Deadly Games (42 page)

Inside the stuffy helmet, a bead of sweat
rolled down her nose. Too bad she had no way to wipe it.

The cork came free in her hand. Yellow smoke
curled between her fingers, and she lowered her arm, swinging it to
hide the evidence.

She pointed at the hatch. “Should I
knock?”

“Stop him,” someone blurted behind her, then
switched to another language.

Cursed ancestors, they must have seen
Maldynado opening his vial. Two men reached for him, and a woman
stepped back, her eyes growing glazed.

Amaranthe threw the vial at her nose. It
bopped her between the eyes, breaking her concentration. The two
men had tried to grab Maldynado’s arms, but he thrust them away. He
did
tower like a behemoth over these people. Too bad it
wasn’t going to be a solely physical confrontation. But if they
could keep the practitioners busy until the smoke kicked in...

A man grabbed Amaranthe’s wrist even as a
prickle on the back of her neck alerted her to a magical attack
from elsewhere. She kicked her captor’s shin and twisted her arm,
yanking it free from the man’s grip. She jammed her knee into his
groin and spun about, seeking the practitioner targeting her.

The man with the baton torch lunged at her.
She ducked and whipped her arm up in a hard block. The baton flew
from the man’s grip, hit a wall, and spun into the fray. Someone
screamed.

Nearby, a glassy-eyed male practitioner
raised a hand toward Amaranthe. She lunged and launched a punch,
twisting her hip to put her whole body into the maneuver. Her fist
smashed into the man’s nose with bone-crunching force. He hadn’t
made an attempt to block, and he went down like a brick. He wasn’t
the only one with slow reflexes.

The vials. They were working.

Relief welled and caught in her throat. No,
not relief. Something was tightening her airway. Though the helmet
protected her neck, a force pressed in from all sides, as if
someone were strangling her.

Amaranthe stumbled back, fighting the urge to
clutch at her throat. That would do nothing. She whirled about,
searching for her attacker.

Six of the eight practitioners were sprawled
on the deck. Maldynado had crumpled to his knees, his face
contorted in a rictus of pain behind his mask.

The rangy navigator stood in the
intersection, his focus on Maldynado. A gray-haired woman had a
fist clenched as she stared at Amaranthe with fierce concentration.
Neither appeared affected by the smoke that wafted from the
vials.

Lightheadedness swept over Amaranthe. Lack of
air scattered her thoughts, and desperation crept in. She wheezed,
groping for a plan while her body cried out for oxygen.

She tried to stalk toward her attacker, to
stop the assault, but she bounced off a barrier protecting the
woman. Hadn’t Akstyr always said practitioners could only
concentrate on one thing at a time? That they couldn’t attack and
defend simultaneously? That was why Arbitan Losk had conjured up
that deadly soul construct to watch his back. Maybe someone down
here was working on protection tools—artifacts, that’s what
Sicarius called such things—and the woman had some physical object
that could be destroyed.

Blackness crept into the edges of Amaranthe’s
vision as she squinted, searching for some sign of a tool on the
woman’s person. There. A blocky square jutting against the fabric
inside her jacket. Little good the knowledge did. As long as the
tool was
inside
the barrier, Amaranthe could do nothing to
it.

A tight smile curved the woman’s lips. She
had Amaranthe and she knew it.

We’ll see, Amaranthe thought. She glanced
toward the fire baton. It had gone out when it hit the deck, but
maybe she could turn it on again. And maybe one artifact could
fight another.

She dropped to one knee, pretending defeat—it
wasn’t much of a pretense—and rested her hand near the torch. She
gripped the smooth material, using her body to hide the action.

Involuntary gasps for air tore through her,
but they were ineffective and nothing could pass her constricted
throat. She did not have long. If her attack failed...

Another charge exploded near by, and the
corridor rocked. The lights flickered. For an instant, the pressure
on Amaranthe’s throat disappeared.

She gasped and jumped to her feet, forcing
air-deprived legs to support her. She thumbed the only thing that
felt like a switch on the smooth baton, and a six-inch flame
streamed from the tip. Amaranthe jabbed it at the invisible
shield.

