Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1) Read online

  Chapter 3

  Sardelle walked up the stairs in the administration building, Corporal Rolff clomping behind her, his boots ringing on the wooden floors. She felt less uncomfortable walking in front of him now that she was wearing a heavy ankle-length wool dress, boots, cap, and scruffier version of the colonel’s parka—it seemed to be the official women’s uniform here. Even without the shield of less revealing clothing, Rolff hadn’t made any more mentions of his room number, not since the colonel’s appearance.

  “That’s the general’s, er, colonel’s door.” Rolff pointed past her to the end of the hall.

  Sardelle had already rehearsed her story, so all she could do was keep walking and take a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. Strange that reporting to some military commander could make her nervous after so many years of being outside of and, in a way, above such organizations.

  Not here.

  I know, Jaxi. I understand the situation thoroughly.

  I’m just reminding you so you remember to act properly contrite and subdued in your meeting. Also, don’t give him a rash.

  Sardelle kept her snort inward, not wanting Rolff to think her odd—or wonder if she was having conversations with herself in her head. That was probably considered an indicator of witchy ways here.

  The Itchy Brothers are seeing the medic right now in another building, Jaxi informed her. I hope your name doesn’t come up.

  It shouldn’t since they don’t know my name.

  You’ve made enough of an impression that Woman in the Green Dress is all they’ll have to say.

  It’ll be fine. Someone will diagnose it as a sexually transmitted disease. I’m surprised they even went to the medic. You’d think that would be embarrassing for them.

  Sardelle supposed it would be immature of her to wish she were standing outside the door of that medic’s office, so she could listen to the two explaining how they had both come to have the same rash on their genitals.

  Oh, I’m already listening in. Want the details?

  That’s all right. I better focus on this meeting. Sardelle stopped before the door, actually a couple of paces before the door. A waste bin and crate full of empty alcohol bottles made it difficult to draw closer. She shifted the colonel’s parka, draping it over her left arm, so she could knock with her right, but she paused when a long scrape, followed by a thud and a thump came from inside.

  A cream.

  Sardelle blinked at Jaxi’s comment, at first believing it had something to do with the noises in the office. What?

  They’re being prescribed a cream. And a suggestion that they stay out of each other’s pants.

  Sardelle laughed before she could catch herself, though she turned it into a cough.

  “He won’t want to wait all day,” Rolff said.

  “I just wasn’t sure about those noises.” Two more heavy thumps sounded, and Sardelle pointed at the door. “Are you sure he’s not… doing battle with someone in there?” Or beating the tar out of some wayward private?

  “Nobody here would pick a fight with him.” Rolff leaned past her and knocked three times.

  The noises inside stopped, and a “Yeah?” floated out the door.

  Sardelle didn’t know whether to take that as an invitation or not, but she had been instructed to report promptly. She turned the knob, stepped past the bottles, and poked her head around the door.

  Colonel Zirkander was balanced in the air, one boot on the desk and one boot halfway up floor-to-ceiling bookcases built into a sidewall. He held a feather duster in one hand while he prodded at fat tomes that looked like they had been resting undisturbed on that top shelf for decades. He had shed some of his winter clothing, and the sleeves of his gray shirt were rolled up, revealing the ropy muscles of his forearms and… a lot of fresh dirt smudges. Dust—and was that a cobweb?—smeared his short brown hair, as if he had been sticking his head under beds that hadn’t seen a maid in years. Or maybe a big faded brown couch, Sardelle amended, considering the office’s furnishings. Whatever state they had been in before, they weren’t dusty now. The floor gleamed, courtesy of a damp mop, bucket, and broom and dustpan leaning against the wall next to the door. A stack of folded rags and a jug of floor polish suggested the next task on the list.

  “Uhm, sir?” Rolff asked, though he seemed stunned at finding his commanding officer cleaning, and the words came out quietly.

  “Hah.” The colonel, who hadn’t stopped dusting and organizing books at their arrival, pulled a thick tome off the shelf. “Found you.”

