Ice Cracker II

THE FROZEN WATER TRADE

Snow skidded across the frozen lake, mounding against the ravaged body. Beside it, blocks of ice had been removed, and frigid black water lurked in the square pools. Gray clouds hung in the afternoon sky, bringing dusk early.

Amaranthe crunched toward the dead man, the snow and ice slick beneath her boots. At her side, her companion glided across the same surface, making not a sound.Hisstomach doubtlessly wasn’t sending queasy jolts through his body as they closed on the grisly scene.

“I guess this is the place,” she said.

Claws had torn canyons into the face and lacerated the dead man’s parka. Frozen blood stained the ice, the snow, and the tools beside him. His gloved hands still clutched the pick he had tried to defend himself with.

“What do you think did it?” Amaranthe tucked back strands of hair whipping her eyes.

“Cougar.”

Eyebrows arched, she turned toward her comrade. As always, an unreadable expression marked Sicarius’s cool, angular face. He wore black from soft boots to fitted trousers to parka, the monochromatic attire broken only his armory of daggers and throwing knives.

“Cougar?” Amaranthe asked. “We’re less than ten miles from the imperial capital, a city of a million people. This lake is under siege by noisy steam hammers and trucks stocking the icehouses. There’s no good game hunting for a hundred miles in any direction. No cougar is going to wander out of the mountains of its own volition.”

“I didn’t say it came of its own volition.”

“Ah,” she breathed. “You suspect…”

Habit kept her from saying the wordmagicout loud. In the same breath, the empire denied the existence of magic and forbade its use-a mandate punishable by death. Sicarius, who had traveled beyond the empire and had a more ecumenical education, had few such compulsions.

“I will investigate.” He inclined his head toward the body.

“Thank you.” Amaranthe was happy to leave corpses to him. “I’ll find our new employer.”

She hitched the strap of her repeating crossbow higher on her shoulder and touched the short sword hanging at her belt. She did not have to walk far to reach the camp. The man had been killed close to the shoreline where tents perched and fires burned in metal barrels. Bins of coal supplied fuel for the steam vehicles, and plumes of black smoke rose from their stacks. Despite the promise of a storm, clinks and rasps echoed as workers sawed and hacked the ice, struggling to fill truck beds before dark.

Amaranthe rounded a sleeping tent and strode toward a log cabin at the center of camp. She ducked under one of several ropes crisscrossing the area, attaching tents to the cabin and to each other. A cockeyed flap drew a frown, and she paused to straighten it.

Snow crunched behind her.

She spun about. A woman charged, an ice pick raised above her head. Amaranthe ripped her sword from its sheath.

The pick chopped down like a woodcutter’s axe. Amaranthe leapt to the side, evading the blow while keeping her attacker within reach. The pick slammed into the snow, even as her sword came up to rest on the woman’s collarbone.

“Problem?” Amaranthe did her best to keep her tone even.

The woman’s shoulders sagged. She held her arms out, gloved palms open. She wasn’t much older than Amaranthe, twenty-eight or thirty, but weariness stamped her face. Tears welled in her eyes and froze as they ran down cheeks chapped and red from the cold.

“I had to try,” the woman said. “The bounty…10,000 ranmyas. It’d be enough to… Please, understand. My husband died last year, and this job is so hard. We’re out here fourteen, sixteen hours a day. I never see my children and…”

“All right. What’s your name?” Amaranthe lowered the sword and leaned around the tent. Still out by the body, Sicarius knelt on the ice, touching something. Good, he had not seen. He was a stickler about killing anyone he considered a threat, and, for good or ill, he had spread his sphere of protection to Amaranthe as well.

“Merla.”

“Merla, I understand. My mother died when I was little, and my father worked a job like that. I never saw him growing up, but I knew he cared about me. I’m sure your children love you and understand, too.” Amaranthe sheathed her sword. “Don’t try again. My comrade, Sicarius, is nearby, and-”

“Sicarius,” Merla breathed, her ruddy cheeks turning pale. “Two million ranmyas.”

“Yes, his bounty is a lot more impressive, but he won’t think twice about killing you. He wouldn’t think at all; he’d just react, and then where would your kids be?”

“No, of course, I wouldn’t even think to-I mean-”

“Amaranthe!” A new woman jogged toward them.

Merla flinched and ran away.

“Nelli.” Amaranthe nodded to the newcomer.

“I’m glad to see you.” The smile didn’t reach Nelli’s eyes, but then happiness was not to be expected, not if she had lost as many men as her note said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me or come even if you did. You and your team have become quite renowned.” She glanced about, pushing wisps of black hair back under her parka hood. “Are you alone, or did you bring them?”

“Just one.”

