“He’s actually more than a friend, I must admit, and he’s oddly fond of me. I haven’t figured out why, since I talk a lot, and he’s more of the quiet, deadly type who prefers silence. Still, he’s killed for less virtuous reasons than avenging a lover. He’d probably flatten this entire compound in less than an hour. Not that I encourage these actions mind you—I’m the reasonable one, you see, and I try to stop him from wholesale carnage. But if I were dead, I suppose it wouldn’t matter much to me. Even if it did, what would I be able to do to stop him?”
The man behind her shoved her in the shoulder. She caught herself on a ladder that climbed the side of a large fermentation or storage tank. The modern steel contraption stretched at least twelve feet wide at the base and rose two-thirds of the way to the thirty-foot-high ceiling. Narrow pipes ran behind other tanks on either side. A larger pipe stuck out of this tank halfway up and attached to a big vat farther out in the room. Near the base of the ladder, there was a wheel and a couple of gauges for reading the level of liquid inside the tank. Right now, it was one-third full.
“You think Sicarius can find us?” Deret twitched an eyebrow at her. The gesture might have meant she should have used his name from the beginning, or it might have meant he didn’t think this ploy had a chance at working.
“He once tracked me five hundred miles into a jungle. I was on a... dirigible—” though these people might have seen the alien craft that had crashed last winter, it still sounded too far-fetched to mention, “—and there’s no way he should have been able to follow me from the ground, but he did, nonetheless. He has instincts that scent-hounds would envy.”
One of the men at the back of the pack shifted his weight, and he glanced at the fellow beside him.
“If I hadn’t sent him off on another task earlier tonight, he would have been at the Gazette building with me,” Amaranthe went on pleasantly, trying to ignore the fact that they had halted at this ladder, “hovering over Deret’s shoulder and glowering as Deret shared his brandy with me.”
“A shame he couldn’t make it,” Deret muttered.
“Sent him on a task?” one of the priests asked, snorting again. “Who do you think you are, Amrenth Lokdon?”
Amaranthe blinked, not so much because the man had heard of her, but because it had finally gotten out that she had been in charge of the group who had defended Sespian and fought Forge—and that Sicarius had been working for her. She had dismissed the odd signature request here and there, but maybe she had Deret to thank for stories that had informed the public of her deeds. Had he written more about her team while she had been away this winter?
“It’s Am-ah-ranthe, you slag-head,” Deret said. “And who else did you think would be foolish enough to wander around in the plant-infested evacuated part of the city at night?”
“We thought she was your girlfriend,” someone said.
“No, my girlfriends are all brighter than that.” Deret’s eyes glinted with gallows humor—or maybe a challenge.
Amaranthe couldn’t tell if he was simply being a pest or if he hoped to start an argument with her to distract their captors. “Are these the nonexistent girls you make up when mercenary leaders innocently ask how you’ve been doing?”
“I—”
One of the priests shoved him. Amaranthe received a simultaneous prod in the back.
“Get climbing. Up the ladder and through the hatch at the top. Tsitsiv, Baknoch, go cover them from the other tanks. Make sure they climb in.”
“You sure you don’t want to heed my warning?” Amaranthe turned to face the men, raising her hands imploringly while she shifted to stand in front of the gauge on the side of the tank. “You might have time to escape now if you took to the orchards. Once he learns you were here and that you took part in my death... he’ll hunt you down no matter where you run.”
“Nobody here’s taking part in anyone’s death,” the priest said. “You were simply out here snooping around when you fell in the tank and drowned. Very unfortunate.”
