Трой Деннинг: The Veiled Dragon

“Many thanks to you, also. You save Emperor’s ship, and lives of many humble servants.” Hsieh bowed again, letting pass his façade of not speaking Common. He motioned to a corner behind Ruha, and an old man with a knobby, shaven head stepped out of the shadows. “Please to allow physician to see leg.”

“Physician?”

“The mandarin’s healer,” explained Hsieh’s assistant.

When the witch nodded, the physician kneeled at her side and set a box of carved ivory upon the floor. He pulled her tattered aba away to inspect the savaged leg. The constant deluge of sea water had kept the wound surprisingly clean, so Ruha saw that the fish had cut a circular laceration into the side of her thigh. The bite was nearly a foot in diameter, and in one place so deep she saw a white sliver of bone.

Captain Fowler clambered into the cabin and stepped brusquely to Ruha’s side, mercifully drawing her attention away from her leg. “How you faring? Will you live until I get my cog?”

Frowning at the half-orc’s swinish face, Hsieh stepped back and called something sharp through the cabin’s shattered doorway.

Ruha cocked an eyebrow at Fowler. “Surely, you do not intend to be rude, Captain.” She gestured to the mandarin. “Allow me to present you to Minister Hsieh Han Liu, Imperial Minister of Spices to the Emperor Kao Tsao Shou Tang—”

“Jade Dragon of Shou Lung and all civilized lands—I know.” Despite the undue emphasis he had placed on the word civilized, Fowler bowed deeply to the mandarin. “I’ve run cargo for the Ginger Palace a time or two—though I’ve never had the pleasure of boarding one of your junks before.”

Hsieh relaxed and once again called down the corridor, then returned the half-orc’s bow—though not so deeply, and without taking his gaze from Fowler’s eyes. “ Captain Fowler? Then you give order to attack dragon?”

“Aye.” Fowler nodded. “But it was the Lady Witch’s idea, and her magic that destroyed it.”

Both the mandarin and his assistant regarded Ruha with renewed respect, and the physician began to probe her wounds more gently. Hsieh bowed to Ruha again. “Forgive my discourtesy, but you do not call yourself Lady Ruha. Do you require anything?”

Ruha scowled, puzzled by Hsieh’s reaction. She was accustomed to strange reactions when people discovered she was a witch, but that did not seem to be what troubled the mandarin.

“Please, Minister Hsieh, I am not …”

Fowler’s head twisted ever so slightly from side to side.

Since the captain had at least some acquaintance with the Shou, Ruha decided to follow his lead. “Please, I am not accustomed to showing my face. I need a shawl and veil.”

Hsieh glanced at his translator, who said something into his ear. The mandarin scowled, and they had a short exchange, then the assistant bowed and scurried out of the cabin.

“Yu Po goes to fetch finest scarves from our cargo.”

As Hsieh spoke, the physician pulled a pair of silver tongs from his box. The old man opened the instrument slightly and slipped the jaws into the deepest part of Ruha’s wound, where she had glimpsed her white bone.

“Say if this hurt, Lady Ruha.”

The physician closed the tongs, then worked them back and forth. Ruha heard a faint crunching sound. She felt a gentle vibration deep in her hip, but her leg had gone so numb below the tourniquet that she barely noticed the metal rubbing her mangled flesh. The old man gave his instrument a final twist and withdrew a huge triangle of serrated tooth.

“When the fish attacked, I … I heard something crack,” Ruha gasped. “I thought the thing had broken my leg.”

“Leg fine. Bone strong.”

The physician returned his tongs to the ivory box and withdrew a handful of yellow powder, which he carefully sprinkled into the bite. Once the entire gash was filled with the dust, he half-whistled a series of strange, high-pitched syllables. The powder vanished with a flash of golden light; then a ring of brownish smoke drifted from the wound and filled the little cabin with the smell of brine and burnt flesh. The old man inspected the results, then took a hooked needle and a length of black thread from his box. When he began to sew, Ruha felt nothing more than an occasional tug.

The Shou crewmen soon pulled the raft’s last survivor, Arvold, into the cabin. Hsieh regarded the bedraggled sailmender with an enigmatic gaze, scrutinizing the shabby tunic and the length of rope that held up his trousers. He glanced at Captain Fowler, whose dress was only marginally better, then looked back to Ruha for an introduction.

“The sailmender,” Ruha explained.

“Put him where you can watch him,” warned Fowler. “He’s a hopeless thief, but he’s good with a needle. I’d hate for you to lop off one of his hands.”

Hsieh raised his brow at the frank appraisal, then spoke to two of his men, who promptly escorted the sailmender out of the cabin.

“They put him with others,” explained the mandarin.

“Others?” Ruha could not keep the hope out of her voice. She considered the sinking of the Storm Sprite her doing, and it would ease her conscience to hear the crew had survived. “How many did you save?”

Hsieh’s lip curled disdainfully, whether at the witch’s concern or the memory of the human dregs his crew had dragged from the sea, Ruha did not know.

“We save ten men,” the mandarin reported. “But tonrongs do not treat them well.”

“ Tonrongs? ” Ruha asked.

“Sharks,” Fowler explained. “The lions of the sea, ’ceptthey eat anything, and they’re always hungry.”

Hsieh nodded. “Yes. Tonrongs take limbs from four of your men, and they soon die.”

Ruha felt a guilty emptiness in her stomach. Unless they found more survivors, three-quarters of the Storm Sprite ’s crew would perish. She let a weary groan slip from her lips, which caused the physician to jerk his bloody finger out of her wound.

“So sorry, Lady! Did not mean to cause pain.”

Fowler regarded Ruha with renewed concern, then turned to the physician. “She going to die before we reach port?”

The physician’s shaved scalp turned an angry orange. “Not die at all! I treat Emperor once!” He tried to slip a finger under Ruha’s tourniquet and barely succeeded, then nodded his head approvingly. “Not even lose leg—maybe.”

Ruha mewled, then clamped her jaw shut to keep from showing any more fear. Despite her efforts, her lips began to tremble and beads of cold sweat rolled down her brow.

Hsieh spoke harshly to the old man, who paled and stooped even closer to his work.

“I tell physician if you lose leg, he lose leg. But if he fail anyway, I give you leg’s weight in gold.” The generous offer drew an astonished gasp from Fowler, but the mandarin was not finished. “Also, Emperor’s treasury pays for loss of ship, and more, when we reach Ilipur.”

Deciding it would be wiser to let Hsieh draw his own conclusions about who owned the Storm Sprite , Ruha said, “My business is in Pros, Minister Hsieh. I understand it is on the way. Perhaps you would put us ashore there?”

A look of chagrin flashed across the mandarin’s face. “All our gold vanish with dragon. Nothing left on Ginger Lady but spice and ylang blossom.”

“Nevertheless, I prefer—”

“Lady Witch, Ilipur’s but a short distance up the shore.” Fowler narrowed his eyes, trying to fill his glower with subtle menace. “It’ll take only a few days extra.”

Ruha returned Fowler’s glare with a disdainful glance. “And what of the people I am to meet in Pros? How long will they wait?” She looked back to Hsieh. “Put us ashore in Pros, and I will ask only one reward of you.”