Forged in Blood II

Chapter 8

Sicarius did not want to kill Fleet Admiral Starcrest. He wasn’t certain whether he cared one way or another about his own life, but, as he lay on the carpet in the dark tent, like a hound at the foot of Kor Nas’s cot, he was certain of that one fact. If Starcrest was in the city, it was because Sicarius’s letter had brought him. To turn that letter into a trap, as if he’d planned to assassinate the legendary admiral all along, the man he’d dreamed of emulating as a boy, it was unthinkable.

He still remembered the day when Hollowcrest had dropped Fleet Admiral Starcrest’s Mathematical Probabilities Applied to Military Strategies into his hands. He’d been nine. At that age, he’d already read Starcrest’s simpler and more useful, at least for Sicarius’s future career, Applications of the Kinetic Chain Principle in Close Combat, along with numerous other books on tactics and strategies from other authors-though Hollowcrest hadn’t anticipated that Sicarius would need a thorough military education for his work, he hadn’t discouraged the interest. Sicarius had also studied the careers of the important Turgonian admirals and generals from the empire’s history, so he’d been aware of Starcrest beforehand, but this had been the first thing he’d read that had been written in first person by the admiral himself. Probabilities had been too advanced for him to understand at that age-some of the math was still too advanced for him, he admitted dryly, and with a little sadness for an education that Hollowcrest had deemed finished once he was completing missions for the throne-but he’d devoured the real world examples from Starcrest’s own victories, and from the rare losses. In that book, a hint of the man’s self-effacing personality had shown through, and something about it had drawn Sicarius to want to learn more about him.

Not disapproving of the obsession, Hollowcrest had supplied third-person accounts of his battles and even copies of a few of Starcrest’s personal reports and mission summaries. Those had been brief, though, without any of the… personality that had occasionally shown up in Probabilities. Looking back as an adult, Sicarius wondered if Starcrest had been trying to excite future officers about the field of mathematics. Either way, he’d been secretly-oh, so secretly-delighted when he’d stumbled across Captain Starcrest in the West Markiis. Ten years old at the time, Sicarius had been reporting to an officer-tutor in the intelligence office for linguistics lessons when he’d spotted the book on the man’s desk. The lieutenant had cleared his throat and hastily stuffed it into a drawer, but not before Sicarius saw the title. He’d returned in the middle of the night to sit under that desk and devour the story by candlelight. Over the next year, he’d risked much to acquire other titles in the series. Hollowcrest had forbidden Sicarius to read fiction, calling it a waste of time, and he’d been caught twice with the books. It had been his own fault for daring to keep some of the copies he’d acquired, favorites that he’d wanted to read again. The first time, the punishment had been tolerable if unpleasant. The second time… had convinced him not to hunt down any more of the books. But for months afterward, he’d lain in his bunk at night, imagining himself as a young officer on the Striker or the Emperor’s Wrath, performing heroic feats to win Starcrest’s regard and eventually working himself up to second-in-command.

Sicarius sighed and rolled onto his side, the lumpy snow beneath the carpet pressing into his ribs. He was surprised at how much he remembered of those days, and how vivid the memories were. To be forced to kill Starcrest now…

Kor Nas couldn’t know that he’d been given that assignment twice in his life already and refused to accept it both times. But now, he wouldn’t be able to. He could slag himself for ever sending that letter.

If he could have foreseen these events…

Enough. He needed to do more than lament his fate; he needed to find a way to avoid it.

Yes, how?

Kill Kor Nas, he thought promptly and not for the first time. But he’d already tried. The first night they lay like this, the Nurians snoring on their cots and Sicarius on the carpet, he’d stood, silent as a shadow, and tried to plunge his dagger into the practitioner’s chest. He’d managed to lift the blade overhead, but his muscles had locked. The opal embedded in his temple had flashed an angry warning, sending a stab of pain into his brain, and his arms had never started their downward descent. He’d stood there, seconds bleeding past as he mentally wrestled with it, trying to find a way around the artifact’s power, but he’d failed. A few minutes later, he’d lain back down, breathing heavily, but not so much as to wake anyone. Kor Nas had slept through it all, not concerned in the least that his “pet” would-could-turn on him.

So get someone else to kill him, eh?

Sicarius let the thought hang in the silence for a while, considering it from a few different angles. With Kor Nas’s death, the power of the opal should fade, or at least have no direction. The leash might remain until he could figure out a way to remove it, but the handler at the other end would be gone.

