CHAPTER 17

A surprising amount of smoke thickened the air, hanging low amongst the ferns and evergreens. The soldiers were certainly not being discreet. The smoke stung Amaranthe’s eyes and tickled her nostrils. She blinked away the irritation and hung back, letting Sicarius and Basilard lead the way toward the camp. After her admonition to the others to be careful, she did not want to be the one to step on a twig and alert everyone to their approach. The last time she had been forced to fight enforcers with Sicarius at her side, it had gone poorly…for the enforcers. A victory against those she wanted as allies was no victory.

Sicarius had offered to scout the camp on his own, but she wanted to see what the enforcers and soldiers were up to. Assuming they had the same goal she did, they had a day’s head start. What had they done with it?

Ahead of her, Basilard and Sicarius stopped.

Much smoke, Basilard signed.

No cook fire, Sicarius signed back.

Amaranthe had not realized he had learned Basilard’s hand code, nor had she seen him use it, but he did so now flawlessly. She crept up and joined them. They found a spur of high ground where they could gaze down upon the camp with copious trees in between for cover. On the pebbly shore, a huge bonfire burned, easily eight feet long. The two male enforcers tended it, tossing on more wood.

Not a bonfire, Amaranthe realized. A funeral pyre.

“Looks like they had an eventful night,” she murmured, wondering if it had been wise to split her group.

The female enforcer sergeant paced into view.

“We should be in there with them.” The woman clenched her fists as she stalked about the pyre.

“You’ve got to stay here, Sarge,” one man said. “Those monsters like women.”

Basilard’s head jerked up.

“They seemed to like the men fine too.” The sergeant jabbed her hand toward the funeral pyre.

Amaranthe leaned forward, resting her hand on the papery bark of a birch. She wanted more information, but the woman paced back into a tent. The men at the fire said nothing. If there were others in the camp, they were in the tents or otherwise hidden from view.

Sicarius signed, Go?

Amaranthe exhaled slowly, tempted to watch longer or even approach. If there were only three people in there…

She pointed at the camp and signed, Number?

Sicarius’s eyes narrowed slightly. He probably sensed her scheming something.

She smiled innocently.

He flicked a finger for Basilard to go one way while he went the other. Amaranthe stayed by her tree and nibbled on a fingernail while she watched the enforcer men pile more wood onto the fire. The longer she watched, the more sure she became that she wanted to question the sergeant.

Sicarius returned first. Three sleep in tents.

Amaranthe had not seen him get close enough to check inside the tents. Actually, she had not seen him at all between the time he left and the time he returned. She held up six fingers, not sure if he had counted the woman.

He nodded. Basilard checks… “lorry,” he mouthed. No signs in Basilard’s hunting code for steam machinery.

A moment later, Basilard returned and informed them no one was on the road or in the vehicle.

Amaranthe backed away from the camp so they could talk more freely. Irritated birds jabbered at each other in the trees. One dove at another for no reason—neither was carnivorous. The weaker shrieked and flew off, while the larger assumed a surly pose on a branch.

“I want to talk to her,” Amaranthe said. “If there’s something dangerous in the dam, it’d be useful to know what before we walk in.” She recalled the three dead men, men she believed came from this very dam, and the huge gashes on their bodies. Monsters, the enforcer had said. More soul constructs crafted by a wizard or shaman? Or natural creatures twisted by the water’s power?

“Is the dam a priority?” Sicarius asked.

She caught her lip in her teeth. He had a good point. Destroying or nullifying that artifact in the lake had to be their main goal if it was responsible for fouling the water.

“If something’s killing soldiers and city workers, I’m sure the emperor would appreciate us taking care of it,” she said.

He sent men to hunt, Basilard signed. Yes?

“Yes, but they may lack our unique skills,” Amaranthe said.

Basilard looked at her skeptically. Sicarius simply looked at her.

“Fine, fine,” she said. “The artifact is the priority. I still want to talk to the woman and find out what’s going on. Basilard, you recognized something when they were talking of monsters.”

He hesitated, started to shake his head, but turned it into a shrug. He slashed two fingers in a claw-like motion. Amaranthe did not recognize the sign.

