Forged in Blood I

Chapter 15

As Amaranthe headed for the submarine hatch and the voluminous black chamber beyond Retta, she second-guessed herself. Maybe she shouldn’t have let Books and Akstyr change into the guard uniforms. Not only did they fit poorly-Akstyr and Books were both tall and lanky, rather than thick and burly-but surely any guards they encountered down here would be familiar with all of their colleagues working this gig. On the other hand, they wouldn’t have known that the woman above had vetoed Amaranthe/Suan’s attempt to bring her comrades along. Amaranthe might have walked in with them in their original costumes. Of course, disallowing visitors might be a Forge-wide policy. Maybe she would get lucky, and there wouldn’t be any guards on duty. It was getting late after all, wasn’t it?

The submarine hadn’t docked so much as been sucked all the way into a cargo bay, the “wall” closing behind it, and now it dripped water from its hull, forming puddles. When Amaranthe ducked through the hatchway and stepped into the chamber, she had to squint and blink at the day-bright light emanating from the walls and from a ceiling thirty feet above her head. More than the light disconcerted her. Those featureless inky walls and the disproportionate architecture-they brought back memories. Walking through corridors, being smashed into a wall by Pike, being picked up by a mechanical claw and locked onto that table, spending hours under the man’s knife, being helpless to escape any of it…

A hand gripped her shoulder. Books.

Amaranthe licked her lips and tried to draw strength from his presence. She wasn’t alone this time, and Pike was dead.

The rest of the men on the Behemoth hadn’t shared his fate, however, and a number of guards were waiting. So much for her hope that there wouldn’t be any. Not only were they there, but there were more than Retta had led her to expect. Ten men, lined up in two squads, stood a couple of meters away from the submarine hatch, their hands clasped behind their backs, crossbows slung over their shoulders and swords at their belts.

Amaranthe’s fingers itched. Books and Akstyr carried the subdued guards’ rifles, but she still had nothing more than a knife.

“Uh, hello?” Retta lifted a hand toward the waiting squads. No, she hadn’t lied; she truly hadn’t expected this many men.

Amaranthe stood in front of the hatchway, trying to block the men’s views of Books and Akstyr’s faces. Difficult given that they were almost a foot taller than she. Wisely, they hung back in the shadows of the hatchway, keeping their heads ducked.

“We’ve two days off,” the highest-ranking guard said. “Captain Wricket said you might be able to take us back up, ma’am.”

Amaranthe barely heard him. She was staring at a pair of men in black fatigues standing by a wide cargo door on the far side of the chamber. They clasped repeating rifles in their arms, making the guards with crossbows seem lackluster in comparison. Stolid, humorless expressions stamped their faces, faces that she recognized. They were two of Pike’s people. She feared they’d see through her flimsy costume and recognize her straight away.

“I certainly can,” Retta said, “but I was going to show my sister around first. We’ve been waiting a long time for her to join us.”

Every set of eyes in the chamber swiveled toward Amaranthe. It was all she could do not to bare her teeth at Retta for drawing their attention. Were those two guards by the door squinting at her with suspicion? Or did they naturally look that constipated? She didn’t know if she should say something-would Suan deign to speak to the hired help?

“Where’s Neeth?” someone asked from the side.

The submarine body had blocked the view of a control station set into the wall and the person who sat at it. The woman stood and joined them, peering at Reeta, then studying Amaranthe. Tight gray curls cupped her head, and spectacles thicker than bottle bottoms framed inquiring brown eyes. She must have been in her seventies, but her step was springy, her curiosity almost palpable.

“We waited for her, but she hadn’t arrived yet, so I decided to make two trips,” Retta said. “Ah, Suan? This is Mia, my assistant.”

“Your assistant?”

Mia’s lips quirked with wry amusement. “You retire from your old career and begin a new one, and they make you start all over at the bottom. I do not, however, fetch her tea or flatcakes.”

“I’ll remember that,” Amaranthe said, instantly liking the woman and hoping she wouldn’t be forced to do anything untoward to her.

“She’s a fast learner and is almost as adept as deciphering the runes as I am.” Retta sighed, and Amaranthe sensed more bitterness than fondness in the exhalation.

Mia didn’t seem to notice. She grasped Amaranthe’s forearm. “Suan, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve heard much about you.”

Uh oh. Amaranthe hoped there wouldn’t be further tests. At least this wasn’t an old colleague.

One of the men at the door murmured something to the other.

“Perhaps we can share a meal later?” Amaranthe asked. “I’m weary from my weeks of travel. Retta, can you show me to a room before leaving to take these fellows back up?” More precisely, Amaranthe wanted a tour of the Behemoth, a better one than she’d had last time, including the navigation room or engine room or whatever the equivalent was.

