Lindsay Buroker - Forged in Blood I

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?”