Forged in Blood I

Chapter 19

Amaranthe would have sprinted back to the control room, but she and Books had to be careful not to get turned around in the black maze. If they became lost, who knew if they’d ever find their way out again?

She was letting him lead and almost crashed into his back when the word, “Hurry!” flashed into her mind, along with an image of fire. It was so intense that she gasped and stumbled in surprise, throwing a hand against the wall to catch herself.

“What is it?” Books asked.

“Akstyr, I think.” Amaranthe couldn’t imagine anyone else hurling mental images into her mind, though she hadn’t known he could do that. “Go, he needs our help.”

She raced after Books, trying to shake the image out of her head. Someday, when they had the leisure to discuss such things, she’d let Akstyr know he could tone down his warnings. Books turned left at a five-way intersection and up a thankfully familiar ramp. It rose two stories, then deposited them at the back of the control room, at the hidden door they’d left through earlier. This time it wasn’t open.

Amaranthe thumped her fist against it while Books tried to tease runes out of the wall. Neither method was effective.

“Akstyr?” she called. “Retta? Can you let us in?”

From somewhere up the corridor came the sounds of heavy footfalls. Amaranthe didn’t think they belonged to Akstyr or Retta.

“This way,” Books said. “I think I can find the other entrance.”

Too bad he hadn’t left out the “I think” part of that statement. Amaranthe followed him regardless. She’d done her best to memorize the map, too, and thought she’d know if he took a wrong turn. Sure, she thought, and that’s why you got lost and visited your own personal torture chamber.

They ran around a corner and skidded to a halt, arms flailing, the smooth floors denying traction. A single one-foot-wide black cube floated down the corridor toward them. The small circular orifice on its front flared to life as soon as they appeared.

“Back, back,” Amaranthe cried, though Books needed no urging.

As soon as they found their footing, they leaped around the corner again. A streak of crimson light pierced the air where they’d been. Amaranthe peeked back around the corner long enough to fire at the cube. She doubted a rifle could damage it, but maybe it’d deter it for a time, convince it to float down some other intersection.

As soon as she fired, a second red beam shot out, this one catching her bullet in its path. A tiny wisp of smoke was the only proof it had existed.

There was no time to gawk. That orifice was lighting up again. She ducked back into the corridor, sprinting to catch up with Books. A male voice screamed somewhere in the maze of corridors, a scream of absolute pain. Akstyr?

Amaranthe gulped, afraid she’d be too late to help. She and Books raced back the way they’d come. Facing guards would be far better than being incinerated by machines.

They passed the locked door and raced down a long stretch, rounding another bend. Once again, they were forced to halt in a rush. Two bodies lay sprawled on the deck ahead while two cubes hovered over them, steady beams lancing through the air, burning into flesh, bone, and organs. Amaranthe gagged at the sight-and the stench-but didn’t hesitate to turn around. Books was staring, so she grabbed his arm to make sure he turned too. Though the cubes hadn’t noticed them-or they had but wouldn’t bother with them until they finished their current… jobs-Amaranthe wouldn’t count on that lasting.

“They’re killing their own people,” Books rasped.

Better than Akstyr, Amaranthe thought. “I don’t think any of us are their people, not the cubes’ anyway. Mia must have changed them back to what they originally were. Maybe she didn’t know what would happen exactly. The guards’ deaths could have been accidental.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder.

“What a way to die.”

Amaranthe couldn’t disagree, though it was faster than a lot of ways. She and Books ran back to a ramp they’d passed. This time, she checked for cubes before stepping out.

“If we go down a level, think we could find that lift back up?” Amaranthe asked. They didn’t have many options. “Maybe it’s unguarded now.” Or maybe those guards would be busy dealing with that wall of flame Akstyr had shown her. What machine or wizard had shown up to cause that?

“Yes.”

Books wasn’t so eager to charge into the lead this time, and they ran side-by-side down the ramp. On the lower floor, they reached the dead-end corridor without barreling into any more cubes-or guards. Did that mean the men had already breached the control room?

Amaranthe and Books stopped, and he prodded the symbols into existence, repeating the combination Retta had pressed. The lift started to rise, but halted with a lurch. The entire craft lurched.

“Did we hit something?” Amaranthe pictured underwater wrecks, then imagined the lake iced over. What if colder weather had come in, sealing them below? But surely the Behemoth would be powerful enough to break through a couple of inches of ice.

“I don’t know.” As Books spoke, the lift started rising again.

Amaranthe readied the rifle, anticipating a chamber full of guards.

