Balanced on the Blades Edge #2 Deathmaker (2 page)

“Yes, I’ve heard of your father, and my research tells me that he hasn’t spoken to you in three years. I understand he didn’t approve of your decision to join the army and serve the king instead of going into the family business.”

Cas swallowed, disturbed by how much intelligence the Cofah had on specific Iskandian personnel. They couldn’t know this much about every soldier in the army, could they? Maybe the flier pilots had been singled out because they were particularly irksome.

“I doubt he’ll be looking for you,” Cloak finished. “No, you’ll stay here with us for a while. We’ll break you and get every iota we can out of you while waiting for word from the emperor.”

Break you. That did not sound promising.

More footsteps sounded in the hallway.

“Any chance that’s dinner?” Cas asked, hoping this chat was over. “They didn’t feed me regularly on that glorified tug. As you can see, I’m getting a little waifish.”

“You missed dinner. I’ll be sure to tell Captain Trivolt that you called his warship a tug though. I’m sure that will make him more hospitable to the next prisoner he captures.”

A guard jogged into the cell and whispered something into Cloak’s ear. Cas took the opportunity to move farther from him and his dagger. She put her back to the window wall, her canvas prison smock little insulation from the cool, coarse stone against her shoulder blades. Coarse or not, she liked having it behind her and putting as much distance between her and the men as she could.

“Yes, I’d heard about his capture,” Cloak said when his man straightened. “An even more intriguing prisoner. Yes, I’ll question him immediately.”

As he stood up, Cas allowed herself a hint of relief. Good, someone else for the commander to harass.

Cloak paused before walking out the door though. He looked thoughtfully back at her, his hand on the door jamb. Then he threw back his head and laughed, a deep hollow laugh that reminded her of the big bell clanging in Sky Tower back home.

“Sir?” the new guard asked. Judging by the way his mouth dropped open, his commander didn’t laugh like this often.

Oh, good, that meant he had come up with something special. Cas prayed it had nothing to do with her. Would the seven gods hear her prayers over here in enemy territory? Or did they think her dead too?

“Bring him here, Corporal,” Cloak said, his lips still stretched with mirth. Mirth Cas couldn’t help but find alarming, especially when he turned that smile toward her. “I believe we’ll save space by having our two new prisoners share a cell.”

The guard’s brow wrinkled. “But there are plenty of empty cells, sir.”

“Ah, but nobody hates Zirkander and Wolf Squadron more than the Deathmaker.”

Cas stared for a stunned moment as the words sank in. Deathmaker. Cas closed her eyes. She would have liked to scoff at the overly dramatic name—pirates couldn’t ever call themselves Thon or Jed, could they?—but she had been to Tanglewood Peninsula, seen the memorial there, the graves. Six years earlier, the entire village—every man, woman, and child—had been slain by a horrible biological agent that melted their lungs and other organs, killing them from the inside out. There was nothing about the Deathmaker that should make one scoff. The evil scientist belonged to the Roaming Curse, one of the biggest pirate outfits flying the Targenian Sea. Wolf Squadron had battled with them just that past summer, taking back a pair of dragon-flier energy sources the pirates had stolen during a raid. Zirkander hadn’t been lenient, and Cas had been along on that mission. She had helped bring down their flagship. She shouldn’t be surprised that Deathmaker had gotten away. He was one of the few pirates who had a reputation even more horrendous than that of his bloodthirsty leader, Captain Slaughter.

But what would he be doing
here
? Why would a nefarious pirate scientist be roaming about where he could be captured?

“But won’t he kill her, sir?” the guard asked after scratching his head a few times.

“Possibly. Though I’m hoping he’ll want to prolong her torment a bit.” Cloak turned his unfriendly smile back onto Cas. “The rules say nothing about what prisoners may and may not do to each other.” Cloak laughed again. He even wiped tears from his eyes. What a dung flinger. “If nothing else, she’ll be less lippy in the morning, I’m sure.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get him.”

Cas stared at the floor, trying hard not to feel defeated... and failing.

