Balanced on the Blades Edge #2 Deathmaker

Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Afterword

Deathmaker

By Lindsay Buroker

Copyright Lindsay Buroker 2014

Foreword

I
would like to thank those of you who checked out
Balanced on the Blade’s Edge
and have come back for more. Readers left over a hundred reviews around the web in the first month it was out, and thanks to your help, it hung out as the #1 steampunk novel at Amazon for several weeks. That meant I could justify doing something I wanted to do as soon as I finished working on BotBE: write another story in this world.

This adventure features a couple of new characters, but Ridge and Sardelle will be playing a role in the second half. I hope you’ll enjoy the novel, and I would like to thank those who helped me get it ready for the world: my enthusiastic beta readers Cindy Wilkinson and Sarah Engelke, my tireless editor Shelley Holloway, and the cover art specialists at Deranged Doctor Design.

Chapter 1

C
as didn’t like her new cell. After having spent two weeks jammed into a dark locker on a Cofah warship, the space so confining that she couldn’t stand up or stretch out straight, she probably should have considered this an improvement. But she wasn’t one of those irritatingly cheerful optimists. She hadn’t liked the last cell, and she didn’t like this one either. The window might let in the ocean breeze, but it was too small to climb through, not to mention barricaded with iron bars. The cries of parrots and the yowls of monkeys beyond it were a reminder that she was in a strange land, far from home, without hope of rescue.

Heavy footsteps and the jangle of weapons sounded in the hallway.

Cas bared her teeth, hoping the guards would only stroll past on their way to attend to another prisoner. It had been scarce minutes since her welcome-to-the-Dragon-Spit-prison-and-here’s-a-thorough-beating-to-make-you-feel-at-home greeting. She was still lying on the floor and recovering, so she flinched at the idea of another round with those bone cudgels. For all her vows to stay strong, she had spent most of her first beating curled in a ball on the ground, clutching her gut, and doing her best not to whimper. Whimpering wasn’t expressly forbidden in the “Survival, Evasion, and Recovery” chapter of the army field manual, but the line about the “inherent stoicism of soldiers” seemed to discourage it.

The footsteps stopped, and the door opened. Yellow lantern light spilled in from the hallway, making Cas realize that twilight had fallen outside. Not that the time of day mattered much.

A guard scurried inside carrying a stool. He set it down, the legs scraping against the hard sandstone floor, then he stood beside the door. Thanks to the shaven head, scarred face, and broad shoulders, he would have been ominous and forbidding even without the bone cudgel and short sword secured on either hip and the shotgun gripped in his hands.

Another shaven-headed man walked in, this one older and wearing a tiger fur cloak over his brown uniform. It didn’t look particularly climate-appropriate. The man wasn’t carrying any visible weapons, but Cas assumed he was in charge. If the Cofah military was anything like her own, only important people got to tinker with the dress code. For a moment, she thought of her own commander, Colonel Ridge Zirkander, and the way his non-regulation cap was always tilted at a rakish angle, but she hurried to push the image away, lest tears form in her eyes. She could be tough while they questioned her, but only as long as she didn’t let herself think of comrades—
friends
—back home... and whether she would ever see them again.

“Lieutenant Caslin ‘Raptor’ Ahn,” High Lord Cloak said, settling on the stool. “Wolf Squadron.”

Cas searched for something cocky to say, something to show that she wasn’t intimidated by him or this situation—Zirkander would have had a witty riposte for this statement of the obvious—but all she got out was a muffled, “Yeah?” Her lips were split and swollen from the beating. Even that single syllable hurt.

“Raptor?” Cloak made a point of eying her up and down, or rather, since she was on the floor, forward and back. Then he smirked. “Truly?”

Cas would have liked to stand up and tower threateningly over him, but she had to wear her thick-soled combat boots to brush the five-foot-two mark on a measuring wall. So far, she hadn’t managed to tower over anyone older than ten. It would have hurt too much to climb to her feet anyway.

“I didn’t give myself the nickname,” she grumbled. Not that she minded it;
most
of the squadron had embarrassing nicknames, especially the other young lieutenants. Pimples and Snuggles came to mind.

“Well,
Raptor
, our latest intelligence confirms that your people know your damaged flier sank during the skirmish in the Seven Tides Strait. They believe you’re as dead as the other pilot.”

The other pilot—Dash. Her eyes threatened to water again. She had seen the fire in Dash’s cockpit, seen him burning, his skin charred, his mouth open in a scream of pain right before his flier plunged into the ocean. There was no chance he had swum away as she had, having survived by clinging onto a piece of a wing until someone pulled her out of the water hours later. The
wrong
someone.

Cloak leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped as he regarded her. “That means nobody’s coming for you.”

A monkey howled in the distance. Cas wouldn’t have minded making a similar screech. She muttered a, “No kidding,” instead. Maybe she shouldn’t be saying anything. But if she responded to him, she might get a scrap or two of information in return. Though she wasn’t sure how she could manage it at the moment; escape had to be her priority. That
was
specifically mentioned in the field manual. Escaping and reporting back, that was her duty.