  Rolff stepped inside, came to attention, and saluted. “Sir, I’ve brought the prisoner as requested, sir.”

  The colonel waved at him with the feather duster instead of returning the salute, which would have been hard given the fullness of his hands. “Good, thanks.”

  Sardelle bit back a smile at the corporal’s puzzled face. He clearly didn’t know how to react to a commanding officer that didn’t seem to care about military decorum and pomp.

  “Shall I… stand guard outside, sir?” Rolff asked.

  “Do you have a job you’re supposed to be doing right now?” The colonel hopped down, grabbed a dust cloth, and wiped off the book.

  “I was on guard shift in Level Thirteen when this all started, sir.”

  “Better get back to that then. I’ll hope my roguish smile and charismatic ways are enough to keep—” he glanced at a folder on the desk, “—Sardelle from pummeling me into submission.”

  Colonel Zirkander smiled—roguishly—at both of them, but Sardelle imagined herself the lone recipient and found herself gazing back, admiring his lively face, dust smudges and all. His dark brown eyes had been so serious in the courtyard, but she sensed that this warm twinkle was more typical of him.

  “Er, yes, sir,” Rolff said, clearly more flustered than beguiled by the colonel’s roguish smile.

  Sardelle tore her gaze away from Zirkander’s face, lest he notice her long stare. She eyed the folder instead. It had her name—first name real and last name made up—on the front above several blank lines. The information to be filled in during this interview? Was he going to trust her to tell him the truth? And had the missing folder simply been dismissed as some clerk’s error? She hoped so.

  The door shut, though the clank of glass floated through along with an oof.

  The colonel shrugged, his expression a little sheepish. “I was going to toss those bottles out the window, but couldn’t be sure anyone would clean up the mess before someone cut their foot. Not on this installation anyway.”

  With the corporal gone, Sardelle could only assume the words were for her, though he was blowing dust off the cover of the book instead of looking at her.

  “Is that why you’re cleaning your own office?” she asked, figuring she should chat with him if he was interested in it. Anything she could do to establish a rapport. “All the officers I’ve ever met had minions to handle such things.”

  “Apparently all the minions here are busy guarding prisoners. I realized the only way I was going to find what I was looking for was going to be to clean up around here. Also… the green-fuzz-covered vomit stains on the floor were disturbing me. I’m sure it was my imagination, but I thought I could see them moving out of the corner of my eye every time I looked away.” Seemingly satisfied with his handiwork, he laid the book on the desk next to her folder. Magroth Crystal Mines: Regulations and Standard Operation Procedures.

  You read that one, Jaxi?

  Oddly, the title didn’t entice me to delve in.

  “Have you met many officers?” The colonel cocked his head, giving her a curious look.

  Er, right. Her cover story didn’t mention any time spent with the military and certainly not how she had, as sherastu—mage advisor—sat at tables with clan leaders and generals. She was going to have to be careful with what she said. “I’ve been… questioned by a few.” Speaking of roguish smiles… she tried to give him one.

  He stared at her. S
o much for roguish. She had been told more often that her smiles were enigmatic or distracted rather than playful or mischievous.

  Don’t try to change your personality, or you’re sure to get caught in the lies. Pirates come with all manner of… mannerisms.

  Sardelle acknowledged this advice with a mental wave.

  “Right.” Colonel Zirkander recovered and tapped the folder. “I just need you for a few minutes, if you don’t mind. I want to get a temporary file made for you until my captain finds your real one.”

  Sardelle had been thinking that he was oddly polite for a commander talking to a prisoner, but her mind lurched at his last words. “Did he already look?”

  “Yes, but… let’s just say I’ve seen the archives room, and I’m not surprised files are missing. I’ve tasked him with cleaning and organizing it though, so we’ll find your record. We’ll find everyone’s record and make sure all the names—numbers—match up with faces. The way things are now, I don’t know how they even order supplies with any accuracy here.”