Deathmaker. Fate was hating her this month. When she had gone to flight school and joined Wolf Squadron, she had known she would make enemies. Even if Iskandia merely defended its homeland and rarely looked for trouble beyond its borders, the Cofah believed her people were rebels who should be reconquered. Hundreds of years may have passed since her ancestors had killed their externally imposed rulers and cast the Cofah off their continent, but the empire had a long memory. The Cofah had never stopped wanting Iskandia, and they would always believe themselves the righteous ones. When Cas had started shooting down their dirigibles and attacking their ocean warships, it had been inevitable that she would become a target herself.

Well, she didn’t have to be an easy target.

Cloak and the new guard had gone.

Cas eyed the remaining guard. He was watching her right back, his shotgun aimed in her direction. Surprising him and escaping would be difficult, but the door was still open, and he was alone. This might be the only chance she got.

She subtly slid her hands along the wall behind her, hoping to find some crumbled piece of rock that she might hurl as a weapon. There were such chunks in the corners of the floor, but he would notice if she bent to pick one up. Oh, what she would give for the powers of the sorcerers of old, the ability to convince one of those noisy parrots out there to swoop through the window and claw this man’s eyes out. She would have to settle for a more personal attack.

She shifted her weight and found one of those rocks with her toe. She nudged it away from the wall, thinking to kick it across the room. If she could distract him for a second, maybe she could wrestle that shotgun free from him. She might not be much more than a hundred pounds, and little more than salt and vinegar in a fight, but with a projectile weapon in hand, the odds should shift in her favor.

The footsteps returned in the hall. Out of time. She cursed under her breath.

The guard glanced toward the doorway. Cas kicked the rock.

It skittered across the room, banging him in the toe. Not much of an attack, but he looked down, and she leaped across the room. Her wounds protested the sudden movement, but her nerves flooded her limbs with fire to compensate. She grabbed the barrel of the rifle, trying to yank it free before he recovered.

He snorted. His eyes met hers, and there wasn’t a glimmer of concern in them. He lunged at her, bowling her off her feet, and slammed her into the side wall so hard that it knocked her breath away. She tried to knee him, but he thrust her against the wall again, the back of her head thumping the stone this time. Blackness rimmed her vision, and dots of light floated through the air before her. She was vaguely aware of her feet dangling several inches off the ground.

“Women make pathetic soldiers,” the guard said. “That you’re here is a sign of how desperate the Iskandians are.” He rammed her against the wall again.

“That’s enough, Sergeant,” Cloak said from the hallway.

He had returned, along with more guards, a
lot
more guards. And another man.

Cas blinked, trying to clear her eyes. The man standing in the doorway, his hands shackled before him, appeared more warrior than scientist, with a hide vest leaving his muscular arms and part of his chest exposed. She had expected a crazy old man with spectacles or magnifying goggles and white hair sticking out in all directions. The figure in the doorway appeared to be about thirty, and his long black locks fell down his back in matted ropes. In contrast to the tangled hair, his mustache and goatee were trimmed, and his bronze Cofah skin was clean of grime, but nothing about the dark scowling eyes, the shark-tooth necklace, or the spiked leather wrist cuffs invited one to venture closer. Amazing that the guards had been able to get his shackles on over all that pointy metal.

They were watching him now, far more warily than they had watched her. No less than four pistols were aimed at the pirate.

“Deathmaker,” Cloak said, extending a hand toward Cas, who was still pinned by the guard. “Allow me to introduce your new roommate.”

The guard stepped back, letting Cas drop to the floor. She braced herself against the wall. Her heart was beating a couple thousand times a minute, and she needed the stone for support. So much for her grand escape attempt.

The pirate stared at her. Full darkness had fallen outside, and she doubted he could see much in the shadowy cell, but she didn’t see how that helped her.

Out of some sense that she shouldn’t let him know she feared him or that he had any power over her whatsoever, she said, “How come you got to keep your trendy pirate clothes, and they forced me to put on this potato sack?”

The prisoner turned his dark glower onto Cloak. If he found anything amusing about her question, it didn’t show on his face.

“Ah, are introductions in order?” Cloak grabbed a lantern from the wall and hung it from a hook in the cell—Cas eased back into the shadows near the window again. “Deathmaker, this is the Iskandian, Lieutenant Ahn. From Wolf Squadron.”