At that moment, Sicarius stepped around the tent, startling Nelli. She skittered back, though he made no threatening move. He just had that cold look that intimidated everyone. After a year working with him, Amaranthe still had not seen the man smile.

“Well,” Nelli lifted a hand in what might have been a wave or an apology to him. “I suppose he’d be the one to bring.” She turned back to Amaranthe. “You have to help. The enforcers, if they can even be bothered to leave their cozy headquarters building, just come and fill out reports. My people are being killed by…by…it’s something different every time. It’s got to be some kind of…” She licked her lips, and Amaranthe recognized the imperial reluctance to voice the word.

“Magic?”

Nelli nodded.

Fat snowflakes started falling, and a breeze gusted across the lake, ruffling the fur around Amaranthe’s parka hood. “We’ve seen such things before, even here, in the heart of the empire.”

“I knew it.” Nelli nodded again, more vigorously. “I knew you’d have the experience. What’s your price? I’ll pay anything to have the problem fixed.”

Amaranthe lifted her eyebrows. “Miss Magnusun would be shocked to hear you say that. Offering to pay any price without negotiating?”

“I’ve done well for myself, Am, and we’re not talking about tools and supplies here. My workers, people I know and care about, are being killed.”

“Sorry, I know.” As a formality, and because her old business-school mate expected it, Amaranthe withdrew a neatly penned estimate for their services. “It’s amazing what you’ve accomplished since graduating. Your company is the biggest in the city, I understand, supplying ice year around to three satrapies. How did you find the startup money for all this equipment?”

“My father.” Nelli frowned at the bill. “Is this a joke? I pay the ice grunts more than this. If you can rid us of this curse, I’ll give you a lot more.”

“We’re not in it for the money.”

Now, it was Nelli’s turn to arch her eyebrows. “Miss Magnusun would bereallydisappointed in you.”

Amaranth twitched a shoulder. “I do understand that you deliver ice to the Imperial Barracks. If we perform to your satisfaction, and you ever have the chance to mention our deed to the emperor or one of his advisors…” Another shoulder twitch.

“But you’re fugitives. Isn’t the emperor the one who put the bounty on your head? Both your heads?” She flicked a glance toward Sicarius, who stood silently, scanning the camp. “Or… Oh. Are you trying to clear your name? Redeem yourself? Were you wrongfully accused?” Again Nelli’s gaze went to Sicarius, who wasn’t even looking at her. “But, no, he wouldn’t…”

No, nobody who had seen the list of dead Sicarius had left in his path would suspect him of being wrongfully accused of anything.

“It’s a long story,” Amaranthe said. “One for after-”

“Nelli,” a stern male voice said. “Who are these people?”

Sicarius was already looking at the sturdy gray-haired man walking up. He looked familiar, but Amaranthe’s gaze locked on the two pistols hung at his belt before she could place the face. She tensed, hand going to her sword. Only military men were allowed to use black-powder weapons, and a soldier was as much danger to them as a bounty hunter.

“This is the friend from school I told you about, Da, and-”

“Sicarius!” The old soldier’s eyes widened.

His hand went for a pistol, and a throwing knife appeared in Sicarius’s hand. Amaranthe lunged in front of Sicarius even as Nelli blocked her father.

“He’s here to help, Da. They both are.”

“Wait,” Amaranthe gripped Sicarius’s arm. “Please, just wait.”

“Help?” Nelli’s father roared. “He’s an assassin! An imperial criminal. He’s killed dozens-hundreds! — of the soldiers who’ve tried to catch him.”

“Which makes him an excellent person to stop whoever is killing our people,” Nelli said. “Look, he works with Amaranthe now. You remember her. We sold candy apples in front of the house for a month that one summer. Remember?”

Amaranthe recalled the man’s face now. Sergeant Tollen had not been around much, but she had seen him a couple times. Though older, he still appeared hale.

He looked back and forth from her to Sicarius, and, though a dour glare marked his face, he moved his hand away from the pistol. Sicarius lowered his throwing knife.

Amaranthe let out a slow breath, meeting Nelli’s eyes through the falling snow. Maybe her old friend was right, and she needed to start charging more.

“Emperor’s warts,” the sergeant said, “this is ludicrous, Nelli. He may have been the one to kill your uncle. Ordin led a scouting party to find this criminal and never came back. We never even found the body for a funeral pyre.”

Amaranthe looked at Sicarius. His face was a stone mask. If he had history with this man, Sicarius was not going to show it here.

“We don’t need his help,” the sergeant muttered.

“I’ll check around the camp,” Sicarius said.

Amaranthe nodded, relieved. She wanted to ask him if he had discovered anything odd about the cougar-mauled man, but now was a good time for him to leave the vicinity. The wind kicked the snow sideways, and he soon disappeared into the flurries.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s been going on?” Amaranthe suggested.

