Deathmaker (Dragon Blood)

by Buroker, Lindsay

  Cas struggled not to shudder at what qualified as “experimentation” for him.

  “I can get the sawbones if you prefer, but he does live up to his name.”

  “Yeah? Is that where the captain’s finger bone chest protector came from?”

  “I believe he traded a bottle of brandy to a South Isles cannibal for that a few years ago.”

  Cas snorted. She bet that story wasn’t widely known. “I’m fine.” She waved away his offer of help in favor of hunkering in her corner. “I don’t need any attention, medical or otherwise.” The dried blood on her chin probably said otherwise, but she didn’t want to cozy up with the Deathmaker. They’d bonded enough during their escape. More than enough.

  Tolemek, the rag and jar in his hands, looked disappointed at her response, but he inclined his head and said, “Very well. Let me know if you change your mind.”

  Strange. Did he actually care? Back in the jungle, she’d had the sense, just for a moment, that he had planned to let her go, or at least that he had been thinking about it. She had assumed it was her imagination, but maybe it hadn’t been. Of course, he might simply be choosing to be nice to make her more amenable to answering questions. Either way, maybe she should be nice, or at least not spiteful, so he would see her as more of a human being rather than a recalcitrant prisoner. Maybe she could make him trust her a little, enough to say… leave her unshackled the next time he left the room? Though some of the things in his laboratory made her as uneasy as a flier engine with a suspicious rattle, she wagered there were all sorts of items that might be helpful in an escape. Maybe he had some of those smoking leather balls in a box somewhere. And who knew? Maybe she could get some useful intelligence out of him, something to bring back home with her.

  Tolemek had laid the implements on the desk and taken a seat. He was stroking his goatee thoughtfully.

  “Sorry,” Cas said, “you were trying to help. I get it. I’ll ah—” she pointed to the rag, “—take your treatment. Thanks.”

  Words were one thing, but actions were another. Her body had stiffened while she sat on the floor, and she sucked in a pained breath at her first attempt to roll to her knees and stand.

  Tolemek crossed the cabin in three strides and helped her up.

  “Didn’t think I was old enough to get that stiff,” she said. She pretended to stumble—she didn’t have to do much pretending—and gave herself an opportunity to take a quick look at the lower shelves of a bookcase she had noticed earlier, one with a glass cover protecting the contents. All manner of vials hung in racks inside, and a couple looked familiar.

  Tolemek slipped an arm around her waist to help her to the chair. She straightened up, not wanting him to notice her spying, and leaned against his side. The support wasn’t unwelcome, though she probably should have pushed his arm away. One didn’t ask for support from the Deathmaker, right? But she was being nice, wasn’t she? To fool him? Just as he was trying to fool her by being a gentleman? She had barely started this new game, and her head already hurt. She was too simple for the intricacies of mind games and spy missions; she just wanted to fly and shoot things.

  “I don’t think there’s any age where beatings feel good.” Tolemek guided her into the chair, then pulled up a stool. He pushed the lamp closer to her face, and she could feel its warmth. The pirate ship wasn’t cold—they were still in the tropics, after all—but the canvas bag she was wearing left far too much arm and leg bare for her taste.

  “Probably not. Would you mind taking those spikes off your wrists before doctoring me?” She nodded toward his wrist braces—the prongs weren’t razor sharp, but they certainly had an inimical look to them. “I was a little concerned I’d get perforated during our walk across the room.”

  Tolemek unfastened them and tossed them on the desk. He had the same bronze skin as the rest of the Cofah, but that didn’t mean he didn’t tan at all, and she found herself somewhat amused by the paler three-inch bands on his wrists. The Deathmaker had tan lines. Also not mentioned in the stories that circulated.

