Lindsay Buroker - Beneath the Surface

Cold snowflakes landing on Evrial’s cheeks drew her attention to how warm they’d grown. “Enforcers don’t really fall for that,” she said.

Maldynado eyed the door over her shoulder. “I think they recognized Akstyr. I told him he should have flattened out that hair and put on a hat. Come on. They went in after him.”

“ They must remember him from the steamboat fight,” Evrial said.

Maldynado paused, his hand on the door. “Those are the same enforcers?”

“ Yes, it looks like everyone hopped the first ride back upriver.”

“ We already passed the town those enforcer boats originated from though. Unless it’s a coincidence? Maybe they were given medical leave after we thumped them so soundly.”

“ More likely they spotted one of us boarding and got permission to follow.”

“ Lovely.” Maldynado lowered his chin to peer through one of the portholes in the doors. “They’ve dimmed the lights.”

When Evrial opened the door, the susurrus of dozens of conversations flowed out. She stepped inside and almost crashed into someone’s back. The formal dining hall might be the largest room on the steamboat, but it seemed tiny that evening. Passengers filled every seat at the round tables, and more people stood along the walls, some stacked three or four deep in the back. Even with her height, Evrial had to stand on her tiptoes to glimpse the stage up front. Green-, red-, and blue-hued lamps burned up there, spilling colored globes of illumination onto the raised platform. Trampolines and other apparatuses awaited the performers. The ceilings were high, but not that high, and Evrial pictured a much more abbreviated show than usual. As a rural gal, she’d never been into the city for the circus, but she’d heard that the performers skated and performed most of their acrobatics on the ice.

“ Ouch.”

“ Erg.”

“ Terribly sorry,” Maldynado said, pulling Evrial in his wake. He apologized as he went but continued to elbow his way along the wall until he found a shady nook near a support pillar. People grumbled, but nobody attempted to stop him. The flames in the wall lamps burned so low that one couldn’t make out faces back there, but it was hard to miss Maldynado’s height and breadth.

More grunts and curses came from along the wall on the other side of the door. The enforcers pushing their way through?

As Evrial followed in Maldynado’s wake, she tried to spot Akstyr’s spiky locks. They needed to get him out of the room before the enforcers found him.

Drums started up somewhere behind the stage, and the conversations grew softer.

Maldynado found his nook and pulled Evrial into him, her back against his chest. Before she could decide if she wanted to protest this familiarity, he pointed over her shoulder toward a cluster of tables near the stage. The colored lighting illuminated those first few rows, revealing faces. Evrial groaned. Another pair of men occupied half of one table, men she also recognized from the steamboat battle.

“ Definitely not a coincidence,” she said. “Or medical leave.”

Maldynado sighed, his chest expanding against her back. “I suppose not. Though I’ll take some pride in that one’s eye, more precisely the sickly yellow bruise around it that hasn’t quite healed.”

“ Are you sure that’s one you thumped?” That whole event had been so chaotic that Evrial scarcely remembered specifics. “Basilard and I were defending the railing too, as you’ll recall.”

“ I recognize my handiwork.”

“ The bruise is on the large side. It might match your fat fingers.”

“ I’m not sure whether I should reject the notion that anything on me is fat-stout or muscular perhaps, but not fat-or simply be pleased that you’re developing a sense of humor.”

“ We’ve discussed this. I’ve always had a sense of humor. You people just aren’t funny.” Evrial thought she glimpsed someone with a prickly ridge of hair making his way along one of the side walls toward the stage. “Is that your man? Or just someone with a hat stranger than most of yours?”

The drumbeats increased in speed and intensity, and Evrial didn’t hear Maldynado’s answer. It sounded indignant though.

“ Welcome to this special showing of our traveling circus,” a voice rang out, amplified somehow to echo throughout the dining hall, “in which we shall entertain, mystify, and impress you with feats of dexterity and skill. We’ll follow this with a theatrical reenactment of the infamous Drunken Valley Battle from the Second Border War.”

“ That should prove interesting on that tiny stage,” Maldynado said. “I’m surprised they’re performing here at all. Their usual milieu is a frozen lake.”

“ It’s probably how they’re paying their way.” Evrial leaned to the side, trying to track the movement of the figure she thought might be Akstyr. “Did you just say milieu?”

“ Dear ancestors, I believe I did. What a dreadful word. I’ll have to thump Books later. He’s the only one who would have cursed my vocabulary with such an addition.”

“ Make sure to smack him in the eye, so I can compare his bruise to the one on that enforcer, and see if your stout, muscular fingers truly can claim that blow.”

For a moment, Maldynado didn’t respond. She hadn’t offended him, had she? That hardly seemed possible.

Then his breath stirred her hair-not a breath, a soft laugh. “You do have a sense of humor. That’s delightful. You should trying unsheathing it as often as your sword.”

“ I’ll consider it.” Evrial pointed again. “Now there are two figures working their way along the wall after-”

“ I see them. And, yes, I think that’s Akstyr. Even if someone else had adopted his hairstyle, nobody here would have the poor fashion sense to wear clothes three sizes too large. I wonder if there’s some way we can get to him before they do.”

“ Go under the tables?”

“ I don’t think either of us is small enough for that.” Maldynado shifted out of his nook. “We’ll have to use the elbow method.”

“ You seem to have a knack for it.” Evrial touched her knife for reassurance as she followed him, though she feared the universe might have an ill fate in mind for her if she brawled with the same enforcers-and hurled them over the side of a steamboat again. If her captain found out, she’d never get her job back.

“ I have big elbows,” Maldynado said over his shoulder as he jostled more people aside. Now that the show was starting, this drew even more grunts of anger, and Evrial almost received a punch meant for him. “Other things as well,” Maldynado added.

“ Such as your head, I know.” Evrial shoved him to encourage more movement and less talking.

They turned the corner and headed down the side of the dining hall. By now, men and women in sleek, tight-fitting clothing were performing handsprings, somersaults, and flips back and forth across the stage, their movements synchronized to the drumbeats. Evrial wondered how they’d manage the athletic feats on ice. If the city wasn’t immersed in bloodshed when they arrived, maybe she could attend a show.

Maldynado halted.

With drumbeats reverberating from the walls, Evrial had to stand on her tiptoes to speak into his ear. “What is it?”

She didn’t hear all of the words in his response. “…lost him… those enforcers…”

Evrial leaned around him for a better view. They’d reached the end of the standing area, and only tables remained before the stage. If she and Maldynado drew closer, they’d risk being highlighted by the colored lamps. But there was no reason to. Akstyr and the two enforcers had disappeared. Evrial checked on the enforcers at the table, then looked away. One of the men’s faces pointed toward the stage, but the other fellow was gazing straight at her and Maldynado.