“Not at this particular moment.”
Sicarius lifted a hand and stopped. Amaranthe thought he might tell the men to shut their mouths, but he tilted his head, listening.
Gunfire. The concrete and the omnipresent roar of water muffled it, but the sound was distinct. Multiple weapons firing.
“At least we know the soldiers are still alive,” she said.
“That’d be more reassuring if we didn’t have bounties on our heads,” Books muttered.
A deep, guttural bellow sounded in the distance.
“I don’t think that was a soldier,” Maldynado said.
Amaranthe tried to see Basilard, who walked at the end of the line, but the men blocked her sight. Did he recognize the bellow? Was it one of the creatures?
Sicarius was the one to answer her unspoken questions. “Makarovi.” He met Amaranthe’s eyes. “Continue?”
She waved him forward. “We have to find Books’s tools.”
Less than a minute later, the tunnel ended in a large chamber, perhaps a cavernous one. The weak flames of their lanterns did little to pierce the darkness more than a few meters away. The walls and ceiling disappeared in blackness. Only the roar of water flowing over their heads proved barriers existed.
Rows of unfamiliar machines stretched ahead of them. Amaranthe could identify some of the parts—flywheels, pistons, and rotating shafts—but boilers and fireboxes were missing, so they were not steam-powered. Whatever purpose they served, they were not serving it now; they simply loomed, giant metal skeletons. Mazes of pipes ran along the floor between the machines, and some rose vertically, disappearing into the dark depths above.
“What are these machines, Books?” Amaranthe asked.
The men had eased from the tunnel and fanned out, weapons ready.
“I’m uncertain,” Books said.
“Two words I never thought I’d hear him string together,” Maldynado said to Akstyr, who muttered something back and snickered.
“Perhaps they’re powered by the water,” Books said. “Some experimental technology?”
Another bellow echoed from the depths ahead, or perhaps to the side. The walls and tunnels distorted sound. Amaranthe had the sense of a vast subterranean complex within this massive concrete tomb. She frowned, not liking that her mind had chosen that last word.
Sicarius strode toward a dark shape on the floor ahead of them. Amaranthe followed with a lantern. A faint odor of blood mingled with the pervasive mildew smell.
“Dead soldier,” Sicarius said before she drew close enough to identify the shape.
The flickering lantern light revealed parallel gashes across the man’s shoulder and neck, so deep they had nearly torn the head off.
Sicarius crouched for a closer look.
“Why do I always end up stumbling over decapitated bodies when I’m with you?” Amaranthe asked him.
Engrossed in his examination, he did not answer.
“He’s probably responsible for most of them,” Books muttered.
“Have you seen anything in here you can use to get us under the water?” she asked him.
“I’ll look.” Books took a couple of steps but paused when nobody followed him.
Maldynado, Akstyr, and Basilard were watching Sicarius, who was poking at one of the wounds with his knife. Amaranthe’s belly squirmed.
“Company would be appreciated,” Books said.
Maldynado ambled over and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Booksie, you’re not afraid to go off alone in the dark, are you?”
Books shucked the arm. “Of course not. Anything suitable to be used as a diving bell will be heavy. I’ll need someone large, muscle-bound, and brutish to lift it.”
“Maldynado’s your man,” Akstyr said.
“Akstyr is mocking me?” Maldynado pressed a hand to his chest. “That shouldn’t be allowed. He’s barely old enough to show a lady a good time.”
“Go.” Amaranthe shooed Books and Maldynado. “Take Basilard too. Akstyr, you’re with Sicarius and me. I want to know if there’s any magic about. We won’t go far.”
The three men took a lantern and shuffled away. Sicarius had finished his examination of the body.
“Makarovi?” Amaranthe asked.
“Yes.”
“It looks like this fellow was running toward the exit when it caught him,” Amaranthe said. “Shall we take a walk and see where he came from?”
Sicarius’s look reminded her they were supposed to be here for Books’s tools, not a monster hunt, but he led onward. He paused to pick up an army-issue rifle, the hammer uncocked. A bloody knife lay a few meters away.
“Looks like he got a couple of blows in before…” She waved toward the dead man.
“Yes, there are blood drops about,” Sicarius said. “Makarovi are difficult to kill.”