But who could kill Kor Nas? Thus far, the practitioner had sent Sicarius out on independent missions-assassinations-while remaining in camp, but if Flintcrest meant to march on the city, he’d want his Nurian wizard along, blowing things up and adding to the enemy’s chaos. In such a battle, Kor Nas might be a target, but he would keep Sicarius at his side. That was what Nurian battle wizards did-employ bodyguards to allow them to concentrate on their Science. In such a situation, Sicarius had no doubt he’d be compelled to protect Kor Nas.

So, he needed to pit Kor Nas against someone capable of both bypassing Sicarius and killing a practitioner. Or simply killing them both. The bleak thought didn’t repel him as much as it would have once. With little left to live for, this might be more apropos than suicide. If he could take Kor Nas down with him, and in doing so, assure Starcrest would live… Starcrest was the one person, he believed, who might achieve what Amaranthe and Sespian had failed to do: create a better empire.

Yes. Sicarius rolled onto his back again and placed his hands behind his head. This would be an act worth dying for.

But how? Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, Amaranthe’s face was the first one to pop into his thoughts as someone who could concoct a scheme that would bury a wizard and his bodyguard beneath a mountain of rubble. But she wasn’t around any more to do that. And she’d risk herself trying to save him, anyway, instead of accepting that he and his master-in the darkness, with nobody watching, Sicarius allowed his lip to curl at the word-had to be slain. His belly shivered at the idea of Amaranthe approaching him while he was under Kor Nas’s influence. Once again, he remembered Darkcrest Isle and his fingers wrapped about her neck.

Stop it, he told himself. She’s dead. It’s moot.

He needed someone else capable of the job. Starcrest himself was the logical person. But Sicarius had defeated him the one time the admiral had attacked him, and Starcrest was twenty years older now. Slower. While Sicarius was still in his prime. Or close to it anyway.

True, Starcrest had seen him as a boy back then and had underestimated him. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. Still, Sicarius would win in a purely physical confrontation between the two of them. But if the admiral had warning, time to plan something…

A snort came from the cot above. Sicarius’s thoughts hiccuped to a halt. Had Kor Nas woken? Had he been listening to Sicarius’s mind spin all along?

The snort, more of a gurgle, came again. Kor Nas rolled over and started snoring.

Sicarius exhaled slowly. No, the practitioner slept on. Here, and here alone, he could think without being monitored. He had to take advantage of that and come up with a plan before dawn.

Go in person? He couldn’t. For one thing, he didn’t know where Starcrest was. Beyond that, Kor Nas would wake if Sicarius tried to escape. He’d tried to walk away before and had been compelled, after a blast of pain seared his brain, to return. Kor Nas had been waiting for him, a slit-eyed glare on his face.

Maybe Sicarius could send another letter. Encoded like the first. But through whom? Some soldier in the camp? True, some of them might be swayed to Starcrest’s side if they knew he existed, but Sicarius had no way to ferret out which ones. He had to assume everyone here, in committing themselves to this march on the throne, belonged to Flintcrest.

Although… there was one person in the camp he could be certain didn’t want to see Starcrest killed.

Sicarius felt his heart rate quicken.

Dare he approach the man? Try to get him alone without Kor Nas finding out?

You still have to figure out where Starcrest is, he reminded himself. A letter couldn’t be delivered without an address. And somehow he had to keep these thoughts locked down deep so Kor Nas wouldn’t stumble across them as soon as he woke up. The practitioner might like his new pet, but that wouldn’t keep him from killing Sicarius and finding another if the situation warranted it.

• • •

Sicarius scrambled up the granite cliff, his fingers finding purchase in the slender cracks and on the ledges where snow gathered. His pace was fast, but not fast enough. The terrifying howl of the soul construct echoed from the canyon walls, following him as he climbed. The beast followed him, too, hulking and black in the dark night, not affected by the snow gusting sideways down the ravine. It bounded from ledge to ledge, knocking rocks and huge clumps of snow off with each leap, but finding a way to scale the cliff nonetheless.

Sicarius didn’t glance back, but he had to sense it gaining. Surely, he did. Amaranthe, watching from some impossible viewpoint floating behind him, tried to scream a warning. It’s gaining on you. Do something! But the snow and the wind stole the words.

The top of the cliff came into view, and Sicarius charged the final meters toward it. But his foot slipped, and the handhold beneath his fingers gave way. He dangled from one arm, legs hanging above the thousand-foot drop. A tiny frozen stream wound through the canyon far below, amidst boulders that might as well have been spikes. Sicarius reached for a new handhold. He would have made it, would have finished the climb, but the soul construct caught him then. It leaped, fangs biting, claws slashing, and tore him from the cliff.

