Forged in Blood II

Chapter 12

From a rooftop a block away, Sicarius stared at the familiar outline of the molasses factory, its high brick walls and flat roof, the pair of massive cylindrical holding tanks occupying a third of the lot. Had he known this was Starcrest’s hideout, he could have sent a note days ago. How had he found it? If Sespian, Maldynado, and Basilard had died at Fort Urgot, and Amaranthe, Books, and Akstyr had been killed in the fighting within the Behemoth, that didn’t leave any of the original team members who might have acted as a guide. Yara? Had she somehow chanced upon Starcrest? Sicarius reminded himself that he’d only seen Amaranthe’s body. Perhaps Books and Akstyr had escaped the crash and met up with Starcrest when the admiral was coming to investigate it. Yes, that made sense. Countless people, some curious and some opportunistic, would have visited that site, however gory it’d been. And Starcrest would have been troubled by, if not outright horrified at, the reappearance of that alien technology.

“We may be too late,” Kor Nas said from a meter away. They stood, their backs to the smokestacks of their own building, a refinery still filled with busy employees, as they studied the molasses factory. “It’s empty.”

“You can sense this?” Sicarius lowered a spyglass. Though there wasn’t any smoke coming from the factory’s stacks, that might be intentional. When Amaranthe had been leading, the team hadn’t laid fires in any of the furnaces for warmth and had used only personal lanterns for lighting. They had set a guard though, and Sicarius would have expected Starcrest to do the same. He didn’t spot anyone standing on the roof. Copious footprints trampled the snow on the sidewalks around the factory, and drifts had been cleared from the doors, but that might have happened at any point in the last few days.

“I do. There is no one inside.” Ice frosted the practitioner’s voice. “Starcrest and his men must have received your warning and moved on.”

Before Sicarius could decide if he wanted to respond to the statement, a blast of pain dropped him to his knees. It was as if a cannonball had struck the side of his head, blowing half of it away. Unprepared, it took him a moment to erect his mental barriers, to push aside the pain and bring his rational mind back to bear before his attack-or-flee instincts could take over. Teeth gritted, he staggered back to his feet. The pain hadn’t lessened, but he dealt with it. He forced his breathing to return to normal, his heartbeat to slow, and he faced his attacker.

Though he had one hand stretched out toward Sicarius, Kor Nas was barely paying attention to him. His gaze remained on the factory.

He’s distracted, Sicarius thought. Attack now!

He bunched his muscles to spring, but Kor Nas dropped his arm, and the pain vanished so quickly it startled Sicarius.

“Wait,” Kor Nas said, “there’s one person in there.”

“Starcrest?” Sicarius was still of a mind to spring, to attack, but when Kor Nas turned his gaze toward him, he felt the subtle presence of the opal again, soothing his muscles, not allowing him to prepare an attack, not at his good master.

Sicarius wanted to let his lips peel back in a snarl of rage-even that seemed too unsuitable a reaction to that much pain-but he found his mask again. Interesting, a detached part of his mind decided, that when the stone had been inflicting pain upon him, some of that control it had over his physical body had faded. Could he use that somehow?

“I cannot tell,” Kor Nas finally said. “Seeing was not my field of study. Is it possible he’s already laid a trap?”

Yes, Sicarius thought. “We’ll find out.”

Kor Nas considered him for a long moment. “You go find out.”

“You’re staying here?” Sicarius waved at the paraphernalia on the practitioner’s belt. “Didn’t you come for a fight?”

“I came to see Starcrest killed and his head removed. As a practitioner who has survived three wars, I’ve learned to use tools to handle such things whenever possible.” He extended a hand toward Sicarius.

“I cannot act as your bodyguard if we are separated,” Sicarius said and tried to keep himself from thinking the follow-up, and you cannot fall into Starcrest’s trap if you’re not there with me when he springs it.

“A risk I’m prepared to take.” The slight smile that curved Kor Nas’s lips said all too much, that he knew Sicarius’s thoughts.

Sicarius gazed again toward the dark factory. He’d hoped his scheme might result in the practitioner’s death as well as his own, thus insuring Starcrest’s safety, at least from the Nurians who so dearly wanted him dead, but his own death would have to be reward enough. A release from a captor who enjoyed living vicariously through his assassinations. He’d worked among those types of men for too long. He didn’t know when he’d gone from feeling apathy toward the duties they demanded of him to developing a distaste, but sometime in his last year, walking at Amaranthe’s side, it had happened. He wished they’d both lived long enough for him to tell her that.

“Go,” Kor Nas said. “He’s already had enough time to prepare. Don’t give him more.”

“I understand,” Sicarius said, not of his own accord, and his legs carried him to the side of the building. He climbed over the edge and descended into the darkening night.

