Ice Cracker II

THROUGH FIRE DISTILLED

A green-feathered crossbow quarrel protruded from the distillery owner’s chest. Tall and gangly, with mussed salt-and-pepper hair, the man reminded Books of himself, albeit deader. Fresh blood saturated the brandy-stained shirt, and a rivulet meandered down the sloping cement floor and into a drain near the steam engine. The chug of the pistons and flap of the flywheel drowned out any disquieting dripping, but Books shifted with unease.

This had just happened.

He rested his hand on the hilt of his short sword as his gaze probed the distillery. Wooden barrels, apple crates, copper stills, and myriad pipes cluttered the cavernous room with potential hiding places. Dusk hovered beyond the high windows, and the intermittent lanterns created more shadows than they drove back.

“That’s a problem,” his comrade said when she stepped in and noticed the body. Amaranthe adjusted the repeating crossbow on her back and tapped her sword scabbard thoughtfully.

“A dead body usually is,” Books said, surprised he no longer felt shock at such things. Two years ago, he would have, but he had been a simple professor then, a content man with a handsome son who should have been starting classes at the University this fall. Contentment was more elusive these days.

“Especially,” Amaranthe said, “when it belongs to the person hiring you to investigate his-”

Boom!

Books ducked, and a pistol ball clanged off the nearest still. He started for the door, but four men blocked the way. Two brandished cutlasses, and two more aimed pistols.

“Cover!” Even as she barked the order, Amaranthe grabbed his arm and dragged him behind the steam engine. She already had her short sword out.

Just as Books reached for his, a second shot fired. It cracked against the flywheel, ricocheted, and shattered a window. Glass flew, and he threw up an arm to protect his face.

They rounded the back of the still only to jerk to a halt before two large, muscled men. One raised a broadsword, but the other, more startled, dropped a crossbow. It struck the floor, and a green-feathered quarrel skittered under the pumping pistons.

Books lunged at the unbalanced fellow, leaving the more prepared opponent for Amaranthe. He stabbed at the man’s hand, trying to end the fight before it began. But his opponent leaped back and found time to draw a cutlass.

They retreated and advanced, fishing for each other’s blades, trading testing blows. Beside Books, Amaranthe engaged her man.

Like so many before, he hesitated at the sight of an armed woman. Without pause, she hammered his longer blade wide and darted in. He backed into the still and ran out of room. Before he could align his blade to defend, Amaranthe thrust hers into his chest.

Books’s opponent advanced and lunged, slashing at his neck. Books parried, but the power of the blow forced him to the side, and his shoulder banged against the wall. With his blood surging, he barely felt it, but he lowered his sword and pretended a true injury. He retreated several steps. His assailant charged after, apparently forgetting about Amaranthe in his eagerness for the kill.

As they reached the flywheel, she stepped in behind the man. Her blade flickered, cutting through his hamstring. His legs crumpled, and she finished him. Books started to say thanks, but movement froze his mouth.

Two men, pistols reloaded, popped around the flywheel. Amaranthe tore her crossbow from her back and dropped to a knee. Books threw himself out of the way, and her quarrel zipped into one man’s cheek.

“Cursed ancestors!” They backed out of sight.

“They’ve got crossbows!”

“You’ve got guns,” someone growled. “Get back in there.”

“It’s a repeating crossbow,” Amaranthe called, “and I’ve got a full magazine, plus a box of quarrels in my pocket. Oh, and sorry about your friend there, but the tips are laced with deadly poison.”

Mutters came from the door, but no one else poked their heads around the flywheel or tried to approach from the other direction.

Amaranthe threw a wink at Books. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to still trembling hands. How could she so obviously be enjoying herself?

“Isn’t that just a temporary paralysis poison?” he whispered.

She held a finger to her lips. “Don’t tell them that.”

Between the crossbow, the sword, and the gray military fatigues, she should have looked like a hardened warrior, but she always wore a smile and, more often than not, a warm glint of humor sparkled in her brown eyes. Any man would have proudly taken her home to meet the parents.

She peered over the churning piston rods. “More of them. At least eight by the door. They’re milling around, talking.”

Books grimaced. “Sorry I’m not more help. You should have brought one of the others.”

“I should have broughtallof the others,” she said. “This was supposed to be an investigation of a haunted distillery and apple orchard, not an ambush.”

Yes, investigation and research were much more his realm.

“Besides, you looked glum this morning,” Amaranthe continued. “I thought you could use a distraction from whatever’s plaguing you.”

