3. Idrilia #3
Of our group of thirteen, two were most likely dead, three were seriously injured, and five more were hurt to varying degrees. Only Jeffson, Kelth, and I had escaped largely unscathed.
"We can't stay here," Jeffson said, standing beside me at the edge of the ruined trail, looking up at the mountain. "The seismic activity could trigger another slide. We need to descend to base camp."
"Can they make it?" I looked at the injured.
Gavon couldn't walk. Palel could manage slowly. Horrov was dizzy and might lose consciousness.
"Not all of them, and not quickly enough." Jeffson pulled off his hat and ran a hand through his thinning hair. "The trail below is partially buried. It'll take hours to clear a path wide enough for a stretcher, and we'd need to improvise the stretcher from our packs."
Hours we might not have if the mountain decided to shrug again.
"How long will it take us to reach base camp?" I asked.
"Under normal conditions, the descent would have taken six hours. It will take twice that with the injured and a damaged trail."
Twelve hours. In deteriorating weather, with a mountain that had already proven unstable, carrying people who needed medical attention that Sorel's field kit couldn't provide.
Horrov needed a hospital. Gavon's ankle needed to be properly set.
Palel's ribs could be worse than Sorel suspected, and a punctured lung would kill him before we reached flat ground.
"We need the red flare," I said. "We have injured who need evacuation, the trail is compromised, we're above the boundary in unstable conditions, and there is no way we can make it to base camp before dark. We will die out here if we don't get help."
The red flare indicated a life-and-death emergency that required dragon assist. The Elucians would be contacted, and they would send a team of riders who were trained in these kinds of rescues.
There would be hell to pay for the border infraction, but at this point, I didn't care about political ramifications.
The lives of everyone in our party were at stake, including mine and Gavon's.
"Dragons." Jeffson grimaced. "Terrifying beasts."
"Necessary." I met his eyes. "The difference between life and death."
Emergency flares were not used lightly. In cases of life-threatening emergency, a flare launched from the mountains would be visible to the Elurian and Elucian outposts on both sides of the border.
They would relay the request to the Dragon Force, using the joint rescue agreement between the Elurian Federation and Elucia that had existed for generations.
I was ashamed of the flicker of anticipation that ignited in my chest. I'd never seen dragons in real life, but this was no excuse. We had two dead men, several injured, and our lives were in danger. This was not the time to satisfy my curiosity about the magnificent creatures.
"Jeffson, the flare," I said.
He reached into his backpack and withdrew the flare gun. It was a bulky, single-shot device, and he loaded it with the red cartridge that would produce a crimson smoke trail visible for miles.
The color would communicate that there were injured requiring evacuation.
"The base camp will see it too," Jeffson said. "They'll contact border rescue through the landline at the ranger station."
I nodded. The base camp crew would see the crimson smoke and know that something had gone wrong. They'd send someone to the ranger station to call the Elucian emergency contact. From there, the request would travel through the joint rescue protocol to the Dragon Force.
How long? An hour? Two? It depended on how quickly the system moved.
Jeffson lifted the gun and looked at me, waiting for my signal.
"Do it."
He aimed the gun at the sky and fired.
The cartridge streaked upward, trailing a plume of deep crimson smoke that unfurled against the pale sky like a wound. It climbed higher than I'd expected, the smoke thickening as it rose, forming a column that the gentle wind couldn't disperse.
"Now we wait," Jeffson said.
I nodded and walked over to where Gavon was sitting on the cold ground, leaning against a boulder with an emergency blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
I knelt beside him. "How are you doing?"
"Amazing." He forced a smile. "The crimson smoke against the aurora is so dramatic. I might use it for the opening shot." His voice was lighter than his eyes, which were glazed with pain.
"You should rest instead of writing the script in your head."
"It keeps me from thinking about what has just happened and how much worse it could have been."
I winced. "I'm sorry."
"Hey." He caught my hand with his uninjured one. "None of this is your fault."
I said nothing because we both knew that wasn't true. I'd pushed past the boundary. I'd insisted on going higher. They had followed me up the mountain because I was the one paying their wages, and I'd told them it was worth the risk.
The Silver Princess specimen was still in my pack, its luminous petals probably crushed, its remarkable magnetic roots cooling in their bed of moss. I'd found what I'd come for, but the cost had been two lives and possibly more before this tragic day was over.