  Cas stayed still as he dabbed her face, wiping her wounds and washing away the dried blood. It stung, but he was probably more gentle than that sawbones would have been. With his face close to hers, she had the conundrum of where to look. It seemed too personal—too intimate—to watch his eyes, but it would have been awkward to lean out to look around him. She settled for staring at the shark tooth necklace, though at some point, her gaze drifted to his collarbone and then down to the pectoral muscles visible beneath his vest. She supposed, if one could get past the I-think-I’m-really-tough pirate clothing, one might consider him attractive. She didn’t, of course, especially considering his plans for her, so she merely acknowledged that some people would.

  Tolemek put down the rag and opened the ceramic jar. The grayish green color of the thick goop inside reminded her of the stuff that had been growing on the walls in those underground ruins. Its dubious scent smelled more medicinal than natural, but she wasn’t sure about having it smeared on her face.

  “What’s that for?” she asked. “And does it have a more confidence-inspiring name than Green Goo Number Three?”

  He rotated the jar so she could see the label.

  “Healing Salve Number Six,” she read.

  “It’s to assist the body in healing and also to prevent infection. There are antimicrobial compounds.”

  Anti-what? “Oh, good. And it’s stronger than the first five iterations, I’m guessing?”

  “More effective, yes.”

  “It’s good to know—” Cas made a face when he touched the first cold, slimy dollop to a swollen cut at her temple. “Good to know some of the things you make are for helping people.”

  Tolemek had been focused on applying the salve, but he looked into her eyes a moment, his face inscrutable.

  “It’s not what your reputation is about,” she said, explaining by stating the obvious. As if he wasn’t aware of his reputation.

  “I know,” he said softly. Now he avoided her eyes, dabbing goo to her cut lip.

  It seemed like there was a hint of regret about him. But maybe this was part of the game too. Pretending to be someone decent, someone who cared.

  “I suppose you have to keep your pirate allies healed up, so you have help—” Cas stopped herself from saying raping, pillaging, and slaughtering, but barely. Nice prisoners that could be trusted didn’t sling such accusations around. “—on your missions,” she finished. There. Wasn’t that tactful?

  “Most of them prefer the sawbones’ sketchy draughts to mine,” Tolemek said. “The army too. I tried to send them some of this compound, since it’s superior to the crude antiseptic they plied us with when I was a soldier, but knowing it was from me, they wouldn’t take it. I even tried to sell it at an exorbitant sum, so they’d be more likely to believe there was something in it for me, but the medical general said no soldier would risk using something I had made.”

  “So the Cofah hate you as much as the Iskandians, huh?” Oops, so much for tact. That had been rather blunt.

  And he winced. “Yes.”

  “It—what they think—bothers you?”

  He had finished with her face and set the jar down. “It… serves me.”

  Not quite an answer to her question.

  “As Gor—the captain has always been quick to point out, enemies aren’t eager to pick fights with me. They, too—” he gestured toward the ship as a whole, “—leave me alone to do my work undisturbed. Reputations aren’t always founded in truth—the captain’s breastplate, for example—but there has to be enough truth to make it believable. The instant someone stops believing, he’ll try to kill you for your position and for your share of the earnings.”

  Plunder, Cas’s mind replaced the word.

  “In addition to worrying about rival clans and armies and lawmen, you have to worry about your own allies. The captain fends off assassination attempts from within every month or two. He owns the ship and a share of the
outfit, and anyone who kills him, gets his stuff. That’s what passes for law in here. It’s like the jungle. Survival of the strongest and the most cunning.”

  “Why stay in such a place?” Cas thought of the support and camaraderie she got from her unit back home. After the awkward discomfort she had always experienced with her father, it had been a delight to have a different sort of family, one with dozens of brothers and sisters to work with and talk to, people who did dangerous work and formed close relationships through the experience. Just thinking about it, about them, made her chest ache with homesickness.

  “There aren’t many places available to me,” Tolemek said dryly.

  “Now. You must have made a choice somewhere along the way.”

