Forged in Blood II

Chapter 20

Sicarius stared, transfixed by the leaping flames. Sespian. He forgot about the gangs mobbing the street, the men banging at the rooftop door, and the youths scaling the side of the building. For a moment, all he could wonder was if he’d made a mistake in leaving the Imperial Barracks.

From across the rooftop, he found Amaranthe’s eyes, and saw the same fears reflected in them.

Her mouth moved. She was too far away for him to hear over the din in the street, but he read the words on her lips: “He’s fine, I’m sure if it. He knew there might be more bombs. He would have evacuated everyone. And himself.”

Yes, he must believe that. But, as she turned away to help Komitopis onto the roof, Sicarius let his gaze be pulled back to those flames.

Only when a ringing clatter arose from the center of the rooftop did he jerk his focus back to the battle. The bar holding the door shut. Someone had knocked it loose. Sicarius lunged in that direction, but a scrape and grunt from behind him alerted him to another danger.

He dropped and spun. A dagger swooshed over his head and clattered on the roof behind him. Two men Akstyr’s age had clawed their way over the edge, their eyes wide with anticipation-and greed-when they spotted him. One was recovering from the blade he’d thrown, but the other man held a pistol, his finger on the trigger. Anticipating the shot, Sicarius hurled himself to the side. As he rolled, he yanked out a throwing knife. He twisted and threw, and the blade lodged in his attacker’s eye. Sicarius jumped up, sprinting for the edge. Seeing him coming, the second man stumbled back and tried to catch his rope again as he disappeared over the side. He missed it and fell forty feet, landing on the mob below. Sicarius tugged his knife free of the first man’s eye before that body, too, tilted backward and dropped to the street.

After a quick scan to see if any more men had made the roof-Starcrest’s soldiers were engaged in their own battles on the waterfront side, but they were keeping the gang members from reaching the top-Sicarius ran toward the door. If Amaranthe and the others hadn’t heard that bar drop…

More men than he’d expected had already raced out of the stairwell. They sprinted straight toward Amaranthe’s corner, clubs, swords, and crossbows raised. She had her back to them, helping Mahliki onto the roof. Books knelt beside one of the rucksacks, stuffing fresh ammunition into his pouches. His back was to the mob too. With the clamor all about the building, they didn’t hear the threat.

“Look out,” Sicarius yelled, though at the same moment, Akstyr acted. Still kneeling, he’d been facing the door, and now he threw up an arm. A curtain of fire erupted from the roof between the team and their attackers, but not before three of the men ran into it. One screamed, but the others didn’t. Had they made it through? Or had they been enveloped in the flames? Sicarius, also behind that curtain, couldn’t see his comrades or anything around them.

“Wizard!” someone on his side of the fire shrieked. “There he is. Get him!”

Sicarius pumped his arm once, then two more times, hurling knives. All three blades slammed into the backs of those at the rear of the crowd. His targets went down. Two at the front hurled themselves at the flames, as if they believed them as illusory as the makarovi they’d faced. They screamed, their clothes catching on fire. They dropped to the ground, rolling. Those with crossbows fired, and Sicarius’s gut clenched. If one of those stray shots struck Amaranthe…

Someone on the other side of the flames fired a rifle, but nobody went down. His comrades couldn’t see through the flames either.

Sicarius leaped into the remains of the cluster of attackers, his black dagger in hand. He slashed two throats before the men knew he was there.

“Akstyr, get out of there-” someone shouted-Books.

Another crossbow quarrel zipped into the flames.

The fiery curtain vanished. Books stood at Akstyr’s side, his rifle raised like a club. Akstyr was down on one knee, a hand clenched to his side. Books parried the wild swing of a desperate man whose clothes had been seared by fire. Akstyr stretched out a hand, probably trying to bring back the flames, but his teeth were gritted against whatever injury he’d sustained.