• • •

Amaranthe walked through the dark factory, her lantern the only light. With the hundreds of soldiers about, the place had felt crowded and cramped. Now only their gear remained, most of it stacked out of the way near the walls, and she alone occupied the cavernous building. It was impressive how quickly an army could decamp if given the order. She didn’t know where Starcrest had moved them, but it didn’t matter. The only thing she had to worry about that night was delaying Sicarius so the rest of the team could search the surrounding area and deal with the wizard. Some of Ridgecrest’s stealthiest scouts had been sent to Flintcrest’s camp in case Kor Nas remained there, observing the planned assassination from afar. If he came in at Sicarius’s side, the task was to try and part them somehow, long enough to strike at the Nurian’s back. Either way, it was her job to distract Sicarius.

When they’d been discussing the note, Starcrest had originally placed himself in this role, but Amaranthe had pointed out that he, as the target, would be swiftly dispatched, perhaps without ever seeing the dagger coming. But she-seeing her alive-ought to muddle Sicarius’s clarity of purpose. Oh, it was possible the wizard would simply order him to kill her as soon as he spotted her, but she thought he’d fight it and that she’d have more time. Time in which she could… what? She hadn’t figured that out yet. And she didn’t know how much longer she had to plan.

She walked along the catwalks, pausing here and there to lean over a railing with her lantern and consider a vat or piece of machinery or some series of pipes snaking from the creation area to the holding tanks outside. Though she hoped Sicarius would fall to his knees and fight off any order to kill her, she couldn’t bet on it. Not after Darkcrest Isle. When she’d reluctantly spoken of that event to the others, Tikaya had pointed out that a living practitioner in the prime of his powers would be even harder to resist. So she needed to lay a trap for Sicarius, one that would delay him or separate him from the wizard.

Near the back of the factory, a row of grating traversed the cement floor, running from the vats to a larger square of grating in the corner.

“Must drain into the sewer system,” she murmured, “or maybe straight into the lake.” Amaranthe didn’t know much about how molasses was made, but figured there’d be a food-grade equivalent of slag, useless liquid or pulp that wasn’t employed in the final product.

She jogged down to the floor to investigate the drains further.

A soft bang sounded somewhere above her.

Amaranthe jumped into the shadows beneath the stairs, putting her back to a wall. Ears straining, she listened for footsteps or a repeat of the noise.

Anxiety dampened her palms and quickened her heart. For all her calculating analysis of what Sicarius might and might not do, she couldn’t manage to push aside the knowledge that the most deadly assassin she’d ever heard of was now working for the other side, and he was coming to this building with the intent to kill. Kor Nas had no reason to spare her, and somehow she doubted that the Nurian would think kindly toward her because she meant something to Sicarius. Or had meant something when Sicarius had been… himself. What would he be like now, under the influence of the wizard’s magic? Would he possess his memories? His feelings?

“He must,” she whispered, for he’d thought to warn Starcrest.

Or had he? Though Starcrest thought that Nurian prince might be on his side, how could he be certain? This could all be a trap, the other side trying to trap Starcrest even as her team tried to trap the wizard.

The bang sounded again, and she flinched.

“Stop it,” she told herself. “It’s the wind batting against some shutter or loose tile on the roof.” Hadn’t Basilard mentioned something about a warm front blowing in?

Besides, if she could rely on nothing else, she could be certain Sicarius wouldn’t make any noise when he entered.

Her thoughts so fortified, Amaranthe jogged to the drain system. She reached the three-foot-wide line and pried up one of the grates, revealing a shallow channel that stunk of… She crinkled her nose. She didn’t know what to call it. Could sugar turn into mold? If so, it’d probably smell like that, though this had a richer, earthier scent. Many things had probably been funneled down there over the years.

Amaranthe lowered the grate. She might trap a cat in the shallow channel, but not a man. She followed it to the larger square in the corner, one about six feet by six feet wide. Much deeper than the channel, its bottom wasn’t visible to her light. She fished out a tenth ranmya coin and dropped it. The copper fell about ten feet before clanging, then bouncing a few times, the echoes suggesting it’d slipped into a drain. Amaranthe winced at the chain of noises, alarmingly loud in the silent factory.

When she was peeking around to make sure nobody had heard and was rushing out of the darkness, her gaze caught on one of the tall upper windows. A spider web of cracks stretched out from a large hole in the bottom pane. A hole large enough to crawl through? She wasn’t sure. She also wasn’t sure if it’d been there all along-the abandoned factory wasn’t in the best state of repair-or if it might be a new hole, such as the sort a person who romped about on rooftops and entered through windows might make. Was it her imagination that she could feel the draft whistling through the gap, its icy fingers teasing her flesh?

Yes, she decided, and stop imagining. There was a trap to be laid.

Amaranthe found the latch for the grate. She had to drop into a crouch and lift with her whole body to raise the wrought iron lattice. Expecting a noisy groan of rusty hinges, she said a silent thank you to whatever janitor had kept them well greased when they opened with a soft whisper.

Too bad the grate lifted up instead of falling downward. She’d had a vague notion of tricking Sicarius into falling into it, but it’d be a rather obvious trap if the huge grate were leaning against the wall behind it, waiting to be dropped shut. Besides, how would she have gotten him to fall in? Throw a carpet over it and stand on the other side? That only worked in the old fables and to animals with the brightness of inebriated sloths.