“Good thing we have Akstyr.” Amaranthe noticed the young man’s face had grown pale beneath his unshaven stubble. “Perhaps our fledgling wizard will have a few tricks for them.”
“You should have given me a book on monster slaying if you wanted that,” he said.
More bellows and gunfire sounded in the distance. Sicarius led them through the rows of machinery. Their lanterns reflected off the metal parts, creating tiny eyes in the darkness. Amaranthe found herself wishing for a window, even if it only gazed out upon a night-darkened river or forest.
“Ought to be gaslights in here somewhere…” She trailed off as a new stench came to her nose. Rotting flesh.
“Ungh,” Akstyr grunted.
As they continued forward, the odor grew stronger. Breathing through her mouth did not help as much as Amaranthe wished it would.
Sicarius paused and faced a snarl of pipes and machinery.
“Light,” he said.
Amaranthe handed him the lantern.
He raised it and stepped closer. The light revealed…too much.
A woman in the shredded remains of a city worker’s uniform hung over a horizontal pipe, her back bent in an impossible arch. Her torso was split open, her insides ravaged. No, Amaranthe corrected, feasted upon.
Bile rose in her throat. She ripped her gaze away, turned her back, and bent over her knees. She gasped for air, not wanting to vomit. The sight she could block out, but the stench surrounded her. The air was too close, too confining.
Nearby, somebody retched. Akstyr. She clasped a hand over her own mouth, fighting the reflex to do the same.
Sicarius rested his hand on her shoulder. Amaranthe closed her eyes, and forced calmness into her breaths. Like him.
After a moment she found, if not detachment, control.
She nodded to Sicarius. “I’m all right.”
He went for a closer look at the corpse. Akstyr wiped a sleeve across his mouth. If he had been pale before, he was white now. Though apparently too shaky to make an excuse, he avoided her eyes. She was glad for his presence. While she appreciated Sicarius, especially his support, his unflappability sometimes made her feel too human. Too weak.
“This happened more than a week ago,” Sicarius said when he returned to her side.
“When things were just getting started.” Amaranthe gestured for him to continue onward. She did not want to linger where the stench hung so thickly.
They soon reached another narrow tunnel identical to the one that had brought them into the large chamber. Sicarius paused before the last machine and plucked a tuft of fur off a protruding lever. He sniffed it, then handed it to Amaranthe.
Though smelling fur could do little enlighten her, she obliged him by inhaling. Earthy, musky, and distinct. Her recently riled stomach churned anew at the hint of blood.
“That’s their smell?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sicarius said.
“It sounds like you’ve encountered them before. Personally.”
“Once.”
“On your—” she glanced at Akstyr and lowered her voice, “—mission to Mangdoria?”
“Yes,” Sicarius said.
“Did it attack you? And you killed it?”
He turned his back to Akstyr. “It chased me out of the mountain pass. I sunk several of my throwing knives into its face and torso, but it kept coming. I eventually climbed a cliff where it could not follow to escape it.”
“Oh.”
They need not have worried about Akstyr overhearing. He wore a distant expression and faced away from them, toward some corner or object hidden by darkness.
“How did our ancestors kill them?” Amaranthe asked.
“Battles of attrition,” Sicarius said. “If you drive enough holes into them, they’ll eventually die, but even head shots are not certain to kill. They have blubber and skulls thick enough to withstand firearms and bows. There are stories of cannons being used. A couple of drownings. Their density makes them poor swimmers.”
Amaranthe perked up. “Poor swimmers? We’re surrounded by water. Maybe we could convince them to jump in.”
Sicarius grunted dubiously.
A rifle fired. Here, at the tunnel entrance, the noise was louder than it had been earlier. She eyed the stygian passage, debating whether to go deeper.
“If they catch your scent,” Sicarius said, “you won’t be able to escape them, and we lack the firepower to stop them.”
“Right,” Amaranthe said. “Let’s check the rest of this chamber and see if there’s anything of interest.” Such as giant vats of water they could use to drown monsters.
“This way,” Akstyr said, surprising her.
Before she could ask why, he strode to the left, following the wall away from the tunnel. His head was up, almost like a hound following a scent.