Instead, the lift reached the control room, and a wall of fire blazed before them, pouring heat. Amaranthe jerked her arm up to shield her eyes from the intense light and her face from the sweltering air. Smoke filled her eyes and nostrils. She squinted, trying to locate friends and enemies.

A body in a black uniform lay on the floor, the lower half sticking out of the curtain of flames. A rifle had fallen next to him, the wooden stock charred to black.

“Emperor’s warts,” Books bit out, “this whole place is made from metal. What could be burning?”

Besides the bodies? Amaranthe didn’t say it out loud. Too morbid.

“Akstyr?” she called, worried about giving their position away if there were guards inside, but-she stared at the charred body-it might be too late for it to matter.

“Come around the wall,” came Akstyr’s strained voice from the other side of the fire.

The wall? The wall of flames?

Amaranthe trotted down its length, though the intensity of the heat made her want to scurry out of the room as fast as possible. She imagined her arm hairs singeing and shrinking away. At first, she’d thought the flames stretched from one wall to another, but there was a gap of a few feet at one end. She stepped through and found Akstyr kneeling on the floor, one arm down, supporting his body weight, the other outstretched toward the fiery curtain. Sweat bathed his face and stained his clothes. His eyes were red and bleary when they focused on Amaranthe.

She took a step toward him, but halted, noticing black shapes in her peripheral vision. One of the other doors was open-the one that had been locked earlier-and two cubes hovered on the threshold.

“Blasted dead ancestors.” Reflexively, Amaranthe jerked her rifle up, though her mind knew it’d be useless.

“It’s all right.” Akstyr grimaced. “Well, not really, but they’re staying there for now. Something about the heat.”

“They sense that it’s akin to their own output and believe other cubes are already cleaning the mess inside.” Retta didn’t glance at them as she spoke. She stood behind Akstyr, between two floating images, the only ones remaining in the room.

Behind her, smoke poured from perforations in the black wall. That view arrested Amaranthe’s eyes even more than the flames or the cubes. She hadn’t thought anything could destroy that impervious material.

“The cubes did that?” Originally, Amaranthe had attributed the smoke to the flames, but this was coming from within the wall, something damaged.

“Yes.” Retta’s fingers flew as she manipulated… whatever it was she could manipulate through those images. “They’re not supposed to inflict damage on their environment, just the debris, as they think of us and everything else, within it. Mia altered them somehow. In trying to send them after us, she may have doomed us all.”

The Behemoth lurched again, this time the floor-the entire room-tilted five degrees. The cubes in the doorway didn’t react. They remained floating on a level plane while everything around them shifted. Amaranthe wished they’d shift themselves out of the control room completely.

“You didn’t… bring her back?” Retta glanced around.

“Uh, no. Her own men shot her. Inadvertently.”

Retta’s eyes narrowed. “Unfortunate.”

Yes. Especially if she was the only one who could return the cubes to their nonaggressive state.

“Why aren’t you putting the wall over there?” Amaranthe asked Akstyr, avoiding Retta’s hard glare. “In front of those two in the doorway?”

Akstyr’s exhausted head tilt made her regret being picky, but maybe he could make it smaller if he moved it, and maintaining it would require less effort. He could block the door, nothing else.

“There were some coming out of the lift too.” Akstyr’s arm was still extended toward the wall, though it was drooping, even the fingers. He couldn’t maintain that effort much longer. “This kept them fooled from both directions.”

“Are we out of the lake yet?” Books asked.

Yes, best to figure out how to do something with the Behemoth, so they could make their escape before Akstyr’s will gave out and those cubes swarmed inside.

“Almost,” Retta said, “but I don’t know if I can steer us anywhere. The engines are behind that wall.” She waved to the smoke. “I’m sure we’re not irrevocably damaged-according to the documentation I read, the Ortarh Ortak can repair itself automatically, so long as it has time to-”

“Where’re those lifeboats you mentioned?” Amaranthe didn’t care about the cursed thing’s ability to regenerate itself. If anything she’d prefer it to crash and explode so nobody could tinker with it every again, so long as she and her men escaped first.

The irked expression Retta gave her was almost as heated as Akstyr’s wall, but she twitched her finger a few times, and an image popped into existence beside Books and Amaranthe. It was the map of the interior again. Green pinpricks of light appeared at irregular intervals all over the schematic.

Books pointed. “That one’s right above us. Is there ceiling access?”

Amaranthe couldn’t imagine how a “lifeboat” could be located in the center of the ship-most of the green dots were along the perimeter-but maybe there was a tube it could travel through to escape.

