Beneath the Surface

CHAPTER 12

Amaranthe stared at the cement-encased weapons sitting on the cut out piece of hull. “We’ll go down with it,” she said in a fit of inspiration. Whether it was good inspiration or not, she didn’t know. “And try to slow it so it lands lightly.”

Books’s wild-eyed gaze latched onto hers. “Yes. It’ll be heavier than an anchor, but maybe if we’re all kicking against gravity, we can slow it.”

“ Whatever,” Akstyr said.

Basilard stared at the oblong block, and Amaranthe could see the moment when he figured out what exactly concerned Books. He swallowed, then squared his shoulders and nodded at her.

Something squealed above them. The marines were back to tearing into the stage and searching for the team. She hoped that meant Sicarius had escaped.

Amaranthe gripped one corner of the cutout, her shoulder pressed against Akstyr’s. There was no room for Sespian to wriggle through and grab an edge, but he waited behind her like a sprinter ready for a race. She knew he’d dive in after them and help slow the load.

Before giving the order to move the planks and let the hull drop, Amaranthe met everyone’s eyes in turn. “I want to take this moment to tell you that I care about all of you, and my life would have been extremely bland and unfulfilling if I’d never met you.” That sounded like a doomsday salute, so she smiled and added, “Also, I’m terribly concerned about all of your mental states. I can’t imagine any sane person who would engage in such a ludicrous plan.”

That drew a round of snorts. Better than tears.

Amaranthe nodded once. “Drop it.”

At the same time, Books and Akstyr removed the planks supporting the cutout. Even with four people gripping the corners, the weight yanked at Amaranthe’s fingers, almost tearing free of her grip. Fighting the force would have been futile, and that wasn’t the goal anyway. She let it pull her through the hole.

Icy water swallowed her, frigid as it tunneled into her ears. The burden swept her downward rapidly. She twisted her body, turning upright, and kicked, using the powerful circular kick Sicarius had once taught her for holding a brick above her head.

Night had come to the river valley and no light filtered through the water, so she couldn’t see the others. She sensed them, though, through the cutout they all held. The descent slowed, and she knew everyone was kicking. They weren’t able to slow the heavy load as much as she’d hoped though, and they plunged ever deeper. The depth surprised her-she’d expected the bottom to be no more than twenty or thirty feet down. Pressure built in her sinuses, and pain arose behind her eardrums. She worried that she hadn’t inhaled a large enough gulp of air to last her for this plunge.

She was on the verge of trying to signal the others to let go when her foot slammed into the bottom, her boot sinking into deep mud. Her back bent under the weight of the cutout, and soon mud squished beneath her fingers as well. She couldn’t see a thing, but let go of the load, trusting the others to do the same.

When she pushed off the bottom, mud oozed over the lip of her boots and under her trousers, coating her leg with cold slickness. Her enthusiastic kicks were as much to try and rid herself of the gunk as to reach the surface. The pressure in her sinuses lessened. She hoped that meant the surface was close, because her lungs burned for air. Only the fear of coming up under the boat-or the churning paddlewheel-slowed her ascent. She kept kicking but held her arms above her head, fingers spread, ready to catch herself if she struck something.

A horn blasted, its deep undulations coursing through the water. It wasn’t one short blast, but a series, an alarm being sounded. Because of… Sicarius? Or the giant hole cut in the hull of the steamboat? Had enough water poured in to affect the craft?

Amaranthe kicked harder. Where was the cursed surface?

Evrial could feel Maldynado glowering at her, a silent accusation hanging between them. Maybe she’d been wrong to delay him, but what could crashing the boat do? It was a third of the size of the marine vessels.

She made a show of watching the steamboat and cupping her hands over her ears to defend against the blasts from the horn. If anybody lived in the forest surrounding this stretch of the river valley, they had to be wondering about the ancestors-cursed noise. Lokdon and the others must have done something. Maldynado had been keeping pace with the steamboat, and he was forced to slow down. People were scrambling all over the lower deck, but Evrial couldn’t tell what they were doing. It looked like chaos.

“ I’m taking us in closer,” Maldynado said, hand fastening onto a control lever.

“ Wait.” Evrial lunged to her feet. She thought she’d seen something pop up in the water between them and the boat.

She squinted at the river’s surface. Though she and Maldynado were maneuvering in the dark, the steamboat’s running lights created shimmering yellow reflections on the black water. The wake from the churning paddlewheel broke up the surface, though, and she couldn’t be sure… Yes, there it was-there he was. Someone’s head. Another one popped up nearby.

Evrial extended her arm grandly toward the spot, as if she’d expected the team to arise thusly all along. “I believe those are the people we’ve been waiting for.”

“ Well, I’ll be the emperor’s personal chamber pot polisher, that’s Basilard,” Maldynado said.

“ I’m fairly certain the Imperial Barracks has plumbing these days.”

As Maldynado guided the boat closer, three more heads popped up, one with a mop of long hair dripping into her eyes and spreading around her shoulders. Amaranthe must have lost her hair tie. Evrial found herself particularly relieved to see her, maybe because she mattered most to Maldynado. Or maybe she herself was coming to care for the other woman. She didn’t see a blond head though. Had Sicarius not been with them?

When the team spotted the enforcer boat gliding toward them, they started swimming toward the closest bank.

“ Oops,” Maldynado said. “They won’t know it’s us.”

Evrial raced onto the deck. “Wait!” she called as loudly as she dared. With the alarm still blasting from the steamboat, she didn’t think anyone on board would hear her, but at least some of those marines would be on watch, scanning the dark river and shoreline around them.