“Yes.” Nelli released her father’s arm. “Da, could you make sure the machinery is battened down and the workers all come in? It looks like fierce weather tonight.”

Sergeant Tollen was still staring after Sicarius, but he pulled his gaze back to his daughter. His eyes softened. “Yes, all right, but be careful. Stay within my sight. Don’t trust, no, don’t even go near that man. Not for a heartbeat.”

“Yes, Da.” She gave him a mock salute.

He snorted, but touched her shoulder as he walked away. Amaranthe felt a pang, remembering similar gestures from her own father.

Nelli started walking, leading Amaranthe through the camp and out onto the ice.

“He retired two months ago,” Nelli said. “He’s been working as my operations manager this winter. It was wonderful until this all started. I hardly ever saw him when I was a girl, but we’ve finally had a chance to spend time together.”

“Sounds nice.”

They stopped before a ragged gap in the ice. Unlike the neat square blocks removed elsewhere, this hole looked like something large had simply plunged through. A thin veil of new ice had formed over the water on the bottom.

“One of our trucks is down there,” Nelli said, raising her voice to be heard above the rising wind.

“I assume that’s not the desired parking spot.”

Nelli snorted. “We drive on the ice constantly this time of year. It’s more than two feet thick right now. But the empty truck went right through.”

“Did the driver get out?”

“No.”

Amaranthe grimaced.

“This was the third incident. The first two were-”

Something black-and large-darted across the ice.

Amaranthe jerked a hand up. “Did you see that?”

Snow streaked sideways, reducing visibility to a few meters, and she squinted, trying to identify the shape.

“I-maybe,” Nelli said. “What is it?”

The wind shifted, blowing snow into Amaranthe’s eyes. Flakes gummed her lashes and stung her eyes, but she ignored them.

She slung the repeating crossbow off her shoulder and loaded five quarrels into the magazine. She had poison for the tips, but successfully applying it with the wind whipping across the lake was improbable. Besides, she had no idea what she was shooting at. Sicarius might be out here somewhere.

A screech pierced the wind, and a black creature raced toward them. Even on four legs, its head rose above theirs.

Amaranthe lifted the crossbow and fired. Yellow eyes flashed, and the black shape bounded away. It darted into the storm and vanished.

A long moment passed before she relaxed her grip on the trigger.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Nelli yelled. “You made that look easy.”

“Of course.” Amaranthe was glad the snow and her gloves hid her shaking hands. Though vaguely feline-shaped, that hadn’t been a cougar, panther, or any other animal she recognized. She readied the crossbow to fire again, but said, “Let’s get back to camp.”

When Nelli didn’t start walking, Amaranthe frowned and turned around. Heavier than ever, the snow obscured the bank. A vertiginous moment washed over her. Was camp over that way? Or that way? Somewhere the sun was setting, but the clouds smothered any light left in the sky.

She bit her lip. She couldn’t even see the hole in the ice any more. A wrong step could send one of them plummeting into the frigid lake.

A black shape loomed at Amaranthe’s elbow. She spun toward it, the crossbow ready.

A hand dropped on hers, pushing the weapon down.

“The storm is getting worse,” Sicarius yelled over the wind. “You should come back to camp.”

“We were just about to. Ah, care to lead the way?” Amaranthe shouldered the crossbow, grabbed Nelli with one hand, and put the other on Sicarius’s shoulder.

Without hesitation, he led the way. Soon, they stepped off the ice and onto a packed path through the snow. Sicarius found one of the ropes and followed it to the log cabin.

They walked inside, and relief flooded over Amaranthe. She pushed back her hood and breathed in warm air that smelled of sawdust and burning coal.

A man slammed the shutters shut on the last of four windows and locked it with a thick bar. A cast-iron stove glowed in a corner. The open cabin was parceled into an office space, a tiny kitchen and table, and a sleeping loft. Kerosene lamps hung from the walls and rafters. Several people, including Merla and Sergeant Tollen, were already hunkered inside, and Amaranthe’s relief dwindled. Great, a night stuck together in a small space with two men who would be happy to kill each other. Add, for good measure, a woman who would be thrilled to collect the bounty on either her or Sicarius’s head.

Amaranthe forced a smile. “I guess the investigation waits until tomorrow.”

Sergeant Tollen glowered their direction.

“Any idea what that thing you shot at was?” Nelli asked.

“A mare-cat,” Sicarius said. “There are at least four of them out there.”

“Mare-cat, as in nightmare cat?” Amaranthe asked after a moment of puzzled silence. “I’ve heard of them, but they’re over eight hundred miles north of here, right? Across the Frontier Divide?”

“That’s their habitat, yes.”