The baton didn’t pierce the barrier, but the
flame flared in a brilliant flash, startling the woman. She
backpedaled, tripped over a fallen comrade, and crashed to the
deck. Something crunched beneath her. The tool?

Amaranthe dove in, hoping the shield had
failed. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a dark shape
arcing toward her—the male practitioner’s boot.

She flung herself to her belly, but hurried
to find her feet again as soon as the kick whispered overhead. She
dropped the baton and caught the man’s boot as he was retracting
it. She sprang up, heaving his leg into the air. The man tumbled
onto his back.

“Maldynado,” Amaranthe rasped through her
aching throat. “Keep that one busy.”

He was on his back, panting, but he rolled
onto his side to obey.

The woman had found her knees and was trying
to rise. Amaranthe planted a foot on her back—the barrier had
disappeared—and forced her flat on the deck. She snatched the baton
and raised it, but paused. Maybe she need not kill anyone else.

She spotted the vial Maldynado had dropped,
grabbed it, and held it to the woman’s nose. Already the
practitioner’s eyes were glazing and her struggles were weak, so
the effects of the powder must not have faded yet.

A thump sounded behind Amaranthe. She leaped
to her feet and whirled, baton in hand, ready to thrust the flame
up an attacker’s nose.

“Easy, lady grimbal.” Maldynado raised his
hands over his head. The male practitioner lay at his feet,
gasping—and inhaling—the lingering odor from the other vial.
“You’ll need that for getting in if Sicarius won’t answer the
door.”

“True.” Amaranthe lowered her hand, but she
did not relax until she had ensured nobody was in a position to
trouble them. The practitioners all lay prone. One was snoring.
Good.

“You might want to do it before this stuff
wears off and these magic-spewing people wake up,” Maldynado
said.

“Yes, but how do we know when the air is
clear? We don’t want our men to walk out and pitch over,
snoring.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing Sicarius snore,”
Maldynado said.

“Do you want to sling him and Basilard over
your shoulders and tote them out of here?”

“I could. I’ve carried many women on these
broad shoulders.”

“Many women at the same time?”

“On occasion, yes.” He winked.

“Just watch them, please.” Amaranthe nodded
to the slumbering people and knocked on the hatch. “Sicarius?
Basilard? You can come out now. We’re pushing the unconscious
people into neat piles.”

The clomp of footsteps came from around the
corner, and she winced. Maybe calling out had been foolish. If
there were still guards around, someone must have heard that
brawl....

The people who tromped around the corner were
not guards however. Books and Akstyr led the way, wearing their
suits but not their helmets. Seven, no, eight nude men and women
trailed them. More than one naked body sported smears of blood, and
several people gripped knives or pistols. Books carried a familiar
black belt full of daggers.

Amaranthe lifted a hand, intending to warn
everyone to stay back, but she
did
need to know if the air
was still tainted. Nobody dropped to the ground and started
snoring.

“What took you so long, Booksie?” Maldynado
asked.

“We took the tour and beat some heads in.”
Akstyr grinned at one of the girls, but she showed no inclination
toward returning it.

“Why are you wearing...?” Books started, but
stopped to study the inert forms. “Should we
all
be wearing
helmets?”

“I think it’s worn off.” Amaranthe unfastened
her helmet. “Tie these people up, will you? No, we need more than
that. They can use their minds to choke us—as I have reason to
know. Akstyr, is there a way to keep them unconscious?”

“Shoot them?” Akstyr said.

“You’re supposed to be a Science advisor,”
Books told him, “not a Sicarius acolyte.”

Maldynado cleared his throat. “For the
record, that would have been my response, too.”

“How surprising.” Books handed Sicarius’s
knife collection to Amaranthe.

She struggled to hold all the blades and the
baton, so she settled for dumping them into her helmet.

“We can strap these bastards to the tables
and sedate them the way they did us,” one young man said.

“Can we cut them open, too?” another
growled.

Amaranthe grimaced, wondering what manner of
experiments the practitioners had been conducting to create those
future warrior-caste babies. Thoughts for another time.

