Lindsay Buroker: Ice Cracker II

Snow skidded across the frozen lake, mounding against the ravaged body. Beside it, blocks of ice had been removed, and frigid black water lurked in the square pools. Gray clouds hung in the afternoon sky, bringing dusk early.

Amaranthe crunched toward the dead man, the snow and ice slick beneath her boots. At her side, her companion glided across the same surface, making not a sound. His stomach doubtlessly wasn’t sending queasy jolts through his body as they closed on the grisly scene.

“I guess this is the place,” she said.

Claws had torn canyons into the face and lacerated the dead man’s parka. Frozen blood stained the ice, the snow, and the tools beside him. His gloved hands still clutched the pick he had tried to defend himself with.

“What do you think did it?” Amaranthe tucked back strands of hair whipping her eyes.

“Cougar.”

Eyebrows arched, she turned toward her comrade. As always, an unreadable expression marked Sicarius’s cool, angular face. He wore black from soft boots to fitted trousers to parka, the monochromatic attire broken only his armory of daggers and throwing knives.

“ Cougar ?” Amaranthe asked. “We’re less than ten miles from the imperial capital, a city of a million people. This lake is under siege by noisy steam hammers and trucks stocking the icehouses. There’s no good game hunting for a hundred miles in any direction. No cougar is going to wander out of the mountains of its own volition.”

“I didn’t say it came of its own volition.”

“Ah,” she breathed. “You suspect…”

Habit kept her from saying the word magic out loud. In the same breath, the empire denied the existence of magic and forbade its use-a mandate punishable by death. Sicarius, who had traveled beyond the empire and had a more ecumenical education, had few such compulsions.

“I will investigate.” He inclined his head toward the body.

“Thank you.” Amaranthe was happy to leave corpses to him. “I’ll find our new employer.”

She hitched the strap of her repeating crossbow higher on her shoulder and touched the short sword hanging at her belt. She did not have to walk far to reach the camp. The man had been killed close to the shoreline where tents perched and fires burned in metal barrels. Bins of coal supplied fuel for the steam vehicles, and plumes of black smoke rose from their stacks. Despite the promise of a storm, clinks and rasps echoed as workers sawed and hacked the ice, struggling to fill truck beds before dark.

Amaranthe rounded a sleeping tent and strode toward a log cabin at the center of camp. She ducked under one of several ropes crisscrossing the area, attaching tents to the cabin and to each other. A cockeyed flap drew a frown, and she paused to straighten it.

Snow crunched behind her.

She spun about. A woman charged, an ice pick raised above her head. Amaranthe ripped her sword from its sheath.

The pick chopped down like a woodcutter’s axe. Amaranthe leapt to the side, evading the blow while keeping her attacker within reach. The pick slammed into the snow, even as her sword came up to rest on the woman’s collarbone.

“Problem?” Amaranthe did her best to keep her tone even.

The woman’s shoulders sagged. She held her arms out, gloved palms open. She wasn’t much older than Amaranthe, twenty-eight or thirty, but weariness stamped her face. Tears welled in her eyes and froze as they ran down cheeks chapped and red from the cold.

“I had to try,” the woman said. “The bounty…10,000 ranmyas. It’d be enough to… Please, understand. My husband died last year, and this job is so hard. We’re out here fourteen, sixteen hours a day. I never see my children and…”

“All right. What’s your name?” Amaranthe lowered the sword and leaned around the tent. Still out by the body, Sicarius knelt on the ice, touching something. Good, he had not seen. He was a stickler about killing anyone he considered a threat, and, for good or ill, he had spread his sphere of protection to Amaranthe as well.

“Merla.”

“Merla, I understand. My mother died when I was little, and my father worked a job like that. I never saw him growing up, but I knew he cared about me. I’m sure your children love you and understand, too.” Amaranthe sheathed her sword. “Don’t try again. My comrade, Sicarius, is nearby, and-”

“Sicarius,” Merla breathed, her ruddy cheeks turning pale. “Two million ranmyas.”

“Yes, his bounty is a lot more impressive, but he won’t think twice about killing you. He wouldn’t think at all; he’d just react, and then where would your kids be?”

“No, of course, I wouldn’t even think to-I mean-”

“Amaranthe!” A new woman jogged toward them.

Merla flinched and ran away.

“Nelli.” Amaranthe nodded to the newcomer.

“I’m glad to see you.” The smile didn’t reach Nelli’s eyes, but then happiness was not to be expected, not if she had lost as many men as her note said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me or come even if you did. You and your team have become quite renowned.” She glanced about, pushing wisps of black hair back under her parka hood. “Are you alone, or did you bring them?”

“Just one.”

At that moment, Sicarius stepped around the tent, startling Nelli. She skittered back, though he made no threatening move. He just had that cold look that intimidated everyone. After a year working with him, Amaranthe still had not seen the man smile.

“Well,” Nelli lifted a hand in what might have been a wave or an apology to him. “I suppose he’d be the one to bring.” She turned back to Amaranthe. “You have to help. The enforcers, if they can even be bothered to leave their cozy headquarters building, just come and fill out reports. My people are being killed by…by…it’s something different every time. It’s got to be some kind of…” She licked her lips, and Amaranthe recognized the imperial reluctance to voice the word.

“Magic?”

Nelli nodded.

Fat snowflakes started falling, and a breeze gusted across the lake, ruffling the fur around Amaranthe’s parka hood. “We’ve seen such things before, even here, in the heart of the empire.”

“I knew it.” Nelli nodded again, more vigorously. “I knew you’d have the experience. What’s your price? I’ll pay anything to have the problem fixed.”

Amaranthe lifted her eyebrows. “Miss Magnusun would be shocked to hear you say that. Offering to pay any price without negotiating?”

“I’ve done well for myself, Am, and we’re not talking about tools and supplies here. My workers, people I know and care about, are being killed.”

“Sorry, I know.” As a formality, and because her old business-school mate expected it, Amaranthe withdrew a neatly penned estimate for their services. “It’s amazing what you’ve accomplished since graduating. Your company is the biggest in the city, I understand, supplying ice year around to three satrapies. How did you find the startup money for all this equipment?”

“My father.” Nelli frowned at the bill. “Is this a joke? I pay the ice grunts more than this. If you can rid us of this curse, I’ll give you a lot more.”

“We’re not in it for the money.”

Now, it was Nelli’s turn to arch her eyebrows. “Miss Magnusun would be really disappointed in you.”

Amaranth twitched a shoulder. “I do understand that you deliver ice to the Imperial Barracks. If we perform to your satisfaction, and you ever have the chance to mention our deed to the emperor or one of his advisors…” Another shoulder twitch.