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“Be quiet or die,” I whispered in his ear.

He chose quiet.

I dragged him to the far side of the scrap heap and shoved him to his belly, then bound his hands behind him with strips of his own shirt. Jerking him back to a sitting position, I took my dagger and pressed the blade crossways to his throat.

“How many ships like this does Vohanna have?” I asked him.

“I’ll tell you nothing,” he growled.

I slapped him. “How many?”

He set his face grimly. There was blood at the corner of his mouth. I chuckled. He looked at me. Deep from within his eyes came a red flicker, like heat lightning, and nestled amid tattooed lines on his forehead was a glittering dot that marked a piece of milkstone. He was controlled. Like Eric Ryall had been. Again I chuckled, and lifted the dagger to press the point just below his speck of toir’in-or stone.

“If I cut this thing out...,” I mused.

The man’s face paled.

“Yes,” I continued, as if contemplating some deeply philosophical question. “I wonder how long it would be before Vohanna noticed? And what she’d do when she realized?”

The man shook his head. His eyes were wide. I leaned closer until my face was barely an inch from his. I pressed the tip of the dagger hard enough against his forehead to bring a tiny spot of blood that wicked in red lines around the border of the toir’in-or.

“Have you seen how Vohanna gives death to those she thinks have failed her?” I asked in a whisper. “Have you heard them scream? How many ships like this are there?”

“Four,” the fellow blurted. “There are four. Please don’t!”

I relaxed a little of the pressure that I held on the dagger.

“What other forces does she have?” I demanded.

There was no resistance left in the man now. Thoughts of his goddess’s punishments terrified him. He licked dry lips as he answered.

“A few smaller flyers. Mostly she has bird riders, though. Thousands of them.”

“And the new weapons?” He knew what I meant.

“Only the big ships carry the cannon,” he said. “The blast quarrels are common. Many warriors will have them when the time comes.”

I sighed. By using the English terms “cannon” and “blast” the man had proven to me where the secret of gunpowder had come from.

Then something else he’d said registered. “Will have them?” I asked. “Where are the quarrels now?”

His gaze flicked down from mine. His shoulders slumped. “Stored in the ships,” he said. “With the loads for the cannon.”

“All right,” I said. “Now, I’m assuming the white glyphs that mark the exits from this cavern are some kind of map grid. Which ones will take me to the other ships? And which will take me to Vohanna?”

He described the pictographs I wanted and I drew them in the dirt for him to verify. Then I committed them to memory. I stripped off his helmet and placed it on my own head, and took his cloak and slung it about me. I tied him by his wrists to a block of rusted metal behind him. Before I gagged him I asked him one last question.

“Have you seen a man who travels with Vohanna? With white hair and a false hand? His name is Bryce Maclang.”

The man shuddered. His voice cracked as he answered.

“Yes. All have seen him. None have wished to. He is always with the goddess. ’Tis said he is a demon that she conjured to aid her.”

I growled. “He is only a man,” I said. “Just a man.”

The fellow started to protest and angrily I stuffed a gag made from the remnants of his shirt into his mouth and tied it off. I rose then, pulling his helmet down to shadow my face and drawing his cloak about me. Turning, I strode toward the airship where it crouched like a metallic dragon ready to leap into the sky.

Only once did I glance back, to see the bound guard’s eyes wide and glistening above his gag. One thing was clear. He did not believe my brother to be, “just a man.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

WHEN BATTLE IS JOINED

Wearing the helmet and cloak of a guard, I strode without a challenge through the slack defenses around the massive airship. Only once did I even have to pause, when the scarlet-cloaked