“And they’re kind of a cross between a panther and a bear? Except with longer claws and fangs than either?” Amaranthe swallowed, suddenly very glad her shot had not missed. She doubted she seriously wounded the creature, but she had deterred the attack.

“I’ve never even seen a mare-cat.” Tollen folded his arms over his chest and raised skeptical eyebrows. “And I’ve seen a lot.”

“Where were you stationed?” Amaranthe asked.

“I spent most of my years on the southern borders, guarding against the Kendorians and the savages from the desert.”

“Then you’ve probably seen magic before?” she guessed.

Tollen hesitated before spitting the, “There’s no such thing as magic,” line expected from a soldier.

Amaranthe took that hesitation to mean yes. “Well, something otherwise unexplainable is drawing unlikely predators to your camp. I readThe Gazettethis morning, and there was nothing mentioned about strange creature sightings elsewhere.”

“The enforcers who came out yesterday said the same,” Nelli admitted. She looked at Sicarius. “I assume those creatures are deadly?”

“Very.”

“I’ve got to get the rest of my people in here then. Tents won’t deter a predator that size. It’ll be crowded, but better than the alternative.” Nelli nodded to her father. “Will you help me, Da?”

“We’ll come, too,” Amaranthe said.

“We don’t need your help,” Tollen growled, thrusting out a hand to stop her.

Tempted to go anyway, Amaranthe stopped when Nelli shook her head.

“We’ll be fine,” she said. “It’ll just take a moment.”

As soon as the duo left, Sicarius caught Amaranthe’s eye and jerked his chin toward the loft ladder. She followed him up, and they found a small table in the back.

“What is it?” Wind railed at the roof, and she eyed the split-log ceiling. “Something worse than mare-cats?”

“You should know-” Sicarius looked at her steadily, dark eyes holding hers, “-I remember killing a Corporal Tollen near the Kendorian border.”

Amaranthe winced. “Uncle Ordin?”

“I don’t know his first name. Tollen was on his fatigue jacket. His body is in a canebrake in Deadscar Ravine, south of Fort Erstden.”

She dropped her face into her hands and rubbed her forehead. She had bumped up against Sicarius’s past a number of times and couldn’t claim to be surprised. With a million ranmyas on his head, bounty hunters were frequent visitors, and every soldier and enforcer in the empire had orders to kill him on sight. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an unjustly placed bounty. Long before she had met him, he had assassinated Lords Generals, satrap governors, famous entrepreneurs, and various other Important People. If he weren’t now in her employ, she would have a much easier time clearing her name, but she owed him her life a dozen times over. More, she knew most of his secrets, and she wasn’t entirely sure he would let her walk away with them in her head for any torture-happy maniac to discover.

“All right.” She leaned back in the hard wooden chair. Melting snow trickled down her collar. “Let’s not share that information. I suspect that’d push Tollen over the edge, and you’d defend yourself, and-” she sighed, “-it’s not good for business to kill the client’s father.”

No hint of a smile or appreciation for her humor cracked Sicarius’s facade. By now, she was used to it.

“I followed the cougar tracks to the lake’s edge,” he said. “They disappeared.”

She knew he did not mean he had lost the trail. “What do you think is going on here?”

“There are numerous possibilities. I need more information to make a useful guess.”

He produced a weapons cleaning kit and started removing knives and daggers. Amaranthe pushed back her chair and stood.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To get information.”

“Stay inside.”

“You don’t think I should interview the mare-cats, huh?” She smiled.

He didn’t.

Amaranthe shrugged, then descended the ladder. Her boots had barely touched down on the sawdust floor when a screech sounded above the wind. Shouts followed, and a cry of pain rose above it all. A pistol shot fired.

Sword in hand, she ran to the door. It burst open before she grabbed the latch. A mass of people tumbled through. A huge black form leaped inside, landing amongst them.

The creature spun and writhed like a cat, legs raking in every direction. Claws slashed people’s clothing and tore into flesh. Slavering fangs glinted with the reflection of lamplight before digging into a man’s shoulder. Screams of pain and desperation bounced from the timbers.

Amaranthe stabbed at the mare-cat’s hindquarters, but iron-hard muscle armored the creature. Her blade barely cut through the sleek fur. A long tail slapped her face. The fight rolled away before she could attack again.

“Close the door!” Tollen cried from the middle of the jumble.

Before obeying, Amaranthe glanced outside to make sure no more people were trying to get in. Two mare-cats leaped straight at her.

She slammed the door shut and lunged for the bar. It dropped into place just as the creatures crashed into the wood.

The impact flung her back a pace, and the timbers trembled. The door held-for the moment.

She whirled back toward the fight.

The mare-cat had its feet under it now and shook off attackers like a dog flinging water from its coat.

Nelli slipped in the blood-slick sawdust and pitched to the floor. The creature pinned her with one massive paw and raised the other to strike, dagger-like claws extended.