“No.” Retta waved toward the door where the cubes hovered. “You have to go back out, around, and up.”

“Of course you do,” Books said.

“I can’t hold this much longer,” Akstyr whispered. He dropped all the way to the floor and lay crumpled on his side, only that one arm still raised.

Amaranthe knelt beside him. “Can I do anything to help? Do you need water?” He looked like a man who’d run twenty miles through a desert.

“Just get me out of here so I don’t have to maintain it any more. Please.”

Amaranthe swallowed. She didn’t think she’d ever heard him say please. It had to be a testament to how close he was to pitching over the edge of the precipice.

Shots rang out from the direction of the lift.

“Down,” Amaranthe cried even as she flung herself to the floor beside Akstyr.

Bullets ricochetted off the walls. Many bullets. The flames had blinded them to the newcomers’ arrival, but Amaranthe cursed herself for having been caught unaware. Keeping her head to the floor, she searched all about, as if some hiding spot might have appeared in the room in the time she and Books had been gone. It hadn’t. Retta remained standing, sweat streaming from her temples as she continued to work the floating controls.

“Those cabinets,” Amaranthe said. “Books, can you open them?”

A shot fired, this time from their side. Flat on his stomach, Books had wriggled to the closest wall, and had the rifle trained in the direction of the lift. He hadn’t heard her request. She grimaced, not certain if returning fire was a good idea or not. It would let those on the other side of the flames know exactly where her people were. Still hunkered by Akstyr, she didn’t want to draw fire. His eyes were glassy, distant. She wasn’t certain he knew people were shooting at them.

Without warning, the curtain of fire dropped.

“Akstyr,” she blurted. She couldn’t blame him for getting tired, but this wasn’t the time to drop the only camouflage they had.

“It wasn’t me,” he whispered back. “Someone made me drop it.”

“Huh?”

Four guards had charged out of the lift, each facing a different direction, each with a rifle poised and ready. Two women stood on the pad behind them. One was Ms. Worgavic-emperor’s warts, who’d driven her down here? — but the other was the bigger concern at the moment. A tattooed woman in a buckskin dress stood beside her, eyes half-lidded in intense thought as she gazed about her.

“Drop your weapons,” the lead guard ordered.

Outnumbered or not, Amaranthe wasn’t keen to obey. If she hadn’t been beside Akstyr, uncertain whether he could move to flee or protect himself, she would have fired back and sprinted for those cabinets.

“The cubes!” Books barked.

Cursed ancestors, she’d forgotten about them. With the flames gone, they’d decided to float into the room.

“Bring back the fire,” Amaranthe called toward Worgavic and the shaman. “They’re targeting everybody, your people too!”

She grabbed Akstyr and pulled him toward Books and the wall farthest from the door, hoping the guards would be too busy looking at the cubes to worry about shooting people getting out of the way. And if her team was farther from the cubes than the other group, they’d go over there first, right? Maybe.

“Retta,” Amaranthe hissed. “This way.”

“I’ve almost got it fixed,” Retta said, her fingers still flying. “We’ve broken the surface of the lake. We either have to-”

“Shoot them,” Ms. Worgavic said, her words icy as they cut over the rest of the voices in the room, “then get back in the lift before those things get over here.”

Shoot them? The torturing hadn’t been bad enough? As the guards swung their firearms toward them, Amaranthe whipped up her own rifle in response. She wouldn’t get all of them, but if she could get Ms. Worgavic…

“Akstyr,” Books whispered. “Do something!”

“I can’t.”

Amaranthe fired. The bullet should have taken Ms. Worgavic in the chest, but it bounced off some invisible shield. She wanted to clench her fist and shake it in frustration, but three other rifles were coming to bear on her. She buried her head under her arms, knowing it wouldn’t be enough.

Several men yelped, then something clattered to the floor. Their weapons?

“Nice,” Books said, “you did that right, Akstyr?”

“Made them too hot to hold, yes, but-”

A shriek came, a far greater cry of pain than the previous yells. The cubes had closed on the party by the lift, and two beams streaked out, one catching a man too busy trying to pick up his dropped rifle to react in time. The shaman frowned at the deadly floating devices and lifted her hands.

Amaranthe jumped to her feet. “Let’s get out of here while they’re distracted. Retta, time to go.” She took a step in that direction-she’d pick Retta up and fling her over her shoulder if she had to.

Before she finished her step, a huge cone of fire shot from the lift, from the shaman’s outstretched arms. Her eyes seemed to glow red, reflecting the wicked orange light. The flames engulfed the cubes, but they spanned half the room and also engulfed-

A feminine scream of sheer terror and pain came from the center of the inferno. Retta.

