Sorcery of a Queen

by Brian Naslund

  She picked up a razor-sharp piece of dragon scale from the pile of materials. Placed the edge against the place where her dragon thread met flesh.

  “Uh, what are you doing?”

  Ashlyn didn’t respond. Just pressed down on the scale and tried not to shake.

  39

  JOLAN

  Almira, Wreckage of the Time’s Daughter

  Jolan woke up with a dead body on top of him. Everything smelled like mint.

  The body was heavy, and pinning him to something cold and sharp. For a moment, he was afraid to give the corpse a close look. Afraid that it was Oromir. But once he worked up his courage, he quickly saw that the man had close-cropped, gray hair and a noose around his neck.

  General Mun.

  Jolan tried to push the corpse away, but all he could manage was jostling him a little before he slumped down on him again.

  “Oro?” Jolan called.

  Nothing.

  He looked to his right. Frowned, not understanding what he was seeing. It was the trunk of a large tree, but the bark was stripped off in a bunch of places, revealing green and red and yellow strips of color. Rainbow eucalyptus. It must have crunched through the cabin when they crashed into the forest.

  “Oromir!”

  When Jolan didn’t hear anything, he shoved the captain again. And again, he got nowhere.

  “Stop struggling,” came a harsh voice. Shoshone.

  “Where’s Oromir?”

  “I don’t know. Stop moving.”

  Shoshone’s scarred face appeared above him. She was bleeding from her scalp, but seemed otherwise uninjured judging by how easily she grabbed the captain and hauled him off Jolan. He got up slowly, rubbing the small of his back. Jolan turned around and saw that he’d been jammed up against the big map of Almira that Septimus had used to plot their course. But that didn’t make sense. His bearings were mixed up. It took him a moment to realize that the ship was on its side. He was standing on the wall, not the floor.

  “Is anyone there?” came a quavering voice. “I am severely injured.”

  “Who is that?” Shoshone hissed.

  “Septimus.”

  “Who?”

  There was a silence.

  “The navigator.”

  Shoshone muttered something under her breath in Papyrian, then grabbed Jolan by the shoulder. “Stay close. Do not stray until we get a sense of things.”

  The captain’s quarters were a disaster. Pillows and broken glass everywhere. An entire wall was missing and beyond it there was nothing but a tangle of eucalyptus trees and rain-soaked ferns. The navigator was crumpled up in the far corner of the cabin. Both of his legs were broken. Compound fractures.

  By force of habit, Jolan started working out the treatment in his head. Numb with barbaroy root. Stop the bleeding. Set the bones. He’d need to be immobile for three months, using crutches for six. Walking again within the year, likely with a limp and chronic pain.

  Shoshone went over and ran a form of triage of her own.

  “Can you walk?”

  “Well. No. Look at my legs! The left one is facing the complete wrong direction. Shouldn’t it hurt by now? I can’t feel anything in either one.”

  Shoshone frowned at his broken limbs for a moment. Then she looked back at Jolan.

  “How long will he live like this?”

  Septimus’s eyes widened with panic.

  “It’s a complicated injury, I need to find some medical supplies and treat him.”

  “We have a medical bay!” Septimus squeaked.

  “Quiet,” Shoshone snapped. “How long if you do nothing?”

  Jolan bent down. “His arteries are shredded. I need to at least stop the bleeding.”

  “Then stop it.”

  Jolan used two metal rods and some errant cloth to tourniquet both of Septimus’s legs.

  “I should make him something for the pain.”

  Once the shock wore off, it would be excruciating.

  “No. Not yet.” Shoshone drew her cleaver. “You’ll get treatment after you answer my questions. Clear?”

  Septimus nodded. Scared out of his mind.

  “Why did you remove that orb?”

  “To stop the ship, of course.”

  “The ship was flying itself. We’d lost control. Why would you want to stop that?”

  He swallowed again. “There have been reports of unrest in Balaria.”

  “What reports?”

  “They say that Empress Domitian killed her husband and fled the capital on a skyship. Osyrus Ward helped her escape.”

