I directed my attention back to the dragonscale. Had to have something to focus on, or else I was gonna tear down this house over the idea that anyone’d try and remake my girl. It’d been my stupid idea, but I had a right to it. No one else had that right, except maybe the mad bag sitting in front of me. The needle was starting to move, not so much that you’d catch it if you weren’t looking at it, but by a hairbreadth; it clocked over to north, then stopped, then slid a little bit west after a few more seconds of me watching it.
“She’s on the move,” Fleet added. “Don’t think she’s flying herself just yet, boy, so somebody who can travel real quick through the desert’s probably transporting her. You know of anyone who can travel quick through the desert, or do we need to have a few lessons before I get you out of my hair? It’s short for a reason, you know,” she added, then looked cross-eyed at me.
“Nomads,” I said.
“Bull’s-eye,” Fleet replied.
There was only one nomad I knew, and he was standing just outside on top of a sand dune.
“Rook,” Thom called after me, but I was already out of my chair. I’d been led in so many circles by now, crossing my own bastion-damned path more than once and allowing myself to be tomfooled into all kinds of half-wit fuckery. I was taking this camel by the reins and I wasn’t letting go until someone gave me a solid answer. I’d beaten Kalim once before man-to-man, and, if necessary, I’d do it again.
The wind had picked up pretty fast since I’d last been outside, and I sure as shit didn’t like the way the air smelled. There was something nasty and dark blowing in from not too far away, but I wasn’t a master of the desert. All I had were my instincts.
“Ah, Mollyrat Rook!” Kalim said, like butter wouldn’t melt if I shoved a whole pat into his mouth. “Did you find what you’re—”
“Listen to me,” I said, grabbing him by the front of his robes; probably a killing offense where he was from, but I didn’t care anymore. “You got something you’re hiding from me?”
Kalim didn’t blink, but I had taken him by surprise. “Do you seek to offend me?” he asked.
“Do I?” I asked. “Doesn’t matter right now, Kalim. Are you keeping something from me?”
So, maybe it wasn’t one of my finest moments. I probably was babbling like a madman who thought he could talk to someone special up in the heavens. Something told me I wasn’t going to be able to explain myself, either, so I dragged him down off that dune as fast as I could, yanking him back toward Fleet’s house and shoving him through the doorway. He was going along with all this, but at any moment I knew he could respond to the assault on his pride and turn on me. That didn’t matter. I was gearing for a fight. Bring it on, Prince Kalim, and all that fuckery.
“Hey, boys,” Fleet said, calm as punch.
Kalim made a sign I didn’t understand in the air in front of him, like warding off the evil eye.
“That,” I said, pointing at the scale on the table. “You seen something like that before? One of your men have it? Are you fucking trading in shit like this?”
Kalim’s mouth was tight. “I have seen something similar to this before,” he said at last. “It was in my possession until three nights before I met with you, your brother, and the rakhman, when it was stolen from me.”
“Plot always thickens, doesn’t it,” Fleet said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MALAHIDE
Our quarry had made a fatal error, which always thrilled and disappointed me.
My worries about the relative potency of my Talent in the desert had turned out to be unfounded. So long as we stuck to traveling at night—and we did, for the sake of our good health and sanity—I was as spry as a country girl and as fit as a good musician’s fiddle. The dune sands made for the most wonderful backdrop I could have asked for—all potential, lively smells burned clean out of the landscape by the midday sun. There was nothing to distract me from my prey—a group of men who stank at once of blood and dragonmetal. It was wondrous, and better than if I’d planned it myself. I would doubtless be home in no time with the Esar’s gratitude jingling in my pockets, yet I found myself somewhat unsatisfied.
If I were to be perfectly honest—as I could only be with myself—I had to admit I was missing the ecstasy of the hunt as I’d felt it when I was still in the mountains. Chasing the man whose skills so matched my own had left me nearly breathless with delight, my head spinning from the rush of blood, combined with a lack of food or sleep. But ever since the burning village, I hadn’t been able to detect the familiar tang of dragonmetal from anywhere but here: among the quarry we now pursued. Such disappointment came with not being a free agent. I was not at liberty to choose which trails to follow and which to leave cold. What the Esar had sent me to look for was my only concern, and whatever had intrigued me about my chase through the mountains had been completely obliterated by what the nomads held. Chasing them was dull, unfulfilling work, but the prize they held was nearly enough to make up for that. I had never smelled the soul of a dragon before, but all my instincts were telling me that my work was going to be accomplished sooner, rather than later.
They’d stopped to rest, and very shortly my pursuit would be over as a consequence of their carelessness.
The girl Madoka called me strange, and I supposed I was, if it came to that. Everyone had their peculiarities. In truth, it was she who seemed strange to me, carrying on with that thing festering in her hand as though it wasn’t about to cause irreparable damage. As an agent of the Esar, I’d been trained to withstand certain methods that the enemy might use to extract information, but I knew instinctively that what Madoka was suffering now was something I would have never been able to tolerate. Pain unimaginable; even I was impressed.