  He leaned back, propping his arm on the desk. “You mean after the unit I commanded was decimated in an airship battle with some pesky Iskandian fliers?” He gave her a frank stare. Her first thought was that he was referring to the previous summer’s battle again, but this must have been something different. He wasn’t commanding anything here, was he?

  “I was twenty-four and had just made captain at a ridiculously young age. My father was finally proud of me. I got orders to defend the Starlight Sailor, one of our greatest airships, made more so by the fact that it was carrying one of our most legendary admirals and two top diplomats to a treaty negotiation to enlist some of the jungle shamans from the south. Then, out of the clouds—” Tolemek stretched his hand toward the ceiling, fingers spread, “—comes Wolf Squadron. Somehow, they’d gotten intel about our plans and they swept in, strafing our decks with bullets, killing my men left and right. We had artillery weapons and took some of them down, but as you well know, they’re good at cat-and-mouse games. The Starlight Sailor went down, plummeted into the ocean. The admiral, the diplomats, a decorated airship pilot… all died. There were few survivors.”

  Of whom, he was obviously one. His sarcastic bitterness was palpable, so she resolved to keep her mouth shut.

  “For punishment, I was stripped of all my rights and privileges as an officer and discharged from the army.” He lowered his arm and stared down at his hand. “There was nothing to return home to. My father said I was dead to him. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. Eventually I got a letter of condolence from another former army officer, a Colonel Goroth who’d been my instructor at the officer proving grounds and who’d had a similar run-in with Wolf Squadron. He’d also been cast out of the army and had his family turn their backs on him. He’d always been a warrior at heart, even when he was teaching, and he couldn’t give it up. He was a mercenary for a while but eventually became a pirate. He invited me to join him out here, and feeling like I was practically a criminal already back home, I joined him.”

  “Captain Slaughter?” Cas asked.

  “So he eventually became.”

  “Look, I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but you—your people—chose this war. My people want to be left alone. That’s all we’ve ever wanted. We’re doing everything we can to keep our homeland.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “You’re rebels who broke away from the empire, killing all of your rulers in the process.”

  “We’re the native inhabitants of that continent. Your stupid rulers came and set themselves up without being asked. And all of that happened hundreds of years ago anyway. It’s idiotic that your people are still wasting resources trying to get us back. If they think we’ll ever be content little imperial subjects, they’re delusional.”

  A knock sounded at the door, and Cas nearly jumped out of her seat. For a moment, she had forgotten where she was and that she was surrounded by a ship full of pirates who would happily slay her.

  “Come in,” Tolemek called.

  “Is this all right?” Cas whispered, lifting her unshackled arms.

  Tolemek flicked his hand dismissively as the door opened. A nervous cabin boy stood there, holding a tray with plates and a carafe on it.

  “Come in, boy. Set it down.” Tolemek pointed to the desk.

  The kid couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen. What calamity had come to his life to bring him here? Maybe he was some pirate’s son. And here she thought she had been born into a disturbing family business.

  “Yes, sir.” The boy glanced toward the terrariums—hah, Cas wasn’t the only one nervous about whatever the Deathmaker kept in there—then scurried to the desk. He set down the tray, looking like he would bolt for the door, but stopped long enough to point at one of the plates. “That one’s yours, sir. Cook made you more on account of you being bigger.”

  “Did he.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, sir.” Now, the boy bolted.

  Slices of bread, fish and sauce, and an orange. There was nothing gourmet about the trays or the presentation, but Cas was hungry enough that she could have wolfed down ten or twenty of the nasty ration bars pilots took on longer missions.

  After the door closed, Tolemek set the plate with the larger portion down in front of her. “If you’re hungry enough to risk the cooking, I’d try that one.” He put the other plate in front of him, though he didn’t pick up the fork or knife.

  Belatedly, it occurred to Cas to find the boy’s words suspicious. “You think that one’s poisoned?” She nodded to the smaller portion.

