“Are there any optimistic assassins in the world?” She jogged for the door, relieved Sicarius followed her.
“That aren’t dead?”
“Er, yes.”
“No.”
“Ah.”
CHAPTER 26
S omeone shook Books. He pushed away the fog hazing his mind and focused on the face above him. Basilard. A rifle fired nearby. Akstyr.
“Mal?” Books rasped. A film of fine dirt caked his tongue.
Basilard pointed into the chamber.
“Is he…?” Books started.
A commotion interrupted him.
“Hah, missed me, you badger-kissing slag pile!” came Maldynado’s voice from the far side of the chamber.
Books rolled onto his belly. Pain pulsed through his head, but he squinted through it and found Maldynado. He harried the constructs with his rapier, though the thin blade did little against their metal hides.
“Making friends, is he?” Books knelt and crawled to the edge of their dwindling perch. Another shot or two from that cannon, and the ledge would be dust.
But the constructs had changed their focus to Maldynado. He jumped and waved, evading their projectiles.
“Idiot,” Books said. “What’s he doing? If he can do that, he can make it back up here.”
“He said he’d distract them so you could come up with something bright,” Akstyr said.
“Oh. That’d be noble if it wasn’t…stupid.”
“You calling Maldynado nobly stupid?” Akstyr asked. “Or stupidly noble?”
“I can hear you!” Maldynado jumped out of the path of two bipeds trying to corner him.
Come up with something bright, Books thought. Yes, that was supposed to be his job. “Akstyr, Basilard, give me your powder.”
They poured out a few rounds worth, then complied. Books found the other fuses and crafted two more explosives. How could he take out all of the constructs with so little? He had to get them all in one place somehow.
Maldynado yelped in pain. “Metal-headed dogs!”
Books did not look up in time to see the attack, but Maldynado clutched his arm. Blood flowed through his fingers. Still cursing, he dodged another harpoon, but all of the constructs were targeting him, pressing him back against the wall.
“Get out of there, fool!” Books called.
Basilard shot, but his ball ricocheted off without deterring the target. Books still had the unloaded pistol, and he could light one of the fuses, but Maldynado was in the middle of the mess.
“I’m trying!” Maldynado faked a step one direction, then angled for a gap between two of the constructs, but, through some intelligence no machine should have, they anticipated him and narrowed the opening.
A serrated blade spun out, veering toward his head. Maldynado scrambled backward, but his heel caught on the uneven ground. He went down.
Basilard jumped off the ledge and sprinted in to help. Books snapped the hammer on the flintlock, trying to light the fuse. Maybe if he threw the powder toward the backside of the constructs…
Before a spark landed on his fuse, he spotted movement at the tunnel entrance.
“Now what?” he groaned, fearing the shaman had decided to come help his creations.
But Sicarius burst out of the tunnel, and Amaranthe hustled after, an arm clutching her belly.
Taking the situation in with a glance, Sicarius flowed across the chamber and leaped onto the back of the construct with the saw. His black knife appeared in his hand, and he slipped it into creases between sheets of metal covering the machine’s innards.
Amaranthe hobbled toward the ledge and tossed a satchel to Akstyr. “See if there’s anything you can use in there.”
Akstyr dug into it. Across the chamber, Basilard pulled Maldynado out of immediate danger, though little had changed. The constructs had three targets instead of one. Amaranthe stood, poised, her face thoughtful, as if she was considering jumping into the mess. She did not even have a weapon.
Books lay on his stomach and extended his arm. “Smart people up here. We have to figure out the solution.”
“While it’s flattering that you’re including me in your group, I haven’t done anything smart lately.”
Books wriggled his fingers. “They like to shoot things this direction. Come up here to discuss it.”
Amaranthe waved the hand away. “We have to get out of here. The shaman is dead. I doubt these will follow us past the mine entrance. How fast are they? Can we outrun them?”
“Oh!” Books perked. If all they had to do was outrun the constructs… He hefted one of the powder flasks. “Maybe we can use these to-”
A crack and a screech of metal sounded, followed by a war whoop from Maldynado. A construct tottered, a cannonball hole in its torso. Metal parts rained from the gap like petals shaken from a flower. The construct toppled.
“Though,” Amaranthe mused, “if we destroy them, we don’t need to worry about some aspiring megalomaniac getting them and using them against the city later.”
“I’ve arranged a nice flood, so I think that part is covered.”
“Got something,” Akstyr said. His eyes were bright as he sat back, a plain black box in his hands. “It feels like a controller. There’s writing on it. I can’t read the Mangdorian, but-”
Books slid it from his hands. “Attack, guard, and…hibernate.”
“The last one sounds good,” Amaranthe said without taking her gaze from the mad scrambling of the men.
“Agreed.” Books rotated the box. “I don’t see a switch or trigger though.”
Akstyr snatched the device back. “That’s because you’re uneducated in the Science.”
Books sniffed. “Really.”
Akstyr, head already bent over the device, did not seem to hear. His tongue stuck out of his mouth, and his face scrunched in concentration.
“Look out!” Maldynado shouted.
At first, Books thought it a warning for Sicarius or Basilard, but the entire cadre of constructs had turned their attention away from Maldynado and the others. En masse, they advanced toward the ledge. No, toward Akstyr. And Amaranthe was in the way.
“Uhm, Akstyr?” Amaranthe crouched, ready to spring one direction or the other.
A cannonball flew over Books’s head and cracked into the wall behind him. Shards of wood from the support beam flew.
“It’s possible there’s an anti-tampering device,” Akstyr said, voice strained.
Books reached down, intending to grab Amaranthe, but he still clutched the pistol and one of the black powder bombs in his hands. He hesitated a half a heartbeat, then struck sparks to light the fuse.
“Out of the way, Amaranthe.” He hurled the flask into the path of the advancing constructs.
In the second before the explosion, Books glanced toward the other men. Maldynado’s eyes bulged, and Books feared he had made a mistake. A huge mistake. Sicarius lifted a hand toward Amaranthe, though his gaze was locked past Books’s shoulder. A boom sounded. Wood snapped behind Books even as the explosion roared below.
The wall behind him collapsed. Rubble hammered him, throwing him into a landslide.