I tried to keep her downwind as best I could, so that the scent of rot did not overcome my sensitive nose. After all, the smell of the nomad raiding party was bad enough already, but I could allow no further distractions than the ones with which I had already willingly burdened myself.
Why they’d chosen to take refuge in the oasis at such a time was unfathomable to me. Perhaps it was as simple as Badger had so eloquently stated, and they didn’t even know that they were being followed. It smelled distractingly of green things, of water bubbling up from the rock, and smooth, wet stone. The nomads had tainted it with their presence, of course, but it was easy for me to pick their stench apart from the rest, now that I knew it so well. In among the rest of these exotic little odors was the most alluring perfume, twined around the others like a complacent cat welcoming her master home and waiting for him to pour the cream.
That was the dragonmetal, and it was going to be mine.
Of course, I had promised Madoka certain things, and I had no intention of going back on my word. The Esar had sent me on my mission because he’d sensed trickery afoot, and his instincts had proven themselves to be correct. He expected me to bring back what he’d sent me for, of course, but how much more highly would I be held in his esteem if I managed to capture not only the soul but the Esar’s enemy as well?
Madoka had no uses for the dragonmetal herself. She’d as good as told me so by the look on her face whenever it was mentioned. I had my own private concerns about the true nature of her mission, which were in part due to the man I’d followed over the mountains. There was no reason for me to be so suspicious of course, but I’d made my life’s work out of seeing connections where others did not. It didn’t entirely make sense to me, that Madoka’s magician would require her simply for retrieval and nothing else.
There was a piece missing to the puzzle. I couldn’t allow myself to become so distracted by the proximity of my goal that I forgot it.
I hadn’t yet broached this subject with Madoka herself, of course, or her stolid companion. Her moods varied with the fever, and I feared that she would not rightly be able to understand the intricacies of what I was planning. Her mistrust of magicians did me no favors, and I couldn’t be certain that what small kindnesses
I’d offered up until now would be enough to tilt the scales in my favor if I shared my concerns with her. She might simply suspect I was trying to trick her in some way, and the careful trust I’d been working hard to establish between us would be as good as destroyed. This was a job that required the utmost circumspection. Fortunately, that was a trait I had in spades.
“How far along to the oasis?” Badger asked me, coming up at my side while I’d been thinking. He moved with curious silence for a soldier, though the wind and the sand did a great deal to hide everyone’s footsteps, and my particular senses had always been stronger elsewhere. I was not entirely surprised.
I pointed to the next dune, obscuring our view of the horizon as we strode across the little valley. It obscured what might have been a clear view of the oasis grove, but I didn’t need to see it to know it was there.
“I see,” he said, judging the distance and perhaps calculating how long it would take us to reach it by the speed of our current pace. I glanced over my shoulder and, sure as anything, Madoka was still tramping along behind us. She was a good girl, and remarkably sturdy—certainly more hardy than some Volstovic stock. Badger seemed to follow my gaze, and he lowered his voice before speaking again. “I believe the fever is getting worse,” he confided.
How wonderful at last to become a confidant. If I had worked trust on Badger, then I could do anything at all.
“Oh?” I said, trying not to betray my surprise at this sudden confidence. It was unlike him to speak to me at all, let alone of Madoka. Perhaps he’d come to realize that my concern for her was genuine—or at least as genuine as a person like myself could maintain.
“She tosses in her sleep,” he continued. “And the hand grows worse.”
“Now, that I have noticed. I can’t say as to her sleeping patterns,” I added, a little too slyly. If it hadn’t been dark, or if his coloring had been fairer, I might have squeezed a blush out of him like water from a stone. But being a soldier on top of being Ke-Han meant there wasn’t much success to be found in squeezing. Badger frowned and turned away, which was as good as any cue to continue. “Whoever did that to her clearly didn’t have a handle on what he was doing,” I told him frankly. “It seems desperate, like an experiment as much as anything else. Decidedly not the work of someone who’s an expert in the field—but then, this is highly experimental magic to begin with. Dealing in prosthetic limbs is one thing, but inserting something once enchanted into a working body part is…well, opportunistic at best. Monstrous at worst. You see for yourself the consequences; I myself would never engage in such beastly hack-and-slash.”
“I would agree with the second of those two choices, I think,” Badger said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with my own self-assessment.
“The quicker we work, the more likely it is that whatever has been done to her will be able to be undone. If my hunch about your magician is right, then I will simply have to take her to Volstov,” I said, with a confidence I didn’t necessarily feel. I wasn’t on good terms with the magicians of the Basquiat—wasn’t on any terms, if it came to that—but the simple fact of the matter was that some of the greatest minds for research, magical or otherwise, resided there. If anyone could reverse the damage done to Madoka by an inexpert magician, it would be one of them. And I did have ties to the Esar: Whether or not the Basquiat was feeling friendly or wary of him, they were his for better or worse, and he could be very convincing. Some magicians, leaving the matter of the Esar aside, would leap at the chance to experiment in such a specialized way; I knew a few who would rise to the challenge without even needing to be convinced. So I was confident about that much.