Amaranthe lunged in that direction, as if she could do something, pull the other woman out of the flames, but heat blasted against her face. She couldn’t get close. A hand clamped around her arm, Books pulling her back. Akstyr was slumped against the wall, his arm up as a ward against the heat. They were on the edge of the inferno, the route to the doors blocked by a curtain of flames. All Amaranthe could do was plaster her back to the wall alongside Books and Akstyr and wait.

Retta’s screams stopped, and Amaranthe clenched her eyes shut. All she’d done here was get people killed.

Someone else screamed-one of the guards?

“It’s not working!”

“They’re still coming!”

Akstyr wiped his face and muttered, “Didn’t do it right.”

In a wink, the flames vanished.

The lift, along with Ms. Worgavic and the shaman, had disappeared. The bodies of the guards littered the floor in their wake.

Undamaged, the two cubes still floated in the air, incinerating the dead men.

“Not again,” Books whispered, staring.

Amaranthe’s own stare was in the other direction, toward the charred unrecognizable woman lying on the floor, limbs twisted and unmoving. She opened her mouth, a self-pitying, “Why?” forming-why couldn’t any of her plans ever work out without people getting killed, and why couldn’t she learn to stop putting others in these situations? — but Akstyr poked her and shoved Books.

“Lifeboat, right? We gotta go.”

Amaranthe pushed away from the wall-and her condemning thoughts, leaving them to haunt her later, along with all the others. “Yes.”

They sprinted across the room, angling for the closest door.

“Who’s going to pilot that lifeboat?” Books asked.

Amaranthe would have answered-not that she had an answer-but the movement of the cubes caught her eye. She thought they’d have time to make it through the door, that the cleaning artifacts would finish incinerating the bodies before chasing after her team, but they were, as one, already floating after them.

• • •

Full darkness descended on the snowy field as Sicarius drove across it, the lorry bumping and slipping on the fresh powder. The big vehicle performed acceptably, given that there was no road beneath it. He had chosen a direct path toward the army camp, hoping the trip back would go more quickly if he could retrace the trail broken by his own tires. If things went as planned, he wouldn’t be able to afford any delays on that return trip.

The snow had stopped, with dusk bringing a clearer sky, so he hadn’t lit the exterior lanterns on the lorry. Had he done so, the camp’s roving guards would have seen the lorry from a mile away. The only thing he wanted seeing him was the soul construct.

He approached the camp from the north, knowing he’d be upwind of the creature. If it was still in the hills behind the tents, its otherworldly senses ought to be able to smell him from miles off. Sicarius eyed the stars coming out above. It might have already left to hunt, bypassing the ice camp and traveling straight to Fort Urgot, straight to Sespian.

Stay with the plan, he told himself. If he didn’t find the creature in the camp, he’d drive to the fort. He couldn’t hear the booms and cracks of the battle raging there, not over the rumble of the lorry and the hisses of escaping steam, but he knew the fighting was still going on-he’d heard cannons cracking before leaving the lake. That should mean the walls hadn’t been breached yet.

A mile and a half away from General Flintcrest’s camp, Sicarius stopped the lorry. He dared not drive the vehicle any closer. Even without the lanterns to alert the soldiers, its noise would carry over the flat field. He might already be too close, but he dared not park farther away, not when he had to outrun the soul construct, make it back to the lorry, and drive all the way back to the ice camp before it caught up to him. That trap would be for naught if he couldn’t reach it.

Before jumping out of the lorry, Sicarius added coal to the furnace, ensuring the boiler would be hot and ready when he returned. Outside, away from the heat of the cab, the frosty air wrapped around him. The temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees with the disappearance of the clouds; it’d be a cold night to throw himself into the lake.

He licked his finger and tested the wind. Yes, it was blowing his scent toward the camp.

Sicarius jogged a couple hundred meters away from the lorry and crouched, listening for telltale howls in the night. Nothing stirred. With the vehicle stopped, it wasn’t making noise, and he could hear a few clanks and shouts from the camp.

He stood, deciding he’d have to go closer. Before he took a step, the first eerie howl drifted across the plain. Sicarius turned around, unease slithering into his stomach. The sound hadn’t come from the camp, but from the northeast. The soul construct was between him and Fort Urgot somewhere. It was either on its way, or it was returning. If it was on its way… he had to divert it. Unfortunately, his plans to make sure he was upwind of the camp now meant he was downwind of the creature. It might catch his scent anyway, but he couldn’t count on it.