A cold draft whispered across the back of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine. She lifted her head, eyeing that window again. Maybe the hole was new. Or maybe her senses were telling her something. That she wasn’t alone in the building any more.

She stood, ready to abandon her feeble trap idea for something else when a new idea popped into her mind. If delaying him was her main goal, and the way to do that was to keep him busy…

Amaranthe prodded her fingers into the fastening mechanism for the grate. There was a hole where one could fasten a padlock.

“Great, just need a padlock,” she whispered and nibbled on the edge of her nail, thinking.

She’d seen one somewhere around the building, hadn’t she? On a storage shed outside, yes, but that one was locked. She had a feeling she didn’t have time to pick locks.

Oh, there was an open one in her office, hanging on the big metal locker that had housed that horrible frilly dress she’d borrowed. As if something like that needed to be secured. The lock had been left open though. Even as the sequence of thoughts ran through her head, her feet were moving. She raced toward the stairs, running on her toes, trying to keep her steps soft in case her senses were correct and she wasn’t alone.

Taking the steps three at a time, she reached the office, rushed inside, and grabbed the padlock. It was still open. She had no idea where the key was, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t the one who was going to have to unlock it.

She lunged back through the doorway and spun toward the steps, but halted and, acting on instincts, cut out her lantern.

Blackness swallowed the factory.

She struggled to still her breathing so that its noise wouldn’t keep her from hearing what was happening around her-and also so that its noise didn’t lead someone straight to her. The light had already betrayed her, but she set the lantern down and backed away. He’d expect her to go down the stairs. She tiptoed in the other direction, into the maze of catwalks overlooking the factory floor.

Again, she wasn’t certain her imagination wasn’t playing tricks on her, but she thought she’d caught a shadow moving down there, near the wall with all the rucksacks and bedrolls. It had been out of the corner of her eye, and when she’d turned her head to look full-on, it was gone. That was more of a warning than most people got when dealing with Sicarius though, and she’d be a fool to ignore it.

Thankful for the railing, she groped her way along the catwalk, choosing a route that would take her toward that grate. Wind gusted through the broken window, and the night sky and the dark silhouette of the building next door were visible through it. She didn’t think the wan illumination would be enough to make her outline visible to someone on the floor below, but she couldn’t be certain.

Once she reached the last section of railing, the closest she could get to the grate via the catwalks, she paused to listen. She doubted she could drop down without making a noise. If he didn’t know where she was already, he would soon. Did he know yet that it was she and not Starcrest? Did it matter? Did he have that soulless black knife out, ready to cut the first throat he came across?

Amaranthe climbed over the railing and crouched on the other side, her toes balanced on the edge of the catwalk, her arm hooked around the lower bar. Eyes straining, she tried to see into the inky darkness below. She should have put out that lantern far earlier so her vision would have had more time to adjust.

If he was down there, he’d have no trouble jumping up and grabbing her if she didn’t let go. With that encouraging thought, she lowered herself until only her fingers gripped the edge of the catwalk, then dropped the six or eight feet left to the floor.

She landed on hard cement. Without hesitating, she ran the last few meters to the drain hole, skirted the square blob on the floor-the hole was darker than the surrounding cement so she could make out that at least, and patted in the air by the wall. She frowned when her fingers didn’t brush against anything. The grate should have been leaning against the wall where she’d left it.

An ominous sinking sensation came over her. Swallowing, she crouched and patted the top of the hole. Cold wrought iron met her probing fingers.

She hadn’t shut it, and it hadn’t fallen shut-there was no way the window drafts were enough to cause that, nor could it have happened without her hearing a resounding clang. If she’d wanted proof that her mind wasn’t tricking her and that she wasn’t alone… she had it.

Amaranthe eased the hatch open again, high enough that she would be able to slip through the gap. She clenched the padlock between her teeth, the metallic taste against her tongue reminding her unpleasantly of blood.

The plan was to secure herself inside the pit, forcing Sicarius to pick the lock from an awkward angle-she even imagined herself being audacious and knocking the picks out of his hand from beneath the safety of the grate-or find another way past the iron bars. If she was lucky, he might not have his lock picking set with him.

Poised to slip over the edge, she paused. What if he’d somehow guessed her intent and waited down there right now? Her death would be swift if she flung herself into his grip.

No, how could he have guessed such a suicidal plan? Who would lock themselves into a tiny space with an assassin stalking about? Anyone else would flee the building. Except she couldn’t do that. She had to keep him busy.

Hoping her logic proved sound, she slipped over the edge, letting the grate fall most of the way shut. Her feet didn’t come anywhere close to touching the bottom, so she hung there by her fingers, the weight of the iron on top of them. She shifted her grip until she hung from a bar and the grate was completely shut.

Letting go with one hand, Amaranthe pulled the padlock out of her mouth. With all of her weight dangling from those fingers, her shoulder cried out for her to hurry. She reached up, trying to hook the shackle into the latch hole, but it was a hard target to find from her awkward position. She tried to find purchase on the wall with her feet, but her boots slipped. There were no footholds. Whatever sludge came down this drain, it’d long since dried up, and the grimy residue was slick and frozen. Her fingers, still wrapped around the grating, slipped a few millimeters. A few more millimeters, and she’d drop, just like her coin.

