As he loped after Basilard, he tested the air again, as he’d been doing throughout the evening. He detected the scents of the forest, of coal smoke, of military rations, and… He sniffed again. Yes, the smell of blood tainted the air.
Freshly spilled blood, a lot of it.
The air held another odor as well, one that was earthy and musky. And familiar. One he hadn’t smelled since last spring, since they’d been in that dam up in the mountains. Makarovi? Down here? Basilard was right. They were a hundred miles from that dam and hundreds of miles from what remained of makarovi territory. It was possible that one of the ones he, Amaranthe, and Maldynado had hurled downstream had found its way to shore and migrated in this direction, finding food to sustain it as it went, but such beasts did not tread lightly upon the earth. Someone would have reported the deaths, and the story should have made its way into the newspaper.
His nose, however, did not make mistakes, not like this.
His first urge was to find Amaranthe, remembering that makarovi chose female targets when possible, preferring the taste of their reproductive organs. His fear for her rose in his chest, so intense that he almost spun about and ran to her. But that would leave Basilard to possibly face one alone. Amaranthe had several men around her, enough to slow an attack should it come, and Sicarius would hear the sounds of melee. He could run back in time. She was competent enough to deal with a fight as well—if nothing else, she couldn’t do worse than his example with the soul construct: fleeing up a tree.
Hoping he wouldn’t regret the decision, Sicarius increased his speed until he caught up with Basilard.
“Slow down,” he whispered. “We should approach with caution.”
Basilard started to unshutter the lantern, but Sicarius stopped him, guessing at his question.
“Yes, I smell it too.”
Moving more slowly now, they circled a copse of evergreens so they could approach from downwind. In this part of the park, boulders mingled with the trees, and some of the outcroppings towered above a man’s head. Though hunters and the creep of civilization had long ago driven large game out of the valley, it was the sort of area where an animal might make its den.
He and Basilard picked a careful route, listening and smelling as they went. To Sicarius, the faintness of the makarovi odor implied the creature wasn’t still about—their pungent, earth scent was overpowering in close proximity—but makarovi could move quickly on land, and just because it wasn’t in the area didn’t mean it couldn’t choose any moment to return.
Sicarius spotted the body first, a dark form crumpled against the trunk of a tree. The paleness of the snow made the blood spatters stand out. Clawed plantigrade footprints surrounded the area. Basilard stopped and pointed at the body. He raised the lantern questioningly.
Sicarius nodded. “Take a look. I’ll stand watch.”
As Basilard peeled back the shade on his lantern for a close look at the corpse, Sicarius listened for the approach of the others—or for anything else that might be about. Plops sounded as melting snow continued to fall from the branches, but little else disturbed the night. Above the skeletal trees, clouds blotted out the stars and moon. A dark shape in a hollow between two boulders caught his roaming gaze.
Sicarius headed toward it. The number of clawed footprints in the snow increased. With several meters between Sicarius and the lantern, he couldn’t be certain of the indentions, but he thought them varied in size. More than one makarovi?
He knelt, spreading his fingers wide to measure one of the prints. Not surprisingly, it dwarfed the width of his hand. He touched another one. It was bigger. He checked a third. Smaller than the first.
Sicarius struggled for his usual calm detachment, but another urge flowed through his veins, an urgent desire to race back and warn Amaranthe. He made himself stay, probing the edges of the prints, trying to decide how fresh they were from the amount of erosion—the warmer weather was melting snow at a regular rate, but those edges were sharp. Recent. Two hours? An hour?
He rose to check on the dark hollow. More than a hollow, he discovered as he drew closer. A tunnel, freshly scraped from the earth, one large enough for three men to stride through, shoulder to shoulder. Large enough, too, for a makarovi to traverse.
Sicarius sniffed the air. It did smell of the makarovi, but not so pungently as one would expect from a den. The walls were even and tidy, too, more like something dug with machinery than claws. He peered behind him, half-expecting Heroncrest’s tunnel-boring machine to be sitting under the trees somewhere, beside piles of moved earth. When he didn’t spot anything in the trees behind him, he skirted the edge of the boulder formation. He’d only taken a couple of steps before he rounded a bend and found his moved earth. Great piles of dirt had been dumped behind the boulders. Snow blanketed some of them, but other piles had been recently dumped, the dark earth standing bare to the night.
The location behind the boulders would hide the evidence of extraction from the trail Amaranthe and the others were on. The hint of a large, dark form, too bulky and square to be a pile of earth—or belong to a lurking makarovi—hunkered beside one of the piles of fresh earth.
Sicarius jogged toward it. Another dark shape in the snow to the side made him hesitate. Another body. The light would help with investigating those, so he’d leave it for Basilard.
A few more steps, and he was close enough to make out more details. It was a vehicle. It lacked the conical front of the tunnel-boring machine, possessing instead the stub nose of a lorry with a large cargo bed ideal for moving earth. Two more battered bodies awaited in the snow, their arms akimbo. One’s neck had broken upon landing. It was as if he’d been torn from the cab of the vehicle and hurled at a huge velocity. Sicarius checked the lorry’s furnace. Heat radiated from the metal, and red embers burned inside. The gauge had fallen below ready, so some time had passed, but the vehicle had been in operation earlier that evening.
