Sicarius gave him a hard, appraising look-it only lasted a half a second-but his hesitation filled Akstyr with alarm.
“I swear,” he blurted. “It’s stunned, but only for a…”
Sicarius’s hands blurred into motion.
Sespian stiffened, and tried to pull away, but Sicarius held him down with one hand while the other…
Akstyr started. It had happened so quickly, he had missed Sicarius switching tools. He already held the artifact aloft, captured in a pair of tweezers. Sicarius dropped the small sphere to the floor and smashed it beneath his boot.
The emperor sat up, a hand clasped to his throat, his eyes wider than gold coins. Blood spilled between his fingers, but not a lot. Sicarius hadn’t nicked the artery.
“He got it.” Akstyr handed the emperor a thick cloth from the table. “You’re not bleeding a lot, but you can use that to stop it.”
A resounding thud sounded, and another quake coursed through the dirigible. What was Maldynado doing? Mowing down trees?
Sespian took the cloth with his free hand and pressed it to his throat. Blood dripped from the palm of his other hand, joining spatters on his shirt. “What do you people consider a lot?” he asked, though there was relief in his eyes.
“Depends on who you ask,” Akstyr said. “Basilard and Sicarius probably wouldn’t blink unless they had a leg fall off. Maldynado’s been known to complain about splinters.”
“I will suture your wound.” Sicarius picked up the needle and spindle of thread Amaranthe had laid on the table earlier.
The relief faded from the emperor’s face. He watched Sicarius thread the needle with concern. Akstyr wouldn’t be thrilled about Sicarius being his surgeon either.
“I can fix him up with the Science,” Akstyr said. “The way I did with Am’ranthe that time. It’ll probably leave less of a scar than the needle and thread.”
Sicarius looked Akstyr in the eyes, and Akstyr forced himself to hold the stare. He had a feeling there was some measuring going on in there, measuring that went beyond whether or not he was qualified to mend a cut.
When Sicarius gave one firm nod, Akstyr knew it applied to more than the doctoring. Akstyr had passed the test, and Sicarius was giving him another chance to do right by the group. Akstyr nodded back, the same single nod.
“You do not mind?” Sicarius asked the emperor.
“Oh, no.” Sespian blew out a slow thankful breath. “That’s fine by me.”
“Lie back down, Sire,” Akstyr said, remembering to add the honorific this time. “Here, I’ll hold the cloth there while I work.”
He thought of telling Sicarius that he could leave to help the others-at the least, someone needed driving assistance-but the way Sicarius folded his arms over his chest said he wasn’t going to leave the emperor alone. He might be willing to forget Akstyr’s past transgressions, as he called them, but that didn’t mean he trusted Akstyr. Oh, well. It was a start.
“It’s getting closer,” Books said. “They’re bound to figure out how to aim that beam sooner or later.”
He was stating the obvious, and Amaranthe bit her lip to keep from snapping at him. She pointed toward the horizontal bank of windows-at least they looked like windows-near the top of the dome. The feature was the only thing on the craft that wasn’t made from the black material. “Aim for that, Basilard. Maybe it’s something like glass and isn’t as-”
A fit of coughing overtook her. Smoke filled the air outside and had invaded the cargo bay. Half of the wetlands were burning below. As Amaranthe struggled to still her coughs, a lake came into view. She recognized it from maps and knew it was only a few miles outside of Sunders City. If her team could avoid that beam for another fifteen or twenty minutes, they’d be flying over farmhouses and orchards on the outskirts of town. Surely that craft would leave them alone then.
Basilard must have gotten the gist of her request for he sank low in an attempt to angle the next blasting stick higher. He’d timed a couple of the previous ones to explode right as they struck the hull, but they hadn’t damaged the craft at all. Not a single scratch marred that impervious black alloy.
Books lit the blasting stick, and it sailed away.
Amaranthe crept as close to the open door as she dared. She craned her neck, watching the spitting fuse twirl end over end as the stick sailed toward the glass-like material. The explosive burst with a bang and a spewing of black smoke. She was so focused on it that she didn’t see the white beam leave the ground right away. Its angle changed, switching from vertical to diagonal. It slashed through empty sky, then pierced the hull of the dirigible.
Light exploded to Amaranthe’s right. The ship bucked like a mule, its back end jerking up so quickly that the men flew across the cargo hold and were smashed against an interior wall. She caught the slingshot and kept from flying through the air after them. Something clunked against the wall near the men. The box of blasting sticks.
Amaranthe cursed, but there was nothing she could do. She dangled by her hands, legs scrabbling to find a hold on a floor tilted forty-five degrees.
“Maldynado,” Amaranthe yelled, “you need to land us now!”
“We’re above the lake!” came his shout from the navigation cabin.
White light flashed outside the doorway. Before Amaranthe could groan a, “Now what?” another explosion rocked the dirigible.
Thick, black smoke roiled past the cargo door. The floor started to level, and she tried to get her feet under her.
An ear-splitting snap echoed from outside. The floor fell away again, this time in the opposite direction. Amaranthe’s legs swung about, a hundred-and-eighty degrees, and she scarcely managed to maintain her hold on the slingshot. Before the flexible band had swung inward, but now gravity sent it-and Amaranthe with it-toward the cargo door.
She flung a leg out, trying to hook it on the jamb, but there was too much momentum carrying her downward. The floor was still tilted at an impossible angle, and she only managed to bump the edge of the door as she swung outside.
Amaranthe hung on with fingers like vise clamps, but soon she dangled fifty feet above murky water, the slingshot the only thing keeping her attached to the dirigible. Smoke clogged the air, and she struggled to see what had happened. The back half of the craft dangled, severed from the balloon.
“Amaranthe!” Books called. “Hold on!”
She looked up, hoping help was coming. But a boom erupted from within the cargo bay, and smoke gushed out the doorway.
“Books?” Amaranthe called. “What was that?”
Shards of wood and the battered remains of the blasting-stick box spilled out of the doorway. The sticks followed, falling like deadly rain drops.
Amaranthe let go of the slingshot.
Better to fall into the water than be pelted with explosives. That’s what she told herself anyway, though her heart tried to leap out of her chest as she plummeted more than forty feet. What if the murky water was only a half a meter deep? What if she landed on a log? Or an alligator? Or what if that white beam cut her in half before she hit the water?
A boom thundered a few feet above her. The shock wave slammed into Amaranthe, hurling her sideways and down. She hit the surface at an angle, and, instead of dropping in feet first, landed on her back. The water slapped her as hard as if she’d struck cement. She submerged a few feet and hit the bottom. The dense mud was more giving than solid earth, and nothing snapped or cracked in her body, though landing on her back had stunned her so badly, she couldn’t move her limbs. For a terror-filled moment, she feared she’d broken her spine and would be paralyzed for life.
Something brushed her hand, and her fingers twitched away from it. Thank her sturdy ancestors, she could move. More objects brushed against her. Blasting sticks. The water ought to render them useless, so she didn’t worry about them. Finding the surface was more important.