Together they fell, spinning into the dark depths below. Before he plummeted to his death, Sicarius’s accusing eyes met hers, and he asked, “Why, Amaranthe? Why didn’t you come help when I needed you?”

Amaranthe woke with a gasp, her heart trying to jump out of her chest. For a disoriented moment, she stared about, surprised she wasn’t on a mountainside with snow streaking through her vision. Instead, she lay on her back, using her lumpy rucksack for a pillow. The black floor of the control room stretched before her. She remembered reaching it, watching Tikaya and her daughter lock the doors from cuboid intrusions, then setting to work. And she remembered feeling useless as the two women had called up the floating images-the control interfaces, Tikaya had called them-and taken turns manipulating them and considering journals full of notes. She’d announced that her team would get some rest, which had unfortunately resulted in Maldynado and Basilard conspiring to ensure she slept while one of them stood watch.

Amaranthe sat up, wondering if she should be disappointed or relieved that her nightmares had evolved into something new. Neither. That one hadn’t been any better than the others. Her sweat-soaked shirt stuck to her back, and strands of hair that had fallen from her bun lay pasted against her face and neck.

Thirsty, she unclasped her canteen from her rucksack. She hoped the thirst meant she’d actually slept for a number of hours this time, instead of her usual fistful of minutes. She also hoped the two women had, thanks to their interest in alien sewage and plumbing, found something that qualified as a washout. Last time, her team had been forced to make do with… well, Amaranthe hoped neither of her Kyattese explorers had opened that cabinet thing on the far wall. Though maybe the cubes or repair devices had cleaned in there. They’d scoured the floor of the control room of any memory of the fight. The bodies were all gone, not so much as a drop of blood or strand of hair left behind to prove those people had existed. Some funeral pyre.

Someone touched her shoulder. Basilard.

He sat with his back to the wall, a rifle across his knees while Maldynado, using his silly hat for a pillow-how did he keep from losing that thing when he was fleeing killer technological constructs? — snored, his face smooth and relaxed as he slept. No nightmares haunted him.

With concern in his eyes, Basilard signed, Bad dream?

They all are these days, Amaranthe signed back, not wanting to disturb the quiet room.

Tikaya and Mahliki still worked, though now they were sitting, heads bent together over an image displayed on that black sphere. Stuck on some problem? Amaranthe didn’t wish to disturb them.

Pike? Basilard asked, mimicking an actual pike for his sign.

Not this time. Sicarius in trouble.

Oh, Sicarius, she thought, if you’d figure out a way to show me where you are, I’d come help. True, she had no way of knowing if he needed help, but it’d been four days since anybody had seen him, maybe more.

I have wondered, Basilard signed, if he’s…

“Still alive?” Amaranthe murmured.

Basilard hesitated, watching her face, afraid he’d upset her maybe. Injured, he decided on.

“Me too.”

I think it would surprise him, but I’d miss him if he were gone.

“Maybe not surprise so much as perplex.” Amaranthe tried to smile, but couldn’t. She’d been better at false cheer before. Maybe it’d been required too much of late.

Yes. He was just getting…

Human, Amaranthe thought. “Interesting?” she responded aloud.

Less unpleasant, Basilard signed. Perhaps realizing that wasn’t much of an accolade, he added, It was a noticeable improvement. Not bad for a year’s influence.

“Your influence?”

Yours. By the time you’ve been married for ten years and have a pile of children, he might be almost approachable.

Amaranthe almost fell over. “Children?” she squeaked. “Him? Us? Er.”

Her voice had grown louder, and Mahliki glanced in their direction. Amaranthe blushed and made sure Maldynado was still asleep. He’d rib her endlessly for a discussion like this.

You don’t envision it? Basilard asked.

Amaranthe went back to signing, not wanting people she barely knew overhearing the rest of the conversation. I suppose I’ve thought about it from time to time as possibly happening in some distant future. Though she also wondered if the injuries she’d received from the makarovi would preclude her ever having children. I didn’t realize you, any of you thought about it, or that he’d… that we’d be…a good idea. Books had been disapproving for months, and Maldynado kept trying to send her on picnics with other men.

Not all of the others, perhaps. Basilard glanced at Maldynado. But you are a good team. Your strengths complement his weaknesses and vice versa. And you are a good influence on him. The world is safer because he’s with you.

