Shatterwing: Dragon Wine 1

by Donna Maree Hanson

  A tug on her dress and it split down the back. Though her hands were bound, she managed to hug the remains of her clothing to her chest. Gooseflesh rose. She began to tremble. How had Brill borne being in the Inspector’s power? His attentions were enough to make her wet herself with fear. He reminded her of her husband—the baron. As soon as she thought of him, she tried to forget. She didn’t need to deal with those old demons now. Survival. That was all that mattered.

  The Inspector’s cool hand slid down her back, along her spine and then crossways, tracing her scars with his fingers, bringing her back to the present. With a sense of awe in his voice he said, “Well, they do say your husband was a bit of an artist. I take my hat off to him. Your back is a masterpiece. I can picture how he played with you … maximized your agony and despair. I really must apologize in advance. I’m afraid I do not have half his skill.”

  Salinda began to shake violently and a darkness in her mind threatened to overwhelm her. The cadre’s presence receded further with this fresh surge of terror. Whatever knowledge or power it contained was useless to her now. She couldn’t summon even a thought.

  A knife sighed from its sheath. Next her ankles were free of the rope. “You will come with me,” the Inspector said, placing the blade next to the soft skin of her throat.

  As she rose to her feet, all thought of fleeing, of begging, disappeared. A cloud of dread hung over her. She clenched the remains of her dress to her chest and resisted the urge to weep.

  Damp air cooled her back, which was wet with sweat. Unsteadily she walked on, trying to get her brain to function. In the slivers of sunlight, the sleeve of the Inspector’s pale-colored uniform glowed faintly mauve. Mentally, she forced herself through the only two options she saw open to her: throwing herself on the Inspector’s mercy, or confessing everything. Either way, she knew, he’d give her to the guards for punishment, perhaps torture her painfully over many days before the final kill.

  A swift kick from him and the door flew open, revealing another room. A square of blackness opened up. “Step in,” he said in clipped tones, removing the knife at her throat and pushing her ahead of him.

  It was like liquid tar inside. The smell of dark, damp earth was strong. Inside it was like a night without stars or moon or Shatterwing. In fright she dropped her dress and stooped to grope for it. She was still fumbling blindly on the floor for her clothes when the Inspector’s footsteps ceased. With practiced ease he lit a lamp, and used it to ignite others. With her dress hiding her breasts from him once more, she gaped at what the light revealed. It was another room, an underground storeroom, also filled with barrels of dragon wine—hundreds, perhaps more, stacked ten high.

  Her stomach lurched when she saw the darkened blood stains on a lone barrel in the center of the room and on the dirt next it. A pile of rope lay where it had been discarded. Salinda knew with cold certainty that this was where they had tortured and abused Brill. And now it was her turn. She swallowed sour bile and cast her gaze around, praying that Ange was not in there with them. Just the thought of that sweaty, smelly pig on her made her want to vomit.

  When she could find no trace of the guard, she felt a modicum of relief and began to rethink her story and her abilities. She comforted herself with the thought that, ultimately, the Inspector did not have power over her, could never break her; although the presence of so much valuable dragon wine distracted her. He must have been hoarding it since he’d taken up his post five years before. If watered down, that amount of wine could keep a nation alive for years.

  The Inspector stood three paces in front of her. He opened his arms to encompass his warehouse. “I see my private stock of dragon wine has snared your attention.”

  She felt compelled to ask. “Why do you keep it? You can’t drink it all yourself.”

  “Oh, it may come in useful in the future, you see.”

  Salinda shifted her head, lips pursed. “I don’t understand how you managed to hide all of this in here.”

  “You mean without you noticing?” He laughed again. “You with your nose to the ground, plying your paltry skill on the grapes in the far reaches of the vineyard? It was easy, perhaps too easy. It has taken me a while to build it up, slipping a few barrels down the ramps as the carts were loaded. Your view of the world is rather limited.”

  Salinda swallowed. “I still don’t understand why or what good all of this will do for you. There is no way out of here.”

  He rested his hand on a barrel about waist high and patted it. The dull thump indicated it was full.