  Shoshone’s face changed. “Osyrus Ward. You’re sure.”

  “Well, no. But I’m sure that was the empress’s stolen ship hovering over Floodhaven. And Osyrus Ward is the only person who could have overridden the navigation of the Time’s Daughter like that. He built everything.” Septimus lowered his voice. “They say that he experiments on people. Cuts them up while they’re still alive. Those gray-skinned servants he keeps around with the strange masks—a lieutenant told me that they fuck the dead bodies and eat them after. I just … in the moment, crashing seemed better than being brought to him.”

  “Tell me more about the orb.”

  “That’s the ship’s Kor.”

  “Elaborate.”

  “It’s classified. Highest level.”

  “I will cut your balls off and feed them to you if you don’t answer my question.”

  “The other frigates run on dragon oil,” Septimus said quickly. “And we do, too, but only to start the engines. The Kor fuels our propulsion, which is the most taxing aspect in terms of fuel. That’s why we were left to guard the western shores. Even with the long coastal patrols we were running each day, we wouldn’t have needed to refuel for weeks.”

  “There is only one Kor?” Shoshone said, tone changing. She sounded excited.

  “That’s right,” he said slowly. “We were outfitted with it right before we departed Balaria. Actus Thorn wanted a field test somewhere away from the main fighting in Lysteria. General Mun always complained about Thorn’s slow pace and desire to test everything. Called it a moronic compulsion. But I always thought it was quite sensible. You never know how weather conditions will impact a complicated machine.”

  “You did well, Septimus.” She turned to Jolan. “You can brew him a pain tonic now.”

  “Where’s the medical bay?”

  “Go down the long hallway running against our port side,” Septimus said, clearly relieved. “Last cabin on the left.”

  Jolan nodded. Stood up.

  “I’m so glad we could work something out,” Septimus said. “Once I’m on my feet again, perhaps I’ll smuggle myself back into Clockwork as a civilian. Find my wife and son. No, no, that’s too difficult. But I’ll get word to them through back channels to meet me in Dunfar. I’ve heard it’s sunny almost every day there.”

  “Tilt your head down,” Shoshone said to Septimus.

  The navigator obeyed with the blind obedience that Jolan had seen in scores of desperate patients at the apothecary. They know they can’t fix themselves, so they will do anything to make it easier for someone else to do it for them. But Shoshone didn’t heal him.

  She chopped her cleaver into the back of his neck. Septimus died instantly.

  Jolan was so stunned he couldn’t get words out—they dried up in his tightening throat. Shoshone wiped her cleaver on a pillow and sheathed it. Took the Kor from Septimus’s dead hand and scrutinized it for a few moments.

  “Why did you do that?” Jolan said. “I could have treated those wounds!”

  “He was the enemy.”

  “But he helped us.”

  “Because I forced him to. He was a Balarian. Warm blood in his veins and breath in his lungs was a bad thing.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It is to me.” Shoshone turned to him. “Have you forgotten Umbrik’s Glade? Septimus was one of the men who guided these ships across the Soul Sea and into your
homeland. Killed your countrymen and stole your harvest. Just because a man appears meek and frail and scared does not make him harmless.”

  “But he had a wife. A son. The way he looked at you…” Jolan said. “Looked at me. He needed help. He was so sure that we were going to give it to him.”

  She softened a little. “You’re not cut out for this, kid. Cumberland was wrong to have brought you along.”

  A twig snapped in the forest.

  “Jolan? Shoshone?”

  “Oromir!” Jolan said, rushing through the broken wall of the ship and into the forest. His arm caught in a splinter of dragon bone on his way out, biting into his skin, but he didn’t care. He ran into the darkness and embraced Oromir, who was picking his way through the undergrowth.

  “I thought you were dead,” Jolan whispered.

  “I thought the same.”

  Oromir held him tight. Despite the young warden’s calm exterior, Jolan could feel his heart thundering in his chest.

  “Are the others alive?” Jolan asked.

  “All accounted for except you and Shoshone. Have you seen her?”