“So you arranged a band of twenty mercenaries to attack us?” Books raised his eyebrows. “Very thoughtful, thank you.”

“Nah, it’s only-” she checked on them again “-twelve now.”

“Give it time.”

“See, glum.” She quirked an eyebrow his way. “Anything you want to talk about?”

“Now?”

“Well, wearestuck here.”

“It’s nothing,” Books said. “It’s just, today is-would have been-my son’s birthday.”

“Ah.” She gripped his shoulder. “That’s not nothing.”

“I know, but it’s not-” He broke off, not able to say important. “It’s not our primary concern now. We need to escape.”

“Or figure out what’s going on.” Her gaze lifted toward a set of stairs on the other side of the distillery. They led to a room with a couple small windows, an office most likely.

The first shot had dulled Books’s interest in the haunted-distillery mystery, but the room did look like a better place to make a stand than behind a steam engine. Besides, maybe it had a nice window to the outside that would allow them to climb down and escape into the orchards. Unfortunately, getting there would involve crossing open territory where every one of those twelve men could take shots.

“Think us a way up there, professor.” Amaranthe raised her voice toward the door. “By the way, folks, we’re not on anyone’s payroll yet, seeing as you’ve killed the owner who was going to hire us. There’s really no need to risk your men’s lives attacking us. We could all just walk away.”

“We ain’t going anywhere until we get the other half of our money,” someone growled. “Or the equivalent in brandy.”

Chortles of agreement followed.

Books eyed the machinery-filled wall they were trapped against. He could rig the boiler to explode, but that would bring down the building and kill everyone, themselves included.

“We don’t have it!” Amaranthe called back.

“Maybe not, but we know who you are. There’s only one woman mercenary leader working around the capital. Amaranthe Lokdon, and you’ve got a bounty for 20,000 ranmyas on your head. That’s a heap more than we were offered for this gig. And I’ll bet your gangly friend there has a bounty on his head, too.”

“Technically we’re fugitives, not mercenaries.” If the mention of the bounty worried her, Amaranthe did not show it. “While we do take occasional freelance jobs to pay the bills, our ultimate goal is to impress the emperor with tales of our patriotic heroics so he’ll grant us pardons.”

That earned so many laughs the building seemed to reverberate with the noise.

“Why doesn’t anybody ever believe that?” Amaranthe asked.

“I have an idea.” Books tugged her closer to the furnace. “Draw some fire.”

“Next to the boiler? Is that wise?”

Books ticked his sword against the wrought iron cylinder. “A pistol ball isn’t going to bother this. Failures are caused by internal pressure.”

“If you’re sure…”

Amaranthe leaned around the boiler and shot toward the door. She ducked back as a pistol fired in response. The ball clanged against the iron plating above her head.

“Look out!” Books shrieked. “They ruptured the boiler. It’s going to blow!”

The wide-eyed concern Amaranthe launched his direction said his act had been convincing. She caught on promptly though.

“Wouldn’t the explosion be instantaneous?” she whispered.

Books raised a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell them that.”

Pounding feet, shouts, and curses came from the door.

“Get back, get back!” someone cried.

With the mercenaries distracted, Amaranthe and Books charged across the open floor toward the stairs. He glanced out the door. The men were darting behind trees. The front door was still not an escape option, but Books and Amaranthe ought to have time to-

A shot cracked, and a pistol ball skipped off the cement floor in front of his feet. Urging his legs faster, he pelted up the stairs after Amaranthe.

They made it to the top, only to find the door locked.

“Cursed distiller’s ancestors,” Books spat as Amaranthe rattled the knob.

“Shoot them when they come out!” someone in the trees ordered.

Books glanced at the door again. It would not take the mercenaries long to figure out they had been duped, and that he and Amaranthe were not coming out.

“Lock picks?” he asked.

Amaranthe hammered a sidekick at the wood. The bolt gave, and the door flew open.

They leaped inside as a pistol ball cracked into the railing, shattering a baluster. Amaranthe slammed the door shut, and the knob clunked to the floor.

“Lock picks.” She nodded.

“Indeed.”

A startled squeak made Books whip around, eyes searching the small office. A desk squatted in the center, a lamp burning on one corner. In the back, jugs of applejack and bottles of brandy shared shelf space with tomes on brewing and distilling. A toolbox rested on the floor by the door, a screwdriver and a hinge set next to it. A lone window looked out on the darkness, unfortunately not large enough to crawl through.

“Under the desk,” Amaranthe whispered.

Books spotted a pair of boots scrunched against thin legs. He walked around the desk, pulled out the chair, and peered beneath.

