“I don’t know. They weren’t wearing uniforms denoting the goals of the dastardly organization they’re working for.” Amaranthe sniffed the hardening blobs on the paper. “Are you going to enlighten me?”
“Combustible smoke-creating devices.”
“Smoke bombs?” She grinned. “You can make those?”
“Very simple, so long as you keep stirring the mixture to keep it from getting black and, er, self- igniting.”
Her grin widened. “How long do your eyebrows take to grow back when that happens?”
Only she could be amused when there were snipers poised to shoot them if they opened a door.
“A couple of months.” As they talked, he tore the paper and folded pieces around the incendiary gobs, creating small packets. He twisted the ends to form rudimentary fuses.
“You could start your own business. Do you know how much Sicarius pays for those?”
“His are probably fancier.”
Glass shattered in a nearby room.
“Work time.” Amaranthe set the poker aside to draw her knife.
“Do you want a couple?” Books held up a packet and a matchstick.
“You handle that.” She eyed the kitchen speculatively.
“There’s a root cellar if you want to hide down there.”
“Too confining.”
Boots sounded in the hallway.
Amaranthe gripped her knife in her teeth, hiked the skirt to her waist, and hopped onto a counter. She climbed up the hanging pot rack and wedged herself between two ceiling beams, poised to drop down on anyone who came through the door. She nodded readiness to Books.
He drew his sword, leaned it against the wall, then knelt behind the stove. He scraped a match along a brick, and its stink filled the air. The kitchen would soon smell of more than sulfur.
Books lit a packet and slid it across the tile floor. White smoke wafted from it.
The footsteps paused outside the kitchen door. He lit another packet and placed this one so its smoke would billow before the stove, hiding him.
The door opened. A man stood in the hall, features obscured by smoke, but Books glimpsed the cold brass detailing of a flintlock pistol.
“What the-In here!”
Leading with his pistol, the man lunged inside. Another set of footsteps pounded toward the kitchen, and a second figure soon loomed in the doorway.
Smoke hid Amaranthe’s face-she had to be getting the worst of the stench up there, and she could not even wipe her eyes. He assumed she wanted him to take on the first man while she dropped down when the second entered. The second had paused, though, and he squinted as he searched the kitchen.
Books dug a cracked piece of mortar out from between two floor tiles and tossed it toward the wall opposite the intruders. It clinked against the window. Both men aimed their pistols that way, and the second stepped into the kitchen.
With all the smoke, Books would not have seen Amaranthe drop if he had not been watching. She landed on the second man. He grunted with surprise and went down beneath her.
Books grabbed his sword, adjusted his grip, and lunged for the first man, who was spinning about to check his comrade. Smoke hid Books’s approach. He slammed the flat of the blade against the back of his target’s head.
The man staggered but was not considerate enough to collapse in an unconscious heap. Trusting Amaranthe to handle the other, Books focused on his chosen foe. He sidestepped an attack and drove his heel into the side of the man’s knee. This time, the fellow dropped, pistol clacking as it skidded across the tiles.
Books pressed the tip of his sword into the man’s neck. “Don’t move.”
Two steps away, Amaranthe knelt, her knee in her opponent’s back. She had fished twine from a drawer and was unraveling it to make bonds.
Smoke tickled Books’s nose. He fought back a sneeze. “Who do you think-”
Movement stirred the smoke near the door.
“Look out!” he blurted.
Amaranthe was already moving. She leaped from the floor and lunged at the newcomer’s knees. He proved agile and leaped over her, but she anticipated it. Instead of crashing into the hall, she spun, and her knife came to rest on the man’s throat as he landed.
Books’s man made use of the distraction. He rolled away from the sword and toward his lost pistol. Books jumped after him, but the man’s hand clasped the weapon. He spun onto his back and pointed it at Books.
Books hurled his sword at the man and dropped to the floor. The pistol fired. He cringed, expecting a ball to rip into him, but glass shattered behind him instead.
A scuffle sounded at the door. Books scrambled up, intending to go after the pistol-wielder again, but he was dead. Amaranthe’s knife protruded from his neck. She had saved Books’s life, but that meant she had no weapon to hold on the man in the doorway.
Books scrambled about and found his sword. Amaranthe and the other man had disappeared from view. A thud sounded in the hallway. Books sprinted out of the kitchen, grabbing the jamb as he skidded around the corner. He almost crashed into Amaranthe. The last man sprawled before the door, unmoving.
The fading smoke could not hide the blood trickling from Amaranthe’s temple. She appeared otherwise unhurt, though grimness stamped her face. Books could guess at the reason. She was no more a natural killer than he, and they might not have had to kill at all if he had kept his attention focused on his prisoner.
He turned, realizing he had taken his eyes off another foe. Fortunately the remaining living man, the one Amaranthe had downed when she dropped from the ceiling, was unconscious. She tossed a purloined dagger on the floor beside him. Grim and irritated, Books decided.
“Sorry,” he said, feeling guilty afresh. “I’m not very effective in these types of situations.” Another reason this life was not for him. After this current escapade was over, he would find a new line of work.
“You’re improving,” Amaranthe said. “Let’s check their pockets and see if we can figure out what they were after. Me, Vonsha, or something in her house?”
Books patted down the unconscious man, telling himself it was not cowardly to leave the dead blokes for Amaranthe. After all, she had to retrieve her knife. He found a folded paper in a back pocket.
“None of those things,” he said, apprehension burrowing into his gut as he examined the ink sketch on the page.
“What’d you find?”
Books rotated the paper so she could see. His likeness marked the front, along with a caption: MARL MUGDILDOR WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE:
5,000 RANMYAS.
“That’s…unfortunate,” Amaranthe said. “I thought Sicarius and I were the only ones with bounties. And Maldynado, I suppose, if you can count his two-hundred-and-fifty ranmya one as a legitimate incentive. He’ll be envious of you now.”
She smiled, trying to cheer him, he sensed. It did not work. All he could think about was that he had waited too long. He had stayed with Amaranthe out of a sense of honor and obligation, but someone had noticed him in the company of outlaws, and now he was one. No walking away and finding a new job after all. Not unless he left the empire completely, and, even then, he would have to worry his whole life, watching his back for globetrotting bounty hunters.
“I’m sorry,” Amaranthe said softly. “I know you were thinking of leaving. This will make things difficult if you choose that route.”
“Yes,” was all he said as he stared at the page.
