Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1) (4 page)

The soldier shoved her. “Get going,
girl.”

Sardelle wrenched her gaze from the view and
stumbled down a path that hadn’t been there the last time she had
been outside. Just yesterday, her mind wanted to add, though she
had accepted by now that it had
not
been
yesterday. Aside from the three centuries that had passed, it had
been summer when she had entered Galmok and warm enough for her
dress. Now… she wrapped her arms around herself as she picked her
route, the trail following the tramline down toward the center of
the fortress. There were other holes in the mountain, other tram
tracks plunging into the darkness. What were they mining for?
Crystal? Hadn’t one of her attackers said that? She couldn’t
imagine what sort of crystal they had found in there, though she
did recall gold and silver veins in the area. A smelter set up on
the far side of the fortress seemed to suggest the likelihood of
precious metal mining.

Another push nearly made her stumble. “You
act like you haven’t seen this all before. I’ve got a report to put
together. Walk faster.” He pointed at a large stone building with
laundry hanging on a line, whipping in the breeze as it dried in
the meager sun.

“That’s where we’re going?” Even as Sardelle
asked, a pair of women strode out of another building and headed
for the one with the laundry lines. They wore heavy wool dresses
and socks, scarves, hats, and fur jackets as they carried baskets
of linens.

“Yes,” the soldier said, drawing out the
syllable as if he were talking to an imbecile.

Sardelle sighed and headed in the indicated
direction. At least there were women here. She ought to be able to
get information from them, one way or another. Maybe, given time,
she could figure out a way to arrange a meeting with that
general.

She walked over a bridge, but paused at the
top, realizing her unfriendly guide had fallen behind. He had
stopped to stare into the western sky. A strange flying craft was
banking around Bandit Mountain and angling toward the fortress.
Flying. She hadn’t quite believed it when Jaxi had mentioned it,
but the bronze metallic craft clearly wasn’t a bird. With wings
outstretched and something on the tips that resembled talons, it
did vaguely resemble a dragon, at least the ones Sardelle had seen
illustrated in books, the creatures having been extinct for a
thousand years or more now. Some sort of rotating fan buzzed,
keeping the contraption aloft.

A propeller
, Jaxi
said dryly.

Hush, just because you’ve
been reading books these past centuries, doesn’t mean I have.
What’s powering it?

The soldier muttering to himself distracted
Sardelle, and she didn’t hear the answer.

“What’s this about?” the man asked. “Supplies
and prisoners came in yesterday… shouldn’t be anything due for two
weeks.”

Whatever it is, it could
be an escape chance for you.

I’m not leaving without
you, Jaxi.

I’m not going to
suffocate or die here. You can come back when you can.

The fortress didn’t look like it would be any
easier to sneak into than it would be to sneak out of. Besides…
where would she go? This was—had been—home.

There is that.
A
mental sigh accompanied Jaxi’s comment.

The flying contraption banked again. It was
circling the valley like an osprey searching for a fish to snatch
out of a lake. None of the soldiers on the ramparts were racing for
the cannons, so Sardelle assumed it was a friendly aircraft, though
everyone was watching it draw closer with curiosity. It angled for
the wide, flat roof of the biggest building in the fortress, a
two-story structure backing up to one of the walls. A flat roof was
a strange choice for mountains that received many feet of snow
every year—the other buildings had steeply pitched tops, as one
would expect—but as the craft lowered, she realized that particular
spot must have been designed for landing, though she couldn’t
imagine how it might be done. An osprey might be able to fold its
wings in and alight on a perch, but a manmade craft wouldn’t have
that ability, surely. It seemed to be designed for going straight
ahead, needing those wide banking turns to switch direction. But
some sort of thrusters rotated down from the wings, allowing the
bronze contraption to slow down without falling out of the sky.
Soon it was hovering over the building, and then it lowered, the
bottom half disappearing from her sight.

And I thought the rifles
were impressive.

Jaxi didn’t respond. Maybe she was
investigating the craft.

A few soldiers jogged out of the second story
of that big building and headed up the stairs to the roof. Their
presence seemed to remind her guard of his duty, for he joined her
on the bridge, pointing to the laundry building again.

“Let’s go. We’ll find out soon enough who’s
visiting.”