Sicarius meant to sprint the last few meters to fight back-to-back with them, but one of the men who’d been burned by the flames scrambled to his feet. He swung wildly at Sicarius. It might have been an attack or nothing more than pained flailing-he didn’t take the time to sort it out. He slammed his dagger into the top of the man’s skull. Leaving his blade there, he grabbed a pimple-faced youth who was trying to run around Books to get at Akstyr’s back. When the man saw him, he tried to pull away, but he stumbled on one of his fallen comrades. Sicarius didn’t bother drawing another knife. He yanked the thug toward him with one hand and slammed the palm of his other into his nose.

Books downed the second of the two people who’d evaded the flames and almost reached Akstyr. He gripped Akstyr’s arm. “Are you all right?”

Knowing that door was still open behind them, Sicarius didn’t relax. He spun, intending to run back and jam the bar back through the handle. Two more men stood at the top of the stairwell, both with crossbows raised.

A mistake, the analytical part of Sicarius’s mind acknowledged, you should have secured the door first. These thoughts came even as he lunged for one of the serrated blades in his boot-he’d spent all of the throwing knives in his arm sheath with the first attack. He never took his focus from the men, but they weren’t aiming at him; they didn’t even seem to see him. Their eyes, filled with some sort of zealous hatred, remained on Akstyr.

“Look out,” Sicarius warned in the same beat as he threw his knife. He reached for a second as soon as it spun from his fingers, but he knew he couldn’t hit both men before they fired.

The serrated blade wasn’t balanced for throwing, but it slashed across his target’s neck, slicing into the jugular before he loosed his shot. The second gang member, however, fired before Sicarius’s second knife left his fingers. Hoping the crossbow had missed, Sicarius glanced at his comrades.

Across the pile of fallen bodies from him, Books had lunged in front of Akstyr. Now he crumpled to the roof, his hand clutched to his chest.

“No!” Akstyr shouted.

Sicarius ran for the door. His knife had taken down the man who’d fired, but two more gang thugs were about to lunge out of the stairwell. They saw their death approaching in Sicarius’s eyes and stumbled backward. Sicarius yanked the door shut, grabbed the pipe he’d used earlier, and jammed it back through the handle.

“Akstyr?” came Amaranthe’s voice, an uncharacteristic quaver to it. “Is he…?”

After another check to make sure no climbers had gained the roof, Sicarius ran toward the group, though he slowed before he reached them. Books lay on his side, facing the door. He wasn’t moving.

Akstyr dropped down beside him, forgetting his own wound-blood saturated the side of his baggy brown shirt. Amaranthe rushed over, falling to her knees.

“Why’d he do that?” Akstyr whispered. “Why’d he step in front…?”

Amaranthe shook his shoulder. “Help him. You can heal him.”

Books’s eyes were locked open. It wasn’t his chest that he was clutching but a crossbow bolt sticking out of it. It was as if he’d meant to pull it out, but he hadn’t been able to. It wouldn’t have mattered. It’d struck his heart. He was already dead.

“I can’t,” Akstyr whispered. “It’s too late. He’s-”

“No, curse your ancestors.” Amaranthe grabbed both of Akstyr’s shoulders and shook him. “You healed me when I was dying. You can do it. All those books, you-” Her voice cracked, and she shook him again.

Akstyr threw a desperate look at Sicarius.

That stirred him to action. He stepped around Books’s body and grasped Amaranthe’s arms, trying to pull her away from Akstyr gently, but she wouldn’t relinquish her grip.

Sicarius made his own grip firmer. “We’ll all be dead if we don’t concentrate on the rest of the fight.”

Komitopis and Mahliki glanced in his and Amaranthe’s direction. They’d taken over her position and were helping Deret and another soldier onto the roof.

Sicarius released Amaranthe, trusting she’d gather herself, but he might need to take charge for a moment, at least until Starcrest joined them. He grabbed a couple of blasting sticks. With Books down, any inhibitions he might have had against blowing up gang brats was gone-such inhibitions would have been out of respect for Amaranthe’s wishes, not because he thought any of those thugs worth saving.

