At the far end, Deret was hunched over, assembling his bomb. Amaranthe set down the rest of the supplies, grabbed the lantern, and held it up to improve the light.
Another resounding snap came from out in the basement.
“That’s not the door.” Maldynado stuck his head into the tunnel. “I think those are the floor beams.”
A second noise echoed, this more of a boom than a snap.
“That was the door,” Maldynado said.
Deret grabbed the second jar. “Going as fast as I can.”
“Can I do anything to help?” Amaranthe asked.
“Yes. If my father barges through that door with the soldiers, shoot him.”
“Really?” Amaranthe wouldn’t have pegged Deret as the type to harm blood relations, even irritating ones.
“Not in the chest. Just blow out a kneecap or two.”
“Is he really the one who locked you up down here?”
“Yes.”
“Because…?”
“I refused to print Ravido Marblecrest’s half-truths. Ravido and his business contacts went to my father behind my back. I wish I could say there’d been blackmail or other coercion, but my father is the sort to believe that warrior-caste families should stick together, and he was never a big supporter of Raumesys or Sespian, so…”
“He was happy to help Ravido?” Amaranthe asked.
“That’s the impression I got. When I confronted him… we argued. With fists. He reminded me he owned the paper and sent me home. That was that, or so I hoped he’d think. I brought some of my workers in late that night, intending to change the typeset and print a lengthy story about everything that’s been going on in secret, at least that I’m aware of—thanks in part to you. I included that there’d been no evidence whatsoever to verify Sespian’s death and that anyone attempting to take the throne was doing so illegally.”
“I haven’t seen that edition of the paper.” Thanks to their travels, Amaranthe hadn’t seen a lot of editions, but she doubted anyone had seen that one.
“Nor will you. My father guessed my intentions and barged in on me. He was furious. My basement internment was the result.” Deret backed away from his improvised ink-based explosive. “Time to light the fuse.”
“Are we sure we want to light another one?” Maldynado asked, poking his head inside the tunnel again. “Things don’t sound too structurally stable out here.” A crash punctuated his last word.
“Do we have a choice?” Amaranthe asked. “Sounds like company is coming.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Deret grumbled and grabbed the lantern.
Since he was leaning on his swordstick, his movements were awkward as he bent toward the fuse. Amaranthe wondered if his earlier near miss, as evinced by his soot-covered face and clothing, had come because he’d misjudged how much time he’d need to give himself to get out of range, thinking of how fast he’d once been able to move instead of how fast he moved today.
“Want me to light it?” she offered.
Deret’s glower could have withered daisies on a warm spring day.
“Or… I’ll just wait outside,” she amended.
“Do that.”
Amaranthe scooted out of the tunnel, almost colliding with Maldynado who was loitering at the mouth.
“We need to take cover,” she said.
Maldynado started to jog away, but she added, “Them too,” and waved at the prisoners.
Maldynado huffed a sigh and grabbed the men, propelling them before him. Amaranthe could understand the sentiment. At least they went along without making trouble. Nobody wanted to get caught in an explosion.
She joined them behind a couple of desks, ducking under one with a solid slab top.
The ceiling creaked ominously above their heads. She hoped the next explosion, which was outside of the building’s walls, wouldn’t affect the structure or supports.
More bangs sounded—crates being shoved off the pile Maldynado had erected up front. The soldiers must have broken down the door or found a way to remove it from its hinges.
“Deret,” a man bellowed. “Are you responsible for this ruckus, boy? I’m going to tie you down range at Fort Urgot for the privates to use for shooting practice.”
Deret skidded around the corner of Amaranthe’s hiding spot and dropped to the floor. There wasn’t room for him to squeeze under the desk beside her, but he pressed himself close and buried his head under his arms.
The thunderous boom that followed wasn’t as loud as the first had been, not with the wall blocking some of the noise, but that didn’t keep the floor from trembling beneath them. Cracks sounded, this time not in the wood but in the bricks, and more dust flooded the air.