“Who are you two?” one of the guards in the first squad asked.

Amaranthe stifled a wince, knowing before she turned that someone was addressing Books and Akstyr.

“Cafron and Vinks,” Books said. “We’re new.”

“New? And you got this assignment? Nobody but Lettodjot’s most trusted men have gotten to come down here. There’s no chance you’d-”

Amaranthe was trying to decide if she should attempt to talk her way out of the situation or simply accept that they’d have to fight when the speaker’s belt unclasped and his trousers descended. In fact, that happened to every man standing in the squads. Still lurking in the shadows, Akstyr had his eyes shut, grinning like a boy pawing open Winterfest gifts.

His distraction wouldn’t startle the guards for long. Amaranthe had to act. She rejected the idea of using Mia for a shield and lunged for the closest of the startled guards instead.

“What happened?” one was blurting, bent over and yanking up his trousers.

“It’s magic, you idiots,” came a yell from the door. “Get them!”

A rifle fired. If Amaranthe hadn’t already been moving, the bullet might have slammed into her chest. As it was, it ricocheted off the hull. Retta and Mia lunged between the control station and the submarine, hiding behind its bulk.

Amaranthe snatched the crossbow off the back of the closest man who was struggling with his trousers, elbowing him in the gut to buy a second to pluck out bolts as well, then jumped behind the nose of the submarine with the other two women. More shots fired from the soldiers, all aimed in her direction. She didn’t know whether to take it personally or assume they weren’t shooting at Books and Akstyr because their own men were in the way. Either way, the submarine and the wall behind her took the brutality for her, though one bullet did ricochet off the control station and bounce into their cove. Retta screamed. She’d been hit. Cursed ancestors, this wasn’t how things were supposed to go.

Amaranthe leaned out and loosed a quarrel toward the doorway. It skipped harmlessly off the wall. The two soldiers had moved. They’d run into the room, each dropping to one knee, rifles pressed into their shoulders. They fired as soon as they saw her.

She ducked behind the submarine again. Metal clashed to her right, near the open hatch. In her peripheral vision, she’d glimpsed the mass of green security uniforms descending on the submarine. Books and Akstyr had retreated inside. Given that only one person could attack at a time through the narrow entryway, they ought to be able to hold their own. Amaranthe on the other hand… Those soldiers were definitely after her.

“Stop drawing their fire,” Retta snarled, her voice thick with pain. She was clenching her shoulder. Blood soaked her blouse and seeped between her fingers.

“Emperor’s warts, I’m sorry,” Amaranthe said, reloading her crossbow. It could hold two quarrels at a time. She’d pay all the money in Sespian’s secret stash for one of those repeating rifles just then. “Where’d your assistant go?”

Retta jerked her head to the left, then winced, doubtlessly wishing she hadn’t. If one followed the control wall to the end, there was a tall narrow door there. It was a good fifty feet away. Mia must have trusted that the soldiers wouldn’t shoot her. Amaranthe didn’t have that luxury. She checked to the right, thinking she might run around the submarine and surprise her attackers by appearing on the other side, but it had been parked too close to the hull. That barrier must have become permeable to allow their entry, but it appeared solid now.

“They’re coming,” Books yelled over the twang of crossbows and the screeches of swords.

Amaranthe dropped to her belly, hoping the soldiers would expect her to pop out at her regular height. Crossbow leading, she stuck her head around the corner.

The soldiers must have been racing toward her and stopped at Books’s shout, for they were closer but on one knee again, prepared to shoot. When they saw her, they had to drop their rifles to adjust for her new position. She fired a bolt and ducked back.

A rifle boomed, the bullet clanging off the hull a hair from where Amaranthe’s eyes had been. The noise rang in her ears like a bell. She didn’t know if she’d struck her target or not. A new round of growling and cursing came from behind her. She was glad Retta didn’t have a weapon; at this point, she must be ready to stick a dagger between Amaranthe’s shoulder blades.

Retta could always shove you out into the soldier’s line of sight, Amaranthe thought.

Another shot fired, the bullet caroming off the wall behind them. Neither Retta nor Amaranthe had been exposing any body parts at which to aim, so Amaranthe guessed it was meant as a distraction. She leaped to her feet, the butt of the crossbow jammed into the pit of her shoulder and stepped back.

As another shot fired, causing Retta to bury her head under her arms, a black form somersaulted around the nose of the submarine. She’d expected someone on his feet to charge their hiding spot, but reacted immediately, lowering her aim.