Amaranthe didn’t feel like she could be a good influence on anyone anymore, but Basilard’s approval warmed her heart nonetheless. So few people seemed able to see Sicarius as anything other than a heartless killer, even those with whom he’d spent an entire year in close quarters. It shouldn’t surprise her that Basilard would be the one to glimpse behind the facade, at least a little. It took an observant man to find a tasty herb in a urine-beleaguered alley.

After all this is over, will you return to your people? Find your daughter perhaps? Amaranthe hadn’t asked his thoughts on the matter in a long time. She should have. She’d been too buried in her own inner world.

Basilard fiddled with the strap of his rucksack and avoided her eyes. She wouldn’t want to see me. After my crimes… it’s better for her if I don’t try to make contact.

You’re making assumptions, Amaranthe signed. Don’t you think you should at least plan a trip to find out the truth? For all you know, she wonders every day what happened to you.

Basilard swallowed. Even if that were true, when she found out what I’ve done… He spread his hand toward his face and head to indicate his scars, and those he’d killed to receive them. She would be shamed. She would not want anything to do with me.

Do you still want anything to do with her?

He dropped his forehead into his palm, but not before she glimpsed a damp sheen on his eyes.

“Basilard,” she said, because he wouldn’t see signs if she made them, “don’t give up on her without finding out how she feels. Even if she is shamed, because that’s what her culture has taught her to feel, you don’t have to give up. You know… or do you know-” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “-that everything Sicarius has done these last couple of years, even before we met him, has been for Sespian’s sake? At first to protect his son, and later because he wanted a relationship with him, even though Sespian has always thought him a monster. And unlike in your case…” Amaranthe stopped herself from saying Sicarius really was a monster. She didn’t believe that, but she couldn’t think of a better way to say Sicarius’s crimes had been greater than Basilard’s. Given the strict pacifist nature of the Mangdorian religion, he might not agree anyway. “He hasn’t given up on Sespian, and, if it matters to you, I don’t think you should give up on your daughter.”

Basilard lowered his hand from his face. He didn’t look at Amaranthe, but he signed, more to himself than to her, I’ll consider your words. He shifted his weight and grimaced. The idea of Sicarius being a better father than I would be difficult to swallow.

Feeling she’d won a victory, Amaranthe chose not to argue Sicarius’s merits in the parenthood department. She fancied he might do just fine though, without meddling from emperors or other superiors.

Basilard leaned back, a newly thoughtful expression on his face. He did seem to be getting closer to Sespian there at the end. Or I guess I mean Sespian was letting Sicarius get closer to him.

“How so?” Amaranthe asked.

They went off on a spy mission together for the general. Sespian was the one to suggest it. I gather it was harrowing for him, but he seemed pleased he lived to talk about it. He was visibly disappointed when Sicarius left to hunt the soul construct on his own.

Amaranthe tried to imagine the adventure they must have had that night. She wished she could have seen it, especially after Sespian had said he might understand his father better now that he knew his past, but that he didn’t want anything to do with him. Hah, boy. What Sicarius lacked in charm, he made up for in persistence.

Out in the center of the room, the two women stood, returning to one of the images floating above their heads. In addition to the piles of notebooks and the familiar sphere decorating the floor around their packs, a few small black objects Amaranthe hadn’t seen before rested amidst their gear. Items brought from Kyatt? Or were they shopping for goods to take home and study? She frowned at the idea. If not for “goods” collected from those tunnels twenty years ago, the Kyattese Polytechnic wouldn’t have started a research division to study the ancient language and technology, and the Behemoth wouldn’t have turned Fort Urgot into a graveyard.

Amaranthe climbed to her feet and joined the women. “How are things going? Have you figured out how to dump this in that trench yet?”

“I believe so,” Tikaya said, not tearing her eyes from the shifting and changing images to meet Amaranthe’s gaze. “But this ship is incredible. It can do so much. I could spend the rest of my life in this room and not come close to understanding everything available here. Rias should be out here, using it as a command headquarters for his troops. It’d be a lot easier to defend than a molasses factory, and look.” Tikaya prodded one of the images.

Amaranthe shifted her weight as a new image popped into existence in front of her. The professor’s enthusiasm disturbed her; it was too akin to that which Retta had displayed.

The image wavered and coalesced into a map of Stumps, the lake, and the surrounding area. Not just a map, Amaranthe realized when she spotted trolleys moving along Waterfront Street, a display of the living world around them. Daylight had come, and the city was awake with more troops than ever roaming the streets.