The remaining soldiers were climbing across the rope while Starcrest, standing beside Suan, waited for the last slot. Nobody was left guarding their trapdoor, a trapdoor the makarovi must still be banging at.

“Come,” Sicarius shouted.

Starcrest glanced at his giant unused trap, then squinted behind Sicarius. “What is your rope tied to?”

“Smoke vent.”

Starcrest shook his head once and held up two fingers. He must have made a mental calculation and was certain that was all the rope could hold safely. Sicarius didn’t know if they had time for safety though. People were spilling into the intersection below, and more thugs with ropes and grapples were running toward the warehouse walls. Others funneled into the first-floor doors.

As the last two soldiers climbed off, Sicarius waved again for Starcrest to go. He lit a blasting stick and threw it to the north of the intersection where a wave of reinforcements was coming in. He didn’t bother aiming where nobody was standing, as Amaranthe had done; he targeted a thick knot of people.

“Look out!” someone cried. They were pressed in too tightly for anyone to run.

Sicarius never would have thought the gangs would work this hard and risk this much for his head, million ranmyas or not. Though the chants that floated up continued to be, “Get the wizard, kill the wizard!” Through his own actions, Akstyr had riled them up into a furor.

Watching the wary slowness with which Suan climbed onto the rope was enough to make one start tearing hair out. Sicarius didn’t care if she plummeted, but Starcrest obviously did. He knelt, whispering what could only be encouragements. Since he’d taken the last position, he couldn’t cross until she did.

A crack sounded on the far rooftop, and bars clattered. The crate and whatever else the soldiers had shifted onto the trapdoor tipped off.

Makarovi paws appeared, grasping either side of the opening.

“Starcrest, go!” Sicarius barked.

Starcrest scarcely needed the order. He’d swung onto the rope as soon as the crack sounded behind him. Suan inched along ahead of him.

Too slow. If the makarovi was willing to throw itself from the roof to get to them…

Sicarius clenched his fist around a blasting stick. The first creature pulled itself the rest of the way through the trapdoor. A second head appeared behind it.

Sicarius dipped the fuse into the lantern flame. He backed a few steps, lining up a throw. Starcrest’s eyes widened. Yes, if Sicarius took out the part of the trap their rope was tied to, it’d be trouble for them. But being knocked from the rope by a makarovi would be trouble too.

“What are you doing?” Komitopis blurted.

Sicarius had to risk it. Better for them to fall a couple of stories than to be shredded to death in midair. He dodged Komitopis’s grasp, ran forward, and hurled the burning stick. It flew, toppling end over end through the air. He swore it moved even more slowly than the woman on the rope. The makarovi were lumbering creatures, but at that moment the lead one’s gait seemed to have the speed of an avalanche. It couldn’t have been more than ten feet from the edge, from leaping after Starcrest and its target, when the blasting stick bounced to the roof at its feet. The fuse was still burning down, and Sicarius believed it’d explode too late. He was about to lunge for a rifle, out of some vain notion of shooting the makarovi in the eye as it leaped from the roof, but the stick blew, right between the beast’s legs. He’d been expecting that all night-for one of the sticks to explode on impact-but it surprised him nonetheless.

Smoke swallowed the makarovi, and an undulation ran along the rope stretched between the buildings. Suan squealed. Her legs had been crossed over it, but they slipped free. Starcrest hastened toward her, dropping a hand to steady her. The makarovi was no more, but shrapnel rained down all around Starcrest and Suan-broken metal pipes flying free from the trap Starcrest had been making. The trap had lost the top and part of one side, but the section holding the rope remained stable. Sicarius let out a soft exhalation of relief.

“They’re everywhere,” came a cry from one of the soldiers defending the warehouse roof. “Why are they so slagging eager to get up here?”

“Wizard, wizard,” continued the chant from the street.

“And where are the slagging enforcers?” another of Starcrest’s men yelled.

At the Imperial Barracks, Sicarius thought, and grabbed another blasting stick, this one for the mob. The first had kept people away from the intersection, but they were encroaching again.

