Amaranthe gripped his arm. “We have to go.”
Akstyr slipped past Books, bumping his elbow. Books didn’t seem to notice.
“All dead?” Akstyr asked.
“Yes, but I think some got away.” Amaranthe pointed at the doorway. “Can you help Retta, please? We need her to help us figure out… everything, and she’s injured.”
Akstyr shrugged. “Sure.”
Amaranthe rooted about for weapons. There were crossbows and rifles aplenty; ammunition was another matter. The guards must not have anticipated a big battle on their way to shore leave, for nobody was carrying extra, at least in the first few belt pouches she checked.
Books dropped the daggers and wiped his hands on his trousers more times than was necessary. “You should bring Sicarius along when you need people…” He swallowed. “Dispatched. This isn’t… I don’t…”
“I know.” Amaranthe was reluctant to abandon her search before finding ammunition, but she couldn’t let Books fall apart. She guided him out of the hatchway while hoping the size of the Behemoth meant it would take a few moments for those men to find help. “I keep waiting to get smart enough to figure out how to avoid killing people on our quest to save the empire. I sense we’re not doing something right.”
It wasn’t an appropriate time to joke-she’d simply meant to distract him-and Books’s scowl informed her of the fact. “Remember our discussion on prudence earlier this year?”
That hadn’t been it, eh? “You’re the one who jumped the guards up there and in the submarine, ensuring we’d run into trouble tonight,” Amaranthe pointed out, then wished she hadn’t.
Books flinched.
“Sorry,” she said. “I know you came to help me. This was all my plan, and it’s all my fault. As usual.”
She picked up the daggers Books had dropped, wiped them off, and handed them to him. She wished he’d say she was being too hard on herself, but he didn’t.
“More men coming,” Retta said through gritted teeth. She’d slumped into the chair at the control station, but rose after making the announcement, nearly tumbling into Akstyr’s arms.
He caught her and they headed for the door Mia had used.
“How soon?” Amaranthe let Books go, thinking to resume her hunt for ammunition.
“Now.”
Amaranthe cursed, abandoning her search. Frustrated, she dropped the empty crossbow she’d been holding and jogged after the others. “That door? The way your assistant went? Are you sure that’s wise?”
“The guards don’t know the back corridors as well,” Retta said, “and we can get to the core from there. It’s a control room of sorts.”
Or Retta could lead them right to Mia and a trap. She had more reason than ever to be annoyed with Amaranthe now.
“I don’t have much choice now but to help you.” Retta hissed when a misstep jarred her shoulder. “Mia will let everyone know I was working with you. I-”
Footfalls pounded the floor in the corridor outside the bay.
“All right,” Amaranthe whispered, hustling her comrades toward the alternate exit-it was their only other choice. “Go, go,” she urged, all too aware that having an injured party member would slow them down.
Retta and Akstyr passed into the corridor first, and Amaranthe and Books lunged over the threshold just as a squad of soldiers burst into the bay. More of Pike’s men.
“There!” one cried, spotting Amaranthe and Books.
“They saw us, Retta,” Amaranthe barked. “Can you shut this door? Lock it?”
Retta stumbled back to them and waved her hand on one side of it, high up. That section of smooth black wall looked no different than any other along the corridor, but four enigmatic runes flared to life, glowing crimson. Amaranthe pulled her dagger out, prepared to throw it at the first soldier who ran into sight. Retta pushed in one of the symbols and twisted it. Two soldiers appeared, rifles raised, ready to shoot. The door slid down. A dozen weapons fired, but the bullets were barely audible, soft tinks as they struck.
“It’s locked?” Amaranthe asked as her team ran away.
“For now.”
Amaranthe didn’t find that encouraging.
• • •
Sicarius jogged across the snowy field, following the soul construct’s tracks, staying downwind as much as possible. He left his own tracks in the half foot of fresh powder, something he noted with displeasure, though there was no way to avoid it. As it was, the inches of soft snow were slowing his gait. He thought of places along the western side of the lake where he might acquire snowshoes. It would depend on how much longer he needed to follow the tracks and where they led. He’d slipped through Heroncrest’s camp and out the other side without being seen, partially thanks to his stealth and partially thanks to the death and disarray the creature had left in its wake. It should have made the soldiers more alert, Sicarius thought, chastising them for the ease with which he’d passed unnoticed between tents and under vehicles, even as he accepted that the situation had been advantageous for him.
Now, with night still blanketing the fields, he searched for lights on the horizon, listened for sounds, and sniffed the air for the fresh blood that stained the construct’s paws. Twice it had veered toward farmhouses to kill, not caring whether its victim were man, woman, or child. Sicarius hadn’t caught sight of it yet and didn’t want to-if he drew that close, it would smell him and begin its chase anew. He wanted to follow it to its home, to its master. With dawn only two hours away, it should be heading in that direction now.
The snow had stopped, and a few stars peered between the clouds overhead. With the increased visibility, he made out a lantern burning a half mile away, somewhere near the lakeshore. He pulled up his mental map of the area. That ought to be the ice cutting camp he and Amaranthe had visited for a mission the year before, the only one that claimed permanent dwellings and housed machinery outside of the city. Sicarius would have to deviate from the construct’s path to visit it, but it might be worth it. Following the creature wasn’t enough; he had to come up with a way to kill it, or at least render it permanently unable to move. So long as it was out there, he and Sespian would both be vulnerable to an attack, one that might come when they were distracted by another battle. He could see his own death coming that way, but more, he could see Sespian’s. To lose him, after all of this effort to protect him and after they were finally exchanging… banter, as Amaranthe would call it, would be-he clenched his jaw-unacceptable.
Sicarius veered toward the camp. It wouldn’t take long to survey, and it was probably not a bad idea to come later to the soul construct’s destination, when its master assumed there’d be no retaliation for the night’s activities.
Even with the snow slowing his pace, he covered the half mile in a couple of minutes, and reached the outskirts of the camp. The light came from a single guiding lantern posted near a concrete dock that stretched a quarter mile into the lake. Numerous cabins and sheds dotted the banks, along with a metal machine shop with vehicles parked outside it. Sicarius eyed a crane and large lorries, some for carrying heavy loads of ice and others with winches and cutting equipment for removing the blocks in the first place. Currently, only a few feet of ice edged the lake, but, in another month, dozens of people would fill the camp and they’d be working around the clock. For now, only a couple of the cabins showed signs of occupation, early laborers sent out to ready the site.
Sicarius passed a snow-covered stack of beams, materials for a new building, and picked a lock on the machine shop. Inside, workbenches, a smithy, and welding tools took up a large chunk of the area. After a moment considering everything, he left, trotting back across the field to find the trail again. He hadn’t spotted any cement mixers or convenient already-dug pits that would let him reenact Amaranthe’s first soul-construct trap, but perhaps he could construct one of his own in that machine shop. He mulled over ideas as he followed the tracks, now angling to the southwest and away from the lake.