  “Despite the plans of my superiors I do not intend to die here. I will leave and the wine will leave too. That’s where you come in.”

  Salinda’s eyes widened. “But you will be rich beyond imagining.”

  “Rich? No, I’ll have power beyond imagining. I will deny those who thwart me and succor those who support me … Well, if the mood takes me.”

  Trepidation rose within Salinda like a knife slicing up her spine. Could he really understand the importance of dragon wine? Surely his use of dragon wine on Brill’s injuries had been mere coincidence. She prayed that it had been. The Inspector’s eyes didn’t look so hard in the lamplight. They were shadowed and moody, as if he had feelings. He noticed her noticing and smiled … normally. She smiled back, although it was immediately clear that it had been a mistake to do so. His smile turned into a sneer and his eyes turned cold.

  “You wish to tempt me … to lure me with your sex?” He laughed, two sharp barks at the ceiling, and then backhanded her. She held her ground. No point in hiding her strength now. Not to be put off he backhanded her again immediately, and this time she reeled. There was power in that blow. Through a cut lip, she spat blood onto the ground and sniffed some up her nostrils. Holding on to what peace of mind she had forged for herself, she crouched and circled him.

  “Oh, good … you’re not squeamish then. I did wonder when you trembled in fear. A test of strength, do you think?” He crouched down, too, ready for a fight. He tossed his riding crop to the side. It landed with a dull plop on the floor. “I’ll keep that for later.”

  The Inspector moved quickly, his swift, flicking kick bruising her ribs and her arm when she tried to block the blow with her bound hands. She barely had the wherewithal to back-step from it. He was good, with an old regimental style of hand-to-hand combat she recognized. Salinda had barely any skill left after years at the vineyard, so had to rely on her strength and agility.

  He feinted to the right. Salinda overcompensated. Her dress fell from her grasp and tripped her, and she fell forward. Sprawling in the dirt with a cry of dismay, she stayed down when his weight hit her back, shunting the air out of her lungs and flattening her to the ground. When she could draw breath and tried to rise, she found she couldn’t move. His arms held her still as she struggled.

  In her ear he grated, “False modesty. I was never interested in your tits.” He raised himself up and slid further up her body, his chest on her back. At the juncture of her neck his teeth pierced flesh. Her voiceless scream silently echoed her pain as the hurt snaked through her body, immobilizing her. When he released her neck, he licked the blood. Salinda’s stomach heaved. She retched as he drank from the wound, mingling his spit with her bodily fluids. Then he flipped her over and pressed himself on top of her. Try as she might she couldn’t shift him.

  “Now do you see? I have imbibed dragon wine in its purest form every day for a long time now. And not just the common dragon wine—a distilled and concentrated essence. Secretly, I watched Mez as he taught you over the years. Then when I saw the connection Mez forged with Danton, I plucked Danton from him and dangled him for all to see so that I could force more information from the old man.

  “I know the secret of the vines. I eat the leaves as you do, but much more of them. Mez taught me how to brew and how to distil. Little did he know what I planned and what I did with the skills he taught me.

  “I refined his processes and went further than th
at old fool ever thought possible. I’ve come close to distilling the very essence of the dragons themselves—pure potency.”

  He nodded at her while she gazed at him in horrified awe. The essence of Mez within the cadre couldn’t deny it. His thoughts bubbled to the surface of her mind. He’d done it to protect her. The Inspector had threatened to take her from him unless he cooperated, and Mez had chosen to remain silent. He hadn’t realized the extent of the Inspector’s experimentation. “Oh, yes. I have more strength than you, much more. Pitiful girl. You should have listened to Brill and fled with him. But now it is too late for you.”

  “No, no … I did nothing. Brill fled by himself. I … hid in fear of the dragon. Believe me. I am more valuable to you in the vineyard.” Salinda hated how desperate she sounded, and knew that her words were pointless, but she did not know what else to do. “I can help you replant it … nurture it.”

