“Fifteen minutes passed between when the craft shot us down and when it came to check on us.” Sicarius pocketed the map. “We’ll split up and circle the lake to check for her anyway.”
Realization dawned on Maldynado. “You think they got her during that time?”
“Books, Basilard, Akstyr, and Yara, go east around the lake,” Sicarius said. “The emperor, Maldynado, and I will go west until we meet.”
Maldynado bristled at having Sicarius give orders—this wasn’t an exercise session, after all—but they could vote on who the ersatz leader would be later. Besides, he was sending Yara and Books, the two people most likely to heckle Maldynado, off in the other group.
Everyone else must have also decided this wasn’t the time for arguing with Sicarius, for they trooped off in the indicated directions without a word, though Sespian did pause to gaze to the east. He had an urgent reason to reach Sunders City, Maldynado recalled. But, when Maldynado jogged after Sicarius, Sespian fell in behind them, apparently willing to help look for Amaranthe first.
Good kid, Maldynado decided. At least that’s what he thought until Sespian started peppering him with questions about his family.
They had scarcely started down a muddy trail weaving through ferns and trees on its way to the lake when Sespian asked, “How do you get along with your brother, Maldynado?”
“I assume you mean Ravido, though I don’t get along with any of my siblings, Sire.”
“Yes. Have you communicated with him lately?”
“I haven’t communicated with anyone in the family since the old man disowned me over a year ago.”
Sespian ducked a branch stretching over the path. “Would you admit it to me if you were in regular contact with your family or… with anyone else?”
Anyone else? What “anyone else” was out there that the emperor thought Maldynado might contact? “I imagine not, Sire. But, given that some of my family members are apparently up to seditious activities, it wouldn’t behoove me to be in contact with them.” Behoove? Had he actually said behoove? Wandering around with Books was having a tedious affect on his vocabulary. The rest of the words sounded stilted too. He hated having to be careful about what he said. If Ravido got anywhere near the throne in the Imperial Barracks, Maldynado hoped he tripped over it.
“You’re honest about that much at least.”
Maldynado was honest about
everything
. Occasionally he might
exaggerate
when it came to exploits involving women, but that was natural. “Uh, yes. Does colluding against the throne still carry a death penalty?”
“I believe so. Though… if you
had
been colluding and were to decide that helping me is a better option, we could waive any head-removal penalties.”
“I’m not colluding, Sire.” They’d reached the lake, and Maldynado shielded his eyes with his hand to exaggerate the fact that he was searching for Amaranthe. Maybe Sespian would notice and decide question-asking time could wait until later.
“I wonder if Ravido always had an interesting in ruling,” Sespian said.
Maldynado managed to keep his sigh soft.
“Back when you
did
have regular contact with him, did he talk of the family’s glory days? Of when the Marblecrests used to rule?”
“Sire, he’s more than twenty years older than me. I never knew him well.” Maldynado wished Sicarius had split him off into the other group, heckling notwithstanding. Or that the emperor would ask
him
some questions. Not that Sicarius would answer. Maldynado didn’t think he could get away with that. Silence could condemn him.
Sespian climbed on top of a log on the path and paused before stepping down. “Am I premature in asking questions?”
“What?”
“Corporal Lokdon suggested I have a few drinks with you before discussing family matters. Unfortunately, this swamp is lacking in purveyors of alcoholic beverages.”
Maldynado, climbing over the log himself, almost fell into the ferns on the side. “
Amaranthe
suggested you question me?”
“She assured me you weren’t conspiring with your brother and said you might be a source of information on him and any other friends or family members who are assisting him with his dubious goals.”
“Oh.” It stung that Amaranthe had suggested Maldynado might betray family members, but he supposed she’d been watching out for his backside. The next time the group wandered past enforcers or soldiers, the emperor could order him killed with a wave of the hand. “I don’t know what Ravido is up to, Sire. Has he already passed the point of no return?” Maldynado thought of the weapons delivery outside of Fort Urgot. His brother might be in the incipient stage of an uprising, but if blood had not yet been shed… “Or is it possible he might be talked into giving up his wayward plans?”