  Sardelle caught herself breathing more rapidly and forced the airflow to slow down. It was too early to panic. Even if they never found her record, that wouldn’t necessarily condemn her. It could have been left behind a seat on the airship that had supposedly brought her in, right? Surely these things happened.

  Why don’t you just make a fake record?

  Jaxi’s thought surprised her, but then she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself already.

  Because you’re an honest and forthright person who doesn’t think in deceitful scheming ways. Better get over that.

  Thanks for the tip.

  Creating a false record wouldn’t be a stretch of her powers, so long as she knew where the blank records were stored and where to float it off to when she was done. Maybe…

  Sardelle realized the colonel was watching her. Waiting for a response? He hadn’t asked a question, had he? She reviewed what he had said. “I haven’t been here long, but it does seem a touch… chaotic. And in regard to the supplies, I did notice that some of the miners are well-fed and others look malnourished and scrawny.” Like those disillusioned sods who had attacked the guards.

  Zirkander’s eyes sharpened. “Do they?” He took out a pen and a tiny spiral notebook and scribbled something on a page already filled with a list. “It’s probably survival of the strongest and meanest down there, right now. All right. Have a seat, will you?” He tossed the notebook aside and, mid-gesture, noticed there wasn’t a chair in front of the desk. In fact, aside from the couch and the colonel’s chair, there weren’t any other seats in the room. “Er, guess the general didn’t invite people in for meetings often.”

  He considered the couch for a moment—there was room for three or four to sit on it—but shook his head, then gestured her to his chair. “Ms. Sordenta.”

  It took Sardelle a second to remember that was the last name she had given. She stepped around the desk and sat in the wooden chair, the armrests and back spindles more comfortable than she would have guessed from looking at it. Zirkander grabbed the folder and a pen, then perched on the armrest of the couch. Ah, too intimate a piece of furniture to share with a prisoner? Logically, Sardelle agreed with the… professionalism of the choice, though the part of her that didn’t want to play prisoner to his fort commander would have preferred to sit with him on it.

  Looks like you’re not going to get his room number after all.

  Hush, Jaxi.

  Zirkander scribbled something on the corner of the paper stapled to the front of the file. “All right, full name is Sardelle Sordenta, yes? We have the spelling right?” He held up the paper so she could see.

  Strange that something so minor as a fictitious last name bothered her, but it did. Still, she nodded and said, “Yes.” She would have to lie about a lot more than her name to survive here.

  “Date of birth?” he asked.

  She froze. It was such an obvious question, but, in making up her elaborate pirate past, she hadn’t thought of it. Quick, Jaxi, what year is it now?

  “Balsoth fourteenth… ” 873, came Jaxi’s answer. “839,” she finished, hastily doing the math.

  Hastily or not, Zirkander noticed the pause. He gazed at her for a long moment, before copying down her answer. Sardelle had been keeping her senses ratcheted down since dealing with those thugs in the mine, but she eased up a touch now, needing to know if he thought she was lying. And right away she sensed that he did… and that he was disappointed. For some reason, that stung. What had he expected? Honesty from someone who, by default, had to be a criminal?

  “Birthplace?” he prompted.

  “Cairn Springs.” That at least was true. She had been born at the base of these very mountains, about a hundred miles to the south.

  “The Cairn Springs that was buried beneath a lava flow forty years ago?”

  Er. “Yes. Near there, obviously not at the site of the old village. I was born in a rural area.” Jaxi! You didn’t mention that my birthplace was gone?

  I didn’t know. That’s too far away for me to sense.

  Something that big wasn’t covered in a book?

  Most of the books here are at least fifty years old. I don’t think reading is a big pastime among the prisoners. Or the soldiers.