The light level changed above, and her already rapid heartbeat jumped into triple-time. It wasn’t bright enough to suggest a lantern, but some faint variation had occurred up there, beyond the grate.

Struggling for the calm precision she needed, Amaranthe stretched up again. Her fingers gave way in the same second that the shank threaded the hole.

An involuntary gasp escaped her lips as her top arm dropped, leaving all the weight hanging from her other hand, from the precarious grip she had on the lock. Fearing that noise had betrayed her position, she gave up on caution. Shoulders burning, she gritted her teeth and flung her free arm up, catching the grate. From there, she was able to find the leverage to push the shank into the lock. A soft click sounded as it caught.

Overhead, a boot came to rest an inch from her fingers.

She’d known he was up there, but it startled her nonetheless, and she let go, as if he might stab down with his dagger should she move too slowly. Her other hand slipped off the lock at the same time. She skidded down the wall and, unable to judge the distance in the inky blackness, hit hard on her heels. Pain lanced up both ankles, but she’d barely registered it before they were sliding out from beneath her. Her butt struck next, followed by her back and shoulders. Not only was the ground icy and slick, but it sloped downward. She skidded several feet before coming to a stop on her backside with her knees scrunched up to her chin.

High above, a second boot had joined the first. He must not fear that she had a weapon with which to shoot him. Or did he know it was she and that she wouldn’t hurt him, no matter what the wizard commanded him to do?

Of course he knows it’s you, she snarled to herself, he can identify you from thirty paces by the shampoo you use.

The boots shifted. For some reason, she could see well enough to know he had gone from standing to crouching. The light was so faint as to be barely distinguishable, but it was more than the pitch darkness that had surrounded the factory earlier. Or was it that she’d simply gone into a deeper level of darkness and it seemed light up there in comparison?

That sounded logical, and she might have believed it, but his face came into view with the crouch. He wore a black knit cap, but a faint glow seeped through the fabric at his temple.

Oh. Right. The stone.

“You are alive,” Sicarius said.

His tone was flat and emotionless-that lack of any sort of feeling shouldn’t have surprised her, but it dug into her heart like a dagger nonetheless. He knelt at the edge, most of his body out of sight, but his hands slipped through the grate to check the latch.

Amaranthe needed to get him talking, to slow him down from… whatever it was he intended to do to her. “Yes, I’m alive. I’d like to think you have an interest in keeping me that way.”

He didn’t reply. Not promising.

“I’ve been wondering where you’ve been for days.” She didn’t have to feign the anguish in her voice. “The last I heard you’d gone after that soul construct. Maldynado said-”

His hands froze. “Who?”

“Maldynado,” Amaranthe said. “Tall fellow. Broad shoulders, handsome face. Ridiculous hat. His current one has tentacles sticking out in all directions. You couldn’t miss it, even at a distance.” She regretted her flippancy immediately. Of course, he must have thought Maldynado had been killed along with everyone else in Fort Urgot. She had, too, until he, Basilard, and Sespian had showed up at the factory. Oh, she realized with the certainty of a gut punch, Sicarius would have thought Sespian dead too.

Dear ancestors. She dropped her face into her hand. Had he thought everyone was dead? That he was the lone survivor? That might explain how he’d stumbled into this wizard’s clutches. He might have been grieving or stunned or running around heedless of his safety, in some crazed vengeful state.

“Sespian is alive,” she said, then wondered if she should have. Did the wizard hear everything he heard, know everything he knew?

Sicarius’s hands hadn’t started moving again. That was good, anyway. As long as he was here, he wasn’t serving as bodyguard for the Nurian. She felt certain he had come alone to the factory-surely someone less stealthy and less comfortable with moving around in the dark would have insisted on a light or made some noise.

“Where is Admiral Starcrest?” Sicarius asked. There’d been a long gap between her statement and his next words, and she imagined some conversation going on between him and the wizard. Or perhaps some battle of wills. Maybe Sicarius had given in before because he’d had nothing to live for, but might he fight harder now that he knew his son was alive?

“I have no idea,” Amaranthe said.

“You will tell me.” Sicarius’s voice was icier than the frozen sludge pressing against her back.

She swallowed, thinking of Pike and imagining… She squinted her eyes shut. No, she didn’t want to imagine something like that. Not with Sicarius holding the knife. He was her best friend, curse it, and… more. The idea of being tortured by the man she loved, it was too horrible to dwell upon.

She didn’t have the exact information he wanted anyway. They’d decided it would be best that she not know, in case the team couldn’t get to the wizard in time.

Time. Sicarius’s fingers were probing the latch again, feeling around the lock. He knelt back. Pulling out his picks, she wagered.

Amaranthe patted around, looking for a stone or something she could throw. She had a knife, but she didn’t want to hurt him. That was why she hadn’t brought a pistol. But she needed a way to keep him from thwarting that lock. Once he opened that grate, he’d jump down, and his fingers would be around her neck faster than she could duck or dodge, and there’d be nothing she could do about it. On Darkcrest Isle, there’d at least been a hope of escaping, but where could she go from here?