“Please, Sicarius has seen me tread water for a half hour with a ten-pound brick over my head. While he might believe that I was out here snooping...” Amaranthe leaned one hand against the gauge and pointed toward the wall and orchard beyond with the other, causing several men to look in that direction for a moment. “He would never believe that I drowned.” Covering her actions with her body, she unscrewed the glass face of the gauge and fumbled with the dial. She wished she had Ms. Sarevic’s collection of tools in her pocket, not to mention a second hand to use. Just breaking the gauge wouldn’t do anything. “I know you think I’m simply trying to save myself—I can see it in your faces, er, in the way the shadows under your hoods hide your faces—but I don’t want your deaths staining my soul, either. Enough people have died at my hands. Is all of this worth it? All this killing? To put someone in the president’s chair who will only be there for five years anyway? How much can he do in that time?”
“Get our religion legitimized and allow magic to be practiced in Turgonia again,” a priest said, his voice full of longing. He probably cared about the religion; Amaranthe wondered how many of the others did and how many were simply along because they had been promised power and status by someone with a smooth tongue.
“That would have happened anyway,” Amaranthe said, fiddling with the needle on the gauge. “Why didn’t you simply proposition Starcrest? His children practice the mental sciences. I can’t believe he would be opposed to legalizing them here in Turgonia.”
“We did ask him. He said let’s wait and look at that in another year. He said the people have already stomached a lot of change in a short period of time. We could see what that meant. He was going to put us off, give us no more than the emperors ever did.”
Amaranthe doubted that. If these impatient zealots had simply waited, they might have seen for themselves. “You should have given him a chance. If you waited a year and he continued to reject your proposition, then you would have found grounds for peaceful protest.” She screwed the cap back on the gauge as she continued to speak and to gesture with her free hand. “But not for plotting his death. Or anyone else’s for that matter.”
“We don’t have to wait. We found someone who will endorse our religion and our ways this year.”
“Serpitivich has sure made a lot of promises,” Deret observed. He was still standing by the ladder, leaning his shoulder against it.
“I understand that’s the nature of politicians in nations that use an electoral system,” Amaranthe said. “Listen, do you men really want to start off the rebirth of your religion with blood on your hands? Instead you could be helping the president to save the city from that plant. One of you has demonstrated an ability to harm it. You could be out there being heroes now and showing people that your religion is noble. Instead, you’re waiting until someone murders—”
“Enough jabbering.” The priest with the deep voice stepped forward, grabbed Amaranthe’s arm, and shoved her toward the ladder. “Climb. Both of you.”
“What if we don’t?” Deret asked. “Your they-got-drowned-while-snooping story will be a harder sell if we’re found with bullet holes in our heads.”
The priest slapped his pistol against his palm. “Then maybe you won’t be found.”
The men against the wall were shifting about, murmuring to each other. There was doubt among them. If Amaranthe and Deret balked, they would come together to fight the resistance. If they went nobly, maybe the seeds of doubt would continue to spread among the priests and one of them, once released from this large group, would return to help. Also, she didn’t like the way the leader’s finger was tightening on the trigger of his pistol. He seemed to realize he had let her talk too much. Maybe he was thinking of fixing the problem before any dissent could arise.
Amaranthe touched Deret’s shoulder to move him back a step, then climbed onto the ladder. She rose up with her head held high, like a martyr going to her death, though she kept an eye on her surrounding
s as well. If she had the chance to simply jump from tank to tank and perhaps escape in the maze of machinery in the mill...
But at the leader’s earlier order, two priests had gone up on the tanks on either side of this one, both taking rifles. They knelt up there, the weapons aimed in her direction.
Soft clangs drifted up from below. Deret was following her up the ladder.
I hope I’m not leading you to your death, my friend, she thought.
Two priests climbed up the ladder after him. At the top of the tank, Amaranthe found a big round hatch standing open. Utter darkness waited within. The pungent smell of hard cider drifted out, already fermented and ready for the bottles. Darkly, she imagined some future food inspector complaining about the bits of dead people floating around in the latest batch.
“In,” the leader called up from below.
Deret climbed over the edge of the tank. Sweat bathed his brow. He hadn’t been allowed to take his swordstick up, not that it would have helped him on the ladder anyway. He met her eyes, tilted his head toward each rifleman and glanced at the other two climbing up, then raised his brows.