The soldier unfurled, a throwing knife in his hand. Amaranthe pulled the trigger, then dropped to the floor, hoping to evade the blade. It clattered off the hull above her. She grabbed the knife and scrambled to her feet, ready for a close quarters fight if that was what the soldier wanted. But he’d never risen from the floor. Her quarrel protruded from his neck and he only had time to utter one gurgled word.

“What’d you say?” Amaranthe asked.

He pitched sideways and didn’t move again.

“Bitch,” Retta snarled, one hand clamped to her shoulder again.

“Was that his word or are you cursing me?” Amaranthe didn’t have any more quarrels for the crossbow so she eased back to the nose of the submarine with the throwing knife in one hand and her own dagger in the other.

Retta panted, trying to control the pain. “Both.”

“Let me finish dealing with these men, and we’ll take care of your shoulder.”

Amaranthe peeked around the corner, ready to jerk her head back if she caught sight of anyone aiming at her. There was at least one more soldier and all those green-uniformed guards as well. “Or perhaps not,” she murmured, taking in the carnage littering the floor around the submarine hatch. The black-clad man was dead, a crossbow bolt protruding from one eye. She gulped. Her first wild shot from her belly had done that?

Most of the guards were down as well. That hadn’t been her doing. Two of the men had either fled or made it into the submarine, but the clangs and grunts of battle had faded.

Not lowering her weapons, she eased around the nose of the submarine and headed for the hatch. Half of the guards’ trousers were about their ankles. What had been amusing with the gang thugs on the docks failed to stir her humor now, not when the recipients of the pranks were dead with cut throats or bullets in their backs. Somehow Amaranthe doubted the soldiers had intentionally shot their own allies and suspected Akstyr’s hand had been in that as well.

She couldn’t chastise him though; his tactics had saved them all from being captured. Or worse.

Knowing they might not have much time before reinforcements came, she picked her way to the hatch. Books stood inside, cast-aside rifles on the deck, daggers in his hands, the blades dripping blood onto the threshold. A dead guard lay at his feet, and he was staring at the other bodies, his expression somewhere between shock and horror.

Amaranthe gripped his arm. “We have to go.”

Akstyr slipped past Books, bumping his elbow. Books didn’t seem to notice.

“All dead?” Akstyr asked.

“Yes, but I think some got away.” Amaranthe pointed at the doorway. “Can you help Retta, please? We need her to help us figure out… everything, and she’s injured.”

Akstyr shrugged. “Sure.”

Amaranthe rooted about for weapons. There were crossbows and rifles aplenty; ammunition was another matter. The guards must not have anticipated a big battle on their way to shore leave, for nobody was carrying extra, at least in the first few belt pouches she checked.

Books dropped the daggers and wiped his hands on his trousers more times than was necessary. “You should bring Sicarius along when you need people…” He swallowed. “Dispatched. This isn’t… I don’t…”

“I know.” Amaranthe was reluctant to abandon her search before finding ammunition, but she couldn’t let Books fall apart. She guided him out of the hatchway while hoping the size of the Behemoth meant it would take a few moments for those men to find help. “I keep waiting to get smart enough to figure out how to avoid killing people on our quest to save the empire. I sense we’re not doing something right.”

It wasn’t an appropriate time to joke-she’d simply meant to distract him-and Books’s scowl informed her of the fact. “Remember our discussion on prudence earlier this year?”

That hadn’t been it, eh? “You’re the one who jumped the guards up there and in the submarine, ensuring we’d run into trouble tonight,” Amaranthe pointed out, then wished she hadn’t.

Books flinched.

“Sorry,” she said. “I know you came to help me. This was all my plan, and it’s all my fault. As usual.”

She picked up the daggers Books had dropped, wiped them off, and handed them to him. She wished he’d say she was being too hard on herself, but he didn’t.

“More men coming,” Retta said through gritted teeth. She’d slumped into the chair at the control station, but rose after making the announcement, nearly tumbling into Akstyr’s arms.

He caught her and they headed for the door Mia had used.

“How soon?” Amaranthe let Books go, thinking to resume her hunt for ammunition.

“Now.”

Amaranthe cursed, abandoning her search. Frustrated, she dropped the empty crossbow she’d been holding and jogged after the others. “That door? The way your assistant went? Are you sure that’s wise?”

“The guards don’t know the back corridors as well,” Retta said, “and we can get to the core from there. It’s a control room of sorts.”

Or Retta could lead them right to Mia and a trap. She had more reason than ever to be annoyed with Amaranthe now.