Wherever the sewage goes, she admitted. An unappealing thought, but if there were a large enough pipe or duct…

Sicarius’s hands came into view again. It was too dark to see any tools in his fingers, but she could hear the soft scrapes of metal on metal. Applying those tools through a grate wouldn’t be easy, but she had no delusion of that simple padlock defeating him for long.

Amaranthe shifted about, patting beneath her, trying to find the hole through which sludge could escape. Given the sticky gooey nature of the residue, it couldn’t be a small easily clogged drain… right?

She chanced across an egg-sized stone, or chunk of some hardened residue perhaps, on a ledge beneath her. While she wouldn’t fling knives at Sicarius, a rock that might cause him to drop one of those tools? Absolutely. Knowing she wouldn’t find many projectiles down there, she shifted around and lined up the throw carefully. Sicarius would hear her, she had no doubt, but doubted even his eyes could pierce the darkness at the bottom of her pit.

Trying not to make noise and give away her intent, Amaranthe hurled the chunk. Her aim proved accurate, and it should have smashed against the lock or his fingers, but he anticipated it somehow and caught the rock without dropping any of his tools.

“I prefer dealing with soul constructs to you,” Amaranthe muttered. “At least those things are dumb enough to hurl themselves out windows. I’m fairly certain they’re not well trained in lock-picking techniques either.” Though the one she’d dealt with might have been strong enough to tear the grate off the hinges.

Sicarius set the stone on the floor beside him-how unsporting of him not to toss it back down so she could try again-and returned to work. Since her commentary wasn’t distracting him, she went back to groping around for that drain.

Ah, there. The ledge covered a vertical hole about a foot in diameter, maybe a foot and a half, but narrow enough that her guts clenched at the idea of squirming into it. There weren’t any bars blocking the opening-no excuses not to shift her body around and attempt to crawl inside. Except that she might get stuck. Her breasts and hips weren’t huge by feminine standards, but she gauged that they’d get in the way for this task, or that there’d at least be a lot of uncomfortable squishing. And what if the drain narrowed before it reached the lake or sewer or wherever the sludge dumped? What if there were bars or a grate at the other end? If she were stuck, there’d be no way to turn around. Would she even be able to back out the way she’d come?

A soft click came from above. Curse his nimble-fingered ancestors, he’d already thwarted the lock.

Amaranthe had to contort herself into something approaching a U to lever her body under the ledge and into the hole, but, motivated by the knowledge that Sicarius’s master wanted her tortured for information, she found the agility to do so. Hands leading, she scrabbled at walls bathed in variegated lumps of mold and less identifiable grime. If not for the winter temperatures outside, the clumps might have torn off when she gripped them, but they were frozen to the sides, hanging on with the tenacity of warts, and she used them for handholds to pull her body fully into the hole.

To say it was a tight fit would have been a supreme understatement. The lumpy walls scraped at her hips, and she couldn’t bring her knees up to use her lower body to propel herself along. Her movement relied fully on her arms, and her shoulders bumped against the walls too, limiting her upper body’s effectiveness. She couldn’t lift her head without cracking it on the top, nor could she glance over her shoulder to check behind her. The air was close and stale, the scent of some animal’s scat lingering around her.

The faintest of squeaks sounded-the oiled hinges of the grate opening. Amaranthe pulled herself along faster.

Something brushed the sole of her boot. She yanked her leg away from the touch, banging her knee on the wall. She pulled herself along with her hands, scooting as quickly as she could.

Sicarius. Unless there were rats down there, that had been he, reaching his hand in after her.

“Like there’s room for rats,” she muttered.

As she clawed her way deeper into the drain-she couldn’t see any light ahead, no promise that an end awaited her-she wondered if Sicarius would be able to follow her. His extra six inches of height would make it harder for him to lever himself around the ledge and into the hole, and his shoulders were broader than hers, but his hips were narrower, and hips were the main thing giving her trouble.

She kept pulling herself along, though she tried to listen over the sound of her own breaths and of her clothing scraping and tearing against the frozen sludge lining the walls.

If he did succeed in slipping inside, and if he caught up with her, would he be able to kill her from back there? Crawl up as close as he could and drive his dagger into her femoral artery, so that she’d bleed to death? He wouldn’t get his information about Starcrest then. No, he’d probably have the strength to drag her out of the drain backwards, with her fingernails snapping off as she tried to retain a hold on the walls.

Your imagination is worse than reality, she told herself. He might not even be back there. What if he’d decided, upon realizing he couldn’t squeeze in, to wait for her on the other side? She’d see the exit ahead and lunge for freedom, only to tumble into his grip.

Stop that, she snarled at herself and her all too frisky imagination.

It would, however, be useful to know if he’d managed to enter the drain or not.

Amaranthe licked her lips and called, “You know… when I imagined us getting horizontal together, this isn’t at all how I thought it’d go.”

