On the way back to camp, Sicarius had chanced across a newspaper page caught in the wind, flapping and skidding across a frost-slick street. The headline had made him halt for a long moment.
As Intra-Army Fighting Grows Fiercer, Vicious Assassin Slays Innocent Civilians
His name was in the first sentence, followed by a list of “prominent and upstanding members of society” found dead in their abodes, their heads missing, their bodies mutilated. Worgavic topped the list, along with several other Forge people, though the business coalition itself was never mentioned, simply the names of the “respectable and worthwhile” organizations the dead had run, the charities they’d contributed to, and the scholarship programs they’d financed.
Not surprisingly, the article was out of the Gazette and had been penned by the senior Lord Mancrest. The newspaper must have repaired enough of the building and machinery to return to printing its lies. Lies? Sicarius admitted the article was somewhat accurate, if biased and incomplete—it hadn’t mentioned Flintcrest or his Nurian allies. How Mancrest had known he was the assassin responsible, Sicarius didn’t know; he hadn’t been seen at any of the kill sites. Perhaps the Gazette owner had guessed based on his reputation.
Sicarius would have stopped reading after the first paragraph, letting the newspaper continue scraping and skidding down the street, but a name lower on the page snagged his attention: Sespian.
He’d picked up the newspaper and slipped into an alley, putting his back to a wall to finish reading. It stated that new evidence had been brought forward, proving that the “dastardly and vile” Sicarius, who’d once worked in the Imperial Barracks for Emperor Raumesys, had raped Princess Marathi and that Sespian had been an illegitimate heir all along.
Sicarius had stared a long time at that passage. With Sespian dead, none of it mattered, though he would have preferred it if his son’s reputation hadn’t been tarnished so. With most of the Forge founders dead, this article was nothing but bitterness and spite. He couldn’t help but sigh to himself though, and think of the way Sespian had been concerned about Sicarius’s reputation, about improving it so he might one day work for the throne, in whatever incarnation it continued to exist. Now…
Sicarius crumpled the page and dropped it in the alley. It didn’t matter, he repeated to himself. Sespian was gone, and he no longer cared who stumbled into power.
Unless, came a whisper from the back of his mind, Starcrest could find the support of the people and somehow…
He shook his head, reminded that his thoughts might be monitored.
Now, as Sicarius jogged to the Nurian tent, he clamped down on those thoughts and all others, turning his mind into a blank, unthinking place.
Before he could sweep the flap aside and enter, sounds inside told him someone was coming out. Head bent, Prince Zirabo slipped outside. He saw Sicarius, gave one quick nod, then strode past.
What did that mean? That he’d located Starcrest? Or arranged for the note to be delivered? Or did it mean that Kor Nas had snaked into his mind and learned everything of their exchange? The prince’s face had been grave; that nod might have been a warning.
Again pushing the thoughts out of his mind, Sicarius stepped into the tent, the flap catching on the bulky bag. He came face-to-face with Kor Nas, who stood in the center of the carpet, wearing a fur travel cloak as well as his colorful robes. His long silver hair was tied back in a tight Nurian topknot, a style favored by men about to go into battle. A braided rope belt at his waist supported numerous pouches, some of them giving off auras to those sensitive enough to detect them.
“Starcrest has been located,” Kor Nas said, his eyes shut to slits. “But this news is not unexpected to you.”
Sicarius said nothing, and he tried to keep his mind from saying anything as well.
“Interestingly, I understand I have you to thank for providing the suggestion that allowed my seer to locate him.” Kor Nas held out Sicarius’s black dagger. “Less than an hour ago, he gave me the news.”
Though Sicarius accepted the blade, and he longed to know when the seer had first learned the news and if he’d informed Prince Zirabo first, he kept his mind a blank.
“Drop those off in Flintcrest’s tent.” Kor Nas pointed to the bag. “Then join me on the south perimeter. We are leaving immediately.”
“Later would be better,” Sicarius said. “This early in the evening, Starcrest will still be awake, as will the men he brought with him. I doubt he came into the capital without troops at his back.”