“By great grandmother’s funeral pyre, what are you doing, boy?” came the senior Lord Mancrest’s voice.
Amaranthe touched Deret’s shoulder and climbed out past him. They had better get out of the basement before something important gave way—or the soldiers swarmed inside to capture them. Maldynado had already leaped to his feet, and he reached the opening in the wall first, a lantern in hand.
He stuck the light inside. “It worked.”
He’d neglected to grab the prisoners, and they looked like they meant to flee toward Deret’s father. Amaranthe was tempted to let them go so they wouldn’t have to deal with them any more, but she grabbed their arms. “This way. He won’t be happy with you for not capturing us in the first place.”
“I don’t care any more,” one muttered. “So long as we get out of here before—”
Wood snapped above them. A beam bowed down, boards cracking and giving way with each inch it drooped.
Deret grabbed Amaranthe’s arm. “Run!”
She needed no further urging and sprinted for the tunnel hole.
“Get back, get back,” came a cry from the other entrance.
Just as Amaranthe crossed the threshold, the beam gave away completely. Light fell into the basement as a huge chunk of the floor above collapsed. Steel screeched, then a cacophonous crash filled the space as one of the massive presses tumbled through the opening. Parts flew off, pelting the walls and landing on old machinery, leaving a twisted metal wreck that would never print again.
One of the massive paper rolls was flung across the room toward Amaranthe. She dove, somersaulting down the tunnel to put distance between herself and the machine’s attack. Brick crunched as the roller struck the outer wall. A curtain of dust and mortar sprayed the inside of the passage.
Amaranthe climbed to her feet, saw that Maldynado and Deret had both made it inside, and started to release a relieved breath, but a cry of pain came from beyond the entrance. Her first thought was that Deret’s father, or some of his men, had been crossing the basement and had been pinned by flying pieces of machinery. Then she remembered the prisoners.
“Maldynado,” she whispered, “help me,” and headed back.
“Are you crazy?” Deret held the only remaining lantern, and he stood at the far end of the passage, one foot already through the ragged hole leading to the storm tunnel.
“We brought them down here. Maldynado,” Amaranthe repeated, knowing she’d need his brawn if someone was pinned.
A hand patted her back. “I’m with you, boss.”
Amaranthe stuck her head back into the basement as a metal filing cabinet tumbled through the hole from above, landing on the cage Deret had been confined in before. More wood snapped overhead. Before long, the whole ceiling would drop.
“Help,” someone whimpered from a few feet away.
Amaranthe swatted at the dust in the air. Fine particles slipped through her shirt and assailed her nostrils and throat. She stifled a cough. She doubted the soldiers would come streaming into this mess, but she didn’t want to let them know where she was. Who knew if they had rifles?
A long arm of machinery had fallen on one of the prisoners. The other man was trying to pull his comrade free, though the wrist ties made it impossible. Amaranthe slid out her d
agger and slashed through the bindings, instantly raising her estimation of the soldier for not leaving his colleague. He gave her a quick nod, then bent to grab the end of the beam.
The pinned man groaned, his teeth clenched so hard she could almost hear them grinding above the noise of falling debris. Maldynado grabbed the beam as well. Amaranthe glanced about and found a pole sticking out of the wreckage. She joined the men, thrusting it beneath the beam to use as a lever. Those printing presses must weigh tons, for even this broken section took all three of them to lift.
More pieces of the ceiling cracked and fell as they heaved. The beam inched up.
“Go, Rudev,” the pinned man’s comrade urged.
As the weight lifted, the prone fellow groaned, his eyes rolling back in his head. For a moment, Amaranthe thought he would pass out, but he stretched his hands across the floor, grabbed the corner of a crate and started clawing his way free.
“There they are!” someone yelled from the other side of the basement.
A shot rang out. Instinctively, Amaranthe ducked, though it was probably the haze that saved her, rather than her reflexes. The pistol ball pounded into the brick wall.