“No!” Tollen fired his second pistol.

The shot lodged in the creature’s shoulder, but it didn’t seem to notice.

A black figure dropped from the loft. Sicarius.

He landed on the mare-cat, arm wrapping under its great head. He pulled it back and slashed a dagger across the beast’s throat.

With blood spurting from the severed artery, the beast finally faltered. Men fell upon it with picks and axes. Even after it had stopped moving, they hacked, striking back at the fear that had haunted them the last couple days.

Tollen pulled his daughter back, but his gaze pinned Sicarius, who had backed away as soon as his part was done. Not a drop of blood splashed his skin or clothing. Elsewhere, it looked-and smelled-like a butcher shop. The expression painting Tollen’s face was neither gratitude nor jealousy, but anguish…defeat. The emotion surprised Amaranthe, and it took her a moment to make her way around the carnage to Nelli’s side.

“Are you all right?” Amaranthe helped her old friend to stand.

“Yes.” Nelli looked about, her lips moving as she counted heads. A couple men and women clutched at injuries, but no one’s wounds appeared life-threatening.

Outside the door, several screeches competed with the wind.

“We all made it,” Nelli said. “Thank you. Tell your man, thank you.”

“I will.” Amaranthe’s lip twitched into a half smile. Sicarius had mastered the art of appearing unapproachable, and she had grown accustomed to being the conduit through which messages traveled to him.

The crashes at the door continued. People cringed with each blow. How long could the bar and hinges hold against those heavy bodies? Occasionally the shutters rattled as well, as the cats tested the windows. Amaranthe thought them too big to enter that way, but who knew? Soon, footfalls sounded on the roof as something heavy prowled about up there. Every thump, every gust of wind, made people flinch.

No doubt to keep people’s minds occupied, Tollen started barking orders. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up, our people fixed up, and some food in bellies.”

Until they could take the body outside, there was a limit to what they could do, but Amaranthe helped sweep up the blood-drenched sawdust for later disposal. Sicarius returned to his weapons cleaning. Despite the crowded cabin, everyone gave him space. Merla started fixing soup in a pot over the coal stove.

“Hello,” Amaranthe said, coming up beside her. Time to start looking for information.

The other woman shrank away.

“Rough night,” was all Amaranthe said.

It took more idle chatter before Merla seemed to realize Amaranthe was not going to bring up the earlier attack.

“I was supposed to be home tonight.” Merla sliced potatoes into the pot. “With my girls. Instead I’m here, doing a slave’s work, killing my back, hauling fifty-pound blocks of ice out of the lake, being threatened by mystery beasts.”

Amaranthe made an encouraging sound. Listening to the woman rant probably wouldn’t reveal anything crucial, but one never knew.

“I went to the same school you two did, you know,” Merla said.

“Oh?”

“You probably don’t remember. I was two years ahead, but then I got pregnant and had to quit. I was good at math, great at balancing books. I would have been… I always wished I could go back, but who has the money?”

Behind them, Sergeant Tollen finally sat down. He laid his pistols on the table and withdrew a cleaning kit. While his hands worked, his gaze shifted back and forth from the thuds at the door to Sicarius’s corner.

“Some birthday,” Merla muttered.

“Hm?” Amaranthe asked.

“He turns fifty tomorrow.”

Amaranthe waited until others sampled from the communal soup pot-she did not think Merla still wanted to kill her, but one could not take chances-and took two steaming bowls. She sat at the table next to Tollen and placed one in front of him. He ignored it in favor of glowering at her over his disassembled pistol. He ran a rag through the barrel, and the sharp tang of cleaning oil mixed with the soup’s cider and beef aroma.

“Your father must be disappointed in you,” he said before Amaranthe could start speaking.

She blinked. It wasn’t exactly what she had expected him to bring up.

“I remember talking to him once,” Tollen said. “He was sacrificing a lot so you could go to that school. He must be horrified that you’re walking around with that monster-” a head jerk toward Sicarius’s corner, “-and making pay as a cursed mercenary.”

If Amaranthe had been a hound, her hackles would have reared. As it was, she kept herself to a tightening of her fingers around the soup spoon. Most insults she brushed off, but the ones that thudded into the dartboard close to the target were harder to dismiss.

“Yes, I’m sure he would be disappointed,” she said, “if he hadn’t been dead for eight years.”

“Oh.” The glower softened. “How did he die?”

“Black Lung.”

“That’s right, he was a miner, wasn’t he? A slow, painful way to die, I imagine, but better than suicide.”

Suicide? Amaranthe’s anger drained, and she tapped her spoon on the edge of the bowl, wondering what had prompted the sergeant to mention suicide.

“He did contemplate that near the end, I believe,” she said.