“We are leaving immediately,” Kor Nas repeated. “Lest he have time to prepare for your visit.”
The cold, hard look the practitioner gave before stalking outside said much. He knew that Sicarius had arranged a warning. Had he learned of it in time to stop it? Sicarius guessed not, otherwise there’d be no reason for haste now. He hoped the note had been delivered in time for Starcrest to receive it and read it. Had encoding it been wise? Sicarius had assumed it would be passed through the hands of lesser soldiers before finding Starcrest’s desk, and he hadn’t wanted others to understand it, but what if it took the wife to decode the message and she wasn’t there when it arrived?
If that was the case, he could only hope that Starcrest had expected attacks from assassins all along and was prepared. Sicarius, under the influence of that stone, needn’t be his craftiest, but physically, he could be no less than utterly competent. And it was without arrogance that he acknowledged his competence far surpassed most people’s best days.
Compelled by the thing in his head, Sicarius delivered the heads, and strode off to join Kor Nas. As he inhaled the crisp freshness of the snow and the creosote taint of numerous camp stoves, he accepted that he was either walking to his death or to Starcrest’s death. One of them would no longer live in the morning. Odd to think that all this effort was to ensure he was the one who wouldn’t see another sunrise. So be it.
• • •
When her weary group slumped into the factory, the first thing Amaranthe noticed was that there were a lot fewer soldiers than there had been when she left. Her first concern was that the factory had been attacked or discovered, forcing men to flee, but all the rucksacks and bedrolls remained. Maybe the men were simply off working on some assignment? Revolutionaries couldn’t be expected to keep normal hours, after all.
Night had fallen again in the time it had taken her group to land the lifeboat, send the rescued relic hunters off on their own way—without any purloined gear—then reunite with Tikaya’s nephew and get a ride back to the city. Tikaya and Mahliki had figured out a way to sink the lifeboat to the bottom of the lake. It wasn’t the deepest trench in the ocean, but it would have to do for the time being. Basilard had stayed behind to make sure none of the would-be treasure hunters followed the team back to the factory—at least two people had eyed Tikaya’s sphere as she returned it to her pack.
The lights burned in the offices on the catwalk. Amaranthe headed straight for the stairs. She already knew she wouldn’t find Sicarius waiting for her in the factory—she certainly hoped not, or she’d have to watch her scalp—but she wanted to check in with the others. Not only did she need to know what Starcrest was up to, but she needed to start planning a rescue mission, to figure out how she could sneak Sicarius away from that wizard. Or, more likely, she thought with a determined set to her jaw, figure out how to kill that wizard so his trinket wouldn’t control anyone any more.
“Does she always walk this fast?” Tikaya asked from a few steps behind Amaranthe.
“No,” Maldynado said, “sometimes she paces about slowly and thoughtfully, such as when she’s mulling over some new scheme.”
“What does more rapid leg movement mean?”
“She’s already thought of a scheme and is about to put it into action,” Maldynado said.
“Given what I’ve witnessed in the last twenty-four hours, I’m guessing we should be concerned?”
“Oh, very much so.”
Not bot
hering to comment, Amaranthe took the stairs three at a time and… halted at the top with her leg in the air. Four shirtless men were jogging toward her. Not toward her, she amended as she took in the sweat-drenched hair and gleaming torsos, but toward the stairs, as part of a training circuit. Her breath formed clouds in the air in front of her, so it must have taken them time to warm up enough to sweat in the cold factory.
“Hm.” Amaranthe had imagined finding Admiral Starcrest hunched over a desk in the office, head bowed in some meeting with his men, not doing laps with Ridgecrest, Sespian, and Books.
“What’s going on?” Maldynado asked, stopping on the landing next to her.
“Strategy planning session?” Amaranthe guessed.