  Jolan nodded. “She’s back that way.” He swallowed. “Oromir, she—”

  “Iko,” Shoshone barked from the skyship. “Report.”

  The other widow had come out of the darkness behind Oromir. Willem was close behind.

  “Minor injuries, mostly. But Sten has a broken ankle. Cumberland’s helping him over.”

  “Where is the gray-eyed man?”

  “Oh, we collected him as well,” Willem said, then jerked on a length of rope. Garret came tumbling forward on the other end of it. His wrists were still bound in irons.

  Garret looked up at everyone, eyes revealing nothing.

  “Who hired you to kill that Balarian general?” Shoshone asked him.

  “The same person who hired you to steal the ship.”

  “You’re lying,” Shoshone hissed.

  “It bothers me, too. You hire the one, right person for a job. Multiple teams for a single job is messy. I guess Okinu didn’t have much faith in her trusty widows.” Garret shrugged. “Or in me.”

  Shoshone glared at Garret for a moment. Cumberland and Sten made their way up to the others. Sten had one arm slung over Cumberland’s shoulder and he was hopping to avoid putting weight on one ankle.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Shoshone said. “The job’s done.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Cumberland asked.

  “I’m going to Floodhaven,” Shoshone said.

  “The city with a skyship hanging over it?”

  “There is someone there that I need to kill.”

  “Who?”

  “When Okinu sent me out into the world as her assassin, she told me something before I left. If I ever learn the location of a man named Osyrus Ward, I am to find him and kill him, along with anyone who supports his work. An order that supersedes all others. The Balarian navigator said that Ward is in Floodhaven. So, I go.”

  “We can help,” Cumberland offered.

  “You would just get in my way.”

  “Haven’t so far.”

  “True. But this is a different type of job. And you have wounded.” Shoshone turned to Iko. “Help them. The last pigeon that knows the path to Papyria is at Frula’s research station. Go there, send word to Okinu that the western coast is open.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  Then she threw the Kor to Cumberland. “That’s your responsibility now.”

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Ask the kid.”

  Before anyone could argue further, Shoshone was digging through supplies—grabbing a canteen and a small bag of rations. It only took her a few minutes.

  She looked at them all one last time. “You fight well, tree cats.”

  Willem opened his mouth, but stopped when he saw her smiling.

  “Jaguars,” she said. “My apologies.”

  And then she was gone.

  Jolan explained what the Kor was and did as best he could. Cumberland, Sten, Iko, and Oromir focused on the implications with a careful intention, as did Garret. Willem picked his nose and looked around the forest.

  “Might be we weren’t able to turn up a whole skyship for Carlyle,” said Cumberland after looking at the orb for a long time. “But we can take this to him, at least.”

  “And keep it away from the Balarians,” Oromir added.

  “Aye,” Cumberland agreed, then held it out to Jolan. “You hold on to it for now.”

  “Why me?”

  “You understand that kind of crap.”

  “I really don’t.”

  “All the same.”

  Jolan sighed and took the orb. It fit nicely in his satchel.

  Willem drew a deep breath. “Where are we? It smells like we landed in some kind of herb forest. I’ve never seen these trees before.”

  “I enjoy the aroma,” Iko said. “Reminds me of a dream.”

  Willem gave her a look. “You never would have said something like that with Shoshone around.”

  Iko smiled. “But I am saying it now.”

  There was a silence.

  “It’s eucalyptus,” Jolan said, suddenly happy to have a simple question with a simple answer—unlike the morality behind murdering an unarmed, foreign soldier. “It only grows in this region. Well, they’re actually native to a specific and remote valley in Dunfar, but Traitian Malgrave enjoyed them, so he had an entire cargo ship filled with saplings and brought back to Almira, where he—”

  “Jolan,” Sten interrupted. “Please stop the tree history lesson and do something to make my ankle stop feeling like a dragon’s gnawing on it.”

  “Right. I’ll get supplies from the ship’s infirmary.”

  “The assassin is injured as well,” Iko said. Then added, “Although I’m not sure it’s worth wasting the supplies.”

