Blade Dancer Read online

  trouble breathing.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Guide others as you would be guided.”

  —Tarek Varena, ClanJoren

  I was no medic, but I knew we had to get her cooled off. “Hey, Plas-Face! Get that water over here,

  pronto!”

  There was the sound of a scuffle and some vicious swearing before Renor reappeared, his crystalline hide

  smeared in a couple of places with some ominous-looking fluid. In one hand he carried a bucket, which

  he handed over to me. “This is all there is.”

  I collected our discarded bandages and dipped them in the bucket. “This isn’t enough, and I need more

  cloth.” Osrea shoved something stiff, threadbare, and soiled into my hand. I held it up with two fingers

  and wrinkled my nose. “That the best you can do?”

  Snake Boy took exception to that. “Considering we have no garments? Yes.”

  I took one of the soaked bandages and stroked it over Danea’s brow. Renor stepped back, while

  Sparky made a curious keening sound, then tried to shove her whole face in the bandage. A strip of faint

  yellow stubble suddenly appeared where her hairline should have been. That was when I learned a lot

  more about Danea than she probably ever wanted me to know.

  “Bring the bucket over here, Ren. How has she been keeping wet without any of us noticing her drip?” I

  asked as I reached for the handle.

  “Under her—” Renor stopped. If his sparkling face had been capable of expression, it would have

  creased with dismay. “A skin suit, worn under her clothing. How did you know?”

  “My best friend was part Imabjaic—half-fish.” Rijor had rigged a body seal under his garments, too. His

  species had to keep a thin layer of water between their sensitive derma and the elements. He’d always

  bitched about how his exposed face and hands had perpetually flaked.

  What would you tell me to do for her, Rij? How in hell am I going to keep her alive until we can

  get her into some water?

  I could almost hear his drawled answer. Do whatever it takes, Green Eyes. Piss on her, if you have

  to.

  I would, too, if it meant saving her life—and wouldn’t that thrill Sparky. For now, however, I’d use less

  drastic measures. I dumped all the bandages in the bucket, then took them out and arranged them over

  Danea’s chest. She shuddered with relief.

  “There. That should work for a little while, but we definitely need more water.”

  Kol touched my arm. “What is wrong with her, Jory?”

  “Our ClanSister neglected to tell us she’s an aquatic.” I dribbled more water over her lower extremities,

  avoiding the clogged gill slits on each side of her torso. “She’s simply been out of the water too long.” I

  put the bucket down and rose to study Renor. “Either of you could have volunteered this small detail, you

  know. Why didn’t you?”

  His eye slits contracted. “It was Danea’s choice to remain silent, and I was compelled to respect that.”

  We made some team. “Ren, without water, she’ll die. I think I’d have found a chance to mention that,

  somewhere along the way.” I looked around the filthy floor and in the bucket. “I need to clear her gills.

  Get more cloth so I can soak her down with what’s left of the water. If we can’t keep her wet, we can at

  least keep her damp. Ask someone if they’ll lend us a loincloth, and when our keepers are going to bring

  more water.”

  Nalek was moving before I said another word, and approached one of the biggest aliens with the most

  rags adorning its body. A moment later he came flying through the air to land on his backside.

  One big hand probed the right side of his face. “Don’t ask that one anything,” he said, pointing to the

  prisoner who had just socked him.

  “All right, boys.” I motioned to Kol, Os, and Ren. “Go persuade some of the smaller ones to cooperate.”

  I rolled Danea onto her back and checked the other sides of her gill slits. All of them were swollen and a

  couple were oozing. “Galena. Did they miss any of your feathers?”

  She turned and presented her back, and I found a small white quill stuck in where her winglets joined her

  spine.

  “Hold still; this is going to hurt.” I yanked it out quickly, and Birdie gasped. “Sorry. Thanks.”

  I used the feather to clean the mucus from Danea’s gills, then checked on the guys. They were arguing

  with a couple of runty-looking orange beings with pugnacious faces. “Hey! Quit the Smalltalk!”

  Galena touched my arm. “Jory, did the slavers take our ship out of the well?”

  “Since we’re still breathing, I think that’s a yes.” I saw how frightened she was, and smiled. “They’re going

  to wish they hadn’t, sweetheart. I promise.”

  Danea opened her eyes and tried to push me away with a feeble hand. “Leave me. Leave…”

  “Don’t you give me any lip, Little Miss Mermaid, or I’ll turn you into sushi.” I checked her pupils and

  pushed the rapidly sprouting new growth of hair off her dark brow. Her terrified expression made me

  soften my tone. “We’re working on getting some more water. Don’t talk and try not to move around too

  much, okay?”