A boy of nine or ten hunkered there, staring out with wide, terrified eyes. For a moment, Books saw his own son, and he blinked several times to clear the illusion. Other than similar scruffy haircuts, the two looked little alike, though this boy needed help, as Enis once had. Back then, Books had failed to pay attention and provide it in time.

“It’s all right.” He held out his hand, palm up. “We won’t hurt you.”

Footsteps pounded on the stairs. Amaranthe opened the door wide enough to shoot two rounds. A yelp of pain promised that at least one hit home.

“Need another sword?” Books asked.

“Not yet,” she said. “If they all charge at once… Well, at least they can only come at us two at a time on the stairs.” Keeping the door cracked and one eye on the mercenaries, Amaranthe slid a few replacement quarrels into her magazine.

“Who are you?” Books asked the boy. “Do you want to come out?”

The child shook his head, and his bangs flopped in his eyes.

“That was probably his father,” Amaranthe said, nodding toward the front of the distillery.

Books felt as if one of her quarrels had thudded into his chest. Of course.

“I’m sorry, son,” he rasped. “We didn’t kill your father, but we’re going to stop the men who did.”

“I killed him,” the boy whispered.

Books knelt to lean closer. He could not have heard correctly. “What?”

“I killed him. It’s my fault. I made them come.” The boy hiccupped and tears swam in his eyes.

“I’m sure that’s not possible,” Books said. “Ah, what was your name?”

“Terith.”

“Ask him what these mercenaries are doing here.” Amaranthe leaned out the door and popped off another shot. “And if any more are on the property. It’d help to know how many we ultimately have to deal with, especially since you just promised him we’d take care of everyone.”

“Er.” This hardly seemed the time to interrogate the boy-had he witnessed the quarrel strike his father down? Books had seen the knife go into his son’s chest, though he had been too far away to do anything. He rubbed his face, trying to push back the memories. This “distraction” was proving anything but. “How’d you bring the mercenaries?” he asked gently.

“I just wanted to help.” Terith pawed at tears in his eyes. “Mother died last winter. She ran the business stuff. Father knew about trees but not the rest. He didn’t like running things.” The boy sniffled mightily.

“What happened after your mother died?” Books groped for a path to relevance in the boy’s rambling response.

“Father tried to run the business. He tried real hard. But he hated it. I wanted him to be happy again and not yell all the time. I made him think this place was haunted.”

Amaranthe’s head jerked away from the door. Yes, here was the link to the story that brought them out here.

“How?” Books asked.

“Hid stuff, moved stuff, said I saw ancestor spirits.” Terith shrugged. “I thought Father would think Mother’s spirit wanted him to sell the business, and he could go work on someone else’s trees and be happy again. But he thought somebody was trying to scare him off his land, and he got real mad. He decided to hire mercenaries.”

An explosion hit the stairway, and the office trembled.

“Howmanymercenaries?” Amaranthe peeked out, frowning at whatever she saw.

Terith shook his head. “Father asked a bunch. He wasn’t sure if any would come.”

“Trust me, boy,” Amaranthe said. “If you own a distillery, it’s never a problem enticing mercs to work for you.”

“They shot him. He didn’t have enough money, and they wanted to take all the brandy, and he wouldn’t let them, and they-” Terith’s voice broke off in a choked sob. “It’s my fault.”

“Easy, son.” Books gripped his shoulder. “We’ll work that out later. Now, we have to get out of here.”

He frowned at the small window. Terith might be able to crawl through it but neither Books nor Amaranthe could.

“Is there another way besides the stairs?” Book asked.

Amaranthe’s crossbow twanged. A pistol ball thudded into the frame above her head, raining splinters. She slammed the door shut.

“They’ve got, or they’re making, explosives,” she said.

“How many quarrels do you have left?” Books asked.

“Five.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Her usual smile was bleak.

“Terith.” Books resisted the urge to shake the boy. This had to be done gently, or Terith would break down altogether. “We really need your help. Is there another way out?”

Terith dragged a sleeve across his eyes. “There’s an attic, but the trapdoor is out there.”

“Of course, it is,” Books muttered.

He grabbed the toolbox, hopped onto the desk, and knocked at the ceiling. The first solid thud made him grimace, but he found a hollow spot next to it. If he could cut a hole between the joists, maybe they could squeeze through.

As he withdrew hammer, chisel, and saw, another explosion boomed, this time right below them. The desk jumped, and drawers slid out, crashing to the floor. Books almost pitched over, too.