Lights came into view, lanterns bobbing and weaving with the steps of men. Basilard stood and waved.
Relieved nothing untoward had happened to the group, Sicarius jogged in that direction.
“Are we there yet?” came Maldynado’s moan from the trees. “This canister is heavy. Does anybody else think we should have been given an armored attack vehicle for carrying our equipment and for infiltrating a highly secured imperial building?”
“Are you whining again?” Yara asked.
When Sicarius joined the group, his silent appearance cut off whatever response Maldynado might have made. Good.
“It would be unwise to linger in the area,” he said without preamble. “Makarovi have been about, no more than two hours ago.”
One hour, Basilard signed, joining them. That soldier’s body is fresh.
“Bodies? Makarovi?” Amaranthe spoke with admirable calm, but Sicarius didn’t miss her darting glances toward the trees and the boulders. After nearly dying to makarovi claws last spring, she had more reason than any of them to fear the creatures. And he had more reason than ever to keep her from coming up with schemes to thwart them.
“The tunnel-boring team is dead,” Sicarius said. “Four men. At least.”
Basilard glanced at him. Tunnel boring?
“Their earth hauler is behind those rocks.”
“So… the makarovi came out of the mountains and rushed into the tunnel, mauling everyone on the way?” Amaranthe asked. “That could work to our advantage, if we can avoid them. I wouldn’t wish that pain—and death—on anyone, but if fate has delivered it… we were looking for a good distraction.”
“The type of distraction where my older brother gets skewered by claws and turned into a makarovi appetizer?” Maldynado dropped his end of the canister, causing Books, who had been walking backward, carrying the opposite side to jerk in surprise and lose his grip. He glowered at Maldynado.
“Eww,” Akstyr said. “I hate those things. Aren’t they the ones that eat women’s… lady parts?”
“Yes,”
Amaranthe said.
Yara, who’d been trailing the party with Sespian, grimaced. “I hate those things too.”
“If they’ve found a way into the Barracks,” Sespian said, “and the building and courtyard gates are locked down, whoever’s in there will be trapped.”
“They didn’t go inside the tunnel,” Sicarius said.
Silence fell as the team considered his words. He took advantage, listening to the night forest around them. More plops of snow fell, but he didn’t hear anything else, no further screams, nor the moist snuffles of those creatures advancing through the trees.
“They killed the tunnel team and moved on?” Amaranthe asked.
“No,” Sicarius said. “They came out of the tunnel and moved on.”
Basilard shook his head. That doesn’t make sense. You must have read the tracks incorrectly.
“I did not,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe patted Basilard on the arm. “Now, now, you know you insult him when you say things like that.”
She kept her teasing tone light, though Sicarius sensed that her jocularity was not sincere. As she so often did, she was trying to remain strong, insouciant even, so the others would not worry. Indeed, Yara had turned to face the shadowy trees to the rear, the rifle in her hands clenched tightly, her shoulders tense. Working as an enforcer sergeant, she too had been up near that dam, and she too had seen what the makarovi could do.
Perhaps the creatures traveled into it, used it as a den, and came back out again, Basilard signed.
“Makarovi came out,” Sicarius said. “They did not enter.”
I do not wish to belittle your tracking skills, Basilard signed, but… He faced the others. Sicarius did not see the tracks by the light of a lantern.
“He’s right,” Sespian said. “It must be a mistake. Having makarovi come from inside the Barracks doesn’t make any sense. We don’t grow them in the garden.”
Sicarius said nothing, though having his skills doubted by his son stung slightly. Sespian was right to question, he told himself. It didn’t make sense.
“Here’s an idea,” Maldynado said. “Why don’t we take the lights over there and all have a looksie?”
“Would you be comfortable dying if those were your last words?” Yara asked.
“I can’t imagine any circumstance where I’d be comfortable dying, unless it were in bed, after being heart-stoppingly overworked by a lush, beautiful, and terribly athletic woman.”
“More likely you’d be killed in bed, by a dagger from the woman’s husband,” Yara said.
Maldynado removed his hat and crushed it to his chest, a forlorn expression on his face. “I meant you, my lady.”
Yara blinked. “Oh.”
“Let’s take a look at these makarovi prints,” Amaranthe said before the conversation could veer farther off track.
“This way.” Pointedly not taking one of the lanterns, Sicarius led the way to the tunnel mouth.
“Nice… body,” Akstyr said. “At least it’s not a girl. It’s only deheaded, not de…organed.”
“Decapitated,” Books corrected.
“Whatever.”
“Is there a better word for de-organed?” Amaranthe asked bleakly, her voice devoid of the humor that might have accompanied her words under other circumstances.
“Not that references the specific organs those creatures target,” Books said.
“Pity,” Yara muttered, still eyeing the forest warily. “I’d hate for there not to be a word for how we’ll be killed.”