She spread her hands. “I don’t—”

“Makarovi,” Sicarius said.

The word sounded familiar. “Isn’t that some mythological creature of old?”

Basilard shrugged again, an embarrassed flush reddening his cheeks.

“They’re real,” Sicarius said.

Basilard flicked him a surprised glance.

“Real but rare,” Sicarius said. “Their habitat is in the drier eastern half of the mountains, especially up north where the Mangdorian tribes were pushed. Centuries ago, they were hunted relentlessly in the empire, and they’ve been absent here since.”

“So, someone from Mangdoria brought them here?” Amaranthe asked.

Basilard slashed his hand in a “no” sign and added: Too dangerous. Nobody could harness them.

“A powerful practitioner could,” Sicarius said.

That drew another “no” from Basilard. Not for a long trek. Shaman must sleep.

“Let’s just worry about the fact that they’re here for now,” Amaranthe said. “And that they’re apparently so awful they were hunted close to extinction. What did they do exactly?”

“When our ancestors first pushed east and encountered them, the creatures killed many of our people,” Sicarius said. “Women in particular were targeted. After numerous gruesome deaths, Emperor Skatovar placed a bounty on them.”

“Why did they target women?”

“Unknown.” Sicarius looked to Basilard.

He grimaced, face apologetic as he signed. Favorite prey. They eat female organs.

“Great,” Amaranthe said. “I’ve always wanted to be some horrible creature’s culinary delicacy.”

A branch snapped nearby. Sicarius disappeared. Basilard darted behind a shrub. Amaranthe ducked behind a knot of roots protruding a couple of feet above the ground. The earthy scent of moss filled her nostrils as she peeked over top.

A soldier came into view, weaving between the trees. Performing a routine patrol or searching for the owners of the abandoned steam lorry? The scouts on the road must have reported back by now.

He drew closer, head rotating from side to side. His hands gripped the rifle tightly. Yes, he anticipated trouble.

Something brushed Amaranthe’s arm, surprising her. Sicarius had joined her behind the roots.

He pointed to the soldier, whose back was to them as he moved past their position. Sicarius said nothing but she guessed his meaning: should he grab the man for questioning?

“I want to talk to the woman,” Amaranthe breathed.

Sicarius stared her in the eye, his gaze hard and unwavering.

A dozen justifications floated through her mind, though she knew any one would sound like an excuse. They could probably get the same information from the soldier. It was curiosity that motivated her choice, nothing wiser. She lifted her chin in what she hoped was a regal commanding expression that proclaimed she had made her decision and would not rescind it.

“If we question her and let her go,” Sicarius said, “she’ll report our presence to the soldiers. They’ll know exactly who is here.”

She grimaced, realizing that meant he had not planned to let this soldier go after questioning. She doubted that meant tying the man up to release later.

“The soldiers knowing we’re here is acceptable,” Amaranthe said. “In fact, it’s good. If nobody knows we’re here, nobody will know we’re the ones who save the city. I know you prefer stealth and secrecy for your work, but if we’re to…” She glanced at Basilard, mindful not to hint too much of Sicarius’s interests in front of anyone. “If we’re to earn exoneration from the emperor, it’s not enough to help the empire. We need Sespian to know we’re helping the empire, so the more people who know of our work, the better.”

“Very well.” Sicarius did not appear happy, but then he never did.

“How shall we arrange this?” Amaranthe rubbed her hands. “I can go in there, and you can cover me while I palaver, and—”

“No.”

She lifted her hands. “What are the odds of another team having blasting sticks to hurl at you?”

“Wait by the water,” Sicarius said, apparently uninterested in estimating odds. “I’ll bring her to you.”

“No violence,” she said.

He snorted.

“No permanent, scar-producing violence that will leave her disinclined to listen to me,” Amaranthe amended.

Sicarius stalked away, ignoring Basilard who was signing to ask if he could help. Basilard lifted his eyebrows in her direction.

“Do I ask for too much?” she asked.

He pointed the direction Sicarius had gone and rocked his hand back and forth. Just too much for Sicarius then. Well, everyone thought that.

