Dare he risk telling her more of what Amaranthe’s team had uncovered? Maybe he could make Vonsha an ally. Whoever had thrown that explosive had targeted both of them, after all.
“Why don’t you come in?” Vonsha said. “We should talk.”
• • • • •
Eyes gleaming, Akstyr grinned like a bully on the trail of a weakling as he maneuvered the lorry. The vehicle bounced and lurched, and Amaranthe had to grip the railing with both hands to keep from being hurled out. Basilard sat on the driver’s bench with Akstyr, and he pointed at the road ahead of them, but Amaranthe could not tell if it was to suggest detours around the craters in the weed-infested dirt road or to encourage Akstyr to drive through them. The old, rusty lorry groaned and squealed at the maneuvers.
“I never thought I’d miss Maldynado’s driving,” Amaranthe said.
Sicarius stood near the firebox, alternately monitoring the steam levels and surveying the rocky terrain. The road followed the river, though the hisses and clanks of the vehicle drowned the sound of rushing water. If the bumpy ride bothered him, he gave no indication of it.
The road bent around a wide stump sprouting three saplings from its decaying top. A dilapidated wood- and-rope suspension bridge came into view. The property they had come to investigate started on the other side.
Basilard and Akstyr bent their heads low, pointing and discussing.
“…can make it,” Akstyr said.
Even as Amaranthe shook her head and reached for Akstyr, Sicarius said, “No,” in a flat, hard tone that cut across the clanking machinery.
Akstyr’s shoulders slumped, but he angled the lorry off the road. Basilard offered a sheepish shrug.
“We’re enrolling you two in structural engineering classes when we get back,” Amaranthe said. “I’m not sure it’s even safe to walk across that bridge.”
Akstyr cut off the lorry. Amaranthe grabbed her rucksack and climbed out, taking a moment to appreciate the solid unmoving nature of the ground.
A pile of donkey dung adorned the entrance to the bridge, suggesting the usual mode of transportation in these parts. A rusty bicycle missing a tire leaned against a stump. Across the river, the road dwindled to a narrow, twisting path that climbed a steep hill, disappearing into new-growth forest.
“Looks like we continue on foot,” Amaranthe said.
“I’ll stay with the lorry.” Akstyr hefted his book out of the back. “I have a lot of studying to do.”
“Really,” Amaranthe said.
“Sure, you want me to be able to heal you if wolves attack again, right?”
“Won’t you find that hard to do if you’re here, and I’m five miles up the trail, bleeding to death?” Though Amaranthe was giving him a hard time, she had already planned to leave someone behind. It would be foolish to desert the vehicle since it held all their gear and Sicarius’s gambling-house winnings. “All right, Akstyr. You stay. And Basilard, will you stay too?” She rubbed her fingers in a sign just for him: Watch the money.
He nodded.
Amaranthe strapped on a rucksack full of food, water, and spare clothing. “Sicarius, are you ready for a hike?” She faced him only to find he had armed himself-more so than usual. In addition to his daggers and throwing knives, he held two rifles, two pistols, two cargo belts laden with ammo pouches, and a bag of his smoke grenades. “Or a single-handed all-out assault on the forest?”
He gazed back without comment.
“Is any of that for me?” she asked.
Sicarius handed her a rifle, pistol, and ammo belt.
“I guess we’re prepared if any badgers look at us the wrong way,” she said.
Sicarius, of course, did not smile, but neither did Basilard or Akstyr. She was not sure if it was because they dared not laugh at Sicarius, or because they were concerned at seeing him load up with so many weapons. Maybe he knew something they did not and believed they would face something truly inimical.
Feeling weighted down, Amaranthe decided to leave her crossbow. She followed Sicarius, letting him set the pace. A brisk one, of course.
Though the suspension bridge might not support the weight of the lorry, it proved sturdy enough for two hikers. It still swayed and creaked more than Amaranthe would have preferred.
She paused in the middle to gaze upriver, wondering if she might be observing the source of the tainted water. The craggy mountains rose in the background while spring wildflowers peeped out along the banks. On a steep hillside, a mountain goat grazed between patches of snow. Everything appeared…normal.
She trotted to catch up with Sicarius, who apparently had no interest in pausing to admire the landscape.
“Basilard and Books pointed out this river would be large enough to feed the agricultural lands around the city as well as the aqueducts,” Amaranthe said as they left the bridge and started up the trail. “But there’d be a dam up here somewhere if it was servicing Stumps, right? There’d be a need to control the influx nature gives us, don’t you think?”
“It’s a long river,” Sicarius said.
“True, but this is one of the main passes to the east. It seems like it’d be hard to hide a dam anywhere around here.” Amaranthe pictured Books’s terrain map in her head. “Of course, the river and the road aren’t always side by side, and this mountainous terrain could hide a lot. I suppose if we see any mutilated bodies washed up on the shore, we’ll have a clue we’re on the right waterway. If this is the wrong waterway, we won’t find whatever killed those dead people in this valley.” She probably should not admit to being disappointed. Another thought occurred, and she snapped her fingers. “Do you suppose the water problem is what the enforcers and the soldiers are up here to investigate? Could they have figured things out and gotten a team together as quickly as we did? Or maybe the enforcers realized the bodies in the aqueducts came from someplace upstream. They could even know about that Waterton Dam. Drat, I wish we could have followed them. Say, next time a lorry full of soldiers passes on the road, you should jump onto the other vehicle as it passes, spy on them, and then report back to me.”
This earned her a long backward stare. She tried to decide if it signified amusement or annoyance.
“If you want me to stop talking so you can more efficiently monitor the wilderness, let me know,” Amaranthe said.
Sicarius did not speak right away-maybe he was mulling over her offer-so his answer, when it came, surprised her: “Sometimes useful ideas come from your burbling.”
Burbling? Hm. “Thanks, I think.”
A moss-draped wooden sign by the side of the path read:
TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. MANY TIMES.
They stopped and Amaranthe unfolded the plat map. “The owner of the property is Lord Hagcrest. Ever heard of him or his kin?”
“No.”
“Whatever emperor gave him his land must not have liked him much,” she said, perusing the map. “The only thing you could farm up here is rocks, and I doubt you could even get machinery in to log. It’d all have to be done by hand. Any special value in any of these trees, I wonder? Or ore on this mountainside? A gold or silver deposit could definitely spur interest in the land.”
While she talked-or maybe it was burbling again-Sicarius examined the trail and the surrounding area. He stopped to dig something out of a dent in the wooden sign. A musket ball.
“Guess that warning isn’t an exaggeration,” Amaranthe said.
Sicarius scraped blood off the ball.
“Not an exaggeration at all,” she murmured.