Sicarius ran back to the lorry and jumped into the cab. Another howl drifted down from the northeast, audible over the firing of weapons beyond it. He turned the vehicle in the direction of Fort Urgot and watched the field ahead. Maybe he should have stopped long enough to light the lamps, but, no, he’d have an easier time picking out that dark shape on the white snow without flames dulling his night vision. In the back of his mind, he admitted that he might not make it back to the lake if he waited until he was close enough to see it. It couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t let it hunt Sespian, especially not tonight, when he, Maldynado, and Basilard would be distracted by the battle.

Ears and eyes straining, Sicarius bumped over the uneven snow, urging the lorry to travel faster, willing the soul construct to catch his scent and turn away from the fort. The howls had stopped, or they’d moved too far away to hear.

He glanced toward the odometer, judging the distance to Fort Urgot. In that heartbeat that his eyes weren’t focused on the field ahead of him, the soul construct appeared out of the darkness. It was bounding across the snow toward him.

He’d survived too many near-death experiences to react with some thoughtless yank of the controls that would have made the vehicle skid in the snow. He carefully turned around, angling toward the lake. Only when he was facing in the right direction did he urge the lorry to its maximum speed.

Snow churned and flew up from the tires, some of it finding its way into the cab, pelting Sicarius. He alternated between watching the route ahead-the packed path he’d carefully made on his way to Flintcrest’s camp was two miles to the south now and useless-and glancing out of the cab, tracking the construct’s progress.

Its powerful legs pumped, propelling it through the snow in great leaps, each one eating meters of earth. The fresh powder didn’t deter it at all. As Sicarius had feared, even with the lorry at full speed, the creature was gaining on him.

A wheel found a rut hidden beneath the snow, and the vehicle lurched. The rest of the wheels skidded, and it swerved, catching another rut. Sicarius kept his balance in the rocking cab, but the jolts reminded him to keep his gaze on the field. Driving at night, at top speed, in the snow was asking for-

A chilling screech, more like the undulating cries of coyotes than the wail of a wolf, cut through his thoughts, raising the hairs on his arms. There was exhilaration in that unnatural baying, the delight of the hunt. Strange how some creature summoned into existence by a practitioner could feel the same exuberance as a flesh-and-blood beast.

The lake came into sight ahead, but the ice camp wasn’t on the horizon yet. Sicarius estimated it four or five miles away. He was making good time, despite the bumping jolts of the lorry racing too fast over a field that wasn’t nearly as flat as it looked, but he didn’t know if it was good enough.

The undulating cry came again, closer this time. Sicarius glanced behind the cab but didn’t see the creature.

A thump sounded, something striking the vehicle. No, something landing on the vehicle. Claws scraped at the cab above Sicarius’s head followed by an ear-splitting squeal of metal. What was it doing? Tearing off the top of the smokestack?

He turned left, then right, trying to swerve with enough force to throw the creature free. More metal squealed, as if claws were digging in, trying to find purchase to keep its massive body aboard.

A paw swiped in from the open side of the cab. Without taking his hands from the controls, Sicarius dropped into a squat so deep his butt smacked the floor. The claws swept in, tearing his cap from his head. Another centimeter, and he would have lost his scalp.

Before the paw retracted, Sicarius shoved at the levers again. This time the vehicle turned so violently, the wheels lost all traction on the snow, and it skidded several feet, the back end spinning in the opposite direction. Sicarius grabbed at the brake bar above his head. Steam screeched like an injured beast as it was released into the night. The brakes caught more fully than he expected, and a lurch jolted the vehicle, nearly pitching him through the windshield.

The construct flew from the roof, its giant hound-like form rolling sideways several times when it hit the snow.

Sicarius urged the vehicle into motion again. The creature’s roll was slowing, but it hadn’t recovered yet. He steamed right toward it.

The beast found its feet, but didn’t leap out of the way fast enough. The lorry pummeled into its backside, sending it spinning again.

Doubting he’d done more than surprise it, Sicarius turned back toward the lake, pushing for maximum speed again. An ominous clink-thunk started in the engine, and the cab shuddered with each revolution of the wheels. Finally, the camp came into sight, a few dark buildings and cabins against the white snow. There were no lamps burning behind the shutters. The men must have heeded his warning to flee.

Sicarius glanced behind him again, hoping the soul construct might have taken a few moments to recover, but it wasn’t more than fifty meters back, its legs pumping to gain ground.

Without slowing, he ran the lorry all the way to the bank, jumping free of the cab before it plunged over the edge. Ice shattered beneath its mass, but, before it continued far, it struck a submerged piling or boulder, resulting in a crash that must have been heard in Fort Urgot.

