Blood and Betrayal

(Emperor’s Edge, Book 5)

by Lindsay Buroker

Copyright © 2012 Lindsay Buroker

All rights reserved.

T
hank you, good reader, for continuing on with the Emperor’s Edge adventures. Maldynado hopes you’ll find his story entertaining and that you’ll be solidly in the Maldynado-needs-a-statue camp by the end of the book. Oh, and he’ll allow that you may be curious to catch up with Amaranthe as well.

Before you jump into that, please allow me to thank my wonderful beta readers, Kendra Highley and Becca Andre, for perusing early versions of the manuscript and suggesting improvements. Thank you, also, to my editor, Shelley Holloway, and cover art designer, Glendon Haddix, (they’re also wonderful!) for continuing to work on the series. Now, I’ll let you get into the story, since it seems someone left you with a cliffhanger at the end of the last book…

S
moke smothered the dirigible’s navigation cabin like a dense fog. Murky water seeped through the spider web of cracks in the viewing window, dripped off the smashed control panel, and pooled on the floor in front of Maldynado Montichelu’s nose. Awareness of the puddle—and the fact that his left nostril was swimming in it—came abruptly. When Maldynado jerked his head out of the water, pain sharper than any woman’s tongue stabbed his skull from the inside out. He winced and grabbed his temples. His fingers brushed a bump larger than any of the mountains they’d just flown over. He didn’t know if it’d been thirty seconds since the crash or thirty minutes, but he’d liked things better when he’d been unconscious.

Maldynado sat up and examined himself to see if any important body parts were missing. Everything seemed to be intact, though more than one crimson stain marred his ivory shirt. The fringes dangling from the hem hung in a dirty, snarled mess. He sighed when he spotted his latest fur cap wedged beneath a warped metal panel, blood and grease stains competing for prominence. When Maldynado had agreed to join Amaranthe’s team, he had assumed that the mercenary life would include perils to his body, but he hadn’t known how devastating it would be to his wardrobe. Ah, well, Sergeant Yara had thought the raccoon-tail cap silly anyway.

Yara! She’d also been in the navigation cabin, alternately yelling advice and cursing at him, when the dirigible crashed. Maldynado spun about, looking for her.

She lay crumpled in the corner. With her broad shoulders and strong jaw, nobody would call the six-foot-tall woman fragile, but at the moment…

Maldynado crept toward her, a hand outstretched. Eyes closed, neck bent awkwardly, Yara wasn’t moving. He wasn’t even sure if she was breathing. For that matter, he wasn’t sure if
anyone
was breathing. The only sound coming from the rest of the dirigible was the trickling of water.

Maldynado touched Yara’s shoulder. “Lady Gruff and Surly, are you awake?”

Her eyes didn’t open.

“Are you… alive?” Maldynado asked more quietly. The woman was terse, rude, and utterly lacking in femininity, so he had no idea why he cared; nonetheless, a feeling of concern wormed its way into his belly. He shook her shoulder. “You better not be dead. This team is already overflowing with ankle spankers. I was looking forward to having more women around.”

Yara’s eyelids fluttered open. She blinked a few times, focused on him, and frowned. “
Ankle
spanker? The only thing you’ve got that’ll reach that far is your ego.”

“Now that we’ve reunited with the others, there’s no need for you to continue as Chief Maldynado Insulter.” He offered her a hand. “Books has been fulfilling that role for the last nine months.”

Thinking of Books reminded Maldynado that the rest of the team was back there somewhere and might need help. He huffed in exasperation when Yara refused his hand. She rolled over, braced herself on the wall, and found her way to her feet on her own. As soon as she tried to take a step, she tottered and almost pitched over, so Maldynado ended up grabbing her arm to support her anyway.

“What a crash,” Yara muttered without thanking him. “Is it common for people to try and blow up your team this many times?”

“Not in the same week, no.”

They were angling for the corridor leading to the cargo bay and the dirigible’s exit when a dark figure stepped into the hatchway. Sicarius.

On any given day, Sicarius, with his death-black attire, humorless face, and dozen-odd daggers and throwing knives, cut a grim figure, the sort of figure that people crossed the street to avoid—at a dead sprint. Today, dirt and blood smeared his face and body, more of the latter being revealed due to numerous tears in his shirt and trousers. Anyone else would have looked weak and haggard;
he
looked like an angry ancestor spirit from one of the old stories, the kind of spirit who slew the populaces of entire towns to avenge the deaths of family members. When those dark flinty eyes focused on Maldynado, his gut clenched and he took a step back. He might be six inches taller and possess a broader build, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t provoke Sicarius under any circumstances, and circumstances were worse than usual.

“Amaranthe is missing.” Sicarius’s hard gaze never left Maldynado’s face.

“
Missing
?” Maldynado squeaked, then cleared his throat in an attempt to reclaim a normal register.

“She was thrown out when the craft lurched.” As always, Sicarius spoke in an emotionless monotone, but Maldynado was fairly certain there was an accusation in those words.