“I’m sure Books can make one up for you,” Maldynado said.
Sicarius waited while Basilard investigated the tracks with the help of his lantern. Amaranthe stepped into the tunnel, holding her own light aloft. The flame did little to push back the darkness, illuminating only a few feet into the earthen passage. It was enough, however, to see the round walls and regular cuts made by a boring machine.
“Do you think they made it through to the Barracks?” she asked.
“It’s over a mile from here to there,” Sicarius said, “via a linear route. This is farther out than the secret entrance to which I intended to lead the group.”
“The one labeled sewer access point?” Amaranthe asked. “I’ve visited that one before.”
“Yes.” Reminded of their first couple of meetings, Sicarius remembered how callously he’d sent her to see Hollowcrest and how unmoved he’d been when he found her dying on that park bench. It chilled him now to think of how close he’d come to losing her before he understood her worth to him. “It’s approximately one fourth of a mile away.”
“With a shaman booby trap at the end.”
“Ward,” Akstyr said.
“We don’t know what will be there,” Books said. “After you fiddled with the last one, that shaman may have tinkered around and improved the security.”
“That’s… actually a good point,” Akstyr said.
“I make them occasionally.”
Basilard stood, a displeased wrinkle creasing his forehead. Sicarius waited for him to pronounce the correctness of his findings.
“Basilard?” Sespian asked. He’d been watching the investigation, puzzled, no doubt, as to how makarovi might have originated inside the Barracks.
It does appear that they came out this way. There are no tracks leading inside the tunnel. Basilard tugged off his cap to scratch his scarred pate. There could be an intersecting tunnel ahead somewhere, allowing entrance from another outside point.
Sicarius did not disagree with this supposition.
“Shall we check?” Amaranthe pointed into the tunnel. “If the boring team did breach the Barracks grounds before this happened—” she tilted her head toward the corpse in view, “—it may be an unguarded way in. I’d prefer not to alert the shaman of our entrance, and if I’m understanding the wards correctly, that could happen even if we find a way to bypass the alarm.”
“It could,” Akstyr admitted.
“What if this entrance is guarded by makarovi?” Yara asked. “That’s worse than a shaman.”
“First Marblecrest’s troops and now makarovi.” Sespian sighed. “My poor cat hasn’t got a chance.”
Amaranthe looked around at everyone, holding Sicarius’s gaze a little longer. He nodded. Neither option was amazingly better than the other, and they needed to get on with their mission. The only unfortunate bit would be if this involved walking a mile to a dead end and having to backtrack, but it was worth the risk if it offered them a chance to learn more of the makarovi—such as if these beasts wore shamanic control collars like the ones in the dam had. If one of the contenders for the throne controlled such creatures, Starcrest would want that information. Sicarius had picked up five distinctly different prints from five different creatures before he’d stopped counting. As powerful as the makarovi were, even a force that small could have an impact in a wartime situation.
“We’ll try it.” Amaranthe took a step to lead the way into the tunnel.
Sicarius cut her off, gliding into the point position. Under many circumstances, he’d accept her going first, but not when dealing with monsters that preferred the taste of human women. She didn’t object to his usurpation of the lead spot, and he trotted ahead, wanting to feel and smell the tunnel with senses that were superior to sight in such poor lighting. If makarovi raced down the passage toward him, he’d be the first to know it.
• • •
Amaranthe judged they’d walked about a half mile when she caught up to Sicarius. He’d stopped in the middle of the passage, his back rigid, his eyes forward, as if he were a statue. The rest of the team had been walking behind her, their lights bobbing on the dirt-and-rock walls, and they too halted.
“What is it?” she whispered, though she knew there was no point. He’d tell her when he’d fully processed whatever he’d heard or smelled.
“Nothing new,” Sicarius said without turning around, “but the scent is growing alarmingly strong.”
Basilard s
tepped up to Amaranthe’s shoulder. I concur. We may run into their den before we reach the end of the tunnel. Perhaps discovering it is what caused the excavation to stop.
Amaranthe detected the musky scent now, too, and memories shivered through her, excruciating memories. We beat them last time, she reminded herself. Of course the layout of the dam had given them time to enact a plan. Meeting them head on in the tunnel would not offer that same time.
“I will continue,” Sicarius said. “Wait here.”
“Sicarius, wait—” she started, but he was already jogging away. Running away.
Amaranthe was tempted to run after him. To lose him now, when they were so close to… having a full-on, grownup real people’s relationship… She sighed.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Sespian said, stepping up to her other side. “I’ve seen him run. He’s quite the sprinter. He should have been an athlete in the Imperial Games instead of an assassin.”
We already have a competition-winning athlete in the group, Basilard signed.
“Yes, we do.” Amaranthe patted him on the shoulder, though she didn’t take her gaze from the tunnel ahead. “Let’s keep going. We’ll walk while he runs. He’ll still see whatever there is to see first.”
“As if there were… another option… than walking,” Maldynado grunted. “Anyone else want to take a turn at carrying this thing?”