Amaranthe nodded back. They had to try to escape. She wasn’t confident that her fiddling with the gauge had accomplished anything, and even if it had, it wouldn’t free them from inside the tank once the hatch was locked. If they could avoid being shot, and if they could grab these men’s weapons... the people on the ground would have a hard time finding the right angle to hit them. She hoped.
One of their guards had already joined them on the top of the tank, and the second was about to climb over.
Deret chose that moment to attack. He kicked the man still on the ladder, taking him in the face. It was a solid blow, though not enough to knock the priest free. Worse, Deret’s weak leg wouldn’t support his weight while the other was in the air, and he hit the deck without grace. It might have saved his life though, for a shot rang out from one of the other tanks. It whizzed past without hitting him.
As soon as the second guard was distracted by Deret’s maneuver, Amaranthe threw her elbow, taking him in the side. She jumped behind him, clapping her hands over his ears, then grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him toward the second rifleman. The weapon seemed to crack over there at the same instant as a bullet pounded into the chest of Amaranthe’s man. And then a second. She hadn’t forgotten about the ability for those new firearms to shoot multiple rounds, but she hadn’t grown accustomed to it yet, either.
Weapons fired from the floor as well, and Amaranthe dropped into a crouch, pulling the wounded man down with her, though he was gasping and trying to tear free. To keep him there as a shield seemed cowardly, but there was nothing else she could do, not if she wanted to escape this stupid situation. She tore his pistol from his hand, wondering how she had gotten herself into another bloody predicament.
More shots rang out and she wriggled toward the open hatch, trying to use it as cover for her back. Another bullet pounded into her human shield. Didn’t these people care that they were shooting each other?
Shots came from Deret’s side of the tank, followed by a meaty thud. She hoped that meant he had taken care of the other guard.
Amaranthe fired at the closest rifleman. The pistols lacked the accuracy of the longer weapons, and her bullet screamed uselessly past the man’s ear. At least it made him drop to his belly. The hatch on his tank wasn’t open, so he didn’t have anything to hide behind.
She took more time to line up the second shot, but the injured guard was still alive and thrashing about. His elbow slammed into the side of her jaw, and pain shot through her head. Frustrated, she shoved him away. The rifleman used her distraction to shoot again, but his wounded comrade was just as much of a distraction for him. The bullet missed her and clanged off the hatch. Amaranthe exhaled and waited a second for the steadiness she needed, ignoring the ringing of boots on the ladder, and fired.
The bullet slammed into the rifleman’s eye. He jerked, his weapon clattering free, and slumped onto the tank. Amaranthe shifted around the hatch to check on Deret’s fight, only to see him at the edge of the opening, clutching his shoulder, his hand washed in blood. The remaining rifleman was kneeling, prepared to shoot again.
Without taking time to aim, Amaranthe fired at the sniper. The bullet hammered into his chest, and he flew backward, the rifle escaping his grip. It banged on the edge of the tank and dropped off, falling to the ground twenty feet below.
Deret was trying to get to his feet, but that wasn’t a good idea, not with people firing from below.
“Stay down,” Amaranthe said and reached for him.
“I—” He jerked back to avoid someone’s fire, but he was already on the edge of the hole. His foot landed on empty air and he pitched backward.
Amaranthe had been using the hatch for cover and had to lunge around it. She didn’t reach him in time. He disappeared through the hole, banging his head on the way through. A splash came up from below—far below.
While she had been trying to grab him, the first of the reinforcements had climbed over the edge of the tank. There wasn’t time to leap over the hole and try to kick him off the ladder. He was already raising his pistol to shoot.
If she had been alone, Amaranthe would have thrown her weapon at him and jumped to the next tank, trying to find an escape route through the equipment-filled shadows below, but Deret might be drowning at that very second.
She grabbed the hatch and jumped into the hole, pulling it shut behind her. The resonating clang came at the same time as utter darkness swallowed her.
