Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood, Book 1) (5 page)

Maybe you can get
his
room number.

Jaxi!

What? He’s closer to your
age than this puppy. Or are you holding out for the general? He
doesn’t sound promising.

Before Sardelle could give Jaxi a mental slap
on the cheek, the colonel glanced in her direction. The glance
became a second look, a startled one. For a moment, she thought he
might recognize her somehow—her name and face were—had been—well
known, at least among the soldiers she had assisted. For all she
knew, she was in a book somewhere. But no, that didn’t seem to be
recognition on his face, just surprise.

He frowned at Rolff who came into an
attention stance so alert and erect that he was quivering. He
snapped his fist up for a salute.

“Corporal, why is this woman standing outside
in so little clothing?” the colonel asked. “It’s twenty degrees
out.”

“It’s… she…”

Sardelle almost felt sorry for Rolff, no
doubt groping for a way to explain her unexpected presence.
Almost.

After a few more stutters, he settled on,
“She’s a prisoner, sir!”

The humor that had warmed the colonel’s brown
eyes earlier had evaporated. “How does
that
answer my question?” His frown shifted to the
young officer at his side, who lifted his hands defensively.

“I’ve never seen her before, sir.”

“We found her in the mines,” Rolff said. “She
wasn’t even supposed to be there. The women work up here.” Rolff
flung a hand toward the laundry room—the door had opened, and the
laundry lady stood there. She couldn’t have heard more than the
last couple of sentences, but she caught the gist and waved her
clipboard.

“I got two new girls yesterday and no word
about a third.”

Sardelle thought about saying something, but
she didn’t have a cover story worked out that could explain the
confusion around her appearance. She was starting to worry that
between everyone’s babbling, someone would figure out she hadn’t
come off that supply ship yesterday, but the colonel had a
distasteful look on his face at what, coming in new, he must judge
as incompetence. Sardelle raised a single eyebrow—the winter she
had come home to teach, that expression had made her students
stammer with the certainty that they had done something wrong.

The colonel didn’t stammer, but he
did
look exasperated. He dropped his duffle bag,
unbuttoned his parka, and handed it to her.

“Corporal, get this woman some appropriate
clothing. Captain, I want her report on my desk within the hour.”
He grabbed his duffle bag and hefted it over his shoulder again.
“I’ll find my office on my own.”

“But, but, sir!” The captain took a step
after him, then paused, turned toward Sardelle, and held out a
beseeching hand. “I don’t know her number, sir!”

“Not my problem,” the colonel called back. He
muttered something else that sounded like, “What’s a damned
number?” but Sardelle couldn’t be sure of the words.

Grateful for the parka, she tugged it on. Her
teeth were starting to chatter. It was still warm inside, with a
clean, masculine scent permeating the lining. After standing out in
the cold, it was all she could do not to start snuggling with the
fur.

Corporal Rolff scratched his head. “Colonel
Zirkander has a desk here?”

“He does now,” the captain said.

“
Why?
”

“He’s relieving General Bockenhaimer as fort
commander.”

Rolff mouthed another why but didn’t voice
it. Whatever Zirkander was known for, it apparently wasn’t
commanding forts. At first, Sardelle found this new situation
promising—unlike everyone else she had met here, the man seemed to
have a conscience—but when the captain jogged off to look for a
report that didn’t exist, reality batted her relief away. This new
colonel already sounded like he was going to be more efficient than
the old general. Before, she might have wriggled through a crack,
but now? How was she going to explain her presence? And if she
couldn’t, what then? Would they assume her some kind of spy? Even
in her day, spies had been shot. She had better start talking to
people and come up with a plausible story, because she had a
feeling she would be called into that office before the day was
out.

* * *

A dusty directory that hadn’t been updated
since the
last
general was commander led
Ridge to an administration building, where he headed to the second
floor, searching for Bockenhaimer’s office. The roar of engines
started up on the other side of the fort. The pilot must expect it
wouldn’t take the general long to pack and catch his ride out of
this place. Ridge paused at a window to gaze out, the lump that had
been in his throat the whole ride out returning as he watched the
man go through his safety check.