“I don’t have much choice now but to help you.” Retta hissed when a misstep jarred her shoulder. “Mia will let everyone know I was working with you. I-”

Footfalls pounded the floor in the corridor outside the bay.

“All right,” Amaranthe whispered, hustling her comrades toward the alternate exit-it was their only other choice. “Go, go,” she urged, all too aware that having an injured party member would slow them down.

Retta and Akstyr passed into the corridor first, and Amaranthe and Books lunged over the threshold just as a squad of soldiers burst into the bay. More of Pike’s men.

“There!” one cried, spotting Amaranthe and Books.

“They saw us, Retta,” Amaranthe barked. “Can you shut this door? Lock it?”

Retta stumbled back to them and waved her hand on one side of it, high up. That section of smooth black wall looked no different than any other along the corridor, but four enigmatic runes flared to life, glowing crimson. Amaranthe pulled her dagger out, prepared to throw it at the first soldier who ran into sight. Retta pushed in one of the symbols and twisted it. Two soldiers appeared, rifles raised, ready to shoot. The door slid down. A dozen weapons fired, but the bullets were barely audible, soft tinks as they struck.

“It’s locked?” Amaranthe asked as her team ran away.

“For now.”

Amaranthe didn’t find that encouraging.

• • •

Sicarius jogged across the snowy field, following the soul construct’s tracks, staying downwind as much as possible. He left his own tracks in the half foot of fresh powder, something he noted with displeasure, though there was no way to avoid it. As it was, the inches of soft snow were slowing his gait. He thought of places along the western side of the lake where he might acquire snowshoes. It would depend on how much longer he needed to follow the tracks and where they led. He’d slipped through Heroncrest’s camp and out the other side without being seen, partially thanks to his stealth and partially thanks to the death and disarray the creature had left in its wake. It should have made the soldiers more alert, Sicarius thought, chastising them for the ease with which he’d passed unnoticed between tents and under vehicles, even as he accepted that the situation had been advantageous for him.

Now, with night still blanketing the fields, he searched for lights on the horizon, listened for sounds, and sniffed the air for the fresh blood that stained the construct’s paws. Twice it had veered toward farmhouses to kill, not caring whether its victim were man, woman, or child. Sicarius hadn’t caught sight of it yet and didn’t want to-if he drew that close, it would smell him and begin its chase anew. He wanted to follow it to its home, to its master. With dawn only two hours away, it should be heading in that direction now.

The snow had stopped, and a few stars peered between the clouds overhead. With the increased visibility, he made out a lantern burning a half mile away, somewhere near the lakeshore. He pulled up his mental map of the area. That ought to be the ice cutting camp he and Amaranthe had visited for a mission the year before, the only one that claimed permanent dwellings and housed machinery outside of the city. Sicarius would have to deviate from the construct’s path to visit it, but it might be worth it. Following the creature wasn’t enough; he had to come up with a way to kill it, or at least render it permanently unable to move. So long as it was out there, he and Sespian would both be vulnerable to an attack, one that might come when they were distracted by another battle. He could see his own death coming that way, but more, he could see Sespian’s. To lose him, after all of this effort to protect him and after they were finally exchanging… banter, as Amaranthe would call it, would be-he clenched his jaw-unacceptable.

Sicarius veered toward the camp. It wouldn’t take long to survey, and it was probably not a bad idea to come later to the soul construct’s destination, when its master assumed there’d be no retaliation for the night’s activities.

Even with the snow slowing his pace, he covered the half mile in a couple of minutes, and reached the outskirts of the camp. The light came from a single guiding lantern posted near a concrete dock that stretched a quarter mile into the lake. Numerous cabins and sheds dotted the banks, along with a metal machine shop with vehicles parked outside it. Sicarius eyed a crane and large lorries, some for carrying heavy loads of ice and others with winches and cutting equipment for removing the blocks in the first place. Currently, only a few feet of ice edged the lake, but, in another month, dozens of people would fill the camp and they’d be working around the clock. For now, only a couple of the cabins showed signs of occupation, early laborers sent out to ready the site.

Sicarius passed a snow-covered stack of beams, materials for a new building, and picked a lock on the machine shop. Inside, workbenches, a smithy, and welding tools took up a large chunk of the area. After a moment considering everything, he left, trotting back across the field to find the trail again. He hadn’t spotted any cement mixers or convenient already-dug pits that would let him reenact Amaranthe’s first soul-construct trap, but perhaps he could construct one of his own in that machine shop. He mulled over ideas as he followed the tracks, now angling to the southwest and away from the lake.