She didn’t slow down to wait for a response, but she did listen intently, ears straining to hear any sign that he was behind her.

A startled squeak came from the other direction, followed by something scampering away. So. Room for rats down there after all.

“I,” Sicarius said, but that’s all he managed. Even that syllable broke off with a grunt of exertion.

Amaranthe renewed her efforts, pulling herself along as fast as she could. He might be fighting the wizard, but he wasn’t winning, not if he was that close behind her.

The blackness ahead seemed to lessen in intensity, fading to a dark, dark gray. The exit? Or some storm drain in a nearby street? Either would work, so long as she could escape through it.

A hint of a breeze brushed her cheeks, carrying the fresh scent of snow, of the outside. Her situation might be improving.

Her fingers smashed into fresh rat droppings.

Right. She’d better wait to see what lay ahead before wasting her energy on optimism. If she ran into a dead-end…

The sound of breathing reached her ears. It was strained, like Sicarius was trying to fight the wizard, but trying wouldn’t help her. He was close on her heels.

The tunnel curved slightly, and Amaranthe’s hips caught in the bend. The dark gray turned to a less dark gray circle ahead. An exit. There were bars across it, but only two and widely spaced, relatively speaking. She might be able to squirm her way between them. She grunted. If she could escape the cursed bend. Extra sludge had accumulated on the walls in that spot.

“Should have grabbed some lubricant before thrusting myself into a tight space,” she muttered, scraping and clawing, trying to find a larger handhold, something to offer her a good grip. There. She caught some nodule on the ceiling and twisted, using it to pull. The fresh angle let her shimmy free. The escape sent a surge of exhilaration through her, and she brazenly called, “That, on the other hand, might have been appropriate for our first horizontal meeting.”

She didn’t know if he’d heard her first mumbled comment, but somehow hoped he had and that he might find the notion amusing. She didn’t know the secret to breaking that hold, but figured displaying her personality, however quirky and inappropriate it might be at times, would remind him of his fondness for her and give him ammunition to continue to fight against the wizard. In lieu of that, she’d be fine with him getting stuck in the bend.

Amaranthe squirmed the rest of the way to the exit and to the two vertical bars, both coated with so many layers of frozen grime that they were twice their original size. She pressed her head into the gap between the two-that would be the sticking point. If she couldn’t get her head through, she wasn’t going anywhere. If she could, she figured she could twist and gyrate enough to wriggle the rest of her body out.

Out into what, she wondered, even as she scraped the skin off her temples in her first attempt. It was almost as dark outside as inside. If not for the fresh smell of ice and snow beneath her nose, she might not have believed she’d come to an end of the drain. She rotated and ended up on her back before she found an angle that allowed her to slip her head through the barns.

Dear ancestors, I’m vulnerable, she thought, staring up at something dark, her head hanging out of the drain hole, her neck exposed and her body sticking out on the other side. If Sicarius came up on her…

She thrust her arm through and clawed around the outside even as she crooked her knees, trying to push off the bottom of the drain. She flayed off more skin, but she managed to get her other arm through and from there her shoulders.

Oh, those are boards up there, the part of her mind that wasn’t busy panicking realized. The underside of a dock. She’d made it to the lake.

She wasn’t sure yet where she would run when she had the opportunity, but the notion that she’d be able to do so gave her the strength to haul more of her body between the bars, though it was a painful experience.

“Wonder if… Akstyr’s healing book… covered how to graft… new nipples onto a woman,” she panted.

When her hips made it through, there was nothing left to hold her back. She skidded down the slope and landed on the frozen lake, her momentum enough to send her skidding several feet. She hardly cared. She was free.

Of the drain, she reminded herself, not Sicarius. Where to next? If his head was any bigger than hers, he wouldn’t make it through that grate, but she couldn’t swear that it was. They’d never taken out measuring tape and compared. No doubt that was one of those things people waited to do until after they’d engaged in physical intimacies.

She rose to her knees, the first part of a plan cementing itself in her head. Race back to the factory, close the grate, and push a bunch of heavy stuff on top of it so he couldn’t escape that way. Yes, and then she could run into the city and check in on Starcrest’s team-what had they been doing all this time, anyway? Inviting that wizard to a teahouse to share a plate of Emperor’s Buns?

“Amaranthe?” came Sicarius’s voice from the depths of drain. From around where that bend had been, she guessed.

She’d found her feet and was poised to scramble up the bank and enact her plan, but she waited. “Yes?”

“I’m stuck.”

She’d expect him to make that statement in his usual monotone, but a hint of plaintiveness accompanied it.

“Sorry about that, but that was the point.” She wondered if he’d believe she’d planned for it to happen like that, not that her plan had simply been to desperately survive the next moment, and the next, in the hopes of chance favoring her.

“Did something happen to the practitioner?” Sicarius asked.

“Uh? Why do you ask?”

Maybe Starcrest had done his job. Had Sicarius been freed from his captor?

“I don’t sense him any more,” Sicarius said. “It’s possible he was distracted and forgot about me.”

