“Help!” Books cried, his voice garbled.
Maldynado groaned, not sure in which direction to run.
“I’ll check on him,” Yara said and sprinted toward the closest door.
Maldynado ran to the end of the paddlewheel, knowing that he’d be an easy target if he popped into view in front of the broken railing. An enforcer’s hands gripped the railing, and the man started over. Abandoning cover, Maldynado sprinted over and used the stock of a musket to club him in the face. In the middle of climbing off the rope, the man couldn’t defend himself. He let go and fell in the water with a splash, narrowly missing being caught up in the churning paddlewheel.
Four more enforcers were climbing up the twin ropes running from their craft to the steamboat railing. Maldynado whipped his musket up and loosed a shot. It caught the closest man in the shoulder. He screamed and dropped into the river.
“Fire!” came a cry from the boat.
Enforcers were lined up on their foredeck, crossbows aimed in Maldynado’s direction. He dropped to his belly faster than a five-hundred-pound weight. Quarrels slammed against the railing and the wall behind him, one skimming so close to his jaw that he wouldn’t need to shave that spot for a while.
Maldynado scrambled for the protective cover of the paddlewheel. He made it, but had lost the musket in the fall. For a second, he thought about waiting there and trying to punch men as they came over, but he couldn’t do that without exposing himself to the crossbowmen on the boat.
“Some help would be nice,” Maldynado growled, racing back to his earlier spot by the lifeboat machinery. Akstyr should have been down here making makarovi illusions.
Three loaded muskets remained near the railing, though they’d fallen to the deck. Maldynado stopped so fast he skidded and almost knocked them overboard. He grabbed one and spun, lifting the weapon as he turned.
Huge clouds of black smoke blew out of the engine room, and he almost missed seeing the first two enforcers sprint across the deck to disappear on the opposite side of the ship. The third one was pulling himself over the railing. No longer caring if he shot to wound or kill, Maldynado aimed at the man’s torso.
Before he could squeeze the trigger, the steamboat slammed into something. A massive jolt hurled Maldynado to the deck. He skidded several feet on his side, the force almost slinging him through the railing and into the river. Up ahead somewhere, wood snapped, the noise ear-splitting as it rolled across the foggy lake like thunder.
Foggy lake? Maldynado sat up. When had they reached the lake?
The waterwheel was still spinning, the engine moaning and groaning worse than Books when forced to train, but forward progress had ground to a halt. Water lapped over the edge of the deck, soaking Maldynado’s pants. Shadows stirred on the opposite side of the boat, and he remembered the enforcers. He lurched to his feet, patting around for a sword, musket, or, if nothing else, a hefty piece of wood to use as a club.
More men streaked over the railing, heading toward the front of the steamboat. Half of them didn’t even glance in Maldynado’s direction. They had to be running toward the wheelhouse—toward the emperor. Only they’d think Sespian
wasn’t
the emperor.
Maldynado snarled and found a rifle. It wasn’t loaded, and he had no idea where the powder and ammunition had gone. Over the side probably. Well, he’d crack people on the head with the butt.
He started to run toward the enforcers, but wheezing coughs from the nearest doorway distracted him. Yara stumbled out of the smoky boiler room, dragging Books across the deck behind her.
Torn between running to the emperor’s defense and helping Books, Maldynado hesitated, frozen for a second. Sicarius’s threat rang between his ears.
“Akstyr ought to be up there,” he finally muttered and ran to Yara’s side.
Books’s eyes weren’t open.
“Is he… ?” Maldynado asked.
“Help me get him off this boat,” Yara said.
“Off… where?” Maldynado didn’t know if they’d hit land or some sizable boulder protruding from the waters.
Still pulling Books, Yara threw him an exasperated glare. “Anywhere!” She jerked her chin toward the smoking engine room. Inside flames licked their way up the walls. “That boiler could blow up any second!”
“Bloody, dead ancestors,” Maldynado said, though the back of his mind found the time to thank those dead ancestors that, for once,
he
hadn’t been the one to crash the ship.
He grabbed Books’s legs, and he and Yara soon had him draped over the railing. Maldynado patted his cheek. “Wake up, Booksie. This’ll be a lot easier if you can swim.”
Yara splashed water into his eyes. They moved under the lids, but he didn’t open them. He’d either sucked in piles of toxic fumes, or he didn’t want to see where Maldynado was about to toss him.