“Go, go,” she whispered and risked casting her lever aside. She grabbed the crawling man by the shoulders of his jacket and threw her weight into pulling him.
A pained stream of curses flowed from his mouth, but his legs finally cleared the beam. Maldynado and the other prisoner dropped it, hurling more dust into the air.
A second pistol fired. Amaranthe and the others dropped to the ground and scrambled for the tunnel entrance on hands and knees. This time, the shot hit the ceiling. As if it were the kernel of rice that tipped the merchant’s scales, a second ceiling beam snapped, the ear-splitting noise directly above Amaranthe. She lunged into the tunnel, grabbing the others, pulling and urging them along, though nobody needed prompting at that point.
As Maldynado flopped to the ground beside her, the basement ceiling caved in. Dust flooded into the tunnel, and an ominous groan came from the bricks above their heads as well. This time it was Maldynado who grabbed her arm, and her feet barely touched the ground as he raced toward the storm tunnel. She glanced back, ensuring their prisoners were hobbling after—she didn’t know what she was going to do with them, but she wasn’t going to lose them at that point. In the darkness behind them, it was hard to tell, but she thought the rubble had closed off their escape route.
Maldynado let go of her when they reached the storm tunnel, but she waved toward the bend that led to the river. “Let’s get all the way out of here,” Amaranthe said. “People were shooting at us at the end.”
“Think they figured out who we are?” Maldynado asked.
“Either that, or Deret’s pa is very displeased with him right now.”
Deret, leading the way toward the river, said nothing to this, though he did give the wall nearest the building a long look. The booms and thuds of equipment falling through the floor continued to emanate from the Gazette.
Chapter 4
Sicarius slithered through the warm dusty ducts, as soundless as a snake. As he approached the imperial suite, a sprawling complex of rooms large enough to accommodate a family of multiple generations, the resiny scent of Nurian rek rek teased his nostrils again. He stopped at the vent leading to the master bedroom. The grate had been removed. The screws had been knocked out from within—warping and destroying them—the culprit obviously not caring if his presence was detected after his deed was done. And the deed was what? An assassination. It had to be. If another had come to assassinate Ravido, perhaps it’d be best to let the man do his work. Sespian might object, but Sicarius refused to rescue Maldynado’s rogue relative simply so Sespian could kidnap him.
Unlike Hollowcrest’s suite, these rooms had seen recent occupation. Though Sicarius didn’t spot anyone at the moment, the lamps burned, a fire crackled in the hearth, and the sheets and furs on the bed had been turned down. In addition to the Nurian smoke, he smelled the leather of bookbindings, the tang of weapons cleaning oil, and the potato-based starch officers employed for pressing their uniforms.
Sicarius remained motionless, waiting for Ravido to come in and listening for the breaths of someone who might already be hiding in the suite. Nothing stirred. The fire in the hearth burned down.
He would need to return to the others soon. It would not prove propitious if they grew restless and started wandering the Barracks on their own.
A series of resounding clangs thundered through the building, echoing through the ducts with the force of a great bell’s reverberations. Sicarius recognized the cacophony instantly. The Imperial Barracks alarm.
Doors banged and shouts echoed in the hallway. The team must have been discovered, or perhaps security had stumbled upon evidence of the other intruder’s presence. Either scenario would be problematic.
Sicarius backed away from the vent opening, intending to return to Hollowcrest’s chambers, but a figure sprinted through the doorway, veering straight for him. He had a glimpse of black clothing, a dark topknot of hair, a dagger clenched in hand, and a silver medallion on a leather thong flapping against the man’s chest. Then the figure was diving into the vent, and Sicarius had no more time for observation, no time for thought; he could only react with instincts honed since birth.