That got a reaction. The pirate’s nostrils flared, and his head jerked back toward her, his hair whipping about his face.

Cloak waved to one of the guards. He stepped forward warily and unlocked the pirate’s shackles. The metal fell away, clanging to the stone floor. The pirate lunged inside, springing toward Cas like a lion taking down its prey.

She could only take a step before her back smacked into the wall. She tried to duck and dodge away, but even in the darkness, he anticipated which way she would go and grabbed her. Much as the guard had done, he slammed her into the wall. Her already battered body betrayed her, and a gasp of pain slipped out. She wanted to fight, to spit curses if nothing else, but a calloused hand wrapped around her neck.

Cloak’s dark chuckle came from the hallway, then the door thudded shut, leaving Cas along with the pirate. The hand about her neck tightened.

Chapter 2

T
olemek stood unmoving, his hand around the woman’s throat, listening for the footsteps to recede in the hallway. There was a guard still standing outside, he was sure of it, but Commandant Searson was leaving, along with his hairy-knuckled team of brutes. He didn’t know if they knew who he was—who he had been before becoming a pirate—but they had relished going over him with their cudgels either way.

While he waited, he noted the window, the breeze stirring the muggy air, and the way he could see the prison’s rampart from the cell. That was good. If that kid came through, this might work out after all. Whoever his “roommate” was, this location was superior to the windowless holding cell he had originally been placed in.

He was about to let go of the woman—though there was a big part of him that wouldn’t mind ridding the world of one of those cursed Iskandian fighter pilots, his attack had been a ruse to get the guards to leave him alone for the night—but she had recovered from the surprise of being grabbed. She twisted, trying to jam a knee into his groin. Hands clawed for his face. Fortunately, she wasn’t very tall, and his longer arms kept him out of her range.

“Enough woman,” he said and released her. “Leave me be, and I’ll do the same for you.”

He took a step back and waited in a fighting stance in case she came after him—she seemed livid enough to take on a pack of wolves barehanded—but she backed away, too, not stopping until her shoulder blades bumped the door.

The commandant had left the lantern hanging on the wall, and the light illuminated the side of her head. Her short hair hung in wisps about what was likely a cute, impish face when it wasn’t bruised. She had endured at least one round with the guards and their cudgels too. Her swollen cheekbone, and the blood smearing her chin and upper lip made him feel guilty about manhandling her, show for the commandant or not. He reminded himself that she was an enemy. Her pale, freckled skin and red-blonde hair couldn’t be anything except Iskandian. If Searson was to be believed, she was a
mortal
enemy. She scarcely looked old enough to be out of her basic military training though. It was hard to imagine she had been on many flier runs. And just because Searson had said she was in Wolf Squadron didn’t mean she was; the commandant had clearly wanted to manipulate Tolemek into something. Something designed to hurt her? Or a trap for him? If he murdered some other prisoner, they might have an excuse to shoot him without a tribunal.

He shook his head. He could muse upon it another time, after he escaped from this cell.

He propped a boot on the stone bench and tore off the hem of one of his trouser legs. The material wasn’t bright, so he would have to trust that his helper out there was paying attention. He tied the strip around two iron bars in the window, making a cheerful bow.

Tolemek sat on the bench to wait, his back against the wall. He pulled up a leg and propped his arm on his knee. Nothing except the woman’s eyes had moved. They were round and green. Innocent was the word that came to mind, and he wondered again at Searson’s assertion. A fighter pilot? Truly? And if so, how had she gotten onto Colonel Zirkander’s team? They didn’t have any rookies flying with them. After last summer, Tolemek could say that for certain. He rubbed scars on his lower back that still itched—three bullets had been extracted from his flesh. The doctor had sworn he should have died and proclaimed his organs the toughest in the outfit. Another dubious accolade that, for good or ill, added to his reputation.

The girl—Ahn?—was considering the strip of cloth. She glanced at the lantern hanging beside her, and he wondered if she was thinking of burning his little flag. Well, she wouldn’t have much luck if she tried.