Chapter 24
One of the front doors of the Gazette building stood open, creaking in the breeze. The lanterns on either side of the entryway had either burned out or had never been lit. Sicarius’s first impression was that the building had been abandoned as part of the evacuation, but would the newspaper employees have left that door open? He doubted they could have cleared out all of the printing presses and supplies in the hours since the evacuation had been announced. They should have locked up to protect against looting.
After ensuring he was alone on the street, he jogged up the stairs and slipped past the partially open door. Darkness waited inside as well, though a number of odors lingered, suggesting recent occupancy. The scents of kerosene mingled with those of stale sweat, lemongrass incense, and—he wandered into the big office area a few paces, sniffing gently—apple brandy. A bottle had been left open on one of the desks, a desk with two chairs beside it instead of one. One had been tipped over and the other pushed back crookedly. Sicarius ran a hand lightly over the standing seat and found a strand of hair caught in one of the metal fasteners. He hadn’t lit a lantern and couldn’t discern color, but it was the right length to belong to Amaranthe.
So, she and Deret had been drinking when some of those robed priests had come in the front door. Or perhaps only Deret had been drinking. Unless Amaranthe was trying to woo someone to her cause, she wasn’t the type to swig from a bottle with another.
Sicarius examined the other chair, but it did not give any clues. He surmised that the priests had burst in and kidnapped Amaranthe and Deret, but where would they have been taken? He walked around the rest of the floor and checked the basement as well, but determined that the group had merely passed through. The back door wasn’t flapping in the breeze, but it was unlocked.
The night air had swept away the scents of those who might have walked across the loading dock and into the alley, but he found a manhole cover ajar. He fetched a lantern from the building before heading into the tunnels, knowing the strong underground scents would similarly hide the subtler nasal clues. He would have to rely on sight and perhaps touch to track people through the subterranean passage, but he would do it. That many men would leave a sign, a scrap of cloth on a jagged wall stone, a patch of mildew smeared by a boot print, a discarded cigarette stub. He would follow them, he would find Amaranthe, and if he found out Deret had in anyway facilitated this kidnapping, he would kill t
he man.
• • • • •
Sespian pulled two blasting sticks out of his shirt where he had insanely elected to store them while he had fought with the priests. Though Ms. Sarevic’s explosives seemed more stable than many, he felt fortunate he hadn’t taken a serious hit to the chest.
“There are cannons mounted on that lorry,” Mahliki whispered. She was on the other side of the lorry bed, watching the military vehicle approach. Neither of the priests Sespian had knocked out had stirred; he hoped he hadn’t killed either one. Though it was hard to muster sympathy for men who had intended to blow up the president with cannon fire, they were Turgonians, however misguided, not enemies from some distant land. Besides, Mahliki had clearly been uncomfortable after Sespian had killed the last man, despite her light words. He had seen through that attempt to show him she was fine. She might have experienced all sorts of dangers when roaming the world with her father and mother, but Sespian wagered Starcrest had been clever enough to extricate his family from trouble without killing people. Why couldn’t he be that clever? All he had been thinking was to protect her, but he dreaded the idea of her looking at him and seeing Sicarius.
“Harpoons too,” Mahliki added. “That warehouse is doomed if we can’t take over that lorry or divert it somehow.”
“I have a blasting stick here,” Sespian said. “That ought to divert it.”
“Think they’ll be smart enough to jump from the cab when they see it land in front of the lorry?”
“Yes.” Maybe.
While he didn’t want to kill anyone else, he wasn’t sure how sympathetic he would feel toward anyone dumb enough not to jump out of the way at the sight of a lit blasting stick. He was still appalled that the practitioner had roasted his own comrade. From their actions, and Mahliki’s words, Sespian suspected they were dealing with a bunch of self-taught Akstyr types.
He scraped the match along one of the rough fold-down benches, and the bulbous head flared to life. After a quick glance to make sure the vehicle had come within range, he lifted the stick to light it.