“That means we can keep you here as long as we need to.” Cloak smiled. Someone who found joy in his job. What a soul to be treasured.

“Oh, good,” Cas said. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get to thoroughly appreciate this hot, humid-as-spit climate before getting shipped somewhere else.”

“We’ll interrogate you, of course,” the man continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. Maybe he was used to talking to himself. “I doubt you know much. What are you, a year out of the academy?”

A year and three months, thank you, but she kept the thought to herself. No need to start giving away intel before they began the interrogation; no matter that they already seemed to know more about her than she would like.

“But you
are
Wolf Squadron,” Cloak went on. “If you’ve served under Zirkander for a year, my emperor will want whatever information you can supply on him
.
”

Cas had been beyond proud when she had been selected for Wolf Squadron straight out of the academy—she had done her best to live up to the prestigious unit’s reputation—and she would never regret that choice. But, for the first time, she realized her position might not serve her well. Everything that made her commander a lauded hero in Iskandia would make him a loathed enemy here.

“Zirkander?” she asked, licking her lips—odd how dry her mouth had suddenly grown, humid air notwithstanding. “His favorite color is green; his favorite meal is pot roast; he prefers beer to straight spirits; and, when winter comes, he’ll throw a snowball at anyone, even officers who outrank him. If that’s enough intel, you can leave my cell door open, and I’ll be happy to show myself out.”

Neither the guard nor Cloak seemed to find her sarcasm amusing. Given how much saying all that had made her mouth hurt, she shouldn’t have bothered.

Cloak pulled a dagger out of a sheath that his furry garment had hidden. Cas tried to draw back, or at least manage a sitting position, but he moved quickly for an old prison commander. The blade came up beneath her chin, the sharp point digging into tender flesh. She froze, but that didn’t keep a drop of warm blood from welling and dripping down her throat.

“I’ve sent a communication to the emperor,” Cloak said. “It’s possible he’ll simply want to hurt Zirkander by sending him your head. As a sign of his failure.”

Cas lifted her chin, part defiance, and part an attempt to put some air between her and that blade. “The colonel wasn’t even in command of the squadron at Seven Tides.
He
didn’t fail at anything.” Although Cas couldn’t help but feel that
she
had failed. Due to her inability to dissuade a Cofah diplomat from groping her, the colonel had stepped in and punched the man, a move which had resulted in disciplinary action. It was Cas’s fault the colonel hadn’t been flying with the squadron that day. The man who had taken over, Major Pennith, was a good officer, but Zirkander never would have accepted the mission, one that ultimately cost the squadron four fliers and Dash’s life. The colonel would have known the odds were too poor and would have pushed back against the general, maybe even the king, or he would have changed the situation, changed the odds somehow. As he always did. As Cas should have done in facing that diplomat. She shouldn’t have needed rescuing. Her father would have been embarrassed for her. Rightfully so.

“Yes,” Cloak purred, “we’ve heard that he hasn’t been flying of late. Care to tell me
where
he’s been?”

“Not that I would tell you anyway, but I have no idea. You’re right that lieutenants fresh out of the academy don’t get told much by generals and colonels.”

Zirkander had barely had time for more than a goodbye wave to all of them before disappearing to who knew where. Reassigned, he had said, his face almost ashen. Cas had never seen that expression on him before, and it had alarmed her. But he’d told them he couldn’t say more, simply giving everyone pats on the back and encouraging words before collecting his lucky charm from his flier and walking out of the hangar.

“You’re sure you’re not anyone’s bedroom confidant? You’re young and pretty enough. Under the blood.” Cloak traced her jaw with his dagger, his dark eyes growing thoughtful.

For a moment, rage replaced fear, and Cas spat at his face. It was stupid, but it felt good. She found the strength to pull away from him, too, not that she could go far. All he would have to do was get off that stool. If he couldn’t corner her on his own, the guards surely would.

Cloak snorted and wiped his face. “It’s unfortunate there are rules against jailers raping prisoners. If the Iskandians are stupid enough to put women in their military, they’re asking for it, after all. Besides, after all of our men your flier squads have brought down—
killed
—you deserve it.” He looked at the soldier standing next to the door.

Cas gripped the sandstone bench lining one cell wall, pushing herself into a standing position, bruises and pain notwithstanding. Rules were good, but if Cloak wanted to break them, she meant to face him on her feet.

“If you want me to shut the door and see nothing, I will, sir,” the guard said.

Loyal to his commander, was he? How sweet.

Cloak’s thoughtful expression returned to her. There was far too much consideration on his face.

Cas dug through her mind, looking for a way out of this mess. To distract them, if nothing else, and make them forget about her for the night. “Since you seem to know quite a bit about me, you might have heard of my father. He wouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss me as dead when he heard the news. He could be over here, hunting for me already.”