“Fascinating,” Mahliki murmured. “You wouldn’t think that’d be possible without some sort of…” she groped, searching for an adequate word, “floating observatory in the sky above us somewhere.”

“Mkor Mratht,” Tikaya said.

“Pardon?” Amaranthe asked. Mahliki didn’t look enlightened either.

“There’s no word for it in either of our languages, but that’s what these people called it. I am, of course, taking liberty with the pronunciation.”

“Of course,” Amaranthe said.

“Floating observatory, yes,” Tikaya said, “but in space, orbiting about our planet like a moon. They left them there tens of thousands of years ago. I read about it in the encyclopedia.” She waved toward the unassuming sphere. “Until now, I had no way to know whether they were still functioning-after all this time, I certainly wouldn’t have guessed that to be the case-but… it’s magnificent, isn’t it?”

“Ah, yes,” Amaranthe said. “About that trench…” She trailed off, taken in despite herself, when Tikaya swiped her fingers through the image, shifting the view. Instead of the waterfront, they were now looking down at the Behemoth, an aerial view of it, the snowy field, and the lake to the south of it. Along with a whole crowd of people. “Emperor’s eyeteeth, where’d they come from?”

Men and women, mostly in civilian clothing but with a few army uniforms mixed in, circled the base of the Behemoth, staring up at it. There were a few children too, though mothers had them pulled in close. Afternoon sun gleamed off the snow-Amaranthe had indeed slept for some hours-but failed to make so much as a glint on the inky black hull of the ship. It swallowed light instead of reflecting it.

“Tourist attraction?” Mahliki mused.

“Indeed,” Tikaya said. “When it first appeared, everyone must have been too scared to investigate, at least en masse. But now that it’s been sitting here for more than a day, without anything deleterious occurring since the crash…”

“Communal gawking?” Amaranthe shook her head. “They’ll run off when we lift this monstrosity from the ground.”

“You want to move the ship with all those people watching?” Mahliki asked. “Give them a demonstration of what it can do, and people might get it in their heads to go looking for it.”

“If that trench is as deep as your father says, it won’t matter. Besides, it already flattened an entire fort and thousands of men. I’m sure the brighter people out there already have an idea as to what it is.”

“I believe I’ve found something that will more completely do what must be done with this ship.” Tikaya exchanged a long look with her daughter, a look tinged with reluctance and sorrow.

“Oh?” Amaranthe prompted.

“There is a sequence in here that commands the ship to destroy itself from within.”

Amaranthe perked up. That would be an ideal solution. “The way a Turgonian captain would blow up his own ship, rather than letting it be taken by enemies?”

Tikaya frowned at her, or perhaps at Turgonian military practices. “We can only guess as to their motivations, but perhaps so. It’s taking much searching to figure out how to initiate the sequence. I gather it was designed to be accessible by a limited few, such as the captain and first mate.”

“You wouldn’t want some disgruntled private fresh off a reprimand to be able to blow everyone across the stars,” Amaranthe said reasonably.

“While I keep researching, Mahliki, why don’t you and Amaranthe use the mapping device to figure out where the rest of the troops are currently located? Rias will doubtlessly be pleased to gain that information.”

It was a brushoff-the stop-bugging-me-so-I-can-work kind-but in this case Amaranthe didn’t mind. She should have thought of intelligence gathering herself when that map had first popped up.

“Yes, Mother.” Mahliki, too, sounded a tad disappointed at the brushoff.

Amaranthe tried a sisterhood-of-the-underappreciated smile on her and got a wry twist of the lips in return.

“I’ll take notes,” Amaranthe volunteered, leaving Mahliki to manipulate the image.

She dug a journal out of her rucksack. Maldynado was still snoring. Basilard was facing the women, but his eyes were unfocused, lost in thought.

“Heroncrest’s army was surrounding Fort Urgot two days ago,” Amaranthe said. “It’d be good to know where they went. At the time, they were wearing blue armbands. I haven’t seen more than a handful of Flintcrest’s men yet, but his army was rumored to be gathered somewhere west of the lake. Yellow armbands, I believe. Marblecrest should have forces in the Imperial Barracks, and his men have the river checkpoint at the bottom of the lake and at least one of the railroads into the city as well. White armbands.”

“Understood.” Mahliki manipulated the image, and it was as if she and Amaranthe were flying about in one of those dirigibles, looking down upon the city. They cast no shadows, though, and nobody looked up, able to sense their eyes. How the technology worked was so far over Amaranthe’s head she would have needed a rope and grapple to get close to having a clue, but she had no trouble taking advantage of what it offered, and she scribbled notes as fast as she could write.