“Get those people up there,” someone in the street shouted. “They’re going to help the wizard. And the assassin!”

Sicarius thrust the fuse into the flame. Nobody was getting “those people.”

Mahliki rushed to the edge, gripping the low wall. “Hurry up, Father!”

Starcrest had righted Suan, and her ankles were locked over the rope again. They’d reached the halfway point. He gave a smile that was probably meant to be encouraging, but bleakness edged it.

“Stay back,” Sicarius told Mahliki and lobbed the blasting stick.

A second before it landed, a musket boomed from the street corner. Starcrest’s body jerked, his hands flying from the rope.

No. Sicarius grabbed a rifle, not even sure who had shot, but wanting to put a bullet in his eye.

“Rias!” Komitopis screamed.

Suan screamed as well and finally got her hands moving faster. Sicarius was tempted to shoot her.

Rias hadn’t dropped entirely-he hung from the rope by his ankles. One arm dangled below him, and the other was tucked to his chest. Shoulder shot? Sicarius couldn’t tell.

As Rias swayed, his face grew visible for a moment, along with the rictus of pain that contorted his mouth. Definitely shot. He flexed his abdomen and curled up, his good arm reaching for the rope. He almost had it when the blasting stick Sicarius had thrown chose that moment to explode.

Shouts of fear and shrieks of pain erupted from the street. The blast was close enough to set the rope to swaying and buffet Suan and Starcrest again. Starcrest’s grasping fingers missed the rope, and he dropped again. One of his boots slipped, but he made a quick adjustment and caught himself.

Komitopis cursed a stream of Kyattese, the words spewing forth so quickly Sicarius could only make out one in three. They weren’t flattering. She slammed a palm into his shoulder, the blow harder than he would have expected from her, and shouted, “Stop throwing those things. Let them cross!”

Sicarius didn’t point out that he’d thrown it before Starcrest had been in trouble. Suan had made it to the roof. When Sicarius didn’t move to help her, others did. Deret and Amaranthe. She gave him a look he couldn’t read.

Out on the line, Starcrest swung himself up again. This time he caught the rope. His head dropped and he stared at his destination upside down. He couldn’t get his other arm up to help himself along. Would he be able to complete the crawl with one hand? He twisted his neck, eyeing the street below.

Sicarius read the look. Starcrest was considering how much trouble he’d be in if he dropped.

Sicarius handed his rifle to someone, ordering, “Cover us,” to no one in particular. He slipped out onto the rope and skimmed along it until he reached Starcrest.

“I hope you brought the painkillers,” Starcrest said.

“Grab me, sir.”

“You can’t carry me.”

“I will,” Sicarius said.

“Look out,” someone below cried.

“Nah, it’s more stupid magic.”

With Suan no longer on their rooftop, the makarovi, the real makarovi, were running out of the factory.

This was taking too long. Their chance to collapse the building on the monsters was gone, if they’d ever had a chance to start with. This whole night-what chaos and stupidity. Sicarius vowed that if he lived, Ravido Marblecrest wouldn’t.

Sicarius grabbed Starcrest, wrestling with limbs and gravity to find a position they could use. Starcrest refused to climb onto Sicarius’s back and put all of his weight on him, and ended up grabbing Sicarius’s belt with his good hand. Starcrest left his ankles wrapped around the rope, and they managed an awkward upside down crab walk toward the warehouse.

The first scream of pain came from below as the mob learned that these makarovi were not illusions. Sicarius wondered if the gangs would stay and fight. With those numbers, they might wear down the remaining beasts by attrition, but there was no money promised for slaying them.

“That’s the assassin,” someone shouted. “Get him-a million ranmyas.”

“You shouldn’t have come out here,” Rias said.

Sicarius picked up his speed-another ten meters and they’d reach the building.

A shot fired, not from below but from the roof. Amaranthe stood on the low wall, smoke wafting from her rifle. She’d taken the idiot yelling about assassins in the center of his chest.

