A startled shout trailed him.
“Just following my lady’s advice,” Maldynado called back.
As he reached the top, Maldynado almost took a boot in the face. He jerked his head to the side, just evading heavy, black treads. Enforcers swarmed the catwalk between the stairs and the wheelhouse. More than one set of boots turned toward him, and he feared that his choice to charge up had been unwise.
“What’s new?” he grumbled, then ducked again, this time to avoid a sword slicing toward his head.
The stairs were wet from the rain, and his heel slipped off. He managed to keep his feet under him but stumbled down several steps, crashing into one of the enforcers who’d been on his way up. Sword raised, the man had been about to take a swing at Maldynado’s legs. To avoid the strike, Maldynado leaped over the railing. He would have landed on the enforcer waiting below, but the man scurried backward. Before his feet hit the ground, Maldynado kicked out, catching him in the chest. As soon as he landed, he sprang after the man. If he could pummel the enforcer into defenselessness before his colleague got turned around on the stairs…
The man went down beneath the assault, but wasn’t ready to give up. A knee rammed into Maldynado’s gut. He gripped the enforcer’s uniform jacket with both hands and slammed the man into the deck. His head clunked against the wood. Before the enforcer could recover, Maldynado jumped to his feet, still gripping the jacket. He dragged his opponent to the railing, gritting his teeth against the pain of having a crossbow bolt in his shoulder, and, with a great grunt, heaved the enforcer over the side. Again, Maldynado almost took a boot to the head as the man flung a kick outward, a last try at stopping him.
“Why do they always aim for my face?” Maldynado asked as he spun back, fists up, ready to defend against an attack from the second man. Given how long he’d had his back to the stairs, he was surprised he hadn’t already received that attack.
Oddly, the enforcer was lying on the deck. Face down. Maldynado didn’t remember hitting the man on his way over the railing.
A black-clad figure sprinted past, a throwing knife in hand as he vaulted up the stairs.
“Ah,” Maldynado said.
Shouts and, a split second later, screams came from above. Unlike Maldynado, Sicarius had no trouble flying off the steps fast enough to avoid attacks.
“I believe,” came a familiar voice from farther up the deck, “they aim for your face because of your looks. They’re envious and wish to mar your beauty so they’ll feel better about their own lesser visages.”
Maldynado’s throat tightened with emotion. Amaranthe, walking at a much slower pace than Sicarius and with a noticeable limp, smiled as she approached. For a moment, Maldynado forgot the fight. He ran forward and swept her into a bear hug.
Cracking wood and the clangs of steel convinced him it needed to be a short hug, so he reluctantly released her. “I always suspected that was the case,” he responded, his voice thick with emotion. She looked like a prisoner of war dragged out of some enemy camp’s dungeon, but at least she was smiling, and her brown eyes still held a warm sparkle.
“We should probably help them.” Amaranthe waved toward the wheelhouse.
“Right. I’ll go first.” Maldynado, at first focused on her bruises and the weary way she held herself, almost hadn’t noticed the garish pastel hat she wore. Blind ancestors, couldn’t he trust anyone in the group to dress themselves appropriately? “Unless you want to see if you can startle the enforcers into falling off the railing with that hat?”
“Not necessary.”
No more than a minute could have passed from the time Sicarius raced up the stairs to the time Maldynado and Amaranthe reached the catwalk, but it might as well have been an hour. The enforcers were gone. Not dead, Maldynado was pleased—for Amaranthe’s sake—to see, but thrown overboard. A few soggy souls were wading through the shallows to the beach. When Maldynado leaned over the railing, he spotted Yara and Books standing on a rocky bank. Good, Books was awake and alert, albeit leaning against a tree for support. He and Yara had acquired crossbows, and she was disarming enforcers while Books kept them in his sights.
The wheelhouse door had been half-torn from its hinges, and numerous dents marred the wood. The glass was cracked, too, and laced with bullet holes. The enforcers must have broken in right before Sicarius arrived. Maldynado hoped that his own distraction, however clumsy, had helped in delaying them.
“… could have handled them,” Akstyr’s voice floated out.