Flintcrest’s troops had moved into the Emperor’s Preserve. Heroncrest must not have been close enough to the crash to have lost many of his men, for he’d taken over the University campus, using the student housing for barracks. Classes were, no doubt, on hold. The sheer number of troops clogging the streets daunted Amaranthe. There had to be tens of thousands of uniformed men in Stumps. What could she, Sespian, and Starcrest and their five hundred do against them?

“There’s a lot of fighting going on in the city, especially here.” Mahliki pointed out squads of men in the streets around the Imperial Barracks, blue and white armbands clashing.

“I see it,” Amaranthe said. “Someone must have made a move in the night or early this morning. Things were quiet by comparison when we left. I wonder if they’ve discovered our factory and our people yet.”

A worried expression crossed Mahliki’s face.

“I’m sure your father wouldn’t jump into the middle of trouble,” Amaranthe said, though she admitted that Starcrest might indeed become a target once people learned he was in the city. With hundreds of men in the factory, someone might well be a snitch for the other side. Emperor’s warts, she couldn’t even be certain the snitching wouldn’t start in her own camp, not when those two recruits of hers were new and untried. And Deret… she should have spent some time with him, reassuring him that she was behind him, before haring off with the professor. She hadn’t even gone to check on the captive she’d ordered him to take.

“No, he wouldn’t jump into the middle,” Mahliki said, “but he didn’t come here to work on his suntan. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already enacting some plan or another.”

Though Tikaya seemed engrossed in her research, her lips flattened at this comment. Yes, she’d be worried about her husband too. Amaranthe wondered how much of an argument there’d been about whether or not to come to the empire and poke their collective nose in this hornet’s nest.

“Can you make the perspective closer to those men fighting in front of the Barracks?” Amaranthe asked. It’d be convenient if Ravido, Heroncrest, and Flintcrest all managed to kill each other in some pointless squabble for Arakan Hill, as if having possession of the physical throne truly meant one were emperor of Turgonia. It might be an important symbol, but surely other things mattered more.

Like a bird swooping down from the skies, they descended. It was too far at first, and Amaranthe twitched as the perspective focused on a close-up of one of the old cobblestone streets. The wheel of a steam lorry rolled across the frost-edged stones.

“Oops,” Mahliki murmured and twisted her fingers to pull the viewpoint back.

Ah, not a steam lorry, but an armored carriage. One of many rolling up a street toward the Barracks.

“I bet it’s a diversion,” Maldynado said. He’d woken up at some point and was yawning and watching the show. “Like at Fort Urgot. If you hunt around, I bet you’ll find guarded holes where tunnel borers are working. Sespian said that’s Heroncrest’s big plan.”

“If that’s true,” Amaranthe said, “it’d be useful to know the location of the tunnel entrances. A back door for us later, maybe.”

Mahliki manipulated the image, and their aerial viewpoint swept across roofs and up and down streets.

Basilard scratched his jaw. Would they be attempting to bore tunnels during daylight hours?

Watching the fighting in the streets-a soldier driving a lorry was shot by a sniper on the rooftop of a building right in front of them-Amaranthe did not answer. Bodies occupied the streets, too, and she couldn’t help but wonder what the death count was if one included those killed at Fort Urgot. And how could one not include them? They were victims of this internecine political madness as surely as a man shot in the chest.

Back when she’d vowed to throw her support behind Sespian, to hide his secret heritage and to keep him alive, this was exactly what she’d wanted to avoid. She’d failed. In so many areas, she’d failed. Maybe it had been hubris to think that she, one person, had ever had the power to stop this. It was disheartening to realize it might have been better, or at least less bloody, if she’d kept her hands out of the stewpot. Forge would have slid right into power. But what future would that have given the world? One in which a select few controlled the global economy and inexorably drove the majority of the population into a clandestine sort of indebted serfdom.

They couldn’t turn around the bloodshed now; they could only find a way to end it as swiftly as possible. She hoped Starcrest truly was working on a plan to do precisely that.

“They could have started the boring last night,” Maldynado said. “Gotten the machines underground where nobody would notice them and then thrown something over the hole to block it.”