  “We were shepherds,” Sardelle went on—the colonel was writing down her lies, so she might as well go on with her story, “—a very boring lifestyle for a young person. That’s why I left—to find a little excitement. That and the arranged marriage. I wasn’t ready to settle down. I went off to the coast and got a job on a merchant ship.” She actually could answer questions about sea life, if he asked. She had traveled with the fleet often to defend the country from enemy warships. “After a year, we were caught by pirates. I was given the option of walking the plank or joining the crew. I’m not very brave. I joined. They treated me… decently, I suppose. The first year was tough, but eventually I became one of them.”

  Zirkander had stopped writing. He had one boot up on the couch, his elbow on his knee, and his chin resting on his fist. Waiting for her to finish this fabricated story and see if she gave away anything useful in the telling? Yes. She didn’t need her empathetic senses to tell that.

  “Are you done?” he asked.

  “I have another five years I can go over. But, ah, you don’t seem to be recording the details.”

  “No. I was busy debating whether I should ask you to tie a clove hitch or if that would simply be embarrassing.”

  Sardelle could tie a clove hitch. Bastard.

  I sense something.

  My idiocy?

  No. Outside. In the sky.

  Sardelle looked toward the window, the sky visible beyond the freshly cleaned panes. From their vantage point, all she could see were clouds rolling in off Goat Peak. But a shout arose in the courtyard. No, not the courtyard—it was coming from one of the watchtowers on the ramparts.

  Zirkander jumped to his feet, tossing the folder on the desk, and strode to the window. Footsteps thundered in the hallway.

  “Gen— Colonel Zirkander!” someone shouted two seconds before the door burst open. Two privates Sardelle hadn’t seen before charged into the room. “Sir, there’s an airship in the northern sky. It’s not one of ours!”

  “All right. Report to Sergeant Homish and get whatever security measures are around for the fortress in place. I’ll come up to take a look.”

  Sardelle had been reaching out with her senses, trying to get a feel for the airship, so she wasn’t shielding herself from the emotions in the room, the excitement and anticipation from the privates and the disgust from Zirkander, who felt he should have been reading the operations manual rather than dithering around with a prisoner. And then he was gone, jogging through the doorway and down the hall, and his emotions faded from her consciousness. Once again, she felt chagrinned that she had… disappointed him. Why she cared, she didn’t know, but she had the urge to show him that she wasn’t some
useless prisoner, that spending time with her hadn’t been a waste.

  How are you going to do that? Jaxi’s question held wariness.

  Maybe everyone on the enemy ship will develop rashes, causing them to crash it into the side of the mountain.

  I don’t think your range is that good, Jaxi thought dryly.

  We’ll see.

  Since the colonel hadn’t left a guard or ordered her to remain in the office, Sardelle jogged down the hallway after him. In the courtyard, people were standing and gazing toward the sky, toward an airship that was little more than a speck lurking in the clouds near Goat Peak. Whoever had spotted it must have had a spyglass to identify whatever markings it had, to be certain it didn’t belong to this army.

  Up on the ramparts, soldiers were jogging into towers and to cannons. Cannons! They weren’t thinking of firing those, were they? The calendar might not say winter yet, but piles of snow blanketed the steep mountain walls in all directions.

  Sardelle spotted Zirkander and ran across the courtyard to the steps leading up to the wall. At first, no one stopped her—or even noticed her, their eyes toward the distant airship—but a soldier on the walkway grabbed her arm before she could race past him. The halt to her momentum spun her around, startling her, and she almost launched a mental attack. She caught herself a split second before she would have hurled him away from her.

  “Where do you think you’re going, woman?” the soldier demanded.

  “I’m in the middle of a meeting with the colonel.” Sardelle tugged at her arm, but the man had a grip like a vise.

  “A meeting. Sure you are.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. Zirkander was standing on the northern wall next to a cannon, pointing and talking to a young soldier who stood on the other side. There wasn’t time to convince this buffoon to let her go. With a subtle tug from her mind, she unfastened his belt. The weight of the dagger and other pouches on it pulled it down with impressive speed, along with his trousers. It was enough to startle him into loosening his grip. Sardelle wrenched her arm free and sprinted toward the colonel.