“We’re on an island.” Yara had leaned out to peer toward the front of the steamboat. “I can swim well enough to get him to shore.”
Maldynado nodded. “Good. A ton of enforcers ran past, so I need to check on the emperor.”
“Don’t stop to fight them. Just get the emperor off before this broken beast blows up.” Yara hopped over the railing and into the lake.
“Don’t stop to fight them, sure.” Maldynado lowered Books down to her. “I’m game to follow those orders, but I’m not sure they’ll cooperate.”
Yara shifted Books onto his back, wrapped one arm across his chest and pulled him toward the shore. She looked like she knew what she was doing, so Maldynado offered a quick wave and sprinted for the nearest staircase.
As he climbed to the top deck, he finally got a good look at the island, and he nearly tripped when he realized where they were. Marblecrest Island.
“Of all the luck… ” He didn’t know whether to call it good luck or bad luck. At least he knew where the boathouse was and that there ought to be canoes and dinghies they could use to reach their real destination. Wherever that was.
When he reached the base of the stairs leading to the wheelhouse, Maldynado intended to charge straight up, but two enforcers were guarding the spot. Clangs rang out from up above, the clangs of swords banging against swords.
The enforcers spotted Maldynado immediately and lifted their crossbows to shoot. He hurled the unloaded rifle at them, whipping it sideways in an optimistic notion of disrupting both their shots. As soon as he threw it, he turned his run into a sprint and dove into a roll that, he hoped, would carry him crashing into their legs, causing a massive discombobulation.
Before he hit the deck, a crossbow bolt thudded into his shoulder. Pain ripped down his left arm. Idiot, Maldynado thought, even as his momentum threw him into that roll, you’re probably the only one discombobulated here.
Three rapid revolutions later, he smashed into something hard enough to drive the air out of his lungs. It wasn’t the enforcers’ legs, as he’d hoped, but the stairs themselves.
A nearby rasp announced a sword being drawn. Maldynado leaped to his feet. The enforcers had parted as he barreled toward them, and both had their swords out. He couldn’t fight one without putting his back to the other. Easy fix. He ignored them both and scrambled up the stairs.
A startled shout trailed him.
“Just following my lady’s advice,” Maldynado called back.
As he reached the top, Maldynado almost took a boot in the face. He jerked his head to the side, just evading heavy, black treads. Enforcers swarmed the catwalk between the stairs and the wheelhouse. More than one set of boots turned toward him, and he feared that his choice to charge up had been unwise.
“What’s new?” he grumbled, then ducked again, this time to avoid a sword slicing toward his head.
The stairs were wet from the rain, and his heel slipped off. He managed to keep his feet under him but stumbled down several steps, crashing into one of the enforcers who’d been on his way up. Sword raised, the man had been about to take a swing at Maldynado’s legs. To avoid the strike, Maldynado leaped over the railing. He would have landed on the enforcer waiting below, but the man scurried backward. Before his feet hit the ground, Maldynado kicked out, catching him in the chest. As soon as he landed, he sprang after the man. If he could pummel the enforcer into defenselessness before his colleague got turned around on the stairs…
The man went down beneath the assault, but wasn’t ready to give up. A knee rammed into Maldynado’s gut. He gripped the enforcer’s uniform jacket with both hands and slammed the man into the deck. His head clunked against the wood. Before the enforcer could recover, Maldynado jumped to his feet, still gripping the jacket. He dragged his opponent to the railing, gritting his teeth against the pain of having a crossbow bolt in his shoulder, and, with a great grunt, heaved the enforcer over the side. Again, Maldynado almost took a boot to the head as the man flung a kick outward, a last try at stopping him.
“Why do they always aim for my face?” Maldynado asked as he spun back, fists up, ready to defend against an attack from the second man. Given how long he’d had his back to the stairs, he was surprised he hadn’t already received that attack.
Oddly, the enforcer was lying on the deck. Face down. Maldynado didn’t remember hitting the man on his way over the railing.
A black-clad figure sprinted past, a throwing knife in hand as he vaulted up the stairs.
“Ah,” Maldynado said.
Shouts and, a split second later, screams came from above. Unlike Maldynado, Sicarius had no trouble flying off the steps fast enough to avoid attacks.
