“Don’t make them dance this time,” Books said.
“Those are… Akstyr’s invention?” Amaranthe asked. “Are we sure?” The saliva gleaming on those fangs and the fur rippling on the stout limbs appeared realistic to her.
They must have appeared realistic to the gang leaders, too, for they skittered backward insomuch as they could on a street packed sidewalk to sidewalk with people.
“Amaranthe,” came Sicarius’s voice from behind her.
He nodded for her to step away from the corner. He’d found a coil of lightweight rope and a crossbow. Er, no, he hadn’t “found” the crossbow. Blood spattered the weapon and the back of one of his hands. He’d taken it from someone.
“Are the gangs in the warehouse?” she asked.
“A few scouts. I took care of them, but there’ll be more. I put a bar through the handle on the door leading up here, but there’s no way to lock it from this side. We’ll need to watch it.” Sicarius leaned over the edge of the roof, eyeing the rampaging makarovi. “That won’t fool them for long.”
He knelt to tie the rope to one of the crossbow quarrels.
“Best we can do.” Amaranthe had the blasting sticks in mind for a further distraction, if they needed them, though she’d prefer to save them for the makarovi—the real ones.
“Incoming,” Sicarius yelled, then fired the crossbow.
The quarrel arced high into the dark night sky. Normally it might have traveled a hundred meters or more, but the weight of the rope shortened its trajectory. It was enough. The bolt skipped down onto the roof and skidded toward Starcrest’s cage, wrapping around one of the pipes.
“Good choice,” Amaranthe said. “That thing looks heavy enough to hold the weight of a tightrope-walking makarovi.”
As Starcrest and Deret knelt to secure the rope, another blow to their trapdoor sent the crate skidding off the top. A gap appeared, and a long makarovi arm lashed out. The nearest soldier fired, but he was standing too close, and the claws hooked his ankle. He crashed to his back, the weapon flying free.
The second man had been leaping for the crate to shove it back over the trapdoor, but he forgot it, lunging to help his comrade. That makarovi paw pulled its victim closer. The soldier twisted onto his belly, clawing at the roof, trying to find a handhold.
Helpless from her spot, Amaranthe cringed, not wanting to see the man hauled through the trapdoor to certain death. His comrade caught his arm and threw his weight back, pulling in the opposite direction. The soldier hollered, his body stretching as claws ripped into his leg.
Starcrest and the others on the roof were charging toward the scene, but they wouldn’t be fast enough. The trapdoor was flung all the way open. A makarovi head rose, filling the entire space. Maybe its shoulders and torso would be too big for it to get out. The creature was still pulling its captive—pulling both men now. The standing soldier’s feet were slipping. In a second, he’d be on his backside too.
Though the soldiers were younger, Starcrest, with his long legs, was the one to reach the trapdoor first. He kicked the makarovi in the face and jammed downward with a dagger, sinking the blade into that rubbery flesh. The weapon didn’t pierce far—Amaranthe could tell even at that distance—but it surprised the creature enough that its grip loosened. The entrapped soldier was able to yank his leg free, and his comrade nearly tumbled over in his haste to pull him back from the trapdoor.
The rest of the soldiers came within range and fired at the black furred head. It ducked out of sight.
Starcrest thrust his hand toward the crate, saying, “Get something heavier to block that door,” then knelt to speak with the injured man, his words too soft to carry.
“He still moves fast for a gray-haired fellow,” Amaranthe said.
“Secure the rope,” Sicarius yelled. He’d tied his own end to a sturdy vent pipe and sounded slightly annoyed that everyone over there had turned toward the trapdoor instead of finishing his task. “Mancrest, you do it.”
Deret had limped a few paces toward the fight, but stopped when he saw the others had control of the situation. He waved an affirmative and soon had the rope tied off. Suan had run over to him. Was she volunteering to go first? Amaranthe couldn’t blame her for wanting to get off that cursed roof, but wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to climb fifty meters hanging from a rope.
“She needs to go last,” Sicarius told them. “The makarovi will sense it when she leaves the building.”
