Lindsay Buroker - Dark Currents

She eased to her feet.

The construct stopped a pace away from the shaman and raised an arm.

“Well?” Tarok faced his machine. “Are you impaired? Why-”

One of the harpoons fired into his chest. Amaranthe gaped, as shocked as the shaman. Two more harpoons slammed through his ribs, and the construct jerked its arm across, slashing the last blade across his throat. Tarok staggered back and collapsed.

Not sure what to expect next, Amaranthe snatched the closest tool off a nearby bench. Pliers. She brandished them like a knife.

The construct’s arms came up, not to aim harpoons at her, but to grab its head. Amaranthe stared. It wiggled its head back and forth, then removed it, revealing…Sicarius’s face. Blood matted his blond hair on one side, but he appeared otherwise hale. He tossed the hollow head-turned-helmet onto the desk, and Amaranthe glimpsed a few wires and broken innards inside it. Much more must have been torn out. Sicarius shucked the rest of the hollowed body parts and checked the shaman.

A half an hour earlier, Amaranthe might have gotten in line to stab the man, but that was before he healed her and called her a good person. Of course, he had also called her naive and misguided for associating with…

“Pliers?” Sicarius asked.

“Er.” Amaranthe loosened her death grip on the tool. “I’ve found them effective for snatching and twisting people’s…important parts.”

His eyebrows rose.

“Of course, I don’t employ such methods on friends and colleagues.” Amaranthe tossed the pliers on the bench. She stepped around the shaman and wrapped her arms around Sicarius. “I thought you weren’t willing to come after me.”

Sicarius did not return the hug, but he did pat her on the shoulder and endure the embrace without acting as if it was torture to do so. “Yes, you had to think that.”

She leaned back, though she did not release him fully. “You knew? That he could swim around in my head, collecting coins from the bottom of the pool?”

“Telepathy is one of the mental sciences. The Nurians and Kyattese train in it far more frequently than the Kendorians and Mangdorians, but I suspected someone as accomplished as he might have developed the skill.”

Amaranthe released him, wondering if he had come to kill the shaman to help her or just because he wanted to make sure his secrets did not find their way into someone else’s head through her. She shook her head. It did not matter. He was there. Besides, he had saved her life in the tower when there was no time for premeditated thought, when it was simply about instincts. That meant…a lot.

“Next time,” she said, “you might mention things like mind-reading foes before I stroll in to talk to one. It might alter my preparations.”

“I’ll consider it.” Sicarius eyed her. “He healed you?”

“The infection, yes.”

“How did you convince him?”

Amaranthe thought about answering honestly, that she had done nothing, but decided it might help her down the line if he believed she wooed the shaman with her tongue. Sicarius might have saved her life-twice in as many days-but she still believed he was sticking around because he thought she’d eventually be in a position to talk to Sespian on his behalf.

“You have your secrets,” she said with a smile, “and I have mine.”

A bang sounded somewhere in the depths of the tunnels. A rifle shot?

“The others,” Amaranthe said. “Have you seen them? Are they still fighting?” She jogged to the workstation to search for a weapon. Twinges in her abdomen reminded her she was not yet healed fully. One more hour, she thought. She would rest if she could abuse her body for one more hour.

“I don’t know,” Sicarius said. “I saw several machines leave this workshop and head deeper into the mine. I drew this one away so I could attack it alone.”

“How hard was it to destroy?”

“Hard.” Sicarius drew his black dagger. “I was able to climb on the back of it, cut a seam at the base of its neck, and slice the control wires leading from the power source.”

She peered in a toolbox but found nothing more lethal than the pliers. “Could you have done the job with a normal knife?”

“Slice the wires, yes. Cut through the seam, no.”

Another gunshot rang out.

“They sound like they need help.” She eyed the glowing orbs.

“It was difficult to destroy one construct. There are a dozen down there.”

At least he did not say the men were not worth saving. A couple of months ago, he would have.

“I understand that,” Amaranthe said, “but there must be something here that can help. What do the orbs do?”

“They’re the power sources. The shaman creates them, then uses mundane technology to build the machines.”

She thought of the one she had destroyed in the gambling house’s vault. At the time, it had been good that it had caused no great explosion, but now she wished they could be used as tiny bombs.

Amaranthe grabbed the bag the shaman had packed. “Maybe Akstyr can do something if we can get this stuff to him.”

“If he’s alive,” Sicarius said.

“Are there any optimistic assassins in the world?” She jogged for the door, relieved Sicarius followed her.

“That aren’t dead?”

“Er, yes.”

“No.”

“Ah.”

S omeone shook Books. He pushed away the fog hazing his mind and focused on the face above him. Basilard. A rifle fired nearby. Akstyr.

“Mal?” Books rasped. A film of fine dirt caked his tongue.

Basilard pointed into the chamber.

“Is he…?” Books started.

A commotion interrupted him.

“Hah, missed me, you badger-kissing slag pile!” came Maldynado’s voice from the far side of the chamber.

Books rolled onto his belly. Pain pulsed through his head, but he squinted through it and found Maldynado. He harried the constructs with his rapier, though the thin blade did little against their metal hides.

“Making friends, is he?” Books knelt and crawled to the edge of their dwindling perch. Another shot or two from that cannon, and the ledge would be dust.

But the constructs had changed their focus to Maldynado. He jumped and waved, evading their projectiles.

“Idiot,” Books said. “What’s he doing? If he can do that, he can make it back up here.”

“He said he’d distract them so you could come up with something bright,” Akstyr said.

“Oh. That’d be noble if it wasn’t…stupid.”

“You calling Maldynado nobly stupid?” Akstyr asked. “Or stupidly noble?”

“I can hear you!” Maldynado jumped out of the path of two bipeds trying to corner him.

Come up with something bright, Books thought. Yes, that was supposed to be his job. “Akstyr, Basilard, give me your powder.”

They poured out a few rounds worth, then complied. Books found the other fuses and crafted two more explosives. How could he take out all of the constructs with so little? He had to get them all in one place somehow.

Maldynado yelped in pain. “Metal-headed dogs!”

Books did not look up in time to see the attack, but Maldynado clutched his arm. Blood flowed through his fingers. Still cursing, he dodged another harpoon, but all of the constructs were targeting him, pressing him back against the wall.

“Get out of there, fool!” Books called.

Basilard shot, but his ball ricocheted off without deterring the target. Books still had the unloaded pistol, and he could light one of the fuses, but Maldynado was in the middle of the mess.

“I’m trying!” Maldynado faked a step one direction, then angled for a gap between two of the constructs, but, through some intelligence no machine should have, they anticipated him and narrowed the opening.