Balanced on the Blades Edge #2 Deathmaker (4 page)

She palmed one of the stars and stood, seeing if her pirate needed help. But the guard he had been trading sword blows with was down, his eyes rolled back in his head. The last man hadn’t figured out how to remove whatever was sticking to his eyes, and he could only flail ineffectively with his sword. Tolemek dodged the swats, ducked under his arm, grabbed it, and twisted his wrist so the man dropped the blade. After shoving him against the wall, Tolemek grabbed a key ring off the guard’s belt. He kicked open a door and thrust the man inside. Tolemek locked the door before his foe could recover. He grabbed the unconscious sword fighter and thrust him into another cell. It crossed Cas’s mind to help manhandle the last guard inside, but she couldn’t begin to lift one of these big men. Besides, Tolemek was handling the situation fine. He hoisted the last man into a cell and locked that door too.

Interesting that he hadn’t killed anyone, given his reputation. Or maybe not. Even if Cloak had locked him into a cell, she was fairly certain he was Cofah and that these were his people or at least had been at one time. If this were an Iskandian prison, his choices might be different. No, given his record of killing her people, she was certain they
would
be different. She wondered if he knew there was a memorial on the Tanglewood Peninsula and that kin of the three hundred people who had died in that village made pilgrimages there every spring to pray for the souls of their lost loved ones.

With the last door locked, he faced her. Cas had the rifle in one hand and the throwing star in the other. A good fifteen feet separated them. Enough for her to throw one of the stars if she were of a mind to. If she did, could she get out on her own?

For a moment, they stared at each other, and she suspected he knew exactly what was on her mind. There was a wariness in his stance, like he was prepared to spring away if he needed to, but he didn’t look that worried. He probably didn’t think she was that dangerous with some enemy weapon native to his continent and not hers. She thought about showing him how dangerous she was, but what would that serve? Only to warn him that he had best keep an eye on her.

Cas waved at the hallway behind him. “What’s the plan? There another set of stairs that way?”

“Yes.” Tolemek held her eyes for another long moment before turning his back on her to lead the way.

She watched the target area between his shoulder blades for several seconds before following. She hoped a moment wouldn’t come when she regretted not taking the opportunity to plant a bullet or throwing knife there.

Another turn took them down another hallway of cell doors. On the positive side, it was devoid of guards. On the negative side, it was devoid of stairs or other exits too. That didn’t keep the pirate from striding down to the end. There wasn’t an interesting tapestry, decorative plant stand, or slyly placed lever that might suggest a secret door, but he rested his ear to the stone and thumped the blunt tip of the cudgel against it. Whatever he heard satisfied him, for he delved into his pouch, pulling out the vial again. He dabbed the goo on the sandstone, making a circle with it this time.

Cas leaned against a side wall so she could watch him as well as the way they had come.

“What is that stuff?” she asked, wondering where he had gotten it. The burning of the metal hinges had been handy, and if it could also burn holes in a six-inch-thick sandstone wall, that would truly impress her. She could think of a few useful applications for it back home.

“It doesn’t really have a name.” Tolemek kept dabbing at the wall, trying hard to stretch what little paste he had to complete his circle. They better not get locked up again, because he didn’t look to have enough for another set of hinges.

“How can it not have a name?” Cas tried to imagine shopping for it in some exotic market by simply describing its properties.

“The creator didn’t come up with one. Though I hear it’s recorded as Brown Goo Number Three in his journal.”

Oh, so this was something he had invented. Even though it had proven nothing but handy thus far, the admission, however oblique, chilled her. It was as if, in admitting to creating this little concoction, he had admitted to creating every horrible thing she had heard of the Roaming Curse using on its enemies—its
victims
.

“Chastor?” someone called from the hall around the corner, the hall with all the guards locked in cells. “Ponst?”

“Better hurry,” Cas murmured.

“The wall is thick. This will take a minute.”

Cas fingered the rifle, then decided on the throwing star. She bent her knees, readying herself in case a guard ran around the corner.