Footsteps pounded on the roof behind Amaranthe. “We have a problem,” Books announced.
“A new one?” She eyed the illusory makarovi in the streets. They’d stopped at the end of the building, a dozen meters from the crowd. The gangs had scooted back at the monsters’ appearance, but they hadn’t fled. Men were firing. Trust Turgonian men not to flee in the face of a battle, even grubby street thugs. It was only the darkness of the night that had kept them from noticing that their musket balls and crossbow quarrels were going through the makarovi instead of embedding in flesh.
“Not that.” Books pointed toward a corner of their building, one facing the waterfront. “Some of them have ropes and grapples and they’re trying to get up here, to get us. I shot one, but with the makarovi down there, they have a lot of incentive to want to get off the ground. More than simply money.”
“See them across,” Sicarius told Amaranthe. “I’ll take care of the climbers.” He took her rifle as well as his own and ran for the corner.
Two of Starcrest’s soldiers were starting across the rope. Amaranthe worried that it would give under their combined weight, but between the gangs and the makarovi, she doubted they had time for a safer, more leisurely crossing. As soon as the thugs below figured out they were facing illusions, their attention would return to the roofs. The gangs might attack the people on the rope, thinking they could also be outlaws with bounties on their heads. Amaranthe thought about announcing that one of the men on that roof was Fleet Admiral Starcrest, but didn’t know if his name would raise the same adoration in a mob of illiterate street roughs as it did amongst soldiers and more educated men. Those men down there might shoot him simply for being a Crest and for having been born with comforts and privileges they’d never known.
With Books and Sicarius running along the perimeter, targeting anyone who attempted to climb up, and Akstyr busy maintaining his illusions, Amaranthe felt she should do something more helpful than cheering for the men crossing the rope. She rummaged in one of the rucksacks and found a lantern and matches. If they needed the blasting sticks, they might need them in a hurry.
By the time she’d lit the lantern, the first two soldiers reached her corner. She helped them off the rope.
“Not a much better view over here,” one observed.
“It stinks less.”
“I don’t know. I smell urine. Why do people always piss on roofs? Or is it just that they do it in the alley and the smell wafts up?”
“That’s probably it.”
Lovely, Starcrest had sent his comedians first. “Could you two help those two?” Amaranthe pointed at Books and Sicarius. “We have gang members trying to—”
“It’s fake!” someone shouted in the street below. “All the makarovi are.”
“Wizard,” another shouted. “That’s Akstyr, he’s the wizard.”
“Kill the wizard, kill the wizard!” Men ran through the makarovi illusions, their chants rising in volume as they grew more sure of themselves.
Amaranthe grabbed one of the blasting sticks. A part of her wanted to let the gangs surge closer, in the hopes that they’d draw the real makarovi out of the factory, but it’d be a massacre, especially after Akstyr’s illusion. The youths wouldn’t know to be afraid of the flesh-and-blood creatures until it was too late.
Out on the rope, Tikaya and Mahliki were making their way across. A nightgown peeped out from Mahliki’s jacket, and she wore nothing but socks on her feet. Tikaya wore a dress and boots but no parka or gloves. As Amaranthe had feared, th
e factory had been caught unsuspecting—and asleep—when the makarovi showed up at the door.
While the women advanced, Starcrest stood on the rim of the roof, his feet planted on either side of the rope, a rifle raised to the hollow of his shoulder. Face set in stone, he was prepared to fire at anyone who threatened his family. Amaranthe didn’t think the mob had noticed the rope or the people crawling along its length overhead, and she’d keep it that way if she could.
“Distraction coming,” she called to warn the women—the last thing she wanted to do was startle them into losing their grips—then lobbed the first blasting stick.
It sailed toward the center of the street, a few meters ahead of the crowd. The stick landed on the worn cobblestones and lay there. The flame danced along the fuse, then went out. Amaranthe groaned. And here they’d been worried about the sticks being so volatile. So much for her distraction, and so much for demolishing that building over there. They’d have to—
An explosion roared in the street. Three stories up, the force of it was diminished, but a gust of wind still sent Amaranthe stumbling away from the edge.