He was surprised at how far the creature had traveled to terrorize him and Sespian. Fort Urgot was five miles outside of the city, and he judged he’d gone another nine or ten, meaning the construct had made a thirty-mile roundtrip to hunt Sespian near the factory two days earlier. Of course, with those long and tireless legs, it could traverse a great distance in a short time. As more miles passed beneath him, and dawn drew closer, he started to doubt his thoughts of laying a trap at the ice-harvesting camp; only he or Sespian would work for bait-and Sespian was out of the question-but how would he lead the construct all the way back there without being caught himself? It could run far faster than he.

The smell of smoke reached Sicarius’s nose. Someone’s morning cook fire, or a sign that he neared a larger encampment? Numerous species of wood burned, and he caught a few whiffs of coal as well. Yes, the odors represented more than a single home’s hearth, and there were no towns out this way, only farmlands and some rolling hills to the southwest. Hills that might, he wagered, hide an army camp, at least from a distance. They were a couple of miles from the nearest major road, and the railway tracks were farther yet.

Sicarius veered away from the soul construct’s tracks, so he could circle around the area where his nose told him the camp lay without being seen-or smelled. Night was relinquishing its hold as dawn brightened the clouds in the eastern sky, and perimeter guards would pick out an approaching figure. He didn’t know if they knew a soul construct lived in their midst or if it was being kept hidden. If the latter, those enormous footprints would cause quite a stir.

As Sicarius skirted the foothills, he heard and smelled more signs of a large force camped within the draws and valleys-the scents of eggs and flatbread cooking mingled with the smoke smells, and here and there the tops of tents or trampers poked above the ridges.

He approached the camp from the far side with higher, rockier hills at his back. He had to scramble over and around the granite boulders and dells of the area, but he found a few trees that had escaped loggers’ axes by growing from inhospitable slopes, many quite sheer. He scrambled up a fir, using its needle-filled boughs for camouflage, until he had a view of the entire camp. The way the tents and vehicles meandered along the valley floors and walls made it hard to calculate numbers, but he guessed the force as large as Heroncrest’s. In addition, it must have at least one practitioner.

The Nurians had a distinct culture, often wearing attire Turgonians would find outrageously flamboyant-though perhaps Maldynado would not feel that way-and Sicarius thought a brightly colored tent might mark their spot, but only the green canvas of portable army dwellings dotted the valleys. He did spot an army-issue medium near the rear of the western edge of the camp. There was nothing notable about it except for the fact that all the soldiers coming out of their tents to attend their morning ablutions were avoiding the spot. Exactly what one would expect from Turgonians aware of a wizard in their midst. The tent had room for a few people to sleep in it-or a couple of people and a huge soul construct. It was also possible that the creature was sleeping in some cave in the hills. That seemed more likely than it strolling amongst a thousand tents filled with Turgonian soldiers. Sicarius would prefer to deal with the construct independently of its creator anyway. He hadn’t picked up the tracks again yet on this side of the camp, but he hadn’t circled the entire area yet.

He was about to drop down from his tree perch when the front flap of the tent he’d been watching stirred. A figure in cloth shoes and green and blue silks stepped out, a thick fur-trimmed jacket the man’s only concession to the cold. Silver hair fell halfway down his back, and his yellow-bronze skin was creased with age, though nothing about his erect posture and alert black eyes suggested senescence.

Sicarius thought to slip out his spyglass for a better look-he’d like to try for a glimpse inside the tent to see if more Nurians occupied the cots or if the soul construct might be there-but that silver-haired head turned in his direction.

He hadn’t moved or done anything that might have drawn someone’s gaze in his direction, and more than a hundred meters separated his tree from the Nurian’s tent. Further, branches and needles camouflaged his position. It didn’t matter. Through some percipience or another, the man sensed his presence and continued to stare in his direction.

An eerie howl echoed from some valley in the hills, the sound stirring the hairs on the back of Sicarius’s neck even though he ought to be familiar with it by now. Coming here before he’d laid a trap may have been unwise. He’d assumed the practitioner wouldn’t send the beast out during the day, but that may have been a fatal assumption. It was a long run back to the water tower outside of Fort Urgot.

The tent flap stirred again, and a second man stepped out, this one fit and young and wearing a scimitar at his waist, with a bow and quiver slung over his shoulder. It might have been another wizard hunter brought along to act as an assassin, but Sicarius suspected it was a bodyguard. When the younger man asked a question, drawing the practitioner’s attention for a moment, Sicarius dropped from the branches. He was running before his feet alighted in the snow. He’d learned what he’d hoped to learn, but, with his presence being detected, he might not have time to do anything with his knowledge. He ran anyway.