  “Stop that woman,” the soldier called after her, amidst an impressive stream of curses.

  At the corner, someone turned and grabbed for her. On the narrow walkway, she couldn’t dodge far enough to the side, and he would have caught her, except she loosened the mortar in the stone beneath his feet. It wobbled, drawing his eye for a split second. She ducked his grasp and ran around the corner, coming to an abrupt halt before the colonel.

  “The cannons,” she panted, out of breath from the sprint. “You can’t fire them, not this time of year.” She pointed at a cornice on the nearest mountain. “Could start an avalanche.”

  Zirkander looked at her for several breaths before responding—why did she get the feeling he was trying to scrutinize her?

  Probably wondering if you’re a spy.

  After my horrible lying? A real spy would be much smoother.

  “In my experience,” the colonel said, “an explosion has to be set off on or in close proximity to the snowpack to cause an avalanche, but if we need to fire, we will be careful.” Something squeaked behind him on the walkway, and he pointed over his shoulder without looking. A pair of soldiers was wheeling out something that reminded Sardelle of the harpoon launchers on whaling ships.

  As the soldier she had unbuckled charged up behind her—his trousers securely fastened again—she felt… sheepish. Of course a professional soldier would have experience blowing things up—explosives seemed to be far more common in this century than in hers.

  A big hand clamped onto her shoulder. “I’m sorry, sir. I had… an equipment malfunction and didn’t catch her before she wiggled by.”

  The soldier started to drag Sardelle backward, but Zirkander lifted a hand. “It’s fine, Sergeant. She can stay. She was informing me about the conditions in the mines.”

  The soldier’s face scrunched up. “Like… a spy?”

  “Something like that.”

  Sardelle read the double meaning in the colonel’s slitted eyes. She did her best to look calm and serene… and definitely not guilty. But he had to be wondering who she was after that botched background sharing. The way he kept gazing at her—appraising her—made her want to squirm. Fortunately, the soldier next to him spoke, and Zirkander looked away.

  “In your experience, sir?” The young man couldn’t have been more than twenty, and he wore a hopeful expression as he prompted the colonel. Though the men were preparing to defend the fortress, nobody appeared that worried by the airship’s appearance. Maybe this happened frequently.

  “I might have started a few avalanches,” Zirkander said.

  “In your flier? With explosives?”

  “Bring me a beer later, and I’ll tell you some stories.”

  “Deal, sir!” The young soldier hustled over to help the men with the harpoon launcher.

  “Perk of having your name in the papers next to all sorts of war-related exploits… ” Zirkander said. “You never have to buy your own alcohol.”

  Sardelle was the only one close enough to hear him, so the comment must have been for her, but the casualness surprised her. One minute he seemed to have her pegged for some kind of spy, and the next he was chatting with her?

  Maybe he wants to keep you confused.

  I get the feeling he confuses a lot of people.

  “I much prefer being the one attacking to the one defending though.” Zirkander lifted a spyglass. “He’s just hovering out there. Scouting mission?”

  He seemed to be talking to himself, but Sardelle decided to respond. “Do they come around often?”

  The more he talked to her, the more trouble he should have ordering her execution later.

  I wouldn’t bet on it. Judging by the so-called witch drownings I witnessed, when it comes to magic, these people will kill their own kin without a second thought.

  Sardelle focused on Zirkander’s response instead of Jaxi’s commentary.

  “They shouldn’t,” he said. “This place is supposed to be a top military secret.” Zirkander lowered the spyglass and gave her an appraising look again, though his gaze soon shifted over her shoulder. “Captain,” he called to the man jogging up behind her. It was the aide who had been introducing him to the fort earlier. And wasn’t he the one who had been tasked with organizing the archives?