The makarovi tore into the mob, distracting anyone else from the men on the rope. Sicarius reached the roof and shifted about so Mancrest and Akstyr could grab Starcrest first. After the admiral was safe, Sicarius pulled himself over and collapsed on the roof. For a weary moment, he considered not getting up. What was the point? Let the makarovi destroy those people down there. And vice versa.

He looked at the spot where he’d left Books. He hadn’t been moved, and seeing his body there, alone on the roof, filled Sicarius with remorse he hadn’t expected. There had to be a point, he thought. Or what had his death been for? He looked to Amaranthe, for some reason thinking she might have an answer for him, one that made sense.

She stood, her face more grim and determined than ever, holding a blasting stick in each hand. The last two, Sicarius realized.

“I had an idea while you two were out there,” she announced. “I don’t know if there’s any molasses left in those tanks, but I’m figuring there might be. The business left all their equipment in the building, so maybe some of their product is still here too.”

“You think you can blow them up?” Akstyr asked.

“We only have two sticks left,” Amaranthe said, “and throwing them at the mob isn’t doing much. Maybe we can at least get the makarovi too sticky to attack people.” Her mouth twisted. A joke? If so, a bleak one. There wasn’t a hint of humor in her eyes.

Komitopis was trying to make Starcrest sit down so she could tend to his shoulder, but he stepped back to the side of the roof and gazed at the sizable tanks. Each one rose three stories high, and Sicarius didn’t know if even a blasting stick would rupture the metal walls.

Someone fired below, and Komitopis pulled Starcrest back.

“Rias,” she hissed. “Stop trying to get yourself killed.”

“I’m going to throw it,” Amaranthe said, “before the makarovi get too far away for it to matter.”

She knelt to thrust the fuses into the flame, but Starcrest dropped down beside her and blocked the lantern with his hand.

“What?” she asked.

“Let me do it.” Starcrest opened his palm, asking for one of the blasting sticks.

“She can throw it that far,” Sicarius said, not understanding Starcrest’s objection, but sensing it might stem from a doubt in Amaranthe’s abilities. “And with accuracy.”

Starcrest’s smile held no joy. “That is not my concern.” He met Amaranthe’s eyes. “Enough blood stains your sword for this lifetime.”

In the second while she was puzzling this out, Starcrest took a blasting stick from her. Her eyes widened with understanding, but he’d already lit it, stood, and hurled it toward the tanks beside the building.

This time, the stick did not explode on impact. Unnoticed by those in the streets below, it skidded to a stop beneath the closest tank. Sicarius watched the fuse burn down, curious as to what the results would be. Nothing if the tanks were empty, though the shrapnel from the explosion might damage those near the intersection. If there was liquid inside, would getting “sticky” truly deter the makarovi?

A heartbeat before the stick blew up, his mind caught up with Starcrest’s, the estimates for a volume equation forming in his thoughts.

The tanks dampened the explosion, and Sicarius worried the force hadn’t been enough to damage the sturdy walls. But a resounding pop sounded over the fading boom from the blasting stick. Rivets shot in a hundred directions with the velocity-and destructive power-of bullets. Screams burst from the people crowding the intersection, and no less than two dozen fell to the ground, struck by the shrapnel. One of the makarovi was hit, and its roar turned to the squeal of a pig gone to slaughter. Those who died in the initial blast suffered the least.

In a chain reaction, both of the tanks were destroyed, their bellies ruptured. One was empty, but the other… was not. Molasses, brown and thick and almost as fast-flowing as water, gushed into the streets. Sicarius had never seen a tidal wave, but he imagined it must look like this: channeled by the surrounding buildings, the liquid rose ten feet high and bore down on the people in the street. Too fast to outrun, it swept over them, the force knocking them from their feet and pulling them under. Even the heavy makarovi couldn’t resist its power, and the beasts roared in terror as they were tugged into the deadly flow.