“We better do as he says and wait by the water.” Amaranthe took a few steps that direction before noticing Basilard was not following. “Coming?”

He signed: I stay. Help if he needs it.

For a few heartbeats, Amaranthe watched him, noticing how he avoided her eyes. He didn’t want to be alone with her. Did he fear she would question him, and he would reveal things he did not want to share?

“Basilard, if there’s something you know that might help us,” she said, “I hope you’ll consider telling me. If one of your people is working for whomever is behind all this…he’s already abandoned your tenets, right? By killing or creating devices that do the killing for him?”

Basilard studied a particularly interesting fern at his feet.

Amaranthe left him and made her way around the spur to the marshy zone that stretched along the lake. The sun had dropped behind the mountains, casting shade across the valley.

She propped a foot on a bird-poop-stained rock at the water’s edge. Ducks stared at her as they paddled past, eyes glowing. Amaranthe had to admit, she could think of places she would rather spend time alone. She wondered if not drinking the water would be enough to keep them safe, or if the artifact’s powers permeated the land and the air about the lake too. The thought of waking up for watch and stumbling upon an aggressive Sicarius, eyes glowing, was the stuff of nightmares.

She shook the idea from her mind and windmilled her arms to loosen tense muscles. She redid her bun, smoothed her fatigues, and brushed mud from her boots. The sergeant’s opinion should not matter, but Amaranthe did not want to appear like some vagrant booted from the force due to sloth and dishevelment.

Reeds rustled behind her.

Amaranthe whirled and pulled her short sword free.

A three-foot-long lizard hurtled toward her. Green eyes burned brightly in its dark, scaled face. Its maw gaped open as it ran, rows of needle sharp fangs glistening.

Amaranthe lunged to the side and thrust her blade downward. Steel pierced leathery hide and pinned the lizard at the neck. It thrashed with surprising power. Leaving her sword, she skittered back to avoid its whipping razor-edged tail.

She evaded it, but her heel sunk into mud. Thick muck snared her boot, and she lost her balance. She went down with an ungraceful splash. Muddy water washed over her clothing and splattered her cheeks.

The lizard flailed one last time and lay still. Amaranthe glared at it.

Three figures walked out of the trees. Basilard, Sicarius, and the enforcer woman. Though Sicarius’s knives were sheathed, a long thin cut at the woman’s throat dripped blood. Her cold dark eyes could have been carved from obsidian. Sicarius gripped her arm, and she remained quiet, but the tendons standing out along her neck suggested she would be happy to lunge at Amaranthe and complete the task the lizard had failed at.

Struggling to maintain dignity, Amaranthe shambled out of the mud and onto solid ground. Caked in grime, with clumps of wet hair hanging in her eyes, she doubted her appearance impressed the woman. For once, she was relieved Sicarius let nothing of his thoughts show on his face. Oh, well. Carry on.

“Good afternoon,” Amaranthe said, her tone light and—she hoped—non-threatening. “How are you, Sergeant? Good? Good.” She pried her sword free from the dead lizard. “I was just catching a spot of dinner. Say, Basilard, are these lizards good eating? Wait, scratch that. It’s probably not healthy to ingest magically altered animals.”

The enforcer woman’s nostrils flared at the mention of magic. Or maybe they were flaring at the entire situation.

“What do you want?” she demanded. The name tag sewn on her uniform jacket read: YARA.

“To help,” Amaranthe said.

“I know who you are.”

“And does that preclude a belief that we could be helpful?”

“Yes!” the woman roared.

“Ah. That’ll make this conversation difficult then.”

“You’re criminals,” Yara growled, shoulders hunched. “You tried to assassinate the emperor, and this—” she whipped her head toward Sicarius, “—beast has killed dozens—hundreds!—of soldiers and enforcers. How can you stand here with him? What payment could he give you to betray the empire and your co-workers?”

The words surprised Amaranthe to silence, not because the woman loathed Sicarius—that was expected—but because Yara knew her by sight, knew about the emperor’s kidnapping, and apparently knew Amaranthe’s history as an enforcer. The kidnapping had been in the newspapers, but Amaranthe’s previous employment had not been mentioned. No doubt, it would besmirch the reputation of the force.

