziri countered.
Syfax peered at the road and the dark blurs that might have been soldiers. “What do you think, kid? Can you see anything we’re not thinking of?”
“No, sir. But whatever we’re going to do, we need to get down off this ridge and out of sight soon.”
“Hang on, I’ve got something for them.” Taziri shrugged off her jacket and started rolling up her left sleeve.
Syfax grimaced. “Really?”
“Yeah. Here, hold this.” She handed him the flare shell. With her sleeve up around her elbow, the entire medical brace was exposed. The long aluminum plates encased her forearm down to her wrist and the small rods connecting the brace to her glove held her hand immobile. He’d seen her take the brace off once to wash her arm and change the gauze wrapped around the hideous burns, and he’d made the effort to avoid seeing it a second time. He glanced away now, too. Taziri shoved the top plate down into her arm and then let it spring up with a soft pneumatic hiss. The long brass tube popped up and clicked into place. She held out her hand for the shell and he gave it to her. Taziri slipped it into the tube bolted to her arm, closed the chamber, and aimed at the southern sky. She pulled the trigger and the flare streaked up into the air, leaving only a thin trail of gray smoke as it rocketed away from the ridge. Several seconds later the flare erupted into bright red flames, spewing dark red smoke into the wintry wind.
Taziri carefully sealed up the device in her arm, rolled down her sleeve, and pulled her coat back on. “There. That should at least lead them off in the wrong direction for a few hours and leave the road clear for us. Come on. Let’s get moving.”
Damn it, Ziri, you’d better be right about this Quesada fella. Syfax gave the southern horizon one last tired look before turning to the northwest road. “All right, everybody move out.” And if there’s any justice in this world, we’ll find a nice clean barn where we can freeze to death tonight.
Chapter 5. Shifrah
Someone was shaking her shoulder. She hated that. She hated any method of waking her up, but she hated shaking the most. Like she was a dog or a doll or a pepper mill. And it created a dilemma: Do I endure the shaking to steal a few last seconds of pretend-sleep, or open my eye and start the first argument of the day?
“Get up, Shifrah,” Salvator said in that infuriatingly calm, velvety voice of his. The Italian reached over her to grab his belts and sheathes from the shelf over the bunk. “We’re going on a little trip.”
“What are you talking about?” she muttered, her eye still closed. She knew the ship was too large for her to feel the movement of the deck, but she could feel it. And she hated it. The only thing that made it bearable was staying in bed. “I’m not going anywhere, and you’re supposed to be teaching some children how stab each other, aren’t you?”
“Not anymore. It appears I’ve worn out my welcome.”
“Already?” Shifrah blinked and sat up, letting the blankets fall off her bare chest to reveal the corded muscles of her arms and stomach and the thin knife scars on her hands and forearms. “What did you do this time, sleep with the admiral’s wife?”
“No. Some Mazigh fool just frightened the old man out of his small clothes and he wants me to hunt him down.” Salvator sighed as he belted his sword around his slender waist. “It was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. An airship, but with no air bladder. More like a bird, with wings. It was tremendously fast, but Magellan managed to wound it all the same. It’s heading west, and the old man wants us to find it.”
“Mazighs?” Shifrah scowled as she crawled out of bed and began selecting her attire from the clothes scattered across the floor. “What the hell are they doing out here?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask them before I kill them.”
She smiled. That’s my Sal. “When will you be back, do you think?”
He smiled and leaned down to kiss her. He bit her bottom lip gently as he pulled away. “Not me. We. The good admiral seems to have noticed you sniffing around the officers’ quarters.”
Shifrah pushed him away. “I didn’t take anything.”
“I don’t believe that anymore than Magellan does.” Salvator carefully slipped his folded clothes into his bag along with his books.
Well, it isn’t the first time we were kicked out of a warm bed. Sighing, Shifrah dressed and began shoving her
