“He’s dangerous. You shouldn’t have gone to see him alone.”
“Funny, that’s the advice people give me in regard to you.”
He snorted. “You shouldn’t see me alone either.”
“Nobody’s ever accused me of being wise.”
Amaranthe sat on the crate next to the desk, annoyed that she had to cross her legs artfully to avoid displaying…areas she preferred to keep off-display. At least the darkness ought to hide the details of the skimpy outfit. She spent the next ten minutes telling Sicarius about the events at Vonsha’s house.
“While we could wander around the city,” she said, “digging for clues and questioning people for the next few days, I’m thinking we might get to the bottom of things more quickly by taking a trip into the mountains to see what’s going on with that parcel. Do you mind if we use your winnings to purchase provisions? If Maldynado can recover enough to charm the heart of a matronly businesswoman, we might be able to afford a vehicle of some sort.”
“Acceptable,” Sicarius said.
“Good. There’s something else I want to discuss with you. It’s Vonsha. Books seems smitten. Do you remember anything more about her? That she spent time working for Hollowcrest and Raumesys isn’t much of an endorsement.”
“Really,” Sicarius said dryly.
“Really.” Amaranthe smiled. “Was she a good, honorable person, working for the welfare of the empire? Or was she someone involved in their underhanded plots?”
“You’re asking me to act as a character judge?”
“Maybe?”
“We never spoke. She did her work professionally. That’s all I know. Do you suspect her of playing a role in the water plot?”
“That’s what I’m trying to decide. It’s hard when I’ve never talked to the woman.”
“No chance to wheedle information out of her yet?”
“Precisely. You know how I love to chitchat with folks.”
“Yes.”
“That must be why we get along so fabulously,” Amaranthe said. “You being the less talkative sort and me being happy to fill in the awkward silences with…awkward un-silences.”
Sicarius said nothing.
“Yes, just like that. See? We make a good team.”
Amaranthe decided not to pester him further and headed for the door. When she opened it, letting light from the hallway in, Sicarius stopped her with a question:
“What are you wearing?”
More than the room’s heat warmed her cheeks. She should have changed before looking for him. “Uhh, it’s the disguise Maldynado got me. It’s…not exactly what I had in mind. As I’ve recently discovered, it’s not terribly practical for fighting, and, er, it was probably a mistake to send him clothes shopping, however good he is at obtaining bargains.”
Though she felt ridiculous in the outfit, and a touch vulnerable, a part of her wished he would say she looked good in it.
“Yes,” Sicarius said. “If you want the respect of the men, you should dress like a professional, not one of their conquests from the brothels. Also, costumes create a sense of security that encourages inattention. Better to remain vigilant.”
Great. Not only did he not think she looked good, he’d compared her to a whore. Maybe it wasn’t too late to put together that all-women team after all.
• • • • •
Rain thumped against the oilskin hood of Amaranthe’s jacket and pooled on the footboards beneath the driver’s bench. She sat next to Maldynado, who steered the newly acquired steam lorry, while Books, Basilard, and Sicarius rode in the large cargo bed in the back. Akstyr hunkered beneath a poncho behind the boiler with his nose inches from the pages of his new book.
Amaranthe’s position offered her a cushioned seat instead of cold metal, though in return for this luxury, she had stoking duty for the furnace. Coal dust stained her hands and her gray army fatigues. She had torn her “costume” off as soon as she left the steam room the day before.
The lorry rumbled along a well-kept concrete road, with the tall buildings of the city fading into the distance behind them and sprawling homesteads and farmlands ahead. Tracks ran alongside, though few locomotives headed east into the mountains. Most imports came from the gulf, to the south, and the west coast with its populous port cities. Rikavedk, the easternmost satrapy, had been the last chunk of land added to the empire, more out of Emperor Dausrak’s ancestrally appointed vision that Turgonia should stretch from sea to sea than out of any value in the vast steppes on the other side of the mountains. Amaranthe imagined the spirits of dead rulers hanging around in the Valley of the Emperors, arguing over who had acquired the most land. Less lurid than comparing lengths of certain body parts, she supposed.
