Amaranthe sprinted after Sicarius as its red eyeballs rotated in their direction. She caught the end of the rack and used it to swing herself around the corner ahead of not one but four beams. They shot forth in a scattered high- and-low pattern, taking chunks out of another wall.
“At least that thing’s slow,” Amaranthe said, chasing Sicarius past two rows of racks and down a middle aisle, though she silently acknowledged that the device was fast enough to make it difficult to find time to make a bomb for blowing a hole out of their prison. “We can keep ahead of it,” she said to reassure herself.
An ominous grating sounded at the back of the chamber. Another gate being opened, and another sentry rolling out? Or something else?
“Spoke too soon,” Amaranthe said.
Sicarius stopped before a series of upright kegs and pried the lid off one.
“Blessed ancestors,” Amaranthe said, “there’s enough here to blow up this whole facility.”
“Unwise while we’re inside.”
“I know, I was just-”
The grinding rasp of the sentry grew louder as it approached their row. Sicarius grabbed Amaranthe’s arm and headed for the opposite end. She snatched a fistful of black powder before he dragged her away.
They ran out of the aisle on the far end before the sentry appeared at the front and shot at them again. As soon as they turned the corner, Amaranthe heard the grinding tread of a second device somewhere amongst the machines. She and Sicarius crept to the worktable wall again and started to turn up the aisle, intending to circle back to the one with powder once the first sentry had gone down it, but it was waiting for them at the end of that row, all four crimson eyes focused in their direction.
Amaranthe stumbled in her rush to jump back under cover. Two of the eyeballs flared into burning embers, and the beams might have caught her in the chest, but Sicarius pulled her to safety.
“Is it just me or are they getting smarter?” Amaranthe whispered, heart thumping against her ribs.
The second sentry rolled out from behind a flywheel, its wavering antennae in view above one of the forges.
“I’ll distract them.” Sicarius opened her hand and took her fistful of black powder. “You make the explosives.”
Amaranthe knew that was best, but she remembered the savage wound he’d received once before when distracting something dangerous for her, the deadly soul construct in Larocka Myll’s house. She had to force herself to nod. “All right. Be careful.”
He was already slipping past the forge toward the second sentry.
“That’s not being careful,” Amaranthe whispered.
Sicarius acknowledged her with a lift of the fist that held the black powder. Amaranthe grumbled to herself, but resolved to focus on her half of the problem.
She peeked back into the aisle closest to the wall. A blur of red streaked toward her. She jerked her head back as the beam cut into the corner of the rack, inches from her nose. The metal support bar melted before her eyes. The top corner of the unit crumpled, and a handful of rifles spilled onto the floor. On a whim, she snatched one, though she feared firearms might not work on the sentries. Using a few of the cartridges she’d pocketed earlier, she fumbled through loading the rifle. She hoped she wasn’t putting the bullets in backward.
One last time, she ducked her head into the aisle where the first sentry waited. Predictably it fired its beams at her. She tiptoed back over to the row that held the kegs of black powder.
A boom shattered the stillness.
Amaranthe winced and gripped one of the racks for support. “What was that?”
“The beams will ignite black powder,” Sicarius observed with bland detachment.
Amaranthe snorted. That she could have guessed, especially after seeing the first sentry melt the pole. “Did you destroy it?”
“The explosion blew off an antenna, but its armor protected it from further damage.”
Realizing Amaranthe had given away her position by speaking, she decided not to head down the powder aisle yet. She trotted across to the opposite side of the chamber, grabbed a fancy two-barreled pistol off a rack, and tossed it down the aisle next to the wall. It clattered hard onto the cement floor.
She waited around the corner to see if the noise drew the first sentry. As she crouched there, she began to feel silly. As far as she knew, the things had no ears. Why assume they hunted by sound?
Amaranthe was about to pull away when the familiar grinding reached her own ears. It was coming. She closed her eyes, listening. Just before she thought it would appear at the end of the wall aisle, she eased backward and headed for the powder row.
“I’ll try to get them both to one end of the chamber,” Sicarius called from a nearby row.
Not wanting to give away her position, Amaranthe didn’t respond, though she thanked him silently. He’d have his hands full if they were both in one area with him.
She rushed to the powder kegs, pausing only to grab a couple of canvas sacks from a stack on a shelf. Nothing so handy as a scooping cup rested nearby, so she shoveled powder into the bags by hand.
Cracks and thuds came from the front of the chamber, cement shattering and shards being flung. Amaranthe shoveled powder faster. When she had two full bags, she grabbed a third, and cut it into strips. She tied the strips together into two long lengths and fastened them around the tops of the bags. Unfortunately, her shortsighted enforcer academy instructors hadn’t included classes on how to make explosives. She could only hope her handiwork would be effective-and that she wouldn’t blow herself up. She sacrificed her light to pour the kerosene out of her lantern and douse the fuse.
Blackness descended upon her aisle. Up front, a single light glowed somewhere to the side, its illumination dulled by the cement dust clouding the air. The light wasn’t fluctuating or moving about, and Amaranthe hoped that meant Sicarius had set it down in a central location, not that he’d been hit.
“I’ve got two done,” Amaranthe called. “I’m going to try and put them where they’ll take out part of the ceiling.”
“Understood,” came Sicarius’s response, somehow still calm, though dodging those beams must be frazzling.
Amaranthe felt her way down her aisle, deeper into the darkness. Cement cracked behind her, and enough pieces banged to the ground that she suspected at least a partial cave-in. Maybe the sentries would destroy enough of the ceiling for her and Sicarius to escape without explosives.
She found the brick forges by feel and eased between two. With the full bags pressed against her chest, she groped her way toward the big machine with the towering flywheel. She had a spot in mind for placing the powder, but groaned and halted. With her lantern out, she had no way to light the fuse.
“Don’t kick over that lantern,” she called out. “I’m going to need that flame in a moment.”
Amaranthe pressed onward. She’d set the bag into place first and then go for it.
“I see. It’s the-” The sound of rubble raining down interrupted Sicarius’s words. He coughed before saying again, “It’s the lantern you’re worried about.”
Amaranthe smiled. If he could make a joke, he must be managing sufficiently up there.
She found the flywheel by clunking her knee against it. Grumbling, she leaned the rifle against it, left one bag of powder on the floor, and climbed the wheel with the second in hand. There were only a couple of inches of space between the top of the machine and the ceiling. She stuffed the bag into the gap and unraveled the fuse so that it hung to the floor. If it hadn’t been cavern dark at her end of the chamber, she might have jumped off, but she took care to climb back down carefully.
When she turned to grab the rife, four blazing crimson eyes stared at her.
“Bloody ancestors!” Amaranthe blurted and dropped to her belly.
Beams shot out, burning through the air inches above her head. She grabbed the rifle and scrambled behind the machine. She tried to find the second bag of black powder as she fled, but couldn’t find it and wasn’t about to go back. That cursed thing was only a few feet away. And she wagered it could see a lot better in the dark than she could.
The grinding clanks approached. Amaranthe rounded the back of the stamping machine, using it for cover. Through the gaps in the flywheel, she glimpsed red eyes burning in the darkness as the sentry rolled past the front.
“Did you lose something?” Amaranthe shouted.
