that does seem a plausible scenario.” He closed his eyes. “If we-the empire-did something like that… there’d be no hope for the peaceful future I’d envisioned. Some atrocities can never be forgiven.”
“ Destroying them is the best choice,” Amaranthe said.
“ Uh.” Akstyr hoisted a finger. “How do we do that if breaking them releases their fumes?”
Good question. “Sicarius?” Amaranthe asked.
“ I do not know.”
“ We better find Books and see if he has any ideas.” Amaranthe sent a silent apology across the miles to Maldynado and Yara. They were going to have to take care of themselves.
CHAPTER 7
Dawn approached as Amaranthe and the others jogged through a light snow, heading back to their cabins. Sicarius lifted a hand before they reached their block of doors, though, and slipped into the shadows along the rail. Amaranthe, Sespian, and Akstyr followed his example. She checked her hood to make sure it hid her face. It was still early enough that she’d expected only her men to be about, but perhaps that was not the case.
She stood on her tiptoes to whisper, “What is it?” beside Sicarius’s ear.
There wasn’t anything to hide behind on the narrow stretch of deck before their cabins, not so much as a lounge chair. If anyone were standing there, even the dim lighting wouldn’t have hidden them. Maybe someone was inside the cabins.
“ Visitors,” Sicarius said.
“ Are they still here?”
Sicarius tilted his head back, eyeing the deck above, or perhaps the framework below the deck. Amaranthe squinted into the shadows over her cabin door. Did that dark smudge have a human form? Or was it her imagination? She couldn’t remember anything significant to hang from up there, but Sicarius was focused on the spot. It must be some thing.
The “smudge” dropped from its perch, a human form distinguishing itself from the shadows. Before it hit the deck, Sicarius sprinted across the intervening meters. By the time the figure’s feet touched down, Sicarius had circled behind, a knife in hand. In an instant, he’d turned the person into his captive, the blade pressed to a pale throat. Sicarius nudged the cloaked figure forward, into the light beneath one of the low-burning lanterns.
After a quick scan of the remaining dark spots, Amaranthe walked over. The figure’s hood dropped about its neck, revealing Basilard’s scarred face.
Amaranthe propped her hands on her hips. “You’re not an enforcer.”
Basilard eyed the blade at his throat before signing, No, but I thought you might be. They were just here. Enforcers and steamboat security, using a master lock to open doors.
By the time Basilard finished signing, Sicarius had removed the knife and returned it to its sheath.
“ They didn’t catch Books, did they?” Amaranthe asked. That was a further complication they didn’t need.
No. I heard them searching the other cabins. Basilard pointed at doors farther up the deck. I slipped out, warned Books, and helped him pack all his work.
“ How’d you manage to pack that library before the enforcers caught up with you?” Akstyr asked, joining the group. Sespian lingered behind, watching the nearest set of stairs.
He had to leave a few things behind, Basilard signed. He was most distraught.
“ What about the rest of our stuff?” Akstyr asked, probably realizing he’d left books on magic in his cabin.
They confiscated everything and positively identified it as belonging to us. I watched from above. Basilard nodded to his spot. I thought about attacking, but Books had already left, saying he had to protect his work, and it would have been me against eight men.
“ That’s a problem for you? Have we not been training enough of late?” Amaranthe smiled, though she was running through their inventory in her mind, trying to think if they’d lost anything they needed to get back. The Forge ledger book? No, she’d already read it, and it hadn’t held any condemning evidence.
I know of your aversion for killing enforcers, Basilard signed. I wouldn’t have wished to irreparably harm anyone in my haste to deal with them all.
“ Yes, of course,” Amaranthe said.
Your training apparatus did cause much speculation.
“ Oh?”
“ The what?” Sespian asked.
“ The chin-up bar,” Amaranthe explained.
There’s more than a bar. The corners of Basilard’s eyes crinkled. They wondered… Basilard thrust his chest forward and enacted a haughty attitude, mimicking, Amaranthe assumed, one of the enforcers. What kind of sexual deviants employ chains and weights?
Akstyr snorted.
Amaranthe pointed a finger at Sicarius’s chest. “I told you.”
If having his fitness equipment mistaken for the apparatuses of a deviant bothered-or amused-Sicarius, he’d never show it, at least not in front of this many people.
“ Where is Books?” he asked.
“ Yes, we need to talk to him,” Amaranthe said.
Follow me, Basilard signed.
Instead of heading for the stairs, he hopped up on the railing, grabbed the deck above and pulled himself up. Without questioning, Sicarius followed the example.
“ Is this a common method of transportation for outlaws?” Sespian asked as Amaranthe headed for the railing to make the same climb.
“ We’d rather not crash into security and be forced to fight.”
Perched on the railing, Amaranthe found her balance, straightened, and gripped the edge of the deck above. She had to reach for the horizontal railing bars. It was a good thing she’d been practicing those chin-ups. One hand at a time, she pulled herself up the bars, then shimmied over the top and onto the deck. Sicarius and Basilard hadn’t stopped there. They were already climbing the wall between two cabin doors and heading for the roof.
“ Not Books’s usual studying place,” Amaranthe said.
As soon as Sespian came into sight behind her, she climbed after the others. The icy metal hull numbed her bare fingers. She supposed the enforcers had confiscated her gloves along with the dubious training equipment.
“ Stay low,” Sicarius said when she crawled onto the roof.
A thin coating of snow made for slick footing, and Amaranthe almost slipped. A face-first smash into the roof would be one way to stay low.
Sicarius pointed to the lighted pilothouse perched at the front, then headed aft, toward the pair of smokestacks. Basilard’s dark form slipped out of sight behind one. Amaranthe waited until Akstyr and Sespian joined her, then headed for the smokestacks. She expected another stop before they reached Books, but found him hunkered behind one of the big black stacks, his bulging backpack at his side and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
“ Cozy.” Akstyr kicked a clump of snow off the roof.
“ It comes with a pleasant view at least,” Amaranthe said.
Looking aft, they could see the river streaming behind the steamboat. The snow dusting the banks made the forest appear bright, despite the cloudy sky.
“ The enforcers have Akstyr’s magic books and know we’re all aboard,” Books said. “It won’t be long before they search up here. We have to get off at Port Medar and wait for the next boat. Or catch a train into the capital.”
“ We can’t leave.” Amaranthe waved for Books to move his backpack, and she crouched in the snow beside him. The others joined them, hunkering close to stay out of the view from the pilothouse.
