Sicarius headed toward it. The number of clawed footprints in the snow increased. With several meters between Sicarius and the lantern, he couldn’t be certain of the indentions, but he thought them varied in size. More than one makarovi?
He knelt, spreading his fingers wide to measure one of the prints. Not surprisingly, it dwarfed the width of his hand. He touched another one. It was bigger. He checked a third. Smaller than the first.
Sicarius struggled for his usual calm detachment, but another urge flowed through his veins, an urgent desire to race back and warn Amaranthe. He made himself stay, probing the edges of the prints, trying to decide how fresh they were from the amount of erosion-the warmer weather was melting snow at a regular rate, but those edges were sharp. Recent. Two hours? An hour?
He rose to check on the dark hollow. More than a hollow, he discovered as he drew closer. A tunnel, freshly scraped from the earth, one large enough for three men to stride through, shoulder to shoulder. Large enough, too, for a makarovi to traverse.
Sicarius sniffed the air. It did smell of the makarovi, but not so pungently as one would expect from a den. The walls were even and tidy, too, more like something dug with machinery than claws. He peered behind him, half-expecting Heroncrest’s tunnel-boring machine to be sitting under the trees somewhere, beside piles of moved earth. When he didn’t spot anything in the trees behind him, he skirted the edge of the boulder formation. He’d only taken a couple of steps before he rounded a bend and found his moved earth. Great piles of dirt had been dumped behind the boulders. Snow blanketed some of them, but other piles had been recently dumped, the dark earth standing bare to the night.
The location behind the boulders would hide the evidence of extraction from the trail Amaranthe and the others were on. The hint of a large, dark form, too bulky and square to be a pile of earth-or belong to a lurking makarovi-hunkered beside one of the piles of fresh earth.
Sicarius jogged toward it. Another dark shape in the snow to the side made him hesitate. Another body. The light would help with investigating those, so he’d leave it for Basilard.
A few more steps, and he was close enough to make out more details. It was a vehicle. It lacked the conical front of the tunnel-boring machine, possessing instead the stub nose of a lorry with a large cargo bed ideal for moving earth. Two more battered bodies awaited in the snow, their arms akimbo. One’s neck had broken upon landing. It was as if he’d been torn from the cab of the vehicle and hurled at a huge velocity. Sicarius checked the lorry’s furnace. Heat radiated from the metal, and red embers burned inside. The gauge had fallen below ready, so some time had passed, but the vehicle had been in operation earlier that evening.
Lights came into view, lanterns bobbing and weaving with the steps of men. Basilard stood and waved.
Relieved nothing untoward had happened to the group, Sicarius jogged in that direction.
“Are we there yet?” came Maldynado’s moan from the trees. “This canister is heavy. Does anybody else think we should have been given an armored attack vehicle for carrying our equipment and for infiltrating a highly secured imperial building?”
“Are you whining again?” Yara asked.
When Sicarius joined the group, his silent appearance cut off whatever response Maldynado might have made. Good.
“It would be unwise to linger in the area,” he said without preamble. “Makarovi have been about, no more than two hours ago.”
One hour, Basilard signed, joining them. That soldier’s body is fresh.
“Bodies? Makarovi?” Amaranthe spoke with admirable calm, but Sicarius didn’t miss her darting glances toward the trees and the boulders. After nearly dying to makarovi claws last spring, she had more reason than any of them to fear the creatures. And he had more reason than ever to keep her from coming up with schemes to thwart them.
“The tunnel-boring team is dead,” Sicarius said. “Four men. At least.”
Basilard glanced at him. Tunnel boring?
“Their earth hauler is behind those rocks.”
“So… the makarovi came out of the mountains and rushed into the tunnel, mauling everyone on the way?” Amaranthe asked. “That could work to our advantage, if we can avoid them. I wouldn’t wish that pain-and death-on anyone, but if fate has delivered it… we were looking for a good distraction.”
“The type of distraction where my older brother gets skewered by claws and turned into a makarovi appetizer?” Maldynado dropped his end of the canister, causing Books, who had been walking backward, carrying the opposite side to jerk in surprise and lose his grip. He glowered at Maldynado.
“Eww,” Akstyr said. “I hate those things. Aren’t they the ones that eat women’s… lady parts?”
“Yes,” Amaranthe said.
Yara, who’d been trailing the party with Sespian, grimaced. “I hate those things too.”
“If they’ve found a way into the Barracks,” Sespian said, “and the building and courtyard gates are locked down, whoever’s in there will be trapped.”
“They didn’t go inside the tunnel,” Sicarius said.
Silence fell as the team considered his words. He took advantage, listening to the night forest around them. More plops of snow fell, but he didn’t hear anything else, no further screams, nor the moist snuffles of those creatures advancing through the trees.
“They killed the tunnel team and moved on?” Amaranthe asked.
“No,” Sicarius said. “They came out of the tunnel and moved on.”
Basilard shook his head. That doesn’t make sense. You must have read the tracks incorrectly.
“I did not,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe patted Basilard on the arm. “Now, now, you know you insult him when you say things like that.”
She kept her teasing tone light, though Sicarius sensed that her jocularity was not sincere. As she so often did, she was trying to remain strong, insouciant even, so the others would not worry. Indeed, Yara had turned to face the shadowy trees to the rear, the rifle in her hands clenched tightly, her shoulders tense. Working as an enforcer sergeant, she too had been up near that dam, and she too had seen what the makarovi could do.
Perhaps the creatures traveled into it, used it as a den, and came back out again, Basilard signed.
“Makarovi came out,” Sicarius said. “They did not enter.”
I do not wish to belittle your tracking skills, Basilard signed, but… He faced the others. Sicarius did not see the tracks by the light of a lantern.
“He’s right,” Sespian said. “It must be a mistake. Having makarovi come from inside the Barracks doesn’t make any sense. We don’t grow them in the garden.”
Sicarius said nothing, though having his skills doubted by his son stung slightly. Sespian was right to question, he told himself. It didn’t make sense.
“Here’s an idea,” Maldynado said. “Why don’t we take the lights over there and all have a looksie?”
“Would you be comfortable dying if those were your last words?” Yara asked.
“I can’t imagine any circumstance where I’d be comfortable dying, unless it were in bed, after being heart-stoppingly overworked by a lush, beautiful, and terribly athletic woman.”
“More likely you’d be killed in bed, by a dagger from the woman’s husband,” Yara said.
Maldynado removed his hat and crushed it to his chest, a forlorn expression on his face. “I meant you, my lady.”
Yara blinked. “Oh.”
“Let’s take a look at these makarovi prints,” Amaranthe said before the conversation could veer farther off track.
“This way.” Pointedly not taking one of the lanterns, Sicarius led the way to the tunnel mouth.
“Nice… body,” Akstyr said. “At least it’s not a girl. It’s only deheaded, not de…organed.”