“I’ll make the switch.” Amaranthe moved around to the back and opened a panel. “Maldynado, check his bonds, then leave the room. I, of course, am immune to the gas, but I’m sure you’d be most distraught if you could never experience physical pleasures with a woman again.”
“Extremely so.” Maldynado tightened the velvet bonds and stood.
“Ravido, are you sure you don’t want to talk?” Amaranthe pretended to make an adjustment inside, though all she did was clink her knife against the interior wall-she couldn’t begin to guess what the various innards did and wasn’t going to unfasten anything in case they needed the gas again. “I’m not certain how long it takes for the gas to start melting off external organs, but-”
“What do you want to know, you vile woman?” Ravido’s snarl wasn’t as fierce as it had been before, and desperation tinged his voice.
“The makarovi target. Who are those collars telling them to attack?”
Ravido sighed. “The rest of the core Forge people.”
“Is that… why some of the creatures stayed here?” Amaranthe asked. “Are there Forge people staying in the Barracks?”
“One of the founders is hiding in here, yes. She wanted protection from that mad assassin slaying all her colleagues.” Ravido glowered up at them. “That’s your assassin, isn’t it? The one you were threatening me with?”
“He was working for Flintcrest then.”
“A real loyal bloke, eh?”
“Didn’t he get all of the founders, already?” Maldynado asked. “There were only five or six to start with, weren’t there? And the papers said he killed a pile of Forge people.”
“I haven’t kept track,” Ravido said. “I just know I wasn’t going to sit on the throne and have a bunch of nattering nags whispering in my ear for the rest of my life.”
Amaranthe stood up slowly, a new realization filling her. “Uh oh.”
“What is it, boss?” Maldynado asked.
“I know where at least one founder is in the city.”
“Enh? Who?”
“Suan Curlev, the woman Deret kidnapped.”
Maldynado stared. “The woman who’s sitting in the fac-our hideout with… all the rest of our allies?”
Amaranthe cursed. If a pack of makarovi turned up at the molasses factory in the middle of the night… Those doors weren’t that strong, and most of Starcrest’s people were out working, the same as her team. Deret, Suan, Starcrest, Tikaya, and their daughter were the only ones there. Maybe a few soldiers, but… Her stomach twisted at the thought of Tikaya and Mahliki being mauled, their insides torn out and eaten. At this time of night, Starcrest and the others were sure to be sleeping. They wouldn’t be prepared for such an onslaught; they couldn’t have guessed about the makarovi. Nobody could have.
“We have to get back there,” Amaranthe rasped.
Chapter 19
Sicarius reached the basement door as Amaranthe and Sespian were jogging out, with Maldynado trailing behind, forcing Ravido Marblecrest to walk ahead of him. The general’s wrists were still bound, though his legs had been untied for the forced march. Maldynado had a pistol jammed into his back.
“Looks like we have another problem,” Sespian told Sicarius.
Amaranthe’s gaze grew bleak as it fell to the bundle of blasting sticks. “We’ll have to split up. Somebody has to warn Starcrest and his family about the makarovi, if it isn’t already too late, but somebody’s going to have to lead the search and evacuation of the Barracks. Without-” she lowered her voice as Maldynado and Ravido strode past, “-letting the possibly nettlesome prisoners out.”
Sicarius kept his mouth shut on the logical approach to dealing with “nettlesome” prisoners. “Why would the makarovi be a threat to Starcrest?” he asked instead.
Another shade of bleakness darkened Amaranthe’s face. “Suan. Ravido and his shaman friend decided they weren’t going to put up with Forge. The collars are instructing them to go after the heads of the organization.”
“I’ll stay here.” Sespian smoothed a hand down the front of his dress uniform. “I’m the logical choice and the most likely to be obeyed by the average soldier. I’d appreciate it if you leave me a couple of burly fighters though, in case it’s necessary to deal with miscreants.”
Amaranthe looked to Sicarius, a question in her eyes.
“You are not going makarovi hunting without me,” he stated.
Yara and Basilard jogged up to them, both frowning at the blasting sticks.
“That’s what we’re looking for?” Yara asked Sespian.
“Yes, they might be attached to a cube of ice and a lantern. Check for booby traps around the bomb-this one would have killed us all if Sicarius hadn’t been more thorough an investigator than I.”
Basilard and Yara nodded, then ran inside.
During the exchange, Sicarius hadn’t stopped staring Amaranthe in the eyes, as if he could will her to choose the safe route for once. “You should be among those who stay here.”
“Except there have been makarovi around here too,” she said.
“If you must go, I will go with you,” Sicarius said, though the idea of leaving Sespian here, especially with Ravido still alive, distressed him.
“I’ll be fine.” Sespian must have sensed Sicarius’s concern. “Amaranthe, leave me Basilard and Maldynado, please. Maybe Yara too. You don’t want more women than necessary down there, do you?”
Amaranthe sighed. “No. All right, take those three. Sicarius, do you want to see if there’s an idling lorry or carriage anywhere that we can confiscate? Even better if it’s armored, filled with guns, and features anti-makarovi heavy artillery weapons mounted on the roof.”
“I do not believe such a conveyance will be idling anywhere,” Sicarius said.
“Do the best you can. I don’t want to jog the five miles to the waterfront, not when there’s fighting in the streets.” She waved for him to go. “I’ll round up Books and Akstyr.”
Sicarius paused before he rounded a corner on his way to the vehicle garage, giving a last long look toward Sespian. He hoped he wouldn’t regret leaving his son here. But the makarovi were more dangerous than men, and he had to trust that Sespian could take care of himself. Indeed, he was already hustling off, giving orders and directing troops. He didn’t send a long look in Sicarius’s direction.
Because he was taking care of business and not worrying needlessly. Sicarius jogged off.
Though the skirmishes had subsided, he stuck to the shadows as he trotted around the back corner of the building toward the garden sheds and vehicle house near the side wall. A woman’s body, crumpled and eviscerated in the snow, made him pause. It was an older, well-dressed woman, her hair still neat in its bun despite the claw marks slashed across her face. Her velvet slippers were inappropriate for the slush-filled courtyard, and she had come outside without a jacket or weapons with which to defend herself.
Sicarius glanced up, and understanding dawned. Of course. A second-story window yawned open. If the makarovi had been hunting Forge founders, and one had been in the Barracks, someone must have decided to rid the building of the bait luring the beasts to attack. That explained the quietness that had come over the courtyard, though sounds of fighting rang out in the city below Arakan Hill.
Soldiers remained at their stations on the parapets, but the makarovi that had lingered at the Barracks must have been killed. Or-he paused near a stairway, noting a mauled body lying athwart several steps-with their mission complete here, the beasts had gone over the walls and escaped into the city.
Sicarius regretted hurling his knife into the shaman’s back. Had they taken her prisoner, she might have been coerced into deactivating those collars. But seeing her charge into the room where Amaranthe was trapped, the woman’s hands raised to attack… He’d thrown that knife without thought. He should have trusted that Amaranthe had a plan and could take care of herself.
It cannot be changed now, he thought, slipping into the back door of the vehicle house. However tough they were, makarovi were not soul constructs; enough bullets-and cannonballs-would bring them down.