“I don’t suppose you could keep them from doing that,” he said, setting to work.

Amaranthe looked out the door. Smoke wafted into the room, carrying the sound of ominous snaps and crackles.

“You boys won’t be able to collect my bounty if my body is charred beyond recognition,” she yelled.

“You’ll jump down before that happens,” one called back.

Shouts and laughter mingled with the increasing roar of a fire.

“I think they’re trying to drop the supports for this room,” Amaranthe said. “You might want to hasten the trapdoor-creation process.”

Books sawed. “It’s going to be more of a hole than a door.”

“I’m not fussy. Terith, you fussy?”

With his story told, the boy had fallen silent. He stood in the corner, watching them.

“He’s not fussy,” Amaranthe said.

Books lowered a ragged circle of plywood. “Hand him up, and we’ll see if we can cut our way out on a side where the mercenaries aren’t watching.”

A thunderous crash came from beyond the door, and the room quaked. The stairs had collapsed.

Amaranthe lifted Terith onto the desk. Still silent, the boy allowed Books to push him into the attic. A moment later, Books clambered up himself. He bent to offer Amaranthe a hand, but she gave him the lamp and jumped. She caught the edge and pulled herself up without trouble.

Heat radiated through the floor of the attic, and the smell of warming bat and squirrel dung competed with smoke from below. The lamp spread a wan bubble of light, and metal glinted at one end. At first, Books feared more swordsmen up here, but the metal merely marked a vent.

“We can get out over there,” he whispered.

The chisel made short work of the screws, and fresh night air greeted them. Darkness had descended over the orchard beyond the distillery, but a few lampposts dotting the property provided intermittent light. Below the vent, the roof of a firewood lean-to offered an easy way down.

“That’s convenient,” Books said.

“Unless there are mercenaries in it,” Amaranthe said.

“Now who’s being glum?”

She snorted and stepped up to the hole. Her crossbow caught on the edge for a moment, but she shifted and dropped quietly to the roof. Books lowered Terith, then jumped down after them. He dislodged a shingle, and his foot slid. With an “oomph,” he flopped onto his backside, and the angled roof sent him over the edge.

At least he managed to land on his feet in a crouch. “So much for convenient.”

Something slammed into his back. The force sent him sprawling, and black dots slithered through his vision.

Expecting a second attack, Books rolled sideways and tried to get his feet under him. A blast of fire streaked into the ground he had just left.

A blond-haired foreigner stood below the edge of the roof, a sword in one hand and a staff in the other. The now-flaming grass illuminated green and black tattoos swirling across his cheeks and forehead.

“A shaman,” Books groaned.

The foreigner growled something in his own language.

“Are you here for the job, too?” Books asked. “It’s off, you know. The distillery owner is dead.”

The tip of the carved wooden staff lowered toward him. It glowed red, like a poker left too long in the fire, and Books hurled himself to the side.

Another gout of flame seared the grass and singed the hairs from his arm. His shoulder struck a rock, and he grabbed it.

Hurling it at the shaman disrupted whatever attack was coming next. Books scrambled to his feet and yanked his sword free.

Snarling, the shaman stepped out from under the roof and aimed his staff again.

With her target now visible, Amaranthe dropped, sword angled for a killing blow. Somehow, the shaman sensed her silent descent. He whirled, sword hefted, and metal screeched as their blades met.

Her attack sent him back a step, but he kept his feet and parried the succession of blows that followed.

The shaman’s eyes widened when the burning foliage highlighted Amaranthe’s face. He pointed his staff at her and growled, “Lokdon,” in a heavy accent.

“Even foreigners are interested in collecting my bounty these days?” She shifted to the side so the shaman turned, opening up his back for Books. “I’m flattered.”

Books started in, but two mercenaries pounded around the corner of the building.

“Great,” he muttered.

His darting gaze chanced on Terith, balanced on the edge of the roof. Amaranthe had removed her crossbow for the sword fight, and the boy now held it. Their eyes met, and Books pantomimed firing it at the approaching men. Not sure whether Terith would understand-or had any idea how to use the weapon-Books found his ready stance, and braced himself for the coming attack.

Then a quarrel clipped the shoulder of the closest mercenary. He jerked to a halt, grabbed the bolt, and stared at the tip. No doubt, he remembered Amaranthe’s promise about the poison.

“Shoot any others who come close,” Books called.

The boy was fumbling-trying to figure out how the lever loaded another quarrel-but the threat made both mercenaries sprint back around the corner.