“Yes,” Tikaya said. She and Mahliki had stopped a couple of steps below, but were tall enough to see the men rounding the far corner and jogging onto their stretch of the catwalk. “I’ve learned Turgonians are vigorously active when they’re pondering, not at all like our Third Century Kyattese sculptures of people sitting with their chins on their fists, gazing out at the waves, poised in eternal contemplation.”
“Who’s that?” Mahliki asked.
Guessing it was neither her father nor the sixty-something General Ridgecrest who had caught her eye, nor—sorry, Books—her fit but graying scholar, Amaranthe said, “Sespian.”
He wasn’t as muscular as Sicarius, but the last few weeks of adventure, along with a natural filling out as he reached the end of his teenage years, had added pounds, none of it fat. Though he might describe himself as bookish—or, bookly, as Maldynado called him—he had his father’s natural athleticism and jogged along with the older men at an easy lope, speaking and gesturing, not at all winded. Though Amaranthe’s tastes had come to favor a certain man with a harder, more chiseled face—and body to match—she had no doubt Sespian would attract any number of young ladies, should he take the time to place himself in their midst.
“The Sespian who was emperor up until recently?” Mahliki asked.
“Yes, that’s him.” Amaranthe decided not to say, and he will be again, for she had no idea how the tile bag would truly shake out. Whatever Books was saying to Starcrest, it was accompanied by enthusiastic gestures.
Starcrest might have been listening earlier, but he lifted a hand toward Books as soon as his gaze encompassed those on the landing. His wife and daughter specifically, Amaranthe guessed, and stepped to the side when he surged ahead, long legs swallowing the remaining meters of catwalk. A wise decision, for she might have been flattened otherwise.
Starcrest enveloped Tikaya in a long fierce hug, then extended the embrace to his daughter as well. “That was quite an explosion,” he said, striving for casual commentary, though his hoarse voice betrayed his feelings. Amaranthe belatedly realized how the destruction of the Behemoth must have appeared to those watching from the ground. From what little she’d seen, packed into the back of that lifeboat, it had been fiery, orange, and enormous in the late afternoon sky. Starcrest must have wondered if his wife had escaped the explosion. “I can only assume the trench-immersion plan was abandoned in favor of a more… complete method?”
“Mother found the immolation button,” Mahliki said dryly.
Books gripped Amaranthe’s arm and pulled her up onto the landing with him and Sespian. He gave her a hug, too, then stood her out at arm’s length to eye her from head to toe. “We’re relieved you survived and seem to be intact.”
Sespian lifted an arm, as if he might offer a hug too, but he settled for gripping her shoulder.
“I’m intact too.” Maldynado propped a fist on his hip.
“Yes, we’re relieved to see you well too,” Books said.
Maldynado squinted suspiciously, expecting some sarcastic addition perhaps, but Books only patted him on the back.
“Everyone in Stumps stopped fighting to stare at the sky,” Sespian said. “It dwarfed the manmade explosions in the mountains and in the city.”
“Yes, I was wondering if anyone here knew anything about those…”
Starcrest hadn’t finished with his reunion—he’d switched to putting a hand on his daughter’s shoulder and asking her a couple of quiet questions—so Amaranthe looked to Ridgecrest instead. The one-eyed general was leaning against the railing, his arms folded across his chest, the accompanying frown making it an aggressive posture. He grunted at Amaranthe’s comment, but didn’t offer anything more conclusive.
“Come,” Starcrest said, pulling Tikaya and Mahliki onto the landing and pointing toward an office door. “We have much to discuss.”
As the group filed into the office, Books walked beside Amaranthe and whispered, “I’ve been telling him all about my treatise.”
“Has he been listening?” she asked.
“In between reports from his men, yes.”
One of those men thundered up the stairs behind the group, pushing Amaranthe and the others aside to reach Starcrest. “My lord!” The young man’s heels clacked together and he thumped his fist to his chest.
Starcrest’s hand twitched, as if he meant to return the salute, but he stopped himself, opening his palm instead. “Yes?”
