“What’s wrong with bringing delight and pleasure to the lives of lonely women?”
“You were wearing a loincloth,” Amaranthe said.
“I fail to see your point.”
“They have loincloths in Turgonia?” Mahliki asked, securing the uppermost buttons on her jacket. “For… summer use?”
“For decorative use,” Amaranthe said firmly, “by dandies.”
“Really, boss.” Maldynado sniffed.
He might be offended for the next thirty seconds, but at least Mahliki’s frown had turned into a slight smile.
“I’m sure entomology is fascinating,” Amaranthe said, then realized she didn’t have much of a notion of what an entomologist did, so she voiced the one thing she knew about insects. “I’m told bugs are a superior source of protein and that it’s a shame they’re largely lacking in the Turgonian diet.”
“Fifty ranmyas says I know who told her that,” Maldynado muttered to Basilard.
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d spent two weeks in the South Fernsils living on palm weevil larvae,” Tikaya said. She’d finished at the controls and now stood beneath the hatch. A soldier lowered a hand, offering to help her up.
“I don’t think we have those here,” Amaranthe said. “But if you spend any time in the woods with Sicarius, he’ll attempt to feed you cicadas, grasshoppers, and giant black ant eggs.”
“I knew there was a reason I didn’t care for that boy,” Tikaya said, though she smiled while she spoke. She accepted the proffered hand and disappeared through the hatchway.
Her daughter followed without further comments on entomology or loincloths.
“Did she call Sicarius a boy?” Maldynado choked.
“He was when they met.” Nobody lowered a hand to assist her, but Amaranthe managed the hatch without trouble.
“Yes,” Maldynado said in response to some comment from Basilard, “it sounds like he was as charming as a youth as he is today.”
The rest of the party was waiting on a wide dock buried beneath eight inches of snow. Full darkness had fallen, but it did nothing to cloak the fact that a giant dome-shaped craft had smashed Fort Urgot into oblivion. Most of the trees around the lake and the parade fields had been mowed down or hurled down by the force of the landing. Even the water tower, which hadn’t been crushed, leaned to one side, the tank tilted precariously over the slope of the hill beneath it. Fresh snow had fallen since the… incident-no, carnage, Amaranthe told herself, utter devastation and carnage-but body-sized lumps remained on the field. Someone should burn funeral pyres for the dead, but that ominous black presence must have convinced the military to flee.
“What’s the plan, boss?” Maldynado asked.
“We’ll scout the area to determine if it’s safe to approach,” a sergeant, the highest-ranking soldier in the group, said after leveling a cool look at Maldynado. Amaranthe guessed that meant they weren’t going to line up to take orders from her. “Lady Starcrest,” the sergeant finished, “please wait here until we return.”
With a couple of quick hand signs, he divided his team in half, and two soldiers jogged in each direction, their rifles at the ready.
“Return to me if you see any of the kelbhet,” Tikaya called, then added, “cubes,” for clarification. “I have a way to deal with them.” She dropped her voice to say, “Lady Starcrest, how odd.”
“Not the name you usually go by?” Amaranthe asked.
“No, and my understanding was that due to his exile status, Rias has no right to claim that name any more either.”
“Who’s left alive that knew he was exiled?” Amaranthe asked.
“I… don’t know,” Tikaya said. “Do you think it’d be terribly unwise to ignore their admonishment to stay here and get right to work?”
“Uh.” Amaranthe had no problem going off on her own, but she hadn’t guessed a fifty-year-old linguistics professor would be quite so bold.
“They didn’t tell us to stay here,” Mahliki said. “Just you, Mother.”
“Oh, but staying here is nice,” Lonaeo said. “You have a good view of anything inimical that might be approaching, and you can hop into the submarine and escape beneath the surface.”
“You can stay if you wish, Lonaeo,” Tikaya said. “Your mother won’t be pleased with me if I get you killed. As I recall, she objected to you coming along in the first place, deciding for whatever reason that Turgonia was more dangerous than some of the islands full of spear-flinging, brain-eating cannibals we’ve visited.”
Lonaeo tugged at his scruffy beard. “Was she wrong?”
“That… remains to be seen.”
While waiting for them to decide who was staying and who was going, Amaranthe signed, Do you two have any idea which direction Sicarius went when he left the fort?
Basilard pointed to the western side of the lake.
Watch for signs of him or the soul construct while we’re out here, please.
Understood.
“I haven’t heard any yowls the last couple of nights,” Maldynado said quietly. “That’s promising, don’t you think? Maybe he killed it somehow.”
“Or led it out of the area.” Amaranthe had a vision of Sicarius standing on the rear of a train, the giant fanged hound chasing after him.
“We’re ready when you are.” Tikaya had put on gloves and a fur cap in addition to her bow, quiver, and rucksack, and she’d lit a lantern. Her daughter stood at her side, similarly clothed for the cold weather, though she stomped her feet and had pulled her scarf up to her eyes. This weather must be quite shocking after the tropics. Lonaeo had disappeared back into the submarine, pulling the hatch down behind him. “Lonaeo will keep the Explorer ready in case we need to leave swiftly.”
“What about the soldiers?” Amaranthe asked.
“If they can’t find us, they aren’t the scouts they think they are.” Tikaya tilted her chin toward the Behemoth. “You’ve been in there twice, you said? Can you find one of the entrances?” She was bouncing in her boots, too, though Amaranthe wasn’t certain if it had anything to do with the cold. There was an eager gleam of anticipation in her eyes. Dear ancestors, was she looking forward to climbing into that monstrosity? After all the death it had delivered?
And who are you to judge her, her mind asked. Especially now…
“I’ll try.” Amaranthe checked her weapons and readjusted her own pack, then led the way up the road she knew to be buried beneath the snow. It would take them past the jogging path and to what had been the front gates of the fort. “The hull is smooth, and I don’t remember any markings. I wasn’t given a lot of time to explore on my previous visits.” Though she had a distinct memory of a close-up chance to study an interior wall, thanks to Pike smashing her face against it.
Amaranthe kept her eyes on the towering black hull as they approached, pointedly not looking too closely at the body-sized bumps beneath the snow. Tikaya reached the side of the ship first, took off a mitten, and rested a hand against the hull.
“I wouldn’t recommend doing that with your tongue,” Maldynado said.
Tikaya cocked her head curiously at him.
“Never mind. It’s not that cold yet anyway.”
“Why don’t you and Basilard stand watch?” Amaranthe suggested.
Basilard had his neck craned back, staring up at the black dome towering over them. He stepped closer to a lantern to sign, It must be a hundred stories tall. It’s… unfathomable.
Amaranthe didn’t know if it was quite that high, but it might very well be. It certainly dwarfed the few trees left standing. If she remembered her city trivia, the tallest building in Stumps was sixteen stories high.
A firearm boomed somewhere to their left. The Behemoth blocked the area from view, but Amaranthe’s hand dropped to her pistol.