Lindsay Buroker - Forged in Blood I

“Tortured you?” Maldynado asked, all the harshness gone from his tone.

Not trusting her voice, Amaranthe nodded. Her prisoner peered back over her shoulder at her.

“Blast it,” she said, “let’s get these two tied up, so they can’t…” What? Hear about this? “Escape,” she finished.

Maldynado started removing belts and shirts to obey her order. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… Cursed ancestors, I should have helped you shoot the hag.”

“Don’t worry about it. It probably wouldn’t have fixed anything.” Besides, she didn’t want to become an assassin herself. That was no way to create a better Turgonia. Instincts, angry vengeful instincts, had been guiding her hand.

Maldynado finished tying up the men and lifted an arm, offering a hug if she needed it.

Amaranthe waved a hand. She appreciated the gesture, but said, “I’m fine.”

She was relieved it had been Maldynado here with her instead of Sicarius. That fit of rage… that had been a moment of weakness. She didn’t want Sicarius seeing her like that. Not when she was working hard to make him believe she was all right. And she was all right. She would be. She just needed to finish with this mess and take a vacation.

And remember how to sleep through the night, the voice in her head added.

A shadow fell across the stairwell above-someone moving past the railing.

“We better get out of here before someone looks down the steps,” Amaranthe said.

“Up or in?” Maldynado asked. “And with or without them?”

“Up and out, ideally.” Amaranthe didn’t want to be trapped in the basement, though there were more sounds of activity than ever coming from above.

“What are all those spirits-licked people doing here after hours?” Maldynado growled.

“Picking up their seditious pamphlets probably. If I’d known the newspaper office would be such a hotbed of activity, I’d have brought Sicarius.”

“I’m not manly enough for you?”

“You’re fine. I’m just worried that we missed a good chance for spying. I could have sent Sicarius off after those two.”

“He probably would have stuck daggers in their backs.”

Amaranthe bit her lip to keep from asking what would be wrong with that. It bothered her to think that her experience under Pike’s knife had changed her, but she kept thinking that it’d be much easier for their side if they simply ended Forge, Ravido, and their key allies the most efficient way possible. Was it worth turning oneself into a monster if it made the world a better place for everyone else? Or, once one chose the path to monsterhood, could one still accurately assess what qualified as a “better place” anymore? She feared this last year as an outlaw had already tainted her judgment.

She considered their captives. It’d be hard to escape back up the stairs, forcing them every step. Perhaps it was time to leave them and hope for-

“Can’t find Evik and Rudev anywhere,” someone called out upstairs. “We may need to search the building, sir.”

“Uh oh,” Maldynado said.

“About that doorknob…” Amaranthe said.

Lights jittered up above-people entering the room with extra lamps.

“It’s unlocked,” Maldynado said.

Finally, a bit of luck. Amaranthe stepped past him and eased the door open. Darkness waited inside, so she didn’t think they’d have to worry about being jumped by soldiers, but she crept into the basement warily regardless.

A few steps inside, she bumped into something and decided to stop and light a lantern. She was about to tell Maldynado to close the door so their flame wouldn’t be seen when someone spoke from the depths of the shadows.

“It’s not mealtime,” a man said. “I can only surmise you’ve come to your senses and are here to unlock me.”

• • •

“Job’s the same, pay’s the same, don’t really make a difference,” one maid said, snapping the sheets in the air before lowering them onto the bed.

“I know,” a second maid said, the rasping of a straw broom accompanying her words, “but I liked young Emperor Sespian. He never ordered you around like you were some raw soldier to be broken in. He always said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when he asked for something.”

“Piles of good that did him. He’s deader than that roach you stomped on earlier, and I don’t think the new regime will appreciate you waxing fondly on the old.”

“Marblecrest isn’t the new regime, not officially, and I won’t call him emperor no matter what he’s demanding.” Another firm snapping of the sheets accompanied the statement. “Just because him and his troops showed up at the door less than an hour after the papers announced Sespian’s death doesn’t mean he’s the rightful emperor. I don’t even figure he’s the rightful landlord here. Are you sure about our pay being the same? Because we haven’t seen any money yet.”

“Bite your tongue, Naniva, or some owl will swoop down and tear it out. Or at least lower your voice. Door’s open. Never know who could be about listening.”

Outside in the hall, Sicarius twitched an eyebrow. He otherwise remained motionless, braced in a corner above the wall molding, his short hair brushing the ceiling. He couldn’t see into the room the maids were tending, but he tracked their movements with his ears, even as he watched other maids and butlers coming and going below him, building fires in stoves for room occupants who would be heading to bed soon. He’d listened to a half dozen servants’ conversations so far, enough to verify that Lord General Marblecrest had moved into the Imperial Barracks with hundreds of troops. Marblecrest had tried to wrest control of Fort Urgot out on the northern side of the lake as well, but the commander there, General Ridgecrest, hadn’t been cowed by his threats. Ridgecrest had refused to back a new candidate for the throne until the Company of Lords had met with the satrap governors to decide on the official successor.

Sicarius took special note of the information; Ridgecrest and his troops might be available to the right man. The only other pertinent information he’d gathered, more through a lack of mentions or sightings than via positive confirmation, was that the Forge people were not staying in the Barracks.

A maid pushing a squeaky mop bucket passed below Sicarius without looking up. He’d wait for the talkative two to leave, then return to his comrades. They’d be restless, waiting for him to come back to the furnace room where he’d left them, and he didn’t want to be away from Sespian for long regardless, not with some other potential assassin roaming the Barracks, agenda unknown.

The maids closed the guest room door and trundled away with their linens cart. Sicarius waited for silence to descend upon the hall, then dropped to the marble floor without a sound. He unscrewed a vent cover, wriggled into the warm duct inside, affixed the grate again, and improvised with a curved lock pick to refasten the screws from within.

Traveling through the Barracks’ hypocaust system was neither quick nor efficient, but it allowed him to bypass halls full of soldiers, guests, and guards without notice. He crawled a few dozen meters, then slipped down a vertical shaft, descending three floors to come out in the furnace room in the basement.

Sespian, Books, and Akstyr were still waiting, though hiding. They stepped out from behind the coal bins when Sicarius popped out of the vent. Someone must have come in to stoke the fires while he’d been gone. It didn’t matter, so long as his team hadn’t been noticed.

“Did you run into trouble?” Books asked.

“An opportunity to eavesdrop.” Sicarius brushed the cobwebs and dust off his black clothing, though he knew he’d return to the ducts again shortly. “Ravido has taken the Barracks.”