“How deep are we?” Sicarius asked as he checked the gauges.
“Books estimates three to four hundred feet,” Amaranthe said.
“I’ve studied free diving. I can make it out.”
“What’s free diving?” Maldynado asked.
“Employing mind-body control techniques to maximize the effectiveness of the mammalian diving reflex.”
Maldynado’s brow furrowed and he mouthed, “What?” at Amaranthe.
“I think it means he’s good at holding his breath,” she said.
“Oh.”
Sicarius twisted a wheel, turned a lever, and they moved on.
Amaranthe was about to ask him if the vessel should be lifting yet when they rounded a corner and entered an occupied corridor. Two guards stood before a set of controls similar to the other ones.
The men carried pistols, but Sicarius never slowed. He strode toward them as determined as death. One of the guards reached for his firearm, but he took one good look at Sicarius and backed away. Both men turned and ran.
Sicarius must have deemed them no threat, for he stopped at the controls without bothering to hurl knives into their backs. Maybe Amaranthe’s influence was mellowing him. Right. Or maybe their situation was so dire there was no time for knife play. As far as she could tell, the vessel had yet to budge.
“How come no guards turned and ran from us when we were infiltrating the place?” Maldynado asked.
“Their employers were conscious,” Amaranthe said, “and their ship wasn’t half-destroyed, so they had higher morale.”
“Oh, good. I’d hate to think that even naked, Sicarius is scarier than us.”
Sicarius finished with the controls and took off.
They threw the last lever in the forward section of the vessel and returned to the transition chamber where the team had first entered. Akstyr, Books, Basilard, and some of the athletes waited there. All of Books’s charges had found clothing, if only the white jackets the practitioners wore, which left Sicarius as the soul nude member of the group. He did not seem to care.
“Are the practitioners subdued?” Amaranthe asked.
“You mean those stinking wizards?” one athlete asked with a sneer. “They’re taken care of.”
“They’re strapped down so the marines can pick them up when they board,” Books said. “We weren’t sure how to operate the drugging mechanism, but we tossed a couple more of those vials into the room before we left.” He shrugged. “Best we could do. I left a couple of women there to warn us if anyone stirs. I didn’t know if one of us should stay or if you’d need us for the next phase of your plan.”
The next phrase of her plan. That sounded very official and organized. If only that were the truth.
“Thank you, Books. Sicarius, how long should it take for air to fill the tanks and for us to rise?” If they were going to.
“Soon,” Sicarius said.
Some of the athletes stirred again at the mention of his name. They were probably wondering why the city’s most notorious assassin was helping them. Maybe it was time to make sure her charges could tell the journalists about their rescuers.
“I’m Amaranthe Lokdon,” she told them. “We’re an outfit called The Emperor’s Edge. I bring this up in case you want to mention it to someone later on.”
Books chuckled. She wondered if she should further tout their merits. There wouldn’t be a chance once they were on the surface and the marines were swarming onto the foreign craft. Amaranthe certainly wasn’t planning to stick around then. Just because Deret had talked his brother into checking out the laboratory did not mean—
The floor tilted.
Amaranthe caught herself on the wall. Was it another attack? No, she had not heard an explosion.
“We’re rising,” Books said.
The floor titled further, and Amaranthe braced herself.
“Lopsided as a drunken marine,” Maldynado said. “Who’s driving this boat?”
Basilard signed, Are there still people in navigation?
“No,” Amaranthe said. “We convinced them to come out and join the others on the deck in front of your hatch. It seemed logical at the time.”
Convinced? How?
Amaranthe twitched a shoulder. “A little palavering.”
Basilard lifted an eyebrow at Sicarius and signed, No eyeball required.
Amaranthe frowned, wondering if she had misread a sign. Eyeball? That did not sound right.
Sicarius’s eyes glinted though, and he signed back, As predicted.
It felt strange to be on the outside of a joke between Sicarius and someone else. More than strange—a twinge of jealousy reared its head. She stomped it down. It was good for the men to bond, those two especially.