Amaranthe crept back up the slope. Though she wanted to believe him, she approached from the side of the hole, so he wouldn’t see her from inside. Even he would have a hard time firing a throwing knife from the bowels of a drain that tight, but she wouldn’t believe it impossible for him.

“Where are you stuck?” she asked. “That bend?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want me to do? I love you, but there’s no way I’m scraping the rest of the skin off my head to try to get back through these bars.”

“No, I understand. Perhaps some of that lubricant you mentioned…” He chuckled.

A sick feeling washed over Amaranthe. He… chuckled? When had he ever…?

It wasn’t him. The wizard was trying to fool her. Either the Nurian didn’t know Sicarius well enough to know he never laughed, or Sicarius had somehow tricked his captor into believing he shared such activities with Amaranthe.

But what if… what if it is him, she countered to herself, and he’s so relieved to be free that he let the laugh escape? When they were alone together, he had occasionally let more emotion show…

“Yes, of course,” Amaranthe said, realizing that long seconds had passed. “I’m sure I can find something. Stay there.”

“Naturally,” Sicarius said dryly.

Too much emotion, he was showing too much emotion. She was sure of it.

Amaranthe scrambled out from under the dock and ran up the slope and onto Waterfront Street. She sprinted up the hill toward the factory. Funny how quickly she reached the back door, considering the eternity that had passed while she’d been pulling herself through that drain. But if Sicarius was tricking her, her “quickly” might not be quick enough.

She slowed down enough to close the door softly behind her and stepped lightly as she ran through the factory, trying to think of things-and remember where they were in the dark-she could pile onto the grate.

If Sicarius was free of the wizard, good. The worst that would happen was that he’d spend a few hours trapped down there while she hunted down Starcrest and verified the Nurian’s death. If he wasn’t…

She had to work fast. He might not be stuck in that bend at all, he might be crawling back to the start, even now.

Remembering a pile of machine parts along one of the back walls, Amaranthe veered in that direction. She ran as quickly as she could without allowing her boots to clomp on the cement floor, but Sicarius had the hearing of a hound. She could only hope that backtracking through the tight tunnel would delay him.

In the dark, she almost tripped over the machine parts. She did hammer her shin into something unyielding. Another bruise to add to the night’s collection. She’d admire it later.

Groping about, Amaranthe found a pole attached to a cylindrical wheel, some sort of grinding device. It didn’t matter what it was. So long as she could carry it. She dragged it off the pile, wincing when something else clanked off and rolled across the floor, striking one of the vats with a resounding gong. It wouldn’t take a hound to hear that.

Fortunately, the pit wasn’t far. She pulled her prize over and patted about, expecting the grate to be open. It wasn’t. Sicarius had let it fall shut behind him. Believing she wouldn’t have the strength to climb up the wall and open it from below? She shuddered at the idea of that wizard smirking somewhere while she tried.

Amaranthe maneuvered the wheel onto the grate, then ran back for more gear to pile on top. Even Sicarius would have a hard time pushing that grate open from below, but she wouldn’t feel safe until she had hundreds of pounds of gear stacked atop it. Starcrest and the others could laugh at the overkill when they came in the morning to help pull him out. So long as the wizard was dead, and Sicarius’s mind was free, they could all laugh. She didn’t care.

Some rusty pipe sections followed the grinding wheel, then a couple of cement blocks after that. She was in the process of dragging over something that felt like an industrial-sized funnel when a new thought occurred to her. She halted a few inches from the edge of the grate, the certainty of her mistake slamming into her like a wrecking ball.

If Sicarius freed himself from that bend and reached the bars blocking the drain exit, it wouldn’t matter how big his head was. He had that cursed black knife. How many times had she seen the thing cut through substances no normal blade could? Not more than a few weeks ago, he’d hurled it at the floor in the cab of a train, a textured steel floor, and it had bit in and stuck. If he reached those bars, he’d cut through them. Or if he came back this way, he could cut through the grate. Sure it might not be like slicing through butter, but she’d be shocked if that knife couldn’t do it.

“Emperor’s eyeteeth,” she muttered.

What if he’d already escaped and was running back to the factory at that very moment? Or-she eyed the broken window and the back door-what if he was already inside again?

Something latched around Amaranthe’s ankle.

She shrieked. And was yanked off her feet.

She landed on the cement so hard, the blow slamming into her back, that it stunned her. For a second, she couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think. Then she was being pulled toward the grate.

Amaranthe flailed with her hands, trying to find something to grab onto. Most of her body was still on the cement, but he’d reached through and grabbed her ankle and-curse him, he had her other leg now too. There wasn’t anything to grab onto, and the smooth floor didn’t help. Even from his awkward position-he had to be hanging from the grate, hanging from her-his power dwarfed hers; she couldn’t find any leverage to fight him off.

She twisted and scrabbled at her belt for her knife. She might not have thrown it at him earlier, but, blast it, she would stab him through the hand.

The instant she stopped fighting his pull, though, he gained ground, spinning her sideways so that her body rolled onto the grate. She’d no more than unsheathed the knife when his fingers snaked through an opening, tearing it from her grip. It’d been too fast; she hadn’t noticed him let go of one of her legs before his hand had been upon her. A clatter sounded below, her blade striking the stone at the bottom of the pit. She didn’t have another one.