She scrambled back, afraid bloody chunks of human beings would litter the street and splatter the walls. When she’d timed her throw, she’d thought the weapon would go off sooner, that it’d be a scare tactic, not a true attack.
The brick building walls weren’t awash in blood, but there were many injured people near the front. Limping, or clutching arms or torsos, they staggered to the sides, trying to find an escape route past their own men.
“We have more blasting sticks up here,” Amaranthe yelled. “Back off or we’ll throw them.”
“Wait until the women are across to use more,” Starcrest ordered.
Amaranthe winced, wishing he hadn’t yelled that—there were gang people close enough to notice him, maybe even decipher the words. On the rope, Tikaya and Mahliki had paused and curled in upon themselves, like turtles ducking into their shells. Starcrest’s face was grim, as if he was thinking about raising his rifle in Amaranthe’s direction. She gave a wave of acknowledgment.
Books jogged over to grab more ammunition. “Where are the blasted enforcers?”
Akstyr, still kneeling, wiped his brow. “Does anyone else think it’s strange that we’re trying to save those idiots when they’re here to collect on our bounties?”
Amaranthe shook her head, not having a good answer to either of their questions. “The enforcers are—”
A distant boom came from the depths of the city, and it took Amaranthe a surprised moment before she realized what it must have been. “Not the city,” she whispered. “The Imperial Barracks.”
From their rooftop perch, they could see past the miles of intervening buildings and to the top of Arakan Hill, to the great fiery blaze erupting from the center of the walled courtyard at its crown. Flames leaped into the black sky. Amaranthe couldn’t see the building or how much of it had been damaged, but one thing was clear: Sespian and the rest of the team hadn’t found one of the bombs.
Chapter 20
Sicarius stared, transfixed by the leaping flames. Sespian. He forgot about the gangs mobbing the street, the men banging at the rooftop door, and the youths scaling the side of the building. For a moment, all he could wonder was if he’d made a mistake in leaving the Imperial Barracks.
From across the rooftop, he found Amaranthe’s eyes, and saw the same fears reflected in them.
Her mouth moved. She was too far away for him to hear over the din in the street, but he read the words on her lips: “He’s fine, I’m sure if it. He knew there might be more bombs. He would have evacuated everyone. And himself.”
Yes, he must believe that. But, as she turned away to help Komitopis onto the roof, Sicarius let his gaze be pulled back to those flames.
Only when a ringing clatter arose from the center of the rooftop did he jerk his focus back to the battle. The bar holding the door shut. Someone had knocked it loose. Sicarius lunged in that direction, but a scrape and grunt from behind him alerted him to another danger.
He dropped and spun. A dagger swooshed over his head and clattered on the roof behind him. Two men Akstyr’s age had clawed their way over the edge, their eyes wide with anticipation—and greed—when they spotted him. One was recovering from the blade he’d thrown, but the other man held a pistol, his finger on the trigger. Anticipating the shot, Sicarius hurled himself to the side. As he rolled, he yanked out a throwing knife. He twisted and threw, and the blade lodged in his attacker’s eye. Sicarius jumped up, sprinting for the edge. Seeing him coming, the second man stumbled back and tried to catch his rope again as he disappeared over the side. He missed it and fell forty feet, landing on the mob below. Sicarius tugged his knife free of the first man’s eye before that body, too, tilted backward and dropped to the street.
After a quick scan to see if any more men had made the roof—Starcrest’s soldiers were engaged in their own battles on the waterfront side, but they were keeping the gang members from reaching the top—Sicarius ran toward the door. If Amaranthe and the others hadn’t heard that bar drop…
More men than he’d expected had already raced out of the stairwell. They sprinted straight toward Amaranthe’s corner, clubs, swords, and crossbows raised. She had her back to them, helping Mahliki onto the roof. Books knelt beside one of the rucksacks, stuffing fresh ammunition into his pouches. His back was to the mob too. With the clamor all about the building, they didn’t hear the threat.
