Though the shaman seemed unable to concentrate on magic while whipping his weapons about, his defensive skills could have made brick walls jealous. He pursued no killing strikes, but all he had to do was last until more mercenaries showed up with guns. Books and Amaranthe had to end this soon.
Books’s elbow thudded into the pole supporting the lean-to. At first he cursed the obstacle, but realization flooded over him: his sword might not cut the shaman’s staff, but no magic reinforced the poles.
“Let’s be loggers!” Books barked, trusting Amaranthe to catch on-and hoping the shaman, who would have to translate to his native tongue, wouldn’t until too late.
Books jumped back, coiled his body, and whipped his sword about with all the momentum he could summon. Steel cracked through wood, and the pole snapped.
A second crack echoed through the night as Amaranthe sliced through the other support. She kicked the startled shaman, hurling him backward into the woodpile before the roof came down.
Remembering Terith, Books dropped his sword and caught the surprised boy as the lean-to collapsed. Wood splintered and flew, and dust clogged the air.
A hand clawed its way out from the wreckage, but as soon as the shaman’s bloodied head appeared, Amaranthe finished him.
Before Books could congratulate her, Terith pointed. Four mercenaries remained, and they all stood by the corner of the building, staring. Battered and singed, they did not appear that threatening, but Books groaned at the idea of more fighting.
With one hand, Amaranthe grabbed her crossbow, which had tumbled down with Terith. With the other, she brandished the bloody sword. Books lowered the boy, pushing Terith behind, while he grabbed his own blade.
“I’m warmed up now,” Amaranthe announced for the benefit of the mercenaries. She jerked her chin at Books. “You?”
“Oh, yes.” Pretending his battered backside, shoulder, and elbow were not crying out with admonitions about age-appropriate activities, he also pointed his sword at the mercenaries.
The men appeared more crestfallen than eager for battle though. Their downcast eyes took in the dead shaman and the duo before them, and before they could even discuss the situation, the back two spun and ran into the night.
“Uhm,” one of the remaining two said.
“Er.”
“We, ah…”
“You can go now,” Amaranthe said.
“Yes, good idea.”
A moment later, only Books, Amaranthe, and Terith remained. Only when they were alone did Amaranthe sink to the ground, rubbing her dirt- and soot-grimed face. Though she managed a bleary smile, her hands trembled. She was human, after all.
With no pretensions to the contrary, Books collapsed on the blackened earth. “As I was saying, next time you notice a glum cast to my face, you need not arrange such a grand distraction.”
“I’ll remember that,” she said.
Terith sat between them, pulling up the remaining strands of grass.
“Do you have any relatives, Terith?” Amaranthe asked him.
“An aunt and uncle in Korgar,” Terith muttered.
“We can take you to them,” she said.
A part of Books wanted to take the boy himself, for surely he would understand Terith’s pain better than anyone else. But the boy probably deserved someone who understood happiness instead. Besides, a fugitive had no right raising a child. Someday perhaps, when they were pardoned. Not today.
Books put a hand on Terith’s shoulder. “Son, you’re not responsible for any of this, you understand?”
The boy shook his head. “It’s my fault.”
“You had good intentions. You wanted your father to be happy.”
“If not for me, Father wouldn’t be dead,” Terith whispered.
“No, it’s not your…” Books trailed off when he caught a knowing look from Amaranthe. She knew his story, how his son had died, and how he had never stopped blaming himself and never would. “All right, Terith, maybe you’re right and you do share some responsibility here. You were trying to help your father, but you weren’t honest with him, and he got himself into trouble because of it. I don’t blame you, but it’s true that you inadvertently played a role in his death.”
The boy’s shoulders slumped lower, but he nodded. This, he believed. Books saying none of it was Terith’s fault rang false, just as it did for Books when people tried to tell him he could not blame himself for his son’s death.
“You’ll probably never forgive yourself either,” Books said, “but eventually there’ll be days when you can forget about the pain and find purpose and…contentment in life again.”
“Is that enough?” Terith whispered.
Books met Amaranthe’s eyes again, and she raised an eyebrow.
“Yes.” He gave her a faint smile. “Especially if you have plenty of distractions to keep things interesting.”
ICE CRACKER II
Amaranthe ran alongside the frozen lake, thighs weary, calves sore, ragged breaths steaming before her. The short sword belted at her waist felt ten times heavier than it was. An inch of fresh snow blanketed the trail, and thick flakes wafted from the steely sky. They stuck in her lashes and melted down her flushed cheeks.
The marker came into view, and she dug a pocket watch free as she passed it. She groaned at the time, shoulders slumping.
“Maybe I can blame the snow,” she muttered. “Or the cold. Or maybe I can blame-” She rounded a bend and almost tripped over two bodies sprawled across the path, “-the dead soldiers on the trail,” she finished, voice cracking as the breeze shifted and the butcher shop stench enveloped her.
The soldiers, recognizable by their black uniforms and military-issue pistols, had died recently: slit throats poured steaming blood onto the white trail. A tangle of scuffs and footprints trampled the snow around the bodies, but no trails led away from the scene.
Exercise forgotten, Amaranthe yanked her sword free. She crouched and surveyed her surroundings, wondering where the killer had hidden to launch the ambush-and wondering if that killer might be there now, waiting to do it again.
Without their foliage, the skeletal apple and maple trees lining the lake offered little cover. A hundred meters ahead, the industrial section of the city began. Deep, dark alleys ran between warehouses and factories whose smokestacks belched black ribbons into the low gray clouds. Anyone hiding in those alleys would have had to race across a field of snow to reach the soldiers though. Closer to her, a gas lamp sputtered at the head of the first of hundreds of docks lining the waterfront. The dark hollow beneath the boards held her gaze. Between the snow and the coming dusk, the lighting was poor; someone might well have hidden beneath the dock.
Even as she watched, a crunch sounded. Someone shifting weight on the snow? Her grip tightened on the sword.
The self-preservation part of her mind suggested returning to her jog and leaving this mystery to another. But thanks to a frame job by a late enemy, she was wanted for conspiring to kidnap the emperor. She wanted exoneration, and for that to happen she needed to seek out noble-and notice-gaining-tasks. This might be the opportunity she needed.
Amaranthe stepped off the trail. At first no footprints marred the bank, but, six or eight feet off the well-tamped path, fresh boot marks indented the snow. Quite a jump, but not impossible.
She followed the prints down to the dock. Anticipation quickened her heart, and quick puffs of breath appeared before her eyes. The snow muffled the city sounds; the waterfront stood eerily silent.
When she reached the dock, she crouched, half-expecting someone behind the pilings. Nobody was there. A couple of packs and bedrolls lay tucked in the shadows, however. Had the soldiers chanced upon this campsite and been killed for their discovery? She crept forward, intending to investigate.
Snow crunched behind her.
Instincts ruling, she lunged behind a thick piling. The sound of a sword whistled through the air inches behind her. But when she turned, using the piling for cover, she saw only the emptiness of the bleak white shoreline.