Like water, the molasses obeyed gravity and found the path of least resistance. It gushed down to the waterfront, then broke like a wave, its height diminishing as it flowed across the docks and into the lake. Sicarius stared down at the intersection and the streets leading up to it, at the swath of brown gunk left behind, and at the disappearance of the crowd. Oh, a few beslimed people lay unmoving in the streets, and a survivor clung to a lone standing lamppost-the others had been flattened and torn away. From the shouts within the warehouse, a few more had survived by being on an upper level when a gush had torn down the doors and broken the windows to sweep through the building. Those who hadn’t been swept away were hacking to rid their lungs of fluid and staggering away from the scene. A few cast stares of disbelief up at the warehouse roof, but most simply scurried into the shadows as fast as they could.

“Are they gone?” Amaranthe rasped, a hysteric edge to her voice.

Sicarius knew she meant the makarovi, not the people. She never would have, of her own volition, chosen to kill human beings, not even gang thugs who were trying to kill her.

“Guntar,” Starcrest called to a soldier on the far side of the roof, someone with a better view of the waterfront. “Makarovi?”

“Looks like they all drowned, sir. Lots of those gang brutes did too. We shouldn’t have any trouble getting out of here.”

“Understood,” Starcrest said. “Thank you.”

Amaranthe dropped her face into her hand. To cry? Sicarius couldn’t tell, but surely she deserved a release after all this. His own gaze lifted toward Arakan Hill. The flames had died down-or been put out-but the night sky didn’t hide the black plumes of smoke pouring from whatever remained of the Imperial Barracks. He wanted to race up there and find Sespian, but he wouldn’t leave until he knew Amaranthe would be all right. She was strong, but she’d been through so much, and Sicarius didn’t think she’d be able to let Starcrest accept the blame for the deaths her idea had wrought. She’d never failed to feel for those who had died at Sicarius’s hand, after all, not when he’d been in her employ.

“That was…” Akstyr was staring down at the carnage in the street. Sicarius expected him to say, “brilliant,” or, “the best revenge ever,” but he wiped his eyes instead and finished with, “not worth the price.” He walked over, sat beside Books’s body, and buried his face in his hands.

“If this is how it had to end anyway,” Amaranthe whispered, staring at the barren streets, “I wish I’d thought of it sooner.”

She lifted her head to find Sicarius’s face. Her eyes were like pools with rivulets escaping down her cheeks. Her hand twitched toward him, and his feet swallowed the three steps between them. He pulled her into a hug, wishing he’d thought to do so immediately, but she always tried so hard not to let her emotions or her… human fallibility show in front of the others. This time was different, he realized, and lifted his hand to the back of her head, letting her cry into his shoulder.

• • •

The enforcer wagon crawled up Arakan Hill, and trepidation tightened Sicarius’s fingers on the steering controls. Starcrest sat in the seat beside him, with his family, Amaranthe, Akstyr, Mancrest, and the soldiers in the back. Books’s body was back there too. Amaranthe and Akstyr had refused to leave it behind, and both had glared at Sicarius when he’d pointed out that nobody would take it.

As the Barracks walls came into view, with the heavy double doors charred and blown half off their hinges, Sicarius wondered how many people they’d be preparing a funeral pyre for. Not Sespian. Sespian had known the danger, known there might be more bombs. If he’d gotten himself killed…

A pair of enforcers standing outside the warped gates frowned at their approach. It was still a few hours until dawn, and Sicarius doubted they could tell who occupied the shadowy interior of the cab, but he watched their eyes-and their hands-nonetheless. A sergeant wearing the reds of the Imperial Fire Brigade jogged up to them, and Sicarius drove through into the courtyard without being stopped. With so many enforcer wagons and army lorries, one more shouldn’t seem strange. Besides, Sicarius thought, as the front of the Barracks came into view, what was left to protect?

Black bricks and charred wood lay all about the slushy courtyard, along with pieces of furniture, clothing, and a set of purple velvet draperies that were wrapped around the flagpole. The face of the building had been blown off; the remaining walls and floors, their edges crumbling, stood open to the elements, laid open like a giant diorama. Water dripped from it all, courtesy of the Imperial Fire Brigade’s hoses. With the fire quenched, they’d been turned off, but they still snaked across the ground to fire plugs in the corner of the courtyard, and steam still rose from the rubble crowding the base of the building.