“I believe,” came a familiar voice from farther up the deck, “they aim for your face because of your looks. They’re envious and wish to mar your beauty so they’ll feel better about their own lesser visages.”
Maldynado’s throat tightened with emotion. Amaranthe, walking at a much slower pace than Sicarius and with a noticeable limp, smiled as she approached. For a moment, Maldynado forgot the fight. He ran forward and swept her into a bear hug.
Cracking wood and the clangs of steel convinced him it needed to be a short hug, so he reluctantly released her. “I always suspected that was the case,” he responded, his voice thick with emotion. She looked like a prisoner of war dragged out of some enemy camp’s dungeon, but at least she was smiling, and her brown eyes still held a warm sparkle.
“We should probably help them.” Amaranthe waved toward the wheelhouse.
“Right. I’ll go first.” Maldynado, at first focused on her bruises and the weary way she held herself, almost hadn’t noticed the garish pastel hat she wore. Blind ancestors, couldn’t he trust anyone in the group to dress themselves appropriately? “Unless you want to see if you can startle the enforcers into falling off the railing with that hat?”
“Not necessary.”
No more than a minute could have passed from the time Sicarius raced up the stairs to the time Maldynado and Amaranthe reached the catwalk, but it might as well have been an hour. The enforcers were gone. Not dead, Maldynado was pleased—for Amaranthe’s sake—to see, but thrown overboard. A few soggy souls were wading through the shallows to the beach. When Maldynado leaned over the railing, he spotted Yara and Books standing on a rocky bank. Good, Books was awake and alert, albeit leaning against a tree for support. He and Yara had acquired crossbows, and she was disarming enforcers while Books kept them in his sights.
The wheelhouse door had been half-torn from its hinges, and numerous dents marred the wood. The glass was cracked, too, and laced with bullet holes. The enforcers must have broken in right before Sicarius arrived. Maldynado hoped that his own distraction, however clumsy, had helped in delaying them.
“… could have handled them,” Akstyr’s voice floated out.
Maldynado stepped up to the doorway. Sicarius stood inside, looking as cold and deadly as ever, though he had lost a couple of pounds since parting ways with the team. Had he
run
all the way to Lake Seventy-three? There weren’t even roads out in that wilderness along the base of the mountains.
Two men in enforcer uniforms lay on the deck beneath the wheel. One was groaning, and Maldynado didn’t see any broken necks, so he didn’t attempt to block Amaranthe from entering when she squeezed past him.
Akstyr had been pushed back to the far corner. Sicarius stood beside Sespian, whose face had taken on a pale cast, whether from the crash or from Sicarius’s reappearance—and closeness—Maldynado did not know. He managed a smile, though, when Amaranthe stepped inside. He stepped toward her, his hands lifting, as if he might embrace her, but caught himself and dropped his hands. “It’s good to see you alive, Corporal Lokdon.”
Maldynado sighed. The hug would have been better.
“It’s good to see you alive as well, Sire,” Amaranthe said. “The newspapers have been alarming us with their reports of your passing.”
Her tone and polite smile were utterly professional. Even Deret Mancrest had earned more feminine interest from Amaranthe. The kid would have a tough time if he wanted to win her heart.
Sespian winced. “Yes, I’ve heard.”
Sicarius was looking out the back window, the only one that hadn’t been cracked in the crash. The second enforcer boat hadn’t appeared yet, no doubt thanks to its encounter with the beaver dam, but the remaining one was pulling up to a nearby beach. There might still be fighting to do.
“I will take care of them.” Sicarius strode out of the wheelhouse without a word of thanks, or even a friendly nod, to acknowledge that Maldynado had fulfilled his duty to keep the emperor safe and close. It figured.
Before he turned away from the window, Maldynado glimpsed a bald-headed figure swimming across the lake toward the island. “I believe Basilard will be joining us soon.”
“Good, I was concerned when I didn’t see him,” Amaranthe said, then stood on her tiptoes to track Maldynado’s pointing finger. “But why is he swimming along after the boat instead or riding inside it?”
“Less dangerous out there.” Akstyr, still standing in the corner with his hands in his pockets, shifted his weight uncertainly.
Maldynado, remembering that Akstyr supposedly wanted to let Amaranthe know that he appreciated her, gave him a little nod and tilted his head toward her. He needn’t get mushy with so many others looking on, but he could at least say he was glad she wasn’t dead.