The vessel left the lake bottom with a scrape. Amaranthe checked the nearest porthole.
The orange exterior lights still shone, but a cloud of sediment was rising with them, and dust swirled about. A startled school of fish flitted close enough to the porthole to see, but more than a few feet away, the haze obscured everything.
Amaranthe started to return to the group, but her men had come to join her. She rapped her knuckles on her helmet. “Everyone with suits, get ready. We’ll assume the kraken is troubling the marines and take the harpoons out to help with it. We’ll exit roughly twenty feet before reaching the surface.” Assuming the dust cleared and they could tell when the surface drew close. “Based on what I’ve seen of this place from the outside, it’s the sort of craft most sane people would shoot at on sight and wait to investigate until it’s capsized and dragged up on a beach. Any questions?”
“If the marines are handling the kraken, we can use that as a distraction and swim away,” Sicarius said. “There’s no need to risk ourselves against it.”
“We’ve already had a run-in with the thing,” Amaranthe said. “It may be more than the marines can handle unless they get creative with their thinking.”
“Like we’re going to.” Books smiled.
“Explain,” Sicarius said.
Books launched into his spiel about the poison and how they meant to get the kraken to suck the keg into its vulnerable core. Amaranthe checked the porthole again. The sediment cloud still swirled about, though the density had lessened. They were making progress, albeit slow progress. She hoped the ship didn’t get stuck mid-ascent.
“That plan is dangerous,” Sicarius said. Though he was responding to Books, his gaze settled on Amaranthe.
She spread her arms. “They usually are.”
“What if I can’t swim?” a young woman asked.
“Find someone who can and who thinks you’re cute,” Amaranthe said.
“Why does cuteness matter?” Books asked.
“Would you let a woman drown if you thought she was cute and would be utterly grateful to you for saving her life?”
“I wouldn’t let a woman drown under any circumstances,” Books said.
Amaranthe arched her eyebrows.
“But especially not ones such as you described,” he admitted.
Sicarius took Amaranthe’s arm and guided her several steps from the athletes. “I assume you are planning on this course of action regardless of what I do or say.”
Amaranthe thought of Books’s advice. Was she being reckless again with this plan? “We’ll only do it if the marines look like they need help.”
“I’ll take the keg then. You’ll be clumsy and slow in that suit.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly. “Me specifically, or anyone in a suit?”
“Anyone, but you were planning on taking the risk, I assume.”
She blushed. True.
“Since I have no suit to drag at me,” he said, “I’ll be the logical choice.”
“So that’s why he’s insisted on running around naked all day,” Maldynado muttered to Akstyr.
Sicarius leveled a cool back-out-of-our-conversation stare down the corridor. Maldynado lifted his hands and turned to gaze out the porthole.
r /> “All right,” Amaranthe said, drawing him a few more steps away, though part of her did not want to let him take the role. Emperor’s teeth, she had just rescued him, and now he wanted to risk his life again. But he was her most skilled man, not some vulnerable neophyte. It made sense to use him for the dangerous work. “You’ll take the keg, but be careful, please. Don’t risk holding your breath so long that you pass out and sink to the bottom.”
“You don’t believe I’m cute enough to rescue?” he asked, deadpan.
“Oh, you’re decent.” She gave him a once over before remembering how nude he was. Her blush belied her offhand tone. “But we’ll be busy shooting harpoons into this beast to distract it for you. At least take someone to help you.”
Sicarius raised his voice to say, “Basilard.” He pointed upward.
Amaranthe would have picked someone who wasn’t injured, but they exchanged nods of understanding. She wondered what the two had talked about while incarcerated down here.
Maldynado cleared his throat. “Just in case anyone was concerned we wouldn’t get to play with the kraken, it’s still alive, and—” he leaned closer, cheek pressed against the porthole, “—it’s got the marine ship wrapped up tighter than lovers tangled in the sheets.”