Sicarius drove to one side, passing the vehicle house he’d taken a different vehicle from earlier. That vehicle remained on the street where they’d parked it; molasses had reached three feet up the side of it, leaving a sticky mess of the engine.

Though he remained alert for danger from the enforcers they passed, Sicarius searched the rubble for bodies and searched the courtyard for signs of Sespian.

“The back half of the building is relatively undamaged,” Starcrest observed.

Sicarius didn’t care about the building. Where was Sespian?

“I don’t see any bodies,” Starcrest added quietly.

A more useful observation. If Sicarius hadn’t been busy hunting for his son, he would have realized it too. Sespian-or someone-must have succeeded in evacuating the Barracks.

“Where is everybody?” Sicarius asked. He had rounded the back of the building and come out on the other side. He could almost see back to the courtyard gate, but he hadn’t spotted Sespian or anyone else on the team. Enforcers and Fire Brigade personnel roamed everywhere, taking notes, searching the inside of the building, and making inspections to figure out if the rest would collapse, but where was everyone else?

“Stop, and I’ll ask,” Starcrest said.

He climbed out gingerly, his bandaged arm cradled against his abdomen. In a hasty bit of field surgery that Starcrest had insisted upon, Komitopis had removed the musket ball from his shoulder while his daughter had filled the role of nurse. Their practiced professionalism-and the way Komitopis had shaken her head while glaring and tsk-tsking at her husband-had led Sicarius to believe it wasn’t the first musket ball they’d removed from Starcrest’s body.

“Root cellar,” Starcrest said when he climbed back into the cab. “It was undamaged, aside from the addition of a smelly makarovi den.” He raised his eyebrows, silently asking if Sicarius already knew about this and of the cellar’s location. When Sicarius nodded, Starcrest added, “It’s been claimed as the headquarters suite for now. Most of the troops and staff that were in the Barracks were evacuated to hotels in the area.”

Sicarius barely heard the addition. He would have simply run to the root cellar, but there was enough light in the courtyard that people would spot-and recognize him-so it was best to get closer using the vehicle. Besides, Amaranthe and the others would want to rush in to see the rest of the team too.

Four soldiers stood guard around the reinforced root cellar door. Sicarius stopped the vehicle.

“I’ll talk to them,” Starcrest said.

Not interested in waiting-or being the recipient of rifle fire when the soldiers figured out who he was-Sicarius slipped out of the cab and used the vehicle to cover his approach to the ragged hole in the lawn. He hopped into the tunnel, breathing the makarovi scent anew. It was almost better than the smoke that lingered in the courtyard, the smell of wet, charred wood dominating everything else.

Sicarius heard voices as soon as he landed, and he found himself sprinting up the slope and into the makarovi cage. Numerous lamps burned in the root cellar, and the number of bodies holed up inside made the room warm. Sespian, Yara, Maldynado, Basilard, and a handful of officers were standing around a food crate turned into a table. Their backs were to him. Another man lay bound and gagged in a corner by a box with air holes. Ravido.

Sicarius paused only long enough to make sure nobody with a pistol stood ready to shoot him, then slipped through the bars. “Sespian.”

A profound relief filled him when Sespian turned, his hair tousled and his uniform rumpled, but with no injuries marring his flesh. Before his rational mind caught up to his reflexes-his feelings-he’d grabbed Sespian and wrapped him in a hug.

Startled, Sespian leaned back, as if to pull away, but he decided to accept the embrace and offered an awkward back pat. It warmed Sicarius’s heart.

The door creaked open. “Fleet Admiral Starcrest and Corporal Lokdon here to see you, sir,” a soldier called.

“Thank you,” Sespian said. “Send them down.”

It wasn’t until footsteps sounded on the earthen stairs that Sicarius released Sespian and stepped back. A faint furrow creased Sespian’s brow.