“I’m behind on events, thanks to being ushered all over the empire to inspect military installations, but the last I heard, he hadn’t killed anyone. It’s possible banishment would be punishment enough. But… if he’s put things into play while I’ve been gone, then the law and hundreds of years of imperial precedent would demand his death, yes.” Sespian frowned, perhaps not liking the idea of killing Ravido, or killing people in general.
Ahead of them, Sicarius had disappeared around a bend, and Maldynado nodded that they had better hurry up. He could use the short jog to give himself a moment to respond as well.
Distracted, he misjudged a step and his boot caught on a root. He recovered his balance, but not without cracking his elbow against a sapling. Another bruise for the collection. What a day. “Yes, Sire, drinks would have been appropriate before asking me to share information that could result in my brother’s death.”
Sicarius looked back at Maldynado with an extra dose of coldness in his hard eyes. That surprised Maldynado. Why would Sicarius care one way or another about Ravido’s doings?
“So,” Sespian said, “though you don’t particularly like your family, you’re not willing to betray them.” He seemed to be mulling the fact over, rather than judging Maldynado for the choice.
Maldynado pushed a hand through his hair, tucking a few loose curls behind his ears. “I don’t want to be flushed down the wash-out with them, but I’m not ready to volunteer to be the trap that ensnares the bear for the hunter either. I’m already… I already betrayed the family once. If I did that to my mother again, she’d wring my neck herself.”
“I see,” Sespian said as they continued along the path. Softly, perhaps more to himself, he added, “Loyalty may be an admirable trait in men, but I do wish more of them would direct it in my direction.”
With Forge scampering around the capital, infiltrating the Imperial Barracks, Sespian must have trouble knowing whom he could trust. Maldynado felt for the kid and wanted to help, but—
He stopped a hair shy of crashing into Sicarius.
Sicarius had stopped to face the emperor. Though it was always hard to tell with him, he looked like he had something to say. He glanced at Maldynado, didn’t utter a word, then strode ahead several paces where he knelt to examine the ground.
Sespian’s forehead crinkled. Maldynado gave him a shrug. He couldn’t explain Sicarius either.
“Fresh tracks.” Sicarius stepped off the trail they’d been following around the lake, touched the broken tip of a thin branch, and veered into the foliage on a short peninsula.
Maldynado pushed past ferns to follow him, wondering how Sicarius managed to move through the same vegetation as he did, but without making a sound. After he ducked a branch growing a mossy beard so long it’d make the hairiest old men in the Veterans’ Quarter jealous, the water came into sight again. Sicarius had stopped on a muddy bank at the end of the peninsula. Maldynado didn’t need to be a tracker to spot all the prints. Many different sizes and styles of boots were represented. If Amaranthe had come ashore here…
Sicarius knelt and touched the ground. He brought a finger to his nose.
“Blood?” Maldynado asked.
“Yes.”
“Amaranthe’s?” It was a dumb question—people’s blood didn’t have an identifying smell, did it?—but Maldynado somehow hoped that asking would lead Sicarius to say, “No, she’s fine. This belonged to the bloke she punched in the nose.” It was an unwarranted hope though. Maldynado would bet on Amaranthe in a one-on-one match-up against almost anybody—even if she wasn’t stronger or faster than her foe, she’d scheme up some plan to defeat him—but against the ten or twelve people responsible for these footprints?
“Likely,” was all Sicarius said.
He touched one of the footprints. From where he stood, Maldynado didn’t see anything special about it, but Sicarius grew still. “Major Pike was here.”
Maldynado put a hand on the nearest tree for support. “The Major Pike you described as Emperor Raumesys’s master interrogator?”
“Yes.”
A twig snapped as Sespian pushed his way out of the foliage behind Maldynado. He took in the scene with a grim set to his mouth.
“They must have seen her fall.” Sicarius pointed to a mark near the water. “When she came ashore there, Pike was waiting.”
“She
came
ashore, as in her broken, battered body floated up to the bank, or she
walked
ashore?” Maldynado asked.
Sicarius strode back into the underbrush, quickly disappearing from view.
“Oh, no,” Maldynado said, “no need to answer our questions. We’re just speaking to give the wildlife something to listen to.”
A crow squawked on the other side of the trail.
“Yes, like that.”
