Before heading to the building, he took a closer look at the vehicles lined up in the parking area. The wind had been blowing that morning, and snowdrifts a couple of feet high nuzzled the tires on one side, but the lorries were in otherwise good condition. He glanced back the way he had come, noting his tracks across the white field. He didn’t see anyone on the stark, flat landscape, not yet, but the snow would make his trail easy to follow. The practitioner might alert the soldiers to Sicarius’s morning spying, or he might choose to handle it himself. Neither the Nurian nor the soul construct would be appealing enemies to battle, not when he’d had so little time to prepare.
On the chance that he might need to flee, he climbed into the cab of one of the bigger lorries and shoveled coal into the furnace. He’d keep it stoked throughout the day. The practitioner he could outrun on foot, but the soul construct? There was no chance. The lorry might be able to outpace it, though the snow blanketing the roads would likely slow the machine down more than the creature.
Nobody came out while Sicarius was building up the fire in the furnace. Once the gauges promised readiness, he headed for the machine shop, pausing again to eye the stack of steel beams along an outside wall. They might be sturdy enough for his needs, especially if the camp also had thick sheet metal.
“Might,” he repeated aloud. He seemed to be using that word a lot.
Finding the back door unlocked, Sicarius slipped into the one-room building, where the heat and the chatter of two men met him. Articulating arms and oversized cutting tools littered benches and worktables. The men, both bearded and brawny, with sleeves rolled up to their elbows, were building up the fire in the furnace. Sicarius padded across a floor littered with sawdust, stray nuts, bolts, and screws, and bits of coal, then stopped behind the pair.
“I require your assistance.”
Both men spun about in surprise, one dropping his shovel and the other clenching his like a club. Amaranthe would have given them a friendly greeting and figured out a way helping her would help them, but Sicarius lacked the patience for social pleasantries. He lacked time as well.
“You’re Sircareius,” one of the men said.
“Sicarius,” the second corrected, nudging his comrade with an elbow.
“Yes.” In other circumstances, Sicarius might not have responded to a statement of the obvious, but if they knew of his reputation, they might be less inclined to offer resistance and more inclined to follow his orders. Swiftly.
“You helped the boss last winter,” the second speaker said. “You and that girl. Lokdon, wasn’t it? She was nice.”
“Isn’t he an assassin?”
“Yes, but he was on our side that night when… well, the boss said not to talk about it, but we all would have died if not for him and his friend.” He wiped his rough coal-smeared hands on his trousers and stuck one out toward Sicarius. “I’m Wodic. This is Mederak.”
Sicarius walked to the closest workbench while keeping the men in his peripheral vision. He believed them innocuous, but one didn’t survive years of having a million-ranmya bounty on one’s head by putting beliefs ahead of vigilance. For men like these, such money would change their lives.
“I require a steel trap approximately eight by eight by eight feet joined with the strongest welds possible. It will have two hatches, one on the top and a smaller one on the bottom or side. The walls must be thick enough to withstand the pressure of-” Sicarius noticed the men staring blankly at him. One, Wodic, still had his hand out. “Here. I will draw it.”
Wodic looked down at his hand, shrugged, and walked over to the table.
“He wants us to use the boss’s materials for her new holding warehouse?” Mederak whispered to his comrade while Sicarius was drawing.
“Ssh, it’ll be all right. We’ll tell her it’s for Ms. Lokdon. She won’t object. Not after the…” Wodic lowered his voice. “Not after the mare-cats and that… that evil spirit thing. Did you hear about that?”
“Just stories.”
“They’re true,” Wodic said.
Sicarius finished his drawing without comment. It seemed odd that these men were willing to help him without the application of threats, but he was not surprised Amaranthe had left that feeling of indebtedness behind. She certainly had a knack for winning over allies. Not all of them remembered her so fondly later on, when the heat of the moment passed, but the situation had turned out in these people’s favor.
“Here.” Sicarius pushed the sketch in front of the two men. “It must be assembled outside, so it can be moved.”
“Moved where?”
“Into the lake.”
Wodic and Mederak scratched their heads. “The lake?”
“The obvious trap does not catch the fox.” Sicarius realized he’d quoted one of Basilard’s grandfather’s sayings. In this case, it was apt. “It must be assembled today.”
“Today?” Mederak blurted.
Still rubbing his head, Wodic stared at the sketch. “I don’t know if that’s possible, Mr. Sicarius. There’s just us two and our driver out here this week. Until the ice freezes-”
“It will be done today,” Sicarius repeated. “I will assist you.”
They looked him over. Yes, his black clothing was adorned with knifes rather than smith’s tools, but he was a capable worker.
“All of our lives depend on it,” Sicarius said.
They considered the sketch again, perhaps for the first time considering why Sicarius might need such a trap.
“Today’s good,” Mederak said at the same time as Wodic said, “We can do today.”
Chapter 17
Amaranthe alternated between yawning and nibbling on her pinkie nail while Akstyr paced around the section of floor that hid the lift. She’d lost all sense of time, but they’d been locked in the control room long enough to share some of Sicarius’s travel bars. Retta had known where to find potable water, though the secret cabinets could not, alas, supply more appealing meals. Amaranthe was too anxious to digest properly anyway.
Retta, her shoulder healed, was moving from floating map to schematic to knot of runes, portions of the three-dimensional images brightening or pulsing when she touched them. Hands clasped behind his back, Books walked behind her, watching her every finger swipe. The knocks and clunks had stopped emanating from below, but every now and then Amaranthe heard a scrape or a thump; people were moving around down there, probably with their weapons drawn as they waited for the assistant to figure out a way to let them charge inside.
“How long will it take to get the Behe-the Ortarh Ortak moving?” Amaranthe asked.
“We’re getting close,” Retta said. “Perhaps an hour now.”
“An hour?” Akstyr asked. “Hasn’t it already been four or five days?”
“Not quite that long,” Amaranthe said, though she commiserated with the sentiment.
Retta had been poking images for a long time. Even a giant boiler could be heated and a steam engine brought to readiness in less time than this was taking.
“A course must be entered into the navigation system, the engines must be brought on line, the current human population density around the lake must be calculated so we can leave the area in a way that we’re least likely to be seen, and…” Retta frowned as a blue blip on the image in front of her pulsed and a couple of runes formed in the air. “The civilization that created the Ortarh Ortak would have had an entire crew of people working in this room. That we-I-have been able to get it working at all is amazing.”