“Two down!” Maldynado called. “Going in for a third.”
Good, but her makarovi would not let go. She jabbed at vital targets on its face, yet it inched farther and farther inside. Blood matted its fur and ran down the inside wall below the window. Its efforts did not abate.
Growling, Amaranthe aimed for the eye again. It saw the blade coming and swiped a paw at her. She dodged and was ready to stab again, but the attack unbalanced the creature. It slipped and fell.
“Another one going for a ride,” Maldynado announced.
It was working. Chaos surrounded them, but her plan was working.
Amaranthe almost laughed, but it was too early for cockiness. Reload. She had to reload her weapons.
“Look out!” Sicarius fired past her shoulder.
She spun as a dark shaggy body barreled through her window.
Amaranthe stumbled back, lifting the rifle to shoot, but she had not had time to load it properly, and it misfired. The makarovi launched itself at her.
She dropped and rolled under the desk. “Need help!”
But Sicarius was busy fighting his own makarovi. He glanced her direction and missed a third beast rolling through the window. Its paw hammered the back of his head, and he hit the floor, rolling into the desk.
Blood stained his blond hair and streamed down his face. He appeared dazed and did not move.
Then she lost sight of him. Makarovi filled the room. She could not see Maldynado either. A lantern hit the floor and went out, halving the light.
The desk-her shelter-was hurled across the room. Wood smashed against her shoulder, jarring her with pain. A makarovi loomed over her. She rolled to the side and came up with her sword ready.
Claws raked across her back. Streaks of pain seared her, and she gasped, instinctively pulling away, but that put her closer to the makarovi in front of her. She tried to hurl herself sideways, but the upturned desk blocked her. Surrounded, she could not escape. She slipped in a puddle of water and crashed to the floor.
Not water. Blood. Her blood.
Sword still clenched, she tried to crawl for the desk while slashing at the dark shapes hovering above. Maybe if she could get under it…
But she could not move fast enough. A heavy weight slammed down, smothering her.
“Maldynado!” Sicarius’s yell, oddly far away, was the last thing she heard.
CHAPTER 20
“J ust keep the hose from getting tangled,” Books told Basilard after showing him how to operate the air pumps.
With the fire snuffed and the fog shrouding the lake, Books could not see Basilard for signs, but he sensed the man’s concern. Or maybe that was a reflection of his own concern.
“And watch out for glowing-eyed animals,” Books added, all too aware that Basilard would be the only one up there while he and Akstyr descended. “And the man with the white orb.”
The newcomer-the shaman responsible for all this, Akstyr said-had gone into the dam. Books wished he knew a way to pass him and warn the others, but the artifact had to take priority. It was fortuitous the shaman had gone inside instead of investigating around the lake. That’s what he told himself anyway.
“A lot for one man to watch out for.” Akstyr fiddled with his diving suit. The large helmet lay in the fog at his feet. “Didn’t Amaranthe say to wait for her?”
“That was before our shaman showed up.” Books placed the helmet over his head and fiddled with the clasps that fastened it to the suit for a watertight fit. Though the clear spring sky brought cold air, the heavy gear was stifling. In addition to the suit, he wore lead weights to counteract the buoyancy of the rest of the outfit. It would probably feel good to immerse himself in the water.
A branch snapped, and footsteps pounded toward them. Books unfastened the helmet and searched for his rifle. Basilard faced the sounds, his own weapon poised.
“Akstyr?” Maldynado called, then added in a lower voice, “Cursed fog. Where’s the slagging beach?”
“We’re here, by the lake.” Books grabbed a couple of lanterns and turned them up. He shoved the logs back together in the fire ring.
A few flames burst to life in time to show Maldynado racing into camp. Sicarius came on his heels and…
The helmet dropped from Books’s fingers. Amaranthe, soaked in blood and bandaged all about her torso, hung limp in Sicarius’s arms. She was not moving. Books was not sure she was even breathing.
Sicarius’s face was as hard and cold as a marble statue. “Akstyr,” he barked.
Akstyr gaped, eyes shifting from Sicarius to Amaranthe and back.
Maldynado ran for the gear pile, yanked out a bedroll, and spread the blanket by the fire. Sicarius laid Amaranthe on it. Books stepped forward, then stopped. He wanted to help but did not know how.
“Akstyr,” Sicarius said again. “Get over here.”
Mouth drooping open, Akstyr shook his head.
Books wrenched his gaze from Amaranthe. “You have to try, Akstyr.”
“I can’t-is she even…”
“She won’t be for long if you can’t do anything for her,” Maldynado said.
“I don’t know how to… I’ve just done cuts and I’ve barely started learning to-”
In an eye blink, Sicarius lunged around the fire, grabbed Akstyr by the collar of his diving suit, and yanked him close. Though Sicarius’s hard eyes were not directed at him, Books found himself stepping back.
“Heal her.” Sicarius forced Akstyr to his knees at Amaranthe’s side. Sicarius did not say “or else.” He did not have to. The threat hung in the air, as dense as the fog.
Akstyr did not speak again. He knelt, rested his hands on Amaranthe’s bandages, and closed his eyes.
“Do you think,” Maldynado murmured, uncertain eyes turned toward Sicarius, “he knows enough to…”
Sicarius shook his head once, slowly.
A lump swelled in Books’s throat. Without Amaranthe, there’d be nobody to hold the team together, nobody to give them purpose, nobody to care about them. About him.
Sicarius lifted a hand to his face, clenched it into a first, then dropped it and stalked to the edge of camp. He put his back against a tree, putatively on watch, but his eyes remained focused on Akstyr and Amaranthe.
A realization came to Books in that moment, one that shook his beliefs even more than when he had learned magic existed: Sicarius cared.
Books was not sure what deal kept Sicarius working with the team when he so obviously did not need their help to accomplish missions or evade bounty hunters, but he had never doubted there was a practical motivation. It had never occurred to him the man might be sticking around, at least in part, out of loyalty-or more.
“It was awful, Books,” Maldynado muttered, stirring him from his musings. None of that mattered now anyway. “I was hooking them and throwing ‘em, just like our plan. Got rid of the first three, but the other three got inside and…they got past Sicarius and went for her, tore her up. He got over to her and stood above her with that knife of his. I’ve never seen someone move that fast. Just a blur, you know? He cut ‘em up, hurt them more with that knife than we could with our rifles, and he kept ‘em off. While they were distracted, I pulled the chain inside and got the hook around their necks and yanked ‘em out one at a time. They didn’t even notice. They were so fixed on…” He scrubbed his hands through his hair, then turned them over and stared, seemingly surprised to find them stained with blood. “I wish there was something we could do.”
“There is.” Books lifted his chin. “We can finish the mission.” He picked up his helmet. “That’s what she would want us to do. We have to destroy that thing at the bottom of the lake.”
“You’re going now?” Maldynado asked. “Don’t you need…” He pointed to Akstyr.
“He’s busy.”
The idea of walking down a hundred feet beneath the surface already intimidated him. Doing it alone sounded more daunting, but if he could not take Akstyr, then who?
Basilard, though he cast concerned glances Amaranthe’s direction, remained at his guard post. He would still be a good man to have up top, monitoring the air supply and the hose-and the woods. If Books took Maldynado
