Lindsay Buroker - The assassin curse

A crack sounded, and Amaranthe dropped to the ground. A gunshot? No, dozens of branches snapped and foliage rattled. Almost too late, she realized it was a tree falling. She scampered back as a breeze battered at her. The trunk crashed across her path, less than two feet from her.

Heart pounding against her ribs, she gaped at it. Only luck had kept one of its substantial branches from hitting her.

Amaranthe swallowed, remembering another time with Sicarius in the woods. A tree had nearly dropped on her, and he had pulled her to safety. That had been during a fierce wind-and-lightning storm though. This was a calm summer evening.

She tore her gaze from the log and looked for Sicarius. Surely he had heard that. Why hadn’t he come back to check on her?

Because he’s not himself, a voice in the back of her mind whispered.

Amaranthe put a foot on the log, intending to climb over it and continue on, but soft clacks reached her ear, and she paused. Now what?

“Sicarius?” she asked, then immediately felt foolish for doing so. First off, he didn’t make noise. Second, if he were going to make noise, it wouldn’t sound like a machine.

The clacks grew louder, rhythmic and determined. Amaranthe struggled to pinpoint the source. The noise seemed to come from the left and the right. Soft whirs joined the clacks.

“Lantern,” she muttered to herself. “Should have brought a lantern.”

A twig snapped to her left. Amaranthe hesitated, not certain if it would be better to return to the beach or continue forward. The fact that Sicarius should be up ahead somewhere made the decision for her, and she hopped over the fallen tree. The clacks faded as she pulled away from it, and she started to let out a relieved breath, but the reprieve was short-lived.

The clacks resumed, louder this time. Whatever was making them was on the trail now, following her.

A buzz sounded behind her, the sound reminiscent of a saw in a steam-powered mill. Amaranthe picked up the pace, twisting and weaving through the foliage, ducking branches and navigating roots that seemed to reach out of the ground, grasping at her feet. One snagged her, and she pitched forward, barely keeping from tumbling to the ground. Her crossbow smacked against a tree, and she winced at the noise, though the sound seemed insignificant next to the whirs and clacks coming from behind. She had little hope of sneaking up on the thieves now.

Amaranthe drew her sword and thought of stopping and making a stand against whatever machinery followed her, but she feared neither blade nor bow would be effective against metal. And what if it was some sentient magical construct? She had A crash sounded less than five feet behind her. Branches snapped, and gears whirred.

Amaranthe found a break between trees and darted off the path, hoping a machine would struggle to follow her through dense undergrowth.

Thorns scraped at her bare arms, and brambles sought to entangle her legs. A moon peeped over the rocky apex of the island, bathing the woods with its silvery light. The buzz sounded again, scarce meters behind Amaranthe.

If she had a moment to think, to see what she was dealing with, maybe she could come up with something more constructive than running. She strapped her crossbow over her shoulder, lunged for the nearest tree, and climbed.

Something slammed into the trunk below her. The tree trembled, its needles raining down upon Amaranthe.

Before she got a good look at her first attacker, a second shape rolled out of the undergrowth, a round bronze contraption that reminded her a giant ladybug. With pincers. And circular saws. Squat stacks sat on the backs of both, belching black smoke, and filling the air with the scent of burning wood. The things seemed Turgonian, but more than punchcards were instructing them if they had followed her off the trail and A saw buzzed, biting into the trunk of her tree. The force rattled her perch, and she dug her fingernails into the bark to keep from falling out. With the machines below her, she could see their metal carapaces more clearly. Black crests were painted on their backs, images of an oilcan over crossed swords, the symbol representing the army’s engineering division. So, Turgonian contraptions after all. More of the army’s latest technology. Unfortunately, she did not see how that information helped her.

The second machine rolled to the other side of her tree, not on wheels but on treads. It maneuvered easily over rocks and roots, and its saw came out as well. Twin buzzes filled the air, and Amaranthe tried not to feel like a raccoon treed by hounds-hounds that could cut down her safe haven.

She looked around, trying to find another tree she might jump to, but she had not chosen her perch well. It would take a miraculous leap to make it into the nearest branches.

Already her tree was wobbling beneath the double assault. Amaranthe touched her crossbow, but did not bother removing it. Poisoned tips or not, what could little quarrels do against these things?

“Got to try some thing,” she muttered.

Amaranthe studied the steam-powered machines, noting their boilers and-she craned her neck-yes, there were furnaces on the back ends of the carapaces. Would the doors be locked or could she open them?

With one arm wrapped about her tree, holding on for her life, she fished in her pocket and came up with the fist-sized cartridge from the boat. She hoped her guess as to its contents was right.

Amaranthe leaped out of the tree, twisting in the air to land facing the back of one of her metal attackers. She grabbed at the latch on the furnace door. Hot metal seared her hand, but she ripped the door open anyway.

The saw pulled away from the tree, and the machine started to turn. Amaranthe thrust the cartridge into the door and ran in the opposite direction. She only made it two steps before an explosion boomed into the night. She dove into the undergrowth and covered her head.

Shrapnel pelted the trees, and debris rained onto her back. Not daring to stay prone for long, Amaranthe scrambled to her feet. The explosion had destroyed the first machine, but the second was already recovering. A hitch in one of its treads made it wobble, but it still pursued her with determination.

When Amaranthe tried to back up, she smacked into a towering boulder. The machine drew near, and its circular saw extended, whirring closer.

She darted sideways, but her foot found a hole instead of solid earth, and she sank to her knee, nearly snapping her ankle as she pitched sideways. Growling, she tried to extract her foot, but roots like hands grasped at her.

“Curse this slagging island!” she snarled, no longer caring about the noise she made.

She finally yanked her foot free, but another root tripped her up, and she fell onto her back. Something snapped-her crossbow. It was the least of her worries.

The metal beast lunged forward like an attack dog. The spinning blade rose, the steel gleaming beneath the moonlight.

A dark form dropped out of the trees, landing on the machine’s carapace. A man. Sicarius?

He lifted his arms, and Amaranthe glimpsed his black dagger, the inky blade not reflecting the moonlight at all. He drove the weapon downward with all his power.

Before she could tell if it pierced the metal hull, he leaped over the spinning saw to land next to her. He grabbed her as if she were a toddler, hefting her from the ground, and jumped out of the machine’s way.

It did not veer to follow. It smashed into the boulder, and teeth from its saw flew off, pattering into the foliage about them.

Amaranthe found the ground with her feet, though Sicarius did not let her go. He faced her, gripping her by both arms, and she could feel the rise and fall of his chest, his rapid breathing. Strange. With all his training, he was never out of breath. Had he gotten so far ahead that he had to sprint all the way back when he realized she needed assistance?