“We saw your explosion from the waterfront,” Sicarius said, realizing the hug had been out of character and likely puzzled his son. “I did not know if you lived.”

“Ah,” Sespian said, nodding in understanding.

“What’s this?” Maldynado asked. “No hugs for us?” He smirked at Sicarius and opened his arms in an invitation.

Basilard’s eyebrows twitched up, and Yara stared at Maldynado as if he’d grown a new eye in the center of his forehead, right under that idiotic tentacle hat that he’d managed to retain throughout the night’s action.

Sicarius was almost tempted to take a step toward the man, to see what he’d do, but he must have taken too long to act, for Maldynado shrugged and faced the stairs, his arms still spread. “I know the boss will hug me!”

Amaranthe was on the steps, but she was coming down behind Starcrest, and he was the one to receive the enthusiastic smile.

The admiral raised his eyebrows at the proffered embrace. “Given my injury, I’ll pass.”

“Er, yes,” Maldynado said. “Quite right.”

Yara pulled him out of the way of the people coming down the stairs. “Are you always going to be a frivolous buffoon?”

“Of course. You wouldn’t want a serious old stick, would you?” Maldynado flicked a glance toward Sicarius.

Before the conversation could go further, and before Sicarius could decide if he wanted to rebut with anything more than an icy stare, an ear-splitting yowl made most people in the cellar wince.

Ravido, his ear inches from the box that housed whatever feline beast was emitting the noise, groaned through his gag. He tried to say something too. It sounded like, “Just kill me; it’d be less torture.”

“I know, Trog,” Sespian said, “and I apologize, but we’ll find you some food soon and a place where you can roam.”

So that was the cat Sespian had been looking for. Another eardrum-assaulting screech blasted from the box. Sicarius wondered how he could have missed hearing the creature on his first trip into the Barracks.

“Is that your cat?” Amaranthe asked. “I’m glad you found him. Or is it a her?”

Another yowl.

Yara scowled. “Only a male would complain that much.”

“I was worried he wouldn’t make it,” Sespian said, “that nobody would take care of him with me gone, but he’s a survivor. More than that. Apparently, he’s been harassing the new troops since Ravido presumed to move onto our floor.”

Ravido groaned again, cursing vehemently behind his gag. He might have said, “Piss and cat hair everywhere,” but it was hard to tell.

“The makarovi?” Sespian asked over the noise of the belligerent cat.

“Dead,” Sicarius said.

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

“We paid a price though.” Amaranthe so rarely gave anyone a glare of hatred that Sicarius almost didn’t recognize it as such; it was directed at Ravido.

Sespian sighed. “With such powerful monsters, I’m not surprised.”

Amaranthe exchanged hugs with Maldynado and Basilard. “I’m glad you made it out of the building. All of you.” She lifted her head to include Yara and Sespian.

“Where’s Books?” Maldynado asked. “Up poking through musty old tomes somewhere with Akstyr?”

“Books…” Amaranthe swallowed. “He was our price.”

“Our price?” Maldynado removed his hat to scratch his head, either not comprehending-or choosing not to comprehend-her point.

Basilard’s shoulders slumped. He knew.

“We were able to retrieve the body,” Amaranthe said. “We’ll plan the funeral pyre as soon as…” She waved vaguely toward the Barracks. “As soon as enough is resolved that we can do so.”

“Oh,” Maldynado mouthed, his body as limp as the drooping tendrils of his hat.

Starcrest joined the officers, and their heads bent together over papers scattered on the table. Sicarius found that he cared little as to what was on that table and what they were planning. Sespian and Amaranthe were alive, and in this tight cellar, he could keep an eye out and ensure that they stayed that way. An unexpected sense of contentedness came over him. It was strange, like nothing he’d ever felt before. What an odd time for it to visit him, in the aftermath of all that chaos, at the end of a night with no sleep, and in the face of the death of one of their comrades. Yet there it was, nonetheless.

Because, Sicarius realized, it’s finally over, and the two people who mattered most to him had survived. He leaned against the wall where he could observe all and watch the room’s entrances.