  Using her blood, the Inspector drew lines across her breasts. “Red suits you.” He squeezed her wound so more blood leaked out. He used that to draw circles around her nipples. “You think I’m a fool like one of my guards. You are much more valuable to me out of the vineyard. You and Plu, that is.”

  Salinda stilled. Her fear was ice in her belly. The cadre shrank from the strength of it. She tried summoning Mez again, but he was gone. The cadre was in hiding, protecting itself.

  The Inspector nodded as she digested his words. “Yes, I was there, Salinda. I heard you with the dragon, Plu, and Brill. I don’t know how you managed to tame it, but for now I don’t care.” He placed the blade at her throat again. Her dress pooled at her feet. “When I get up, I want you to stand and walk to the barrel over there. Then you will lie on it face-down and not move an inch while I tie you. Understand?”

  Salinda’s answer was a moan that seared her throat. If he killed her the cadre would end. Even at her death, she couldn’t give it to him as that would be worse than losing that knowledge for all time. She had to stay alive. Had to. Thank the wing that he didn’t seem to know about it. When she nodded her agreement, he climbed off her, keeping his blade near her throat.

  The cadre still cowered within her mind, barely leaving a trace of its existence. It had power, but she was too new to it to wield it. Her job was to keep it alive. She knew what lay ahead of her as she walked naked to the barrel. She’d been at her husband’s mercy for six months. He’d come close to breaking, maiming and killing her, but she had survived it. Yet, when she looked at the Inspector’s face, at the evil that she knew lurked beneath his superficially genial appearance, she didn’t think she could do it again. He would break her.

  The barrel’s surface was rough against her skin, embedding splinters into the soft flesh of her stomach and breasts. He finished tying her over the barrel and fixed the ties with pegs anchored in the ground. He took his time tensioning the ropes to some precise standard. Thus tied, he was able to keep a firm pressure on her limbs and the barrel would barely move beneath her.

  “Your beloved husband was a lecher of boys.”

  She didn’t comment, didn’t want to remember the horrors she’d witnessed on her wedding night and the days that followed. Didn’t want to remember how he’d petted and spoiled the boys, then used them, abused them as if destroying their innocence was an elixir to be quaffed.

  Against her will, the Inspector’s words unleashed the memories, flooded her mind with unwanted and suppressed images. The riding crop landed across her buttocks with a thwack.

  “No comment, I see. Well, I can work things out for myself. You see I met your devoted husband years ago when I was just a lad in search of opportunity.” He licked along one of her scars. “I saw him at work. What an inspiration that man was.”

  Next she felt the hard handle of the riding crop probing inside her, stretching her. She tensed at the pain.

  “You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?” He thrust the riding crop in and pulled it out again. “See, I was right.” Moving in front of her, he exhibited the bloodied implement. “He was dickless after all.” He walked behind her again and shoved the crop back in, and she bit down to stifle her outcry. “Then Danton must have been as well, as you obviously didn’t fornicate with him either.” He paused in his assault. “Why is that, I wonder? I find it hard to credit. I found Danton delicious too, extremely well endowed … willing. I had a hard time keeping him sated.” He let out a sharp, brittle laugh.

  Salinda tried not to let the memory of that time and what Danton suffered affect her. She knew the Inspector was trying to undo her mentally as well as physically.

  “You cared for him, didn’t you? Was your virginity too precious even for him?”

  The Inspector knelt down in front of her, lifted her head by the hair and peered into her face. “Remembrance is hard, isn’t it? Your husband made you watch him, I’ll bet. He made me watch, too … made me do things. Many things.

  “He had me as well, even though I was older than he usually preferred. But I begged him to use me because I wanted him to master me as I will master you.

  “I see the judgment in your expression. You wonder why someone like me would want to let someone like the baron … Yet, how was I to advance? Men like him had all the power and the strength and all I had was my youth, my looks, my charms and my mind. Oh, yes.”

  He stood and walked away, slapping the riding crop rhythmically against his thigh, leaving her virginal blood staining his trousers in wide, dull lines. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  Salinda blinked, wondering what he meant.