Maldynado stepped up to the doorway. Sicarius stood inside, looking as cold and deadly as ever, though he had lost a couple of pounds since parting ways with the team. Had he run all the way to Lake Seventy-three? There weren’t even roads out in that wilderness along the base of the mountains.
Two men in enforcer uniforms lay on the deck beneath the wheel. One was groaning, and Maldynado didn’t see any broken necks, so he didn’t attempt to block Amaranthe from entering when she squeezed past him.
Akstyr had been pushed back to the far corner. Sicarius stood beside Sespian, whose face had taken on a pale cast, whether from the crash or from Sicarius’s reappearance—and closeness—Maldynado did not know. He managed a smile, though, when Amaranthe stepped inside. He stepped toward her, his hands lifting, as if he might embrace her, but caught himself and dropped his hands. “It’s good to see you alive, Corporal Lokdon.”
Maldynado sighed. The hug would have been better.
“It’s good to see you alive as well, Sire,” Amaranthe said. “The newspapers have been alarming us with their reports of your passing.”
Her tone and polite smile were utterly professional. Even Deret Mancrest had earned more feminine interest from Amaranthe. The kid would have a tough time if he wanted to win her heart.
Sespian winced. “Yes, I’ve heard.”
Sicarius was looking out the back window, the only one that hadn’t been cracked in the crash. The second enforcer boat hadn’t appeared yet, no doubt thanks to its encounter with the beaver dam, but the remaining one was pulling up to a nearby beach. There might still be fighting to do.
“I will take care of them.” Sicarius strode out of the wheelhouse without a word of thanks, or even a friendly nod, to acknowledge that Maldynado had fulfilled his duty to keep the emperor safe and close. It figured.
Before he turned away from the window, Maldynado glimpsed a bald-headed figure swimming across the lake toward the island. “I believe Basilard will be joining us soon.”
“Good, I was concerned when I didn’t see him,” Amaranthe said, then stood on her tiptoes to track Maldynado’s pointing finger. “But why is he swimming along after the boat instead or riding inside it?”
“Less dangerous out there.” Akstyr, still standing in the corner with his hands in his pockets, shifted his weight uncertainly.
Maldynado, remembering that Akstyr supposedly wanted to let Amaranthe know that he appreciated her, gave him a little nod and tilted his head toward her. He needn’t get mushy with so many others looking on, but he could at least say he was glad she wasn’t dead.
“Hullo, boss,” Akstyr said.
Such a spring of emotion. Amaranthe walked over and gave him a hug anyway.
“Staying away from gangs and bounty hunters?” she asked him.
Meanwhile Sespian gave her back a wistful look. Yes, seeing someone like Akstyr get a hug over him had to hurt.
Maldynado peered between the cracks in the front window, admiring the close-up view of a copse of trees, their leaves turning the rich browns and reds of autumn. “So, who was responsible for docking the boat halfway up the mountain?”
Sespian flushed, glanced at Amaranthe, and then studied the floor assiduously.
“I assumed it was you,” Amaranthe told Maldynado, “until we encountered you on the way up to the wheelhouse.”
“Me?” Maldynado flattened a hand on his chest. “I was on the hurricane deck, risking all sorts of bodily harm to keep those enforcers from boardi
ng. I’ll have you know that the men who did get on didn’t come up on my side of the boat.” Since Basilard wasn’t there, Maldynado decided it wouldn’t hurt to leave out the fact that Yara had been helping him, and Basilard had been forced to defend his side alone.
“So… the emperor crashed it?” Amaranthe’s eyes twinkled, though Maldynado wasn’t sure if Sespian noticed that. The kid’s flush had grown deeper. Even his ears were red.
“I lost tiller control,” Sespian said. “They were shooting at the paddlewheel and the engine room. They must have smashed the rudder as well.” He looked back and forth from Amaranth to Akstyr to Maldynado and added, “It wasn’t my fault.”
Maldynado laughed. “I’ve said that many times, and it hasn’t worked to shift the blame away from me yet.”
Sespian’s shoulders slumped. “This isn’t at all how I imagined this mission going.”