“It’s just a year,” he told himself. “A year
in the deepest level of hell,” he added, his eyes drawn to the
forbidding mountains fencing in the fortress on all sides.

He had only spoken to five people thus far,
and he could already tell the place was a mess. Did he have it in
him to fix that mess? Just because he had returned from enough
successful missions to get promoted regularly didn’t mean he had
the experience for this kind of job. He had already made an idiot
of himself, gawking at that woman in the courtyard. He supposed
women could be murderers the same as men, but he hadn’t expected to
find any here, and certainly not one he would have ambled up to in
a bar and bought a drink. Admittedly, she didn’t seem the bar type.
Too calm. Too serene. Those pale blue eyes… they had been
attractive, yes, especially in contrast to that raven hair, but
they had seemed far too elegant for the dives he frequented. Not
that that would have kept him from buying her that drink if she
had
shown up in one.

“Yeah, Ridge. Drool over the prisoners here.
That’ll look good on your report.” He shook his head and resumed
his climb.

A lieutenant carrying a stack of papers was
coming out of a doorway, and judging by the quizzical expression on
his face, he had heard Ridge talking to himself. Wonderful.

“The general’s office?” he asked.

“End of the hall, sir.” The lieutenant
pointed, then glanced at a clock on the wall. “Though… I don’t know
if he’ll be, uhm.”

“In?”

“Oh, he’s in.” The lieutenant looked like he
wanted to say more, but shut his mouth and repeated, “End of the
hall, sir.”

“Thanks.”

Ridge dropped his duffle bag by the door,
knocked, and smoothed his uniform. He told himself he didn’t
particularly care what some retiring general thought of him, but
foresaw being reprimanded for the missing parka. At this time of
year, it had to be part of the official uniform up here. The cold
seemed to bite right through the wooden walls of the building and
creep up from the floor. For the second time, he wondered what
judge had convicted that woman and sent her up here in a summer
dress.

A long moment had passed, so he knocked
again. He shrugged and opened the door. The snores met his ears at
the same time as the scent of alcohol and stale vomit met his nose.
Well, that explained some things.

The white-haired man leaning back in his
chair, his head on the rest, his boots up on his desk, didn’t look
like he would have been awake—or sober—even if Ridge had arrived at
dawn. A tipped over metal flask rested beside the boots, and
several glass vodka bottles occupied the waste bin. A couple of
suspicious stains in the corner implied the floor had been vomited
on a few times—and poorly cleaned after the fact. In fact, a clean
circle next to a potted tree made him think someone had simply
pushed the stand over to cover up one such recent mess.

Ridge cleared his throat. “General?”

Only snores answered him.

Ridge walked around the desk, said,
“General?” again, and gently shook the man’s shoulder.

Bockenhaimer lurched upright, eyes leaping
open as he tore a pistol from his belt. Ridge caught his wrist
before he could aim it anywhere vital.

“General Bockenhaimer? I’m your
replacement.”

The general was scowling down at Ridge’s
grip, looking like he was still contemplating shooting this
intruder, if he could only figure out how, but his bloodshot eyes
lurched toward Ridge when the words sank in. “Replacement?” he
whispered.

“Colonel Zirkander, sir.” Ridge pulled out
his orders and the general’s discharge papers, unfolded them with
one hand—that pistol was loaded and cocked, so he wasn’t quite
ready to release his grip on the general’s wrist—and laid them on
the desk. “Your retirement went through a couple of months early.
I’m your replacement.”

“Zirkander, the pilot?” The general’s grip
finally relaxed. He moved to return the pistol to his holster, and
Ridge let him.

“Yes, sir.” He waited for Bockenhaimer to
point out that neither pilots nor colonels had the experience
necessary to command army installations, but the general merely
leaned forward to squint at the papers. “Retirement?” He leaned
closer, a delighted smile stretching his lips. “Retirement!”

Ridge resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He
wondered if the general had been a drunk before they shipped him
out here—could this place have been a punishment for him as
well?—or if commanding a remote prison full of felons had driven
him to drink.