“All that money,” Maldynado grumbled, wiping raindrops off the brim of a broad peacock-feathered hat.
“Pardon?” Amaranthe asked.
“All that money you two won, and you made me buy a used-to-within-an-inch-of-collapsing lorry with an open cab. An open cab in the rainy season.”
“We may need money later on. I thought it best to reserve some of our funds.” She was mulling over a ploy to feign interest in purchasing the mysterious mountain lot as a cover story to justify some poking about.
“I was this close.” Maldynado held up two fingers a hair’s breadth apart. “Almost had that dour old lizard ready to sell us a shiny green Dondar lorry for half its value. She was a beauty. Fast too.”
“Perhaps if you’d spent less money on water—” Amaranthe eyed the crates in the cab with their gear, “—we would have had more for vehicular purchases.”
“That’s bottled safe water. It won’t make us sick. You’ll thank me later if all the rivers up here are poisoned.”
“Safe water? What pretty young entrepreneur told you that?”
“A couple of girls selling them out of a cart. The water was bottled at an artesian spring at the base of the mountains.”
“It’s probably from the lake,” Amaranthe said. “The city water hasn’t been suspect long enough for someone to go up to the mountains and bottle anything from springs.”
Books stuck his head into the cab. “Unless said person had previous knowledge of the impending calamity. I saw the cart. There was a line around the block to buy the water at five ranmyas a bottle.”
Maldynado sniffed. “I didn’t pay that much or stand in line.”
“Nonetheless, it looked like a profitable business,” Books said. “Maybe we should have questioned them. Perhaps they’re behind the attack on the water. Make the city supply unsafe, then make a fortune selling imported water.”
“Poisoning the source just to cash in on bottled water is extreme,” Amaranthe said, “especially considering there will be hordes of competitors flooding the market within a day or two.”
“Maybe our entrepreneurs didn’t think their plan through well.”
“It’s probably someone taking advantage of the situation,” Amaranthe said. “One of my instructors used to say, ‘In every crisis lies opportunity.’”
“Yes, politicians have that motto too.” Books clambered over the low wall dividing the bed from the cab and squeezed onto the bench beside Amaranthe. “Perhaps, when we’re up there investigating that lot…” He glanced at Maldynado and lowered his voice. “Perhaps we should visit Vonsha’s family estate. Since their property is across the river from the other one, they might prove a font of information.”
“Oh, please,” Maldynado said. “You just want to question her family about her interests so you can smooth-talk your way into her font.”
Books coughed and cleared his throat.
Amaranthe lifted a hand to rest on his shoulder and noticed a plume of smoke smudging the road to the rear. The undulations of the terrain hid whatever vehicle was making it, but she shifted uneasily, wondering if someone might be after them. Aside from the usual possibility of bounty hunters, there was the doubtlessly irked Ellaya and her mysterious protectors.
“I d
on’t think,” Books said, “that people who resort to spending their evenings at The Pirates’ Plunder should mock me for my interest in a woman.”
“Nothing wrong with The Pirates’ Plunder,” Maldynado said. “Fine ladies there.”
In the bed of the lorry, Sicarius stood, his head turned toward the smoke cloud behind them.
“In even finer costumes.” Akstyr grinned. “I liked the woman with the eye patch.”
“Oh, yes,” Maldynado said. “Though I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to call it an eye patch when it’s actually covering—”
“Enforcer vehicle,” Sicarius announced.
Maldynado cursed.
“Easy,” Amaranthe said. “It might be a coincidence.”
“What do you want me to do?” Maldynado asked. “Turn off the road?”
Amaranthe eyed the food, water, footlocker, and other gear piled between the men. Flintlock rifles and pistols lay beside her repeating crossbow and everyone’s swords, but many people preferred firearms for hunting and laws forbidding their use were supposedly lenient outside the city.
