Walking into the infirmary, Arthur frowned as he stared at the unconscious, heavily injured prisoner. He leaned over after he checked that the man was properly tied up, eyeing him to see if he really was still alive. The slow, regular rhythm of his breathing made Arthur nod in gratitude. At least the idiot hadn’t died on the way here. As he raised his hand to shake him awake, Amah Si grabbed it.
“Don’t,” she said.
Arthur tugged his hand free of her strong grip and suppressed a deep wince of pain that moving his torso had brought about. Though the way she was looking at him, leaning on her cane, he doubted he’d fooled her.
“Why not?” he said.
“He lost a lot of blood. And he’s fighting off your poison. Good thing it doesn’t kill, but he’s not going to wake anytime soon.” She frowned. “Not without a lot of stimulation, which we won’t be using.”
“Worried he’ll die if we do?”
“Yes. Eventually he’ll wake. In a few hours, maybe morning.” She hummed in thought. “Probably morning.”
“A long time to wait.”
Amah Si shrugged. “If you don’t want to kill him, then that’s what we have to do. Or we could wake him, keep him awake, push him until you get the answers we need.” Then she prodded his chest. Very lightly. “In the meantime, we clean you up.”
Arthur looked down at his shirt, the movement making him hiss a little. Nodding in acquiescence, he let her guide him over to sit down in a chair.
“I won’t heal you,” Amah Si said. “I can’t waste the energy. None of my people will.”
Arthur nodded. He understood that. Especially when he had his own healing ability that worked in the background. He’d probably be fine in a few days, maybe even in one full day. Well, except his good looks. He touched his hair, even as Amah Si finished cutting his shirt off.
Looking down at his stomach, he frowned. It was bloody, but when she had finished washing him the actual puncture wounds were quite small. All but the one where his assailant had yanked the knife out sideways. While she kept washing him down, eyeing the wounds, they returned to the conversation.
Better than sitting there, with nothing to do but focus on the pain.
“I can’t tell if you’re happy or sad about the entire incident and my choices.”
“Why do I have to be either?” she said. “You are the Clan Head as you’ve said all too often. I serve under you.”
“And that means you have no opinion?”
“I have opinions. But in this,” she prodded his body a little harder than she had to as she cleaned, “it matters not. You’ll choose and we’ll work it out.”
He sighed. “So you already know what he has to say.”
“Not know. I can guess though. Or learn of it a different way,” Amah Si said, smiling a little as she looked up. “I do have contacts.”
“Yes. You do.” He sighed. “All I’ve done is . . . useless? Like a pair of nipples on a man.”
“Not useless. If you manage it right, we’ll learn faster. That could be important, though I’d be hard pressed to guess why.” She finished with the cleaning, extracting some green poultices that she dabbed on his wound before wrapping it all in leaves and a rather stained roll of bandages. “Not choosing torture is not a bad thing. It’s not a path I would have walked on purpose.”
Arthur nodded, then breathed in slowly. Already, the poultice was numbing the wound further, the background ache fading. Thankfully, the damn cultivation technique he had learned seemed to include some degree of pain management.
He still felt a little foolish, having thought of the entire game on the walk over, only to be told that the older woman had it covered. Then again, that was the point wasn’t it? He was coming into the game a week late and a core short.
He’d catch up, eventually. until then, he’d do his best and let others back him up. And anyway, she did say that it wasn’t entirely a mistake. He might learn something important, tomorrow. In the meantime, as she stood up, raising more bandages to wash his face down, he made sure to grit his teeth.
This was going to hurt.
***
“About time,” Yao Jing said, yawning the next morning as Arthur wandered in. “This guy eats like an Englishman.”
“Some of us have better things to do with our lives than obsess over food!” the prisoner shouted, glaring at Arthur. “And if you think I’ll say anything, you’re wrong.”
“Sure, sure.” Arthur raised his remaining, unmarred eyebrow at Yao Jing, hoping that they had managed to get something out of the man. His self-appointed bodyguard waggled his fingers from side to side, indicating some information had indeed been extracted.
Well, some was better than nothing.
“Bedtime.” Yao Jing left the room, shutting the door behind him. Arthur took a seat opposite the prisoner, eyeing him and the free hand. All he got in return was an angry glare. Idly, Arthur ran a hand through his hair, wincing a little at the new shortened-hair look. Getting rid of the burnt hair had meant either going with an overcut look or just going short overall. A fade and shorter hair was a much better choice than an overcut.
Still felt weird. But at least his eyesight was fully back, without that slight haziness that one eye had borne last night.
Just as he was about to start speaking, the door swung open again and Jan wandered in. She went and leaned against the door, caressing her knife as she watched. Arthur considered asking why she was here but chose not to. It’d make him look weak and was outside the point.
