The children, a brother and a sister no more than ten years old, whirled toward them, their eyes wide. They stumbled backward. They were going to run away.
“No,” Amaranthe managed, flinging up a hand.
Basilard surged into the lead. He solved the problem of convincing them to join by dropping the jar and grabbing one of the children in each arm. Without stopping, he slung them up, one over each shoulder. He spun around, mouthing, “Go, go!” though no words came from his throat.
Amaranthe grabbed the jar and tore after Basilard, waving for everyone else to do the same.
“We just came… from that… direction,” one of their followers panted.
Amaranthe had no idea what her face looked like, but when she glowered at the dissident, he raced after Basilard as if makarovi were on his heels.
They hammered down the corridors, ragged breaths echoing from the walls. Amaranthe was tempted to veer toward the chamber again, to take another try at convincing those men to leave, but Basilard was in the lead now, and he chose another route, a shorter one, back to the ramp. She didn’t ask about the time. There wasn’t any to spare. She knew that.
By the time they reached the lifeboat floor, the people in her group were stumbling, and Amaranthe was half pulling a straggling woman. She almost slammed into the backs of the people ahead of her when they halted.
“Go in,” she panted, recognizing the corridor.
“We can’t,” someone yelled, “it’s a dead end.”
Amaranthe pushed through. Had they made a wrong turn? She lifted the map. Sweat streamed down her face, and she wiped her eyes so she could see. This was the spot.
Dear ancestors, what if the others hadn’t waited? What if they’d left? Panting, unable to find the air she needed, Amaranthe wondered if she was going to hyperventilate. No, you’ll be immolated first, she thought.
Then the door slid up.
“Hurry, get in,” Tikaya cried.
Amaranthe was pushed to the floor as the stampede of bodies surged around her. By now everybody sensed how short their time was.
A hand grabbed hers, pulling her to her feet. Maldynado. He hoisted her over his shoulder and leaped for the door. It whispered shut right behind them, almost slicing off her feet.
There should have been a great surge of acceleration as the lifeboat took off, but Amaranthe barely noticed it. Maldynado shifted his grip on her, as if he meant to put her down, but he couldn’t find a place to do so. Every inch of floor space was covered, people crammed in even more tightly than she’d imagined.
“We’re clear,” Tikaya announced from the front of the tiny craft.
“Clear enough?” Mahliki murmured. “There might be a big shock wave.”
“We’ll find out. Any second. No, it should have already happened. Did we… not enter the commands correctly?”
If Amaranthe hadn’t been so weary, she might have laughed. Had they spent the last hour racing around for no reason?
Then a brilliant flash lit up the interior of the lifeboat. Still hanging over Maldynado’s shoulder, Amaranthe wasn’t facing the front and could only assume a viewing window up there allowed the flood of light to enter. A boom sounded right after, though it wasn’t as loud as she’d expected.
“That’s… quite a show,” Mahliki breathed.
Mutters and whimpers came from the throats of the rest of the crowd.
Maldynado finally elbowed enough space to set Amaranthe down. If not for the press of bodies holding her upright, her trembling legs would have collapsed. She twisted around, trying to see over people’s heads, but had to accept that she wouldn’t have a view of this final devastation. She did have a view of a familiar man’s stubbled jaw. It was the person Basilard had shot, the one with the crossbow.
He stared at her. “You weren’t lying.”
“No,” she said, ridiculously pleased that he’d found his way out. For all she knew, he was a thief or a murderer, but she hoped the rest of his team had escaped too.
“I’m going to forgive you for shooting me,” he said.
Amaranthe decided not to point out that it’d been Basilard who’d shot him. It didn’t matter, and it would have taken too much effort. “Thanks,” she mumbled and leaned back against Maldynado.
“I’m taking us down to the lake,” Tikaya announced.
Good.
Maldynado supported Amaranthe with a comradely hand, though that didn’t keep him from saying, “I hope one of you heroic types remembered to bring back my watch.”
“Will some lady be affronted if she finds out you lost her gift?” Amaranthe whispered, closing her eyes. They’d have to figure out how to get rid of the lifeboat, this one and the one they’d left in the mountains. Though small and simple, they were pieces of the same technology as the Behemoth.
Later. That mission that could wait until everyone was safe.
“My mother, actually,” Maldynado said.
“She gave it to you? Before you were disowned?” Amaranthe had been under the impression there wasn’t much familial adoration between the two of them.
“No, I stole it when she kicked me out of the family. I hear she’s still looking for it. I want to wear it to her funeral pyre someday.”
“You Marblecrests are an odd lot,” Amaranthe said.
“Oh, no argument there. I wonder if the professor would land this thing on the roof of the Imperial Barracks so we could scare my brother’s troops a little.”
“Let’s just worry about getting back together with the others.” And finding out whether Starcrest did indeed have anything to do with those explosions, or if they had some new enemy to face.
Chapter 11
As dusk gathered in the Emperor’s Preserve, Sicarius strode into Flintcrest’s camp, another sack of heads slung over his shoulder. Most of the soldiers were off on assignment, and he walked the paths unchallenged. He wished he could veer down one of the side trails, letting his feet take him away from the Nurian tent instead of toward it.
Drying blood saturated his clothing and stained the skin of his hands-one of the remaining Forge founders had a Kendorian bodyguard who had sensed Sicarius’s approach. The ensuing battle had been more challenging-and messy-than the others. All through it, in the back of his mind, he’d felt Kor Nas’s presence, watching and enjoying the show. It was Sicarius’s method to make his kills quick and efficient, but Kor Nas liked having the deaths drawn out, a vice that had been growing with each assassination. Maybe Sicarius was his first human “pet,” or maybe he’d never operated in a foreign land without anyone around to enforce the rules and mores of his own culture. Power without the potential for repercussion, an insidious temptation.
On the way back to camp, Sicarius had chanced across a newspaper page caught in the wind, flapping and skidding across a frost-slick street. The headline had made him halt for a long moment.
As Intra-Army Fighting Grows Fiercer, Vicious Assassin Slays Innocent Civilians
His name was in the first sentence, followed by a list of “prominent and upstanding members of society” found dead in their abodes, their heads missing, their bodies mutilated. Worgavic topped the list, along with several other Forge people, though the business coalition itself was never mentioned, simply the names of the “respectable and worthwhile” organizations the dead had run, the charities they’d contributed to, and the scholarship programs they’d financed.
Not surprisingly, the article was out of the Gazette and had been penned by the senior Lord Mancrest. The newspaper must have repaired enough of the building and machinery to return to printing its lies. Lies? Sicarius admitted the article was somewhat accurate, if biased and incomplete-it hadn’t mentioned Flintcrest or his Nurian allies. How Mancrest had known he was the assassin responsible, Sicarius didn’t know; he hadn’t been seen at any of the kill sites. Perhaps the Gazette owner had guessed based on his reputation.