Amaranthe darted to the porthole. The sediment cloud had disappeared, and they were thirty or forty feet from the surface. The depth did little to mute the brilliant morning sunlight, and she had no trouble making out the black hull of the Saberfist. It had to be a substantial ship to do its job, but the tentacles curled along the bottom of it made it appear insignificant. To the side of the vessel, more tentacles swirled about like live snakes in a pit.
The current brought something large in to thump against the porthole. It must have bumped the hull, too, because lightning streaked out, surrounding it and illuminating it all too well.
Amaranthe’s stomach curdled. It was a body in a marine diving suit, one leg torn off.
“Ew,” Akstyr said. “That one’s a kraken snack.”
Annoyance flared within Amaranthe, and she almost snapped at him to show respect. But she bit her lip. Though she had arranged this “distraction” and felt—was—responsible for any marines who died down here, Akstyr had no reason to care about them.
“Ready your suits. We’re going out.” Amaranthe plunked her helmet over her head and started screwing the fasteners together. “Everyone who’s not on my team, stay here and wait for the marines to get you. And don’t forget. When they ask you who came down to help you, I’m Amaranthe Lokdon, that’s Sicarius, and we’re The Emperor’s Edge. You can tell that to any journalists who happen by, too.”
Maldynado cleared his throat, probably planning to deliver his own parting words, words that touted his copious merits. Amaranthe opened the hatch to the transition chamber and pushed him inside. She handed him a harpoon launcher and grabbed one for herself. The rest of the men piled in behind her. Helmets clanked against each other as everyone squeezed to fit inside. It had been tight before, with the four of them, and now they had two more men squished amongst them.
Sicarius stood next to her, holding the keg. Maybe she should offer some heartfelt parting words, in case...
“Be careful,” was all she could manage with so many witnesses around.
He gazed into her faceplate and gave her a solemn nod. He understood.
“Basilard,” Amaranthe said, “open the door when you’re ready. The water will come in fast.”
He nodded and squeezed between Maldynado and Books.
“Easy,” Maldynado told him. “Watch what you’re grazing with that harpoon.”
“He doesn’t have a harpoon launcher,” Akstyr said.
Maldynado stared at him.
“Oh,” Akstyr said. “I get it.”
With his dagger clenched between his teeth, Basilard gripped the wheel to the hatch. He took a few deep breaths in preparation. Beside Amaranthe, Sicarius took a different approach. He stood still, body relaxed, eyes hooded, like some Daikon mystic deep in a meditation routine.
Basilard opened the hatch, and water flooded into the chamber. Amaranthe waited, making sure Sicarius and Basilard slipped out before she maneuvered for the exit.
Sunlight filtered through the water from above. Their rate of ascent had slowed, and they were still twenty feet from the surface. Another of the thick, dark purple tentacles had snaked beneath the Saberfist. Even as she watched, one of the free ones thrust out of the water. From her viewpoint, she could not see what it did on the deck, but two men flew overboard on the opposite side of the ship.
Amaranthe hefted her harpoon launcher and gestured for her team to fan out around the laboratory. They would have to convince the kraken to leave the Saberfist and swim for Books’s plan to work. Sicarius and Basilard were already angling toward the surface. Maldynado, her strongest remaining swimmer, headed in to make the first shot, to lure the beast downward. Books, Akstyr, and Amaranthe treaded water near the top of their vessel and waited, harpoons ready.
CHAPTER 18
Cold water streamed past Basilard. He followed Sicarius toward the surface, kicking and stroking with his good arm. For the moment, he carried his dagger clenched between his teeth. Clear water surrounded him, but, without a mask, images were blurry and indistinct, though he had little trouble making out the kraken’s massive form.
Someone—was that Maldynado?—was swimming toward its underbelly. He stopped ten or fifteen feet below the kraken and lined up a shot. He ignored the tentacles—though he was careful not to swim too close to them—and fired at the creature’s giant mantle.