“I don’t need you to say anything, exactly,” Arthur began.
“Really,” said the prisoner. “You think I’m going to fall for that trick. You going to tell me my friend told you everything you needed to know. As if I’m that dumb.”
Arthur winced internally. That had been the initial plan. Before he woke up and found the other man still sleeping.
“No. Nothing that crude. Your friend’s still alive. Sleeping. The poison in my kris was rather strong and I stabbed him rather hard,” Arthur said. “I don’t need you to speak because my people are already looking for information. We’ll find out who hired you, soon enough.” He smiled, a little grimly. “Or I could poke my head out, let them take another shot at me. And ask the next group.”
The other man met Arthur’s confident gaze for a long moment until he eventually turned away. For once, Arthur let silence linger in the room. Eventually, the man spoke, his voice soft.
“What do you want from me, then. Why keep me?”
“Not for your taste buds, certainly.”
“ENOUGH!” the prisoner roared. “If you really don’t need me, then why do you keep me alive?”
“Because I do want your information,” Arthur said. “But that information is on a timer. Once my people learn it through other means, then your information is as good as your restaurant recommendations. In other words, not much at all.”
“Enough with the food talk. I’m serious!”
“So am I.” Arthur sighed. “Once we find out what you know, you’re useless. Or if we find out from your friend. From my spies. From someone taking another shot at me.”
“Then? What happens to me?”
“What do you think?”
Silence grew between the pair, the man licking his lips. He glanced at the door, at Jan and then back at Arthur. Eventually, he opened his mouth to speak, only for Arthur to cut him off.
“I’ll also want you to join our clan.”
“What?!” Jan shouted.
“Huh?” the prisoner said.
“I want you to join our clan.” Arthur leaned in and smiled tightly. “Because once you start talking, you’re in with us. One way or the other.”
“You . . .” Eyes widening, he stared right back at Arthur, willing him to choose something else. However, he gave up and bent his head. “You bastard.”
“On the other hand, your friend gets to join you too. So you won’t be alone.”
“You’re going to make us both join you?” the man snarled.
“Yes. You think you’re going to be any safer out there? Also, the moment you join, you’re kinda stuck. So, in or out.”
“You keep raising the stakes.”
“Yes.”
Silence again and Arthur leaned back, waiting. He knew adding someone who might not want to be there was dangerous. On the other hand, Arthur needed people who could fight. Putting this thug in the outskirts, collecting cores, would benefit them. And it wasn’t as though he was inviting him into the inner council.
Not that the inner council would give away much information. You couldn’t exactly give away information that wasn’t there, for Arthur’s clan was newly in the process of building itself. Structures, personnel, and even their resources were constantly fluctuating.
“I hate you.”
“I hate you too,” Arthur crooned. Then, putting a kibosh on his idiot brain, he continued. “I can accept your feelings. Can you accept that you’ve lost?” Arthur said softly. Gently. Now was the time to lower the stakes, when the man was ready to give up.
“Yes.” He rubbed his face with his free hand, then looked down at the one that was still tied. “You think I could be untied? Stretch a little?”
“Sure.” Arthur said, letting his hand brush across the kris’s sheath and hilt as he did so. He walked around, undoing the knots even as Jan glared at the back of his head. He finished undoing the arms and then bent down, working the knots around the man’s waist and ankles before standing.
All through that, he was tense. Waiting for the man to grab at the kris. It was why he’d slipped the sheath guard over the weapon earlier, making it impossible to draw quickly. If his prisoner was going to try something, he’d need a weapon.
But there was no attempt. The prisoner stood rather unsteadily and using the table to slowly shift his weight. Blood rushed into extremities and he kept making funny faces, even as Arthur made his way back to his own chair.
“Michael. Michael Yeoh.”
“Nice to meet you, Michael. Arthur Chua. That’s Jan over there. No last name that she’s bothered to tell me.”
No answer to the obvious provocation.
Michael eyed the pair, before he shook his head, doing a few deep squats before he sighed. “Fine. I’ll join. What do I need to know?”
“Just two rules for now.” Arthur said, going on to explain them. After that, Arthur added him to the clan and watched the brand sear across Michael’s palm. It was all over quick enough. Then he asked, “Now, who sent you to kill me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie!” Jan shouted.
Arthur on the other hand waited patiently. He knew there was more. Had to be, for the man to have been so obtuse.
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I wasn’t one of the boss’s friends. But I can guess.”
“Then guess.”
“The Chin Family.”
“Oh god,” Jan blurted.
But Arthur could only nod. Because of course things would get worse.