Lindsay Buroker: Ice Cracker II

Mutters came from the door, but no one else poked their heads around the flywheel or tried to approach from the other direction.

Amaranthe threw a wink at Books. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to still trembling hands. How could she so obviously be enjoying herself?

“Isn’t that just a temporary paralysis poison?” he whispered.

She held a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell them that.”

Between the crossbow, the sword, and the gray military fatigues, she should have looked like a hardened warrior, but she always wore a smile and, more often than not, a warm glint of humor sparkled in her brown eyes. Any man would have proudly taken her home to meet the parents.

She peered over the churning piston rods. “More of them. At least eight by the door. They’re milling around, talking.”

Books grimaced. “Sorry I’m not more help. You should have brought one of the others.”

“I should have brought all of the others,” she said. “This was supposed to be an investigation of a haunted distillery and apple orchard, not an ambush.”

Yes, investigation and research were much more his realm.

“Besides, you looked glum this morning,” Amaranthe continued. “I thought you could use a distraction from whatever’s plaguing you.”

“So you arranged a band of twenty mercenaries to attack us?” Books raised his eyebrows. “Very thoughtful, thank you.”

“Nah, it’s only-” she checked on them again “-twelve now.”

“Give it time.”

“See, glum.” She quirked an eyebrow his way. “Anything you want to talk about?”

“ Now ?”

“Well, we are stuck here.”

“It’s nothing,” Books said. “It’s just, today is-would have been-my son’s birthday.”

“Ah.” She gripped his shoulder. “That’s not nothing.”

“I know, but it’s not-” He broke off, not able to say important. “It’s not our primary concern now. We need to escape.”

“Or figure out what’s going on.” Her gaze lifted toward a set of stairs on the other side of the distillery. They led to a room with a couple small windows, an office most likely.

The first shot had dulled Books’s interest in the haunted-distillery mystery, but the room did look like a better place to make a stand than behind a steam engine. Besides, maybe it had a nice window to the outside that would allow them to climb down and escape into the orchards. Unfortunately, getting there would involve crossing open territory where every one of those twelve men could take shots.

“Think us a way up there, professor.” Amaranthe raised her voice toward the door. “By the way, folks, we’re not on anyone’s payroll yet, seeing as you’ve killed the owner who was going to hire us. There’s really no need to risk your men’s lives attacking us. We could all just walk away.”

“We ain’t going anywhere until we get the other half of our money,” someone growled. “Or the equivalent in brandy.”

Chortles of agreement followed.

Books eyed the machinery-filled wall they were trapped against. He could rig the boiler to explode, but that would bring down the building and kill everyone, themselves included.

“We don’t have it!” Amaranthe called back.

“Maybe not, but we know who you are. There’s only one woman mercenary leader working around the capital. Amaranthe Lokdon, and you’ve got a bounty for 20,000 ranmyas on your head. That’s a heap more than we were offered for this gig. And I’ll bet your gangly friend there has a bounty on his head, too.”

“Technically we’re fugitives, not mercenaries.” If the mention of the bounty worried her, Amaranthe did not show it. “While we do take occasional freelance jobs to pay the bills, our ultimate goal is to impress the emperor with tales of our patriotic heroics so he’ll grant us pardons.”

That earned so many laughs the building seemed to reverberate with the noise.

“Why doesn’t anybody ever believe that?” Amaranthe asked.

“I have an idea.” Books tugged her closer to the furnace. “Draw some fire.”

“Next to the boiler? Is that wise?”

Books ticked his sword against the wrought iron cylinder. “A pistol ball isn’t going to bother this. Failures are caused by internal pressure.”

“If you’re sure…”

Amaranthe leaned around the boiler and shot toward the door. She ducked back as a pistol fired in response. The ball clanged against the iron plating above her head.

“Look out!” Books shrieked. “They ruptured the boiler. It’s going to blow!”

The wide-eyed concern Amaranthe launched his direction said his act had been convincing. She caught on promptly though.

“Wouldn’t the explosion be instantaneous?” she whispered.

Books raised a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell them that.”

Pounding feet, shouts, and curses came from the door.

“Get back, get back!” someone cried.

With the mercenaries distracted, Amaranthe and Books charged across the open floor toward the stairs. He glanced out the door. The men were darting behind trees. The front door was still not an escape option, but Books and Amaranthe ought to have time to-

A shot cracked, and a pistol ball skipped off the cement floor in front of his feet. Urging his legs faster, he pelted up the stairs after Amaranthe.

They made it to the top, only to find the door locked.

“Cursed distiller’s ancestors,” Books spat as Amaranthe rattled the knob.

“Shoot them when they come out!” someone in the trees ordered.

Books glanced at the door again. It would not take the mercenaries long to figure out they had been duped, and that he and Amaranthe were not coming out.

“Lock picks?” he asked.

Amaranthe hammered a sidekick at the wood. The bolt gave, and the door flew open.

They leaped inside as a pistol ball cracked into the railing, shattering a baluster. Amaranthe slammed the door shut, and the knob clunked to the floor.

“Lock picks.” She nodded.

“Indeed.”

A startled squeak made Books whip around, eyes searching the small office. A desk squatted in the center, a lamp burning on one corner. In the back, jugs of applejack and bottles of brandy shared shelf space with tomes on brewing and distilling. A toolbox rested on the floor by the door, a screwdriver and a hinge set next to it. A lone window looked out on the darkness, unfortunately not large enough to crawl through.

“Under the desk,” Amaranthe whispered.

Books spotted a pair of boots scrunched against thin legs. He walked around the desk, pulled out the chair, and peered beneath.

A boy of nine or ten hunkered there, staring out with wide, terrified eyes. For a moment, Books saw his own son, and he blinked several times to clear the illusion. Other than similar scruffy haircuts, the two looked little alike, though this boy needed help, as Enis once had. Back then, Books had failed to pay attention and provide it in time.

“It’s all right.” He held out his hand, palm up. “We won’t hurt you.”

Footsteps pounded on the stairs. Amaranthe opened the door wide enough to shoot two rounds. A yelp of pain promised that at least one hit home.

“Need another sword?” Books asked.

“Not yet,” she said. “If they all charge at once… Well, at least they can only come at us two at a time on the stairs.” Keeping the door cracked and one eye on the mercenaries, Amaranthe slid a few replacement quarrels into her magazine.

“Who are you?” Books asked the boy. “Do you want to come out?”

The child shook his head, and his bangs flopped in his eyes.

“That was probably his father,” Amaranthe said, nodding toward the front of the distillery.

Books felt as if one of her quarrels had thudded into his chest. Of course.