One of the young women caught her eye, a tall
blonde with facial features similar to Fasha’s. She must be Keisha,
the athlete whose disappearance had started everything for
Amaranthe and her team. Keisha would need to know about her
sister’s death, but now wasn’t the time.

She knocked on the hatch again. “Sicarius, if
you don’t come out, we’re leaving you here.”

The athletes stirred and traded whispers of,
“Sicarius?”

Something scraped on the other side of the
hatch. Equipment or furniture being moved? Bangs, thumps, and more
scrapes followed. A light poked through the perforations in the
hatch.

Amaranthe crouched and peered through only to
find herself staring into a dark eye that gazed back from the other
side. She twitched in surprise, but did not draw back. Was
that—

“Basilard believes we should have code words
you could speak so we would know if you were giving us legitimate
orders or talking under duress.” Sicarius spoke the words as
blandly as if they were discussing the men’s training regimen, and
no hint that he had missed her or was relieved to see her seeped
into his tone.

By now, Amaranthe should have known better
than to feel stung, but the emotion encroached upon her
nonetheless. She pushed it aside and conjured a smile. “Basilard is
a wise fellow. We’ll schedule it for discussion during the next
team meeting.”

The eye disappeared, metal squealed, and the
hatch tottered open on wobbly hinges.

Basilard exited first, his legs and feet
bare, though he wore some guard’s fatigue shirt. He grinned and
stopped to give Amaranthe a one-armed hug before moving on to greet
the others. Blood stained the back of his shirt.

“Basilard, did you get shot?” she asked.

Yes. I fashioned a bandage. It is fine for
now.

The pain lines creasing the corners of his
eyes belied the statement, but they did not have time to perform
more extensive first aid, so Amaranthe let it go.

Sicarius strode out, utterly naked except for
a technical manual in his hands. He didn’t bother to wield it
strategically to hide...anything.

Amaranthe gaped at him. After a startled
moment of surprise, she forced herself to keep her eyes focused on
his face. Mostly. “Sicarius. I, ah...” Have always wanted to see
you like this, she thought. No, she couldn’t say that. Was
wondering if you were blond all over. No, definitely not that. “I
hope that’s not your suggestion for the team uniform,” she decided
on as she handed him his gear.

“The lack of a place to hold weapons makes it
impractical,” he said in his usual monotone.

Behind Amaranthe, Maldynado leaned close to
Books and whispered, “So many jokes the man could have made, and he
goes with that.”

Sicarius strapped on his weapons belt, which,
combined with the throwing knives sheathed on his forearm, created
a style that would have earned anyone else a round of mocking.
Nobody made a comment.

Sicarius lifted the manual. “If the way is
clear, we can adjust the ballast tanks to bring this craft to the
surface.” He opened the manual to a diagram. “They’re located here,
here, here and here.”

Straight to business. No hug or, “Thanks for
coming for us.” Professional as always. But then, she was the one
who had sent him on a task that resulted in his capture. Maybe he
was holding a grudge.

“Do you know how to do it, or do you need
Books?” Amaranthe asked him.

“I can do it,” Sicarius said.

“All right. Books, do you want to take your
team to handle the practitioners?”

“My
team
?” Books eyed the young,
bloodthirsty athletes. “How lovely.”

“Akstyr and Basilard, go with him, please.
Maldynado, you’re with Sicarius and me.”

“Double lovely,” Maldynado said after a
glance at Sicarius’s nude state, or perhaps at the streaks of dried
blood smearing his arm and shoulder.

“Wait,” Books said. “The plan is to go to the
surface in this? The enemy vessel? With the marines sitting up
there with all their weapons firing?”

“We’ll surrender,” Amaranthe said.

“We could swim out before we get to the top,”
Maldynado said.

“With the kraken waiting out there?” Books
asked.

“Kraken?” Sicarius asked mildly.

“Er, yes,” Amaranthe said. “Did you not know
about that?”

“I thought you’d have to slay it to get in
here.”

“No, the kraken-slaying is still on my to-do
list.”

Sicarius’s eyebrow twitched.

“Don’t worry. We have a plan. Sort of. Books,
meet us back at the transition chamber once you have these people
secured. Sicarius, let’s go see to these tanks.”