  I took a few minutes to study our surroundings carefully. Something bugged me about this place, and not

  just the occupants. Then I began noticing things, little details that hadn’t been apparent at first. My unease

  shifted into suspicion as I counted heads and genders.

  The boys came back with a variety of split lips, bruised jaws, and limps. They also handed me enough

  shredded rags to cover most of Danea’s feverish, shivering limbs. The last of the water barely dampened

  them.

  However, what I’d spotted while waiting for the water convinced me everything was not hopeless.

  “Have you seen any guards around?” I asked Kol, who was pacing a protective circle around us.

  “No,” he said, then turned as a scrawny, smiling prisoner scurried over toward us. “What do you want?”

  “Heard you, heard you,” the gaunt-faced slave chanted in singsong Jorenian. He had an unpleasant smile,

  one that revealed double rows of chipped, stained fangs. “No guards, no guards at all, at all.”

  “Someone must bring food and water,” Osrea said, coming to stand beside Kol. Nalek took position on

  the other side.

  “Not often, not often.” Fang looked around before lowering his croon to a murmur. “Help her, help you, I

  can, I can.”

  Kol latched one clawed hand around the cringing slave’s throat. “How?”

  “Passage, passage, we go, we escape, there, there.” He pointed his arm toward one corner of the cell.

  “After they sleep, they sleep.” His arm swept out to encompass the other occupants of our charming

  accommodations.

  “Why are you so hot to help us?” I asked, rising to my feet.

  “Take me, take me, with you, with you.”

  His chanting began to get on my nerves. “What happens if we decide to stick around here?”

  “Breeding pit, breeding pit.” Three bulging eyes produced a lascivious gleam. “You breed, you breed,

  they sell, they sell, the young, the young.”

  Kol’s face darkened and he lifted the slave off his feet, Nalek’s fist clenched, and Osrea sputtered

  something obscene.

  “Really.” I scanned the cell once more, noticed the glint of a lens recessed into one wall, then nodded.

  “Thanks for the offer. We’ll get back to you.”

 
; Once Kol placed him back down, the slave practically ran to the other side of the cell. All four boys took

  up immediate, defensive postures around me, Danea, and Galena.

  “Kol.” I got to my feet and pulled him to one side. “We need to talk.”

  Several hours later, after I told the rest of the clan what I suspected, and pointed a few things out to

  them, everyone went beddy-bye and our new friend Fang crept over to our little corner of paradise.

  “Come now, come now, we go, we go.”

  Nalek picked up Sparky, while the rest of us carefully climbed over the slumbering bodies of our cell

  mates. The scrawny slave led us to the opposite corner, and gingerly rolled one of the orange-skinned

  midgets over before pressing a spot on the wall. A concealed panel slid to one side, revealing a dark

  passage behind the stone.

  “Here, here, we go, we go.”

  We followed Fang into the tunnel, and waited as he closed the panel by pressing a spot inside the stone.

  He gave us a disagreeable grin, then skipped ahead, capering and chortling. The passage branched off in

  two directions, and he disappeared around the right corner. Almost at once he ran back when he realized

  we weren’t following him.

  “Why you, why you, not come, not come?” he asked, gesturing with his arms. “Hurry, hurry.”

  “We just have a couple more questions, pal.” I nodded to the boys, who grabbed Fang and held him in

  place while I got up close and personal. “You said that cell we were in was a breeding pit. If that’s true,

  how come Danea, Galena, and I were the only females in it?”

  His three eyes practically popped out of their recessed sockets. “All dead, all dead, the other, the other,

  females, females.”

  I pretended to ponder this. “So what killed them?”

  He shuffled his weight from one foot to the other. “Don’t know, don’t know.”

  “That’s a shame. And these?” I tapped a finger against the implant in my chest. “Why don’t any of the rest

  of you have these little beauty marks? Why just us?”

  Fang gulped. “Don’t know, don’t know, you come, you come.”

  “No, I don’t think we’re going to do that.” I patted his filthy cheek. “But thanks for showing us how to get

  out of the cell.”

  Kol’s fist sent Fang to dreamland, and the boys carefully shoved the unconscious slave back into the cell.

  “You must be right, Jory.” Kol closed the panel and turned to me. “We should avoid whatever lies down

  the right passage. Let us make haste now.”

  We entered the passage opposite the one Fang would have taken us through, and began walking. The

  stone tunnel twisted and turned every ten meters or so, and complete darkness made navigating it a bit

  unnerving. Sparky was too weak to give off a glow, and the rattling sounds from her chest had started up

  again. Nalek refused to let anyone take a turn carrying her.

  “First priority, find water,” I whispered as the corridor seemed to widen, then took a sharp turn to the

  right. “Wait.” Everyone stopped. I concentrated. “Did you hear that?”

