“Uh oh,” Akstyr muttered.
Amaranthe inched forward. They ought to be able to subdue two men if they could surprise them.
Before she could close, the nearest enforcer spotted them. “Down here!” he called to the street.
She frowned. If several were up top, waiting to help, subduing these two was less likely.
“Drop your weapons and your…uh…chicken crate,” the younger of the two said, “and come out with your hands open, or it’ll be crossbow quarrels up the nose.”
Amaranthe’s eyebrow twitched-that wasn’t the line taught at the academy. She glanced back and nodded slightly to her men. She hoped the group had been working with her long enough to recognize it as meaning, “We can’t get caught with all these counterfeits so if the odds are in our favor smash these lads into the ice.”
“Very well,” she told the enforcers and stepped out.
If it had just been the two men, she would have led a charge, but as soon as she came out from under the dock, four enforcers on the street came into view. They also bore crossbows. A couple of familiar faces stared down the shafts-no one she ever worked with but men she had passed in the hallways at headquarters. Footsteps announced the arrival of two more enforcers on the dock above, bringing the total to eight. Eight versus her four. Wonderful.
The enforcers stirred with surprise as several seemed to recognize her. Weren’t expecting me, eh? They must have come for the money, probably traced Akstyr’s note to the area. Apparently no one had put her together with the counterfeiting scheme. Until now.
“Isn’t she the one with the death mark on her head?” someone asked.
The enforcers shifted their crossbows from the vague direction of Amaranthe’s party to dead center at her chest.
“Fire!” one of the men on the street shouted.
Amaranthe thought it was the order to shoot. She crouched, ready to throw herself into a defensive roll, but no quarrels launched from the crossbows. Instead, yells erupted from the cannery. Smoke roiled from the broken windows, and screams of pain followed.
“Help!” someone cried.
Four of the enforcers on the street sprinted toward the burning building, leaving only two above and two below to deal with Amaranthe and crew.
It was the best chance they would get.
She charged the distracted enforcers in front of her. Her heel struck ice under the snow, and she lost her footing. The charge turned into an ungraceful dive, and she tumbled lengthwise at the group. She collided with two pairs of legs. An enforcer crashed to the ice. The other flailed and tried to keep his balance, but Books bowled into him. Soon a jumble of thrashing bodies and limbs writhed about on the ice.
In the confused tangle, Amaranthe grabbed someone’s crossbow even as a hand latched onto her ankle. She kicked out and clipped an enforcer in the jaw. His head cracked ice, and he stilled.
Crossbow quarrels hammered the frozen lake. Maldynado and Akstyr charged up the snowy slope to get at the bowmen.
With the crossbow in hand, Amaranthe skittered away from the fray and got her feet beneath her.
“Get back, Books,” she barked.
He obeyed, and the enforcer saw her crossbow. His hands opened and spread.
On the street above, Maldynado and Akstyr had flattened their opponents.
“Go help your comrades with the fire,” Amaranthe told the sole conscious enforcer. She twitched the crossbow for emphasis.
He looked at his inert partner and the two unmoving men on the street, nodded curtly, and scrambled across the ice toward the cannery.
Amaranthe strapped the crossbow to her back. “Books, help Maldynado with the crate. Akstyr, let’s grab the other crossbows. We’re going back to our first hideout.”
So loaded, they hastened inland. They ran between two buildings, through an alley, up the hill, and into the next block before Amaranthe found a vantage point to peer back along their trail. No one was following them. Flames ate at the cannery’s walls. A loud snap echoed across the lake, and the building’s roof collapsed. More destruction in her wake. She sighed as she led the men away from the scene.
Three blocks farther on, Sicarius fell in beside them.
“You missed the opportunity for daring heroics,” Maldynado told him.
Amaranthe knew better. That fire had not started by magic. And she suspected the cries for help that had come from the building had less to do with burning rafters than with a dark figure stalking the shadows.
“How many dead?” she asked grimly.
“Two or three,” Sicarius said. “It was meant primarily as a distraction. Most of the men made it out.”
He watched her as he spoke, no doubt wondering if she would yell at him again. Amaranthe could not. By now, she understood the ruthlessness of his methods and she was still using him. When people died, she could only blame herself. Besides, she was relieved he had come back at all. After reading that note, she had not been sure.
She wanted to ask him about Hollowcrest, about his ‘old job,’ why he’d returned to help, and if he was truly on her side or working toward some other agenda. But she could hardly do so, not without confessing her privacy-defying reading habits.
“Glad you came back,” was all she said.
• • • • •
Sespian leaned against the wall outside his office, feigning nonchalance as he chatted with Dunn and a couple of soldiers. Sespian kept catching himself tugging at his collar or wiping moist hands on his trousers, so the casual facade probably wasn’t fooling anyone.
Inside the office, Lord General Lakecrest waited, as he had for the last twenty minutes. Sespian wanted Hollowcrest’s loyal officer to have time to feel nervous. Unfortunately, Sespian probably felt more nervous than the experienced general.
“I suppose it’s been long enough.” He reached for the doorknob.
“Are you sure you don’t want to start with one of the lower ranking traitors, Sire?” Dunn asked.
No, he wasn’t sure. Sespian hated the idea of confronting a man thirty years his senior, but he’d make more headway starting at the top. If he could get one of Hollowcrest’s generals on his side, maybe he could win over other men from that list. Better a bit of politicking than dozens of hangings.
“I’m sure,” Sespian said. “Get your men ready. You’ll need to take Lakecrest into custody after this. He can’t be allowed to speak with Hollowcrest before we lay our tiles.”
“Yes, Sire,” Dunn said.
Sespian set his jaw, pushed back his shoulders, and strode into the office.
General Lakecrest rose from a wingback chair beside the low cider table. His concave frown mirrored the curve of his bald head, though the expression looked natural on him, rather than an indicator of nerves or concern. Enough medals and badges armored his uniform jacket to deflect arrows.
Sespian’s instinct was to wave the general back into his seat, but he waited for the salute and seated himself first. This man was not a friend, not someone for whom rituals should be relaxed.
“Did you know about the poison?” Sespian asked abruptly, wanting to unsettle his guest.
Lakecrest blanched. His expression, filled not with surprise but dread, answered Sespian’s question as surely as words: yes.
“Because,” Sespian continued, “if you didn’t know, I could forgive your unwavering devotion to Hollowcrest, who is theoretically supposed to be serving me. But if you did know he was drugging me and didn’t do anything to warn me-well, that’s treason, isn’t it? Punishable by death. And of course you’d be stripped of your warrior caste status, title, and holdings. Your family would lose everything. Your daughters, I understand, haven’t much of an aptitude for business or snaring husbands. I suppose it would be hard for them to support themselves, and without that warrior caste title, they’d be even less appealing as marriage candidates.”