“I may work in the farmlands,” Yara said, “but we hear what happens in the city. I know what you did to Corporal Wholt and his men.”

Amaranthe winced. The weeks that had passed since that incident had done little to dull her guilt. Even if Yara believed Amaranthe and the others were up here to help, which was doubtful given the fury emanating from her, she would not forgive Amaranthe for that night. Not with Sicarius standing behind her.

“Why don’t you tell me about the beasts you’re dealing with?” Amaranthe asked. Best to change the subject and get the woman’s mind on work. “Are they what killed your men? Are they the makarovi?”

Yara’s nostrils flared again. “They’re in the dam. Go see for yourself.”

“Is that what you came to investigate? The dam? Or are you here about that artifact in the lake?”

Yara’s lips flattened. Sicarius drew his black dagger with a slow, deliberate rasp.

“I’m not intimidated by your master,” Yara said, “and I won’t answer questions that will help you destroy the city. Kill me if you wish.”

Master? Not likely. “As I said before,” Amaranthe said, “we wish to help.”

“You’re probably responsible for all this,” Yara said. “How could you go rogue? I used to look up to you. People always said good things about you. We all thought you’d plant the tree for the rest of the women on the force to climb.”

Amaranthe rocked back on her heels. “You’d heard of me? Before, er, when I was still an enforcer?”

“Of course! There was only a handful of women across all the precincts. Your record was flawless. We all figured you would be the first to make sergeant, maybe more.”

For a moment, Amaranthe forgot her questions and her reasons for pulling Yara out. Why hadn’t any of those women talked to her? Sent her a message? But then, she had never sought them out either, since they worked in other districts in the city.

“It looks like you made sergeant first,” Amaranthe said.

“Last month,” Yara said. “Me and another woman. They were special promotions from the emperor.” An awed tone crept into her voice. “I didn’t know he knew I existed.”

Amaranthe closed her eyes. It seemed Sespian had found another enforcer to admire. Or perhaps his disappointment in what he believed Amaranthe had become had led him to reward others. Either way, it stung. If she had never attracted Hollowcrest’s attention, maybe she would have had her promotion by now. Maybe—

“How could you betray him?” The fury snapped back into Yara’s voice. She shifted her weight, as if to pull away from Sicarius, but he did not let her move an inch. “How could you join forces with a dung-kissing assassin to kidnap the emperor?”

Basilard, who stood back where he could keep an eye toward the camp, signaled: Time.

“It’s a long tale,” Amaranthe said, “one you wouldn’t believe right now.” Perhaps ever. “But I give you my word we’re here to help. Both of us. Do you know how the artifact got in the lake? Do you know who made it?”

“Of course, I know. My partner and I were the ones to come across his lair. How do you think enforcers got involved in all this?”

“What lair? Where is it? Who’s responsible?’”

But Yara seemed to have decided she had said enough. Her lips flattened, and she lifted her chin.

“Please,” Amaranthe said. “Tell us what we can do.”

Yara snorted. “You want to help? Get that thing out of the lake and those monsters out of the dam.”

“We will,” Amaranthe said, drawing another snort of disbelief from the woman. “Tell us more about the person who did this. Is it a single man? A magic user? Is it a Mangdorian?”

“Find your own answers, rogue.”

“Sergeant Yara,” a man called from the camp. “Where’d you go?”

“Let her go,” Amaranthe told Sicarius.

She expected an argument, but he released her without comment. Yara sprinted toward the camp.

“Time for us to disappear,” Amaranthe said.

Sicarius led the way into the woods. Amaranthe hustled after and left Basilard to cover their trail. She did not know if Yara believed anything or not. Either way her duty would demand she try to capture—or kill—Sicarius and Amaranthe.

Thrashing sounds behind them verified her guess. Sicarius pressed deeper into the woods. Twilight descended, casting darkness across the forest floor. Basilard had fallen behind, so Amaranthe called a halt. Fog curled in from the lake. She no longer heard their pursuit.