She froze-he’d pulled her onto her belly, her face mashed into one of the openings-and tried to think of something to say. A quip, a plea, anything to buy time. She found herself staring into his eyes.

He was gripping her with both hands, one on the back of her thigh and one on her opposite shoulder, all of his body weight hanging from those points. He’d lost the wool cap somewhere, and that stone at his temple glowed, a sickly opal with a myriad of colors in it. The light was enough to illuminate his face. And hers, too, she imagined. What terror did he see there? Or did her calculation show in her eyes? Little good it was doing her.

“Where is Starcrest?” he asked, his voice calm and emotionless, no hint of the earlier exertion in it. Was he not fighting the wizard now? Obviously it’d been the Nurian when he’d been trying to trick her at the bend. Where was Sicarius? Still in there? Or utterly defeated? Squashed down into some tiny corner of his own mind, unable to effect any power over his body at all?

“Why don’t you let go,” she whispered, “and we’ll discuss it?”

Amaranthe tried to get her arms beneath her, to brace her palms against the iron bars so she could push away. It’d be futile, though, as long as he held on.

Think, she ordered herself. Do something. What? Spit on him, anything. But such tactics would be useless against him. Talking. As inane as her words sounded in her ears, she had to try, to hope she’d break through somehow and lend him the strength to pull away from the wizard, even if it was only long enough for him to let go. That was all she needed.

He dug into her thigh and shoulder deeper and swung his legs. She ground her teeth to keep from gasping in pain, both from the steel-fingered grip and from the way it mashed her harder into the bars. His legs came up, his boots finding bars to brace against so they lay horizontally, body to body, except for the grate between them. The weight pulling against her lessened, but when she tried to push away, she couldn’t gain so much as an inch. She couldn’t knee or elbow him-she’d hit the bars.

What was he going to do next? Grab his knife. If he tried he’d have to let go with one hand. That’d be the best chance she had to pull away. She’d save the desperate spit-in-his-face maneuver for that moment.

“It’s not that I wouldn’t enjoy having you this close under other circumstances,” Amaranthe said, searching his eyes, trying to find some sign of the man she knew in there, “but I’d really appreciate it if you let go right now, dropped down in that hole, and waited until my comrades come back.” Preferably with that wizard’s head on a stake. “Starcrest too. The letter you sent, it brought him. He’s helping Sespian. We’ll have a resolution before long, I’m certain of it. And the Behemoth is gone. Forge is greatly weakened. Er, you know about that part. But with the technology gone, the remaining members will have less to draw on. Victory is close, Sicarius. Don’t let this foreigner control you, to make you do… anything you don’t want to any more.”

His grip on her shoulder tightened. “Where is Star-”

Abruptly, he threw his head back and roared in pain or frustration-or both. She’d never heard such a cry from him, and it startled her, but not so much that she failed to notice his fingers slipping a half an inch.

Now’s your chance to pull away, she thought, while he’s distracted. Do it!

“Fight it,” Amaranthe whispered, not moving. “Just for a moment. That’s all it takes.”

His arm dropped from her shoulder, and his knife was between their faces so quickly she hadn’t registered more than the released grip. She’d missed her chance to pull away. Or… maybe not. The blade was in his hand with the hilt laid bare between them. It was the familiar black dagger.

“Take… it…” he gasped. “Use it… end it.”

End what? His life? His eyes were pleading with her, and it broke her heart. She couldn’t hesitate, couldn’t argue-who knew how long he’d hold out?

Amaranthe slipped her hand through the grate, hooking it around a bar to grab the knife. He released it and tilted his head back again. He was shaking, as if from the effort of holding his bodyweight up in that position, but she knew it had nothing to do with physical exertion.

In a movement as efficient as she could manage, she slashed the knife across flesh. Not, as he seemed to expect, his neck; she cut into the skin around that cursed opal, trying to slice the full circle before he could jerk away. And jerk away he did, his eyes widening with surprise, or maybe that was pain. Agony.

She dropped the knife and grabbed the opal with her bare hand. Digging her fingers into flesh slippery with blood, she struggled to grasp enough of it to pull out.

Sicarius screamed.

The alien sound startled her so that she reared back, yanking her arm back with her. The hands that had gripped her released. Sicarius fell into the black depths below.

Horrified, Amaranthe stared at her open palm. Slick with blood and gore, the opal pulsed three times, revealing slender tendrils on its underside, tendrils that had, she realized sickly, grown through his skull and snaked into his brain.

After the final pulse, the opal went black. Everything went black.

Tremors coursed through Amaranthe’s body. Disgusted by the device, she hurled it as hard as she could. It had grown eerily quiet in the factory, and she heard it hit one of those vats and clunk to the floor.

“Sicarius?” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Sicarius, are you…?”

She couldn’t say it. Tears welled in her eyes. If that thing had been so intertwined with him… with his brain, had its destruction destroyed him too?