Bookssaid.
“Isn’t it?”
“Let’s practice our stealth mode,” Amaranthesaid. “In case there
The men mumbled sheepish apologies and fellquiet.
Silence surrounded them, stirred only by thesoft padding of their feet and their own breaths. One could forgeta modern city lay less than a block away.
The soft flame of the lantern revealed ashort landing below with three options. To the right and the left,more stairs descended. If they continued straight ahead, they wouldenter a narrow corridor. A low stone ceiling promised much duckingfor Maldynado and Books should she choose that route.
Amaranthe stopped on the landing. “Have wegone far enough to be at ground level?”
“I don’t think so,” Books said.
He touched cryptic hieroglyphs carved intothe wall. One looked like a dog mounting another dog, but shesupposed that was her imagination. Nothing so crude would berepresented in two-thousand-year-old glyphs.
“Also the tunnels at the floor level arewider and easier to navigate. I believe that corridor leads to theGraveyard of the Fallen Enemies.” Books lifted a finger, perhapswanting to explain the place more thoroughly, but he glanced atMaldynado and said no more.
“Doesn’t sound like a place we need tovisit,” Amaranthe said.
“Is that a dog humping another dog?”Maldynado to pointed the hieroglyph she had noticed. Leave it tohim to have a mind at least as crude as hers.
“Actually, yes,” Books said. “It’s a sign ofdominance. These people were letting everyone know they haddominated and vanquished their fallen enemies.”
“Dominance, eh?” Maldynado said. “If you sayso.”
“Left or right?” Amaranthe asked. “Anythoughts?”
“Not from me,” Books said.
“There’s an uncommon event,” Maldynadosaid.
Amaranthe lifted the lantern and examinedboth stairwells. The right held fewer cobwebs, and soft gouges andstirrings on the dusty steps might be footprints. “It looks likethat way has seen traffic more recently.”
When no one disagreed, she led the waydownward again. The stairs did not descend far before they reacheda T-section with wide corridors.
A faint rustle came to Amaranthe’s ears. Herimagination? She dimmed the lantern in case it was not.
The blackness to the left seemed lessabsolute than the blackness to the right.
Nothing on the smooth granite floor would bean obstacle for their feet if they moved forward in darkness, soAmaranthe signaled to her men with a finger to her lips, pointed,and dimmed the lantern the rest of the way.
Darkness swallowed them. She waited for hereyes to adjust to the gloom. There was not enough light for her tosee anything except that it was less dark in one direction than theother, but that would have to be enough.
A hand reached out and found her shoulder.Maldynado’s, she guessed, because he had a tendency to be lesstentative than Books when touching people, especially femalepeople. She hoped Books had a hand on Maldynado’s shoulder as well.She did not want to lose anyone down here.
With one hand on the wall, she felt her waydown the corridor. She found an edge-a corner. The light increasedwhen she turned down the new passage, though she could not see itssource.
“…longer?” a male voice asked ahead.
Amaranthe halted. The grip on her shouldertightened in warning.
She turned an ear toward the passage, butwhatever response the question garnered was too quiet for her tohear. She tried to decide if that had been Mancrest’s voice. It hadnot sounded familiar, but it was hard to judge anything from oneword.
“Want me to check it out?” Maldynadowhispered in her ear.
“No,” she whispered back. Basilard would bethe first to tell Maldynado he was not the stealthiest man on theirteam. She pressed the lantern into Maldynado’s hand. “I’ll go. Stayhere. Fetch me if I get myself in trouble.”
His snort was soft, but audible. She pattedhim on the chest, then eased her short sword free and continueddown the passage. Toe before heel, she walked, making sure therewas nothing on the floor that might crunch or be kicked beforecommitting to each step.
Cobwebs brushed at her face, and she stifledan urge to sneeze again. It was hard to sneak up on someone whiledischarging dust from one’s nostrils.
As Amaranthe walked, she let her fingersgraze the wall, and she twitched in surprise when they found a gap,then bumped against metal. She slid her hand up and down it. A bar.One of many. Some kind of gate?
She continued on, passing several of the widegates, and finally reached a corner with the warm yellow of lanternlight glowing beyond it. Trusting the darkness to hide her,Amaranthe eased her head around the edge. The illumination, severallanterns’ worth, came from inside an open gate. From her angle, shecould not see inside, but impatient mutters and shuffles came fromthe cell beyond.
The snippet of conversation she had caughtimplied there were at least two people waiting in there, but thenoises suggested more. Four or six maybe.
She eased around the corner and tiptoedcloser. Stacks of boxes came into view first, the closest stampedwith the words “souvenir hats.” Ah, the gates represented shopfronts. She must be nearing the main pyramid entrance.
Another step took her close enough to seepast the boxes and into the room. A man in black soldier’s fatiguesleaned against the wall, his elbow propped on the muzzle of arifle.
“Maybe we should turn out the lanterns,”someone opposite of him said.
“We’re three turns from Mancrest,” someoneelse said. “She won’t see the light.”
“Until it’s too late.”
Soft snickers followed that oh-so-wittyline.
“Unless Sicarius is with her.”
That stopped the snickers. A nervousshuffling followed.
“Word from the enforcers is that somebody’sgot him.”
Amaranthe curled her fingers into a fist. Howhad the enforcers found out? Did they know something shedidn’t?
“I’ll believe that when his head is on a pikein Mariner Square,” the man in view said.
Clothing rustled-a shrug? “I heard theenforcers were told to send word to the emperor to get the bountymoney together, because his dead body would be delivered after theImperial Games.”
It was just talk, Amaranthe told herself.Rumors.
“Enough chatter,” an unseen man said. “Thisis an ambush, not barracks cleaning day. Nobody’s paying you totrot your lips.”
The soldier Amaranthe could see sighed andturned his eyes toward the corridor. She stopped breathing. Ifenough lantern light seeped out of the room for him to seeher…
He frowned and squinted in her direction.
Amaranthe slipped a hand into her pocket. Herfingers found curved glass.
The soldier took a step her way.
Before she could debate the wisdom of themove, or the danger to herself, Amaranthe held her breath, thumbedthe cork off, and tossed the vial through the metal bars. Itskidded beneath the soldier’s feet, and he jumped.
She scurried back, not sure what the rangewas on the powder, or if it would even do anything without somesort of magical preparation.
The soldier charged into the corridor.
Amaranthe spun and ran. The darkness aheadkept her from sprinting, but she hoped she remembered the layoutbetter than the soldier.
Only her outstretched hand kept her fromsmashing her face into the wall at the first turn. So much