Though curious about the flying machine,
Sardelle couldn’t imagine that a visitor would change anything for
her, so she walked off without arguing. Maybe the pilot would stay
overnight and she might have a chance to examine the craft. It
wasn’t her priority though.

A woman walked out of the laundry building as
Sardelle and the soldier were walking up. The scent of soap and
starch drifted through the doorway. The woman’s figure was almost
stout and brawny enough to be a man. She had a basket balanced on a
broad hip and started to walk off the path around the pair, but the
soldier stopped her with a hand.

“One-forty-three, isn’t it?” he asked.

Sardelle blinked. What?

The number meant something to the woman, for
she nodded. “Yeah.”

“Looks like you lost someone.” The soldier
pushed Sardelle toward the woman.

“Never seen her before.”

“I think she came in yesterday.”

“Then why wasn’t she here an hour before dawn
to report for work, like everyone else?”

“No idea,” the soldier said. “Found her down
on the bottom level of the mine.”

The woman gave an exasperated huff and looked
Sardelle up and down like she might be a lost toddler. A
particularly dumb lost toddler. “Seven gods, girl, you trying to
get yourself killed? Or worse?”

What was worse than being killed? Sardelle
thought of Tace and his crony and answered her own question.

“What is this?” The woman plucked at
Sardelle’s sleeve. “Where are your work clothes? You’ve got to be
freezing. What’s your number?”

Feeling lost and bewildered, Sardelle broke
her oath as a sorceress and skimmed the surface of the woman’s
thoughts. Numbers. People were called by numbers rather than names.
She didn’t have to dig deep to find a memory of this woman—Dhasi
before she had become One-forty-three—stepping off a supply ship
with two other women and two-dozen men and being assigned her
number.

“They told me, but I forgot,” Sardelle said.
She could have made one up, but what happened if someone already
had it? She hugged herself, thinking of sticking her hands under
her armpits. What were the odds this conversation could be moved
indoors? Her toes were freezing, and the rest of her wasn’t much
warmer.

“You forgot.” One-forty-three—Sardelle hated
to think of her as a number, but didn’t want to get in trouble for
one day calling her by a name that had never been shared—threw up
her hands, dropped the basket, and turned for the door. “Wait here.
I’ll get the roster and try to figure out where she’s supposed to
be.” She stomped back inside. Heat as well as soap odors drifted
out, and Sardelle wouldn’t have minded following her.

She glanced at the soldier, wondering if he
had been irked by the woman, who was presumably a prisoner, the
same as the miners below, giving him an order. The soldier was busy
though, eyeing… Sardelle’s chest. She grimaced. Unfortunately, the
sunlight showed off the sleek if dusty dress and the curves beneath
it all too well, far more effectively than the lanterns in the
mines. She had never thought herself a great beauty, but if the
beefy laundry lady was representative of the women here, and if the
men had as little contact with the outside world as she suspected,
she supposed she could see the interest. See it, but not condone
it. She watched the soldier through slitted eyes, wondering if
another rash breakout would be in order.

Be careful
, Jaxi
warned.
These people might be brutes, but
they’re not dumb. And it doesn’t take much for them to start
talking of witches.

That girl you mentioned
who was thrown in the lake… was she gifted?

If she had been, do you
think she would have let herself drown? My understanding from their
books is that there are occasionally people born with talent, but
that they either get hunted down or learn quickly to hide their…
quirks. They don’t receive any training, not like they did in our
day, so they rarely develop much more than a sixth sense.

The soldier touched Sardelle’s sleeve,
lifting his eyes to meet hers. “You with someone yet, woman?”

“
With
someone?” They
all agreed she had just been pushed off the supply ship the day
before. She didn’t have a name-number—or a clue—so how could she be
with
someone already?

“I’m in room seventy-two in the barracks,
second floor.” He nodded toward a building across the square.
“Think on it. You’re going to have trouble around here if you’re
not someone’s girl.”

To punctuate this point, a woman carrying a
basket on her hip walked toward the laundry building, a woman who
was quite obviously pregnant, very pregnant. Sardelle stared. She
couldn’t imagine having a child in this environment. She hadn’t
even seen any children. Was it allowed? Or did they…? She gulped.
They wouldn’t kill the babies, would they? They couldn’t be held
accountable for the crimes of their parents.