When Sicarius landed, he was already running. As he turned onto the dock, the construct came into sight, tearing around the corner of a building so fast that its paws slipped on the ice and snow. The slip scarcely slowed it down. In one mighty jump, it leaped onto the concrete dock, twisting in the air so it wouldn’t overshoot its target. All four paws touched down, and it bounded after Sicarius.

The red circle painted on the concrete was barely visible under the starlight, and he almost overran his own target. He dove off the right side of the dock, arrowing into the water. Its grasp was so cold, so icy, that the shock pelted his body like a hammer striking an anvil. But he knew he couldn’t hesitate, not for a heartbeat, or he was dead.

His knuckles smashed into steel. The trap, no the hatch. Good. He found the opening and squirmed through it.

The creature smashed into the surface of the water above him. A wave of force propelled him into the trap so hard, he rammed into the bottom. He righted himself and started to swim for the opening on the side, but he paused. What if the construct had landed on the open hatch, slamming it shut instead of swimming in as Sicarius had planned?

He peered upward, trying to see through the inky blackness of the steel-walled trap. The water outside and the sky above were nearly as dark, but he did make out the opening in the ceiling, then the darkness as something blotted out the light. There. It was coming.

Sicarius stroked for the hole in the side. He didn’t want to dart out too quickly, before the construct committed to entering, but if he waited too long, the thing would simply-

Claws raked into his calf, and pain surged up his leg. Sicarius clamped down on the feeling, not letting it stir panic, but it urged him to make a quick escape. He grabbed the lip of the hole and yanked himself out, twisting in the water to grab the hatch on the side. Numbness from the icy lake was already creeping into his extremities, and his fingers fumbled uncharacteristically. He slammed the covering shut, but it took precious time to secure the latch.

Worried the soul construct would have already seen the trap for what it was, Sicarius darted up to the top, angling straight for the other hatch. The cursed darkness made it impossible to see inside the steel cube-was the creature still inside? Had it already escaped? Maybe it waited right behind him, ready to gnash down on his skull.

Sicarius threw the hatch shut regardless. Except it didn’t close. It caught on something. A paw. The soul construct was in there. Good. But it was trying to get out. Not good.

Another paw batted at the hatch from below. In the water, Sicarius lacked leverage. He wouldn’t be able to hold the lid shut once the creature threw some effort into escaping-it must not have quite figured out the situation yet. Sicarius lifted the hatch and hammered it down. He couldn’t hurt the construct, but maybe it’d be startled enough to yank its paw back. If he could get the cover shut, he could throw the latch.

The paw didn’t budge. In the freezing blackness, Sicarius didn’t see it, but he sensed it sweep out, its claws scraping against the steel as they raked about, trying to catch him. Once more he lifted the lid and hammered it down again, trying to grind the hatch shut, to convince the creature to pull its claw back. His leg burned, and his air was running out.

More pressure pushed against the hatch. He’d have to let go, try something else. But what?

A boom thundered, the sound powerful even under water. The force nearly threw him off the hatch, but he kept his grip with his hands, though his legs were flung to the other side. The trap lurched, and the paw disappeared back inside. Sicarius hurried to take advantage, hammering the hatch shut one more time. This time metal clanged against metal. He threw the three latches designed to secure the door against tremendous force. And hoped they’d be enough.

Sicarius swam for the surface. He’d no more than popped up when a burning piece of wreckage splatted into the water, not three inches from his eyes. He blinked up at the sky, not certain if more would pour down, and not knowing at first what could have exploded.

Oh, he realized, as he swam for the dock. The lorry. He snorted and pulled himself out of the water. The smoldering wreck in the shallows was still spitting burning coal and shrapnel into the night. Amaranthe would be proud.

A stiff gust of wind battered at Sicarius’s damp clothing. He needed to strip and find a place to warm up, or he’d be in danger of losing digits-maybe more-but he had one more task to complete.

He raced to the base of the dock and around the building to find the crane. He’d stoked the furnace before he’d left, and it didn’t take much to stir the coals to life. The water in the boiler was still hot, and it held enough steam to drive the crane down the dock and out to the red paint. He maneuvered the arm with numb, shaking hands, trying to find the hook in the top of the trap by feel. His legs were numb, too, and when he tried to wriggle his toes in his boots, he couldn’t feel them. Blood as well as water ran down his leg.