An acrid scent lit the air. She had been too busy running out to grab that first guard’s weapon to notice it before, but she knew it was the goop burning. When she glanced back, the wall was charred and smoking, but it was intact. Brown Goo Number Three might not be strong enough to help them escape again this time.

The guard in the other hall didn’t call out again, but his footsteps echoed ahead of him. He was walking their way.

A grinding came from behind Cas, followed by a couple of grunts, then a crash as loud as a rifle shot. So much for not warning the whole fortress.

She started to cuss at Tolemek, but the guard ran around the corner. He halted so quickly he skidded as he gaped at the end of the hall. That didn’t keep him from whipping his rifle butt to his shoulder. Cas was already hurling the throwing star. She trusted her aim and knew it would hit, but ducked anyway—she was the closest to the intersection, and that rifle had been pointing toward her.

It never went off. The throwing star lodged in his throat, slicing into his jugular. Blood spurted from the severed artery, and the rifle tumbled from his fingers, clacking onto the floor. He crumpled soon after.

Aware that beige stone dust had flooded the hall, Cas faced her pirate again. He had to have seen her take down the guard—so much for not showing him she was dangerous—but he didn’t say a word. He stood by a circular hole in the wall, the gaping orifice opening into utter blackness, and extended a hand toward it, like a man holding the door open for a woman at a café. So much for her hope that they weren’t going anywhere dark.

“No, no, you go first.” Cas batted at the dust in the air, almost coughing when she spoke.

Tolemek slipped through the hole and disappeared. He looked like he had dropped down. She supposed it was too much to hope that he was simply leading her into some nice forgotten tunnels that would deposit them on a beach below the fortress.

Wishing she had kept the lantern that had been in their cell, Cas walked to the lip of the hole and peered inside. Her estimate of a six-inch wall had been off; it was more like a foot thick. That goo was powerful. The edges of the hole still smoked, and she wouldn’t have touched them if she hadn’t already seen Tolemek do so.

“How far of a drop is it?” she whispered.

She didn’t want to stall—someone would have heard that noise, and the dead guard would soon be missed, too—but she couldn’t see more than two feet into the gap. She had the sense of a vertical shaft dropping away and didn’t see any stairs.

Tolemek didn’t respond. He hadn’t done something stupid like falling to his death, had he? For a moment, she thought she would have to go back the other way and hope she could avoid notice, but his voice finally drifted up from below.

“Fifteen feet to a landing. Then there are stairs. Sort of.”

Well, didn’t that sound promising?

He didn’t sound farther down than his estimate, so Cas took his word. She ought to be able to land from that height without breaking anything. She stuck her feet through the hole and slithered over the edge. For a silly moment, she wondered what the view looked like from below. She might be an expert marksman, but nobody had ever accused her of amazing athleticism.

She lowered herself down, probing with her feet, though logically, she knew she would never reach the floor without letting go. Also, her boots pressed against some squishy substance growing on the wall. Maybe it was better without the lantern.

“You out of the way?” she asked before letting go.

“Does that mean you don’t want me to catch you?”

“It means I don’t want to kick your ear off as my legs flail around on the way down.”

“Thoughtful.” His voice had shifted—he’d moved to the side.

He hadn’t truly been thinking of catching her, had he? Having the Deathmaker’s hands wrapped around her waist sounded a lot more creepy than it did thoughtful or pleasant.

A gong reverberated somewhere in the distance. Alarm. No more dawdling.

Cas released her grip and fell into the darkness, her heart in her throat. Without any light, she couldn’t gauge the distance to the bottom, and could only guess when she needed to soften her knees for impact. The landing jarred her nonetheless, though a hand caught her arm, steadying her. Tolemek released her almost as soon as he touched her.

“Thanks,” she said grudgingly.

The air was warm and close, smelling of the jungle, of plants and decaying matter. The gong was barely audible from down in the well, but she heard it nonetheless.

“You’re welcome,” Tolemek said. “The stairs are behind you. I’ll lead.”

“Good, because I wasn’t going to volunteer.”