“She wasn’t with someone,” the soldier said
after the pregnant woman had passed them and gone inside. “Heard it
was rough on her.”

“You people didn’t think to stop it?”

The soldier shrugged. “Lot more of you all
than there are of us. We can’t be everywhere.” That shrug said he
didn’t care very much about the fact either. “Better to be with a
soldier. The prisoners usually don’t bother you much if you
are.”

Usually? Much?

“I’ll think about it,” Sardelle managed to
say rather than punching him. Although, at least with a punch, she
wouldn’t have to worry about anyone accusing her of witchcraft.

“Good.” He smiled and repeated, “Room
seventy-two. Tell the night guard you’re here to see me, Rolff, and
they’ll let you in.”

“This sort of thing is common, is it?”

For soldiers in the Iskandian Guard, there
had been a regulation against molesting prisoners, but she had no
idea what was permitted here, or even whose army she was dealing
with. Most of those she had seen so far had the pale skin and brown
to black hair of the natives of the Iskandian continent, but that
didn’t mean governments hadn’t come and gone over the
centuries.

The soldier looked away, shrugged, then
looked back. “Nobody cares here.”

Ah, so there
was
a
regulation. It just wasn’t being enforced. Well, that knowledge
didn’t help her much.

“I’d be doing you a favor,” he said. “Trust
me.”

Sure, he just wanted to help
her
. How considerate.

He stepped closer, laying his hand on her
arm. “I’m not so bad, promise. You’ll think about it? You said
that, right?”

Might want to take him up
on the offer.

Jaxi!

What? He’s not so bad
looking, and he was a good fighter. Bet he’s all muscle under that
uniform.

This is what I get for
agreeing to link with a teenaged soul, one who never got past her
horny period before channeling herself into our sword.
“Yes,”
she told the soldier, who was now stroking her arm. “I said
that.”

Where
was
that
laundry lady anyway? She spotted a pair of uniformed men descending
the stairs from the building and walking in their direction. Good,
a distraction.

“There’s your guest,” Sardelle said, nodding
toward the men, hoping Rolff would stop fondling her arm if an
officer was walking past. Of course, she could only hope the
newcomers were officers. With the soldiers wearing fur parkas in
addition to their uniform jackets, she couldn’t see insignia, not
that she could have deciphered it anyway.

Her soldier stepped back from her at the
men’s approach though, dropping his arm, no, jerking it behind his
back. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “Do you know who that
is?”

Please, she didn’t know who
anyone
was. “No.”

He gaped at her, but only for a second before
focusing on the two men again. “That’s Colonel Ridgewalker
Zirkander.”

Ridgewalker? How cocky. Maybe he had given
the name to himself.

“What’s he doing here?” the soldier breathed,
his voice scarcely more than a whisper as the two visitors drew
nearer. The younger of the pair, one who kept trying to get the
other to let him carry the duffle bag slung over his shoulder, was
talking and pointing toward a building past the laundry facility,
but the path would take them by Sardelle and Rolff—with six inches
of snow in the courtyard, the cleared sidewalks were the only
logical options. Good. She hoped one of them would ask what Rolff
was doing away from his post, which might result in him leaving her
alone. Didn’t he have some dead miners to report, anyway?

As they walked, the colonel had his head bent
toward the younger man, listening to whatever information he was
being given. He commented on something and grinned. The young
soldier or maybe officer—he had a more academic look about him than
the sturdy Rolff—blinked in surprise, then rushed to nod and smile
back, though he didn’t seem to know if that was quite the right
response. Smiles and humor probably weren’t commonplace around
here. The young officer looked to be in his twenties and had the
earnest eager-to-please face of a dog hoping for a treat. The
colonel was closer to Sardelle’s age, probably older, though there
wasn’t any gray in what she could see of his short brown hair—a fur
cap canted at a roguish angle that she doubted was regulation hid
most of it. He was on the tall side with a lean athletic build the
parka didn’t quite hide. He had a handsome face, a scar on his chin
notwithstanding, and dark brown eyes that glinted with humor to
match the grin that hadn’t entirely faded.