Badger glanced back toward the topic of our conversation as we crested the dune, and I pulled him hurriedly just past the hilltop. Having the element of surprise would do us no good if we were to pause at the highest point nearest the oasis and stand there like bull’s-eyes. Better just to broadcast our presence to the skies with electric lights and a marching band, if it came to that, and at least give ourselves away with a little bit of personal flair.
Madoka scurried up behind us, and had the blessed sense to drop low on my other side. She had wonderfully fine instincts, and I felt quite warmly toward her because of them.
“You two trying to ditch me?” she asked.
“Not at all, my dear,” I said lightly. “Badger and I were just attempting to survey the area for your safety, that sort of thing. You are, after all, our little treasure.” A quick wind picked up, and the scent emanating from the suffering flesh around the compass nearly overwhelmed me. I covered my nose with one hand as discreetly as I could. I did not wish to offend her.
“Any sign of ’em?” she wanted to know, arching her neck to peer down into the valley basin.
“None yet,” Badger said. “We should be on guard. Don’t know how many of them are down there, but it was enough to hit that village, so we can’t be too careful.”
“Don’t remind me,” Madoka muttered.
“Well,” I murmured, lowering my voice as I rose to my feet, “no sense in waiting to find out.”
“I’ll come with you,” Badger said at once, though I knew better than to be touched by this sudden display of concern for my safety. “Madoka, stay here,” he added, confirming my suspicions.
“What? All of a sudden I don’t get to play with the big kids?” she said, clearly affronted. In this as in all things, she was endearingly quaint.
“You are our most valuable asset,” I told her, with what I hoped was an apologetic tone. Badger had already started down the dune’s slope in the direction of the oasis, keeping low against the sand, and I turned to follow after him. “Don’t worry; we’ll be sure to come back and collect you once all the kicking and screaming has finished.”
“Yeah, well,” Madoka muttered.
I reached out to clasp her warmly upon the shoulder. “Stay low,” I suggested, “keep your head down, and remember this: Even if I were to abandon you, our mutual acquaintance, the Badger, would never. He’ll be back for you, even if I am not.”
“That’s great,” Madoka said, but she did seem somewhat comforted by my assessment. Then we left her behind us, scurrying down the dune in a flurry of sand, hoping the wind would cover us.
It was neither of our areas of expertise; we were both better accustomed to different terrains on our individual battlefields, and there was sand up my skirts and inside my boots in no time. I kept a kerchief held against my nose and mouth, which seemed thus far to be the best way to keep the tools of my trade safe. At least Badger was quick, quiet, and efficient. A very solid man, if not the most quick-witted.
“We’ll split up and survey the perimeter,” Badger mouthed, blocking out our path with his hands. “And don’t make any sound.”
“Silent as death,” I promised, my own voice barely above a whisper. For whatever reason the phrase seemed to give him the chills, then we parted, keeping shadows between us and the main camp.
Close up, the stink of dragonmetal was drowned out by the stench of flesh, sweat, and human blood. Fire was also thrown into the pot, and whatever spices were being included in dinner. I breathed shallowly through my mouth, using trees and low-level scrub brush for cover. Silence was one of my specialties, and the nomads in question—tall, bluff men, most of them stripped down and bathing in the fading daylight—were drinking and laughing, completely oblivious. Naturally, this was their terrain. They had every confidence it would never betray them.
So, I told myself, it was obvious that they did not know anything about the chase that was currently being waged. If they had any idea of it, then I would never have been able to get so close. That was interesting to note; my first prey had been running from or to something, but these men were not a part of it at all.
And yet I could smell dragonmetal on them.
I crept closer, the sound of their laughter and stories in the language of the desert—one I’d only just begun to study and did not have nearly so much fluency in as
the many Ke-Han dialects—obscuring all possible noise that either the Badger or I would make. They were gathered around a single man, half-dressed, who appeared to be their leader; at least, they treated him differently than they treated the rest, with a sort of awed deference. And, I noted as I drew closer to the scene, nestled behind a tree and with a very good view of the proceedings, he was holding something in both hands. He lifted it high, and his men let out a loud cheer.
What was it? It was vital that I manage to get closer. It was about the size of an infant, though the way the nomad was holding it was vastly inappropriate for that to be the case. Also, it positively stank of dragonmetal, and when it caught the light it shone like liquid.
It was like nothing I’d ever seen. When I got closer I could see that there was liquid inside of it—clear, and very alike to something I had seen before in my lifetime. Water from Volstov’s Well, from which all magicians could trace their powers, though slightly less translucent. And it smelled of fire.
After spending so long on the hunt, one grew to nurture certain instincts. I knew without having to breathe in any deeper that the heady, giddy scent it gave me was because it was something more powerful than even I could fully comprehend. This was a prize to end all prizes. My man from the mountains seemed dwarfed by comparison.
I could have gazed at that strange piece all day.
Unfortunately, I was not given the time.
A shout went up from the far end of the camp, and at first I could only assume that Badger had done something careless, like getting himself caught. Perhaps he too had been lured like a fish by the sight of that beautiful little vial—for those not accustomed to magic, the very sight of it was singing like a siren. It had even caused me to draw a little closer than I might have otherwise. Temptation and Talent were too alike at times, and I cursed all soldiers. But I cursed too soon.
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