Flamecaster (Shattered Realms, #1)(113)

Squatting next to her, he began to unbutton her jacket. She took hold of his wrist with her good hand. It was slippery with blood. “No,” she said. “I’m all right. Save your strength. You’re going to need it.”

“Shut it,” Ash murmured, gently pulling free. “I’m just going to see what’s going on. I might be able to slow down the bleeding.” He decided to keep her talking. “How’d you do with the explosives?”

“The ship’s all wired and ready,” Lila said. “For all the good it does us.”

“Could you set it off from here?”

“No.”

“I’m not saying now. I’m saying if it comes to that.”

“I’m not blowing up this ship with you on it. I promised my da I’d keep you alive, and I mean to keep that promise.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a key before now?”

“Well,” Lila said, “I didn’t have a key, not at first. By the time I got one, I was afraid you were going to get killed in an unsuccessful attempt on Montaigne. Or you were going to get caught and ruin my plans.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

“So. As long as you had the collar on, I knew you couldn’t use attack magic to do it. I’m just glad they never traced the snake and the poison back to you.”

“I told you. That wasn’t me.” Ash had continued working, and by now he had exposed the wound, a ragged cut that had bounced off her collarbone and into the shoulder. “Good news,” he said, releasing a sigh of relief. “It’s bleeding like a champ, so the risk of dying from poison is just about zero.”

“Hooray,” Lila said.

“If it makes you feel better, you were right. It was a bad idea to come here.” Ash pressed his fingers into the wound, trickling in magic. He had no time to do any diagnostics, but given the location of the wound, the blade was unlikely to have hit anything vital. Still, he had to stop the flow of blood, or Lila would bleed out.

A minute, two minutes, and the flow slowed to a seep. She could live with that. He took off his cloak and laid it over her to keep her warm.

Something bumped Ash’s shoulder. He turned, and it was the dragon again, looking at him rather plaintively.

“Look,” he said, “you’re going to have to wait your turn. I’ve got way too many patients, and vampire priests trying to get in, and—”

He stopped talking and looked up. Somebody was fumbling with the hatch. Ash stealthily rose to his feet, stretched, gripped the handles, and hung on. The hatch lid moved a little, so that he could see light around the edges, but whoever was outside was unable to lift both Ash and the hatch, and it stayed closed.

“It must be locked,” one of the priests said, pounding on it, the way people do for no good reason. Did he really think that if they were down there, they were going to answer the door?

“He must be down there,” a second voice said. “We’ve searched everywhere else, and the demon’s stench seems to be coming from here.” The hatch rattled again.

“I’m lead on this, remember,” priest number one growled. “We all agreed that I’m to be first to bleed the demon mage.”

“I didn’t agree to that,” priest number two retorted.

“You were there,” priest number one said.

“That was days ago. If you wanted first blood, you should have cut one of the other mages.”

“They aren’t the same,” priest number one whined. “There’s something different about them. Foreign-tasting.”

“We’d better decide before the others finish with the ones in the cabin,” a new voice said, “or there’ll be all of us sharing.”

“You are not in on this, Robert,” said priest number two. “Why don’t you go back and see how the others are doing? Maybe they’ll share.”

The squabbling continued, growing more heated. At least they’d left off yanking at the hatch, but Ash knew it couldn’t last forever. He found the collar and retrieved some of his smaller weapons, secreting them on his person. Not that he was likely to live long enough to use them, but still.

His flash was building, but it was like he was trying to stopper multiple holes in a crumbling dike. There was no way he could hang on to the hatch, heal Lila, and see to the dragon as well. He needed some help.

Which gave him an idea. Quietly, he let go of the handles, knelt, and began running his fingers over the floor.

“What are you doing?” It was Lila, her voice barely a whisper.

“Looking for the key. Ah. Here it is.” He held it up triumphantly, then looked it over. It was hinged, two half circles that seemed to fit together to form a tube. “How does this work?”

“This doesn’t seem like a good time to—”

“I’m going to free the dragon,” Ash said.

“Oh, I see. This situation isn’t bad enough, so you’re going to try and make it worse.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Ash said. “The dragon can be a distraction.”

“A distraction. Right. Being burned alive would distract me from my other troubles.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re just hoping it will set the ship on fire and then it’ll blow.”