Sicarius finally found the hook, and lifted the trap out of the water. Numb hands or not, he could feel the reverberations as the construct flung itself against the steel walls of its new cage. As soon as it cleared the water, Sicarius maneuvered the vehicle toward the end of the dock. He drove it as far as he could, then swung the crane back and forth a couple of times. The cables creaked and the crane groaned beneath the weight, but he managed to use the momentum to release the trap at the right time, hurling it into deeper water. With luck, the construct would remain down there for a very long time. He’d have to deal with the practitioner to ensure nobody would find it and release it any time soon, but not tonight. He gazed north over the placid black waters of the lake, toward Fort Urgot. The sky was brighter there, an indication of all the lanterns and perhaps fires burning in that direction.

He hopped out of the crane, intending to run all the way to the fort, but a massive gush of water sounded behind him. He whirled back toward the end of the dock… and stared. A massive dome shape was rising from the lake, its body blocking the entire view of the city on the opposite shoreline.

The Behemoth.

Amaranthe. Sicarius swallowed. Was she on it? Was she the reason it was coming out of the water? Or had Forge chosen this moment, when the city was all indoors, staying out of the cold night, to move the craft? Maybe they’d captured Amaranthe and decided they had to run before someone else came down after them.

Sicarius had never seen the Behemoth lift off, and he didn’t know what to expect, but the craft had an unanticipated wobble to it. It lurched, half of it dipping back toward the water, then recovered. He backed up, feeling vulnerable on the dock. But the craft wasn’t heading his way. It continued to climb until he could see the city lights again beneath it. He thought it would keep going, disappearing into the starry night, but it lurched again, one side dipping.

Then it plummeted, not back into the lake, but downward at an angle. His breath froze. A northward angle. Toward Fort Urgot.

• • •

Amaranthe didn’t waste words as they raced through the corridors. She simply ran, Books and Akstyr pounding after her, and they veered onto the nearest ramp leading up. Reaching this lifeboat wouldn’t be enough. They’d have to figure out how to get inside and how to fly away. Or swim away. Or… who knew? She had no idea if the Behemoth was in the air, on land, or in the water. The blasted thing could at least have a window here or there.

“That should be it.” Books pointed to a short dead end.

Amaranthe raced to the far wall.

Akstyr hesitated in the intersection. “Are you sure? Those cubes are right behind us. We’ll be trapped if we get stuck down there.”

“Books?” Amaranthe waved uselessly at the wall.

“Oh, I see. I’m the expert here now.” He tapped about, trying to illuminate the runes that should be there somewhere.

“You’ve opened two doors to my none. That makes you a downright professional.”

Books found the runes, this time on the left instead of on the right and in more of an orange color.

“Uh oh.” Amaranthe didn’t recognize any of them.

“Cubes are in sight,” Akstyr called from the intersection.

“Blighted ancestors,” she said, “we’ll have to run, try another lifeboat. If we can find it.”

Books tapped one of the runes and pushed in and turned another. A door slid upward. “It’s the same pattern as was on that cabinet she opened,” he said.

Thank his ancestors for paying attention.

“Is it safe in there?” Akstyr asked, then yelped and raced toward them. “It had better be!”

A horizontal crimson beam burned through the air in the intersection behind him. Akstyr darted through the doorway and into a dark cubby without stopping to check inside. With few other options, Amaranthe and Books jumped in after him. For all she could see, they might have jumped into a cider barrel without so much as an unstoppered bunghole to illuminate the interior. The only light came from outside, from the door still yawning open.

“Uh, we might want to close that,” Akstyr said.

“I’m trying.” Books was patting all around the opening.

The floor tilted again, down to the left, then quickly back to the right. Were they flying? Or floating on the surface of the lake? Amaranthe wished she knew.

The cubes appeared in the intersection.

“Not good.” Amaranthe lifted her rifle.

They rotated slowly, their crimson orifices coming into view. It’d be useless, but she shot at one. What else could she do?

The cubes didn’t bother incinerating her bullet this time. It simply clanged off the front of one, and it ignored it. They floated closer, the holes glowing in preparation.

“There’s nothing in here,” Books cried, desperation in his voice, something that’d often accompanied his words in tight situations early on. They were perfectly justified this time. “I can’t find it anywhere.”

“Take cover,” Amaranthe said, shooting again.

As if there were cover. She flattened herself against one wall, while Books leaned against the other, but their chamber was so tiny, there were only a couple of inches of wall on either side of the door. Akstyr had fallen to the floor.

“Too tired,” he groaned.

Amaranthe almost grabbed him, but he had as much cover down there as she did. The first beam lanced out, slicing through the air in the center of the doorway. It bit into the metal or whatever comprised the front of their supposed lifeboat. Smoke filled the air.