“But he wouldn’t have done it, I’m sure. To destroy one’s soul for eternity…”

Amaranthe nodded. Thanks to the Mad Emperor Motash, atheism was the official “religion” of the empire, but memories of ancestor worship remained a part of imperial history, and the old religion promised an eternal soul for those who died as warriors-or in otherwise respectable ways. Suicide, considered cowardly, destroyed the soul and made it unavailable for descendants to consult.

“Sergeant,” she said, “there’s something I’ve been wondering. As you mentioned, my father made a lot of sacrifices to pay for my education. As a foreman in the mines, his salary would have been comparable to an enlisted soldier’s. We had very modest accommodations. As I recall, Nelli grew up in a nice house with a nanny. And she said you financed the startup of her business.” She did not want this to sound like an interrogation, so she stopped short of asking the question. But she waited expectantly.

“I gambled,” Tollen said.

“Successfully? Really? Was it pit fights? Strat Tiles? The Maze?” She knew numerous gambling venues but few people who beat the odds and won big enough to change their fortunes.

“One time, long ago. Uluaria, her mother, died in childbirth, and I was away so much, for months and years at a time. Soldiering was all I knew, but the border was no place to raise a girl. I had to…take chances, make sure she was cared for.”

“Of course, it certainly seems she’s doing well, present danger aside. And you’re here now to spend time with her. I know how much that must mean to her. My mother died when I was young, too, and I didn’t see my father often either.”

She kept her tone casual, conversational. There was something here, she knew it, but she didn’t want to accuse him of anything and raise his defenses.

Tollen glanced at his daughter, who sat on a stool across the cabin, bandaging a man’s arm. Then he leaned forward, pressing a finger into the table. “Did you ever resent him? For not being there?”

She almost said no, thinking it was the answer he wanted to hear, but he would probably appreciate honesty more. “Sometimes. As a child, I’d wish he would quit mining and get a job in the city, even if it meant having less.”

Tollen winced.

“But now I know he wanted to give me everything he could, no matter what sacrifices he had to make, and I understand. You’re right, I do fear he’d be disappointed with me now, but fate has played a hand in that. I never intended to become a fugitive or a mercenary. Itistemporary.”

A clank sounded above them. The metal stove pipe rattled. The cats were far too large to fit through it, but they seemed to be checking every part of the cabin for weakness.

Tollen picked up the barrel and started reassembling his pistol. Amaranthe withdrew a box from her parka and flipped it open. It held quarrels and a couple vials of poison. She liked the repeating crossbow, since it allowed her to fire several shots in as many seconds, but the tradeoff was power. The bolts lacked the chain-mail splitting oomph of a regular crossbow or a pistol.

“If I killed Sicarius, would you shoot me?” Tollen asked.

The question startled Amaranthe so much she almost dropped the vial of poison. Tollen was not looking at her, but staring at the freshly smeared quarrel tip.

“Uhm, if it were after the fact, I’m not sure. I’m not the avenger sort. I’d certainly defend him to the deathduringa fight.” Still watching his face, she sealed the vial. “But, if you’ll excuse my bluntness, you’re not a match for him.”

“Hm,” was all Tollen said.

Amaranthe finished with the quarrels and padded through the sawdust to sit next to Nelli, who had finished helping the wounded.

“A word?” Amaranthe asked.

“What is it?”

“Your Da. Has he seemed different at all to you since he retired?”

“Well, I’ve seen more of him this last two months than the last ten years.”

Amaranthe nodded, inviting more.

“He seems older, of course,” Nelli said. “And he’s been preoccupied since things started going wrong around here, but I assume he’s just worried for me. He keeps trying to get me to go home, insisting an ‘Operations Manager’ can handle this. I can’t stay home and be safe while my workers are being killed though. For all I know, this curse, or whatever it is, is my fault.”

“Oh? Feeling guilty about something?” Amaranthe smiled to make the question feel casual.

“I don’t know, maybe. I’ve had a lot of success with my business. Most people don’t become so successful so young. I used to assume it was just determination, hard work and talent, but I don’t know. You had all those traits back in school, and look at you now.”

“Thanks,” Amaranthe said dryly.

“I just mean…a lot of people who deserve success never achieve it. I’ve had a lot of luck. Maybe my luck has changed.” Claws scratched at the door, and Nelli jerked. “I wish they’d leave us alone. Tomorrow, when it clears up, I’ll show you everything else that’s been going on around camp. I know you’ll find the answers to the problem in something out there.” She stood and patted Amaranthe’s shoulder before crossing the cabin to join her father.

“The problem isn’t out there,” Amaranthe said softly. “It’s in here.”

As if in response to her thought, the screams outside ceased. Whatever had been worrying the roof stopped. The thuds at the door ended. Even the wind abated.