  “No, they’re not going to kill you. But based on a conversation I had with the captain, I wouldn’t be surprised if there might be a dose of a truth serum that would encourage you to answer my questions honestly.”

  Huh. And he wasn’t going to use it on her?

  “Truth Serum Number Three?” she asked. She had never heard of such a concoction, unless one counted the honesty-encouraging effects alcohol had, but his scientific interests seemed to be broad.

  “More like seventeen. Affecting the human mind in a predictable way isn’t as easy as blowing things up.”

  “How about affecting the human body? Killing people. Is that easy?” And did she truly want to know the details?

  Tolemek looked away. “Killing people isn’t difficult. There are numerous substances in the world that are poisonous to humans.”

  “Why seek them out? Why create something that…” Cas prodded a piece of fish with her fork. Hungry as she was, this conversation, and the fact that someone might have been playing with the food, had her worried about sampling.

  “If you’ve ever wondered if the smith regrets forging the sword that ends up taking an innocent man’s life, the answer is yes.”

  Cas had not wondered that, but she did now. With smiths, it would be rare for them to find out how and when their weapons had been used. Though, in making a tool for killing, there could not be much doubt that it would be used. A sword, after all, had no other purpose. No one blamed the smiths, she supposed, but what he had done—or, as it sounded like, allowed to be done with his work—was orders of magnitude worse. It was, wasn’t it?

  Tolemek stood up and walked across the cabin to the clothes trunk. He opened the lid and pulled out a couple of tins of sardines and packages of crackers, brought them back, and set them beside Cas’s plate. “An alternative if you wish it.”

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. The packages were Cofah, but the Iskandians had similar types of travel rations, so she believed they had come from some general mercantile—or been plunder from some ship’s supplies—and were unlikely to have strange serums added to them.

  “The wine is probably safe, and there’s water in that pitcher. If you don’t need anything else, I believe I’ll get some rest. Dawn is only a couple of hours off.”

  He rooted in a cabinet and found a couple of blankets. He tossed one on the hammock, then spread another out on the floor. He blew out the nearest lamp and took the floor position for himself, lying down without a mention of shackles or a suggestion that she stay out of trouble and not wander off. A sign of trust? Or was he going to leave her to her own devices to see if he could trust her in the future? Belatedly, she remembered her mission had been to try and win that trus
t.

  “Tolemek?” she asked.

  “Yes?”

  “My face feels better. Thanks for the salve. The Cofah army should have tried it before turning it down.”

  For a moment, he didn’t answer, and she wondered if her compliment had seemed out of character, and he knew she was trying to win him over. It was the truth though, even if she wouldn’t normally have admitted it. Whatever his salve was exactly, it was doing more than disinfecting wounds. Already, a cool tingling had replaced the pain in her face, and the swelling seemed less extreme.

  “You’re welcome,” he finally said. “You’re the first woman who’s expressed appreciation for one of my formulas.”

  “Do women usually show up on your doorstep all bruised and battered and in need of one of your formulas?”

  “They don’t show up here at all,” Tolemek said drily. “But when I’ve sought them out, they’ve usually been alarmed by my reputation and my work—my passion.” He said the last in a whisper, an ache in his voice. “Of course, every now and then, one is unsettlingly intrigued. Like she relishes the idea of having her own pet monster.” His tone grew dry again when he added, “I already have that relationship with Goroth.”

  Cas didn’t know what to say to that. Monsters weren’t supposed to know they were monsters, were they? Her father certainly never saw himself that way, as far as she knew.

  Tolemek rolled onto his side, turning his back to her, so he must not expect a response. Or maybe he felt he had shared too much of himself. Cas could understand that. She didn’t talk much about her own demons with others. What could be gained from it? Some things were just better kept to oneself.

  She peeled open one of the sardine cans and ripped into a package of crackers. Maybe if she were good tonight, Tolemek would be less wary tomorrow. But how long did she have to escape? If she didn’t take the first opportunity, would she regret it later, as she had in the jungle?