Sicarius crouched with his back to a tree to wait. Amaranthe sank down beside him.

“Did you learn anything?” he asked.

She puzzled over the question. Since he had been there and heard everything she had heard, she feared it might be sarcastic, though that was not an attitude she associated with him. He was dry on occasion but rarely sarcastic, unless he was irked at her.

“Are you saying that was a waste of time?” she asked.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Frogs croaked out in the marsh. The bird chatter had fallen silent, but mosquitoes whined.

Sicarius gave her a sidelong look, his face cloaked with shadows. “Do I ever not say what I mean to say?”

“Well. You never say what I wish you’d say, and you frequently say nothing at all when it’s clear you should say something, so it’s not entirely fantastical that you’d say a certain thing when you mean something else entirely.”

He opened his mouth, shut it, and considered the ground briefly before responding. “I remember studying Fleet Admiral Starcrest’s Mathematical Probabilities Applied to Military Strategies as a young boy and finding that less confusing than what you just said.”

Now it was her turn for a stunned pause before answering. “Sicarius?” She laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Was that a joke?”

“A statement of fact.”

“Hm. It tickled me, so I’m calling it a joke. Stick with me, and I’ll help you develop your sense of humor.”

He sighed.

She withdrew her hand but not her smile. “I didn’t understand your first question. You were there, so you know what I learned.”

“You learn things others don’t when you speak to people.”

“If that were true,” she said, “I’d get a lot more from you.”

“You get more from me than most.”

Though it sounded like another “statement of fact,” the words warmed her. “Maybe you give me more than you give most.”

Basilard caught up before Sicarius could deny her comment. Amaranthe had to squint to make out his signs in the dim light.

Injured soldier comes from dam. Tells enforcers go to fort, bring reinforcements. They leave search, leave camp.

Amaranthe thought about taking her team into the dam and helping those soldiers, but Sicarius was right: the artifact in the lake was more important. The creatures had likely been put in the dam as a distraction or to keep the workers from reporting to the city.

An agitated howl echoed through the darkening forest.

Basilard gripped Amaranthe’s arm and pointed toward the water. She let him lead them through the trees to a nearby beach.

Out in the center of the lake, a subtle green glow emanated from the water.

•  •  •  •  •

Books shifted from foot to foot as Maldynado stroked back to shore. He was an adept swimmer, and he had been underwater a long time. Long enough to get a good look at the submerged device?

With night’s fall, the location was unmistakable, but its distance from shore suggested depths one could not reach by swimming. Unless, instead of lying on the bottom, it hung suspended somewhere beneath the surface. The fact that the light was visible gave him hope. He had already run the calculations, figuring the brightness an object had to possess to be visible through twenty, fifty, and one hundred feet of water.

Across the lake, the large fire at the soldiers’ camp was burning down. Books paced about the beach, nominally on watch, while Akstyr read his healing tome. The eyes of youth apparently had no trouble picking out sentences in the deepening gloom.

Naked and shivering, Maldynado splashed out of the shallows. Books handed him dry clothes.

“Did you see it?” Books asked. “What did it look like? Fragile? Destructible?”

“Mind if I dress first?” Maldynado’s teeth chattered. “Nobody wants to be interrogated in his brothel suit.”

Books paced. He had let Amaranthe down by sleeping with Vonsha instead of investigating the house, and he felt the need to redeem himself. She was too nice to do more than raise an eyebrow at his bedroom exploits, but he knew. He had failed. He wanted to succeed here.

“It was too deep for me to see,” Maldynado finally said. “The glow got brighter as I went down, but that’s it.”

“Emperor’s eternal warts.” Books clenched his fist. “We can’t stop it if we can’t get close to it.”

“I reckon they’ve had the same problem.” Maldynado waved toward the camp across the lake.

“If we could fish it up somehow,” Akstyr said, “and I could look at it, maybe I could figure out a way to destroy it.”

“Not happening,” Maldynado said. “It’s got to be one—or two-hundred feet down.”