Amaranthe stirred herself from her thoughts and tried to focus on the larger images sweeping past rather than the bodies. “It wouldn’t be that easy to hide the evidence of the excavations. They’d have a lot of earth to move out of the way. Mahliki, can you take us northwest of the Barracks? To the Emperor’s Preserve? It’s a forested area, the only large one left anywhere near the boundaries of the city. It’d be a long dig from there, but that’s where I’d start a tunnel. Indeed, there are already tunnels that lead from there to the Barracks, though it would take someone with inside knowledge to find them.” Neither Maldynado nor Basilard had accompanied Sicarius on the mission to research his heritage, so she couldn’t get verification, but she added, “They’re supposed to be protected by wards now too.”

Mahliki blinked. “The Science? In the empire?”

“Forge hasn’t been above importing wizards and shamans to work for them. There’s at least one in the Barracks, I understand.”

The perspective had flown through the streets and over Arakan Hill, where squads of soldiers manned cannons and other mounted artillery weapons, and they were now reaching the Preserve. Fortunately, many of the snow-lined tree branches were bare, or they wouldn’t have witnessed much with the bird’s eye view. The scrubby evergreens did blot out some of the ground, but not so much that they couldn’t see soldiers moving about. More soldiers than Amaranthe had expected.

“Tents?” she asked. “Someone’s moved his whole camp into the Preserve.”

Maldynado pointed. “Yellow armbands. Flintcrest.”

“He’s moved a lot closer,” Amaranthe said. “He must have marched yesterday or all night to get around the lake and over to this side of the city. Someone would have noticed that, but maybe he’s planning to make his move soon. While Heroncrest’s men are squabbling at the foot of the Barracks.”

“Is that a Nurian outfit?” Mahliki murmured and adjusted the image, pushing them closer to a silver-haired man in a vibrant yellow and red robe.

“Stop,” Amaranthe blurted. “That gray-haired fellow walking up to him. Is that…?”

Maldynado, more familiar with all the warrior-caste families, nodded. “Yup, that’s the satrap governor, Lord General Flintcrest.”

The man was pointing at something beneath the trees and seemed to be arguing with the Nurian.

“I wish there was a way to hear them.” Amaranthe supposed she should already be tickled with the degree of spy information the Behemoth was giving her. For the first time, she found herself understanding the temptation to study the ship rather than destroy it, or at least keep a few of the useful-in-a-non-deadly-way tools.

“I see it,” Maldynado said. “Ewww.”

Beneath the evergreens, poles had been thrust vertically into the frozen earth, and… Amaranthe’s stomach did a queasy flip. Severed heads were mounted atop them. The branches hid the faces of many of them-there had to be at least twenty-but her breath caught when their perspective drew closer, and she could pick out the features of one of the unseeing visages. Familiar features.

“Dear ancestors, that’s Ms. Worgavic.” She swallowed. “It was Ms. Worgavic.”

“The one who ordered you tortured?” Maldynado asked. “The one who was stroking the senior Lord Mancrest’s snake to get control over the Gazette? The one who happens to be a Forge founder?”

“Yes.” Amaranthe stared at the grisly trophy. Whoever had retrieved the head had brought Worgavic’s spectacles and mounted them appropriately on her nose.

“How is Flintcrest finding Forge people?” Maldynado asked.

Good question. It’d taken Amaranthe and Books the better part of the year to collect names, and even then, it hadn’t been until she’d been forced into that mind link with Retta that she’d learned who the founders were. “That might be why he brought in the Nurians.”

“Are those all Forge people?” Maldynado pointed at the decapitated heads.

“I can’t see all of the faces,” Amaranthe said. “I wouldn’t necessarily recognize them all anyway. One wonders what kind of message Flintcrest is trying to send and to whom with the poles. If they were in a public square somewhere, it’d make sense, however gruesome that sense, but is he trying to alarm his own troops with how dangerous and bloodthirsty he is?”

“Would Turgonian troops be alarmed by severed heads mounted on spears?” Mahliki asked mildly, though her face seemed paler than usual. She’d lowered her hands and was wiping them on her trousers, as if she might clean them from their association with the image. “It was my understanding that your people weren’t squeamish about such things.” She glanced at her mother, but Tikaya was frowning at some incomprehensible display of symbols.

“Oh, we’re not squeamish,” Maldynado said, “but like the boss said, the heads on a stick usually go in plain view of the other bloke’s camp, not your own.”

“Maybe that’s what Flintcrest was pointing out so vehemently,” Amaranthe said. “That his Nurian ally got it backwards. Mahliki can you pull away so we can see them again? Professor Komitopis, is there any chance you recognize the gray-haired man? I’m wondering if he’s someone important or powerful in Nuria. Is he a wizard?”