Shrugging, Amaranthe trailed after him. His senses led him past a broken machine, its flywheel torn off and bolts scattering the floor. They came to a corner, and she thought Akstyr would turn to follow the new wall, but he stopped and pressed his palms against the concrete.
Amaranthe shifted from foot to foot while Sicarius stood guard. A distant flame glowed, visible between a pair of thick vertical pipes. She assumed the lantern belonged to Books and the others. If they were standing still, perhaps they had found something useful.
“Something Made behind here,” Akstyr said, dropping his hands.
“You’re not sensing the thing at the bottom of the lake, are you?” Amaranthe asked. “We’ve descended below the surface of the water.”
“Wrong side,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe retraced their route in her mind. He was right. This wall stood between them and the waterfall side of the dam, not the lake side.
“It’s a similar feel, but smaller,” Akstyr said. “Less energy and…there are more devices.”
“
More
magical devices?”
“Intricate ones, yeah.”
“Somebody’s got an active hobby shop going.” Amaranthe touched the wall. It thrummed with the power of thousands of gallons of water flowing overhead, but she could sense nothing else.
“A master Maker,” Akstyr said, his tone reverent. “I can tell from the sophistication of the work. I can’t wait to get a look at the artifact in the lake. I bet it’s brilliant.”
“So…” Amaranthe said. “You think our opponent is some genius craftsman who’s probably a lot smarter than any of us.”
“Daunted?” Sicarius asked quietly.
“Of course not. You know I like a challenge.” She wondered if her confident smile was at all convincing.
They explored the chamber further and found more machinery and more dead bodies: some fresh—soldiers—and some not—dam employees. They came upon the rest of the team in an alcove on the lake-side of the chamber. Basilard, Maldynado, and Books bent over crates, their backs to the entrance. Piles of tubing, tools, and smashed wooden casks scattered the floor, as well as boots and a heap of leather material or perhaps clothing.
Amaranthe cleared her throat.
The men jumped. A large, brass helmet clanked to the floor.
“Watch,” Sicarius said.
Nobody misinterpreted the single word. Basilard grabbed his rifle, jogged to the corner, and put his back against the wall to stand guard.
“Sorry. We got distracted.” Books waved to encompass the alcove. Pegboards full of tools hung from the walls and equipment cluttered workbenches. “This place is
perfect
.”
Amaranthe shrugged. “You’re the ones who’ll get eaten if a makarovi sneaks up on you.”
“But, we’ll look extra fine when they come.” Maldynado plucked the helmet off the floor and deposited it over his curls. It engulfed his head and neck, and a stiff, leather bib extended a couple of inches down his chest and upper back. A glass faceplate in the center allowed a view of his broad grin. Hinges, bolts, and flat cylinders sticking out at the ears made him look like something that had crawled out of a scrap pile at a smelter. “What do you think?” he asked, voice muffled. “Fetching, eh?”
“You look like a discarded toy built by a drunken automata maker,” Books said.
“Huh?” Maldynado ticked a fingernail against an ear cylinder. “Hard to hear in here.”
“You look great,” Amaranthe said. “The ladies at the Pirates’ Plunder will be sure to give you special rates.”
“Special
high
rates,” Akstyr said.
Maldynado tugged the helmet off. “The right person could make brass fashionable.”
“What is all this?” Amaranthe asked.
Books took the helmet from Maldynado, tossing in a shoulder shove to butt him out of the way. “Diving gear. Helmets, body suits, and even gloves. I wasn’t hoping for anything this ideal, but it makes sense that workers would have to be able to go out and inspect the dam from time to time.”
“You mean we can put those on and go down to the bottom of the lake?” Dare she hope it would be that easy?
“Well, there’s a problem.”
Ah, she knew it.
Books nudged one of the shattered casks. “The suits are more advanced than what I’ve read about, and I’m not positive how everything works, but I believe these are—
were
—for supplying air. They’ve all been destroyed.”
“Whoever stuck that device on the lake bottom probably didn’t want people visiting it,” Amaranthe said.
“I imagine not.” Books scratched his jaw. “But there’s a lot of tubing in that crate over there. Naval diving is done with surface supplied air. Perhaps with time I could rig something up. Enough for two suits anyway.”
“Take whatever and whomever you need to help,” Amaranthe said.
“Akstyr definitely needs to go down,” Books said.