Emperor or not, Maldynado patted the kid on the shoulder. “I think this means you’re officially one of us now, Sire.”
Though he meant the pat to be reassuring, Sespian grew more glum and mumbled something that might have been, “Bloody bears.”
Amaranthe, at least, looked amused. “We better collect the others, tie these enforcers up somewhere, and see if we can find a way to get under the lake.”
“Under the lake?” Maldynado gazed out at the deep blue water.
“One of the Forge founders apparently owns the mineral rights to a chunk of land between this and a couple of other islands. We’re surmising that there are mines or tunnels or some sort beneath the lake bed. Though it doesn’t sound like the posh sort of place that I imagined wealthy business owners and bankers meeting up, it’s… my best guess after perusing the real estate records for the area.”
“You’ve been busy.” Sespian eyed Amaranthe, his gaze lingering on bandages around her wrists. Maldynado could tell he wanted to ask about what she’d endured. Rust, he was wondering, too, but if it was half as awful as he thought it might have been, she probably wouldn’t want to talk about it.
“I was all over the island as a boy, and I never came across any tunnels or secret entrances. Though I suppose now that we have our expert interrogator here—” Maldynado flicked a finger toward Sicarius, “—someone can get more precise answers out of Brynia.”
“Who’s Brynia?” Amaranthe asked.
“A woman who may have shot Mari, my sister-in-law, who was heading south to be a part of this Forge meeting,” Maldynado said. “I guess the emperor had been meaning to follow Mari down here all along.”
“Clandestinely,” Sespian said, his face still glum.
“They might not have heard us coming,” Maldynado told him.
Sespian gave him an incredulous look and waved at their “docking job.”
“Uh, right.” Maldynado lifted a hand to his mouth and side-whispered to Amaranthe, “How far under the lake are these tunnels?”
“We won’t know until we find the entrance. Where’s this woman? If she knows where the entrance is, it’d be handy. This is one of the larger islands out here.”
“Naturally.” Maldynado leaned against the back wall and smiled. “Whichever of my ancestors purchased it knew a prodigious piece of land would reflect the Marblecrest family attributes.”
“Big heads?” Akstyr asked.
Maldynado gave him a quelling look, though, as usual, Akstyr refused to appear quelled.
“She should be in the brig,” Sespian told Amaranthe.
“Let’s go for a stroll then, shall we?” Amaranthe said.
Smoke hazed the air toward the stern of the steamboat. Remembering Yara’s warning about the boilers, Maldynado said, “Yes, and we may want to stroll quickly.”
• • •
Down on the hurricane deck, the gate to the tiny cage—a sign above proclaimed it the brig—was open, creaking as it swayed in the breeze.
“I assume this means your prisoner is missing?” Amaranthe asked.
After the team had put out the fire in the engine room, Maldynado had led Amaranthe and Sespian to the brig. Sicarius had joined Books and Yara ashore to deal with the enforcers. Only three had arrived in the boat, but well over a dozen more had made their way to the beach after being thrown overboard. Amaranthe trusted Sicarius to keep them from making trouble.
“She must have figured out a way to escape during the attack.” Maldynado prodded the unsecured lock dangling from the wrought-iron door. “We were a tad distracted.”
Amaranthe grimaced. She didn’t know if this Brynia person could have given them any useful information, but she did know the woman could run straight to the Forge meeting and warn them of spies coming. Though maybe she was being delusional to believe Forge didn’t already know. The steamboat landing hadn’t exactly been quiet.
“It’s not my fault.” Maldynado must have noticed her frown. “Your old enforcer colleagues were so close on our rears, they could have braided our butt hair.”
Though Amaranthe promptly willed her mind to wipe that imagine away, she smiled and gave Maldynado a hug. She’d missed his irreverence.
“I’m confused,” Sespian said. “How does talk of… posterior hair warrant an embrace?”
“I have no idea,” Maldynado said over Amaranthe’s head, “but remember this, Sire, the next time you’re perplexed by a woman. It’s not anything wrong with you. It’s them. They’re unpredictable. And inconsistent. One time, they’re scowling at you for making a mess, and the next time, they’re finding your mess adorable.”