Frowning at the symbols, Tikaya didn’t respond. She may not have heard.

“Sometimes you have to poke her to get her attention when she’s deep into her research,” Mahliki said. “That’s what Father does.”

“He pokes her, eh?” Maldynado smirked. “It’s good to know the old admiral hasn’t grown too senescent for that sort of thing.”

Amaranthe swatted him. Not only was Mahliki too young to be exposed to his lewd commentary, but no one wanted to hear implications that one’s parents engaged in sexual exploits regardless.

Mahliki surprised her by saying, “Indeed not. Where the poking happens and with what depends on whether we kids are around, of course.” She walked over to Tikaya and tapped her shoulder.

While their backs were to him, Maldynado grinned and signed, I like her.

Amaranthe managed not to roll her eyes. Barely. Allow me to remind you that I’ve become friends with Yara. If you intend to thrust your rapier into someone else’s sheath-

Maldynado waved a quick, No, no. Even if I weren’t slightly intimidated by the fact that Starcrest, the Starcrest is her da, I wouldn’t wish to abandon Yara. Or jeopardize the progress I’ve made with her. I’m this close-he held his thumb and first finger up, a hair’s breadth apart-to getting her to let me use her first name.

Amaranthe snorted, but smiled. Good. Only slightly intimidated, eh?

Gray hairs or not, Starcrest had an inch of height on Maldynado and still looked like a formidable warrior. And then there was all that reputation he could swing about.

Yes, Maldynado signed. I should think he’d have to glower at me for at least three seconds before I wetted myself.

Distracted by the conversation, Amaranthe hadn’t noticed when Tikaya and Mahliki turned in their direction. They exchanged glances, and Mahliki whispered, “Interesting how many of those gestures of theirs are straightforward enough to guess.”

“I didn’t catch much of the exchange,” Tikaya murmured back, “but I do hope we won’t be witnessing more of what was in that cabinet over there.”

Amaranthe cleared her throat, wishing the two had chosen to speak in their native tongue. Although she might have guessed the meaning of the words anyway. “I was wondering, Professor, if you recognized that Nurian with Lord General Flintcrest there.”

“Tikaya,” came the correction, then she added, “Which one?”

“Er.” The image, Amaranthe reminded herself, was live, so people came and went. The silver-haired fellow and the scowling general were still talking, this time with fewer gestures, but two more people in Nurian garb had joined them. These two were younger, in their thirties perhaps. “The older fellow. I’m guessing he’s in charge.”

“I’m guessing not.” Tikaya drew closer to the image and adjusted her spectacles. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen the boy, but that flute he’s wearing, it means he’s a diplomat, probably in charge of the Nurian side of the mission. He also happens to be Prince Zirabo, son of the Great Chief.”

“The Great Chief?” Amaranthe found the Nurian way of organizing political and tribal power confusing, at least insofar as remembering which chiefs were which-they had, she recalled, everything from sub-chiefs to lieutenant-chiefs to big chiefs, and then there were hunt- and war-related ones, such as wolf, fox, and bear chiefs-but the Great Chief, that was their equivalent to an emperor.

“The ruler of Nuria, yes,” Tikaya said.

“Are any of the lords trying to get the throne not someone’s puppet?” Maldynado asked. “I’m not surprised my brother would let someone control him-he’s not clever enough to think up a usurpation plot on his own-but Flintcrest too? As a satrap governor, I’d expect him to have a brain of sorts. Those are appointed positions, after all, not inherited.”

Sort of, Amaranthe thought. One still had to be warrior caste to be appointed.

“It’s possible the Nurians are allying with Flintcrest, not trying to control him,” Tikaya said.

“Who’s that?” Mahliki asked, drawing Amaranthe’s attention back to the hovering image.

Her jaw dropped to her chest. In a clearing near Flintcrest and the Nurians, a blond-haired, black-clad man fought with four shirtless soldiers, each covered with fresh lumps and bruises, and two with blood streaming from their noses as well. Not fought, her stunned mind realized after watching for a few seconds, sparred. He was training with the men, taking on four at once for the challenge he required.

Maldynado made a choking sound. “The person who brought those heads in, I’ll bet. But why? What’s he doing with them?”

Sicarius spun, sweeping the legs out from beneath an encroaching opponent, and in that moment, that rotation of his head, Amaranthe knew. “Oh.” She goggled at the glowing stone stuck to-no, embedded in-the flesh of his temple. “Oh, no.”