Amaranthe didn’t want to think about the dungeon entrance. Her time spent there had been only slightly less unpleasant than her days with Pike on the Behemoth. Maybe there was some justice in using insects again, or an insect-derived product, on her return visit.
“We’re ready,” came Sespian’s soft call from the tunnel.
Sicarius led the way into the courtyard.
Blood spattered the churned snow beneath their feet. Not for the first time, Amaranthe wondered how Maldynado could be related to Ravido. What a monster, to think up such a plan. Though she’d been guessing as to his intentions so far; they didn’t have proof that he was behind the makarovi.
Sicarius pointed most of the team toward the basement entrance around the back of the building, while he and Basilard jogged to the gaping hole a few meters away. Amaranthe went with them, keeping an eye on the walls and the courtyard as they bent to pull up the heavy canister from below. Shadows, Sicarius had said, but the courtyard was too well lit for her tastes. The guards would have to be wounded and unconscious not to notice a knot of strange men pulling up a-
“You there,” someone called from the auto-cannon station on the nearest wall-the gun was pointed into the courtyard instead of away. “What are you men doing?”
Basilard and Sicarius had already lifted the canister out of the hole. Books jumped, caught the lip, and pulled himself up at the same time as he knocked a small avalanche of dirt and snow inside. Ignoring the guard for the moment, Amaranthe grabbed his arm and helped him over the side.
Though he was having trouble-more earth crumbled away as he rolled toward her-Books was the one to respond to the soldier. “We got the makarovi poison the captain asked for.”
Amaranthe snorted. She didn’t know if that would work, but it wasn’t any worse than anything she would have come up with.
Sespian scrambled out of the hole with less trouble. He and Sicarius lugged the canister toward the basement door.
“Poison?” the guard responded. “What poison? And which captain?”
“Intelligence,” Books called back. Not a bad try. Most of the regular soldiers kept a wary eye on the supposedly sly officers who worked in that department.
“If you’ve got poison,” someone else from the wall called, “bring it up here. We need it.”
“Gotta report in first,” Books called. He and Amaranthe were jogging after Sespian and Sicarius. A few more meters and they’d round the corner of the building and be out of sight, at least to those on that particular wall.
“How come you’re not in uniform?” the first man called.
The second jogged over and nudged him.
“Hurry,” Amaranthe urged, though the men couldn’t go any faster while carrying that heavy load.
The auto cannon shifted, away from melee in one corner of the courtyard and toward her team.
“Get close to the building,” Sespian said. “They won’t risk shooting a hole in the first floor.”
When makarovi were involved, Amaranthe wasn’t so certain.
“Wait, that’s a woman!” Someone pointed at her. “Girl, you need to get out of there. As soon as those ugly bears catch a sniff of you-”
Amaranthe ducked around the corner. The canister gripped between them, Sicarius and Sespian were already jogging down the icy steps leading to the basement, as if they’d been carrying heavy loads together all of their lives. The metal barrel, almost too large for the walled in stairwell, scraped and clunked against the cement foundation. Fortunately the rest of the team held the door open at the bottom. It’d either been unlocked, or they’d found a way through that lock.
“You next,” Books said, a hand on Amaranthe’s back, guiding her toward the stairs.
Behind them, footfalls approached, crunching on the snow. Amaranthe hurried, expecting troops with guns.
But one of the makarovi leaped around the corner behind them. It roared, the bellow powerful enough to send the stench of its breath rolling over them. Books’s heel slipped off the top step. He would have gone down, but Amaranthe caught his arm.
“Don’t worry about me,” he yelled. “Go, go!”
The makarovi bounded toward them. Amaranthe pulled Books down the stairs. Halfway down, they both slipped on ice. Gravity threw them together, and they thumped and rolled to the bottom.
At the top of the stairwell, the makarovi reared onto its hind legs, its forelegs rising into the air, dark claws promising death.
A thunderous boom split the air in the same moment that someone grabbed Amaranthe’s shirt and yanked her through the basement doorway. Before she lost sight of the stairs, she saw the makarovi get clipped in the shoulder by a cannon ball. The creature spun into the air above the stairwell, a mass of black fur and legs flailing. Then Amaranthe was inside, the door slammed shut, and she didn’t see the rest. Though she did hear thumps on the stairs.
She tried to sit up, but she and Books were entangled, with someone standing over them.
A heavy bar thudded into place to secure the door. Sicarius, legs spread, was the one standing above them, and he gazed down, one eyebrow twitching ever so slightly.
“So,” Amaranthe said, “they’re not all gone from the courtyard.”
“I may have been mistaken,” Sicarius said, stepping aside.
“I’ve longed to hear those words for months.” Books groaned and rolled to a sitting position. “Though it was always in response to my claims that you chose obstacle courses entirely too long and difficult for our team’s collective abilities. Especially mine.”
Sicarius did not answer, though he bent to offer Amaranthe a hand up.
“Thank you,” she said.
“No, I’m fine.” Books lifted his own hand. “I can get up on my own.”
Several feet farther inside, Maldynado nudged Yara. “I’m not the only one who whines.”
“No, it’s a common trait amongst-”
Something slammed into the door, and Amaranthe didn’t hear the rest. She considered the thick metal hinges and the solid oak boards. “Makarovi aren’t as strong as soul constructs, right? It shouldn’t be able to break in here, should it?”
“Unlikely,” Sicarius said, “but we should act swiftly regardless.”
Another thump rattled the door.
“Oh, I agree, in every possible way.”
Akstyr and Basilard were in the lead, and Amaranthe and the others followed them through a short hall and down more steps. Before they reached the whitewashed walls of the dungeon, they stopped on a small landing and turned into a less inimical space: the basement. It smelled of wood and coal, scents she decided were pleasant when compared to the musk of the makarovi.
They found the furnace room-not much of a challenge since Sicarius, Akstyr, Books, and Sespian had been there before, albeit entering via a different route-and set the canister on the ground.
Maldynado, who’d been among the last to carry it, rubbed his back. “Let’s tell Admiral Starcrest that his next poison delivery mechanism should be lighter weight. Pocket-sized would be ideal.”
“I’ll let you be the one to tell him that.” Amaranthe fished in her pockets for the instructions the admiral had given her on setting up the barrel. There were hasty notes about temperature requirements and dispersion rates, too, the latter penned by his daughter. “I’m sure he’s even more impressed with complaining than Yara is.”
“Maybe, but I’m not trying to ensure his good opinion so that he’ll keep sleeping with me.”
“Sicarius…” Amaranthe drew him aside as Yara made some retort about her good opinion having yet to be earned. “We need someone to make sure the vents and flues are adjusted so that our special smoke doesn’t flow out into the night.” She glanced at Books, and he nodded. “Also, we absolutely cannot put people to sleep up there if there’s a chance there’s a makarovi inside the building. If there’s a duct you can squirm through, would you mind taking care of this business?”