“Yes, sir,” Ridge said. “If you could tell me
about the S.O.P. here and give me a few—”

Bockenhaimer jumped to his feet,
wobbled—Ridge caught him and held him upright despite being
surprised—and lunged for the window. “Is that my flier? I can leave
today?”

“Yes, sir. But I’d appreciate it if you—”

The general threw open the window and waved
to the pilot. “Wait for me, son. I’m already packed!”

Oddly, the wobbling didn’t slow Bockenhaimer
down much when he ran around the desk and out the door. Ridge’s
mouth was still hanging open when the general appeared in the
courtyard below, a bag tucked under his arm as he raced along the
cleared sidewalks.

“That’s… not exactly how the
change-of-command ceremonies I’ve seen usually go.” Ridge hadn’t
been expecting a parade and a marching band, not in this remote
hole, but a briefing would have been nice.

He removed his fur cap and pushed a hand
through his hair, surveying his new office. He wondered how long it
would take to get rid of the alcohol odor. He also wondered how
long that poor potted plant in the corner had been dead. Hadn’t
that young captain been the general’s aide? He couldn’t have had
some private come in to make sure the place was cleaned? Maybe the
staff was too busy guarding the prisoners, and the officers had to
wield their own brooms here.

Ridge was looking for the fort’s operations
manuals when a knock came at the door.

“Sir?” Captain Heriton, the officer who had
met him at the flier, leaned in, an apprehensive look on his face.
His pale hair and pimples made him look about fifteen instead of
the twenty-five or more he must be.

“Yes?”

“It’s about that woman… she said she was
dropped off yesterday—we got a big load of new convicts—and that
she doesn’t remember the number she was issued.”

“The number?”

“Yes, sir. The prisoners are issued numbers
instead of being called by name. Keeps down the in-fighting. Some
of them are prisoners of war and pirates, and there are a few
former soldiers, and some of those clansmen from up in the north
hills. It’s easier if they start out with new identities here. The
general didn’t brief you?” The captain glanced toward the
window—the flier had already taken off. “I guess he did leave
abruptly.”

“Abruptly, yes, that’s a word.” Not the word
Ridge would have used, but he couldn’t bring himself to badmouth
the general yet, not until he had spent a couple of weeks here and
gotten a true feel for where he had landed. “You don’t happen to
know where the operations manuals are, do you?”

“They should be in here somewhere, sir.” The
captain started to lean back into the hall.

“The woman’s report, Captain,” Ridge said
dryly. He knew the man hadn’t found it, but wasn’t ready to let
some prisoner wander around without being sorted or collated or
whatever it was that was supposed to happen here.

“Er, yes, sir. I’m not sure where to
look.”

“How about under her name? I imagine she
could supply you with that.”

“She did, sir. And I tried looking, but her
folder wasn’t with the batch of files that came in yesterday.”

“Perhaps already placed alphabetically?”
Ridge suggested. This kid never would have made it onto his squad.
Even when he wasn’t speaking, his eyes darted around nervously.
Waffly. Was that a word? He wasn’t sure. Maybe he would have the
kid look it up after he found the missing report.

“Uhm, the archive rooms are not exactly
alphabetically categorized. They’re more… well, the system was
already in place when I arrived.”

Ridge stood up. “Show me.”

The captain’s eyebrows rose. Ridge had a
feeling the general had never asked to see the archives. He also
had a feeling prisoners with missing files weren’t all that
common.

“Yes, sir. This way.”

Ridge followed the slender officer down two
flights of stairs to an icy basement that had him wishing someone
would have brought his parka back. Cobwebs draped old wooden filing
cabinets along with newer metal ones. Dust-caked folders sat atop a
lot of the cabinets, either left for later storage or taken out and
not returned. A few tables in the middle held boxes with more
files. If Ridge hadn’t known better, based on the dust collection
and the number of cabinets, he would have guessed the prison camp
to be hundreds of years old. If all of those storage units were
full of records, this place had to be going through people at an
alarming rate. There weren’t
that
many
barracks buildings up there, and while rummaging for the manuals,
Ridge had uncovered the most recent supply receipts. Food and gear
was being brought in for seven hundred and ten prisoners and one
hundred soldiers. There had to be thousands of files smothered in
the dust before him.