The first guard reached the hatch and spun a wheel to open it. She twisted in her seat, readying herself. The guard stepped through the hatchway and peered to his left. A pair of legs swung down from above, wrapping about his neck. Someone else yanked the cutlass, knife, and baton from his belt holders. The neck grip kept the guard from hollering anything, but Valter heard the scuffles and thuds. He whirled about, yanking out his own sword.
Before he’d taken more than two steps, Amaranthe vaulted out of her chair and onto his back. She wrapped one arm around his neck, locking it with the other to apply pressure. At the same time, she clasped her legs around his waist, so he wouldn’t be able to shake her off. The hem of the dress restricted her movement, and she almost didn’t get the position she needed. Fortunately, he was more worried about her grip on his neck and she had time to readjust her legs for a better hold.
The guard grabbed her arms, trying to break the lock, but she’d practiced with Sicarius and knew to keep her grip so tight that he couldn’t thrust his fingers between her arm and his neck. He flung a hand behind his head, trying to smash her with his fist. His knuckles brushed her temple, but she buried her face in the back of his neck, making it hard for him to do any damage, and kept applying pressure. His struggles would grow feeble once his air supply dwindled.
The guard wasn’t ready to give in yet though. He turned his back to the hull and drove her into the unyielding metal. The blow jarred Amaranthe from teeth to toes. She might have released him to pursue another attack strategy, but Akstyr stepped out of the engine room and pointed a dagger at the man’s nose.
“Stop thrashing around out here, or I’ll carve out your tonsils.” Akstyr sneered. “By going through your nostrils.”
The man stared at him for a moment, then passed out, plummeting to the deck like a felled tree. Amaranthe released him and rolled away.
“Do you find it difficult to make people believe your menacing threats when your robe is open like that?” Books stepped through the hatchway and waved at Akstyr’s askew attire.
“No.” Akstyr scowled and tugged the flap over to cover up things Amaranthe hadn’t wanted to see. It seemed robes weren’t much better than dresses for fighting in. “He paid attention, didn’t he?”
“Because his face was purple and he couldn’t breathe, I believe,” Books said. “Also, his eyes were a little glassy, so I’m not sure he saw more than the knife.”
“What are you people doing down here?” Retta alternated between glowering at Books and Akstyr and looking through the viewing window. They’d rounded a curve in the Behemoth’s massive dome-shaped body, and a white light had come into sight, a stark contrast to the dark water and the black sides of the craft. “My assistant is going to be inside, manning the controls so we can dock, and there’s always at least two guards in that room. Strangers can’t stroll inside.”
“Ah, but we’re not strangers.” Books bent and unbuttoned the green uniform jacket of the unconscious guard, dusted it off, then held it aloft. “We’re employees in the-” he eyed a patch on the sleeve, “-Brackenshaft Armed and Armored Protection Coalition. Goodness, what a pretentious name to refer to uneducated louts with pointy sticks.”
Amaranthe smiled, pleased and relieved that her men had found a way on, though she knew it meant that the guards who had been escorting them out of the building were probably tied up in a closet somewhere. She’d originally envisioned having a few days to get to know her way around the Behemoth and interact with Forge people, maybe gathering crucial insider information before enacting a plan to destroy the craft. Now, they’d be lucky if they had until dawn before their identities were discovered.
Retta growled again, apparently neither pleased nor relieved by Books and Akstyr’s appearance. “What are you planning to do down here, Lokdon? I went along with this against all the voices in my head telling me it was crazy, and-you haven’t done anything to my sister, have you?”
“No, of course not. Though she is in town, so I did have to send someone to detain her.”
“What do you mean by detain?”
“Escort her to a secret facility for holding until such time as we’ve completed our mission,” Amaranthe said. That didn’t sound so bad, did it?
“You mean you kidnapped her?”
“Technically, that word might be appropriate,” Amaranthe admitted.
Books might have snorted, though it was difficult to tell with that shirt pulled over his head. Akstyr had shucked his robe and was bent over the unconscious guard in the engine room, removing the man’s clothing, his bare buttocks thrust through the hatchway as he did so. Retta, still manning the controls and checking their progress out the front window, did a double glance-one might call it a gape-when she noticed this display of nudity. Amaranthe rubbed her face. This wasn’t the way she’d imagined this trip going.
“What mission are you planning to complete?” Retta asked when she recovered from the spectacle behind her.
“We intend to make sure Ravido Marblecrest doesn’t succeed in his coup,” Amaranthe said, “and to do that, we need to ensure Forge doesn’t have any secret super powerful technology to call upon to aid him. The money and advanced firearms they’ve supplied are already giving him too much of an advantage. I assume they’re willing to use that huge black craft if they need to?”
“They don’t wish to reveal it,” Retta said, “but they may use it or elements to ensure their agenda. They believe Ravido has enough to fight down mundane opposition, but one of the other potential candidates has Nurian allies with him. Assassins and wizards.”
Amaranthe didn’t like the way she’d pluralized wizards. “We’ve met one of the assassins and a soul construct. Which general has these foreign friends?” She thought of the army surrounding Fort Urgot. At that very moment, Sicarius and the others might be trapped inside by those troops. She trusted his preternatural skills to keep him safe from guns and muscles-and Maldynado, Basilard, and Sespian were capable as well-but a practitioner? Maybe multiple practitioners? Ones strong enough to summon soul constructs? Even Sicarius had been smashed to the floor by Arbitan Losk’s power, and there’d been luck involved in the man’s defeat.
“Flintcrest,” Retta said.
Good. Mancrest had said Heroncrest was the one with the fort surrounded. With luck, Amaranthe could get the whole team back together before anyone came up against practitioners. “Neither Ravido, Heroncrest, or Flintcrest is an acceptable candidate,” she said. “Sespian Savarsin is alive and well and wants the throne, and we think he’s the best bet for a peaceful and prosperous empire.”
“Ah.” Books had dressed in everything except socks and shoes, and he held one of those socks aloft now in a gesture of protest. “That’s not precisely what we want, at least not what I wrote up. A democratic election open to all educated members of the populace should determin-”
“Not now, Books.” Amaranthe made a cutting off motion with her hand, then turned that gesture into a quick series of signs, spelling the last word out since Basilard’s language didn’t have many terms yet for discussing governments: Let’s keep it simple for those we’re recruiting; not everybody is ready for a new Turgonian paradigm.
Retta was piloting the submarine closer to the light and didn’t seem to see, but her uncovered eye was tight, her face tense. “I don’t care who’s on the throne. I just want the freedom to study the Ortarh Ortak and other artifacts from this civilization, and now that Forge is suspicious of me, I want to get away from them. That’s been true for a while, as you know and used to your advantage.” She skewered Amaranthe with her gaze.