  If they were on his mind, Sardelle might be able to poke into his thoughts and find out where the room was located and where the empty forms were kept so she could fill one out for herself. She grimaced at the idea of, for the second time today, slipping into someone’s mind. There was the risk he would feel it too. She decided to simply open herself up for the moment. Maybe they would discuss the archives and the thoughts would float to the tops of their minds where they might be easily accessed.

  “Yes, sir?” the captain asked.

  “This happen before?” Zirkander pointed at the airship.

  “No, sir. As long as I’ve been here, no enemy ships have appeared in our airspace. Audacious of them—they’re hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. I wonder where they slipped in past our patrols.”

  “I wonder that too.” Zirkander’s jaw tightened.

  He wanted to be out there. By now Sardelle had gathered that he was a pilot, and she could have guessed at his thoughts without trying to sense them. She did, however, catch a strong vision from him, an image of a dragon-shaped flying machine, not unlike the one that had dropped him off. But this one was his, and it wasn’t alone as it cruised through the air. He led a squadron of other fliers along the shores of Northern Iskandoth—Sardelle had been along those fjords and gray sandy beaches enough times to recognize them, though she had never seen them from above. Zirkander remembered attacking an airship like this one off the coast, blowing up its engine, and bringing it down.

  It should have reassured her that she and the colonel were essentially on the same side, having both fought to defend the co
ntinent of Iskandia—even if the people called it something different now—but it sank in for the first time that he must also be the descendant of those who had blown up her mountain… annihilated her people.

  Zirkander frowned over at her. He couldn’t have guessed her thoughts, but maybe he had sensed her skimming the surface of his mind?

  She pointed at the airship. “Are your weapons able to reach them from here?”

  “No chance,” the captain said. “Neither the cannons nor the rocket launchers has that kind of range.”

  Rocket launchers? Sardelle had never heard of such a thing, but, now that she looked, could see that something more sophisticated than a harpoon lay nestled in the artillery weapon’s cradle. She caught Zirkander and the captain looking at her and then at each other.

  “Ms. Sordenta,” Zirkander said, “I think it’s time for you to return to… whatever work you’ve been assigned to do here. We’ll take care of the intruders.”

  “I understand,” Sardelle said. It would be suspicious if she tried to find an excuse to stay up there.

  She walked slowly back to the courtyard though and with hearing that might have been slightly augmented with magic, she caught a few more sentences on her way back to the stairs.

  “Find her record, Captain. And find some of the people who arrived on the supply ship yesterday. If nobody remembers her… ”

  “Think she’s a spy, sir?”

  “We’ll see.”

  I may have to escape and come back for you, Jaxi. Sardelle paused at the bottom of the stairs, not sure where to go. She hadn’t been assigned to any work yet, so how was she supposed to go do it?

  I understand. And Jaxi did, but she couldn’t hide the sadness at the thought of being left behind, and it tore into Sardelle’s heart.

  There was more at stake too. If the enemy—were these still the Cofah who had troubled the continent in her day?—destroyed this fortress or collapsed the mountains around it, would she ever be able to return? If the mines were shut down, who could possibly help her reach Jaxi? For that matter, who would help her find the belongings—relics—of her people? If she was truly the last of her kind, wasn’t it her responsibility to save and preserve some sign of her heritage?

  Sardelle dropped her forehead into her hand. So much lost, and she was worried about being thought a spy? What did it even matter?

  The captain jogged down the stairs, thoughts of the archive building floating at the top of his mind. Without looking up, Sardelle plucked the location from his mind as well as the layout. He frowned at her when he reached the bottom of the stairs, but all he did was point toward the laundry building.

  “One-forty-three will assign you tasks. She’s in charge of the women’s area.”

  “I understand,” Sardelle said.

  Sewing or doing laundry, that would be the perfect time to let her mind wander. She refused to tinker with the memories of those who had arrived yesterday, assuming she could even locate them before the captain questioned them. Creating a record for herself would have to be enough. She gazed up to the rampart where Zirkander had the spyglass out again. With luck, this unprecedented enemy appearance would keep him busy, and he would forget about her.