People lifted their heads. No one spoke, but their hope felt palpable.

The eye of the storm, Amaranthe thought.

She walked to the door and listened, sublimating the urge to unlock it and peek outside.

Sicarius glided out of the shadows, wearing all his weapons again.

“Going somewhere?” she asked.

“You know something,” he said.

Amaranthe turned her back on the room and spoke softly. “It sounds like events have been escalating for days. Even since we arrived, we’ve seen it.” She looked at a clock on a shelf. “It’s after midnight, so I don’t think that’s the deadline, but-”

“Deadline for what?”

Wind screeched, wood splintered, and iron warped. The door blew open.

Sicarius leaped before the entrance, pushing Amaranthe out of the way. He landed with daggers in hands. A step behind him, she drew her sword and dropped into a ready stance.

Snow and wind rushed in, and the kerosene lamps blew out. Shouts collided with one another, and scuffles and clanks sounded in the darkness.

A yellow light glowed outside.

Squinting into the snow, Amaranthe tried to relax. She would be better prepared to face whatever lurked out there without tense muscles slowing her reflexes.

Footsteps pounded up behind her. Sergeant Tollen. Behind him came Nelli.

A snow-free dome cleared around the cabin. Though flakes still swirled in the sky above, some force kept the air still and clear before the door.

Amaranthe blew out a long breath, then led the way outside. Sicarius, Tollen, and Nelli followed.

The snow’s absence revealed dozens of dark humanoid shapes ringing the yard, cloaks wavering in the breeze, cowls pulled low over dark holes where faces should have been. Each entity bore a two-headed axe, the blades and long handles black.

In front of the door, a giant muscular creature, also humanoid but larger than the others, stood bare-chested and bare-legged. Flames licked its skin and danced about its crimson hair. Two silver horns rose from its temples and curved down its back.

“Ifrit,” Sicarius said. “And its army of death fixers.”

Amaranthe was glad he recognized them because she had never seen nor heard of them. Before she could ask for details, the creature spoke, though not in a language she understood.

“Kendorian,” Sicarius said.

“What’s it saying?” Without turning her back to the ifrit, she looked at Tollen and Nelli. Nelli’s mouth hung open, and the whites of her eyes circled her irises. Tollen just looked grim. He wasn’t surprised.

“The warnings have not been heeded,” Sicarius translated. “The hour is-”

Tollen lunged and grabbed Amaranthe’s sword. Startled, she let him have it.

Weapon raised, blade gleaming with a fiery reflection, Tollen charged the ifrit. His target did not move, nor did the dozens of black wraiths ringing the cabin.

The sword swished through the creature as if through air. The ifrit tossed back its red-maned head and laughed at the night sky.

A spark of hope stirred in Amaranthe’s breast. Was this all an illusion?

Howling in frustration, Tollen spun on the nearest death fixer. This time, the sword struck something solid. It thudded against the figure’s arm, but did not penetrate. The blade might as well have hit steel.

The cowled figure turned its faceless head toward Tollen, who backed away.

“Our blades will not kill them,” Sicarius said. “They are not from the mortal realm.”

Tollen whipped out one of his pistols and fired at the hooded head. The ball clanged off and thudded into one of logs on the front of the cabin.

“Nor firearms, apparently,” Amaranthe said, her mouth dry.

“Attack me!” Tollen cried.

The creatures hovered motionless.

“Da!” Nelli raced up and grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”

Sicarius looked at Amaranthe.

“The rest of the translation?” she asked him. “What else did the ifrit say?”

“At dawn, the death fixers will kill everyone in camp if the terms of the trade have not been met. If anyone tries to leave before then, they will not allow it.”

“Trade?” Nelli demanded. “What trade?”

Tollen stood, chest heaving, head drooped. He dropped the sword.

“Nelli, Tollen, perhaps we should discuss it privately.” Amaranthe nodded at the people gathering in the doorway.

“We can talk in the loft.” After a long wary look at the invaders, Nelli steered her father inside.

Before going in, Amaranthe collected her sword and walked halfway around the cabin. Death fixers did indeed surround the entire structure. Snow flitted off the roof, and she looked up. The three remaining mare-cats paced above.

“We can kill them but not the ifrit or the death fixers,” Sicarius said when she returned to the door. “We’ll have no more luck escaping than these people.”

“I know.”

Before Amaranthe could pass through, he clasped her elbow.

“You weren’t surprised at the translation,” Sicarius said. “You know what’s going on. Tell me what the trade is; we have to make sure it’s honored.”

“I will. In a minute.” She looked over her shoulder at the fiery ifrit, who waited, a smile playing about its lips. Then she met Sicarius’s eyes. “Trust me.”

Several silent heartbeats passed. Finally, he released her arm.