“No,” she said. “Just keep the tarp over our supplies. Akstyr, hide that book.” His tome on magic was the most incriminating thing they had. “We’re just a group of hunters, heading into the mountains to take down some…”
“Scrawny elk that are still all ribs after a long hard winter?” Maldynado raised his eyebrows.
She blushed. “Early spring isn’t hunting season, you say?”
“Haven’t been out of the city much, have you?” Maldynado’s eyes twinkled.
Amaranthe imagined him plotting some trick to play on her, the wilderness neophyte. “I have been to the mountains before.”
“Did you ever get out of the lorry?”
“It was a locomotive, and, yes, I stayed overnight in a cabin. A friend and I were visiting our fathers’ work camp.”
The twinkle failed to leave Maldynado’s eyes.
“We’ll say we’re going to make a bid on some property,” she said. “Which is sort of possibly a truth.”
“Decision’s made?” Sicarius called over the pumping pistons of the engine. “They’re closing on us quickly.”
“My grandmother on a bicycle could close on us quickly,” Maldynado said. “This slag heap was probably the first model ever made.”
“Yes,” Amaranthe told Sicarius. “You might want to cover your blond hair though. We wouldn’t want them distracted from their errand by your bounty.”
The armored lorry drew closer. Black plumes spewed from a smokestack painted silver to complement the red sheen of the body. Enforcer colors.
“What if we are their errand?” Books asked.
“Let’s hope we’re not and they go right by,” Amaranthe said.
“And if they don’t?” Books asked. “This isn’t enforcer jurisdiction, is it? If something out here was wrong, they’d call in the army, wouldn’t they?”
“Depends on the incident. There are rural enforcer units.”
The vehicle loomed behind them. A bronze plaque on the front of the lorry read: Ag. District #3. Maldynado steered their own vehicle to the side, leaving enough room for the other to pass.
Sicarius sat next to the gear, his back against the side of the bed, head ducked low to stay out of sight. Amaranthe faced forward, pulling her hood lower over her eyes.
As the enforcer vehicle drew even with them, she sat, shoulders hunched. Just an innocent traveler, beaten down by the rain. Out of the corner of her eye, the people in the cab came into view: two men and a woman. The latter looked their way.
Amaranthe twitched with surprise. Of course, she had not been the only female enforcer in the city, but they were so rare she knew most. She recovered and offered a nod toward the woman while searching her memory for the face. Nothing came to mind.
After a brief survey, the woman returned her attention to the road ahead. Nobody yelled at Maldynado to halt, and Amaranthe sighed with relief, glad she did not have to use her sketchy story.
The enforcer vehicle pulled ahead. A dark oilskin tarp protected the large lorry bed from the elements, but the rear flap was rolled up, allowing a view of the inside. At least thirty soldiers in army blacks crowded the benches, each man with a sword and rifle wedged between his knees.
Perhaps noticing her stare, one stood and untied the flap. It fell into place, hiding the interior.
“Since when do enforcer vehicles get used to transport the army?” Amaranthe asked.
“I have a more pertinent question,” Books said. “Are they going where we’re going, and, if so, should we revise our itinerary?”
Sicarius came forward, crouching behind Amaranthe.
“Thoughts?” she asked him.
“An enforcer vehicle traversing the countryside isn’t uncommon,” he said.
“Whereas a convoy of steam trampers and black army troop transports might cause the population alarm?” she asked. “Especially when there’s hardly anyone to war with to the east?”
“How delightful,” Books said. “Not only are they going someplace where a platoon of soldiers is required, but the situation is so dire people need to be kept in the dark.”
“It’s the empire,” Amaranthe said lightly. “People are usually kept in the dark.”
“How comforting,” Books said.
“This road leads to several destinations,” she said. “Let’s not get concerned until we’re sure we have something to worry about.”
“So, we should go back to teasing Books about his lady friend?” Maldynado asked.
“Perhaps we could travel in silence for a while.” Amaranthe gave Books a sympathetic smile.