“It’s not my fault,” he blurted. “I did my best
not
to crash. Or to lurch. They hit us with something. Anyway, I was only piloting because Books was helping with the surgery. How’d that go anyway? Is the emperor… ”

Sicarius had turned his back while Maldynado was speaking, and he stalked down the corridor without a word.

“Do you always tinkle down your leg like that when he looks at you?” Yara asked when he was out of sight.

Maldynado squelched a flicker of irritation and the urge to respond defensively. Growing up with a pile of older brothers had long ago taught him that confrontations ended before they began when one let insults ricochet off one’s skin like slingshot pebbles clinking off an armadillo’s shell. “Nah,” he said, “only once or twice a week, when I can tell he’s in a real ornery mood and might thump me.”

“Has he ever actually touched you?”

“Oh, yes.” Maldynado left the navigation cabin, heading into the dented and warped corridor where even more smoke thickened the air. “He calls it training. It’s painful.”

Thanks to a tilted floor, Maldynado had to climb up a slope to reach the cargo bay. Voices came from beyond the open rear hatch, so he hurried. If the boss truly had fallen out, they needed to hustle to find her before those Forge minions, or whoever had been flying that bizarre black aircraft, found her first.

As it turned out, the hatch wasn’t simply open; it had been torn off. He was about to step outside, but the back end of their craft hung several feet above water clogged with cattails. The vegetation-filled wetlands stretched several hundred meters until the foliage ended at the edge of Lake Fenroot’s blue depths. Above Maldynado, the huge, decimated dirigible balloon blotted out the sun as it dangled amongst moss-draped trees edging the shallows. Many trunks had snapped under its pull, or perhaps from the metal cabin ramming into them during the crash. Despite the water everywhere, copses of trees were burning at various points around the lake. A smoky pall smeared the horizon, a reminder that the enemy craft had torched large swaths of earth before finally striking the dirigible.

A cough and a nearby splash drew Maldynado’s attention. Books, Basilard, and Akstyr, weighed down by their weapons and rucksacks, were wading toward a muddy beach hemmed in by trees with large, gnarled roots. Maldynado felt a twinge of irritation that nobody had come to check on him and Yara, but he supposed one could say Sicarius had been doing that, albeit without any expressions of concern or inquiries to their health.

The emperor, his neck bandaged and blood staining his pale brown hair, had already reached the beach. He stood next to a couple of rucksacks as he gazed toward the lake. He might have been trying to spot Amaranthe, or he might have been watching for their attackers to return. Nobody was talking, and any birds or critters that might call the wetlands home were staying quiet in the aftermath of the crash. Only the splashes of the wading men disturbed the silence. The smell of skunk cabbage and decaying vegetation mingled with the smoke, adding to the place’s utter lack of charm.

Sicarius strode through the thigh-deep water with more alacrity than Books and Akstyr and climbed onto the beach ahead of them. He set a footlocker down next to the emperor. Maldynado was about to hop into the water when Sicarius’s voice froze him.

“Did you get your weapons and gear?”

“I’m not even sure where my gear
is
,” Maldynado said. “It’s probably one of the myriad things that belted me in the head during that landing.”

Yara came up beside him and peered through the hatchway. She was blinking and seemed to have trouble focusing her eyes. The whole team needed a doctor. And an alcohol-drenched vacation.

“Get your belongings,” Sicarius told Maldynado. “We can’t remain at the crash site.” His gaze tilted skyward.

“Is he second in command?” Yara asked quietly.

Maldynado rubbed his aching temples. “Dear ancestors, I hope not.”

Back in the cabin that he’d never had a chance to sleep in, Maldynado found his rucksack jammed under a bunk, the flap still tied shut. His rapier and utility knife were another matter. In the chaos, they’d separated themselves from their sheaths, and he had to crawl all over the cabin to retrieve them from amongst pillows, bed sheets, and blankets that had flown everywhere during the haphazard final flight.

Yara beat him out of the dirigible and already waited on the beach when Maldynado hopped into the water. He gave a sad salute to the craft as he slogged away. He noted its location, so he could tell Lady Buckingcrest where they had crashed her property. It would take a lot of hard work to win her favor again after destroying her prize dirigible, but maybe the craft—and their relationship—could be salvaged.

“Are you going somewhere?” Books was asking someone when Maldynado reached the beach.

Sicarius had shouldered his rucksack. “To find Lokdon. Where did she fall out?” This time, Books was the recipient of the icy gaze, as if Sicarius blamed him for letting her go.

“I’m not positive.” Books gnashed his lower lip between his teeth as he scanned the wetlands. Blood streamed from a cut beneath one of his graying temples, and the wrinkles creasing his brow seemed more pronounced than usual. He eventually pointed toward Lake Fenroot. “I think we were over the lake.”

“You
think
,” Sicarius said.

“Yes,
think
. At the time, our dubious pilots—” Books waved toward Maldynado and Yara, “—were hurling the craft to and fro. When Amaranthe slid through the door, I was struggling to keep from being flung out myself. I didn’t have time to peek out a porthole to triangulate our location.”