Sespian hadn’t said a word, and he didn’t react to Maldynado’s sarcasm. His eyes were cast downward, toward the trampled mud where Sicarius had found the blood. Maybe he felt partially responsible for Amaranthe’s predicament. Did emperors have the capacity to worry about commoners? Not a lot of Maldynado’s own warrior-caste brethren did, but Sespian seemed a sensitive sort. Too sensitive maybe. If he had the brawny assertive mien of his predecessor, Emperor Raumesys, he might not have so many people picking on him as someone easy to remove or shunt aside.
“We’d better go after him.” Maldynado pushed into the foliage, figuring he’d lose track of Sicarius if he didn’t follow immediately. As it was, he reached the trail and didn’t see anyone. He searched for fresh boot prints, but the ground was harder packed there, and he couldn’t decide which way the kidnappers had gone. He listened for a rustle of leaves or snapping of twigs that would announce Sicarius’s passage, but of course that never came. Near the water’s edge, a frog started croaking, but nothing stirred in the underbrush.
Sespian, making less noise than Maldynado would have expected, stepped back onto the trail. “Which way?” he asked.
Uhm. Maldynado pointed into the woods opposite of the peninsula and headed in that direction. If Sicarius had stuck to the path, Maldynado should have seen him. Besides, he didn’t want to appear clueless in front of the emperor.
Maldynado pushed through dense, tangled undergrowth for several minutes and was about to confess that he’d been guessing when the crow cawed again. Complaining about assassins passing nearby? He angled toward the call.
Up ahead, the trees thinned. Afraid he’d simply walked in a circle and returned to the lake, Maldynado almost turned around, but curiosity or perhaps intuition prompted him to continue.
Between one step and the next, the trees ended. Maldynado found himself squinting into autumn sunlight slanting down from a swath of open blue sky. A huge circular expanse stretched before him with all the trees, bushes, grass, and moss cleared. No, not cleared, he realized as he walked off an edge, almost tripping because of a height difference from one step to the next. The entire circle, easily hundreds of meters in diameter, was a foot lower than the surrounding earth. The foliage hadn’t been cleared; it’d been smashed. Compacted beneath a weight so great, even stout trees had crumpled beneath it, their trunks flattened into the ground.
“Bloody bears,” Sespian breathed. “They landed here? I didn’t realize how big that craft was. Or how heavy. How could something with such mass fly?”
“I don’t know.” Maldynado tilted his head. “Bloody
bears
?”
Sespian flushed. “When I was growing up, one of my bodyguards always said, ‘bloody balls.’ I adopted it until my mother heard and said it wasn’t appropriate for young princes to say balls. ‘Bears’ was my work-around. The word still slips out at times.”
That story did little to change Maldynado’s mind that Sespian might be a tad soft for the position of emperor. “Do yourself a favor and don’t say things like that around military men, Sire.”
The flush deepened.
“The tracks end over there,” Sicarius said from behind and to the side of them.
Surprised by his soundless return, Maldynado nearly spat a, “Bloody bears,” himself.
“Lokdon was walking, hemmed in by soldiers,” Sicarius said. “The tracks disappear fifteen feet from the shelf.” He pointed at the foot-deep depression ringing the circle. “The boundary marks the hull of the craft, presumably.”
“How’d they get inside?” Sespian asked. “A ramp?”
“Unknown.”
“So, they have her.” Maldynado sank into a crouch, his elbows on his knees. Curse his dumb ancestors, why hadn’t he done better at piloting that dirigible? If he’d gone straight ahead toward Sunders City at top speed instead of trying to lose their pursuers in the wetlands, they might have made it. The enemy might have broken away to keep from being seen by outlying residents. “We have to go after her.”
Sicarius had moved away from Maldynado and Sespian and stood on the compacted earth, his gaze toward the south. The direction the craft had gone.
“How will your team find her?” Sespian asked.
Your team
, he said, not
we
. Of course. What did some outlaw mercenary leader matter to him?
Maldynado caught himself before he said something snide. The emperor’s own mission called to him, that was all. And that mission might save the entire empire. Sespian couldn’t cast it aside to help rescue one person.
“I don’t know, but we will. Somehow—” Maldynado snapped his fingers and spun toward Sicarius. “That map. Is that what you were doing? Figuring out where they’re taking Amaranthe and where they might land?”