A second beam joined the first, and they started moving, one beam to the left, toward Books, and one toward the right, toward Amaranthe. She patted about on the wall, hoping to find a weapon or controls for the door. Anything, cursed ancestors, anything.

The beam inched closer. She dropped to the floor beside Akstyr.

“I don’t know who designed a lifeboat without a door that closes, but it’s a severe design flaw,” she growled.

Inevitably the cubes drew closer, and the beam lowered toward the floor, toward Akstyr and toward her. From her back, Amaranthe fired one more time, uselessly.

Her bullet landed, not with a clang, but with a concussive boom. The force of the explosion threw her into the air so hard and so high that she struck the ceiling. Or maybe that was the wall-the entire chamber seemed to flip onto its side. Pain bludgeoned her like a locomotive, her hip and her arm pounding into one wall, and then she hit another wall as the world spun again. Had she somehow blown up one of the cubes? How could such a small object contain such an explosive force?

Cries of surprise and pain came from Books and Akstyr, too, and the lights in the hallway went out. Everything went out. Or maybe the door had finally shut. Amaranthe couldn’t see a thing.

The world stopped moving, and she dropped one final time, hitting the floor with her other hip. She groaned and had no more than lifted her head-though what good that movement would do just then, she didn’t know-when a soft thrum ran through the chamber. There was a brief surge-acceleration? — and then a wan gray light entered the chamber.

After the darkness, even the weak illumination made Amaranthe blink, shielding her eyes with her hand. When her vision came into focus, she found herself staring through her fingers at a starry night sky.

“We’re outside?” she asked.

A stupid question, she supposed, but she was so disoriented that she couldn’t figure out what had happened. Amaranthe tried to sit up, to gauge her injuries. She didn’t think she’d broken anything, but in the morning she’d have lumps bigger than those love apples Maldynado was always talking about.

“Books?” She touched a dark form beneath her, and then the other. “Akstyr?”

They weren’t moving. Everyone was crumpled on the floor, their limbs entangled in the confined space. Amaranthe’s earlier assessment, comparing the space to a cider keg, wasn’t that far off. The rounded walls didn’t possess any visible instruments or gauges, though the front had disappeared, replaced by a window of some sort. A translucent barrier, might be a better term, as nothing so familiar as glass shielded them from the outside. She remembered escaping through a similar door the last time she’d left the Behemoth and wondered if that would become the new exit. The old door, the one through which they’d entered this “lifeboat” was sealed shut.

Amaranthe disentangled herself from Books and Akstyr. She was alarmed that neither was moving, but curiosity prompted her to check the view first, to see if she could see more than the stars. What if… She gulped. What if the Behemoth had spit them out on some trajectory that would take them to the South Pole? Or, dear ancestors, another world?

On hands and knees, she crept as close as she dared-she had no idea if she could fall out, but had no wish to chance it.

Snow and rocks and trees blurred past below them, far below.

The only other time she’d been airborne had been on that dirigible, and they hadn’t been this high, nor had they been traveling so quickly.

“Books,” Amaranthe rasped. She picked out cliffs and canyons below, then a river that disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared. They were flying over mountains. That meant they’d already left the capital and the farmlands around the lake behind. “You’ll want to see this.”

Before he stirred or she could prod him, the speed at which the terrain was passing below slowed down. A queasy empty feeling came over Amaranthe. Had she eaten recently, she might have thrown up. Was the ground getting closer?

It took a moment for the truth to dawn. They’d reached whatever apogee they’d been hurled toward and were descending.

“Never mind,” Amaranthe squeaked. “You may want to stay unconscious for this.”

She refused to accept that either of them could be worse than unconscious. Though if their lifeboat didn’t have a means to soften the landing, they’d all be worse than unconscious. The smoke that tainted the air, burning her eyes and her nostrils, wasn’t reassuring. Maybe whatever means this craft had of landing safely had been destroyed.

Indeed, they were picking up speed. Not lateral speed this time, but vertical speed. Dropping like a rock, came the unwelcome phrase from the back of her mind. It was the last fully formed thought she managed.

She stared, terror rising within her as the rocks and trees and snow drew closer and closer. She patted around the walls, frantic to find some control, something that could slow their descent, but the smooth featureless interior of the craft offered nothing. Lastly, she dropped to her knees, curled into a ball, and flung her arms over her head.

The window disappeared with a hiss and pop. More smoke flowed into the cabin, and blackness dropped over the craft.