Books leapt a patch of flaming grass and angled toward the shaman’s back.

Again sensing the attack, the foreigner shifted and blocked Books’s swing. Blond braids flying, the agile man retreated under the lean-to and put his back against the woodpile. He kept Amaranthe at bay with his sword and Books back with the staff.

Growling, Books tried to hack through the carved wood, but magic reinforced it. His blade did not even chip it.

Though the shaman seemed unable to concentrate on magic while whipping his weapons about, his defensive skills could have made brick walls jealous. He pursued no killing strikes, but all he had to do was last until more mercenaries showed up with guns. Books and Amaranthe had to end this soon.

Books’s elbow thudded into the pole supporting the lean-to. At first he cursed the obstacle, but realization flooded over him: his sword might not cut the shaman’s staff, but no magic reinforced the poles.

“Let’s be loggers!” Books barked, trusting Amaranthe to catch on-and hoping the shaman, who would have to translate to his native tongue, wouldn’t until too late.

Books jumped back, coiled his body, and whipped his sword about with all the momentum he could summon. Steel cracked through wood, and the pole snapped.

A second crack echoed through the night as Amaranthe sliced through the other support. She kicked the startled shaman, hurling him backward into the woodpile before the roof came down.

Remembering Terith, Books dropped his sword and caught the surprised boy as the lean-to collapsed. Wood splintered and flew, and dust clogged the air.

A hand clawed its way out from the wreckage, but as soon as the shaman’s bloodied head appeared, Amaranthe finished him.

Before Books could congratulate her, Terith pointed. Four mercenaries remained, and they all stood by the corner of the building, staring. Battered and singed, they did not appear that threatening, but Books groaned at the idea of more fighting.

With one hand, Amaranthe grabbed her crossbow, which had tumbled down with Terith. With the other, she brandished the bloody sword. Books lowered the boy, pushing Terith behind, while he grabbed his own blade.

“I’m warmed up now,” Amaranthe announced for the benefit of the mercenaries. She jerked her chin at Books. “You?”

“Oh, yes.” Pretending his battered backside, shoulder, and elbow were not crying out with admonitions about age-appropriate activities, he also pointed his sword at the mercenaries.

The men appeared more crestfallen than eager for battle though. Their downcast eyes took in the dead shaman and the duo before them, and before they could even discuss the situation, the back two spun and ran into the night.

“Uhm,” one of the remaining two said.

“Er.”

“We, ah…”

“You can go now,” Amaranthe said.

“Yes, good idea.”

A moment later, only Books, Amaranthe, and Terith remained. Only when they were alone did Amaranthe sink to the ground, rubbing her dirt- and soot-grimed face. Though she managed a bleary smile, her hands trembled. She was human, after all.

With no pretensions to the contrary, Books collapsed on the blackened earth. “As I was saying, next time you notice a glum cast to my face, you need not arrange such a grand distraction.”

“I’ll remember that,” she said.

Terith sat between them, pulling up the remaining strands of grass.

“Do you have any relatives, Terith?” Amaranthe asked him.

“An aunt and uncle in Korgar,” Terith muttered.

“We can take you to them,” she said.

A part of Books wanted to take the boy himself, for surely he would understand Terith’s pain better than anyone else. But the boy probably deserved someone who understood happiness instead. Besides, a fugitive had no right raising a child. Someday perhaps, when they were pardoned. Not today.

Books put a hand on Terith’s shoulder. “Son, you’re not responsible for any of this, you understand?”

The boy shook his head. “It’s my fault.”

“You had good intentions. You wanted your father to be happy.”

“If not for me, Father wouldn’t be dead,” Terith whispered.

“No, it’s not your…” Books trailed off when he caught a knowing look from Amaranthe. She knew his story, how his son had died, and how he had never stopped blaming himself and never would. “All right, Terith, maybe you’re right and you do share some responsibility here. You were trying to help your father, but you weren’t honest with him, and he got himself into trouble because of it. I don’t blame you, but it’s true that you inadvertently played a role in his death.”

The boy’s shoulders slumped lower, but he nodded. This, he believed. Books saying none of it was Terith’s fault rang false, just as it did for Books when people tried to tell him he could not blame himself for his son’s death.

“You’ll probably never forgive yourself either,” Books said, “but eventually there’ll be days when you can forget about the pain and find purpose and…contentment in life again.”

“Is that enough?” Terith whispered.

Books met Amaranthe’s eyes again, and she raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” He gave her a faint smile. “Especially if you have plenty of distractions to keep things interesting.”