The Emperor's Edge 3: Deadly Games

The Emperor's Edge 3: Chapter 11 Part 1

When Basilard woke, his head ached worse than it ever had after a night out carousing with Maldynado. He opened his eyes to—thankfully—dim lighting emanating from a globe hanging beside a metal door. The entire room—cubby might be a better word—was made from dark gray metal. He lay on a narrow cot, staring at riveting running along ridges traversing the walls from floor to curved ceiling. He had never been on a steam ship, but guessed that was his location. Engines somewhere rumbled, the reverberations pulsing through the floor and up his cot.

Was he being transported somewhere? Though he had never sailed, he had seen maps of the empire and knew that one could travel from the Chain Lakes down the Goldar River and all the way to the Gulf. From there, one could go...anywhere in the world. Had he been captured to be sold into slavery once again? This time someplace far away? Someplace so far away there was no chance he would ever return home again to see his daughter?

The daughter you could have already gone to see if you weren’t such a coward, he told himself.

Basilard sat up, and the pounding in his head intensified so much he groaned and grabbed his temples. Toughen up, he told himself. Sicarius would not bellyache so.

He sneered at himself. Why was he holding Sicarius up as a model to emulate?

When the throbbing calmed enough to handle, he swung his legs over the edge of the cot and found the floor—the deck? Was that what ship people called it? The cold metal numbed his bare feet. With a twitch of surprise, he realized everything was bare. He patted himself down, checking for...he did not know what, but one couldn’t trust people who kidnapped one and stole one’s clothing.

Soft, rhythmic clangs sounded beyond the door. Footsteps.

A scratch and thud echoed through the door. Basilard slipped off the cot and dropped into a defensive crouch. One that could easily turn offensive, if the situation permitted it. Though he should perhaps figure out where he was before attacking people. Who knew how long he had been unconscious?

Another thud sounded, then a clank. Multiple locks being thrown? If so, they had secured him well.

The thick, metal door squeaked open.

A woman stood there, her long red hair pinned into a swirling dervish atop her head. Two men framed her. They wore the black fatigues of army soldiers, though no rank pins adorned their collars. One appeared to be “the muscle.” He crowded the hallway with broad shoulders and tree-trunk arms that even Maldynado would have dubbed substantial. He aimed a pistol at Basilard, though the challenging sneer curling his lips said he would be happy to battle barehanded or perhaps with the sword sheathed at his waist. The surname stitched on his jacket read, LEV. The second man had neatly trimmed gray hair and wielded a clipboard instead of a gun. His tag read, TALONCREST. A warrior-caste officer involved in this scheme? Surprising.

The woman stepped inside first with no apparent fear of Basilard. The men followed after, one at a time, ducking and stepping over the raised frame of the door to enter.

“Greetings,” the woman said. “I have questions for you.”

Though Basilard would not have been in a rush to answer their questions under any circumstances, he doubted it was a possibility here. The soldiers would not understand his sign language, and he did not think the woman was Mangdorian. Though fair-skinned, she was not as pale as his people, and he thought she might be Kendorian or perhaps from one of the island nations between Turgonia and Nuria.

He touched the scar tissue at his throat and shrugged. Maybe they would not think to ask if he could read, though Arbitan had insisted Basilard learn that skill before he took over as head of security for the wizard.

“You can’t speak?” the woman asked, eyes narrowed.

Basilard shook his head and signed, Who are you? more out of habit than because he wanted a response. In reflection, maybe he should not have done that. Maybe it was better if they believed he could not answer their questions at all. Or would that mean they had no use for him?

The gray-haired officer’s eyebrows rose. “The Mangdorian hunting code?”

Basilard nodded.

“That answers your question, Litya.” Taloncrest scribbled something on his notepad.

“Yes, but race matters little for my experiments,” the woman said in a lilting, almost musical accent Basilard did not recognize. “I prefer Turgonian stock, given the goals of my clients, but your people have such muddied bloodlines that no one will be the wiser as long as we breed the foreigners with darker skinned specimens.”

Breed? Basilard caught his mouth dangling open, and he snapped it shut.

“If you don’t need him,” Taloncrest said, eyeing Basilard as he tapped his pen on his clipboard, “I’m sure I could use him.”

“You can have them all for your cuttings after I’ve taken my samples.”

“Excellent,” Taloncrest said.

“I can move ahead with him as soon as my sister returns with the anesthesia ingredients.”

Cuts were nothing new to Basilard, but Taloncrest’s smile and the enthusiastic way he scribbled notes on his clipboard made Basilard uneasy. As did the talk of “samples” and “anesthesia.”

“Your speed in the race,” the woman—Litya—said, “is that typical for you, or do you believe it was a fluke performance? Your agility must have impressed our boy, because he’d had another pegged as our last acquisition. I have no data on you however.”

Basilard clasped his hands behind his back. These people had nothing good planned for him, so he saw no reason to assist them.

“Taloncrest,” Litya said, “can you understand his hand codes? Can you make him speak?”

Basilard raised his chin. They could try to make him speak.

The young soldier stepped forward at this, an eager smile tightening his lips.

“I don’t know enough of the signs,” Taloncrest said.

“Maybe he’s learned to write Turgonian?” Litya asked. “Or does anybody here read Mangdorian? They’re vaguely literate, aren’t they?”

Basilard thought about waving for a pen, if only so he could attempt to stab the woman in the belly with it before the men stopped him, but it was probably better to pretend he could not write and did not understand much of what they were saying.

“When Metya gets back, we’ll question him under the influence of pok-tah,” the woman said. “If he knows anything, he’ll be eager to share it with us then, one way or another.”

“It didn’t work on Sicarius,” Taloncrest muttered, head down, scrawling notes again.

Had Basilard thought about it, he would have assumed Sicarius was here somewhere, too, but hearing the name startled him. He covered his surprise quickly and hoped nobody noticed.

He waited, hoping they would say something that would indicate whether Sicarius was alive or if they had already...disposed of him, but nobody spoke again. After Taloncrest finished scribbling his notes, he nodded to the woman, and the trio left.

The door clanged shut, and the locks thunked into place.

Basilard could only guess at what these people were up to, but he knew he wanted to be no part of it. If he was on a ship, steaming away from the city, he could not count on Amaranthe and the others finding him and rescuing him. He would have to escape.

He eyed the solid metal walls and the sparse confines of the cabin. It would not be easy.