Though he’d found a pair of black army fatigues that fit him, he was neither in the military any more nor a Turgonian subject. Nobody should have been saluting or “my lord”ing him, but none of the soldiers Amaranthe had crossed while in his presence acted as if these missing credentials mattered.
“Captain Greencrest reports that the—” for the first time he glanced at all the additional people in the room, “—the items have been secured in their new location.”
“Thank you, Private. Let Colonel Stonecrest know.”
“Yes, my lord.” The private spun on his heel and rushed out.
“Items?” Ridgecrest rumbled. “He talking about the rice?”
“I assume so,” Starcrest said.
Amaranthe perked. “We saw the granaries blow up. The professor suggested that might be… is that our doing? And if so, why?” She didn’t manage to keep all of the anguish out of her voice, though she told herself to be patient and wait for an explanation.
“You saw it?” Starcrest tilted his head curiously. “From the ship?”
“We’ve seen a lot,” Tikaya said, “and collected a great deal of data on troop positioning, movements, and… allies. Rather I should say, Corporal Lokdon did. I was searching for that—” she glanced at her daughter, “—immolation button.”
Mahliki had been stealing glances at Sespian, but marshaled her attention to the conversation at her mother’s look. Amaranthe shrugged off her rucksack and dug out the journal full of notes she’d made. She handed it to Starcrest.
He accepted it and waved to the chairs. “Sit. Let me get you caught up.”
That “you” was more for his wife, Amaranthe sensed, but his wave did include her and Maldynado. They dragged chairs around the tables, and she ended up between Sespian and Books. Good, if Starcrest didn’t answer her questions, she could interrogate them for details. If the jog was an indicator, they’d insinuated themselves into the inner circle.
“We are responsible for the explosions at the aqueducts, the granaries, the freighter docks, and two of the main railroads,” Starcrest said. “It will appear to the public that food stores and water supplies have been devastated. We did destroy the main lines by which more food can be brought into Stumps, though the railways were attacked in such a way that repairs should not be extensive for a competent team of combat engineers. The Blue Bluff Bridge was in abysmal condition anyway and wouldn’t have passed an inspection I led.”
Amaranthe couldn’t believe that in the middle of admitting to being responsible for all of this destruction, he sounded genuinely affronted at the condition of the bridge, a bridge he’d ordered blown up. Or blew up in person. What exactly had he been doing in the night and day her team had been gone?
“Appear?” Maldynado asked, his usual baritone on the squeaky side.
“The food i
n the granaries was moved overnight, before the explosions, and it is safe,” Starcrest said. “The aqueducts were not, in fact, damaged, insofar as their capabilities to deliver water. We blew up the auxiliary line, which is widely believed to be the main and only line, and have only temporarily dammed the flow.”
“How do you know that wasn’t the main line?” Amaranthe remembered her thought that Sicarius, having been part of the team that had researched the underground water passages for their mission the year before, had told Flintcrest. But if Flintcrest and Sicarius had had nothing to do with all this… “That’s secret information, I understand. Or…” She faced Sespian. “Did you know about it?”
“You’d be amazed at how little I do know—” Sespian rubbed his head, perhaps remembering his months of being drugged, “—insofar as imperial secrets go. Raumesys didn’t share as much with me as you’d think. I wonder now if he somehow knew, all along, that I wasn’t… Well, no, that’s unlikely, or he would have killed me.”
Amaranthe patted his arm, though she returned her attention to Starcrest.
“My fourth-year engineering professor at the military academy designed the current aqueduct system,” he said. “I was one of his student assistants at the time and was much honored to be chosen to help. In the beginning, I assumed I’d be running calculations for him and double-checking his work. Instead, I learned quite a bit about… excavation that semester. I did, however, manage to have myself removed from the laborious assignment, inadvertently I assure you, by presuming to make a few field improvements to the Model 4L Steam Shovel. To this day, I maintain that my improvements made it more efficient. And powerful. Had the operator simply allowed me to instruct him in the changes to a few key controls… Well, it’s not my fault he refused to take advice from a seventeen-year-old boy. He—”