“Look out,” Sicarius yelled, though at the same moment, Akstyr acted. Still kneeling, he’d been facing the door, and now he threw up an arm. A curtain of fire erupted from the roof between the team and their attackers, but not before three of the men ran into it. One screamed, but the others didn’t. Had they made it through? Or had they been enveloped in the flames? Sicarius, also behind that curtain, couldn’t see his comrades or anything around them.
“Wizard!” someone on his side of the fire shrieked. “There he is. Get him!”
Sicarius pumped his arm once, then two more times, hurling knives. All three blades slammed into the backs of those at the rear of the crowd. His targets went down. Two at the front hurled themselves at the flames, as if they believed them as illusory as the makarovi they’d faced. They screamed, their clothes catching on fire. They dropped to the ground, rolling. Those with crossbows fired, and Sicarius’s gut clenched. If one of those stray shots struck Amaranthe…
Someone on the other side of the flames fired a rifle, but nobody went down. His comrades couldn’t see through the flames either.
Sicarius leaped into the remains of the cluster of attackers, his black dagger in hand. He slashed two throats before the men knew he was there.
“Akstyr, get out of there—” someone shouted—Books.
Another crossbow quarrel zipped into the flames.
The fiery curtain vanished. Books stood at Akstyr’s side, his rifle raised like a club. Akstyr was down on one knee, a hand clenched to his side. Books parried the wild swing of a desperate man whose clothes had been seared by fire. Akstyr stretched out a hand, probably trying to bring back the flames, but his teeth were gritted against whatever injury he’d sustained.
Sicarius meant to sprint the last few meters to fight back-to-back with them, but one of the men who’d been burned by the flames scrambled to his feet. He swung wildly at Sicarius. It might have been an attack or nothing more than pained flailing—he didn’t take the time to sort it out. He slammed his dagger into the top of the man’s skull. Leaving his blade there, he grabbed a pimple-faced youth who was trying to run around Books to get at Akstyr’s back. When the man saw him, he tried to pull away, but he stumbled on one of his fallen comrades. Sicarius didn’t bother drawing another knife. He yanked the thug toward him with one hand and slammed the palm of his other into his nose.
Books downed the second of the two people who’d evaded the flames and almost reached Akstyr. He gripped Akstyr’s arm. “Are you all right?”
Knowing that door was still open behind them, Sicarius didn’t relax. He spun, intending to run back and jam the bar back through the handle. Two more men stood at the top of the stairwell, both with crossbows raised.
A mistake, the analytical part of Sicarius’s mind acknowledged, you should have secured the door first. These thoughts came even as he lunged for one of the serrated blades in his boot—he’d spent all of the throwing knives in his arm sheath with the first attack. He never took his focus from the men, but they weren’t aiming at him; they didn’t even seem to see him. Their eyes, filled with some sort of zealous hatred, remained on Akstyr.
“Look out,” Sicarius warned in the same beat as he threw his knife. He reached for a second as soon as it spun from his fingers, but he knew he couldn’t hit both men before they fired.
The serrated blade wasn’t balanced for throwing, but it slashed across his target’s neck, slicing into the jugular before he loosed his shot. The second gang member, however, fired before Sicarius’s second knife left his fingers. Hoping the crossbow had missed, Sicarius glanced at his comrades.
Across the pile of fallen bodies from him, Books had lunged in front of Akstyr. Now he crumpled to the roof, his hand clutched to his chest.
“No!” Akstyr shouted.
Sicarius ran for the door. His knife had taken down the man who’d fired, but two more gang thugs were about to lunge out of the stairwell. They saw their death approaching in Sicarius’s eyes and stumbled backward. Sicarius yanked the door shut, grabbed the pipe he’d used earlier, and jammed it back through the handle.
“Akstyr?” came Amaranthe’s voice, an uncharacteristic quaver to it. “Is he…?”
After another check to make sure no climbers had gained the roof, Sicarius ran toward the group, though he slowed before he reached them. Books lay on his side, facing the door. He wasn’t moving.