His black dagger had already found its way into his hand. Like a viper waiting in a rocky hollow, he waited until his prey was least prepared. The man had thrust himself halfway into the duct and was turning on his side to yank his legs in when Sicarius attacked. Though his target’s body blocked all the light, he saw with his other senses, his instincts. The man didn’t know he was there until the dagger dipped into his throat. Metal clattered on the porcelain duct tiles—the assassin’s own blade dropping.
Throughout the building, the alarm bells continued to clang. Knowing the imperial suite would be searched soon, Sicarius left the dead man’s legs dangling out of the duct. Finding the intruder wouldn’t delay security for long—they’d assume he had a partner who’d betrayed him and was still in the Barracks—but they’d have to pause to investigate. He hoped that’d give Sespian and the others time to escape without being noticed. Ideally, they weren’t waiting for him and had already left.
He backed to the first intersection, using the extra space to turn around, and glided back through the ducts to Hollowcrest’s office. The room was dark, though the scent of a recently snuffed wick lingered in the room.
Shouts and heavy footfalls pummeled the hallway outside of Hollowcrest’s suite. Inside, it was silent, but Sicarius sensed he was not alone.
Starlight filtered in through a window in the sitting room outside of the office. Still poised by the vent, he picked out a dark figure in the room at the same time as a whiff of Akstyr’s hair concoction reached his nose.
“There was an istapa,” Sicarius said, using the Nurian term for those assassins trained not only to fight but to resist mental attacks from practitioners.
Akstyr twitched. “A wizard hunter? Really?”
“Yes.”
“He got away?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Akstyr sounded disappointed, though less for the loss of the man’s life than for the fact that he’d missed meeting a wizard hunter.
“The others have gone ahead?” Sicarius asked.
“Yup, back to the furnace room. I stayed behind to warn you. There’s a practitioner, the one who installed the wards, I bet.”
“He’s here,” Sicarius said, guessing the reason for the alarm. If the practitioner lived in the Barracks, he would have sensed that one of his wards was no longer working. The disarming of one might not have alerted him as dramatically as one being tripped, but if he did a nightly check…
“She, I think,” Akstyr said.
“We’ll seek to avoid her then. Come.”
Akstyr clambered into the duct after Sicarius. “If she’s checking where that one ward was, we’ll go right by her.”
“There are other ways out. Alert me if you sense a freshly laid trap.”
Akstyr grumbled under his breath, but the continuing alarm clamor drowned out the words.
Long ago, Sicarius had trained with a Nurian wizard hunter, one of Hollowcrest’s carefully selected tutors. He had never expected to see another one in the Imperial Barracks. Was his original theory correct? That the man had been an assassin sent to kill Ravido? And if so, why? If Nurians were here, did they simply want to create chaos, more than there already was, or did they have a different candidate they intended to back, another puppet, this one loyal to Nuria instead of Forge?
Either way, Amaranthe would want this information. It would add further complications to her plans, plans she’d not fully revealed to him yet, a fact that concerned him. She’d used him often as a confidant in the last year, and the only reason he could see her withholding information was because she knew he wouldn’t approve of what she had in mind.
“Hst,” Akstyr said, the sound somewhere between a grunt and a warning.
Sicarius halted. They’d dropped down to the subterranean level, and the intervening tons of rock were muting the alarm clangs. “Problem?”
“I’m not sure. I thought I felt… I don’t know. Something like power being unleashed. It’s gone now.”
“Understood.”
Sicarius hastened forward, winding through the wider ducks of this level, and heading toward the furnace room from whence they originated. A string of pain-filled curses came from somewhere ahead. Books?
Sicarius turned the last corner. Hot air blown from the furnace pushed against him. Light flowed through an access panel in the ductwork, one they’d removed earlier. Earlier, the furnace room hadn’t been illuminated. Now, orange and yellow firelight flickered beyond the open panel.
Though Books clearly sounded distressed, Sicarius didn’t rush his approach. He wanted to assess the situation before bursting into it. He listened as he continued forward at his same steady pace. Metal clacked twice—a dagger hitting a wall, then dropping to the floor. Boots stomped about, more than one set.