One of the men had a clumsy head-above-water crawl stroke, and he paused, apparently hearing her.

“ It’s Sergeant Yara,” she called, “and Maldynado. We have a boat.”

The figure pushed a mop of hair out of his eyes. It must be Akstyr. He hurried and caught the others, though Amaranthe, a surprisingly good swimmer, made it to the shoreline before turning and realizing her men weren’t with her. Evrial lifted an arm and waved, figuring enforcers wouldn’t normally offer outlaws a friendly greeting.

Akstyr cupped his hand and shouted something to her. Amaranthe gave him a wave of acknowledgment, but she didn’t rush back into the water. She gazed upriver, toward the steamboat.

“ Sicarius,” Evrial muttered. She had to be wondering about him.

Evrial didn’t feel a similar sense of concern-his loss wouldn’t disturb her-though she empathized with Amaranthe and hoped he turned up for her sake.

“ Tell them to hurry,” Maldynado called up from the cabin. “There’s a marine with a spyglass looking this way.”

Evrial waved again, relaying the message. She didn’t know if Amaranthe heard, but she tore her gaze away from the steamboat and swam back out. Her men were already climbing aboard.

“ We haven’t figured out how we’re going to get past them, have we?” Evrial asked Maldynado.

“ Why do we have to pass them? Let’s go back to that port and find a lorry to borrow. That might be the best way to get back to town if the army’s searching all the main routes.”

“ Good point.” Evrial decided not to say anything about stealing more vehicles; that fight could wait. She dropped an arm when Amaranthe approached, helping her over the edge.

“ Thanks.” Before Amaranthe found her feet, she added, “Have you seen Sicarius?”

“ If they had,” came a voice from the back of the boat, “it’d be a failing on his part.”

Sicarius stood there, dripping water, his short blond hair flattened to his head. Akstyr groaned and elbowed Basilard, muttering something about, “thought we might have gotten rid of him.”

Amaranthe nearly stumbled over her own men in her haste to reach him. She threw her arms around him with enough force that she could have knocked him overboard if he hadn’t been prepared. After a brief hesitation, Sicarius returned the hug.

Akstyr gaped. Books and Basilard shared shrugs-knowing shrugs, Evrial thought. Sespian sighed and turned his back on them. Evrial remembered his interest in Amaranthe and patted him on the shoulder as she descended the steps, joining Maldynado in the cabin again. He’d turned the craft around, and the dark river spread out before them.

“ We have everybody?” Maldynado leaned back in his seat, twisting his neck to peer outside.

“ Yes,” Evrial said. “I don’t know where Sicarius came from, but he’s there.”

“ Oh, good.” Maldynado nudged a lever, and their craft accelerated.

“ Because you’d miss him if he disappeared?” Evrial asked, surprised that Maldynado’s “good” had sounded sincere.

“ He’s handy to have around.”

“ Because of his skills.” The man’s bloody history notwithstanding, Evrial could see why the team would consider him a boon.

“ Because he draws fire.” Maldynado winked. “Nobody bothers going after me and my two-fifty bounty when his million-ranmya head is in sight.” Maldynado raised his voice and called out the back, “So, was this worth all the excitement? Did we save the empire again?”

“ We saved it,” Books said wearily. “For now. I need a nap. Or a vacation.”

Evrial gazed back toward the steamboat and those marine vessels. They were growing distant as Maldynado took their craft farther downriver, but she thought the River Dancer sat lower in the water. The others hadn’t done something that would sink it, had they? Maybe that was how they’d assured the weapons were nullified. If so, this adventure would anger someone upriver, someone who’d know for certain that Lokdon and the others were coming. She remembered Maldynado’s comment that those marines were Ravido’s men and feared there wouldn’t be many naps or vacations in the near future.

“ You going to stick around?” Maldynado asked her. “Or are you still waiting to talk to Books?”

“ At this point, I think the authorities are going to indelibly mark me as a part of your team. It wouldn’t be safe for me to leave even if I wanted to.”

“ And do you want to leave?” Maldynado asked carefully.

Evrial mulled over the question, thinking of her myriad doubts during the last couple of days. “Would you miss me if I did?” she asked as an interim response.

“ Yup.”

That single syllable, tossed out without need for consideration, affected her more than she would have expected. For the last couple of weeks, she’d been certain Maldynado would lose interest in her once they, as he called it, blanket wrestled. Yet here he was, saying he still wanted her around.

“ I hope you’ll stay,” came Amaranthe’s voice from the companionway. She climbed down the steps and sat on the bottom one. “Between the Behemoth and the numbers Forge and Ravido command, we’re terribly outmatched. And who knows if they have more weapons like the ones we just dropped onto the river bottom?” Amaranthe shuddered, and it probably wasn’t her wet clothing giving her chills.

“ What were the weapons exactly?” Evrial asked.

Amaranthe explained them, and Evrial’s jaw dropped lower and lower as she listened. Amaranthe and her men had to be crazy-and suicidal-to take on these people. But what was the alternative? To walk away and hand them control of the empire? And, if those Forge people could enact the monetary policies they’d discuss at their meeting, perhaps eventually control of the world?

“ I’ll stay,” Evrial said.

“ Good,” Amaranthe said.

Maldynado sniffed. “I’m going to pretend it’s my charms that are keeping her here and not some moral obligation to defend the world from harm.”

“ Whatever sates the demands of your ego, Maldynado,” Amaranthe said fondly.