“Adorable isn’t quite the feeling.” Amaranthe stepped back. “I’ve just missed you all.”
“Ah,” Maldynado said.
Sespian wore a wistful expression, as if he’d wanted a hug, and Amaranthe had to hold back another grimace. Apparently her plan to make him fall in love with Yara hadn’t taken root in her absence. Well, she had more important things to worry about.
“It’s all right.” Amaranthe waved at the empty cage. “Now that we have the emperor, I have an idea about how we can more thoroughly search for this entrance. But, just in case there’s a way in from land, Maldynado, I want you to collect Yara, Books, and Akstyr and search the island. You can be their guide. Take them any place where there might be a hidden cave or a trapdoor in your house.”
“A trapdoor?” Maldynado scratched his head. “In a log cabin?”
“That cabin is bigger than Enforcer Headquarters back home,” Amaranthe said. “For all we know, there’s a warren of tunnels under it. If they’re there, I need you to find them.”
“You see, Sire,” Maldynado said, “her hugs aren’t all that desirable, as they’re typically a precursor for an assignment of work.”
Sespian acknowledged this with a wiggle of his fingers, then told Amaranthe, “What about me? Are we going somewhere?”
“Yes, I have an acquaintance in Markworth who may be willing to lend us his conveyance if he knows it’s at your behest.”
“You already have acquaintances in Markworth?” Maldynado asked. “How long have you and Sicarius been here?”
Amaranthe glanced at the sky. Though gray rain clouds hid the sun, she figured it was still early morning. “Almost a day.”
“Making friends even more quickly than usual,” Maldynado said.
“This friend tried to turn us over to the enforcers.”
Maldynado winked at Sespian. “Yes, that’s usually how things start.”
Sespian’s arched eyebrow suggested Maldynado hadn’t yet succeeded in inducting him into his League of Beset Upon Brethren, but Amaranthe no longer sensed the stony mistrust that Sespian had leveled at him before.
“Didn’t I assign you a task?” She waved Maldynado toward the shore.
“Sure, boss, whatever you say.” Maldynado started past Sespian, but paused to stage-whisper, “Just don’t let her make you drive this ‘conveyance.’ If you crash it, you’ll get blamed, even though you were simply following her directions. It’s usually her fault.”
“My fa
ult?” Amaranthe propped her hands on her hips. “I wasn’t even onboard the steamboat when you two crashed it.”
“You two?” Maldynado had been on his way to the gangplank, but he halted and turned around so quickly he almost tripped. “How did I get included? I wasn’t anywhere near the wheelhouse when the emperor crashed us.”
“Wasn’t it your failure to defend the boat that resulted in the rudder being destroyed?” Amaranthe didn’t truly blame him for any of this, but she hadn’t had much amusement in her life of late, and it was fun seeing his flamboyant protests.
Maldynado spread his arms and faced Sespian, clearly expecting the emperor to defend him.
A glint of amusement entered Sespian’s eyes. “It was the loss of tiller control that resulted in running into the island.”
For a long moment, Maldynado gaped at him. Then, shaking his head, he slouched down the deck toward the gangplank. Basilard was climbing onto the steamboat, and, when they passed, Maldynado issued a warning.
“Don’t go over there, Bas. They’re hurling blame around like artillery rounds on a battlefield.”
Basilard gave Maldynado a weary pat and kept walking. Dripping water and wearing a number of new bruises, he appeared as beleaguered as Amaranthe had felt of late. She gave him a hug as soon as he came close.
Sespian also approached Basilard and gripped his shoulder. “Thank you for fighting so hard to defend the steamboat. I know this isn’t your battle, and I appreciate your willingness to risk yourself on our behalf.”
Fortunately, Maldynado had left the boat, or he would have had a fit over seeing Basilard praised when he’d simply been teased, but Amaranthe was glad Sespian made the effort for Basilard. As far as she knew, Sespian hadn’t made him any promises in exchange for his help, so Basilard could only be hoping that his actions would result in someone eventually looking into the slavers who were targeting his people.