The harpoon streamed toward it and sank into the purple flesh. Though it appeared small next to the creature—like a toothpick protruding from a bear’s hide—the kraken must have noticed it, for it whipped a tentacle up and batted at the intrusion. The harpoon fell out and sank, disappearing into the lake depths.
Another tentacle dropped away from the bottom of the ship and snaked toward Maldynado. On land, he could have dodged the attack, but Sicarius was right. The water and suits made people slow. Despite Maldynado’s quick kicks and strokes to the side, the tentacle clipped him on the shoulder. He spun backward in a clumsy somersault.
Basilard grabbed his dagger, thinking to go in and help, but Amaranthe and Books were kicking toward Maldynado’s position. Sicarius tapped Basilard and pointed to the surface.
Basilard grimaced. His lungs were starting to hunger for air, but he hated to leave if his teammates needed help.
Sicarius saw his hesitation and stroked for the surface himself. Thinking he had some plan to share, Basilard went after him. They were deeper than he realized, and he gasped in a great lungful of air as soon as they broke the surface.
A cannon boomed, the sound pummeling his eardrums. They had come up less than ten feet from the bow of the ship. A broken wooden rail floated by, scraping Basilard’s injured shoulder. Fresh pain flared, and he gasped, almost dropping his dagger.
Fortunately, the marines were too busy to notice him. To their credit, the men shouting to load guns and bring the ship about sounded calm and competent rather than terrified.
“I’m going in,” Sicarius said. “Watch my back.”
That was all he said before taking a deep breath and submerging again.
Basilard inhaled, tipped his legs up into the air, and dove.
Below the kraken, Maldynado had recovered and was loading a new harpoon. Amaranthe, Akstyr, and Books fired their own launchers, timing it so the weapons released simultaneously.
Akstyr’s harpoon skimmed a tentacle and did no damage. Books’s projectile flew wide, but Amaranthe’s sank into one of the creature’s eyes.
The body reared back, and the tentacles released the Saberfist and stiffened. Ink clouded the water, obscuring the ship and the creature.
Basilard watched, hoping Amaranthe’s shot might prove the killing blow.
The kraken dropped below the ship, tentacles streaming out behind it as
it dove.
Sicarius was already swimming toward it. This was their chance.
Basilard hurried to catch up. What he could do with his insignificant dagger, he didn’t know, but he had to try to help.
The mantle flexed, and the kraken shot forward on a stream of water. Sicarius stroked after it, but the powerful creature outpaced him. It swam straight for Amaranthe.
Basilard cut across. He couldn’t catch up with the body of the thing, but maybe he could slice into a tentacle and distract it.
Suction-cup-covered flesh streamed past. He tried to grab the tentacle, but the slick rubbery flesh offered a poor handhold. Nonetheless he managed to thrust his dagger into it near the tip.
The tentacle moved past so quickly, it nearly tore the weapon from his grip. As it was, his blade ripped a foot-long gouge into the flesh.
The tentacle flicked, an annoyed gesture that caught Basilard in the chest. Despite the off-hand nature of the attack, it thumped him hard, and precious air escaped his lips. Bubbles streamed upward before his eyes. At least he had kept the dagger.
Basilard debated on going up for air again, but the kraken slowed as it neared the laboratory vessel. He did not see Amaranthe. Sicarius was weaving through the tentacles, avoiding them instead of attacking them. He approached the hole water shot from, and Basilard could see the current pushing against him, making the swim difficult.
Forgoing air, Basilard swam downward.
The kraken wouldn’t cooperate and hold still. Apparently incensed by the eye wound, it whipped about the fortress, seeking the one who had struck the blow.
When the beast switched from blowing out water to sucking it in, Sicarius dove in, aided by the current. Basilard swirled through the tentacles, trying to swim closer without letting the kraken know he was there, and could easily be captured—or killed.
Sicarius reached the interior of the mantle and thrust the keg into the dark orifice. Basilard thought that was it, that they had accomplished the mission, but the keg gushed right out again on the kraken’s next burst of forward motion. It bounced off a tentacle and dropped, unharmed.