  Jolan looked back at Garret. He hadn’t noticed the wet bloodstain on his shirt at first. Sloppy. Morgan would have chastised him for the oversight.

  “I’m sure the Balarians have plenty of inventory,” Jolan said. “But I’ll help Sten first.”

  Technically, a bleeding wound should be triaged first, but Jolan was willing to break protocol in this instance.

  “We’re stuck here for the night,” Cumberland said. “Oromir and Willem, clear the perimeter and see about some food. I’m going to have a look around the ship.”

  “Right, boss.” Oromir and Willem sprang into action. “We’re on it.”

  * * *

  Despite the ship being tipped on its side, it was surprisingly easy to traverse the hallways of the skyship by walking on the walls.

  Jolan had expected the crash to cause more damage, but unlike the equipment in an alchemist’s apothecary, which was primarily made from glass, everything in the skyship’s infirmary was steel. Whoever had stocked the infirmary had knowledge of the alchemist’s trade, and an uncommon access to warren ingredients.

  Jolan found a vial of Gods Moss. Three ounces each of Crimson Tower and Spartania moss. And behind that, dozens of vials of processed warren ingredients. Everything was in small quantities, but it was a bounty. He mentally calculated a few new experiments he could run with these, then remembered that his backpack—and most of his supplies—was buried outside Black Rock. He wasn’t sure how he’d get back there now.

  Jolan started packing supplies for a splint into his satchel, along with a few vials of moss.

  When he got back to the others, they had a fire going near Sten.

  “We found dragon eggs,” Willem said, motioning to three massive eggs they’d placed near the fire to cook. “Want one?”

  Jolan studied the eggs. They were from a giant Almiran cockatrice, not a dragon. But he wasn’t in the mood to correct Willem.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  While the others ate, Jolan splinted Sten’s ankle and brewed him something for the pain. Gave him the usual instructions for dosage.

  “Appreciate it, J
olan,” said Sten. It was the first time he’d used Jolan’s real name.

  “I call the captain’s quarters,” Willem said, wiping some half-cooked egg from his beard. “The room’s destroyed but that big feather bed in the back wasn’t touched.”

  “The fuck you do,” Sten said. “I’m the one with the broken ankle.”

  “Broken bones don’t give you right of way when it comes to sleeping arrangements.”

  “Neither does calling it out first.” Sten started rooting around in his pockets. “We dice for it, same as always.”

  “But I need the bed. Think I just about broke my ass during the crash.”

  “And I broke my ankle all the way. Look, there’s a way of doing things, and you don’t just claim a fancy bed like that when we were all in the damn crash.”

  Willem cursed. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I’ll get the fucking dice.” He looked around. “Should probably ask Iko if she wants in, too.”

  “You tried to call it without dice and now you’re bringing her into the stakes?”

  “Like you said, there’s a way of doing things.”

  “You’re just hoping to invite Iko into the bed if you win. Or vice versa.”

  “Fuck yourself.”

  Jolan cleared his throat. “Um, what happened to Garret?”

  “Iko chained him to the stove in the galley.”

  “Okay. I’m going to go check on him.”

  * * *

  Iko had secured Garret’s irons to the base of a cast-iron stove and left him there. The front of his shirt was soaked in blood from belt to solar plexus.

  “You got taller,” Garret said.

  “And your accent got better,” Jolan said.

  Garret grunted. He eyed Jolan’s satchel.

  “What happened to that big backpack of yours?”

  “I had to leave it behind.”

  “Too bad.”

  “I have enough to help you,” Jolan said, although he didn’t enter the room. “But I’m wondering if I should. You’re a murderer.”

  “There are a lot of murderers in this world,” Garret said. “And judging from the company you keep, I’m not the only killer you’ve tended to.”

  Jolan chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Last spring you lynched Elden Grealor. But he ruined the Dainwood. Everyone said so. The Mudwall lord you killed before him wasn’t much better. Tybolt. There were whispers that he sacrificed children every summer and winter solstice. And that skyship captain would have killed thousands of Almirans.”