The silence lasted almost a minute before the eye patch debate came up again. Amaranthe sighed and studied the craggy mountains ahead. Halfway up the green slopes, snow started, cold and forbidding. What else lay up there, waiting for them?
CHAPTER 10
Amaranthe bent to pick up a branch that appeared somewhat less damp and muddy than the others. When she stood, a rivulet of raindrops dripped off the top of her hood and spattered her nose. Frogs croaked in the stagnant pond stretching alongside the campsite, their enthusiasm undaunted by the gloomy weather or the green film painting the water’s surface.
Arms laden with damp wood, Amaranthe returned to the fire Basilard had coaxed to life. A canopy of evergreens over the camp provided some protection from the rain. The flames bathed a rusty iron tripod, which supported a pot where beans simmered. Basilard manned a skillet, turning sausages, beans, and onions into something that smelled far more delectable than one would expect.
Maldynado and Books wrestled with poles and a tarp, fashioning a tent beside the lorry. Inside the cab, Akstyr read his book in the fading daylight. Sicarius had disappeared as soon as they arrived “to scout.”
“Boss,” Maldynado said, “how come some of us are working hard and some of us are reading books?”
Amaranthe set down her load of logs and arranged them in a tidy pile while she debated the merit of the complaint. Akstyr did have a predilection for reading his books instead of helping out; in fact, those tomes seemed to get especially interesting when physical labor needed to be done. He was a tricky one to manage, whining and shirking duties when assigned them. Since he bristled at receiving orders, she always felt she had to find creative ways to coerce him. Maybe guilt today?
“Because,” Amaranthe said, “some of you like me more than others and go out of your way to make my day easier.”
“Sicarius isn’t helping,” Akstyr said without looking up.
She opened her mouth to point out Sicarius did his share to make her day easier, but Books spoke first.
“Is he truly someone you want to emulate? Maybe it’s time you grew up and shared group responsibilities without being asked.”
Akstyr glared over his shoulder. “You think you’re my father? I didn’t ask for your advice.”
Books blanched, and Amaranthe grimaced, sure the wo
rds made him think of the days when he had been a father and how all that was lost. She was going to have a hard time keeping him in the group if all the interactions with the men were unpleasant ones.
“Can you even understand any of the words in that book?” Maldynado asked. “Or do you just carry it around, pretending to be useful, so you can get out of chores?”
“I understand plenty. I’m learning about healing. Don’t you think that could be useful out here?”
Maldynado staked down a tent corner. “You don’t actually believe you’d be able to do anything in an emergency, do you? Learning magic from a book? Come now, let’s be serious.”
Akstyr scowled. “I can do things.”
“We don’t ever see you do things.”
“Because it’s the empire, Stupid. You get hanged for practicing the Science.”
Amaranthe strode to the lorry and draped her arms across the side of the bed, trying to nonchalantly end the bickering before it escalated. “Looks like Basilard’s preparing a nice dinner, gentlemen. The sooner we have the camp set up and the firewood gathered, the sooner we can eat.”
Amidst grumbling, Books and Maldynado returned to work. Akstyr sighed dramatically and climbed out of the lorry, though he kept the book tucked under his arm.
“Anything interesting in there?” Amaranthe nodded toward the tome.
“What?” He stared at her, as if surprised she had asked. “Oh. Sure. There are some exercises I found. I need someone to practice on though.”
“Someone injured?”
Akstyr nodded. “So I can try to heal them.”
Basilard banged a wooden spoon against his pot, and the three men hustled over. Amaranthe perched on a stump near Basilard, and he handed her a bowl.
“Wasn’t it Sicarius’s turn to cook?” Amaranthe asked. “I thought you switched with him yesterday.”
Basilard lifted a dismissive hand, even as Maldynado and Akstyr shook their heads vigorously.
“We’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” Books said. “We feel that Sicarius already takes on so much responsibility in regard to our training that it’s not fair to force him to engage in meal-preparation duties. His own training is, of course, paramount to him as well, so we would not wish to burden him with this additional responsibility.”