  “I remember it clearly—you in your fancy gown, tits overflowing and striding down the hall, me flattering you, asking for your assistance to advance myself. Your face, your look of absolute astonishment before your stunned smile dissolved into laughter. You laughed at me. Laughed.”

  A tear slid down her cheek and pooled on her lips. The fact that he had known her then was a wedge that split her armor, revealing her vulnerabilities. She shook her head, sniffed. “I don’t …” Yet she cast her mind back to those early days when she was trapped like a bird in a cage with a crazed husband.

  She vaguely remembered a man who had flattered her, suggested things to her, asked for advancement. His request had made her laugh because to do otherwise would have meant crying. She was a powerless victim herself.

  An image of the man’s eyes left their mark on her. There had been something warm in them then. When she glanced at the Inspector she could see that none of that warmth remained now.

  “No matter. You laughed then but you won’t laugh now.” He stood and stared into the shadows. “He was … creative. It was the only way he could find fulfillment, you know, watching others suffer and die. I have been waiting for this moment, Salinda, and finally I see how it was for him, how potent that moment feels. Now that all my plans are coming to fruition, I want to savor your pain. Like an apprentice I want to surpass him, I want to be an artist like your husband was … only better.”

  After a few strokes from his lash, Salinda regretted the day of her birth. If only she’d been strangled as her father had suggested. He had wanted sons and ended up cursed with daughters. When the act was passed allowing the sale of women, her father had told her it was about time he got something from her miserable existence. Well, she was more than miserable now. She shook with the force of her fear. The Inspector’s words had rocked her. He knew her, knew her past, her husband. He had dangerous knowledge about dragon wine, too. Oh Mez, what have you done? With that knowledge he could undo her. That was her greatest fear: that he would unlock her secret pain. The one even Mez didn’t know about. And Mez, her beloved mentor, had not been the perfect man she’d thought he was. It was too hard to bear.

  The Inspector slapped her face, denying her any memory or thought. “You really can’t debase anyone until you humiliate them, you know, and take away everything from them. Don’t you agree?”

  When she didn’t answer he grabbed her head by a handful of hair. “Speak! Tell me how you
called the dragon!”

  Salinda remained mute. He continued the assault, preferring the riding crop to belt the bare skin of her back and buttocks until she fainted. When he woke her with a dousing of dragon wine, the sting was like liquid fire. It hit her blood and felt as if it were burning away her intellect. Screaming made her throat feel as though she had swallowed razors.

  When her strength left her, she lay sagging against the barrel. The Inspector poured something into a small goblet. The liquid glowed faintly blue. He sat there and sipped it, watching her silently. He refilled the goblet. “You will summon the dragon for me when it is time,” he said confidently.

  Salinda couldn’t have replied even if she’d wanted to. The aftertaste of full-strength dragon wine thudded through her body and it both accentuated and dulled her senses.

  The Inspector took her silence for denial and frowned, crushing the cup in his fist. Dark red blood oozed out between his clenched fingers. “I see … I’ll send Ange down. He will keep you entertained while I make my final plans.”

  And he did.

  *

  It was dark and silent when Salinda came to and drew in a ragged breath. She was lying in the dirt in the underground warehouse, covered in filth and blood. She retched at the memories she couldn’t obliterate. Strangely enough she was alive, and relieved to be so, even though death would have brought the cessation of pain and humiliation.

  She remembered how the Inspector had watched, instructed and laughed while Ange had her. He had been exhilarated by her hurt, had enjoyed directing his lackey, and marveled at how eager Ange had been to execute his commands.

  Moving slightly, Salinda hurt as if her skin was ripped and broken everywhere. She inhaled again and smelled burned flesh. She trembled then, because she remembered that the Inspector had branded her with a hot iron. Not with his name or coat of arms as he would have a slave. No, he’d branded her a witch.

  Worse still, he’d dyed her lips, nipples and vagina red with a tincture of distilled dragon wine. He’d said he liked her dressed in red. The memory seared her mind like the sting of the tincture had. How he’d loved her humiliation. “Stings, does it? My poor little whore.” He’d laughed then, enjoying her silent pain.