  Kol listened, too. “A mechanical plant? Drone units?”

  The faint chittering reminded me of the insects and rodents who’d infested the underground tunnels. I’d

  hated listening to them almost as much as the confinement itself.

  “Go slow now,” I said. “And stay together.”

  The corridor’s dimensions continued to expand, until it opened out into a large, empty cave. Warm, soft

  air wafted in our faces. At the other end I spotted a standard door panel set into the rock. There was no

  place else to go. I dropped my gaze, and found out why.

  “Perhaps it leads to the surface,” Osrea said, and would have stepped out into the cave if not for a quick

  grab by me. “What is it, Jory? I see no one.”

  I pointed down.

  What appeared to be solid stone was actually an uneven lattice of thin strip-rock over an open, active pit

  of bubbling molten magma. The liquid wasn’t high enough to spurt through the stone grid, but the threat of

  falling into it was obvious enough.

  “Jory, what if you were wrong?” Galena peered at the magma and shuddered. “This could be the way the

  slavers keep prisoners from escaping.”

  “Oh, come on, Birdie. Modern slavers employ a bit more sophisticated means to keep their merchandise

  safe. You saw the recording drones I pointed out to you in the cell. Plus everyone in there was a little too

  filthy, scarred, and ready to kill. They don’t look or act like slaves. They were bogeymen, put there to

  scare us.”

  “Perhaps they have not had time to adjust.”

  “They made it look like they’ve been there for years. Think about it—no slaver would waste profits that

  way. They sell whoever they capture as fast as possible.”

  Osrea eyed me. “You know a great deal about slavers, ClanSister.”

  “You should meet my former coach sometime.” Let him think whatever he wanted. “I know that whole

  cell scenario was just what it looked like—a setup to make us think we were being held by slavers.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know,” I had to admit. “But the answer is probably on the other side of that door panel.”

  Kol studied the obstacle. “We will have to do this in pairs. Osrea, take Galena. Renor, help Nalek with

  Danea. Jory and I will go first.”

  Hands linked, Kol and I stepped onto the widest piece of strip-rock, and discovered the surface of the

  rock was almost too hot to walk on.

  “This is going to be like strolling through hot coals,” I said, lifting one foot, then the other to keep them

  from staying in contact with the strip-rock too long.

  “Do not try to run.” Kol carefully tested his weight as he walked a few steps forward. “Come, it will

  hold.”

  And it did, for a few more feet. Halfway over the pit, the strip we stood on started to vibrate under us. I

  glanced back to see the others already too far from the edge to jump back.

  “Now would be a good time, Kol,” I said as some of the outer strips crumbled, “to run.”

  I didn’t run as much as let myself be dragged across the remainder of the strip-rock. Kol left me at the

  door panel to reach out to Osrea and help him with Galena, who was already in his arms. Nalek lost his

  balance and literally tossed Danea to Renor before falling down between the strips and grabbing the edge

  of one to keep from dropping into the magma.

  I yelled. Kol reached for Renor, helped him carry Danea the last couple of feet, then leaped back out on

  the lattice. Nalek was holding on to the rock with one arm, and swung the other up to reach for Kol’s

  extended hand. It took a minute, but Kol tugged Nalek back onto the strip. Just in time, too. That strip

  began collapsing, and they were forced to jump more than a meter to reach the edge.

  I didn’t start breathing again until they made it. By that time the entire lattice had collapsed into the pit of

  magma.

  “Jesus.” I sat down beside Danea and cradled my aching knee. The bottoms of both my feet had mild

  burns, too, but I didn’t care. Nalek was safe. We were all safe. “If this was the safe tunnel out, I’d hate to

  see what Fang would have made us go through.”

  “We have to keep moving.” Kol got up and headed for the door panel. “There are no access controls on

  this side.”

  “Let me try.” Nalek had some minor burns on his legs
, but that didn’t stop him from pitting his

  considerable strength against the plasteel panel. It began to slowly inch to one side. With a groan, Nalek

  forced an arm through the narrow gap he’d created, then shoved the door wider until it slid completely

  open. Whatever he saw on the other side made him step back.

  “What is it?” I moved over so I could see through the opening. A figure shrouded in black stood waiting

  just inside the panel—not the M.O. of any slaver I’d ever heard of. “Shall we introduce ourselves, guys?”

  Kol and Nalek rushed through the panel, followed by Osrea. There were immediate grunts, groans, and

  thuds. I motioned Galena and Renor, who was carrying Danea, back, then crouched over and rushed in.

  Nearly everyone was on the ground and holding some significant portion of their anatomy, with the

  black-shrouded figure standing in the very center. I came to a skidding halt and took a defensive stance,

  but I didn’t see any weapons. Evidently he’d knocked all three of them out.