He didn’t light a match. She supposed his stash would burn out quickly if he did. She found a wall with her palm, grimacing at the bumpy algae—or whatever it was—growing on the old stone. It was on the stairs too. Her boots squished with each step. At least they were going down. Down was good. There should be a way out to the beach or the jungle from below the main fortress.

The stairs, beneath the inch of algae, felt old and worn. More than that, in several spots, the edge crumbled beneath her boot.

“What is this place?” she whispered as they continued to descend. Their cell had been on the second story of the three-story fortress. Though there were no landings to help judge it, Cas already felt as if they had descended three or four floors.

“Long ago, there was a dragon rider outpost in the base of this cliff,” Tolemek said. “
Real
dragons, not little mechanical fliers designed to look vaguely like dragons.”

“Should you be insulting my people’s aircraft when I’m walking behind you with a gun?” She said it lightly, though his tone had miffed her.

She expected some dismissive comeback, but he descended a few more steps before responding with, “Probably not. Are you as deadly with a rifle as you are with a throwing star?”

“I’ve had more practice with firearms.”

“I thought you were too young to be what the commandant claimed, but I’m beginning to believe that Zirkander would have recruited you.”

His tone didn’t drip malice when he said the colonel’s name, but the alarm gongs that went off in Cas’s head rang far more clearly than those in the fortress above. She didn’t want to discuss Zirkander with him, or her work at all. The last thing she wanted was to slip up and give away some useful intelligence, especially to someone who could make explosive goop and only the gods knew what else.

“Were you with the squadron last summer?” Tolemek asked in the same conversational tone, but there might have been the faintest edge to it. A were-you-among-those-who-fired-on-our-dirigibles-and-nearly-killed-the-captain-and-me-last-summer edge.

“Where I am is watching your back until you get me out of this dungeon, and I think we can leave it at that.” Another throwing star had found its way into Cas’s hand. The cold steel was reassuring against her thumb. Maybe she would leave it there until the fresh jungle air was upon her face and Tolemek had taken off in his ship.

Chapter 3

T
he stairs ended at a wide corridor with the stone floors pockmarked with age. Some of the holes were deep enough to be considered craters, sizable obstacles in the darkness. Tolemek walked near the edge, fingers following the wall, taking care to test each step before he committed to it. He wasn’t expecting booby traps in the centuries-abandoned fortress, but crumbling floors could drop him into a pit as easily as an ancient architect’s whims. And then there was the woman walking behind him, making his shoulder blades itch. Thus far, she had been helpful, but it didn’t take some telepath of yore to sense that she believed she would be doing the world a favor by getting rid of him.

They came to the first intersection, the wall disappearing and his fingers brushing air, so Tolemek concentrated on the route. He had memorized the old map he’d found before coming, but it would be easy to grow disoriented down here in the dark. The few matches he had wouldn’t do any good without a lamp to light, and he doubted he would find one down here that still had oil in it. Or whatever they had used back then. There were tales that said the halls in the sorcerers’ homes were simply alight with their magic.

Something rustled through the algae on the floor, whispering past his boot. Not magic, but a snake. Whatever sorcerous power had once imbued this place was gone, leaving nothing but ruins. He wondered if he was a fool to believe he would find anything here.

At the third intersection, Tolemek said, “Left,” and turned down it.

Lieutenant Ahn grumbled something under her breath, but kept following.

“I
do
have a couple of likely escape routes in mind,” he said. “After I find what I’m looking for, I believe I can get us to the jungle.”

She didn’t answer promptly. He admitted
likely
and
believe
weren’t the most encouraging words he could have used. Since he had only studied the fortress from a distance, he was reluctant to promise more. He feared that at any moment, the route would be blocked by rubble from some hundred-year-old cave-in. He had memorized a couple of routes to the library, just in case, but so far the only obstacle was the musty air. Possibly the snakes.

“How does this stuff grow down here without light?” Ahn mused.

“I’ve wondered that. Perhaps some residual energy left in the walls from those ancient sorcerers. Plants are highly adaptable, and most ecological niches get filled, given enough time.”