“We do have that much rope back in the lorry,” Books mused. “And I imagine we could fashion a hook. It’d take a lot of luck to find it down there, but the light would be something of a beacon. I wonder if it’s magnetic.”

“It’s big,” Akstyr said. “Probably too big to lift. I can sense that much.”

“Someone lifted it to chuck it in the lake in the first place,” Maldynado said.

“Telekinetics,” Akstyr said in Kendorian, a word Books knew only because he had been teaching the young man enough of the language to read those magic texts. Turgonian had no terms to describe the different mental sciences. It was all “magic” in the empire, and none of it existed supposedly.

“Huh?” Maldynado asked.

“He said we either need to hire a gifted shaman,” Books said, “or we need to physically get down to the bottom of the lake to examine this artifact up close.”

“He said all that in one word?” Maldynado asked.

Books heaved a sigh. “Go stand watch, you uneducated lout.”

“You’re enjoying ordering me around far too much. I can’t believe I dove into a frigid glacier-fed lake for you. Next time I’m making sure Amaranthe puts me in charge.” Maldynado adjusted his belt and swaggered toward the head of the beach, though he paused to question Akstyr on the way by. “You didn’t really say all that, did you?”

“Naw,” Akstyr said.

Books turned his back on them and rested his chin on a fist. “What we need,” he muttered to himself, “is a diving bell.”

Perhaps he could make one, something they could lower down by rope that would be big enough for Akstyr and perhaps one other to fit inside. It would have to be spacious enough to cup plenty of air beneath its concave form. That would allow Akstyr to take short trips out to investigate the artifact. Unfortunately, the forest would not provide anything suitable for the purpose.

“I wonder what kind of tools and equipment are in the dam,” Books said.

An owl hooted, a cranky sound rather than the usual inquisitive one. Twilight lay thick amongst the trees, and more eyes than the owl’s glowed from the shadows. The effect was…eerie.

“Should we light a fire?” Maldynado asked.

“It’d be visible from the soldier camp,” Books said.

A mosquito nipped at Books’s neck, and he slapped it with more urgency than normal. What if being bitten by something that drank the water could pass along the strange symptoms?

“Do we care?” Maldynado asked. “Maybe they’ve got some hard cider or brandy over there. When the forest is full of creepiness, humans should band together.”

Something that sounded like a dog whining came from behind them. Books turned his back to the lake. He could no longer make out Maldynado and Akstyr’s faces.

Leaves rustled. A thunk came from Maldynado’s direction, the sound of a hammer being cocked. Books tensed.

“It’s us,” Amaranthe called.

Three figures appeared out of the darkness.

“Find anything, Books?” Amaranthe asked.

“Not yet, but I have an idea.” He explained his diving-bell concept.

“That would provide enough air to stay down long enough to study the device?”

She sounded more impressed than disbelieving, and Books allowed himself to feel a touch of pride. Had she not heard of such a thing? Perhaps all the trivia nestled in his brain had a use for this group after all. He went on to detail the historical precedent, citing instances where diving bells had been used within lakes as well as the sea. Maldynado groaned several times during the spiel, but Amaranthe listened patiently.

“You think you can make such a thing?” she asked when he finished.

“I should not wish to oversell my manual abilities, but—”

A hand clamped over Books’s mouth.

“Yes,” Maldynado said. “Yes, he can make it.”

Books shoved his hand away. “I need supplies. I’m hoping I can find them in the dam.”

“And I’m hoping we don’t have to spend the night out here amongst the plagued and eerie,” Maldynado said.

Silence fell after their words. Amaranthe faced Sicarius for a long moment. He said nothing, as usual. Books wondered what she got from exchanges with him.

“Something wrong?” he asked when the silence continued.

A retching sound came from the woods. A snarl followed, then a snapping of jaws and a squeal of pain.

“Wronger,” Maldynado said.

Sicarius spun and fired into the dark. Books jumped. Something dropped to the ground. Wordlessly, Sicarius reloaded.

“The dam may not be safer than the forest,” Amaranthe said, “but if your supplies are there, we will go.”

Books’s earlier pride faded as he wondered what trouble his idea would land them in.