“Wait downstairs.” Amaranthe climbed the ladder to the loft. Though he looked like he wanted to follow, Sicarius closed the front door and waited there.

She joined Nelli and Tollen around the table in the loft.

“The fiftieth birthday is the deadline, I assume,” Amaranth said to Tollen.

“Yes,” he said woodenly.

“Deadline?” Nelli asked. “Deadline for what?”

“Your soul, that’s the price?” Amaranthe asked. “You traded your soul for a good life for your daughter?”

“The ifrit was supposed to take it when I died,” Tollen said. “I was a soldier on the border-skirmishes every month. The promise of war ever present. I never thought I’d live the twenty-five years the deal gave me. I wanted to make sure Nell was taken care of-always.”

“Da?” Tears pooled in Nelli’s eyes. “Yoursoul?”

“It was worth it. I always thought I’d die long before this, serving the empire, a warrior’s death. Yet the day approached, and I lived still. As soon as the unearthly started happening around here, I knew what was behind it. I tried to shoot myself and hang myself, but I couldn’t. Some invisible force grabbed my hand and stopped me.”

“If the soul dies with a suicide, there’d be nothing left to give the ifrit,” Amaranthe reasoned.

“Apparently. When Sicarius showed up, I thanked the ancestors. I thought the solution had come, a chance for an honorable death, but then you-bothof you-stood in front of him. I couldn’t attack through my own daughter. And then the bastard saved Nelli’s life. I don’t know what to do.” Tollen thumped his pistol on the table in frustration. “If I had known others would die, I never would have… I would have figured out a way. I just thought the ifrit would come to collect personally. I didn’t know it’d destroy everyone around me at the same time. It must be angry-angry to have been kept waiting.”

“Da…” Nelli put a hand on his forearm. Her fingers trembled, but she lifted her chin. “We’ll all fight together. Maybe there’s a chance we can win. We won’t give up.”

“Whatever happens, Nell, I want you to know I love you. I…”

Amaranthe walked to the railing, leaving them privacy to say their goodbyes. Sicarius waited by the door, all in black, armed and deadly, not much different than the ifrit’s minions outside. And what does that make me, she wondered. The counterpart to the ifrit?

After a time, she looked back at the table. Father and daughter had stopped talking.

“Be ready,” Amaranthe mouthed to Sicarius and turned back to them.

She could have said “kill him,” she supposed, but Tollen wanted a warrior’s death, not a surprise dagger to the back. And there was one peace she could give to the family.

“Your missing brother-” Amaranthe set her sword on the table before Tollen, “-was he a corporal when he disappeared?”

Frowning, he looked up at her. “Yes…”

“You’ll find his remains in a canebrake in Deadscar Ravine to the south of Fort Erstden.” Amaranthe met Nelli’s eyes; the daughter would be the one to lead the hunt and build the funeral pyre. To Tollen, Amaranthe said, “You were right. Sicarius killed him.”

The stunned silence probably only lasted a heartbeat, but it felt much longer.

Tollen roared and grabbed the sword. He skipped the ladder and leaped out of the loft, weapon raised overhead. Nelli rushed after him. Amaranthe did not. She did not want to watch what she had orchestrated.

A very brief clash of steel echoed through the cabin. Tollen didn’t scream or cry out; it was Nelli’s weeping that told Amaranthe it was finished.

Slowly she descended the stairs, conscious of the gawking stares all around. His expression never changing, Sicarius handed Amaranthe her sword.

Nelli knelt in the blood-soaked sawdust, cradling her father’s head. Tollen, drawing his last ragged breaths, spotted Amaranthe. She took small comfort from the fact that he looked more peaceful than pained.

“Thank you,” he rasped. “Your father…wouldn’t be…disappointed.”

Dawn found Amaranthe trotting out of camp and onto the lake where Sicarius stood, a cloudless blue sky as his backdrop.

“Thanks for waiting,” she said. “I talked to Nelli and Merla. Merla is going to be promoted to Operations Manager.”

A slight eyebrow twitch implied what she already knew: he didn’t care.

She lifted a gloved hand in acknowledgement, and they started across the lake together. Before noon, they would be back in the city, the night’s events like a dream. No, she thought, too real for that. A memory.

“I apologize for using you as an executioner,” Amaranthe said.

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“I know, but it bothers me.”

“Is your friend going to mention our work to the emperor?” Sicarius asked.

“After we killed her father and served up his soul for some vile underworld creature?” Amaranthe snorted. “I didn’t ask.”

“Oh.”

She didn’t get the opportunity to tease him often, so she let Sicarius walk in stony silence for a moment before adding, “But Merla said she would.”

The look Sicarius gave her wasn’t exactly a smile, just a faint stretching of the lips, but it was enough.